Archive - Nov 2008 - Article

The End of Racism

The end of racism that I have seen has been a piece of paper and a group of white men in suits announcing that the end of racism is hereby decreed. The end of racism that I haven't seen has been those same white men looking at each other with tears in their eyes. The end of racism that I have seen has been let me tell you about the end of racism. The end of racism that I haven't seen has been let me listen to the years and years of it. The end of racism that I have seen has been Martin Luther King Day. The end of racism that I haven't seen has been What in the hell is really happening, I mean really happening, and why does one more child have to be born into this Day>>>

We still have a dream

While sexual assault and rape in Iraq war remains largely ignored and disregarded, while the incidence of acid attacks and rape of Afghan Women in recent weeks by Taliban forces remains unresolved, while women in Iran still enduring violence, arrest, detention and harassment perpetuated by government in physical space and cyberspace and on November 25th, the website of advocates for changing the discriminatory laws against women in Iran was filtered for the 17th time and while the endless atrocities against women in Congo, Sudan and Rwanda, forced prostitution and trafficking , honor killings, and many other forms of violence against women and girls are widespread, the global civil societies, human rights defenders, peace activists, women’s right activist and feminists embarked on the 16 Days of Global Activism Against Gender Violence>>>

"زن ها فقط یه بدن اند"؟

اون زمونا که ما یه الف بچه بودیم و کله مون مثلن بوی قورمه سبزی می داد، به آمریکایا فحش می دادیم که نژادپرست اند، سیاها را قبول ندارن و اینا. یه روز یه آدم بیکار، پرسید؛ حاضری آبجی ت زن یه سیاه بشه؟ خب، راستیاتش فکرشو نکرده بودیم. آبجی مونا دوست داشتیم! چطوری می شد بدیمش دست یه سیاه؟ حالام نقل ما جماعته، حرف که مالیات نداره، آدما می زنن. یعنی بس به حرف، حالا خیلیا یه پا "فمینیست" شده اند! ولی خب، از یه طرفم اگه شومام که یه خانوم حسابی هستی، قبول کنی که این "بدن" کله روش نیست، دیگه حَرَجی به آقایون نیست، هست؟ یعنی شوما میگی آقایون باید فکرشون را عوض کنند؟ خب اونا که نزائیده اند، نسابیده اند، نشُسته اند، نروفته اند، خیلی که حالیشون باشه و بخوان طرف ما را بگیرن، یه چیزای می نویسند مث "آزاده خانوم ..." با چه میدونم دکتر چی چی... یه روضه آبگوشتی با ادویه ی روشنفکرانه! خداوکیلی باس قبول کرد که یه چیکه شم تقصیر خودمونه، قبول نداری؟>>>

Bread and Cheese Poems

The person who has a roof over his head
And enough for subsistence living
He is a king without a crown
So is the person who does not worry about dinner
While she is having her breakfast
When the stomach is full
It matters little whether
You have eaten bread and cheese
Or steak and lobster >>>

Booseh

The first time he kissed her by the elevator in the hotel lobby, she trembled inside. Short of breath, a bolt of lightning pierced through her, head to toe, throwing her off balance. She had to hold on to him. She was 40 – hardly an age to be taken aback by a mere kiss, let alone experience an electric jolt. It was a loving and sweet kiss – not a passionate one. His lips brushed hers apart as he lazily sought to hold her surprised gaze. He held her lips in between his, and then, ever so gently, closed his mouth over hers; and willed her to close her eyes and to melt into the kiss, daringly, deftly, kindly. Time stood still. It was 8 in the morning. They had just come back from a walk by the lake and had shared breakfast. The smell of coffee, the taste of the eggs still lingered in his mouth.>>>

خطایی کودکانه ولی چهل ساله

تغییر عمده ای که نسبت به دوران فعالیت چریکی پیدا شده است این است که امروز دیگر كمتر كسی خواستار مبارزهٌ قهرآمیز است. جالب اینکه این گریز از خشونت در مقابل حکومتی پیدا شده که در سرکوب مخالفان به نهایت از حکومت شاه خشن تر است. جالبتر اینکه بسا اوقات طرفداران سابق و اسبق همان مشی چریکی هستند که اینبار به طرف دیگر بام کوچ کرده اند. به هر حال امروز همه طالب این هستند كه هرچه قرار است به دست بیاورند بدون هیچگونه خشونت و حتی تهدید بدان حاصلشان گردد و خلاصه اینكه حكومت استبدادی حقشان را بدون هیچ دعوا و با نهایت آرامش به آنها تحویل بدهد. حقوق بشر وردی شده كه باید به دفعات كافی خواند تا كارها به مراد شود. امروز دفاع از حقوق بشر همان موقعیتی را یافته است كه مبارزهٌ مسلحانه چهل سال پیش داشت و صورت نوشدارویی را پیدا كرده كه قرار است علاج همهٌ دردها باشد. بالاخره بعد از چهل سال باز به اینجا رسیده ایم كه صلا درداده اند «حقوق بشر هم استراتژی هم تاكتیك». >>>

Close Camp Ashraf

With your election, a new administration now has the opportunity to revisit US-Iran relations and come up with new ideas and policies. No doubt you have already been inundated with advice and lobbying on this issue. We make no apology for adding our voice on the subject of the Iranian terrorist organisation Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – a group which will no doubt be lobbying your administration on its own behalf. The members of this group, in particular its 3000+ uniformed militants in Iraq, are the victims of deception and human rights abuses and this issue, small as it is, needs urgent attention. The MEK’s fundamental message to your administration will be that it is the largest, most popular, pro-democratic, opposition group and that only this group can effect change in Iran>>>

Reading Kafka at Harvard (3)

If Kafka’s The Trial is about the estrangement of man from his liberty and the de-humanization and criminalization of human spirit by the fiat of modern system of criminal justice, then the lesson to be drawn from my similar story of false arrest and imprisonment on purely fictitious and trumped up charges by the campus police at Harvard University is, indeed, how the net of this system has expanded since Kafka’s days, enveloping the larger institutions of civil society, including the academic institutions that, nominally, ought to reflect and nurture the essence of human spirit and, yet, as my case vividly demonstrates, are also apt to clamp down, oppress and repress it, by various methods, often through more subtle, softer and more gentle manners than the outright criminalization of dissent and the resort to vile, naked, and unbounded cruelty>>>

A Time to be Thankful

Every Thanksgiving, I remind myself of the many blessings in my life, but while doing that, somewhere in a secret corner of my mind, I also list the many more things I could have been thankful for. Such thoughts aren’t strong enough to spoil the mood, nor am I ungrateful enough to verbalize them, but they’re there and for once, I’ve decided to pour them out. This reminds me of something I had heard a few years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Following a variety of sanctions and restrictions, Iranians experienced a horrible economy combined with a huge shortage and I heard over and over from incoming passenger about how unbearable life in Iran had become. A friend told me this story>>>

The Little Prince

Once upon a time, there was a King of a Land. Actually he wasn't really a King. Years before he became King, his father, a stern and defiant Colonel in the calvary of the mighty army of the Land, upon losing a terrible battle to an evil kingdom to the north, decided that the embarrassing loss was the result and fault of the old King who had become fat and corrupt and greedy. The angry Colonel decided he had to save the Land. So he overthrew the Old King, and proclaimed himself the New King. That is how his son became the King. Deep in his heart though, the young King had never really wanted to be King. He secretly wanted to be a graceful dancer. But when you are the son of a stern and angry Colonel with little patience for such silly surprises, you can't really tell your Father>>>

Once there was a legend…

My sixteen-year-old cousin Shawn has no notion or understanding of his father’s culture. Born to an American mother and Iranian father, Shawn is an all-American boy with an all-American girlfriend and an all-American lifestyle. Shawn is his high school’s star quarterback, plays a mean guitar, he is the Capitan of the debate team, listens to rap, shaves his head and wears baggy pants. He gets good grades and collage football recruiters are falling all over each other to get their hands on him. Shawn does not speak a word of Parsi. Like many American teenagers born to an Iranian parent, Shawn has no interest in his father’s background. Shawn shies away from anything that might link him to his Middle Eastern roots>>>

The lessons of the Fedayeen

First of all, one has to remember that it is easy to criticise all of this in retrospect, just as it is easy to underestimate the repression of the shah and the islamic republic. The influence that the Fedayeen had in the birth of the new left and on the Iranian revolution is historic and cannot be taken away, though a very heavy price was paid for it. But there were many mistakes - militarism, Stalinism, centralism, the culture of the heroic guerilla and the professional revolutionary. As the organisation disintegrated, not surprisingly heroes suddenly became villains in the eyes of many supporters. A lesson that I personally learnt is that without debate, without democracy, without the ability to discuss every aspect of theory, your organisation will end up as a sect rather than a serious force capable of leading a revolution>>>

مأموریت «یک اسکادران هموسکسوئل منحرف آمریکایی»!

در سایت‌های اینترنتی، اخبار و گزارش‌های خبری را دنبال می‌کردم که چشمم به مطلب زیر افتاد. پیش خودم فکر کردم بد نیست آن را با شما خوانندگان عزیز در میان گذاشته، سؤالی را نیز مطرح کنم. به نظر شما گفته‌های زیر را ممکن است چه کسی به زبان آورده باشد؟ آیا شما به عنوان یک روزنامه نگار که پیدا است نظر مساعدی هم نسبت به نظام سرمایه داری دارید، خبر دارید که این واردکنندگان دموکراسی و حقوق بشر به عراق، اسکادرانی از هموسکسوئل های منحرف امریکایی سازماندهی کرده و آن را با ماموریت تجاوز به کودکان ۱۰ تا ۱۶ ساله عراقی به عراق فرستاده اند؟ آیا خبر دارید دو اسکادران از مزدوران جنگی را به همراه سگ های تربیت شده یی که به آلت تناسلی زندانیان دست بسته حمله می‌کنند، برای جوانان بالغ عراقی که بازداشت می شوند به این کشور فرستاده اند؟>>>

The magnificent fjords

I came to Norway with certain predilections. They were mostly based on reading about the country and personal encounters with a few Norwegians. Two were especially memorable. A budding journalist attended a summer school with me in college and a veteran diplomat shared a l with me last panel year to discuss international relations. In the fifty years that separated these two meetings, as the saying goes, “Ekofisk changed Norway.” The discovery of oil in that offshore field in 1969 has transformed Norway from a small, poor, and almost inconsequential country to a very rich state that often plays an active, generous role in global peace projects. The image of Norwegian as a people has undergone a commensurate transformation.>>>

خروج از قدرت، نا ممکن و نا مطلوب

می گویند "سیاست هنر ممکنهاست" (نه باید ها) و انتخابات اخیر آمریکا در این نکته خوش استدلالی است. پس از اتمام مراحل انتخاباتی مقدماتی انتخابات در ماه اوت سال 2008 گزینهً اوباما یا مک کین در برابر مردم آمریکا قرار گرفت، گزینه ای که برای بسیاری از آرمان طلبان و عدالت جویان از ایده آل مطلوب دور بود. کاندیداهای دیگری بودند که شجاعانه اصول موضوعهً سیاست داخلی و خارجی آمریکا را به چالش کشیده بودند. آقای رالف نیدر از جناح چپ و آقای ران پاول از جناح راست مواضع غیر عقلانی و غیر انسانی آمریکا در خاور میانه، تاثیرات مخرب لابی های سیاسی، اقتصادی، و مذهبی در فرایند سیاسی کشور، و میلیتاریسم نهادینه شدهً آمریکائی را زیر سوال برده بودند ولی جو سیاسی آمریکا حکم می کرد که هردو آنها در همان مراحل ابتدائی اتنخابات از گردونهً نامزد های دو حزب بزرگ خارج شوند و شانس انتخاب شدنشان به "امکان دوام یک گلوله برف در جهنم" (بنا به ضرب المثل آمریکائی) تقلیل پیدا کند. با اینهمه هردو آنها به فعالیتهای انتخاباتی شان ادامه داده هواخواهان پر شور (و کم شماری) نیز پیدا کردند و توانستند مواضع خود را با استفاده از تریبون های انتخاباتی تبیین کنند. >>>