Archive - Nov 27, 2008 - Article

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>>>