Archive - Dec 9, 2008 - Article

ستیز با سانسور2

آیت الله خمینی بنیانگذارحکومت اسلامی ایران چند ماه پیش از به قدرت رسیدن اش در سخنرانی ای در پاریس (17 و 29 مهرماه 1357) خطاب به رژیم شاه گفت: «... مرتب دم از آزادی می زنند. مردم آزادی قلم دارند؟ آزادی بیان دارند؟ مردم کجا آزادی دارند که ایشان دم از آزادی می زنند... از اساس دمکراسی این است که مردم آزاد باشند... کدام یک از این روزنامه هایی که ما داریم آزاد بوده است؟...." زمستان سال 1357 تعدادی از اعضای کانون به دیدار آیت الله و امامی که وعده " آزادی " داده بود , رفتند تا به قول غلامحسین ساعدی به او بگویند " دایی ما هم هستیم ها", وبرادامه مبارزه درراه آزادی اندیشه , بیان و قلم , ومبارزه با سانسور تاکید کنند. باقر پرهام , که سخنگوی جمع بود می نویسد:>>>

Half a child

The war started on the last day of the summer 1980. It changed everything. It destroyed our neighborhoods and brought whoever lived in the lasting ruins closer to each other, but it separated us from the rest of the peaceful world. The change didn't happen slowly. It was abrupt. It occurred on a Tuesday night, in the third week of war at 10:30 PM. At 6:45 the sirens echoed and Tehran went dark. I hid inside my usual shelter, my closet, and my parents found refuge in the bathroom. We waited. The noise of a jet - flying high- turned into a deep powerful rumbling, as if thunderstorms were descending from skies, but before the first eruptions, a long moment of silence fell on the waiting city>>>

The Foghorns at Night

There are nights in San Francisco when I wake up in the middle of the night and hear the foghorns out in the bay, and I have lain in bed and felt the beauty of where I live, listening to the different sounds at their different intervals, and the whole idea of a horn sounding over the land and the sea has been one that has made the night and the city feel like my own. It has sounded like a horn that is watching over everyone sleeping, and those who are awake and coming to rest after crossing an ocean, and listening to it purposefully feels like it gives me a little access to all it sees. I have tried to think about places where a horn sounding at night does not carry any of the beauty of a city, places like Baghdad, where those horns carry an ugliness instead>>>