Archive - May 2008 - Article

Cooking for friends

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Not ALL speak Persian

The funny thing I have always found is that the same nationalistic Iranians talk about how big and glorious Iran was, and they long for those days of imperial and majestic oriental triumphalism. What the hell people! Wasn't the same blood-thirsty Agha Mohammad Khan, a barbaric Turk, who united this same old bloody empire you talk about? Didn't the same mass-murderer unite and re-create Iran? Then you say he was an uncivilised Turk who killed the ethnic Persian people of Kerman? Big, really big, smell of hypocrisy here! Nationalists must make their minds! What about Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar who subdued all of Iran except Azerbaijan, whose actions caused famine in Tabriz?>>>

Peace pipe

Iran-India political relations have been parallel to economic relations of these two countries. The policies of the Indian government to acquire ever more energy resources to feed her rising needs in the coming years have created many challenges for the Indian government. India has always been looking to gain access to additional oil and gas imports. Iran’s export of oil to India, and India’s export of diesel to Iran have been on the rise. Based on current predictions, India shall need about 400 million cubic meters of gas per day (which currently stands at 90 million cubic meters.) >>>

درس جغرافیا

مریم دانش آموز کلاس پنج ابتدایی ست و در تنها مدرسه ی دخترانه ی ماسوله مشغول تحصیل است.
مریم در اوقات فراغت عروسک های کوچولو می بافد.
او بافتن عروسک را در مدرسه فراگرفته است.
مریم عروسک هایش را روی تکه مقوایی سنجاق می کند.
بعد از ظهرها که مریم از مدرسه به خانه می آید، عروسک ها را کنار در خانه می گذارد و تا هنگام نماز مغرب و عشاء، روی سکوی پیش روی در، کنار عروسک هایش می نشیند.
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A geography lesson

In a rather warm June morning, I buy a poppet from Maryam for 400 toomans. Maryam looks at me and the notes surprisingly. She smiles and let me take some photos of her. As I want to leave, she sends her greetings to my wife. “I don’t have any” I say. Maryam looks at me wondering, asking me: “How do you live then?” I don’t know what to say to Maryam whom in her 12 years’ life hasn’t been out of Masoule at all. Up til this moment I haven’t thought either how I could live without a wife! >>>

Camping in Big Sur

My tent is small
I put my boots outside
When I put them on in the morning
My socks become all wet
I look at my neighbor's huge tent
and his dog behind the screen door
Grinning at me
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در اردوی «بیگ سِر»*

چادرخواب من کوچک است
چکمه هایم را بیرون می گذارم
صبح که آنها را به پا می کنم
جورابهایم خیس می شوند
به سراپرده ی همسایه نگاه می کنم
و سگی که از پسِ درِ توری
به من پوزخند می زند
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Why the cultural stigma? The jokes?

My parents made the decision to leave the Islamic Republic of Iran specifically because they wanted their daughters to grow up free. And by freedom, I mean the freedom to ride bicycles, the freedom to wear shorts, to swim in public pools and to play on the beach, the freedom to speak with boys, the freedom to speak our minds, the freedom to choose our careers, the freedom to succeed in life without the specific barriers created by an oppressive patriarchal hegemony, both in the public and private sphere>>>

Iran's Rock Prodigies

WASHINGTON, DC - Emerging on the global music scene not long ago, Hypernova proves to be a legend in the making, already. Rocking out sold-out venues in major cities across the world, these Iranian rock-prodigies, Raam (Vox/Guitar), Kodi (Lead), Kami (Drums), Jam (Bass), are a part of all that’s prideful and consuming about being Iranian. Jamming away in unison passionately, Hypernova creates a magical sort of synergy between themselves and their fans>>>

All birds are my friends!

Most days, during late mornings or early afternoons when I just have gotten up, with my hair still in a mess and dressed in my morning robe, a cup of black coffee in my hand and a lit cigarette standing in the balcony, I get a visit by a sparrow. He comes and sits very close to me on the edge and talks to me. He brings me news and briefings form the previous night’s adventures in the other realm, which I visited during the night in my sleep.>>>

Aim high

A prince, a hero
a healer, a rebel,
what they had in common
was need.
The prince wanted
a world to see,
the hero his people
to finally free, >>>

Lebanon's media diversity

I first came to Lebanon in 1972 to study at the American University of Beirut and left in 1978. Other than the traumas of the Civil War - which are still on the minds of all of us, even those who did not experience them directly - I have three abiding memories of my first encounter with Lebanon: smelling the scent of the Mediterranean as soon as the airplane's door had been opened; hearing the voice of Fairuz, which always filled the air then, and still comes back today to comfort us when things are going very badly; and an open press, representing a wide range of opinion.>>>

My Very First Bus Ride

Among the students in my elementary school, there were many whose family could not afford to have an automobile. Therefore, they did not have the privilege of riding in one. Unluckily, I was one of them. For the kids like me, riding in a car was a luxury that existed only in our dreams, waiting to become a reality. A very few kids whose families had an automobile often made us envious by telling us stories about the pleasure of their joyrides. In those days, of course, there was no sign of Paykan, Peugeot, Patrol, or Pride, especially in smaller cities. Only horse-driven carriages served as the primary means of public transportation. The ones powered by two horses were equivalent to the deluxe models>>>

What next?

If, as seems likely, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO, MEK, PMOI) is de-proscribed in the UK, this ought to be good news for the group's 3,300 members in Iraq. I reported on the situation there back in February and concluded that since the Iraqi Government is adamant that the MKO be expelled from the country as a foreign terrorist entity, the only practical solution was for a western government (most probably the UK) to de-proscribe the group so that the members currently trapped in Camp Ashraf could gain safe refuge there. I am looking to see whether the MKO's western backers will now push for this solution>>>

بيداری ملی ايرانيان

از مدت ها پيش، تقويم های رسمی چاپ ايران از يازدهم ارديبهشت به عنوان «روز ملی خليج فارس» ياد می کردند و سايت های دولتی حتی مطالبی دربارهء اين روز داشتند، بی آنکه معلوم شود چه کسی در اين روز «ملی» قرار است چه بکند. اما تا فرا رسيدن اين روز چند حادثه مهم پيش آمد: نخست سفر احمدی نژاد بود به اجلاسيه ای که «کنفرانس کشورهای حاشيهء خليج عربی» خوانده می شد و نشستن او، بعنوان رئيس جمهور ايران، و وزير خارجه اش، منوچهر متکی، در زير تابلوئی که همين نام را اعلام می داشت. اگرچه، پس از روياروئی با جنجال ناشی از اين عمل زشت، سخنگوی دولت اعلام کرد که ترجمهء درست نام اين اجلاس «کنفرانس کشورهای عرب حاشيهء خليج» است و نه «کنفرانس کشورهای حاشيهء خليج عربی»>>>