Archive - 2008 - Article

کرامات مردمسالاری

روز های آخر قبل از انتخابات را در بدر بودم. از شهرم، شیکاگو به شهر شررویل رفته بودم تا دربدر، خانه به خانه و کو به کو برای ریاست جمهوری بارک حسین اوباما فعالیت کنم. تنها نبودم. بیست و پنج هزار داوطلب از ایالات همسایه به ایندیانا آمده بودند که این ایالت را بعد از چهل و چهار سال از سرخ ِ جمهوریخواه به آبی ِ دموکرات تبدیل کنند. زن و مرد، پیرو جوان، سیاه و زرد و سفید، مسلمان و یهودی و مسیحی، همه برای یک هدف می کوشیدند: غلبه ادبیات امید اصلاحطلبان بر آیه های یأس محاصره اندیشی و بنیاد گرائی و نژادپرستی. همراهان من در در این چند روز نمادی بودند از ائتلافی که اوباما را به کاخ سفید فرستاد. البته اکثریت با سفید پوستان بود. یک روز با مادر بزرگی که شغلش نامه رسانی بود کار میکردم. همه آدرسها را بخوبی میدانست و اتوموبیل زهوار دررفته اش با برچسبهای لیبرال و دموکرات چندین انتخابات گذشته فرش شده بود. لیسانس علوم سیاسی داشت و از مسائل روز جهان آگاه بود. روزی دیگر با یک ویزیتور میانسال کتابهای دانشگاهی همراه بودم که تصادفاً او را از سالها قبل میشناختم. >>>

Sherri's Story

Sherri's phone rings incessantly. She won't pick it up and she pretends like it isn't ringing. It rings five times and clicks over to her voice mail, and just when it seems like the caller has given up, it starts ringing again. It is driving me crazy. I say: "Maybe it's an emergency." She looks at the Caller ID and says: "No. It's Pedram." Pedram? The young chap Sherry has been seeing privately for the past six months? I thought she had said that little arrangement was going really well. My mind is full of questions. She finally says: "Let me unplug this phone and I will explain." My friend, Sherri, is beautiful. She is an athlete who has been running marathons since college. She is slim and petite, with beautiful long hair, huge eyes, and pouty lips. Married briefly and divorced, she never had any children and this is one part of her life with which she feels the most at peace>>>

The Newlyweds (14)

Dearest and kindest Payam, I know you are worried about me and rightly so. After all, it isn’t every day you receive an email from your little brother saying that he is in love with his wife’s sister. My words were clumsy. I didn’t think. I should have been more clear with you. I want to reaffirm to you here and now, on my honor, joone Pejman, that I have no intention to act upon my feelings. It just felt so good to say those words “I am in love with Kati” out loud (or rather, to have them typed quietly lol). It was a huge release to finally admit the truth to you but most of all to myself, after all these months of masking my true feelings. It is so funny to say but I actually feel much happier now than before, even though I know I will never fulfill my love for Kati other than in a platonic way. I don’t know how to say it other than I feel light, I feel… free>>>

برای درخت ها

يادم می آيد در روزهای اول انقلاب، وقتی در نشريه ی اطلاعات هفتگی خبری ديدم مبنی بر اين که انقلابيون اسلامی اسب شاهزاده فرحناز را کشته اند؛ و در انتهای خبر هم خواندم که: «اين اسب نانجيب سال ها به فرزند شاه خائن سواری می داده است»، من هم، مثل همين کارشناسان، شوکه شده بودم. باور نمی کردم که اسب بی گناه و بدبختی را به «اتهام» سواری دادن به شخص يا اشخاصی اعدام کنند. فکر می کردم اين هم از آن جوک های بی مزه ای است که در نشريات آن روزگار منتشر می شد. اما، چندی بعد، وقتی خانم مری قره گزلو، زنی آمريکايي و عاشق ايران که تشکيلاتی برای پرورش اسب داشت، برايم گفت که چون برخی از اسب های خانواده ی سلطنتی در اصطبل های او پرورش ديده بودند، عده ای از انقلابيون به اصطبل ها و اسب های او حمله کرده و خودش را هم مدتی زندانی کرده اند، و مدتی بعد هم وقتی ديدم که حجت الاسلام خلخالی با بولدوزر به سراغ تخت جمشيد رفته تا «آثار طاغوتيان» را با خاک يکسان کند، تازه فهميدم که ما با چه موجوداتی روبرو هستيم.>>>

تمام شب

تمام شب
در جستجوي ات بودم
تمام شب،
تا شايد فضايی
برای امکان ِ حادثه ای
هرچند "کوچک"
بسازيم.  >>>

Fareeb

Video>>>

Happy hardliners in Tehran?

The Obama strategy offers the hope that Iraqi politicians will be motivated to deal with their country's problems... Iran, on the other hand, presents a different set of challenges. A major U.S. effort to engage Iran is inevitable, primarily because the United States must reverse the common perception -- in the United States and around the world -- that Washington is at fault for the lack of progress on the Iran front. The United States is going to have to make a major effort to show that it is prepared to walk the extra mile for compromise. Washington has not been able to secure support for greater sticks against Iran; it can only gather such support if it is seen as also offering carrots. In other words, on the Iran nuclear issue, carrots are the only way to get to sticks.>>>

Love over hate

By the US electing Obama President, the world that has been waiting patiently for a different America, is happy and elated to welcome the United States back into the community of nations. It has been a very sad and troubling eight years, not only for the rest of the world, but for the US itself: two wars launched, with neither over; ecology, environment and sustainability all undermined and devalued; the worst financial calamity in a century, nourished and nurtured by "casino capitalism"; international treaties and conventions torn up; torture rationalized; detainees whose guilt and crime have not been proven, disappearing beyond judicial reach; the rule of international law weakened; enemies emboldened, while allies were undermined>>>

Cordoba to Kurdistan via flamenco

Hamed Nikpay speaks Farsi the way he plays his music: rapid staccato syllables held together by slow melodic interludes. Maybe this is why he favors the setar when he speaks his heart. The instrument comes to life at the flick of the index finger over the strings, followed by a trilled sustain detailing the life of the tone. Nikpay’s new CD album, All Is Calm (Asoudeh) seems to follow the emotional biography of a young artist sparked to life by a devastating early romance whose lament still haunts him in the sustain. In the first track, Deceit, (Fareeb), he sings “You bestowed kisses from my lover’s lips to the other man.” I ducked the temptation to ask Nikpay who she was and what happened. Instead we chatted a little about the man who penned those lyrics >>>

It's in the pot!

I took part in a UK based TV cookery show (The name of which, I sadly cannot repeat until it airs next year) But the idea is based on a group of strangers who each take turn to host and cook dinner for the group, often to hilarious and bitchy consequences. Each cook is scored for their efforts, by the other guests and the winner gets a prize at the end. It has a somewhat cult-status here in the UK and I can tell you that the whole process was a bizarre experience, indeed. A week of intense filming, Monday through Friday from 6pm-3am sometimes, leaves you absolutely exhausted as you have your normal day job to do also and so you are getting only 3 hours sleep each night! I wasn’t planning on even writing about this, but someone made me promise I would mention it… Although I did agree that only in the instance that I won, would I write about… and by some miracle I did actually win! >>>

The Italian Girl

She was American really, but she became a little more Italian after each drink, not in terms of how she talked or acted, but in terms of how she wanted him to see her, and after their third round, he'd told her about how a lot of Iranians liked to think they looked like Italians, and he tried to tell her with the right combination of flirtatiousness and Western beauty standards critique. You don't have to lay your whole heart on the table in order to have a good time, he thought. Anyway there's no time when you lay your whole heart on the table, because that would suggest that you understand the whole thing. It was a very sound conclusion to reach after three gin-and-tonics. She was quiet for a moment and then she said, "I don't like the way they protest against Columbus when we have the Italian Day parade in North Beach.">>>

Comrade Obama?

The word socialist has been bandied about more in the past few weeks than it has since the early 1990s. John McCain was asked whether nationalising banks was not tantamount to socialism – remarkable, a mainstream network airing the s-word in an interview with a US presidential candidate. In Britain the word socialism is regarded as a terminal virus the Labour party sneezed out in 1994 when the then opposition leader Tony Blair ditched Clause 4 -- along with its commitment to “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”. After Labour came to power in 1997, its use was phased out. Now that capitalists themselves are forced to accept that a system that rewards complete bastards, for being complete bastards, is doomed, “redistribution of wealth” and “socialism” are out of their cages>>>

America's better half

On November 4, America made history once again by generously embracing Barak Obama as its first African-American president. In this election more the 53% of Americans cast their votes for Obama (more than any other Democratic presidents since World War II with the exception of Lyndon Johnson in 1964 who gained the sympathy votes of the people after Kennedy’s assassination). To better understand and appreciate the magnitude of what happened in this U.S. election we should notice that it was only 53 years ago that Rosa Parks bravely refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger and by doing so she ignited the Civil Right Movement. Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which legally prohibited racial discrimination, African-Americans were treated like second class citizens. >>>

The Newlyweds (13)

Dear Khaleh joon, You must be getting used to my confusion and distress by now. These are emotions that have filled the pages of my letters to you, now more than ever. I thought at the beginning of this month that some positive news would finally go your way for a change. Shahab had been in a chipper mood than usual. He kept telling me that business was “looking up” without elaborating, of course. Every time I ask him to give me details, he just waves me away laughing, saying “in maamele beyne mardha hasst, khanooma nabayad dekhalat konan.” Just like my father! Finally, one day, he took me out in a spanking new, convertible Mercedes-Benz, which he had again rented out for the week-end. He told me he had a big surprise for me. We kept going up twists and turns on a winding road that led us to the summit of one of Los Angeles’ many hills>>>

پيوند مهلک فقه و فسا د

نخستين وضعيت را می توان در گرايش های بيمارگونه و غيرعادی مردمان به عوالم به اصطلاح «معنوی» و «روحانی» متجلی ديد که بکلی با روابط عادی فرد مؤمن با آفريننده ای که به آن باور آورده تفاوت دارد. در اين ساحت بيماری زده، شخص مؤمن به سوی افراط در خرافه کشيده می شود و فقيه نيز چاره ای ندارد که ـ اگر بخواهد در ميدان بماند ـ به نيازهای او پاسخی مناسب دهد. امروزه، با همۀ انکارهای ظاهری که از جانب فقهای اصلی مطرح می شود، نمی توان دست داشتن آنان را در مورد مقولاتی همچون چاه جمکران، مطرح شدن ظهور قريب الوقوع امام زمان، چله نشينی های زايندهء اختلالات روانی، تأکيد بر کرامات و معجزات روزمره در رسانه های گروهی و آثار باصطلاح هنری، تبديل فقها به صاحبان کرامتی معادل پيامبران و امامان، گسترش فالگيری و نذر و نياز و سفره انداختن ها و زيارت رفتن ها، ناديده گرفت. در همۀ اين مقولات، فقيه (در صورت های مختلف آخوند و روضه خوان گرفته تا خود ولی فقيه که از دستارش و آب دهانش معجزه و شفا می گيرند) نقش مرکزی را بازی می کند و خود منشاء رشد سرطانی ناشی از تسلط نهادی کارکرد از دست داده و در حال فاسد شدن بشمار می رود.>>>