Archive - 2008 - Article

The perfect home

“The Woman of Willendorf”, is the oldest human figurine known to the mankind. The 11-centimeter statute shows a faceless female body with out-of-proportionally large breasts, large tummy and accentuated reproductive organ. This ornament that was made in Austria about 30,000 years ago is neither a representation of a typical prehistoric female body nor comparable to Roman and Greek art in which women are subject to the wild fantasies. You might ask what the heck is it then? One of the strongest theories suggests that it is the symbol of Earth. Having this in mind makes it easier to understand that the large body parts are strictly symbolizing the concept of fertility. From Willendorf village 30,000 years ago to Las Vegas metro in 2006, we hear one voice. The mother earth for thousands of years has provided us with an infinite amount of resources>>>

Reading Kafka at Harvard (4)

On January 27, 1996, the Boston Herald featured a rather unusual article that, its title alone – Harvard professor’s galpal accuses his rival of extortion – must have given serious shivers to Henry James in his grave. Times have surely changed for the worse at Harvard and, sitting in jail like one of Becket’s clowns waiting for a just and expedient end to the horror leveled on me and my family, I concentrated on the necessary antidotes that would keep me from being fated like another Joseph K. The article is worth quoting at length: “A muddied case of alleged extortion, spiced with Middle East intrigue and Harvard prestige grew even murkier yesterday when the only real witness did not pick out the alleged bad guy in court…Shobhana Rana claims she twice turned over $250 payments of her professor-boyfriend’s cash to a death-threatening Iranian last Fall>>>

بیقراریِ عمر

گفتم ببین:
«سالهاست بیقرارم.
تلخیِ این سرما
بیدار نخواهد کرد
آرامشِ گرمِ مهرم را.»
«این که می خروشد،
آن که می تپد
قرنهاست، در من است.» >>>

Twin Adventures

...>>>

For young readers

This project started more than a decade ago when I was searching the public libraries for books for children on Iranian culture and history. While there was ample information on many ancient civilizations like Egypt, China, India, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, there was virtually nothing to be found on Iran. I was saddened by the lack of material and always dreamed of the day all kinds of books on Iran would be available for all young readers around the world. My dream was realized mainly because of the revolutionary new technology that has emerged with digital photography and new advances in book publishing. Thirty years ago publishing a pictorial history with 264 high quality images would have been the task for professional and established publishers with resources and lots of money>>>

The Riddle of Natanz

I have always been drawn to those who are dangerous in some way: those who love too passionately, who think (and act) too radically, whose imaginations are easily heated to incandescence. So I should not complain when I get burned and lose everything. We need to experience the “Grand Passions” at least once in our lives. We need to live life at white-hot heat to feel that we are truly alive and human. “I am alive, therefore I bleed. I am human, therefore I weep”. But what I value more than the “grand passions” of Life is a subtler form of emotion that is paradoxically more potent than passion. I hesitate to call it “tenderness” because that word has other implications, but I have no other word large or clean enough to describe it. Physical consummation is no more than a crude metaphor for this Love. It flows from the most vulnerable places in us, those of least resistance which, I suppose, we have to call the “soul”.>>>

Forbidden Love

The Persian romance of Vis and Ramin, which has influenced the European legend of Tristan and Isolde and the Georgian tale of Visramiani, was composed in 1050's by Fakhraddin Asa'd Gorgani in Isfahan, Iran. It is one of the oldest examples of forbidden love in Persian literature in which a man passionately falls in love with his sister-in-law. For this reason, Vis and Ramin has not been welcome by the Persian literati in the past and present. Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209), who wrote his romance Khosrow and Shirin, more than one century after Vis and Ramin tries to distance himself from Gorgani as follows>>>

اتو کاری

این روزها کار و بارم شده
که کابوسهایم را اتو کنم
خوابهایی که در آنها قوز کرده روی زمین
اتو می کنم چینهای صورت مادرم را
شب تا صبح، و قلب مچاله ی خودم
و نقشه ی چروک دنیا را
>>>

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>>>