Archive - 2008 - Article

Five score and 45 years

Realism is supposedly the ultimate virtue for any politician. Idealism gets you in trouble. Haven’t we seen some criticize Bush Jr.’s disaster in Iraq as fundamentally flawed based on it’s alleged excess of idealism! And was it not the idealism of a generation of Iranians that brought us the unmitigated evil of the Islamic Republic? Almost all revolutions and their ensuing rigns of terror and bloodbaths have roots in some type of ideal. What I am trying to say is that we are told idealism is the root of all evil. Down-to-earth realism is the way forward. And then I find myself watching Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech. When was the last time I actually searched for a speech by a politician anywhere?>>>

Military maneuvers

General Jafari, the head of Islamic Republic Guardian Corps (IRGC), last Friday in a convention with the title of “Students, Elections, Maximum Participation, and National Unity” among the members of his militia, Bassij, after criticizing the content of the Human Sciences curriculum in Iranian universities, has clearly sided with the conservative front in coming Iranian parliamentary election and advised the Bassij to vote for an specific conservative alliance. This would be a fine statement from nonmilitary personnel, but it is devastating to the long tradition of Iranian military of not being affiliated with any type of political interaction>>>

شرقی دوست داشتنی

او که یک شارلاتانِ متقلبِ کلاهبردارِ دروغگویِ ریاکارِنامردِ نارفیق بیش نیست؟ او که میدانیم تا رویمان را برگردانیم کلاهمان را خواهد برداشت؟ او که میدانیم بازبان چرب ونرمش درپی خالی کردن جیب مان است؟ او که می دانیم به زن وبچه خودش هم رحم نمی کند، تا چه رسد به من وشما؟ راستی چرا؟ قاطبه یک ایرانی تمام عیاراست! >>>

The rest is history

...>>>

Neo-Con asset

Once again the neo-cons have given Reza Pahlavi a platform, but it is not clear who the intended audience is. The feigned altruistic appeal in his speech bears an eerie resemblance to the rehearsed Iraqi appeals before that country was invaded. Those appeals cost over one million Iraqi lives. This is a well-written speech, disguised as it may be, to convince. Whether the speech was delivered to persuade the American public of the necessity of intervention and war or the purpose of it was the alienation of Iran’s Arab neighbors, much like his father had in favor of Israel, one can be certain that Norman Podhoretz has given it his blessings, if indeed he has not been the writer himself>>>

در پس واژه ها...

انسانی با چنین شیفتگی، هر لحظه در آستانه خلق اثری است، تا که گلی صحرایی می شکفد، تا که پرنده ای بال می گشاید، بوی مدهوش کننده یاسی در حیاطی می پیچد-- هر لحظه که چیزی از طبیعت تا او کوچ می کند. و به گمان نگارنده این سرگشتگی، گونه ای از شکیبایی و عشق را می طلبد-- از برای تامل-- که تنها در ضمیربرخی بیداراست. آنچه توجه این افراد را بر می انگیزد و براحساس شاعرانه شان می افزاید، برای دیگران نادیدنی است.>>>

Gulf Française

Ever since President Sarkozy took power in France, the French foreign policy has been undergoing a great deal of revival and revolution. Sarkozy, who sees himself the modern-time Napoleon and savior of the French Republic, has been trying hard to re-impose France back onto the world stage as a major power and actor, and do away with his predecessor’s more laissez-faire approach. Therefore, it is not surprising to see how the French are out to find any kind of opening and welcoming around the world, and coincidentally to exploit them in order to achieve this foreign policy objective>>>

بازی 10

در پایان هر سفر دریایی
(اگر بندری باشد!)
بازنده‌ها به میخانه می‌روند
برنده‌ها به کاباره.
اهل بازی
فقط قایق عوض می‌کنند!
>>>

Insomnia

“Don’t, don’t make a move for a second and let me crush you right on the wall. You’ll pay for invading my privacy in the middle of the night.” I was loudly declaring its death sentence but the fly sitting comfortably on the wall wasn’t scared. It was mocking me with its disgusting compound eyes the very moment I was issuing the death warrant. The second I raised my hand it flew off and insanely crashed its head to the window glass and then circled around the room. I patiently traced it with my eyes>>>

Academic coup

Most of the key players of the 1953 coup have since died, but Ann (Nancy) Lambton is still living in the English countryside. Although she is now very old, she has never publicly acknowledged her role in the 1953 coup. Maybe she is just too ashamed. Ann played a decisive role in the affair. She was the expert and the foreign analyst who advised the British government, worked in high circles and recommended that no compromise with Mossadegh was to take place under any circumstances. She saw Mossadegh as a danger! Yes, indeed he was dangerous to their plans of bloody greed and power. >>>

تجربه‌اندوزی از تاریخ

نگاهی گذرا به تاریخ ربع قرن اخیر کشورمان، نشان‌می‌دهد که نطفه‌ی‌ قتل‌عا م زندانیان سیاسی، در فردای انقلاب بهمن و در اولین ساعت‌های بامداد بیست و ششم بهمن‌ماه در پشت‌بام مدرسه‌ی علوی، با اعدام نعمت‌الله نصیر ی، منوچهر خسروداد ، رضا ناجی و مهدی رحیمی چهارتن از امرای ارتش شاهنشاهی که نقش مهمی در سرکوب و کشتار مردم ایران و نقض گسترده‌ی حقوق بشر به عهده داشتند، بسته شد و پیوسته رو به رشد گذاشت! شاید هم ریشه آن را بتوان به یک هفته قبل از پیروزی انقلاب برگرداند؛>>>

Beyond elite demands

One of the main criticisms against the Iranian women’s movement is that it advocates for the demands of elite groups and disregards the demands and needs of women at the grassroots. Critics claim that the Iranian women’s movement is an elite movement rather than a grassroots movement, and given the fact that the discourse of elite classes differ from that of the masses, ordinary women cannot participate in this movement. Women’s rights activists in recent years too have heard criticisms that claim that the demands of the women’s movement are in reality the demands of a group of Tehran-based and educated women>>>

«مدرن شدن» بدون «سکولار بودن»

چگونگی «مدرن شدن» بدون «سکولار بودن» جراحی سکولاريسم و خارج کردن آن از بدن مدرنيته به منکران ضرورت جدائی مذهب از حکومت کمک می کند تا بتوانند توضيح دهند که نه تنها جوامع دارای حکومت های مذهبی دارای قابليت مدرن شدن هستند بلکه اساساً، با توجه به «رستاخيز مذهبی» کنونی و رفتن جوامع بشری به سوی دوران جديدی از گرايشات مذهبی، خود مذهب می تواند در مدرن سازی جوامع نقش بازی کند و بخصوص جوامع کهن و سنت زده را کمک نمايد تا عقب ماندگی های خود را مرتفع ساخته و راحت تر مدرن شوند.>>>

Democratization process in Iran

Michael McFaul, a professor of political science at Stanford University, is one of the directors of the Iran Democracy Project (IDP) at the Hoover Institute, along with Abbas Milani and Larry Diamond. “The Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution was created to understand the process and prospects for democracy in Iran and the rest of the Middle East. The central goal is to help the West understand the complexities of the Muslim world, and to map out possible trajectories for transitions to democracy and free markets in the Middle East, beginning with Iran. The project also seeks to identify, analyze, and offer policy options on the existing obstacles to democratic transition and ways to remove them and to ensure that policy makers in Washington receive advice that is non-partisan and reliable.”>>>

Boy in Prison

What an adventure, from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night, a life spent behind enemy lines, you might say, but if he did, he would say it with such a smile as to disarm any enemy, as to leave them intact but thinking, introducing them to their own country, already having accepted that they are the last to know, that they are the last to know about a prison cell in his country, about a prison cell in all the countries like his. It was all an adventure, because no place where he could find himself was any place he would've guessed as a boy in prison. I'm here on the ground with you, he could say to anybody, but I'm up in the sky too. On the ground, he could lose them, but from up in the sky, he could see them walking home, going to their own bed at night>>>