Archive - May 20, 2009 - Article

A Privilege Long Forgotten

A vote; an amazing right capable of extraordinary change. Where a vote used to stand as something worth fighting for, we now see the great degree to which some people have lost sight of this fact. This power and control is a privilege taken for granted. How long ago it now seems that the forefathers of the United States waged a revolutionary war to declare their freedom from Great Britain and give the choice of government back to the people. How long ago it now seems that women marched the streets in demand of the rights of suffrage. How long ago it now seems that people of all different colors banded together to achieve their rights as equal citizens in the selection of their government. But the truth is, that it was not so long ago>>>

Tel Aviv's best friend

The Durban Review Conference held in Geneva in April was set to examine progress made toward the goals of the previous conference in 2001: to eliminate racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. Many expected the conference would condemn Israel's attack on Gazan civilians, but what transpired was indeed the opposite. The resolution passed in Geneva helped Israel's stance by commemorating the Holocaust. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a lot to do with this outcome, albeit inadvertently. The conference was filled with a sense of premonition even before it was convened. Ahmadinejad's presence had made participants uneasy>>>

Morality & marriage

The 1979 Islamic revolution was not a wholesale return to the past; rather, the new state reinvented and expanded certain retrogressive cultural practices and presented them as what Foucault has called a “regime of truth” through modern technologies of power. As part of its commitment to modernity, the Islamist state continued the literacy and health campaigns of the Pahlavi era. It also created, alongside the army and the police force, a parallel series of paramilitary forces. As soon as the regime attained some degree of authority, it established a new juridical discourse on sexuality, whose underlying theme was granting more power over women’s sexuality and reproductive functions to the state and to men, while also reversing modern trends in love and marriage.>>>

مترجم ساعتی

دو هفته پیش ترجمه همزمان دادگاه متهم فارسی زبانی را بهم داده بودند که با خودش نزدیک یک کیلو تریاک از مشهد آورده بود و مدام اصرار داشت که دکترش برایش تجویز کرده و معنی این سوال را که حالا چرا دکتر دو و نیم پوند تریاک آنهم برای مدت کوتاه یک ماه سفر توریستی به آمریکا را تجویز کرده را هم اصلا نمی فهمید. آخرش هم کلی به من فحش و بد و بیراه ناموسی به من داد که تو هموطنت را فروختی و خائنی و پدر مادر نداری. هرچی هم با احترام سعی می کردم برایش توضیح دهم که بابا وظیفه من فقط مترجمی است و کاری به جز ترجمه حرفهای شما و ترجمه حرفهای قاضی برای شما ندارم، رگ گردنش کلفت تر می شد و سرآخر هم با کلی احوالپرسی از اقوام اناث نسبی حقیر به بازداشت برگشت>>>

Repentance

Oh, Lord, forgive Thou me,

Not as Thou forgavest Thy children, Eve and Adam.

They tremble still

Behind the trees of Eden,

In awe of Thy mighty strides.

And they clutch the stolen green fruit

In their small hands >>>

The Wise Woman's Stone

A wise woman with a heart of gold
Travelling in the mountains ice-cold
Found a priceless gem in a river
And concealed it in her satchel fold.

Next day she met another walker
Who was a worn and hungry hawker
The woman opened her bag to share
Her food with the youth, a smooth-talker. >>>