Archive - Sep 2010 - Article

Give Iran Some Credit

The ancient world contained only a few countries that had any form of knowledge of medicine and science, the main were Egypt, Greece China, India and Rome. Iran had for its time a through knowledge of the sciences more than most countries. From the Achaemenid Empire to the late Sassanian Empire Iran has had an effect on the worlds understanding of science. Even the civilised world was influenced by Iran’s vast amount of understanding of the sciences. A few examples include the fact that the Greeks used the same form of building as the Iranians, the Romans attempted to create their own form of “Baghdad Battery” which was invented by the Parthians>>>

Face Book

Between the fifth and the sixth
I laugh my heart out,
surrounded by everyone
that I've ever loved.
>>>

Don't Burn Quran, Repackage and Update it

The current view of Islam by very real god-fearing folks in Gainesville, Florida, is proof that Islam is the one who is intolerant. Intolerant of changing it's own very weirdness, as observed by Western culture and society who sees Islam as unwilling to meet it halfway. However, if you reform and re-interpret Islam and iron out these kinds of wrinkled areas in which Islam grates and grinds counter to the grain of Western society and culture, acceptance and tolerance of it by becomes a whole lot easier>>>

دیپلماسی چاله‌میدانی

دلمشغولی جنسی و نگاه ابزاری جنسی به زن که وجه غالب فرهنگ حاکمیت را تشکیل می‌دهد به غالب توهین‌ها و افتراهایی که از سوی سخنگویان و بلندگوهای حکومت مطرح می‌شود رنگ جنسی می‌دهد. اگر بازجوها با توهین‌های جنسی به تحقیر زندانیان سیاسی می‌پردازند و یا آنان را به تجاوز جنسی تهدید می‌کنند (صرف نظر از مواردی که عملا به تجاوز دست می‌زنند)... آن را باید نشانی از دلمشغولی جنسی و نگاه ابزاری جنسی آنان به زن دانست>>>

Prince of Persia Strikes Back

Personally, I have experienced that for most Iranians interest in an Aryan heritage has nothing to do with historical reality. Instead, it is more about disliking the rest of the Middle Easterners, particularly the Arabs, and wanting to be like Europeans. Consequently, the issue is more about a sort of antagonism and inferiority complex than one actually concerned with any real understanding of historical mechanism. Thus I am as angered and frustrated as Mr. Zia-Ebrahimi with what can only be labeled as bigoted racism. However, in demonstrating the depth of this ignorance, one would do better in actually considering historical details than dismissing them wholesale or ignoring what they actually do depict>>>

ژاکتهای ننه

هر سال همین که اولین برگ مادر مرده پاییزی ریق رحمت را سر می کشید و از شاخه جدا می شد، هنوز رقص مرگش میان زمین و آسمان تمام نشده بود که ننۀ ما به مصداق خیزید و خز آرید می خیزید و میل های بافتنی و گلوله های کاموایش را می آورد. بعد از آن برای تمام پاییز و زمستان میل های بافتنی بودند که دور یکدیگر می چرخیدند و می گردیدند و به همدیگر کله می زدند و دوباره به استهزاء ته شان را به یکدیگر نشان می دادند>>>

The Evolution of God

There once was a TV commercial which showed an elegant young lady, Sandy Duncan, in the middle of a corn field. She suddenly asked in an inquiring voice “What is a little girl like me doing in the middle of a big field like this?” She then answered her own question. To prove a point, likewise, you may ask what is an economist doing writing an article about the unbounded topic of God? The answer is to remind ourselves of a very important mission that we, especially those in academia, should embark upon particularly in this country in which freedom of expression is safeguarded and allows for genuine inquiry about crucial topics without apprehension and disconcertion>>>

Strange Allies

The summit meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington testifies to the serious attention the Barack Obama administration is devoting to this enduring middle-east conflict. But even these vital negotiations are overshadowed by an issue with a potentially greater destructive capacity: the future of Iran, and the calculations of the United States and the wider international community in relation to the country's nuclear programs and plans>>>

Cheap Thugs

Where does religious sincerity, or for that matter, religious hypocrisy, morph into political solidarity? Or pushing your question further, why are what are clearly political protests assuming a religious form? Afterall, the dispute over the elections was a political dispute. Why give it a religious dimension by chanting Allahu Akbar? Is that a sign of conformity with the Islamic Republic’s religious pretenses and hypocrisies, or, on the contrary, is chanting Allahu Akbar a way to take political protests one notch higher and strip the Islamic Republic of religious legitimacy? My hunch? The latter>>>

Democracy Begins at Home

My first lesson of true democracy came from an old neighbor in the early 1970’s. I was trying to explain why I felt so homesick. “Back in my town people knew me, I knew them. They would say hello on the streets and I would run into friends here and there. Many people in town knew my family. But here I’m nobody!” To which my neighbor said, “Oh, Zoe, everybody is somebody!” Everybody is somebody. Wow! Still, it has taken years to un-educate myself, erase the wrong lessons and come to understand that, no matter who you are, your existence is significant in some way>>>

حاج خانم و ویاگرا

رستوران شیک بود و غذای خوبی داشت. حاج خانم تند و تند غذا میخورد و تند و تند بینی اش را پاک میکرد. من تا یاد قیافه ی بدترکیب هلموت، با دندانهای مصنوعی اش میافتادم که عشق پیری اش جنبیده و با یک زن لهستانی مینی ژوپ پوش سی و هفت ساله روی هم ریخته، حرصم درمیآمد؛ آن هم درست موقعی که زنش رفته بود مکه؛ حج تمتع! پری پیش از این که حاج خانم شود، از «ضعف» هلموت حکایتها و شکایتها داشت>>>

هشدار

شبی در کافه
خواستم خاطره بنویسم
قلم و کاغذی دادندم
اکنون
استوانة فلزی آن
جای انگشت اشارة این دست را گرفته است >>>

It's Time

Over the past year, the Obama Administration has missed successive opportunities to bring real international pressure on the Iranian government to address the severe human rights crisis gripping the country. Instead, it has focused its political muscle on the singular objective of convincing Iran's leadership to stop nuclear enrichment. The result has been an almost cruel disregard for the plight of the Iranian people and their urgent need for international attention to their human rights situation>>>

The Greatest Sin

The Islamic Republic is merciless when it comes to members of the Bahai faith. It is the greatest sin to be a Bahai because in the eyes of Islam the idea of divine revelation after the death of the Prophet Mohammad—the Seal of the Prophets— is unacceptable. The regime's Shi'a leaders consider the Bahai faith dangerous; to them it is the highest form of apostasy. The Bahais are also branded as Zionists. One reason for this is that Mirza Hossein Ali Nouri, aka Bahaollah, who was forced to leave Iran, ended up in Ottoman Iraq and by way of Istanbul went to Palestine where he died in 1892 in the city of Akko, now in Israel>>>

Waiting in Transit

Such is the case with Russia who is holding out on a 2007 contract to sell Iran S-300, an advanced air defense system, worth $800 million dollars, using this as a playing card with the West for its own gain. And such is the case when a country is dependent on a superpower for help and protection. In the following, I hope to analyze two independent but inner-related narratives, when connected, will demonstrate how and why we have reached this point. The hand that fed us the poison is also holding the antidote>>>