NATIONALISM

از دل هیچ دینی نمی توان دموکراسی بیرون آورد

«ایرانیت و اسلامیت » دیگر شعار ملیون نمی تواند باشد!

13-Sep-2010 (2 comments)
با کسب این تجارب است که امروز فضای سیاسی را باید شفاف کرد. این کار نه دشمنی با اسلام است و نه دشمنی با ملی اسلامی ها؛ بلکه باید گفت خواست آنها با معیارها ی آزادیخواهی و دموکراسی در تضاد است چون قوانین الهی ثابت است و با خواست مردم و تحولات جامعه که هر روز در حال تغییراست ناسازگار است. اگر پیوند لائیسیته را با دموکراسی نپذیریم و دموکراسی را از آن جدا سازیم ، قلچماقی دیگر با نمایش ضد آخوندی ،خود را قهرمان سکولاریسم به مردم معرفی خواهد کرد>>>

STORY

کدهای اهرنبورگ

ترسم، ز فرط شعبده چندان خرت کنند / تا داستان عشق وطن باورت کنند

13-Sep-2010 (one comment)
قبل از پیروزی انقلاب در 11 فوریه 79، مدرسه حزبی کادر های حزب دولتی رستاخیز را طی کرده ام که نمونه ای از مدرسه ایدئولوژیکی حزب کمونیست شوروی در مسکو (کوتو) بود که توسط روشنفکران توده ای به ظاهر نادم که در دستگاه های اداری به ویژه روزنامه ها و رسانه های قبل از انقلاب و حتی نشر کتاب نفوذ زیادی داشتند تاسیس شده بود و جزوات و کتبی که در آنها تدریس می شدند دقیقاً بر گرفته از برنامه درسی مدارس حزب کمونیست شوروی بود>>>

POETRY

فرزند وطن
13-Sep-2010
خطایم چه بود
که راندیم این چنین
مرا
دردانه ا ت را
ای مهربان سرزمین دور؟
>>>

SUPERMAN

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a Muslim!

High quality graphic art accessible to Muslim youth in an entertaining package

10-Sep-2010 (10 comments)
So many years after a super villain raged unchallenged over the Twin Towers, many Americans still unjustly blame innocent Muslims for the horror. Now Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other superheroes of the DC Comics Justice League have rallied to save the world from the disastrous fallout of America’s hostility towards Islam. In an unprecedented artistic collaboration, DC Comics in the US has teamed up with the Middle Eastern publisher of the popular The Ninety-Nine comic books to set the world right again>>>

CONTROL

Cat and Mouse in Cyberspace

A case study of China vs Iran

10-Sep-2010
This paper aims to compare Chinese and Iranian cyberspace to highlight the excessive traffic analysis, surveillance, filtering and the resulting effects on anonymity and freedom of expression in the borderless society of the Internet. The paradoxical contrasts between these two different states provide much scope for analysis and discourse, particularly in light of recent media attention. As has been shown by the government crackdowns in the aftermath of the Iranian election of 2009, and China’s recent dispute with Google, cyberspace is highly contested by government’s seeking to harness digital economic and e-business benefits whilst restricting online dissent and political activism>>>

HERITAGE

Give Iran Some Credit

Impact on Western science and medicine

10-Sep-2010 (11 comments)
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>>>

POETRY

Face Book
10-Sep-2010
Between the fifth and the sixth
I laugh my heart out,
surrounded by everyone
that I've ever loved.
>>>

VIEW

Don't Burn Quran, Repackage and Update it

If you reform Islam, it would become a whole lot more tolerable

08-Sep-2010 (45 comments)
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>>>

DIPLOMACY

دیپلماسی چاله‌میدانی

ادبیاتی که به کار می‌رود نمایانگر سطح فرهنگی است

08-Sep-2010 (11 comments)
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>>>

RACE

Prince of Persia Strikes Back

Revisionism in both nationalist and anti-nationalist camps

08-Sep-2010 (8 comments)
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>>>

TANZ

ژاکتهای ننه

توی کار خدا عیب می دید و توی این ژاکتهای بافتنی نمی دید

08-Sep-2010 (8 comments)
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>>>

IDEAS

The Evolution of God

Is God a figment of human imagination?

08-Sep-2010 (4 comments)
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>>>

POINT

Strange Allies

Ahmadinejad & supporters of military attack against Iran

06-Sep-2010 (7 comments)
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>>>

WEBCOMIC

Cheap Thugs

Amir on his graphic novel "Zahra's Paradise"

06-Sep-2010
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>>>

IDEAS

Democracy Begins at Home

How can a country be democratic if its nation does not understand the meaning of the word?

06-Sep-2010 (11 comments)
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>>>