History

Remember Khooninshahr

Barcelona, October 6, 2007. I am visiting a museum of photography on a warm autumn Sunday afternoon. I am attracted to the museum by a large vertical banner that advertises its latest exhibition: "Bahman Jalali" written in dramatic red letters. I enter the exhibit and begin a journey to an exotic Iran of today & yesteryears: Fishermen of Boushehr, Seamen of Khalij, wrestlers of populous neighborhoods, all photographed brilliantly in black & white. >>>

ملی گرايي، بی کورش؟

واقعيت آن است که امروز مردم ما، با ملی گرائی بی کورش، و تنها با مصدق، يا هر رهبر سياسی و اجتماعی معاصر ديگر، مردمی سخت فقير خواهند بود. ما امروز، بی آنکه بخواهيم يا بتوانيم چيزی را در تاريخ اسلامی خود منکر شويم، تنها با بازگشت به گذشتهء پيش از اسلام، بازگشت به سعهء صدر کورشی، به کشورگردانی اعجاب آور داريوشی، و بازگشت به آن مهر خورشيد واره ای که در نام يکايک اشکانيان موج می زند، می توانيم سرفرازانه و با غرور روياروی جهان بايستيم. >>>

I was brought from Khorasan

Rumi was born and lived his childhood in Balkh, a center of Khorasan, Iran, but at the age of 12 his father took his family on a long trip, just before the Mongols were advancing toward Balkh. At the age of 20 Rumi arrived in Anatolia, at Konya that had been for many centuries a Roman or Greek province; now in Turkey. Rumi did all his writings, lectures, teachings, sermons, and poetry in the Persian language. Even the letters that he wrote to leaders, governors, and friends were in the Persian language. Despite all the years that he lived and did his work in Konya, Rumi always considered himself a native of Balkh and Khorasan, Iran,>>>

دو راهه ی گزينش

* فايل صوتی

و ما مردمان کشوری به نام ايران اين خوشبختی را داريم که يک چنين شخصيتی از سرزمين ما و از قلب فرهنگ ايرانی ما برخاسته است. می گويم از قلب فرهنگ ما چون باور دارم که کوروش بزرگ پيش از آن که امپراتور ايران باستانی ما باشد، پيش از آن که مبتکر اولين امپراتوری جهان باشد، پيش از آن که رهبری سياسی و موفق دوره ای از سرزمين ما باشد، يکی از رهبران فرهنگی ما است.

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We fell behind

We live at a critical juncture of Iran's history and as a nation we are facing critical challenges in foreign and domestic politics. Naturally there is not much room for philosophical contemplation at this time. Nonetheless I decided to take a critical view of one of the great Persian philosophers in order to provide a historical perspective for us as a nation so we can evaluate our strengths and weaknesses and don't become a victim of a naive pride.>>>

The fall of Khatami

Although, Khatami delivered well on executing the laws but his evil twin in the parliament cost him his defacement. One thing that people weren’t aware of was that Khatami couldn’t convey everything single-handedly by himself. He needed the parliament to back him up on correcting small and minor laws that could bring some quick results through reforming trade laws, the tax laws, small but incremental women’s right, stopping the Reza Khatami, Navabi, Abdi, and Mirdamadi’s gang for harassing conservatives, and focusing on how to work with the conservatives rather than trying to uproot them. >>>

برای نسل های بعد

پیرو تاسیس دفتر هواپیمائی ارتش، دولت درصدد تهیه هواپیما برای نیروی هوائی برآمد. سفیر ایران در امریکا، میرزا عبدالعلی خان صدیق السلطنه، در تاریخ 26 دیماه 1301 (17 ژانویه 1923) به دولت امریکا پشنهاد خرید تعدادی هواپیما و آموزش خلبان و مکانسین مینماید، اما دولت امریکا بدلیل اینکه خود یکی از بنیان گزاران وعضو اصلی کنفرانس خلع سلاح بود این تقاضا را نمیپذیرد و ایران اجبارا خرید هواپیما را با کشور های دیگر دنبال میکند>>>

The rise of Khatami

In the spring of 1996 I was dismissed from college. The impact of the dismissal was so hard on my psyche that I became mentally disarrayed and socially disconnected for a while. The only thing I was seeing was to work hard, make money and flee from the hell hole. A year later at the end of one of those long and tiring days, one of my close high school friends called and asked if we could meet to see how things going on with us. At the same time I knew that there was every Wednesday night gathering at our old high school math teacher, Mr. N’s house. Bunch of geeky looking and politically active old classmates and college students were meeting there talking about nothing but politics>>>

Same old story

Comic Book of the 1950’s T-Man #3 "Death Trap in Iran!" highlights Cold War Paranoia I finally managed to find the comic book on ebay and decided to share it with you readers so that you can make up your own opinion. It should be added that this comic book hero which preceded Ian Fleming’s James Bond Franchise or the TV hit Mission Impossible ( which was partly directed by our Talented Iranian compatriot Reza Badiyi did not just operate in Iran, but a little everywhere in the so-called “Communist Infested World” or “Third World Dictatorships” in the views of the Free World public opinion of the Time.>>>

Five hundred years of arrogation

On September 25, 1507, a six-ship, 400-man strong Portuguese force under the command of Alfonso de Albuquerque appeared off the island of Hormuz. In what transpired in the next three days they overcame the town’s thirty thousand fighting men, demanded and received an annual tribute of fifteen thousand gold Xeraphins, and placed the governor of Hormuz under the protection of King Manual I of Portugal (see a brief history here). In no time, shockwaves of this incidence reached the court of Shah Ismail I (ruled 1501-1524 AD), the young founder of Safavid dynasty (1501 – 1722 AD). The rise of new expansionist powers in Europe, and their far-reaching ambitions, was deeply felt. >>>

«جناب اشرف،» احمد قوام السطنه

برخورد دو جريان خواهان و مخالف تغيير آن ديناميسمي را به وجود آورد كه هيچ يك از آن دو رسته را ميسر نيفتاد تا بنا بر ميل خود بر آن بر مهار زنند و تغييرات را در جهت خواست هاي خود برانند. نگونبختانه، با اينكه قسمت اعظم اين گرده ي سرنوشت ها به نگارش در آمدند، گرفتاري ها تدريس، پايان دادن پژوهش هاي پيشين، و نيز بيماري مانع از اتمام پروژه شده اند. چند نسخه ازين طرح در اختيار چند متخصص ادبيات قرار گرفت تا از كمك و همكاري آنان براي نگارش گرده هاي پيرامون اديبان بهره مند شود. حال، نظر به توجهي كه اخيراً به برخي ازين «شخصيت» ها داده شده است، درست آن ديدم كه گرده هايي را كه نسبتاً آماده اند در اختيار خوانندگان قرار دهم. اينك يكي از آنان: >>>

A path to nowhere

It was the second day of winter 1986. The sun had already set and the snow-spotted Alborz Mountains to the north of Tehran were still visible behind a haze of smoke hovering the city. Two nights earlier I had toasted the birth of the Iranian god of Mehr (Mithra: god of the Sun) in a cave in the Alborz with some fruits and nuts along the longest night of the year in an inn in the City of Mashhad; and now I was at Khazaneh Bus Terminal in south of Tehran taken a seat by the window of a bus full of uniformed men like myself bound for Khuzestan in southwest of Iran wondering whether that would be my last trip from that terminal or it was just the beginning of a series of such trips that I had to take to the war fields in the south and west to fight an endless war regarded holy by many, unholy by many.>>>