Current Events

Promoting democracy

In August of 2008, the Public Affairs of Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) commissioned Zogby International to conduct a national public opinion survey of Iranian Americans to gather, for the first time, accurate and timely information about the demographics and views of the Iranian American community. The purpose of the 2008 survey was to provide PAAIA with the knowledge required to more effectively represent the Iranian American community, and to further inform and educate the American public at large, as well as U.S. policy makers and opinion makers about Iranian Americans>>>

One Day

One day, strolling down the streets of Tehran, I noticed that somethings are near and somethings are far. Big deal, I said to myself. Everybody knows there is a here and a there. But why did this thought feel like a find? Why was I inspired by it as though I had just heard a Hafez verse? For some reason, I felt compelled to give life to the sensation so that it can trot out on its own and share itself with other people? Fortunately, I am a Hafez of sorts myself. I work in a different medium, photographs that hang in a gallery instead of verses written in a book>>>

Olympic blunder

The Olympic Flame that was lit in Olympia, Greece, on October 22, 2009, finally arrived in Victoria, British Columbia (BC), on October 30th, where and when the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay began its 106-day, 45,000-kilometre cross-Canada journey. The cross-country journey will be completed at Vancouver’s BC Place on February 12, 2010, as it lights the Olympic Cauldron, signaling the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Here, I'd like to balance all the Olympic hoopla in the media by relating some of the Cassandra facts exposed (with sources) by the Olympic Resistance Network groups>>>

On the way

The Green Movement has demonstrated that the desire for democracy is very strong in today’s Iran. This is the main characteristic of the GM: a national and peaceful democratic movement. It encompasses a wide range of political tendencies as well as various strains of the civil society, from women and students movements to teachers, lawyers, workers, business people, arts and culture personalities and human rights activists. Indeed, the GM highlights a culture change in Iran. Never in Iran has such a peaceful and well-disciplined large group of people taken into the streets in their millions calling for democracy and basic human rights>>>

Day of Infamy

While the 1953 coup was a strategic mistake by the US for which the Iranian people paid dearly, it serves as absolutely no justification for taking US diplomats hostage 26 years later. Taking hostages did not gain anything for Iran and Iranian people, other than more suffering. It did not protect the regime in the least from any similar coup attempts, in fact if the US wanted to take hostile action in Iran it would have been more justified since it had been attacked (the US embassy is sovereign US territory under international law)>>>

چرا ایرانیان – آمریکایی نیستند

ما ایرانیان عزیز که در اقصی نقاط دنیا سکنی گزیده ایم با آشنایی با جوامع غربی و نوع نگاه آنان به زندگی – توانسته ایم به عرصه های جدیدی دسترسی پیدا کنیم. بخشی از هم وطنان ما در ایران هم توانسته اند به بخشهای سرگرم کننده زندگی غربی مانند فیلم و سریال ها (از طریق دی وی دی دوبله شده و نه با تماشای کانالهای ماهواره ای انگلیسی زبان و دیگر زبانها) و شوهای رقص و غیره آشنا شوند بی آنکه بتوانند در آن کشور ها زندگی کرده و نوع زندگی اجتماعی و سیاسی آن کشور های دموکراتیک را تجربه کرده و حتی با آن نوع نگاه آشنا شوند>>>

سفر "جیش دارم" به ایران!

در این گذر اگر از اندک اشکالاتی که در پایین تشریح میگردد چشم پوشی کنیم، بقیه خاطرات سفرخوب بودند و بعدا درمیان خواهیم گذاشت. فقظ خواستم فردا دوستان نیایند گله کنند و بگویند "تو که میدونستی چرا واسه ما نگفتی." در طول سالها زندگی درامریکا من فقط یکبار به ایران رفتم که آنهم سی و دو سال پیش بود و سرانجام امسال با تشویق دوستان و فامیل مصمم شدم دیداری از وطن تازه کنم. لذا چند ماه قبل چمدان را بستم و با شوق فراوان و پس از انجام امور تجدید گذرنامه و سایر کارهای مربوطه عازم ایران شدم.>>>

رنگین کمان سبز

تضعیف یا نفی ولایت فقیه هدف «فعلی» جنبش سبز بشمار می‌رود. قید «فعلی» در این جا مهم است. یعنی اولا جنبش سبز از هنگام تشکیل تا کنون رادیکالیزه شده و از هدف تجدید انتخابات به تضعیف یا نفی ولایت فقیه ارتقا یافته است. به همین صورت، جنبش می‌تواند در تحولات بعدی و در واکنش به عملکرد حاکمیت باز تغییر یابد و هدف‌های دیگری را در پیش گیرد. ثانیا، فرض پیروزی جنبش و دستیابی به این هدف، به معنای پایان آن نیست، و در شرایط تغییر یافته دیگر، نیروی آزاد شده جنبش می‌تواند به صورت‌های دیگری شکل بگیرد و هدف‌های جدیدی را دنبال کند>>>

I am not a pomegranate

I started writing plays and doing theatre long before I had heard the term Diaspora. To me, the most important motivation for doing theatre was being part of the efforts to build a community in Berkeley. A few years after the revolution, many of us in the Iranian community were politically active. We all met on a weekly basis to discuss political issues. Typically, close to 40 of us gathered in one of UC Berkeley’s classrooms to discuss an abstract subject, like how many stages the future Iranian revolution would have or what mode of production was dominant in the Soviet Union>>>

Obama and the “velvet coup”

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his army commanders have, in their response to the street-protests that erupted across the country after the controversial presidential election of 12 June 2009, employed a routine accusation against the United States: that it had initiated a "velvet revolution" in the country. All the evidence suggests that the popular demonstrations were a spontaneous reaction to what was widely perceived to be a fraudulent result. Indeed, it is more plausible that the United States unwillingly helped to achieve the reverse of what Ayatollah Khamenei (and other hardline leaders) charged it with>>>

روز کورش بزرگ

من فکر می کنم اعلاميه ی حقوق بشر، و شخصی چون کورش که اولين منادی حقوق بشر بوده است، جدا از همه ی ارزش هایی که با خود دارند، ارزشياب بزرگی برای سنجش زنان و مردان سياسی و اجتماعی زمانه ی ما محسوب می شوند و چون خورشيدی عمل می کنند که بر همه ی تاريکی های تبعيض ها و حق کشی ها می تابد و آن ها را برجسته و روشن می کنند. و با اين ارزشياب است که می توان به تماشای افرادی که اکنون مقابل ما ايستاده اند، چه به عنوان سیاستمدار و شخصيت اجتماعی و چه به عنوان هواداران گروه ها و احزاب مختلف، پرداخت و ديد که کدامين فرد نمره ی رد می گيرد>>>

Still better to be a foreigner

Worse than Shah-era Capitulation Laws Ayatollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, became a hero and the leader of the opposition to the Shah when he criticized the capitulation laws that granted U.S citizens protection from prosecution in Iran. He claimed in a legendary speech that a simple American cook could commit murder in Iran and not be tried, while an Iranian minister in America could be punished for the most minor offense. In a bizarre twist of fate, in Khomeini's Islamic Republic three decades later, if you are a foreigner your chances of not being tortured and raped are much higher than if you are Iranian. Contrary to what this revolution was about, it is still better to be a foreigner.>>>