Camelot Remixed

In a quaint, sleepy town named Ahmad-Abad, there lies in state Iran’s old political lion buried in the grounds of his dining room in a family house that served as both his sanctuary and prison for nearly ten years. There he lies as if awaiting a long overdue state funeral, but there are no statesmen present to pay their respects and no honor guards flank the coffin at each corner. At the time of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh’s death, there was no abrupt interruption of nation’s regular television programming, no chocked up announcer carrying the devastating news of our loss to the world, and no footage paid homage to his life and legacy>>>

دیپلماسی دروغ و مضحکه

دروغ و بلوف‌زنی خصیصه برجسته فرهنگ و زبان حاکمیت در ایران بوده است. در جمهوری اسلامی این خصیصه برجستگی بیشتری یافت، و حاکمان به پشتوانه پایگاه مذهبی خود، کاربرد دروغ و بلوف را تا آن جا که «حفظ نظام» ایجاب کند مجاز شمردند. آقای خمینی حتا یک بار گفت که اگر در پاریس برای مخالفان عقیدتی جمهوری اسلامی (از جمله کمونیست‌ها) وعده آزادی داده «خدعه» کرده است. از دید او خدعه (به شمول دروغ و بلوف) در راه حفظ نظام جمهوری اسلامی مجاز بوده است، و سران دیگر جمهوری اسلامی نیز عموما از همین رویه پیروی کرده‌اند>>>

The Morning Maze

the camion drops the soldiers in the city streets like rabbits in a warren and so they scatter... without possessions Reza moves easily through the maze in his soldier suit and soldier boots…the looks are at him…Sarbaz! Over here! We’ve got the finest quarters in the city? A samovar in every room…and past him…covered women keep their heads cast down, uncovered women do the same…The Desired. The Existing. The Single and the Supreme…everywhere the dynamite demise of an ancient city… for the sake of the new old homes exploded into crumbles of rubble…boys play in the mess as if in castles, fortresses, dens and caves>>>

Preventing disaster

Only a few weeks after US-Iran diplomacy began in earnest, it seems to be heading towards a premature ending. Rather than tensions reduction, the world has witnessed the opposite. Iran is refusing to accept a fuel swap deal brokered by the IAEA, the IAEA has passed a resolution rebuking Iran, and Tehran has responded by approving a plan to build ten more nuclear facilities. With the potential end of at least this phase of diplomacy, fears of a disastrous Israeli attack on Iran are on the rise once more>>>

رنگ علف

های که من مرتکب خبط دگر نمیشوم
باز در این مبارزه خاک به سر نمیشوم
شعار مرگ و زندگی برای کس نمیدهم
اسیر زنده مرده‌ی یک دو نفر نمیشوم
>>>

Stand up to radicals

Thirty years have passed since Iranian students took over the American embassy in Tehran and took the embassy employees hostage. At the time, I was a college student in San Diego. I and perhaps the rest of the Iranians in the United States did not understand the gravity of the situation and what that action meant for the future of Iran. We were mostly concerned about our own safety in the US and how to protect ourselves from misdirected anger. Little did we realized that this was the beginning of the radicalization of our county of origin>>>

Limits of Capitalism

The market system that has been credited for the economic opulence of the global economy especially the Western world in recent decades is now on trial. People are losing their faith and have started questioning the fair operation of this system since the advent of current economic crisis. Free enterprise system has been placed under stringent scrutiny by thousands of inquisitive observers who want to know what went wrong and why the system did not work the way it was supposed to? >>>

The Slow Way is the Fast Way

My father fought for a country that could be itself even though it was small and full of oil. He could walk down a street and say hello to the baker and think, there's the country I love. Keep writing, I've thought many times, you'll get to that. The slow way is almost always the fast way. The slow way of becoming a writer is to try to do everything at once. But everything is at once. On the corner of Powell and Market, everything was even more than at once, it was about two seconds ago. So what could a man take with him that was as good as a paper and pen?>>>

The Face of Tomorrow

The end persists
In few words
Nothing matters anymore
Desperation drags feet
And I see you fading at a distance where
The border of Fall and Spring turns into dust
Day appears, in disguise
Taking shadows in its strides >>>

Bad loan

Given that Shirin Ebadi's Nobel medal is now in the hands of the Islamic Republic, the British Museum should reconsider its loan of the Cyrus cylinder, on which the 'charter' Ms Ebadi referred to is inscribed – it is due to go on display in Tehran in January. According to one source, the chances that the Iranian government will decide to keep the cylinder are “very high”. Iran’s clerics have a history of hostility towards Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage – after the revolution, Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali threatened to raze Unesco-recognised world heritage sites with bulldozers>>>

No Rest or Peace

The ruthless exploitation of the death of Neda for political purposes is an egregious example of a propaganda war being waged by the enemies of Iran – everyone should be concerned, however, since the manipulation of the media and public opinion is a feature of domestic news coverage in the West as much as it is of reporting on a Middle Eastern state, notes Reza Esfandiari and Yousef Bozorgmehr. The tragic death of Miss Neda Agha-Soltan continues to reverberate five months after her shooting in Tehran>>>