Death to No One

Today, marks the 30th year since the 444 day Iran Hostage Crisis began in 1979. On this day the media traditionally offers us images of burning American flags and effigies of Uncle Sam. We are reminded of the great chasm of mistrust and misunderstanding that has marked the last three decades of US-Iranian relations. But in the past year both Americans and Iranians have asked for something new. We have elected a president that promises to pursue diplomacy and Iranians have given birth to a popular democratic movement. So, we should not use this 30th anniversary of the hostage crisis to simply re-live tragedy and tension>>>

Academic isolation

Over the past 4 years, Iran’s universities have grown increasingly unhappy with the rigid academic as well as social restrictions established by the fundamentalists who run the government. Iran’s university movement remains largely frustrated due to lack of leadership, and lack of support from the universities themselves (most senior officials of which are appointed by the government). Iranian student and academic movements have been pessimistic as to the support they might hope for from Western colleagues>>>

Private Parts

The first half of the 20th century minus the Reza Shah period is unique in the whole history of Persian literature in the amount of satire, lampoons and invectives which were published largely though not entirely through the press, and usually with a political motive. It was characteristic of Iranian history that the fall of an arbitrary state, often even the death of a ruler, led to division and chaos. The first quarter of the twentieth century was a period of revolution, chaos and coup>>>

شعرهای من

پاییز برگ های مرا در کوچه های سرد صبح پهن می کند
تو نگاه می کنی
و انتظار می کشی
اما روزی
شعر هایم
دیوارهای شهر/ موسیقی خانه تو را فتح می کنند >>>

Half and Half

The U.S. and its western allies are recklessly close to shattering the hopes of the world’s progressive and peaceful humanity by its plan of ordering Iran to hand over eighty percent of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in one bulk shipment. Under the cover of conceding to provide Iran with a certain quantity of 20 percent uranium for use in its clinical medical reactor, the U.S.-France demand, was in fact, actualization of the age-old dictum of denying Iran its right to uranium enrichment, by taking the process out of Iran’s hands>>>

بازگشت شعار "نه شرقی، نه غربی"

شعار‌های امروز جنبش باید میکروب زدایی و خانه تکانی تاریخی کنند. باید مفهوم "ولایت فقیه" را صبورانه، بی توقف و سازش، و با احترام به دگراندیشی برخی برادران اندرون جنبش، افشا و رسوا نمود، باید با مدرک و استناد به سی سال استبداد و کشتار بر منبی و بفرمان "ولی فقیه" صدمه های تاریخی این اصل من در آوردی را بر ملا کرد، تا انقلاب به سرقت رفته شدمان راباز پس گیریم. باید برای مردم روشن کنیم که برخلاف دروغ های "ولی فقیه" و بوقهایش، سکولاریسم به هیچ وجه بر علیه هیچ دینی نیست>>>

National Pastimes

It wasn't the game itself. I used to go down to the baseball fields near my house in the summers with my bat and a few balls, usually in the mornings when it was still cool and foggy. I wasn't planning on trying out for any team. I didn't even have a group of friends to get together for a game later in the day. But I liked the way the ball flew off my bat when I hit it right, and I was just trying to be a part of what was around me>>>

من واقعى

بيصبرانه براى فرار از مملکت روزشمارى ميکردم. يک چمدان هم خريدم ولى من يک لا قبا که چيزى نداشتم با خود به خارج ببرم جز يک مشت خاطرات که همه آنها در رژيم جديد غيرقانونى اعلام شده بودند. اين بود که روزهاى اخر بعضى از خاطراتم را ماهرانه لابلاى جورابهاى کثيف مخفى کردم. چند تايى را قاطى شامپو کردم و دو سه تا را هم چپاندم تو يکشيشه ادکلن فرانسوى و همه را ترو تميز تو چمدان جا دادم>>>

Tango in Evin

Guantanamo or Evin
They are only words
That pass through the
Incomplete understanding of geraniums
You must dance
Until the final act
When someone says 'Cut'
But you will not finish
>>>

To a Journalist in Prison

Oh, street soul!
I see you sitting there
in your metal box
Near the Blue Bus,
And no finger taps
On your glass pane
Save for drops of rain. >>>

Stuck in Bush

Barack Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predecessor's failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots simply is not going to work in the case of the Islamic Republic. Here, a lesson is readily available, if only the Obama White House were willing to consider Iran's recent history. It is unrealistic to expect that a regime which fought Saddam Hussein's Iraq (then backed by the United States) to a standstill in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, unaided by any foreign power, and has for 30 years withstood the consequences of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions will be alarmed by Washington's fresh threats of "crippling sanctions.">>>