Black Saffron

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Give in? I won't do that

Najafi: I was a very devout boy and one day I heard the music of an Egyptian Koran singer in the mosque. The melancholy of this music touched me so deeply that it brought me to tears. So I asked a boy there what kind of music this was, and he told me. Funnily enough, I ran into him again not too long ago; he lives in southern Germany, plays guitar and listens to Pink Floyd. I find it very moving that one of the people who kindled my interest in Koran singing has ended up taking a path that is similar to my own.>>>

Hasn’t the time finally come?

Culturally we Iranians have a big problem with accepting our errors and that is the main reason behind our failures over and over again. So instead of facing our responsibility, accepting our errors, learning from our mistakes and moving on, we resort to the game of heroes and villains. So depending on our political orientation we either make a saint and an unquestionable hero of Mosaddegh or the Shah by moving them beyond any criticism and then conveniently hide behind them>>>

Damn it, Are You Still Alive?

Would you be outraged if someone called you every once in a while and asked you if you were still alive? It is perfectly permissible in this country for someone to lure you into signing a contract that gives you a lump sum of money in exchange for your life insurance policy, and then the person waits impatiently for you to die so that he can cash in and collect on your death benefits. The sooner you die, the higher the return on his investment>>>

Car Crash

Numbing needles,
Potion of modern-day gods,
Dry-up sorrow
On the brim of a mother’s eyes,
Drown grief
In a father’s throat.
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مرگ دوم سلطنت

در شرایطی که وارث تاج و تخت به فرض تمایل هم نمیتواند نقشی متناسب با پادشاهی مشروطه بازی کند، این «سلطنت طلبی» در حکم طرفداری از بازگشت نظامی است که در آن پادشاه نقش سیاسی بازی می کند و به این ترتیب اصلاً مشروطه و دمکراسی در آن جایی نخواهد داشت. مسئله به مقاله نوشتن راجع به لیبرالیسم ارتباط ندارد، مطلقاً مربوط به حسن نیت سلطنت طلبان یا حتی خود رضا پهلوی هم نیست>>>

Choice vs Constraint

A piece of news out of Iran informs us that the country’s government, never particularly benevolent, is starting a more vigorous campaign against women who, disrespectful of Islam, choose to be fashionable—imagine!—rather than turn themselves into the subservient shadows of their lords and masters. (Converts and fanatics in the West might want to take note of what happens when covering up is an obligation rather than a whim.)>>>

Iran's Epic and America's Empire

Following a brief survey of Iranian history from its beginning in the 7th century B.C. to Ferdowsi s time in the 11th century, Mahmoud Omidsalar's Iran's Epic and America's Empire (Afshar Publishing, 2012) provides a history of the poem and a biography of its author. It offers an explanation of the Shahnameh as a national icon and considers the implications of the poem for the present political tensions that mark Iran's relationship with the West>>>

اشتراک احساسات

فصل چهارم مجموعه اشعاری است که بین ژوئن 2010 و 2011 در این سایت چاپ شده. آینه زندگی و احساساتم در عرض چهار فصل آن سال است و فکر کردم که زمان آن باشد که بر کاغذ چاپ شود. شاید به اشتراک گذاشتن احساسات شخصی با غریبگان کاری خودخواهانه باشد ولی من در این سایت خودم را میان دوستانم میدانم و این کتاب را به همه دوستان تقدیم میکنم>>>

چرا نبايد از رضا پهلوی ترسيد؟

اعتقاد من بر اين است که مخالفت جمهوری خواهان با مطرح بودن پادشاهی تشريفاتی، بعنوان يک گزينه در رفراندوم تعيين نوع حکومت در ايران، مخالفتی محافظه کارانه، هراسيده و مبتنی بر مفروضات غلط است. و همين محاسبهء غلط از شخصيتی به نام رضا پهلوی در جشم و ذهن آنان هيولائی خطرناک می سازد که بالقوه می تواند ما را به اعماق تاريخ پرتاب کند>>>

Hearing Ross Mirkarimi

Never in the history of San Francisco has there ever been a well funded, daily, weekly, and monthly orchestrated prosecution of any elected official until now -- Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. There is an elaborate campaign to oust Ross Mirkarimi - one of the highest elected officials of Iranian descent in the nation. The November 2011 election witnessed three major races: Mayor Ed Lee, District Attorney George Gascon, and Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi>>>

Omid

A car accident left the scrappy young mutt paralyzed in the back legs, lying on a road’s edge outside of Tehran. Kind strangers loaded the gravely wounded dog into their car, fed him then transported him to the VAFA shelter, outside of Tehran. Shelter personnel say if Omid, whose Persian name means hope, hadn’t been rescued, he would have perished due to the extent of his injuries. The dog also had fleas and intestinal parasites, common among Iran’s street dogs>>>

Conceptualizing Gender (5)

Carl Gustav Jung (1875 -1961), a disciple of Freud, broke with his teacher as a result of disagreement with many of Freud’s basic ideas, including too much emphasis on sexuality as a changing force. Jung, a Swiss Psychiatrist, developed the system of analytical psychology where gender issues were crucial. He devised the concepts of ‘anima’ and ‘animus’ as opposite psychic images in the human unconscious. Anima is the inner figure of woman at work in a man’s psyche, and ‘animus’, the figure of man present within the psyche of a woman>>>