Iranian of the Day

I liked Azar Nafisi's interview

I really don't get it. What wrong has she done exactly to be called a traitor by some people here?

Actually I listened to her interview and honestly I was very impressed by her. Now I am thrilled enough to buy her book...Thanks, Jeff

SOLDJER OF IRAN, Dr. ABBAS DABASHI

Your response to traitor Azar Nafisi
is great servic to the nation of Iran, its
people and its history.
Best regards

no more chickens

YES give us more Azar's, Shirin's , Nazanin's, ..........and Azarin's .....intstead of chickens.

Dear Azarin you summed it up well when you wrote: " there are people who aren't like us . They have a real name, a real face, a
real background and real accomplishments and failures and they are brave enough
to stand for what they believe in. "

To learn democracy we must express and hear DIFFERENT views but we must also learn to be accountable for our views or it is nothing but a:

CTRL + Click to follow link">//iranian.com/main/blog/david-et/cock-doodle-doo

to anonymous-chicken

I'm sorry you missed my point...but it's ok. We all have our shortcomings. But I think there is at least one person who got it (Thanks Niki!) Peace, Azarin

no comprende

I've read Ms. Sadegh's response - and I don't mean to be condesending - but I have no idea what she's getting at. 'Nough about Nafisy.

it seems once a week

It seems that once a week there is an Iranian of day who is a complete embrassment for us all. Last week it was Hakakian and this week it seems to be Nafisi.

Her book was ok, but nothing spectacular. Anyone who claims Bernard Lewis as an inspiration, loses all respect from me.

Nafisi seems to be the typical Iran hater who had some wrong done to her while living there and will do anything to make the government look bad, even atack her own country. In these people's heads (nafisi, hakakian), they think that the more notable they become, the more upset the IRI will get, and they will do anythin they can to achieve this success, that includes trashing their former country.

It seems that once a week

It seems that once a week there is an Iranian of day who is a complete embrassment for us all. Last week it was Hakakian and this week it seems to be Nafisi.

Her book was ok, but nothing spectacular. Anyone who claims Bernard Lewis as an inspiration, loses all respect from me.

Nafisi seems to be the typical Iran hater who had some wrong done to her while living there and will do anything to make the government look bad, even atack her own country. In these people's heads (nafisi, hakakian), they think that the more notable they become, the more upset the IRI will get, and they will do anythin they can to achieve this success, that includes trashing their former country.

Azarin

Way to go!

From another anonymous chicken :o)

Wonderful

Azar Nafisi is simply great. She is a sample of what Iran/Persia really is and what Iran/Persia should become and will become. What Nietzche once said is what Iran/Persia should keep in her focus at all times: Become what you are!

proud of her

good work . I am hoping to see more Iranians make us  proud in the international stage. As for you people with your oghdeh and insecurity you folks need mental help. too bad none of you can publlish anything worthy.

My reply to anonymous-chicken:

The reason I admire Azar Nafisi has nothing to do with her success. I think I had already written about it in an old essay of mine, so i don't see the need to repeat my own reasons. They are totally irrelevant to this discussion.

Azar Nafisi and Hamid Dabashi are both respectable scholars who might disagree with each other. I have never read anywhere that Azar Nafisi has been bad-mouthing Hamid Dabashi and I hope he is not doing it neither.

Still I think if her book hadn't been a best seller, there would be only a few comments about her looks, etc., (like the recent case of Iranian of the day:Roya Hakakian) from people who usually judge a book by its cover and it is mostly done by anonymous ones.

But I agree with you that I shouldn't have used only the mission statement by her Dialogue project site. You're right, but since I am just an ordinary person with no special connection with any government, then the only source of information I had was Google or the official Nafisi's site, (of course my other sources are her books and her interviews and her public speeches. Actually, I liked most of what I've read and it happens that I agree with most of her point of views, but still it is not relevant to our discussion.) But do you have any other way to check her integrity other than her words? It is Nafisi's words against Dabashi's words. Right? (Btw, I don't intend to start another debate about Mahmood Dolatabadi that I always thought was one of the best Iranian authors, much better than al-Ahmad or Daneshvar, still irrelevant to our discussion, like the fact that I liked the political views of Nafisi and you didn't agree with it. For this sole reason a non-political book shouldn't be judged.)

But you know, I rather avoid political discussions, dear Anonymous-chicken,

Because in one sense I am exactly like you. Another anonymous chicken who always tried to hide and not to say a word, out of fear or maybe just out of pure ignorance.

We are the community of anonymous chickens, but there are people who aren't like us . They have a real name, a real face, a real background and real accomplishments and failures and they are brave enough to stand for what they believe in. 

Maybe I am still going to remain quiet in any future political debate, afraid of expressing what I think, but I will always admire the ones who speak up for me and the ones who are loud enough to be heard.

Damn! I didn’t plan to give you my reasons :-)

Azarin

Native Traitors

The following is selected from an article by Dr. Hamid Dabashi at //weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/797/special.htm. The title of the article is Native Informers which I changed to Native Traitors which fits Azar Nafisi very well.
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Three years after the publication of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, and right in the middle of a global concern about yet another American military operation in the region, one can now clearly see and suggest that this book is partially responsible for cultivating the US (and by extension the global) public opinion against Iran, having already done a great deal by being a key propaganda tool at the disposal of the Bush administration during its prolonged wars in such Muslim countries as Afghanistan (since 2001) and Iraq (since 2003). A closer examination of this text thus reveals much about the way the US imperial designs operate in its specifically Islamic domains.
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The publication of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran coincided with the most belligerent period in the recent US history, the global flexing of its military muscles, and as such the text has assumed a proverbial significance in the manner in which native informers turned comprador intellectuals serve a crucial function in facilitating public consent to imperial hubris. With one strike, Azar Nafisi has achieved three simultaneous objectives: (1) systematically and unfailingly denigrating an entire culture of revolutionary resistance to a history of savage colonialism; (2) doing so by blatantly advancing the presumed cultural foregrounding of a predatory empire; and (3) while at the very same time catering to the most retrograde and reactionary forces within the United States, waging an all out war against a pride of place by various immigrant communities and racialised minorities seeking curricular recognition on university campuses and in the American society at large.
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So far as its unfailing hatred of everything Iranian--from its literary masterpieces to its ordinary people--is concerned, not since Betty Mahmoody's notorious book Not Without My Daughter (1984) has a text exuded so systematic a visceral hatred of everything Iranian. Meanwhile, by seeking to recycle a kaffeeklatsch version of English literature as the ideological foregrounding of American empire, Reading Lolita in Tehran is reminiscent of the most pestiferous colonial projects of the British in India, when, for example, in 1835 a colonial officer like Thomas Macaulay decreed: "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." Azar Nafisi is the personification of that native informer and colonial agent, polishing her services for an American version of the very same project.
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Domestically within the United States, Reading Lolita in Tehran promotes the cause of "Western Classics" at a time when decades of struggle by postcolonial, black and Third World feminists, scholars and activists has finally succeeded to introduce a modicum of attention to world literatures. To achieve all of these, while employed by the US Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowits, indoctrinated by the father of American neoconservatives Leo Straus (and his infamous tract Persecution and the Art of Writing ), coached by the Lebanese Shi'i neocon artist Fouad Ajami, wholeheartedly endorsed by Bernard Lewis (the most wicked ideologue of the US war on Muslims), is quite a feat for an ex-professor of English literature with not a single credible book or scholarly credential to her name other than Reading Lolita in Tehran.
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Azar Nafisi's book is thus the locus classicus of the ideological foregrounding of the US imperial domination at home and abroad in three simultaneous moves: (1) it banks on a collective amnesia of historical facts surrounding successive US imperial moves for global domination--for paramount in Reading Lolita in Tehran is a conspicuous absence of the historical and a blatant whitewashing of the literary; (2) it exemplifies the systematic abuse of legitimate causes (in this case the unconscionable oppression of women living under Muslim laws) for illegitimate purposes; and (3) through the instrumentality of English literature, recycled and articulated by an "Oriental" woman who deliberately casts herself as a contemporary Scheherazade, it seeks to provoke the darkest corners of the Euro-American Oriental fantasies and thus neutralise competing sites of cultural resistance to the US imperial designs both at home and abroad, while ipso facto denigrating the long and noble struggle of women all over the colonised world to ascertain their rights against both domestic patriarchy and colonial domination. In the latter case, the project of Reading Lolita in Tehran is just on the surface limited to denigrating Iranian and by extension Islamic literary cultures and feminist movements; its equally important target is to dismiss and disparage competing non-white cultures of the immigrant communities, ranging from African-American, to Asian-American, to Latino-American, and other racialised minorities.
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Rarely has an Oriental servant of a white-identified, imperial design managed to pack so many services to imperial hubris abroad and racist elitism at home--all in one act. It is thus exceedingly important to read Nafisi not just for her ideological services to the US imperial designs globally, but, equally if not more important, for her reactionary consequences inside the United States as well.
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ON THE SURFACE, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran has a very simple plot. A female professor of English literature at an Iranian university, having been born to a privileged family and thus educated in Europe and the United States, is finally fed up with the atrocious limitations of an Islamic republic, resigns her post, goes home, collects seven of her brightest female students and they get together and read some of the masterpieces of "Western literature," while connecting the characters and incidents of the novels they thus read to their daily predicaments in an ungodly Islamic republic. The plot, factual or manufactured or a combination of both, provides an occasion for the narrator to give a sweeping condemnation of not just the Islamic revolution but with it in fact the entire nation, the poor and the disenfranchised, that has given rise to it--for which she has absolutely nothing but visceral contempt. To connect this simple plot and its extended services to the US imperial operations at home and abroad, we need a larger theoretical frame of reference in comparative literary studies.

Don't be fooled Please read

فرح و زاهدی
اردشیر زاهدی، پسر فضل الله زاهدی از گماشتگان هندی انگلیسی که برای اجرای قرارداد 1907 تقسیم ایران توسط انگلیس و روس از هند به جنوب ایران فرستاده شده بود. در سال 1919 زمانی که طبق قرارداد وثوق الدوله امور ایران به دست انگلیس سپرده شد برای فضل الله شناسنامۀ ایرانی تهیه شد و در زمان به قدرت رسیدن رضا شاه توسط انگلیس و ادغام ارتش هندی انگلیسی در ارتش ایران فضل الله زاهدی تابعیت ایران را گرفت. ابتدا از لقب بصیر دیوان استفاده می کند و سپس زمان تغییر اسم ها در زمان رضا شاه تبدیل به زاهدی می گردد.
فضل الله برای اینکه اصل و نسب ایرانی بگیرد مانند پدر هویدا که فلسطینی بود، با خانوادۀ اشرافی پیرنیا (خدیجه پیرنیا) وصلت کرد. اردشیر زاهدی در 1307 به دنیا آمد. او تحصیلات ابتدایی خود را در هند شروع می کند و در سال 1313 رابندرنات تاگور شاعر و استاد فلسفه هندی در آن مدرسه به او و سایر فرزندان صاحب منصبان انگلیسی تعلیم و تدریس می داد.
اردشیر زاهدی در سال 1325 دبیرستان اسلامیه بیروت را به پایان می رساند و سپس به آمریکا فرستاده شده و پس از دو سال فوق دیپلم کشاورزی را از کالج کشاورزی ایالت « یوتا » آمریکا دریافت می کند و پس از مراجعت به ایران با نفوذ پدرش، مدرک او معادل لیسانس شناخته می شود.
وی از زمانی که در بیروت به سر می برد به واسطۀ پدرش با سرویسهای اطلاعاتی غربی به خصوص انتلیجنس سرویس مربوط وی گردد. او در اردیبهشت 1331 به همراه مرتضی امیر ارجمند (همسر آینده لیلی امیر ارجمند) به استخدام وزارت کشاورزی درآمد و با توصیۀ انگلیس در پست معاونت و خزانه داری « کمیسیون مشترک ایران و آمریکا برای بهبود امور روستایی » در اصل 4 ترومن قرار گرفت.
اردشیر زاهدی در سال های بعد از کودتا و صدارت پدرش در کنار او بود و پس از برکناری فضل الله زاهدی از پست صدارت و فرستادن او به ژنو به عنوان سفیر شاهنشاهی، اردشیر زاهدی با حمایت سرویس های اطلاعاتی غربی در تهران ماند و در سال 1335 دختر محمد رضا شاه را به نامزدی او در آوردند و در آبان ماه 1336 با شهناز ازدواج کرد (البته این ازدواج با برنامه ریزی و حسادت فرح دیبا در سال 1343 به متارکه انجامید و حاصل آن یک دختر به نام مهناز بود).
اردشیر زاهدی پس از ازدواج با شهناز، بیش از پیش مورد توجه دربار قرار گرفت او در اوایل سال 1338 به توصیۀ علم نمایندۀ شاه برای رسیدگی به امور دانشجویان ایرانی خارج از کشور شد و با هماهنگی انگلیس بودجۀ دانشجویان ایرانی را مابین مخالفان رژیم پهلوی یعنی کنفدراسیون دانشجویی قرار می داد. پس از برنامه ریزی ازدواج فرح دیبا با شاه به توصیه انگلیس (فرح دیبا در این زمان عضو حزب توده و کنفدراسیون کمونیستی دانشجویی بود) اردشیر زاهدی با حمایت فرح دیبا و علم ابتدا در اسفندماه 1338 به سفارت در واشنگتن گمارده شد و پس از دو سال به دلایل حساسیت شدید دانشجویان ایرانی و واکنش آنها علیه حرکات زنندۀ زاهدی و همچنین نارضایتی امینی نخست وزیر از توطئه های زاهدی در واشنگتن (به گزارش ساواک تاریخ 19/12/1340 : ... وجود آقای اردشیر زاهدی به سمت سفیر کبیر ایران در آمریکا اشتباه سیاسی بوده، این امر موجب تقویت عناصر طرفداران جبهه ملی در آمریکا گردیده است ... ) به تهران فرستاده می شود.
پس از عزل دکتر امینی از مقام نخست وزیری و تشکیل دولت اسدالله علم، اردشیر زاهدی در شهریورماه 1341 به عنوان سفیرکبیر ایران عازم لندن شد و تا سال 1345 در این سمت بود. وی در بهمن ماه 1345 با همیاری علم و فرح دیبا در دولت امیر عباس هویدا وزیر امور خارجه گردید.
پس از آتش زدن مسجد الاقصی در اورشلیم، اردشیر زاهدی که مقام وزارت امور خارجه ایران را به عهده داشت از طرف انگلیس به شاه فقید پیشنهاد کرد که برای به اصطلاح نگهداری حقوق مسلمانان جهان، یک کنفرانس اسلامی از سران کشورهای مسلمان تشکیل شود و در راستای حقوق کشورهای اسلامی و تأمین مصالح آنها به بحث و گفتگو بپردازند. این پیشنهاد مورد موافقت شاه فقید قرار گرفت و نخستین کنفرانس اسلامی با پیشنهاد ایران در شهر رباط پایتخت کشور مراکش تشکیل شد. اردشیر زاهدی نقش اصلی را برای جداسازی بحرین در زمان وزارت خود ایفا می کند.
در این زمان با دسیسه های انگلیس و مزدورانش چون علم، فرح دیبا و زاهدی سناریوی جداسازی بحرین ترسیم و اجرا می گردد.
سال های وزارت خارجه اردشیر زاهدی (بهمن 1345 – شهریور 1350) یکی از بدنام ترین دوران های تاریخ وزارت امور خارجه می باشد. پروندۀ وی نشان می دهد که وزارت وی و معاونش پرویز خوانساری که او نیز به همجنس بازی و هرزگی معروف بود در میان کارکنان باسابقۀ این وزارتخانه تنش هایی را علیه این دو سبب شده بود.
در جلد سوم کتاب « خاطرات اسدالله علم » وزیر دربار در سال 1970، نخست وزیر سابق ایران و از وابستگان استعمار انگلیس، چنین می خوانیم که محمد رضا شاه از علم می پرسد : « آیا تاریخ، ما را (یعنی من را، از قول شاه) در رابطه با تجزیه بحرین خیانتکار خواهد نامید ؟ » و علم پاسخ می دهد: « نه اعلیحضرت، ما (یعنی او، زاهدی وزیر امورخارجه و تنظیم کنندۀ لایحه جدایی بحرین و انگلیس) ترتیبی دادیم که سازمان ملل، رأی بر جدایی بحرین دهد. »
سخنان و بهانه های خیانت آمیز وزیر خارجه وقت که گویی از دهان یک خارجی ضد ایرانی گفته می شد، هرگز از خاطرات محو نخواهد شد اما داریوش همایون شوهر خواهر اردشیر زاهدی، پنج سال پیش از تجزیۀ غیر قانونی بحرین، طی نامه ای به امیرعباس هویدا، نخست وزیر می گوید : « بحرین صرفنظر از موقعیت استراتژیک خود در خلیج فارس هیچ امتیازی ندارد که مبارزه به خاطر دست یافتن بر آن را موجه سازد ... » در صورتیکه مجمع الجزایر بحرین مروارید جهان می باشد و دارای دومین مخزن نفت جهان است و از لحاظ آب و هوا بهشت واقعی روی زمین است.
نکته ای که بیش از هر چیز تأسف بار است این است که مثلث فساد علم، فرح و زاهدی، دربار شاهنشاهی ایران را به صورت فاحشه خانه ای بین المللی در آورده بودند، هرگاه سران فاسد رژیم های دیگر هوس عیاشی می کردند به دربار ایران می آمدند. از جمله زمانی که سلطان قابوس برای عیاشی به ایران آمد، شاه برای ضیافت رسمی وی از علم خواست که برنامه ریزی کند ولی زاهدی همراه با علم به او تذکر دادند : « او بدون همسرش به اینجا آمده فقط به این منظور که کمی به خودش برسد ». بعد از دو روز شاه از احوال سلطان پرسید، آنها گزارش دادند : « هر شب با تعداد چهار تا پنج خانم بیرون اقامتگاه ملاقات کرده بود. نمی توانیم شهادت دهیم بعداً چه اتفاقی افتداه بود، اما به هر صورت سلطان راضی به نظر می رسید ».
وی در زمانی که وزیر امور خارجه بود، مسافرت های متعددی به تنهایی با فرح دیبا به کشورهای دیگر انجام می دهد و پس از بر ملا شدن روابط نامشروع با فرح دیبا توسط شاه از وزارت امور خارجه خلع و با همیاری علم و دوستان انگلیسی آمریکایی او به سفارت ایران در واشنگتن گمارده می شود و تا سال 1357 این پست را در اختیار داشته است. زاهدی که یکی از گماشتگان کمیسیون سه جانبه بود و با سران کمیسیون از جمله دیوید راکفر برای سرنگونی شاه در تماس بوده است.
اسناد ساواک نشان می دهد که در سال های 1346 و 1348 اردشیر زاهدی به شدت در تلاش برای احراز پست نخست وزیری بوده است. او در میان مقامات انگلیسی، اسرائیلی و آمریکایی دوستان زیادی پیدا کرد و با بالاترین مقامات رفت و آمد داشت ولی هرگز به دلیل شیوۀ رفتار سبک و نحوۀ عمل او مورد تأیید برای احراز پست نخست وزیری نبود. اردشیر زاهدی نه تنها به صدارت نرسید بلکه رفتارش با فرح دیبا و گزارشات ساواک در مسافرت های به اصطلاح دیپلماتیک آن دو و نزدیکی بیش از حد آنها باعث اخراج او از پست وزارت خارجه در شهریورماه 1350 گردید. او در اسفندماه 1351 دوباره به سفارت در واشنگتن اعزام شد و در آنجا به عملکردهای سبک و عیاشی هایش ادامه داد. اردشیر زاهدی یکی از هرزه ترین نخبگان سیاسی و دولتمردان رژیم محمد رضا پهلوی بود و به این صفت نه تنها در میان خواص، بلکه در سطح جامعه نیز شهرت کافی داشت. در دی ماه 1356 دو هفته پس از مسافرت جیمی کارتر و همسرش رزالین به ایران وقتی فرح دیبا برای شرکت در جشن بیست و یکمین سال تأسیس انجمن آسیایی به نیویورک رفت و در هتل هیلتون اقامت داشت، همراه اردشیر بود و سپس با او به واشنگتن می رود و مدت دو هفته در آنجا با هم بودند.
Ledeen Lewis. Debacl نویسندۀ آمریکایی در کتاب خود می نویسد: « ... شاه هرگز به اردشیر زاهدی اعتماد کامل نداشت و پیوسته به وی مظنون و بدگمان بود که او ممکن است از برکناری پدرش که قریب به سه دهه قبل اتفاق افتاده بود در صدد انتقامجویی برآید».
طی سال های سفارت وی در آمریکا و انگلیس، زاهدی یکی از چهره های خبرساز مطبوعات غرب محسوب می شد و بارها و بارها تصاویر و گزارش هایی از ریخت و پاش ها و هرزگی های وی در جراید کثیرالانتشار اروپا و آمریکا درج گردید. در این سال ها اردشیر زاهدی با کمیسیون سه جانبه آشنا می شود و به علت دشمنی با شاه با همیاری فرح دیبا کمیسیون سه جانبه را در مسیر براندازی شاه متقاعد می نماید.

شیوا رفیعی از پاریس
سازمان زنان مبارز ایرانزمین

Another book which may be interesting to read

//www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/review/Wil...

A philosophical issue

This might be more of a philosophical issue than just the idea of a free speech. I have read the book and loved it.
The arguments that some have made is whether in the times of uncertainty, when there is possibility of war, the free speech is relevant or not. That argument is also valid in the United States. Many people in different countries tend to have a different social standing when it comes to the sovereignty of their country and find any ideological attack against their unloved system “un patriotic” during those times. Others would argue that it is not the job of an author to decide and free speech is unconditional. I think if we need to criticize her or defend her, we follow the correct context. Also there is a possibility that many ideas could be right, that's why I think is a philosophical argument, so keep an open mind.

To Ms. Sadegh

One of the signs of maturity of any community is its ability to discuss its members without the rah rah don't touch one of us stuff that comes from some people the minute you criticize anyone. I for one have no problem with Naficy's success, neither am I jealous of her position or endorsement money. I read her book without any presumptions and my conclusions are based on a deep reading of the book, not its surface which is at first glance innocent. There are quite a number of articles that critique her book including Hamid Dabashi's piece in Al-Ahram. I don't agree with the tone of Dabashi's article but here it is: a rational critique by a scholar if you are interested. The blurb that you have quoted is a promotional one from the organization Nafisy works with, so you need a little more than that to make the big ass claims you're making. Nothing I have read from Naficy has convinced me that she is qualified to be an expert on Iran's history or politics. She is simply not qualified. Her knowledge of Iran's history is skin deep. Even her knowledge of Iran's literature is limited and highly biased. See her review of Mahmoud Dolatabadi's novel Jaye Kahlyee Soluch (translated as Missing Solouch). I'm sure you can find it on the internet. If being a best selling author is sufficient for admiring somebody, then sure I have some admiration for her too. Naturally it’d help anybody to succeed if they had Bernard Lewis, Paul wolfowitz, Foud Adjami and the Johns Hopkins university behind them. As a book Lolita is at best, in Dabashi's words, a Kaffeeklatsch book, designed to appeal to primarily North American middle class. The problem with the book for me is its insidious politics not its harmless message about wonders of Anglo-American literature. So here it is Azarin, practice what you preach and don't paint anyone who says something about your beloved with the same colour. Some of have done more than just gossiping to have arrived at their conclusions.

Why do I admire Azar Nafisi?

I have a great admiration for Azar Nafisi and I really think the basic reason why there are so many negative rumors about her is coming from the fact that she is one the most successful Iranian authors in Diaspora.

Reading some of the comments about her, I even wonder if her accusers have ever read her books and articles or listened to her interviews. Where have you ever seen her to lie in her writings or speeches? If you don’t agree with her political point of view, it doesn’t entitle you to call her a liar, if you truly believe in the freedom of speech.

I did a google search on her and this is what I found about her current project (She is the director of the Dialogue Project at Johns Hopkins):

"The Dialogue Project is a multi-year initiative designed to promote-- in a primarily cultural context-- the development of democracy and human rights in the Muslim world. In doing so, the Dialogue Project also hopes to educate those in non-Muslim communities-- whether they be policy makers, scholars, development professionals, members of the media, or ordinary citizens-- in the complexities and contradictions that govern both Western relationships with and life in many predominantly Muslim societies around the world.

In pursuing democracy and human rights in the Muslim world, one must realize that the battle is both ideological and cultural in nature and must be met on these grounds. Too often, oppressive regimes and organizations have attempted to suppress any movement towards pluralism and democracy under the banner of ideological Islam, protecting tyranny in the name of religion. For this reason, the topics addressed by the Dialogue Project will be those that have been the main targets of Islamists and, as a result, are the most significant impediments to the creation of open and pluralistic societies in the Muslim world, including culture and the myth of Western culture imperialism, women’s issues, and human rights, among others. "

What is wrong with the mission of this project? Dr. Nafisi -- as a professor of aesthetics, culture and literature -- seems well qualified to help the Western world to understand the culture she is coming from. To me, it is a noble cause and a first step to reach a mutual understanding and acceptance for both cultures.

Now she is accused by some anonymous comments her of becoming rich through her work and by writing a book. Since when people being interviewed by Charlie Rose or NPR got paid a significant amount of money? Or since when the professors at university represent the rich people? (My own sister is a professor at Johns Hopkins Medical school and believe me it is not that easy to write successful grants and to make the minimum needed budget for her research and to make enough money as a teacher -- or worse as a writer -- in this country.)

Why shouldn’t we simply be proud to have a great Iranian writer who happens to be also a best-selling author? And please... don't forget that even best-sellng authors (except for Stephen King or J.K. Rowling) still are not "rich" people!

 Thanks,

Azarin sadegh

Praise for Naficy

I am amazed at the idiots that post here - saying that she sold out her country! WHAT??!! Who are you people - her poignant book sheds light on this horrific Islamic regime and the devastating mental, physical, and economic conditions it has caused so many millions. HER BOOK, ROYA HAKAKIAN's MEMOIRS and others NEED AND MUST BE PUBLISHED SO THAT THE WORLD KNOWS WHAT THESE CREEP FUNDAMENTALISTS DID TO IRANIANS! And if she makes millions b/c of it- then good for her!

Well said enough is enough

She made enough money over selling her country.

//iranian.com/PhotoDay/2004/April/Images/...

//iranian.com/PhotoDay/2004/April/azar.ht...

Enough already

Can you get over Azar Nafisy please once and for all? Hasn't her 15 minutes of fame expired already? And did I hear corrctly, she is a professor of foriegn policy? Is that for real? What does Nafisy know about foriegn policy? Whose foriegn policy by the way? Even as an English literature professor she was second rate. We're all waiting for her ground breaking second book on Nabakov with much trepidation but foriegn policy?? I guess if you're willing to be a propaganda tool for powerful interests you need not have much in way of qualification. I guess that's why The Wall Street Journal got Roya Hakkakian to review a translation of Shahnameh. I mean Roya is ok but an expert on Shahnameh? In fact, even as an Iran expert god forbid, Nafisy wouldn't know foreign policy if it reached up and kicked her in the pants.

No Wonder she was Awarded

Here is a Video of her Speech after Receiving an Award givne to her from members of the Persian Community in Budapest, Hungary called the Persian Golden Lioness Awards:

//www.waalm.com/index.php?content=archive&content2=2006&content3=2006literature&content4=Azar_Nafisi&nav=Archive&nav2=2006&nav3=Literature&nav4=Azar%20Nafisi

Great Speech too. Wonderful Lady and Great Book.