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What do you think Ahmadinejad should do this year in New York City? I have five ideas and I'd like to publish yours too.
Read the rest | September 4, 2008
Isn't it ironic that Israel is one of the biggest supporters of the Indian-made non-violent resistance through its academic and political allies in Europe and the U.S.? Okay, it is good to have no murder and torture. But why is it only us who have to implement non-violent resistance against you with your army budgets ten times of our whole budgets all together?
Read the rest | September 4, 2008
Once I'm back to Iran, I would love to live in Ray, one of the the oldest cities in Iran which is now thanks to Tehran's metro, is quiet close to central and northern Tehran. It would be amazing to live in such an important and nice city. Let's see.
Read the rest | September 3, 2008
The problem with the existing debates debate about the newly proposed family law bill is that it while it gives agency to the first wife of a man, it takes the agency of the potentially second wife completely away from her. Thus they eradicate the possibility that a women consciously and freely would like to marry an already married man. This contradicts their whole purpose to empower women. They only empower some women this way and take power from the rest.
Read the rest | August 31, 2008
I'm mourning for the sixty Afghan children who have died in a recent American air attack and no one talks about them. It's depressing that young Basijis are ready to do so much for forcing Mashaie to resign over a few words they didn't like, and now none of them is doing anything about these brutalities.
Read the rest | August 30, 2008
An old post from Sanam Dolatshahi describing how my writings on the internet in a reformist newspaper was helpful to her in her discovery of the internet and her consequent experiences, including blogging.
Read the rest | August 30, 2008
A letter to an Iranian human rights activist.
Read the rest | August 29, 2008
Unless you come from a super rich family, you are always on the verge of hunger and homelessness. I would never live in this damn city (London), if I didn't have to study. This is not life, it is modern metropolitan slavery, and it is way worse than older forms of slavery, because you don't even have time to realize that you are a slave.
Read the rest | August 28, 2008
Shahrvand-e Emrooz
August 26, 2008Those innocent and naive souls who are bought into the US State Department's propaganda through its disguised extensions (various international NGOs, such as the NED-funded Reporters Sans Frontier, etc.) can now see directly one of the best examples of free press in Iran: Shahrvand-e Emrooz, a weekly magazine published by close neo-liberal allies of Akbar Rafsanjani, which brags on top of its logo that it is the 'magazine of the private section', is now finally available for free online -- and it's actually quite a well-done website.
An old interview that Soroush Javan did with me in 2002, when I went back to Iran for the first time after spending two years in Canada.
Read the rest | August 24, 2008
Accusing Shirin Ebadi of converting to Bahaism has been baseless, unjustified and wrong. As a strong critic of her actions and words in the past few years, I think there are many other arguments one can use against her that would not cross the line of ethics and even religion.
Read the rest | August 22, 2008
The established Shia concept of, Mahdi, the twelve Imam, has very interesting implications in term of metaphysics of presence that for example Derrida talks about: Mahdi is absent, but at the same time present.
Read the rest | August 20, 2008
Notes on Mashaie, Kordan and Javanfekr.
Read the rest | August 19, 2008
Internet subaltern: Fatemeh Rajabi's case
August 17, 2008I'm reading a lot of Derrida and Spivak these days for my dissertation, which would be about voice and silence on the internet, based on my own personal experience in the past few years and the shift in my status in the Iranian diaspora blogosphere from the 'Blogfather' to the 'Public Enemy'. I also have this sketchy idea of defining the subaltern on the Internet.
But I haven't given up the temptation to wrote a separate essay with this very sketchy idea of internet subaltern, based on the case of Fatemeh Rajabi, who is a pious woman, a pro-Ahmadinejad commentator and a persistent blogger with an unusually sharp language. She who also happens to be the wife of Gholam-Hossein Elham, the current government's spokesperson and the minister of Justice.
My mains interest in her derives from the fact the because o f her sharp prose against Rafsanjani and Khatami, her blog has been filtered (her older filtered blog), her website attacked by 'hackers', and her Iranian web hosting provider has also kicked her out. She has also been the subject of terribly sexist and vicious personal attacks by the supporters of Rafsanjani in the from of serious or satirical comments, including the persistent erotic and sexist flow of bad jokes by Ebrahim (Ibrahim) Nabavi. All this, while she has totally been ignored by the loud advocates of free speech or even women's rights.
Mashaie's stance on distinguishing between the Israeli state and its people is a very smart public diplomacy move and worth millions in that it harms the anti-Iran and propaganda that Israeli media and state have produced throughout, painting Iran as a racist, anti-Jewish, warmongering state. Mashaie should be encouraged, not bashed for this. He is helping Iran's security and harming Israel's.
Read the rest | August 12, 2008
NED and Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP)
August 10, 2008Mahnaz Afkhami, who happens to be a board member at the NED's international branch (called World Movement for Democracy, or ironically WMD), runs a women oriented organization, named Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP).
The following is all NED's grants to Afkhami's organization:
Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP)
$25,000
To strengthen and expand the International Women’s Democracy Network. As the secretariat of the Network, WLP will collaborate with regional coordinators to identify and invite into the Network new members, create regional listservs to provide a forum for members to share experiences, and encourage partnerships and initiatives among participants. The Network will also create an online resource center to disseminate information on democratic development and political participation for women.
Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP)
$599,888
To strengthen women’s leadership capacity in Muslim-majority countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. WLP will continue to develop, translate, and publish culture-specific leadership learning materials; conduct extensive leadership training programs for women and girls; carry out capacity-building activities in conjunction with partner organizations; and engage in advocacy and networking to promote women’s rights.
Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP)
$599,800
To address obstacles to women's empowerment and participation in predominantly Muslim countries. WLP will continue to strengthen women's leadership capacity in selected countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Activities will include the publication of innovative training materials; organization of extensive leadership training programs for women and girls; and advocacy and networking to promote women's rights and participation.
Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace
$596,578*
To continue to strengthen women's leadership capacity in selected countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The leadership training program for women and girls in twelve Muslim majority countries will include the development of culture specific leadership learning materials, creation of a new prototype NGO capacity-building curriculum to enhance partner organizations' institutional capacity and the development of multimedia resources and communication tools.
Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace
$395,255
To continue the final phase of a three-phase project to strengthen women’s leadership capacity by creating multimedia, culture-specific educational tools for individuals and organizations that will cultivate and strengthen women’s participation and leadership in building civil society.
Women's Learning Partnership
$60,635
To support travel costs for participants in the first of five Regional Roaming Institute (RRI) training-of-trainer sessions in Amman, Jordan. RRI is a capacity-building multimedia institution. The training sessions will equip local facilitators to more effectively empower participants in their own local workshops to take leadership roles within their communities.
Women's Learning Partnership
$165,000
To create multimedia, culture-specific education tools for individuals and organizations in the Global South that will strengthen women's participation in building civil society. WLP will implement leadership-training programs for women and girls in twelve Muslim-majority countries and will collaborate with partner organizations to develop culture-specific training materials in ten languages.
Ali Kordan has presented his forged certificate and expects people not to see how it is pathetically photoshoped., with unbelievable spelling errors. Kordan man is a disgrace to this government, and even more, to the whole state. Perhaps we should ask Ayatollah Khamenei to ask him to resign.
Read the rest | August 10, 2008
Brave and independent Iranian MPs, Hosseinian and Zakani, need to start their own blogs and be in direct contact with their voters and supporter.
Read the rest | August 10, 2008
With all this scandalous revelation about Ali Kordan's lies about his university degrees, I think now he is quite liability for Ahmadinejad, specially in the forthcoming presidential elections. Simply because the public has lost its trust in this man who is now the minister of interir affairs. I think Kordan must resign.
Read the rest | August 8, 2008
It's incredible how a group of foreign-funded 'human rights activists', such as Hadi Ghaemi and Shirin Ebadi and their gang on the internet are making a martyr of Yaqoub Mehnahad, a member and collaborator of a terrorist and separatist group, Jondollah, that is is responsible for dozens of murders. Yes, he has been a journalist and an activist, but the basis for the verdict was his collaboration with and membership in a terrorist and separatist group. I'm against capital punishment myself, but these people are against anything Iran does, not just teh form of punishment. I wonder how other countries treat similar members of outlawed terrorist organizations backed by their enemies' funds.
Read the rest | August 6, 2008
I know going back to Iran and living there would not be that easy. But it's worth trying. One thing that I'm sure I'll miss would be Italian, Thai, Lebanese, French, Japanese, and Portuguese cuisine. :) Unless Tehran has really changed into a more cosmopolitan city. We'll see.
Read the rest | August 5, 2008
Notes about the event of the last week. I'm lazy to summarize it!
Read the rest | August 4, 2008
I'm reading Derrida for my dissertation and he fascinates me more than any other theoretician. He is beyond philosophy. He is an artist. By the way, instead of asking what something is, it's always better to ask, what it does. This is a good way for not falling into the trap of by essentialism.
Read the rest | July 25, 2008
Watching the full-length video of Ahmadinejad's TV interview hints at the real difference between him and Khatami and Rafsanjani. Ahmadienjad talks like a hard working engineer who knows every little detail about the house he is building, whereas Khatami and Rafsanjani always appeared as a sissy investor who has no idea how his building is being made. The real reformer of this country's economic structure has emerged in Ahmadinejad.
Read the rest | July 24, 2008
Denial of any conspiracy is as stupid as the conspiracy theory itself. Both are totalizing articulations and both are wrong. Unfortunately, among the Iranian elite, it has become quite trendy to reject the possibility of any conspiracy.
Read the rest | July 22, 2008
Not unexpected from Robert Tait, the former Jerusalem correspondent for The Times, it is quite disappointing to see Shadi Sadr, quite consciously, falling into the trap of the anti-Iran psy-op war machine. More distressing is that she is even bringing up the issue of ethnic minorities. Perhaps an award, a scholarship or simply a Hadi Ghaemi is waiting for her somewhere in Europe or in the U.S?
Read the rest | July 21, 2008
Now that military action against Iran is impossible, it is the best time for Iran to demand as much as it can during the negotiations. And of course, there is no need to stop enrichment. A bit longer resistance and the Americans would even find themselves investing in the Iranian-based joint international enrichment facility. And maybe Israel would also be forced to sign the NPT too. Who knows.
Read the rest | July 19, 2008
Last night, I drank two glasses of good Israel wine, to the victory of Hezbollah. Did I do something wrong?
Read the rest | July 18, 2008
Nikahang Kowsar criticise New Yorker's Obama cartoon, yet he draws a much worse about Ahmadinejad the day after. What a hypocrite!
Read the rest | July 17, 2008
Another victory for Hezbollah.
Read the rest | July 17, 2008