farangopolis

Explosions in London

2005-07-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

LA 8 Hearings

2005-07-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

I got this email from a friend today. Please tell others who live in the L.A. area about this.
Thanks.

ACTION ALERT: LA 8 HEARINGS BEGIN JULY 13!
Thank you for your appreciated and welcomed support for the Los Angeles Eight case (LA8).
The LA8 deportation hearing starts next week, 7/13-7/22.
Thousands of immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries have been harassed, intimidated, secretly incarcerated or deported in recent year, as part of the Bush administration's ongoing campaign to curtail civil liberties and immigrant rights while silencing dissent.
Michel Shehadeh and Khader Hamide were first arrested along with six other Palestinians and a Kenyan in 1987. They were held for 23 days in maximum-security cells, charged with "aiding terrorism." The basis of this charge was that they distributed magazines and fundraised for Palestinian social needs.

Former FBI Director William Webster testified to Congress that after an extensive three-year FBI investigation the Los Angeles 8 "have not been found to have engaged them selves in terrorist activity." Webster testified that, "If these individuals had been U.S. citizens there would not have been a basis for their arrest."
And yet today, 18 years later and counting, the government is still pursuing the case against Shehadeh and Hamide despite failing to present not a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on the respondents part.

The ramification of the case is broad especially, against immigrants, and ultimately against everyone's freedoms. This administration claims that the constitutionally protected activities of the LA 8 are retroactively illegal under the USA Patriot Act. As Michel Shehadeh states, the government always picks the most vulnerable first in order to pursue dissent in general. Thus it is necessary to rally to the cause of Michel Shehadeh and Khader Hamide--an attack on them is an attack on free speech and is an attack on all. The LA times has recently published two in depth articles on the LA 8 as government hearings are set to begin later this month. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-fg-laeight29jun29,0,7631280,full.storyhttp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-laeight30jun30,1,743032.story

WHAT YOU CAN DO!
1. Bring yourself, friends, family, and everyone you can to attend the hearings 7-13-05 through 7-22-05 at 606 South Olive St. Los Angeles, Ca 90014. IJ Einhorn's Court.

2. Forward this email or send your own about the case and upcoming hearing and send to all contacts on your list.

3. For donations please write the checks to International Humanity Center (or just IHC)/Committee 4 justice (or just C4J), and send it to the below address. Or, write it to the IHC and put in the memo C4J. Please don't write anything else on the check. Each donor will receive a tax exempt receipt by mail. You can donate online at www.committee4justice.com.
Please send your checks to the following address:International Humanity Center PO Box 923Malibu 90265
Thank you,www.committee4justice.comContact us: committee4justice@yahoo.com

Arrested Iranian filmmaker

2005-06-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Farshid Faraji, an independent Iranian cameraman, who was arrested by the American military forces in Iraq,” is missing. Faraji, who entered Iraq on May 2nd 2005 with valid visa and proper documents to complete the filming of the documentary, “In Search of Cyrus, the Great,” does not appear on the Red Cross list. While the Red Cross has registered the arrest of Koroush Kar, the producer of the film, there is no information available about Farshid Faraji’s whereabouts.

After shooting scenes in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey, Faraji and Kar entered Iraq, in order to film the historical site of Babylon, but soon lost contact with their families. Finally, Koroush Kar contacted his family and notified them that he and Faraji were arrested on May 19th, 2005. Farshid Faraji’s family, who is gravely concerned about his safety, has not been able to find any information about Farshid from the Red Cross and the Iranian authorities.

Iranian filmmakers and advocacy groups are putting pressure on the Iranian government to take appropriate steps to find Farshid Faraji. We should also ask the United States' government to provide Fashid’s family with information about their son’s arrest. Farshid's family has the right to know about his status and his whereabouts, while he is being interrogated in Iraq.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to publicize this case? Any lawyers in the house? Human rights advocates who do international work? help!

The U.S. Helsinki Commission Hearing

2005-06-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

A group of us learned that The U.S. Helsinki Commission is going to have a hearing with speakers such as Gloi Ameri (conservative Republican), to adddress the human rights violations in Iran. Although I condemn the Iranian government's arrests of the Iranian political activists, I am concerned that this show of human rights by Washington neo-cons is an abuse of the concept of human rights in order to advance political and economic agendas. I am also concerned that the voices that are going to be represented at this hearing are those of conservative Iranian elites. Here is a letter and a petition we wrote. Please read the letter and sign the petition if you agree. If you don't, no need to post your insults. By the way, non-Iranians are also welcome to sign. :-).

Dear fellow Iranians:
The office of Senator Brownback, the author of the Iran Democracy Act, and Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, has confirmed that on June 9th, the Commission will hold a hearing on Iran “to discuss the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran and the prospect for a joint US Europe response.” This hearing is scheduled between 1:30 P.M. – 3:30 P.M. at 192 Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. It is now confirmed that Goli Ameri, the Co-Founder of Iran Democracy Project at the Conservative think tank, Hoover Institute, and Larry Diamond, a Senior Fellow at Hoover, will be among the panelists.
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency, which consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.
Goli Ameri was appointed by President George Bush as one of three public delegates to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Ameri was the Republican candidate for Congress in Oregon’s first district during the 2004 election cycle. Last year, during her campaign, Ameri wrote an open letter to Secretary of State, Colin Powel, encouraging him to take a harder stand on Iran, which stirred much reaction among Iranians. To our knowledge, Ameri has now contacted a selected number of her supporters to attend this hearing. Diamond, who is introduced on Hoover’s webpage as “a specialist on democratic development and regime change, and on U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad,” served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad in 2004. In his Iran Democracy Act, Senator Brownback, the author of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, suggested the establishment of an “Iran Democracy Fund,” according to the model that allocated money for Iraqi opposition groups in exile in 1998.
Considering the political background of the organizers and participants in this hearing, we, a group of concerned Iranians living in the U.S., are worried that the plight of human rights in Iran may be abused for geo-political agendas that will only harm the development of any viable democratic movement, by the imposition of economic sanctions or military intervention. We believe that the voices of the Iranian diaspora should not be limited to the selected few that claim to represent the will of the Iranian people. Despite our objection to the arrest of Iranian journalists and bloggers in Iran, we strongly oppose military intervention or monetary support for “dissident groups” in Iran or in its diaspora, and ask the U.S. representatives to represent our voices, which are often suppressed in such hearings.

If you are against U.S. military and/or monetary intervention in Iran, please sign this petition. We plan to send this petition to the members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe by June 7th. Please help us circulate this petition by sending it to others in the community.

Thank you.

Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/csce/petition.html

No Comment

2005-06-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

This is a funny flash I saw on Iranian.com.... Click to watch Bush rap!

schooling bebe

2005-05-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

SFSU alumni and bebe founders, Manny and Neda Mashouf, gave $10,000,000 to SFSU. This is the largest individual gift SFSU has ever received. This is great news. God bless'em. But I am thinking since so many of bebe's ads use women's bodies, why isn't some of the money going to Women Studies, heh? Pay up people!

By the way, the oral exam is over. I passed, had a cake, followed the whole ritual with chelo-kabob, and am recovering from the trauma of the exam. I have to revise the proposal a bit (a lot!), in the next three weeks... So not absolute freedom (if there is such a thing) yet.

Ma meereem beh madreseh baa bebe-funded shoe-he-e-e-e-e-e-e......

Iranian elections

2005-05-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'll be taking my oral exam in two days and after that I'll have a lot more guilt-free time for blogging!

If you have been following the Iranian elections news, you probably know that Moin, the reformist presidential candidate was re-instated. Good news for letter N. :-).

Another letter N. which I read almost daily (NY Times) seems to like Rafsanjani quite a bit, though. Two articles about him in one day! Read them here and here.

Moin may not be as practical for Iran's situation today, as Rafsanjani would be with his "pragmatism." But I cannot get myself to like this guy, even a little bit. I like what he says about American democracy and elections here, though, I have to admit.

I'm alive!

2005-05-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

Once again, a long hiatus between writings. No good reason other than being busy with my own school work and teaching. My oral exam is approaching (in almost a week). I have to give a talk about my proposed research in our department this Monday, and I still need to make changes to my proposal, after the feedback I got from my advisor today. In the midst of this craziness, I have a very disorienting cold. But, after not having written in this blog for so long, David visited my Persian blog and left a comment. That was a good clue that I should update my English blog too! (Thanks David!)

The class I teach has come to an end. Half of the students orally presented their final papers on Tuesday, and the other half will do the same next week. Some people's research ideas are so interesting and exciting that I cannot wait to read them. I learned a lot from teaching this class and have enjoyed seeing how much some students have learned. One student is looking at the film "Submission" and the way Muslim women's bodies are used in different Orientalist and fundamentalist discourses around this film. Another student is examining the reviews on the film, "Not without My Daughter" and is looking at politics of representation. A student is looking at the exhibit "Made in Palestine" and is looking at the gendered constructions of the homeland. Another student is interested in why Taliban came up with a particular form of veil (burqa), which is different from other forms (hijab, etc.) She is questioning Taliban's claims about authentic interpretations of Qur'an.... and many other interesting papers.

By the way, I know I have mentioned this book a few times already, but now it is finally out. I bought it today and am looking forward to reading it soon. From flipping through the pages and reading here and there, I can tell you that the book is great.

I better go and take some cold medicine. Who knew breathing could be so difficult?!

Iranian politicos

2005-05-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

Ladan Afrasiabi, who has been very active in Iranian diasporic groups in the Bay Area, has asked me to post her article on my blog. I met Ladan a few years ago when the Iranian Women Studies Foundation Conference was being held in Berkeley. We were both among the volunteers who helped with different organizing committees. In one of my recent posts, I had pointed to the uncritical celebration of "success" among the Iranian diaspora. Ladan's article also addresses this issue and is a critique of one of the Iranian diasporic organizations (Iranian American Political Action Committee).

By the way, another Iranian diasporic organization (NIAC) is running a phone campaign this Tuesday in response to the "Iran Freedom Act," which Ladan has mentioned in her article. A reincarnation of last year's "Iran democracy Act," this act is extremely dangerous and needs to be stopped. So, visit NIAC's campaign page to see what you may be able to do. I am not sure if I can follow the "do and don'ts" in NIAC's "General Tips" section. I guess I am having a hard time becoming that nice docile subject! In any case, read more about "Iran Freedom Act," (H.R. 282; S. 333) which proposes "to hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." As I have said before, I am against this horrifying bill, but I do not necessarily agree with all the arguments provided by NIAC in opposition to this bill either. But, regardless of my critique of NIAC, they do have organizing power and are an important lobbying organization. Perhaps at some point, I will write my critique of NIAC's politics of representation (which is one of the topics I talked about in the Iranian diaspora conference in Washington). But to reiterate what I have mentioned before, to critique a group is not to reject it wholesale.

By the way, don't you love how "freedom" and "democracy" are resignified in these bills to mean U.S. expansionism? Oh, why am I surprised??? Haven't we seen OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation)?... oops! I meant Operation Iraqi Freedom! Yes, "freedom" and "democracy" are the confetti being thrown around along with U.S. bombs and bullets. Get used to it! Freedom and democracy come at a cost these days: death of the other. And the ones who keep selling and buying it in this neo-liberal market of open exports and imports, are the ones who are really concerned about the "people!" Yes we know...

So after this long post, here is Ladan's article:

Political Action Committees
&
The Lost Gem

By Ladan Afrasiabi

In recent years, Iranians have been making headlines across the globe, especially in the US, wining accolades in the fields of technology, medicine, academia, cinema and visual arts. These surges of recent accomplishments have created a sense of pride and hope among Iranian ex-patriats. The new wave of successes has generated an ever-growing interest in showcasing the “successes” of Iranians, as well as, inspiring some with the opportunity to congregate and project these financial and social influences into the political arena.

Not surprisingly then, names of a few Iranians have popped up as candidates for political offices, and some Iranians have displayed financial/political muscle by contributing large sum of money to various political campaigns. Yet a few of these wealthy ex-patriats have strived to organize and mobilize the “rank and file” Iranians living abroad around their mission to harness this untapped new pool of financial and social influence, and to exert political power. One of these organizations is a lobby group called the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC), formed by a number of Silicon Valley and East Coast new millionaires, driven by a strong desire to monopolize this bank of wealth and talent.

To begin with, I am skeptical when groups of business people, who seem to have suddenly woken up to their forgotten heritage, announce that they are going to fight for Iranian’s civil rights, change legislations, and influence US Immigration and Naturalization laws. They claim that they will do so through their newly developed political connections and by contributing to the so-called “Iran Friendly” lawmakers, who are yet to come out of the closet.

IAPAC has been able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Iranian community at large based on such feeble premises, while never taking a stand on any issues relating to Iran or the US-Iran relations in particular. IAPAC claims that it is possible to change legislations, and alter laws affecting Iranians, without ever having to step out of the comfort zone of “non political” or “anti-political” mindset. In my opinion IAPAC lacks specific political agendas and suffers from the absence of clear direction, simply to appease its politically diverse constituency, so to make IAPAC a successful fundraising entity, with a dubious agenda.

IAPAC inventors seem to think that they can, as the Zen master once asked, “Get the gem from the bottom of the pool without getting wet”.

The sudden emergence of this lobby group, incidentally the group was formed following a group resignation/ coup d'état of Hassan Nemazee, Akbar Ghahari and Faraj Aaalie from the American Iranian Council (AIC), to form IAPAC, requires us to draw a distinction between a lobby group and traditional grass root organizations in the Iranian Diaspora communities.

Ever since 1970’s formation and then the fall of the Confederation of the Iranian Students, many grass root organizations have come to existence, promoting cultural, civic and political participation in our communities in the US and across the globe. Some groups, to this day, have stayed true to their original political platforms (Right, Left or Center) and others have devoted their resources to social, cultural and civic activities.

As an activist since late 70’s, I am a believer in any and all organic and grass root organizations and have much hope for cultural and professional groups such as Women’s groups, Iranian Studies, NIPOC, SIP, Persian Center, Payvand, or political groups such as NIAC, BAYAT, BAYVOTER, where they encourage and bring forth a new culture of social and political consciousness, and promote civic duties with an intrinsic structures for sharing the organization’s authority and responsibilities. These organizations are pillars of the democratic expressions of citizenry and are the training grounds for our future leaders.

On the other side of the spectrum we have political organizations such as American Iranian Council (AIC), which for over a decade has attempted to address the politics of US-Iran relation, and successfully assisted in the partial lift of the sanctions against Iran during the Clinton era. AIC has not changed its course despite much pressure from the organized loyalists in Los Angeles and despite many labels of “pro IRI” and “spy” of the government in Iran. As such, it may have had a challenge in recruiting the otherwise anti-politics generation of Iranians, who take pride in staying out of politics, although their lives are very much affected by the very same politics.

And then we have a group of new self-made multimillionaires, such as Kamran Elahian, thrilled by their own business successes, who have suddenly surfaced, announcing that they are going to enhance the image of Iranians by creating a “Successful Iranian Network” through vehicles such as Silicone-Iran. This for-profit entity has unsuccessfully tried to breath and live in the shadow of other non-profit community organizations, although it has somewhat managed to bank on the recent successes of Iranians in the hi-tech and financial sectors.

As for a lobby group(s), I believe, IAPAC, which interestingly enough shares much of its leadership portfolio with that of Elahian’s Silicone-Iran, is built on false illusions. Their doctrine is that there can be an Iranian lobby group focused on some very politically driven issues, which are undoubtedly embedded in the US-Iran relations, without any need to have a political position on the source of these problems.

These mega millionaires’ financial ecstasy seems to have taken them to a wonderland when reality check is not required.

I recently wrote to IAPC, asking them about the their position on the “Iran Freedom Support Act”, (H.R. 282 / S. 333) a Bill that would make regime change the official U.S. policy on Iran and eliminate the sunset provision on existing sanctions on Iran. The response was yet another “Party Line” delivered by one of their board members who stated, and I quote. “The political situation in Iran as well as U.S.-Iran relations are strictly and completely beyond the scope of our mission and activities. Our objective is to focus exclusively on the issues of importance to Iranian Americans living in the United States.” Is IAPAC stating that none of us Iranians living in the US is deeply concerned about this Bill, which can authorize executing “Iraq blue print” in our motherland? Is IPAPAC asserting that this Bill is in no way affecting the very same immigration issues it has sited as the focus of their mission??

Let us then forget, for a moment, legislations legalizing interference and even invasion of Iran. Let us assume that millions of Iranians living in the US have no concern about their motherland and don’t care about the future of their country, and let us assume that we could close our eyes to some Senators and Generals in Washington DC, deciding the destiny of 75 Million Iranians by holding a similar “democratic election” in Iran. Let us give likes of Nemazee the benefit of the doubt that they have no interest in becoming the Iranian version of Iraq’s Chalabi.

Let us momentarily grant IAPAC the wish to completely ignore this critical Bill and simply as they wish, review the Immigration and Visa issues as the core of their activities, and evaluate their position that “IAPAC is working with members of Congress to ensure that Section 306 of the Enhanced Border Security & Visa Entry Reform Act does not pose an unnecessary and undue burden on Iranian Americans”.

But have they ever read from the US government and INS regulators that states as follows, “Section 306 restricts the issuance of nonimmigrant visas to aliens who are nationals of countries that are state sponsors of international terrorism……………………… The government of US has currently determined that Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria are countries that are state sponsors of international terrorism”.

Therefore, isn’t it naïve, if not conning, to proclaim that IAPAC is lobbying against section 306 without it ever having to take a position on Iran_US relations? They conveniently miss the fact that Libya was recently removed from this list, only following its compliance with US government on WMD. Now all sanctions on Libya has been lifted and Libyan immigrants are no longer subject to above referenced Section 306.

In my view, IAPAC inventors are hallucinating thinking that IAPAC can lobby successfully against the fingerprinting of Iranian visitors, ban on the Student Visa, restrictions on Iranian scientists’ publications, etc, etc without ever having to address the Iran’s status as one of the “axis of evil” and lifting the sanctions on Iran; regardless of who is the recipient of their new-found money on the Capital Hill.

Therefore, I strongly believe that any Iranian lobby group cannot avoid having a position on Iran if in fact it wants to change the legislations such as Section 306. IAPAC may choose to precede the triumphant path of American Jews, who lobbied successfully for laws in favor of the state of Israel and the Jews in the US, or they can follow Cuban- Exiles model of promoting the overthrow of the existing regime and replacing it with a pro-US government. However, IAPAC with the colorful composition of its members (some are pro Islamic Republic and some are Loyalists), coupled with many politically –shy members, and with the strategy to please everyone, is not capable of such clear declaration.

IAPAC with the current position on issues or I should say, lack of any position on the root cause of issues , has put itself in an identity crisis, and has limited itself to throwing lavish galas, rubbing shoulders with some political celebrities, and of course, always eager to collect money for something they can not possibly deliver.

In conclusion, promoting civic and political participation in our community, as NIAC, Bayvoter, AIC and others have been preaching, is one thing. But to create a false illusions that there can be an Iranian lobby group without any political preference is a path leading to mistrust and demoralization for those putting their genuine hopes and support behind such prophesy, all while the beneficiaries of such a doctrine, are a mere few.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ladan Afrasiabi is a community activist, co-founder of Persian Center in N. California, past President and Chair of the Board of Directors at the Society of Iranian Professionals. She is serving as the Commissionaire to the State of the World Forum, Mission on Globalization, a brainchild of Michael Ghorbachev and is on the advisory board of Japan’s Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research.

A Polish blog

2005-05-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

A belated May day image...

I got the image from T. Toumaj's blog, Expers. In the Farsi Expers, T. has written about blog polityczny in Poland. I look forward to reading the translation of blog polityczny some time. Of course, after T's dissertation is finished :-). This is another funny image from this blog:

busy impure blogger

2005-05-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

I am going through a blog withdrawal phase. It's not becuase I don't like blogging. I do. As a matter of fact, I consider myself to be a blogoholic, in need of a "BA" program! But my oral exams are approaching and different deadlines have not left much time for blogging these days. I have been reading blogs more than I've been writing in my own blog. Perhaps I have a blogger's block! I guess I need to write more in order to get back into the habit. I have to admit that I have paid more attention to my Farsi blog. I have been reading a lot more blogs in Farsi than in English and that is probably why I update my Farsi blog more often.
By the way, I am thinking of getting a domain and upgrading my blog in the near future. After I am done with my Oral exams, I will be blogging on a more regular basis and with a nicer-looking weblog.

A couple of updates:

The Washington conference on the Iranian diaspora was good. It seems to me that the focus is shifting from the story of "exile" to that of "empowerment" of the Iranian diaspora. I am glad that we are moving beyond the rigid narrative of exile. But, I am concerned that this "empowerment" may border on uncritical celebrations of a homogeneously imagined raced and classed Iranian-ness. "Success stories" are good, but self-criticism is also important. Of course in the face of increased racism towards Middle Easterners in the U.S., there needs to be lobbying in the U.S. political structures. But, for what we are lobbying, and how we are lobbying are also important questions that we cannot ignore. I think there needs to be room to pay attention to Iranian diaspora's complicity with dominant discourses. Giving a critique of non-governmental organizations that lobby on behalf of Iranians in the U.S. is not to deny the importance of these organizations. Unfortunately, however, any kind of critique is often received as rejecting them. A "naqd" is mistaken for "naf'i."

On a different matter... I was browsing Iranian.com and I came across this nausious site called "The Aryan Emancipation Society of Iran." Check out a couple of excerpts from their forum:

"Nahavand's Incorruptible Few: Soon after, when the march of the Arab Hordes subsided into an inaudible advance over the horizon, and the rivers of Mount Damavand started flooding in despair; a select few were spared. Devoid of biological decay, the survivors of the fateful battle near Hamadan would become 'Nahavand's Incorruptible Few'. "

Here is another passage from a forum discussion on this site: "In order to subvert the homosexual expansionism however, same-sex couples must not be allowed to procreate through means such as artificial insemination."

As a far too corrupted non-Aryan Iranian, I hope that this group spares those of us who are not interested in the purity of their emancipation!

McSima's

2005-04-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a group of students from Gaza came to speak at SF State University. When a student said that he has had to dress as a woman in order to cross the checkpoints on his way to school, or on his way back to visit family, some people in the audience laughed. I was bewildered by this response. Were they laughing because the situation was so un-imaginable to them, or was the thought of "dressing as a woman" funny? I wonder what makes certain things funny for some, when it costs others their lives, be it in passing a checkpoint in Palestine, or passing as a woman in Newark, California.

This is a very interesting article by Ross Pourzal. Pourzal, whose article was posted on Iranian.com today, makes an excellent point when he writes,"I yearn for a day when 'dissident' will describe Iranians who not only resist Iran's rulers, but also dare to re-examine elitist definitions of 'civilization' and other received wisdom." His statement really speaks to me. Why in the world, would an anti-war event want to have someone who works in a conservative think tank to come and talk about "Iran's Contribution to Civilization"? Can we, perhaps, stop for a moment and question what it means to keep referring to a glorified past in our anti-war efforts? How hard are we going to try and fit within the racist narratives of "civilization?" Is this some way of saying, "don't bomb us... we are civilized"? The talks about the "evolution of our common human heritage" seem to demand a historical amnesia about who got screwed (excuse my language) in this evolutionary narrative of progress.

Am I grumpy today? Maybe I am.

Last night I took my class to listen to Dahr Jamail's talk at SFSU. I have been reading Jamail's reports on Electronic Iraq and his talk about the U.S. military and its violent behavior wasn't surprising to me. Most of my students were not surprised either, but found the images quite moving. I wish he would give this talk in parts of the U.S. where he needs to be heard. But again, SF may be a safer place for him than a lot of other parts of this country. The footage Jamail showed was made by a filmmaker, whose film was stolen mysteriously. According to Jamail, the filmmaker was harassed and threatened by the person who has stolen the footage. Jamail's remarks on this issue implied that the thief has connections to the surveillance apparatus in the U.S.

One last thing: David had asked me to write about the kind of future I envision for Iran. This is a valid question, as I have been critiquing the programs for the "future of Iran," which are being decided in conservative think tanks and in the U.S. congress. This is also a very utopian question and demands a utopian answer. I have a lot of wishes, not just for Iran, but also for the U.S. I am surprised why we don't have programs to decide the "future of the U.S." I am not sure if we assume that we have reached the "perfect" world here in the U.S., or that these futuristic programs that envision "perfectability" have a political history that is not separate from neo-liberal policies we witness today. I tend to think that the latter is true.

But for the sake of indulging myself and David, here is my wish list for Iran: Like many people, I wish there would be no poverty, no gender discrimination, no jails and no repressive state, no discrimination based on one's national or ethnic belonging, no discrimination based on one's religion, no discrimination based on one's sexuality, and the list goes on and on (amazingly, these are also my wishes for the U.S.!) But, I also know that Iran doesn't exist in a vacuum and for all these to happen, a lot needs to happen in the world. I also know that the U.S. intervention in any form will not make any of these visions come true. In fact, a lot of the existing issues in Iran cannot be separated from the role of the U.S. in the region. So, Uncle Sam ain't my gene in a bottle! Speaking of bottles, letter N. has a wonderful story about her grandma and her bottles during the revolution in Iran.

And finally, a happy ending: I have learned how to make kabaab koobideh and it does not come off the skewer! Hey, I am climbing the ladder of progress! Watch out McDonald's... McSima's is taking over. If grad school doesn't work out, I know I have a future in the land of the free, where there is "equal" opportunity in kabaab business. Except that McDonald's has bought all the "Mc" titles and claims it as its trademark! A few years ago, my favorite Sushi place in the Mission (in SF) could not choose the name McSushi, because McDonald's threatened to take them to the court! Maybe McDonald's will buy me if they learn about how much potential I have... And who knows, maybe in a few years, McHoover would buy me if I change the way I write... Hmm...

I better stop before I become too vulgar!

Made in Palestine

2005-04-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Seezdeh bedar kabaab turned out to be quite delicious, thanks to the yogurt, onions, lemon juice, and advieh marinade. Of course, the accompanying basil, tarragon, mint, green onions, and salad shirazi made the whole noon-o-kabaab experience heavinly. Since a good friend of mine works on the weekends, we did our Seezdeh bedar a day earlier than the rest of the Iranians in the Bay Area. But it was nice to enjoy the sunny day and the green grass in the state park in Alameda beach. I attempted to grade some papers, but all the blood had rushed from the brain to the stomach, and hence the pile of un-graded papers on my desk today!

This Thursday (April 7th), Made In Palestine, a collection of works by 23 artists from Palestine and its diaspora will debut in San Francisco. The gallery will be at SomArts through April 21. A series of events will also happen during the Made in Palestine Tour in SF. See the program for this great project here.

Artist: Mary Tuma. Title: Homes for the Disembodied, 2000. Media: 50 continuous yards of silk, 13'x25'. From the site Electronic Intifada.

New bill and seezdeh bedar

2005-04-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging for a few weeks now. To make the long story short, a combination of work, flu, and exhuastion has made it hard to keep up with the blogging world. There is a saying in Farsi which goes something like this: "You can tell a good year from its spring." Well, my spring has been extremely busy so far and if this is an indicator of the rest of the year, then I am not sure if I can handle a whole year like this!
In any case, rather than nagging about my personal problems, I am going to start my first entry of this Iranian new year with an urgent matter. On April 6th, a bill (H.R. 282) which according to its writer, House Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is introduced "to hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran," will go to the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East for mark up.
NIAC has the info. about the bill (both the House and the Senate version) and has drafted two letters in support and in opposition to it, so that people can write to their "representatives" and voice their opinions. I wish they had drafted the opposing bill more strongly. The rhetoric of "Making regime change official US policy on Iran is the equivalent of declaring war," won't go very far, will it? The proponents of the bill could challenge this and say, "no, regime change doesn't necessarily mean war." I guess it is up to those of us who are against any U.S. intervention (military or not) in Iran to draft our own letter and send it to the congress. But I wonder if this "representative" democracy actually works for those whose views do not fit within either of the "options" presented by U.S. law makers or "para-law" entities such as NIAC. But again, I assume it's better to have organizations such as NIAC to engage a certain class of diasporic Iranians with U.S. politicos, than not having any "representation" at all.
By the way, this is like a deja vu! Sam Brownback's "Iran Democracy Act," last year, was very similar to this bill... NIAC's response was also very similar. These shows of democracy are becoming a bit too redundant, if you ask me. But do we have a choice other than going along?

On a more personal note, I am going to "seezdeh bedar" ro rid myself of all inauspicious elements of this year! Only if these things actually worked! Can you imagine? Except for the nuclear family part, and the whole "khaanehye shohar" songs, this event could have a lot of potential for social change!
In any case, I am off to the park to eat watermelon and have kabaab and do away with all evil ;-). This is the first seezdeh bedar in 13 years that as a born-again carnivor I can have kabaab. Happy 13 bedar.

List of March 19th and 20th protests in the U.S.

2005-03-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

Reza Nasri has suggested that we change our blog names to "Hands Off Iran!" on March 19th. See his post here.

Here is a list of the anti-war protests in the U.S. If you have information about protests in other countries, please put the link in the comments section. I found the U.S. protests list on the ANSWER Coalition website. It took me a lot longer to reformat the list than I thought it would. All the spacing was lost and the cut and paste had messed up the html. I just wanted to give a link to begin with, but all ANSWER coalition pages have the same url and it's hard at times to find relevant events. In any case, I hope this is helpful. I hope the effort is woth it. Also, some Iranians will get together at Dolores Park at 11 am to march together. See the info for that here.

I made an unfortunate mistake and without thinking, a few weeks ago booked a flight to Seattle for March 19th, right in the middle of the day! If I get on that flight, it means that I can neither make it to the SF protest nor to the Seattle one. I think I am going to go to the SF protests and will try my luck with stand-by option later in the evening! In any case, I hope there is going to be a protest in your area and that you can make it.
I have to revise a paper by tomorrow. If I don't get the chance to write here again for a few days, happy Norouz to all.

Here is the list organizes by state:

ALABAMA
Huntsville
North Alabama Peace Network

DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Rally at 12 noon in downtown. Gather at Flying Monkey Arts Center for a art show / benefit concert for the Victims of the War in Iraq: Art show, 3 - 7pm; Benefit concert 7-10pm.

ALASKA
Juneau
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 10am at the steps of the Capitol Building (4th & Main St)

ARIZONA
Phoenix
Grandmothers for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 11am at Bell road & 99th Ave.

Tucson
Tucson Peace Action Coalition, Turnwind
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 10am, Catalina Park (On 4th Ave, one block south of Speedway), Rally at Catalina Park, 11am: March from Catalina Park. 12 noon: vigil at Military Recruitment Center, 2302 E. Speedway

Window Rock
Dine for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: 11am, Old Theatre, March starts at the old theather, and rally procedes at the Navajo Veterans Memorial Park (near the Window Rock and Council Chambers).

ARKANSAS
Little Rock
Arkansas Coalition for Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12 noon - 2 pm at the War Memorial Park Pavilion by the children's playground (off Markham Street and Van Buren). Rally at 12 noon and then a march to protest along Markham Street at 1pm

CALIFORNIA
Benicia
Solano Peace and Justice Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 5-6pm, City Park, 1150 First St.

El Centro
Imperial Valley Peace Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Bucklin Park, Meet in the park at 2:00 to begin assembling luminarias for each of the over 1500 American soldiers who have died in Iraq. We will also remember civilian deaths At sunset we will hold a candlelight vigil.

Eureka
Eureka Peace March
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12 noon, Halvorson Park (across from the Adorni Center). Meet at noon for March through Eureka ending at the Gazebo for festivities.

Fresno
Peace Fresno
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12-3pm, Courthouse Park

Los Angeles
A.N.S.W.E.R. LA
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: At 12 noon we will gather at Hollywood & Vine

Mt. Shasta
Mt. Shasta Area Peace Activists
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12noon, Mt. Shasta City Hall Plaza

Redlands
Redlands Democracy for America Meetup
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12noon-3pm at Redlands City Hall (Orange & Citrus St.), March down State St. over to Lincoln Shrine (next to the Smedley Public Library)

Riverside
Riverside Area Peace and Justice Action
DATE: Friday, March 18EVENT: 6 pm - 8 pm, Corner of University & Iowa Avenues. This demonstration will be a peaceful but boisterous protest of the Bush Agenda. Bring drums, noisemakers, signs, etc.

San Diego
San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 2pm Balboa Park (6th and Laurel)

San Francisco
A.N.S.W.E.R
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Gather at 11am at Dolores Park march tothe Civic Center

San Jose
South Bay Mobilization, and a coalition of groups from San Mateo through Palo Alto to San Jose and beyond
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 1:30pm for an anti-war rally in San Jose Diridon Train Station followed by a march to Plaza de Cesar Chavez.

Santa Clarita
Santa Clarita Neighbors for Peace & Justice and Democratic Alliance for Action
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 4 pm to 6 pm, Valencia Town Mall Corner of McBean Pkwy & Valencia Blvd (New Homes Information Center Corner). Peace Vigil, Live music, Bring signs or use ours.

Santa Monica
American Friends Service Committee & Veterans for Peace
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 11am on the Santa Monica Beach, adjacent to the pier

Sylmar
Political Science/Mecha/AGSL.A. Mission College
DATE: Monday, March 14 - Thursday, March 17
EVENT: Gather at 11am at 13356 Eldridge Ave:-Mon., March 14 for music, Sunali Kohakar fom KPFK-Tues., March 15 for music, video-Arlington West, Vet.-Speaker-Wed., March 16 for music & speakers-Thur., March 17 for music, video-Beats for Baghdad, Jerry Quickly from KPFK

Ventura
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 1-4pm, Mission Park (Main St. at Figueroa St. Plaza), March through downtown Ventura (Mission Park to Main Street to Fir Street and back to Mission Park) and rally in the park

COLORADO
Denver
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Gather at 1pm at the West Steps of the State Capital Building.

Walsenburg
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 12noon at the Courthouse

CONNECTICUT
HartfordConnecticut United for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Statewide March and Rally: Assemble at 11AM at Hartford Armory (Intersection of Broad Street and Capitol Avenues), March (and Coffin March) at 12 noon, Walk through the neighborhoods to Park Street, Rally at Barnard Park (South Green at Park and Main Street) 1:00 - 3:00 PM

WASHINGTON D.C.
TRANSPORTATION: To Fayetteville, NCClick here for details.

FLORIDA
Gainesville
Silentmarch
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 1-7pm at Gainesville downtown plaza.

Jacksonville
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 6-9pm at Riverside Park followed by a march to Memorial Park

Lake Worth
Palm Beach County Peace and Justice Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 2pm at Lake Worth Beach (across from John G's on S. Ocean Ave.)

Miami
South Florida March 19th Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 2-5pm at Torch of Friendship, Bayfront Park (Biscayne Blvd. & NE 2nd St.) music and cultural activities, followed by a demonstration with speakers at 3pm

Orlando
Orlando Not In Our Name
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 12 noon at International Dr. & Sand Lake Rd.

Pensacola
Patriots for Peace & Veterans for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Lee Square, Jackson & N. Palafox streets, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza, Gregory & N. Palafox. Participants gather at Lee Square (Jackson & N. Palafox) at 11:30 a.m. and walk south to Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza for a silent vigil. On their walk, participants will carry posters bearing names and representative pictures of war dead.

Sarasota
Coalition of Concerned Patriots
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 1-4pm, Bayfront Park (US 41 at Ringling Blvd)

St. Augustine
People for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March
at 2 pm

St. Petersburg
St. Pete for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12 noon - 5 pm, gather at Williams Park, 4th St. and 2nd Ave

GEORGIA
Atlanta
International Action Center
DATE: Friday, March 18
EVENT: Gather at 4:30pm, at Marietta &amp;amp; Centennial Olympic Park; march will leave at 5pm

Savannah
Savannah Beloved Community Unitarian Universalists, Veterans for Peace, Federation of Reconciliation, Food Not Bombs, Codepink: Women for Peace (Savannah)
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: 7pm, Forsyth Park, main fountain (Bull & Gwinnett St.). Candlelight vigil for the 2nd anniversary of the bombing of Iraq. Drum circle at 5:30pm, bring your own music.

HAWAII
Hilo
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 12noon at the corner of Wainuenue & Kinoole

Pahoa
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm at Kalani Oceanside Retreat

IDAHO
Pocatello
Pocatello for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2pm, Caldwell Park (corner of Center and 7th), March to the Congregational Church on Garfield St., behind Pocatello High School

Sandpoint (downtown)
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Gather Afternoon to Night presentation of the film "Fog of War" (by Panada Theater)

ILLINOIS
Carbondale
Peace Coalition of So Illinois
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Day long installation of memorial crosses at the Town Square Pavillion. Vigils and Bannering at 4 locations in town at 11:30am with convergence for a rally at the Pavillion at 12:30pm.

Champaign
A.W.A.R.E.
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2-4pm, One Main St. (downtown Champaign), Several speakers including Fred Spannaus of MFSO; several verterans, including one from the 1st Gulf War; and a local Muslim student who is from Iraq and has family there and has visited several times since the war began.

Chicago
Chicago March 19 Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12 noon gather at Oak St. & Michigan Ave. followed by a march down Michigan Ave. to Federal Plaza.

INDIANA
Indianapolis
Indiana Peace and Justice Network
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather from 12noon-3pm at Monument Circle

Terre Haute
Terre Haute Stop War on Iraq
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Gather at 10 am at Vigo Co. Courthouse (Third and Ohio Sts.), including drummers

Burlington
Citizens for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2 P.M., Port of Burlington Building on the Mississippi Riverfront

Davenport
CodePink, People for Peace, DFQ
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2:00 P.M., 4000 East 53rd St. (across Borders and Showcase Cinemas)

Des Moines
Coalition of Peace & Church groups
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m, Trinity United Methodist Church, 8th and College to St. Ambrose Cathedral, 6th and High; everyone is invited to march with banners and signs calling for an end to war.

Dubuque
Dubuque Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 10am-2pm, Gazebo in Washington Park (between 6th and 7th, Locust and Bluff St. in downtown Dubuque), 10am-12:30pm Read the names of US troops and Iraqis killed during the war 12:30-2pm Rally with speakers and musicians

Iowa City
War Resisters, Indict & Impeach Bush
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: 2:00 PM, Iowa City Pedestrian Mall by the fountain
KANSAS
LawrenceLawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice
(1)
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Rally, 12-1pm, Douglas County Courthouse (corner of 11th and Mass.)~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(2)
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Candlelight Vigil, 7-8pm, Douglas County Courthouse (corner of 11th and Mass.)

Salina
Salina People for Peace
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 7:30pm at Salina Mennonite Church 600 W. State St. (12th St. and State St.) for a film showing and discussion.

Wichita
Peace & Soc. Justice Center
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11:00 AM cst, Minisa Park 13th & Jeanette, March & Vigil from Minisa Park to P & SJC "Human Cost of War" Memorial. Bring signs, drums, voices, candles.

LOUISIANNA
New Orleans
New Democracy Rising, Louisiana Activists Network
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 11 am in Congo Square at Louis Armstrong Park, March at 12 noon
MAINE
Skowhegan
Waterville Area Bridges 4 Peace & Justice DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: 12noon-1pm, Margaret Chase Smith Bridge. Peace vigil on heavily traveled bridge with pedestrian access.

MARYLAND
Baltimore
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 12 noon at St. Peter Claver Church, 1546 N. Freemont Ave.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston
Boston Mobilization
DATE: Sunday, March 20EVENT: 1:00 PM, Boston Common.

Fall River
Greater Fall River Committee for Peace
St.)

Natick
Democracy For America-MA
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 10am at Natick Common, intersection of Rt. 27 and Rt. 135

New Bedford
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at from 1-4pm at the corner of Buttonwood Park, rte 140, and rte 6. across from the CVS.

Stow
Social Action Committee (FPC)
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 10am to 4pm, Peace Vigil, on Stow Common at the corner of Routes 62 and 117 (in front of First Parish Church (FPC) of Stow and Acton, Unitarian Universalist

Worcester
Veterans For Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12-2pm at Lincoln Square

MICHIGAN
Ann Arbor
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Contact for details

Flint
Genesee County Progressive Caucus
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at the Genesesee County Courthouse on Saginaw St. at 1:00 to begin marching at 1:30 through downtown to the University of Michigan Flint campus. There will be a rally at McKinnon Plaza on campus when we arrive with speakers and music. Wear black armbands.

Flint
Flint Michael Moore Meet Up Group
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 3pm at City of Flint City Hall

Holland
Holland Peacemakers
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 2pm at Centennial Park (12th & River, across from City Hall)

Lansing
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12 noon: Gather at the Capitol Building; 1pm: Car Caravan through local communities, Critical Mass bike ride to East Lansing; 2:30pm: Rally at MSU Administration Building; 3:30pm: Film: “About Baghdad” film showing at MSU 108 B Wells Hall

Montague
White Lake Peace Team
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 7pm at Weathervane (corner of Dowling & Water) for a candlelight Vigil

St. Joseph
Patriots for Peace
the U.S. Post Office stands, two blocks south of drawbridge. Bring your own sign, use one of ours, or just stand for peace.

Traverse City
Traverese Area Peace & Justice Community
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: 12:00 PM, Bay and Division Street. A mile long rope with black ribbons will be held through downtown Traverse City.

MINNESOTA
Bemidji
Bemidji Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12noon - 2pm, Bemidji Ave and 3rd St. (Paul Bunyan Statue Site), Paul Bunyan Dr. and Irvine Ave., Paul Bunyan Dr. in front of Super 8 (West Side of City)

Brainerd and Little
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 1 to 3 PM, 6 miles North of Little Falls, Camp Ripley Junction, MN Highways 371 and 116, near the tank. Park your cars on County Road 47, turn East Just South of the military tank. At 1:30 we will march in unison to the Main Gates of Camp Ripley, approximately 1 mile. Cut War Funding NOT VA Funding.

Minneapolis
Iraq Peace Action Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm at Loring Park Hennepin/Lyndale Ave. & Oak Grove St, march at 1:30pm, 2:30pm Speakers & Program at Wesley Inited Methodist Church (101 East Grant St)

Northfield
People for Peace and Good Will
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12-2pm at Bridge Sq.

Rochester
Southeaster Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2-4pm, Peace Plaza for a peace rally

St. Paul
Neighbors for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at from 5:45pm-7:15pm for a walk for peace, corner of Snelling and Summit Ave., going west to the Mississippi River. Please bring candles.

MISSISSIPPI
Biloxi
South MS United for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12-6pm at Biloxi Green & Visitors' Center, Highway 90 at Lameuse.

Tupelo
North Mississippians for Peace
DATE: Sunday, March 20EVENT: 2:00 PM, Lee County Courthouse, South steps (corner of Spring and Jefferson Street). Vigil to remember the Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops.

MISSOURI
Columbia
Columbia Peace Coalition
and Iraqis who have died in Iraq, march through town and place them in front of the recruiters building, silent vigil, return to Courthouse for speakers rally.

Kansas City
Kansas City Task Force
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather from 4-6pm JC Nichols Fountain (47th St. btwn Main & Nichols Pkwy)

St. Louis
St. Louis Instead of War Coalition
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather from 4-6pm at Art Hill in Forest Park Memorial Rally displaying 1500 tombstones to honor the U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians

Springfield
Peace Network of the Ozarks
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM, Marine Recruiting Office, corner of Battlefield and Kimbrough Bring signs without sticks. We'll stand on the public sidewalk.

MONTANA
Bozeman
Bozeman Peace Seekers
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 2:30pm at the Ballroom, Emerson Cultural Center for a "Party for Peace" with songs, speeches, drama and audience participation.

Dillon
ACLU
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 3pm at the University of Montana-Western (Small Auditorium, Main Hall)

Great Falls
DATE: Saturday, March 19
Event: Gather 11:30-12:30 on the Civic Center Steps, Rally for Peace and Justice. Participants urged to bring posters, prayers, instruments and friends.

NEBRASKA
Grand IslandCentral Nebraska Peace Workers
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 7:30pm, Pioneer Park (2nd and Elm St.), Candlelight Vigil and brief presentations

Lincoln
Nebraska Coalition for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Gather from 10:30 - 12noon West Plaza of the State Capitol (14th and K) rally with speakers and music, bring signs

Omaha
Omaha Global Day of Action
DATE: Saturday, March
at 2 pm at the monument in the park. A panel of speakers from various church groups and other organizations will begin at 3 PM. The event will end with an open mic and public protest.

NEVADA
Las Vegas
Peace Now!
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: - Gather at 9am at Las Vegas Review Journal (111 West Bonanaza) - Gather at 5pm at Sahara & Las Vegas Blvd to have a short rally followed by a march to the Bellagio and a march back

NEW JERSEY
Atlantic City
CPJ
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at from 2-4pm for a march will begin at Garden Pier parking lot, march to Kennedy Plaza for rally and return to Garden Pier

Cherry Hill
South Jersey Campaign for Peace & Justice DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Gather from 12-2pm at Route 38 (Meet at the entrance to the Cherry Hill Mall)

NEW MEXICO
AlbuquerqueStop the War Machine
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at from 11am - 1 pm at the National Guard Armory & Armed Forces Recruting Center, corner Wyoming and Copper, NE.

Silver City
Grant County Peace Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 3:30pm at Visitors Center for Peace, march to Gough Park at 4pm, light luminaries and read U.S. soldiers and Iraqis killed at 5:30, followed by a silent vigil

Taos
Action Coalition of Taos
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT:Gather at 4pm at Taos Plaza

NEW YORK
Binghamton
March Forth Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 10am Federal Courthouse Building (Henry Street), Rally at Federal building 10-12, March through downtown Binghamton ending at the First Congregational Church on the corner of Front and Main Streets for warming up with music and pizza, then return to Federal Building till 3:00 PM

New York City
Troops Out Now Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 10am in Marcus Garvey Park (124th St. and 5th Ave.to 125th St. and Lennox Military Recruiting Station). March to Central Park. Gather in the East Meadow of Central Park (97th St. and 5th Ave.) at 12 noon. At 3 pm, March to Mayor Bloomberg's house.

New Paltz
Initiated by Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Rally at 1pm at Hasbrouck Park (near SUNY New Paltz) and march through town. Rep. Maurice Hinchey will be the featured speaker.

Rochester
Peace Action and Education, Metro Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19EVENT: Gather at 4pm outside of War Memorial (Broad & Exchange St.)

Saratoga Springs
The March 20th Project
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 12noon for a community Rally and Walk in front of the Saratoga Springs Post Office on Broadway. Guest speakers will start at noon. Walk begins at 1pm.

NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte
Action Center For Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm at Marshall Park (2nd St & S. McDowell St)

Fayetteville
Bring Them Home Now, Fayetteville Peace With Justice, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, NC Council of Churches, NC Peace & Justice Coalition, Quaker House - Fayetteville, United for Peace and Justice, and Veterans For Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 11 am at the Cumberland County Health Center (227 Fountainhead Lane). At 12 noon, march to Rowan Street Park (Rowan Ave and Woodside) for a rally from 1-4 pm.

OHIO
Cincinnati
UCAWC, IJPC, ISO, CAIR-Cincy Chapter, Moms + Dads 4 Peace, Cincinnatians 2 Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Peace Seekers, Women in Black, Bring The War Home Collective, Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm for a rally and march at Fountain Square

Columbus
Central Ohio Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm at The West Plaza of the Ohio Statehouse (corners of Broad St. & High St. Broad and High St.)~ ~ ~ ~ ~Feeder march to Columbus rally:Network of Ohio State University and High School groups
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 12noon at Goodale Park in the Short North, feeder march to Columbus rally taking place at 1 pm at the West Plaza of the Ohio Statehouse (see above)

Dayton
September 11 Coalition
gDATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 6:30pm at Courthouse Sq. (Third & Main Sts.)

Lima
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: Gather at 2pm at Lima Sq.

Tiffin
Tiffin Area Pax Christi
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12noon -1pm "White Ribbon for Peace" rally to stand with our brothers and sisters around the world in the name of peace. Encircle the Seneca County Courthouse with a 1/3 mile longe white ribbon.

Wilmington
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 3-4pm at Fife Ave & College St. for a silent vigil

Youngstown
Valley Coalition for Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12noon, Federal Courthouse, across from Mahoning County Courthouse, downtown Youngstown, on Market St. Speakers include Kevin Benderman, currently being court-martialed as a conscientious objector; Monica Benderman; members of military families against the war; and others.

OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma City
Spriitual Walk for Peace
gDATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2-5pm, Rally for peace and to send the troops home in Memorial Park at NW 36th and Western. There will be music, dancing and brief messages. Several organizations will have booths.

OREGON
Corvallis
Alternatives to War
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11:30 am at the waterfront at the base of the bridge, the white ribbon march will walk through town and end at the Court House Lawn, with respectful mourning for the dead in this war and a commitment to end it.

Cottage Grove
Stand For Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 11am for a procession through town to National Guard Armory

Portland
Codepink
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 10am teach-in, 2pm march PSU for teach-in, march from nearby location

PENNSYLVANIA
Allentown/Emmausthe Lehigh Valley Peace Coalition: Pax Christi
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT:- 12:30 - 1:30 pm: War Hurts Us All, Community Vigils For Peace at many locations throughout the Lehigh Valley.- 2:00 - 4:00 pm: Rally For Peace with Speakers & Music at Wesley United Methodist Church (2540 Center St., Bethlehem, about 2 miles south of Rt. 22). Please bring homemade cookies to share or a small donation for refreshments.

Bellefonte
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 7pm in Talleyrand Park, 320 West High St. and Route 150 We plan to light more than 1500 candles in memory of the American-led coalition forces, reporters, and countless Iraqis who have died as a result of the war.

Bethlehemthe
Lehigh Valley Peace Coalition: Pax Christi
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT:- 12:30 - 1:30 pm: War Hurts Us All, Community Vigils For Peace at many locations throughout the Lehigh Valley.- 2:00 - 4:00 pm: Rally For Peace with Speakers & Music at Wesley United Methodist Church (2540 Center St., Bethlehem, about 2 miles south of Rt. 22). Please bring homemade cookies to share or a small donation for refreshments.

Kutztown
Kutztown Area Democratic Club
gDATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 6:30 PM, Vigil starting at Kutztown Park and marching to the Kutztown Area Democratic Club headquarters for refreshments and discussion

Lancaster
Lancaster Coalition for Peace & Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm at Penn Square (538 W. Chestnut St.) followed by a town meeting from 2:15 to 4pm. Followed by a Candlelight Vigil 7:30-8:30pm at the courthouse steps, E. King

Lewisburg
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12:00-1:00, Post Office at 3rd & Market Streets. Solemn vigil remembering those who have died and been maimed and calling for an end to the war.

Pittsburgh
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 2:30pm at the corner of Forbes & Murray ave. in Squirrel Hill

RHODE ISLAND
Providence
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12noon - 4pm at War Memorial Park. March to Congregationalist Beneficent Church (Weybosset St.) for rally

SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston
Thinking People & Wake Up and Act
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 2-5pm at Marion Square in downtown (between King and Meeting Streets, on Calhoun Street).

SOUTH DAKOTA
Sioux Falls
South Dakota Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 1-3pm in front of Federal Courthouse (400 S Philips Ave)

TENNESSEE
Knoxville
Knox Area Coalition for Compassion
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 11-2pm at West Town Mall (Kingston Pike & Morrell Rd). Bring signs!

Memphis
Mid-South Peace and Justice Center
S. Cooper. We will march through midtown to Overton Park where there will be a Rally at Veterans Plaza.

Nashville
Nashville Peace & Justice Center
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 12-2pm at West End Avenue (along Centennial Park)

TEXAS
Austin
Austin Against War
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 12:30pm at the Federal Building Plaza (9th & San Jacinto) march at 1:30pm to the new City Hall for a rally and concert

Dallas
Share International
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 10am-2pm at Lovers Ln. & Greenville Ave (5740 E Lovers Ln)

Denton
American Friends Service Committee
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11:00 AM, On the Square (110 West Hickory St.)

El Paso
Pax Christi El Paso
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11am-1pm, Corner of Wyoming & Mesa St.

Ft. Worth
Peace Action Tarrant County, AFSC
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12 noon-5pm, Trinity Park Pavilion (715 Trinity Park Dr., South of 7th St., at Trinity Park Blvd, Across from the old Montgomery Wards building). Bring some food for a lunch on the lawn with live music at 12 Noon and bring an instrument or a sign for the march and to jam after the rally!

Galveston
Galveston Peace Action Network
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 1pm in front of the local US Army Recruiting Center (Seawall Blvd & 41st St.)

UTAH
Salt Lake City
Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 1:00 PM, Wallace F Bennett Federal Building. Gather at the Federal Bldg for a march through downtown Salt Lake City. Meet at the City-County Bldg (451 S State St.) at 2pm for a rally with local music and diverse speakers.

VERMONT
Rutland
Central Vermont Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 3 til 5 pm at RTE 4 and 7, Rutland Vermont (Main St Park by visitors center)

VIRGINIA
Augusta
Augusta Coalition for Peace and Justice
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at from 12noon - 1 pm at the Augusta County Court House

Floyd
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12 noon until 1 pm, Floyd County Courthouse, Please bring signs with messages of peace. This event will show our solidarity with vigils & protests that will be happening worldwide on the 2nd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

WASHINGTON
Olympia
Olympia Code Pink
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 11am at the Capitol Campus Tivoli Fountain followed by a march to Sylvester Park. The march begins at 12:40pm.

Seattle CONTACT: 206-568-1661
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Call for details

WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston
West Virginia Patriots for Peace
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, Davis Park, 301 Capitol Street (btwn Lee and Capitol in downtown Charleston). Join our gathering as we raise our voices through music, poetry, and speakers, including author Denise Giardina. To remember the dead, we will have the Wall of Remembrance. "Peace is in our Hands" for kids.

Martinsburg
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather from 4-7pm at 224 West King Street

WISCONSIN
AppletonFox Valley Peace Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Corner of College Ave. & Appleton St., Rally from 11-12, music at Harmony Cafe 12-2

Madison
Madison Area Peace Groups
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: Gather at 11:30am for a rally to mark the second anniversary of the Iraq conflict in Reindahl Park on the corner of Portage Rd and East Washington. Bring banners, signs and people.

Minocqua
DATE: Sunday, March 20
EVENT: 12 Noon to 1 p.m., Meet in the Intersection of Hwy.51 and Hwy.70 (Park in the lot by The Associated Bank and Hardee's). Bring signs stating that you want peace. And we will demonstrate by the highway in front of The Associated Bank and Hardee's.

Rice Lake
Woodland Women in Black,
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 11am -1pm, Holsum Park, Main Street (by bridge), make our message shown along the main street where the power of the people to protest war is most visible and needed.

Viroqua
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 2:30pm, Veteran's Memorial (Main St. and Terhune), a vigil will be held at the Memorial with workshops afterwards across the street

Wisconsin Dells
Bring Them Home Now Coalition
DATE: Saturday, March 19
EVENT: 6:00 PM, Main Street at the Essen House, 414

Market rights are human rights!

2005-03-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

Goli Ameri was appointed by Bush as a delegate to UN Human Rights Commission. Ameri is a hard-core pro-war republican Iranian-American from Oregan who ran for Congress last year and lost. She is the founder of e-Tinium, a telecommunications market research firm.
On Saturday, among the bulk of emails from a mailing list, I saw an email, in which Ameri has announced the "honor" with which our community is blessed! Today, I read the letter a member of this list has sent to Ameri. I thought this person's questions were quite valid and that is why I am posting her letter to Ameri here.

[POST-SCRIPT: THE TRANSCRIPT WAS REMOVED PER AUTHOR'S REQUEST. AMERI'S PRESS RELEASE DOES APPEAR HERE, HOWEVER.]

Isn't it ironic the way human rights, interests of the market, and U.S. multi-culturalism are linked together?
Here is Ameri's email and press release:

"Dear Friends,
I am proud to present you this press release, which is an honor for the Iranian-American community and a testament to our civic involvement in this wonderful country. Thank you for your friendship and support.

Goli Ameri Appointed by President Bush as one of Three Public Delegates to the UN Human Rights Commission
March 10, 2005
Office: 503 968-8437

Goli Ameri has been appointed by President George W. Bush as one of three public delegates to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The 2005 meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights will take place March 14 through April 22 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The US delegation is headed by former Senator Rudy Boschwitz who has been nominated by the White House for the position of Ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). Senator Boschwitz served in the US Senate from 1978-1991. Former Ambassadors to the UNCHR include Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick who served in the Geneva post in 2003.

"The United States wants the Commission to better fulfill its mandate to strengthen human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world. I am honored to have been appointed by the president and to represent the United States on the Commission," said Goli Ameri former Republican nominee for Congress in Oregon's first district. "I look forward to actively participating in the upcoming session."

The Commission's annual meeting is an opportunity to focus attention on countries where there are significant human rights problems. The US delegation is also committed to promoting democracy worldwide. In this regard, the United States plans to work with other countries to encourage discussion of ways that the Commission can foster reform in nations that are determined to advance democracy and human rights.

Ms. Goli Ameri is the first Iranian-American to receive a Presidential appointment to this post."

March 19th

2005-03-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

As we approach March 19th, the 2nd anniversary of the attack on Iraq, I am going to post the events where Iranians will gather to participate in anti-war demonstartions.
Here is one:

Dear friends,
March 19th 2005, marks the 2nd anniversary of the military occupation of Iraq by the United States. In finding a united voice against this bloody occupation and the aggressive course of actions voiced by the Bush administration against Iran and the Middle East, ANSWER Coalition has organized a day of protest on Saturday, March 19th.
As Iranians living in the US in these troubled times, this march presents us with an opportunity to come together as a community to form an Iranian contingent with a united voice against war and military occupation.
Join the Iranian contingent by locating the following banners at Dolores Park (18th and Dolores, San Francisco)
Iranians Against Military Intervention And Occupation
U.S. out of the Middle East!
No to U.S. Aggression Against!
Iran's National Sovereignty!
No To Theocracy In Iran!
Date: March 19th 2005
Place: Dolores Park, San FranciscoTime: 11 am
Sent by-- Enayat Katouli

The art of managing the "criminal"

2005-03-11T16:17:00.000-08:00

It seems like the U.S. has produced way too many criminals and as a part of the program to export "democracy," "criminals" from Guantanamo Bay are being exported as well. To where? To Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and other places where they "come from." Of course, these have to be countries with which we have good relations, or it won't work. Never mind the human rights abuses in prisons of these countries! I guess, if they torture them, then we don't have to worry about making up excuses the way we did in the Abu-Gharib case. It is their problem now!
Come to think of it, it all works out well. Because if these "renditions" mean that there is a slight chance that these prisoners may be released from prisons in other countries, then we have a guaranteed threat for life, without being blamed for inadequecy in our "security" systems... Which means that we can have an on-going "war on terror"! We can keep searching for them and post their images on the "most-wanted" lists, and when we think it is a good time to attack, we can "smoke them out" by bombing and occupying where we suspect these "enemies" of "democracy" may be hiding! What a brilliant plan. Kudos to the evil minds that are out there to fight "evil"!
Read about the management of 'criminals' here.

misplaced comments

2005-03-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

I put Haloscan, but the comments show above the previous post. I have to leave the house now, but I will fix the problem soon. Sorry about the confusion!
Sima

-------------------------------------
P.S.
O.K. It is fixed. Unfortunately, the blogger comments from before won't show any longer. But at least I have a functioning commenting system!

Why should soldiers die?

2005-03-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

The following is a part of the letter that Cindy Sheehan, the mother of the 24-year old soldier, Casey Austin Sheehan who was killed in Iraq last year, has written to Truthout's William Pitt. Cindy Sheehan is the co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace.
I think this letter shows that despite the attempts of American nationalism to limit women to subject positions of patriotic mother and wife, many women in the U.S. are actively participating in anti-war political activism that puts the myth of "one nation united against terror" in crisis.
The link is from truthout.org.

"And, most importantly and devastatingly, this war is based on lies and betrayals. Not one American soldier, nor one Iraqi should have been killed. Common sense would dictate that not one more person should be killed for lies. One of the people, my son, was more than enough for me and my family. I will live in unbearable pain until I die. First of all, because my first born was killed violently, and second of all, because he was killed for a neo-con agenda that only benefits a very chosen few in this world. This agenda and their war machine will chew up and spit out as many of our children as they can unless we stop them now...
In 1967 it was recognized by our government officials that Viet Nam was unwinnable...I don't even know how many more of our troops and innocent Vietnamese were killed before we finally pulled out in 1975. Please use your forum to expose the lies and the devastation this invasion/occupation is causing. We should not stay. We should not let Israel/USA invade Syria or Iran. The consequences of this would be too shocking to even contemplate.In addition, my family and my group are offended by hearing this administration say that our troops have to remain in Iraq and complete "the mission" to honor our loved one's sacrifices. First of all, no one can explain the mission to us and we don't want any more innocent blood spilled just because it is too late for our soldiers and our families."

commenting crisis

2005-03-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

My last post generated so much response (43 comments!). The only problem is that all responses are from poor David, who tried to leave one comment and for some strange reason his comment ended up multiplying. I tried to delete them, but it takes for ever to go through them one by one. I think I may have to do what I did for my Farsi blog, which is to use another service. This means that comments from previous points will not show. But, I think I need to have a user-friendly commenting system here.
To David, I am sorry that you were the one who had to experience the bug in my system. I have responded to your comments- all 43 of them ;-) - via email.
It is very sunny and nice outside. A friend of mine came to visit from Los Angeles and was staying with me this weekend. I think she brought the sun and left it here. It is such a shame to stay indoors working when it is so beautiful outside.
In any case, it seems like Iran does not appear as much in the news these days. I think this may be related to a "classified" report that an intelligence panel is supposed to submit to Bush at the end of March. I have to admit, I am scared of what might come out of this manufactured report. But, let's hope for the best.

International Women's Day

2005-03-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I have written for this blog. Since it is the International Women's day, I thought I cannot skip writing today. Frankly, it seems a bit odd to designate one day out of a whole year to women, as if the remaining 364 days belong to men. In a sense, this form of creating "special days" also creates "special" populations who stand outside the norm (but I also understand that they give visibility to the "marginalized").
In any case, since I have been pre-occupied with the issue of war these days, and since in the class I teach, we are discussing gender and nationalism tonight, I should introduce a great book that came out in 2004 (Palgrave MacMillan). I have assigned two chapters of this book as a part of tonight's discussion and highly recommend it to those of you who are interested in issues of nationalism and militarism. The book is called the Myth of the Military Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey. The author, Ayse Gul Altinay does a great job discussing the making of the myth of the "military nation" in modern Turkey and analyzes its role in the formation of gendered national identities. She shows that since the 19th century, feminism and nationalism (be it in the context of the Ottoman Empire or the Turkish nation-state) have worked together, and that militarization has been a disciplining, masculinizing, and nationalizing process in Turkey.
Speaking of militarization, I would like to post a piece that was circulated immediately after September 11, 2001 by a group of feminist scholars (some of whom are my former professors). This piece was initially circulated on-line, but was later published in the Meridians 2.2 Spring 2002. This is one of the best analyses I have seen on the "war on terrorism." If you have not read it before, you may find it very relevant to the issues we are facing today. Here is the piece called Transnational Feminist Practices Against War, by Paola Bacchetta, Tina Campt, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Minoo Moallem, and Jennifer Terry (October 2001). Click on the text to read the whole thing.

"As feminist theorists of transnational and postmodern cultural formations, we believe that it is crucial to seek non-violent solutions to conflicts at every level of society, from the global, regional, and national arenas to the ordinary locales of everyday life. We offer the following response to the events of September 11 and its aftermath:
First and foremost, we need to analyze the thoroughly gendered and racialized effects of nationalism, and to identify what kinds of inclusions and exclusions are being enacted in the name of patriotism. Recalling the histories of various nationalisms helps us to identify tacit assumptions about gender, race, nation, and class that once again play a central role in mobilization for war. We see that instead of a necessary historical, material, and geopolitical analysis of 9-11, the emerging nationalist discourses consist of misleading and highly sentimentalized narratives that, among other things, reinscribe compulsory heterosexuality and the rigidly dichotomized gender roles upon which it is based. A number of icons constitute the ideal types in the drama of nationalist domesticity that we see displayed in the mainstream media. These include the masculine citizen-soldier, the patriotic wife and mother, the breadwinning father who is head of household, and the properly reproductive family. We also observe how this drama is racialized. Most media representations in the US have focused exclusively on losses suffered by white, middle-class heterosexual families even though those who died or were injured include many people of different races, classes, sexualities, and religions and of at least 90 different nationalities. Thus, an analysis that elucidates the repressive effects of nationalist discourses is necessary for building a world that fosters peace as well as social and economic justice."

cat in the books

2005-02-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

I have been staying home reading and writing for the past few days. Despite all the temptations, I have tried to discipline myself (god knows I need a lot of that!) and haven't done much in the world of blogging. Sepeed (my cat) has decided to change her favorite spot. Now she sits on the first shelf of one of the bookshelves in the living room. I think this is her way of telling me that I am not alone in this... She is being very scholastic these days!

"free" press

2005-02-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

I am working on a paper and am stressing out as the deadline gets closer. I took a break and read this article in Le Monde diplomatique about deregulating media ownership. Interesting...

This month the Federal Communications Commission, despite sharp party-affiliated divisions, voted to relax key media ownership restrictions in the United States, permitting greater concentration of companies. The once admired standards of American journalism have been shamed by scandals at the New York Times and by over-close, compliant relationships with political power before, during and after the war in Iraq.

back to my paper :-/

February Blues

2005-02-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

I am feeling pretty helpless today. Another earthquake kills hundreds in villages around Zarand... (Yahoo's 42 is a typo. Over 500 bodies have been found so far).
Scott Ritter says Bush has signed papers to bomb Iran in June...
And dialogues have started between the U.S. and Sunni nationalist groups in Iraq who see Iran as backing the Shia in Iraq...

Sad day.

expert testimony

2005-02-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

A representative of the Committee on the Present Danger, along with two other "experts" ( a Columbia professor and the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center) testified in front a House hearing on Thursday. What did they testify about? Policy towards Iran. According to the National Iranian American Council, this summarizes what these experts have said: "Iranian People Are Our Allies, Pressure on Regime Needed, Experts Testify at House Hearing!"

These all sound good, but one needs to read the testimonies to know why the issue is less glorious than it sounds in NIAC's headline. I have written a lengthy post about this on No War on Iran, so I won't repeat what I've said. But, you may find this flier from the Committee on the Present Danger amusing!

The Task Force on Middle East Anthropology

2005-02-16T18:15:00.000-08:00

This may be of interest to anthropologists who work on the Middle East. Sounds interesting...

The Task Force on Middle East Anthropology
The Task Force on Middle East Anthropology is a group of progressive scholars, mostly graduate students and junior faculty, working on the Middle East and Islam who seek broader dissemination and critical applications of Middle East anthropological knowledge within the AAA, the academy, and the media. Our foundational premise is that anthropologists can and should become public intellectuals and engage the public sphere and politics. We believe that there is not only an opportunity, but a necessity, for academics to engage the public through a variety of media. It is crucial that people who have had actual experience working, researching, and living with people in Middle Eastern societies and their diasporas make their knowledge and expertise more relevant and accessible to the media, politicians, and the voting public.
The Time is NOW
Here are some of the projects that the Task Force has been involved with and which it hopes to develop further:·
teaching workshops (for anthropology instructors, teachers of K-12) to help educators integrate materials from/on the Middle East into their curricula ·
AAA resolutions on Iraq, civil liberties, academic freedom, and Palestine·
media symposium to (1) create a coalition of academics, activists, and media professionals committed to helping the public understand Middle Eastern and Islamic societies through anthropological knowledge and insight; (2) enable anthropologists to be more media savvy. Give them the tools for making the presentation of their information more palatable to the media; and (3) provide media professionals with a basis of the kinds of concrete anthropological knowledge of Middle Eastern cultures that is available to them to enhance their coverage of the region·
Radical History Review article on Middle East academics and the government· Anthropology Newsletter columns·
listserve creation and discussion·
coordination with other AAA sections (Committee for Human Rights, public policy and government relations, etc.) in drafting letters to government officials, reports, statements. I
t’s Time to be Pragmatic
The time is right to take advantage of the public’s willingness to listen to a wider range of viewpoints than those currently being provided by mainstream media. We need to develop a clear working structure and set of strategies that will enable us to insert Middle East anthropology productively into public discourse.

If this project interests you, please email us with a brief description of your background, areas of interest, and reasons for wanting to become involved with the Task Force.
Lori Allen: l-allen@uchicago.edu
Lara Deeb: ldlists@yahoo.com

Bush lies people die

2005-02-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

See story in Yahoo. Link form Iranian.com

No cat fights here...

2005-02-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

Nima Kasraie has posted an anti-war Persian cat on Iranian.com. I thought the American short-hair on No War on Iran and the Persian cat could make a statement together... I am not intending to take away from the seriousness of the issue or to minimize the material effects of war on real people, but everybody needs some humor some times...

Logo and IAAB Conference

2005-02-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

Alireza Doostdar has made this logo for No War on Iran. If you support the site and would like to put the logo on your blog, get the code from Alireza's blog.

IAAB (Iranian Alliances Across Borders) is holding its second International conference on Iranian diaspora in Maryland. I am presenting at the IAAB conference this year. Here is the schedule.

Even as I am trying to resist the consumer culture that arbitrarily designates one day out of the whole year for the expression of love, I have to admit that I am a sucker for these symbolic gestures. Happy Valentine's day!

Muslims and gay marriage in Canada

2005-02-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

This is New Yorker's article about the "extraordinary rendition" program that outsources torture. It is scary and eye-opening.

----

I read in Women Living Under Muslim Laws today that the Muslim Canadian Congress endorses same-sex marriage legislation. Rizwana Jafri, president of the MCC said Muslim Canadians have experienced life as a marginalized minority and have relied on the Canadian Charter to fight for their right to be treated as equal citizens. "It is incumbent upon us, as a minority, to stand up in solidarity with Canada’s gays and lesbians despite the fact that many in our community believe our religion does not condone homosexuality," she added.

2005-02-12T00:42:00.000-08:00

Dave Lindorff has written about the demise of academic freedom. He writes, "amid all the controversy over the observations of University of Colorado professor and leftist Indian political activist Ward Churchill concerning the military justifiability of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, it's easy to overlook the fact that freedom of academic expression on American university campuses is already virtually dead."
The culture of fear that has taken over campuses, do in fact make junior faculty very vulnerable. That is why it is important to have more politically progressive people in senior faculty positions. Speaking of senior faculty positions, I went to a great job-talk on Thursday. In a part of her talk, the speaker pointed to the civilizational thinking that characterizes area studies today. Her critical approach to universities as political sites of production of knowledge reminded me that in the midst of the return of McCarthyism, there is still hope for academic dissent. What else can we do if we are not hopeful?

going beyond liberal dissent

2005-02-09T09:43:00.001-08:00

The following is the Mission statement that we at No War on Iran have posted on our anti-war group-blog. If you haven't visited No War on Iran yet, give it a visit (and of course the other great anti-war blog, Iranians for Peace). No War on Iran also contains a great project where you can send your pictures to express your opposition to war. Some folks have said that the images are too confrontational or "rude." But, I think we need to be aware of ways of regulation that compel us to behave in certain ways and expect us to discipline ourselves (in Foucault's words, the "government of self"). The expectation of "respecting a country's president" is perhaps one of these liberal techniques of self government. I personally see these images as ways for people whose voices are often suppressed in mainstream media, to express themselves and to voice their dissent. Telling Bush and his ilk to stop their expansionist militaristic projects does not reinforce stereotypes of being a terrorist. If we interpret the image of an Iranian man holding a sign that reads "Dear U.S. Troops: Better not come for oil. This time it ain't that easy" as a "threat to Americans," then we really need to question how we are thinking about terms such as "threat" and "terror." By calling this message a "threat to Americans," we are doing the work for a state that has imposed maximal surveillance in the name of protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism. We are governing ourselves and others by repeating the racist significations of terror and threat.
In any case, the statement below may explain our theoretical approach to war.

Posted by NoWarOnIran!
The escalated public discourse about a possible military attack on Iran has alarmed many Iranians in Iran and its diaspora. As Iranians who are concerned about the implications of a war on our country, we have created this weblog to build a platform for preemptive dissent. In addition to our concerns about the fatalities of war, we are also troubled by the suppression of dissent in the U.S. and in Iran, and believe that war profoundly perpetuates civil repression.
Recent history has shown that the U.S. ratification of international laws does not prevent it from pursuing its expansionist project. For this reason, we do not rule out the possibility of a military attack on Iran. We recognize that transnational networks of power, including the media, corporations, fundamentalist movements, and non-governmental organizations, reveal the inadequacy of the "international" model. Therefore, we suggest an analysis that is attentive to the global phenomena that characterize the so called "war on terror."
It is clear to us that the post 9/11 crusade of the United States relies on a Manichean and colonial logic that situates "Western freedom and democracy" in opposition to "Islamic backwardness and tyranny." We resist such discursive binary constructions that reproduce colonial legacies, and instead locate these forms of knowledge-production within the gendered and raced global capitalist relations. We question the taken-for-granted notions of terror, freedom, democracy, and fundamentalism, by pointing to the contradictions that mark hegemonic usage of such tropes.
The current contributors of No War on Iran come from different disciplines and backgrounds. However, we are committed to the analytical approaches that we have highlighted above and strongly refuse to become complicit with discourses that legitimize war in the name of "liberty" and "democracy."
---
For a couple of weeks, I will be updating my blog less often. I have an important deadline and need to stay away from the world of blogging (or limit it to reading other people's blogs). I will probably post links to articles, but won't be writing much. That is if I can beat my blog addiction!

Can I have a receipt for my persecution, please?!

2005-02-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

A requirement in the "Real ID Act of 2005" requires many asylum seekers to provide supporting evidence from the very governments they are fleeing! Such an oxymoron...
Read ACLU's action alert about this bizarre legislation proposed by James Sensenbrenner, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman.
In today's NY Times, I read this Op-Ed by Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi. They have taken a human rights approach to express their opposition to war. It's good to see many people voice their opposition from different angles.

Mirror, anyone?

2005-02-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

The last time I checked, Mujahideen-e Khalq was a terrorist organization. Now it seems to be in alliance with the U.S.! Ironic, isn't it? We are fighting terrorism by sponsoring terrorism! But this is not news to us, is it now? Remember Taliban? Remember Mujahideen of Afghanistan? Yes, the U.S. gave them arms, money, and training. Fundamentalist Saudi Wahhabis (who by the way, with the help of Aramco had brought Al-e Saud to power in the first place), led by Bin Laden and trained by the CIA were sent to Afghanistan in the 80s to fight the Soviet forces. Was anyone concerned about the Afghani women then? But it was the Afghani women in whose name we legitimized the war in Afghanistan (and yes, we wanted to "smoke" Osama out!)
And now, is anyone concerned about the tyranny of which a brutal group like mujahideen-e khalgh is capable?
Really, who are we kidding? If we are after the terrorist states, shall I hold up a mirror now?

-----
This is a fantastic article by Samira about Bush's State of Union Address.

2005-02-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

Rumsfeld is pushing for the revitalization of nuclear infrastructure and has announced that he supports the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study. $10.3 million is being proposed in this year's budget to restart this study...
American Democracy is starting to sound a lot like hypocrisy!
Alireza has written about the Nuclear weapons and the decoupling of people and the state. Read it on No War on Iran.

Get the f... out!

2005-02-04T18:21:00.000-08:00

I just heard the Secretary of state, Rice, talk about the Iranian elections on the news. She said something about "people's right to choose" and the "basic principles" of election!!! Why is that all of a sudden, the U.S. finds it to be its business to interfere with the Iranian elections?! And the Bush administration should know better than telling others about the basic principles of "elections"!!! As they say in Farsi" deeg beh deeg migeh root siyaast!"
Alireza Doostdar has started a scrapbook on the No War on Iran weblog. If you want to post your photos with an anti-war message on the scrapbook, send them to info@nowaroniran.com.

Important matters

2005-02-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Not feeling too well does not help when one has so much to do. I wanted to go to As'ad Abu Khalil's talk, but by the time I got back to Berkeley from Palo Alto (a commute that is not very pleasant during the rush-hour traffic!) I was too tired to focus.
But I could not skip this post, as I cannot believe that I have not given a link to a very important group-blog yet. No War on Iran started its activity a couple of days ago. Alireza Doostdar, Niki Akhavan, Daryoush Mohammad Poor, and I are writing our thoughts about war on this group-blog. Alireza is an extremely bright person who came up with the idea of this blog and has done a great job with setting it up.
I wrote about Iranians for Peace on February 1st. Soon after it was launched, a lot of people started posting their articles and photography on this great group-blog. I am so impressed by the team-work of the members of both blogs. It gives me hope to see the dedication of these young Iranians.
Another important matter: A very dear friend of mine has asked me to put this call for help on my blog. One of her friends (T), was diagnosed by cancer and needs to have an operation. Here is the text of the email that another one of T's friends, Farshid, has written:
Over the years our Iranian community in the Bay Area has gotteninvolved with many good causes. We have helped many in need -- fromearthquake, tsunami, and poverty victims to individuals fighting withdiseases, all around the world.This time we have one of our very own who is in dire need of help. A32 year old, Bay Area professional Persian female, a kind andgenerous soul who always helps others unselfishly, and an old dearfriend to me personally, is now fighting an advanced thyroid cancerwhich has dangerously spread in her body. She has a 4 cm tumor inher neck that must be removed immediately by means of a complexsurgery in Stanford Hospital.Unfortunately she does not have proper medical coverage for theoperation, the cost of which is estimated to be $150,000. She is indesparate and immediate need of funds so that she can proceed withthe operation.We have an opportunity to help her get her life back. I am writingto ask for your help in this matter. I hope you will all join me inhelping her out. Your donation will be greatly appreciated. And Iam certain that your good deed will be returned to you before long.
If you like to get more info and details about this, you may contact one of the following people: Jamileh Mokhlesi, to_jamm@yahoo.com
Farshid Ketabchi, farshidk@yahoo.com
Thank you,
Farshid
---
I hope T feels better soon.

Ervand Abrahamian on War

2005-02-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

Here is Ervand Abrahamian's take on war. Abrahamian is one of the prolific historians of modern Iran and many people know him for his book of social history, Iran Between Two Revolutions.
I am overwhelmed with everything I need to do and that is why I am being lazy and just giving a link to this article.
oh, and another link: As'ad Abu-Khalil, is speaking in the Antiwar Forum at UC Berkeley tomorrow, Thursday, Feb 3rd, at 8 PM. The event will take place in 126 Barrows, UC Berkeley. If you haven't seen his blog, Angry Arab, you may want to give him a visit.
This is starting to feel like I am hosting a bulletin board!

February and new beginnings

2005-02-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Today is a new beginning for many things: A group of us who don't know each other beyond the world of blogging have launched a group-blog called "Iranians for Peace." Take a look at it here.
Another beginning: Tonight, the class I am teaching on "Women in the Muslim and Arab Worlds" begins. I am very excited about it. The registered students list looks very interesting. People from all different disciplines are registered for this class. I took this class myself as an undergraduate in 1993, not knowing that this class was going to be one of the turning points of my life. I was a Physiology major then, and on a mission to become a medical doctor. This class and other Women Studies courses made me re-think my career path, and taught me to think beyond formulas and equations. To my surprise, my women's studies courses were a lot more challenging than my chemistry, physics, and biology ones. This time, I actually had to read! I remember before being introduced to the field of Women Studies, I was surprised to know that people go to college to study "women!" As a tutor in math, biology, and chemistry, I had asked one of my regular student visitors at the tutoring center- a young woman who was pursuing Women's Studies- what could possibly be so intriguing about studying women? It took the accident of "requirements" for me to learn the answer to this naive question. "Women and the Politics of Citizenship" was my first Women Studies class (a rewuirement of sorts), and "Women in the Muslim and Arab Worlds" was just what I needed to be intrigued enough to take more and more Women's studies courses. I graduated with a B.S.in Physiology, but ended up working in women's organizations in San Francisco for the next six years, before I went back to school again and got my M.A. in Women Studies. Being an anthropologist in training now, does not take away from my loyalty to Women Studies. It feels good to be back to the department in which I have so many memories and have learned so much.
Now that I have bored you guys with my biographical post, let me give you something more interesting to read. Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, has written an article about civil liberties and the homeland security state. It is quite interesting. He writes,
"defenders of the new American police state emphasize that the government's new powers only apply to terrorists. This is disingenuous. The government decides who is a terrorist and does not need to present evidence to back its decision. The person on whom the arbitrary decision falls can be held indefinitely. This is a return to the pre-Magna Carta practice of executive arrest." Read the rest here.

---------------------P.S.
My advisor at Stanford who is on the organizing committee of an event called "From 9066 to 9/11: Community and Identity in Wartime America" , has asked me to circulate this flier. I encourage those of you who are in the Bay Area to attend this great event.

Iranians oppose military strikes against Iran

2005-01-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

"Washington, D.C., January 31, 2005 – The National Iranian American Council released today recent findings from a national letter writing campaign to President Bush on US-Iran relations, showing overwhelming opposition among Iranian Americans to U.S. military strikes against Iran...." This is from an email I got from NIAC today. Read the rest here.

Erecting Bush or calling Baghdad Bushdad

2005-01-31T13:38:00.000-08:00

In times of agony, laughter is the best therapy. Niki's post today was the much needed therapy. Niki (Letter N.) has posted this piece of news:
"The U.S. installed mayor of Baghdad, Ali Fadel, would like to erect a statue in the city to honor his boss, George W. Bush."
The witty Letter N. has suggested that Ali Fadel uses this image:

I think Niki's idea is brilliant, but as a second option, may I suggest to Ali Amrikaayee that he considers the following as a second option? Of course I understand that such important matters take precedence over water and electricity in Baghdad, so my suggestion is merely to facilitate the process of decision making by the much respected Iraqi provincial council! Here is my number two suggestion, after Niki's:

not again... and green home!

2005-01-30T13:25:00.000-08:00

As I was browsing the web this morning, I came across Shahram Razavi's images, which are mainly from Tehran. Most of the images depict buildings and streets from the north of Tehran and certainly leave out the other face of the city. Regardless, I find them very interesting. I have read and heard about the construction projects by wealthy Iranians who have close ties to corrupt bonyads, and I was imagining that some of the high-rises may have been built as a result of those projects. Many of the places in Shahram's photographs did not exist or did not look the same when I left Iran, right after the end of war with Iraq more than 15 years ago. After looking at these pictures, the thought of a possible U.S. attack on Iran and the damage that such an attack could cause to these municipal developments in Tehran, Ahwaz, Isfahan, and many other cities made me extremely angry.
It has taken many years for Iranians to recuperate from eight years of war (many have not recovered yet and are still suffering from the losses that the war imposed upon them). It won't be just these buildings that will be ruined and lost. After all, unlike what most of these magnificent images depict, Tehran is very much populated (and so are other cities and villages). It will be numerous lives that will be lost. But for those Iranians who may survive the "shock and awe" of U.S. "liberation" forces, a U.S. appointed/supported regime would also mean the loss of whatever rights they have gained in the last two decades in their struggle against the Iranian government.
It wasn't until after the end of the destructive war in 1989 that Iranian people got the chance to effectively challenge the government and make political changes -tasks which were practically impossible during the war. Similar to what we are witnessing here in the U.S. today, the urgency of war and the nationalist sentiments that often accompany territorial protection were used by the state to suppress voices of dissent. In fact many changes did not take place until after 1989, when the post-revolutionary government could no longer contain people's discontents. The government was held accountable to the people who had sacrificed so much during a long war that immediately followed the revolution.
Iranian people have constantly fought for their rights and have changed laws and policies. It may not seem that way to those who watch from the outside and may only get their news from mainstream media or from some Iranian Opposition groups in diaspora, who for some reason are frozen in their time of departure and have a tendency to see the Iranian state as a unified category. But regardless of such representations, the situation has drastically changed exactly because of Iranian people's struggles. Of course change cannot happen over night and the political atmosphere in Iran has had its ups and downs. People have risked (and continue to risk) a lot in their struggles. An attack on Iran will dismantle all their efforts. U.S. intervention may in some people's view be one step forward, but it will certainly be ten steps backward for many Iranians.
All the energy that is being spent on changes from within will be redirected to fight the U.S. occupation. I think despite their dissatisfaction with the Iranian government, many people would strongly oppose occupation forces. When I was doing fieldwork in Istanbul and was questioning people about their opinions on the Los Angeles-produced Iranian satellite television programs, I encountered an interesting reaction from many people who assumed that I was taking back their views to satellite television programs, or to the U.S. media. A young man who was traveling with his wife and was waiting for the bus to go back told me: "I am strongly against the Iranian government. But tell them [U.S. based satellite television producers] not to make mistakes. Young Iranians will be the first ones to step forward and defend their country if the U.S. attacks Iran. I will be the first one to defend my homeland." Another young man who seemed to have a very successful business in an expensive area of Istanbul told me: "I left Iran because my wife and I don't want to live under the current political atmosphere in Iran. But if the leader, with whom I am not happy at all, appears on national television and asks Iranian youth to go to the frontline to defend the country, I will be in Iran that very day!"
I don't want to analyze the masculinist language used by these two young man (and many others) who coupled the protection of territory with defending the honor of "our sisters and mothers." That is another discussion. But, I want to make the point that unlike what some people seem to assume, many Iranians will not remain quiet if the U.S. launches an attack on Iran; no matter how much they resent the Iranian government.
In any case, here is an image from Iran's Azadi Square (Freedom Square formerly known as "Shah-yaad" Square) which was the scene of many anti-Shah demonstrations in Tehran. The white walls of the monument were adorned/vandalized (depending on how you look at it!) by revolutionary slogans during the revolution years, and by patriotic and Islamic ones during the war years. They seem slogan-less now, but it's hard to say from this bird's eye view. I certainly hope that it does not have to see anti-occupation slogans, or worse yet, bear damages from U.S. bombs.

By the way, a friend encouraged me to visit Hooman's blog to read his thoughts about the possibility of U.S. attacks on Iran. That is where I found the link to Shahram's page.

Added at 2:55 P.M.:
David had asked me to post photos of my garden, so that those of you who are shivering in snow, can enjoy California's green, at least virtually! I don't have a garden, but I do have a patio and a backyard. I also share a courtyard with my neighbors. In general, it is a pretty green area.
Since I am having difficulties with the "Hello" software on my browser, I am posting them using yahoo Photos again. Let me know if you cannot see the pictures in the main post. The oranges are from my small orange tree on the patio. In my Berkeley album, the image titled "Sepeed" is one with my black cat, Sepeed, who is hiding under the tree. Good luck finding her!

Why do I write about war?

2005-01-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

I wrote this poem in 1999. Prop. 21 and 22 were California laws. The first criminalized youth and the second only recognized marriage between a man and a woman... and Clinton had attacked Iraq in 1998 under pressure from the National Security Council. This is, by the way, Clinton's "Iraq Liberation Act." Sounds eerily familiar today... Replace the "Q" with "N" and ...
I am digressing again. Here is the poem:

why do I write about war
when we all dream of peace
and sugar tastes so sweet
in our morning Coco-puffs
and halva tastes so sweet
in our multi-cultural neighborhood café
congested with
dotcoms-and-scent-of-chai-and-sound-of-music-and-delightful-conversations
about spiritual matters?
brown chocolate and creamy halva
blended in such harmony
its sweetness sticks your tongue to your palate
leaving you speechless.

why do I write about war
when the freedom to choose
keeps the fire going
yellow and red
like puss and blood
in a green woman’s torch?
and no…
the statute of liberty
doesn’t have to wear a veil
as she watches over the border
in a world you say is “without borders.”

why do I write about war
and why do I not dream of peace
and why do I not sleep?
...

maybe this is not a dream or a tale of love
maybe this is not a song for meditation
or music to your ears
and no,
bellies stuck to the bone
cannot belly dance.

tell me…
tell me in your dreams
do you see anything
but bombs
in the black eyes of the children
you once captured in snapshots
for your National Geographic?
the children you feel sorry for
and to whom you offer
hunger and death?

and yes..
how beautiful your harmony is
when hatred fills every vein
of your bloodless body
america!

I still write about war and I still yearn to write poems about love
I still yearn to write poems
between your bullets and blood
between detention and welfare cuts
between the sanctions and Props. 21 and 22.

I still yearn to write love poems
I still
love
love
love
beyond your hate
and is that my 3rd strike
america?

myopia

2005-01-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

"So when did the assault on Americans' civil liberties get jumpstarted? The current liberal establishment seems to deem 9/11 the chief catalyst. Many of the most loathsome specimens within the haughty club imply that drastic incursions on Americans' civil liberties only began after 9/11, while the Clinton Administration represented a civil liberties paradise." Read the rest here.
I finally downloaded "Hello" on my computer and am going to post some pictures that people can actually see this time! But before playing, I really have to read and clean my house.

"basketgirl"

2005-01-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

I was browsing Iranian blogs this morning and went through the popular events on weblogistan, using Damasanj (a tool similar to Blogdex). The 20th item on the list caught my attention. The title read (in Farsi): "Do you like basketball? What if instead of the ball, there was a girl?" I clicked on the link and this is what I saw. I was disgusted by the fact that nobody seemed to care about the woman who was thrown through the basket. She seemed to have hit her head against the metal rim, but the boys were too busy spanking each other on the ass to check on her and make sure that she was O.K. She had truely turned into an object, a ball to them.

War or Sanctions?

2005-01-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

David is one of the most responsive readers of this blog. He kindly leaves long and thoughtful comments, engages critically with my posts, and offers his own take on the issues that I raise. I want to respond to his last comment in the body of this post, because I think what he says is important enough (at least to me) to get its own post. Often there are points upon which many of us can agree, like being against Bush's domestic and foreign policies. And then, there are times when we don't agree. I think those are the times that we need to have discussions and delve deeper into the issues in order to have a productive dialogue . This is one of those times. David and I both signed a petition to which I gave a link in my last post. The petition is asking the U.N. to intervene and prevent a possible attack on Iran by the U.S. or its allies.
Here is David's comment:
"Sima, I signed the petition, too. I don't think that attacking Iran will accomplish anything positive. Diplomatic pressure and time are are what Iran needs, in my opinion. Iran is doing a lot of business with Europe and China. If Bush would only see the value of cooperation rather than alienation, significant economic pressure could be brought to bare on Iran's rulers. The Mullahs have become decadent and spoiled by their lavish lifestyles. I think that they value money more than ideology. For this reason, I think that they could be brought to heel if their gravy train were threatened."
I agree with david in that there are some elements in the Iranian government (I think without naming any names, many of us can think of some!) who continue to get richer, using their power and influence in both state and para-state apparatus (like bonyads). However, I think the sort of approach that sees economic pressure as the necessary strategy to bring Iran's Mullahs "to heel" relies on two sets of assumptions:
1. That the world has to heel to the U.S. (and that the U.S. should be in the position of holding moral and economic hegemony.)
2. That economic sanctions will hurt the "ruling mullahs."
I disagree with both. For one, I don't know why the U.S. assumes itself the paternal role in the world. I think many marginalized groups in the U.S. can attest to the fact that claims of equality and democracy in the U.S. do not mean much to them. There is much to be done here at "home." Perhaps before policing the world, the U.S. government can pay attention to the corruption among its own ranks and can fix some of these issues. And the problems are many: homelessness, gang violence, police brutality, drugs, violence against women and queers, deteriorating education, anti-immigrant laws and practices, poor healthcare, silencing voices of dissent on campuses, and the list goes on... I think we could agree that economic gains and geopolitical power, rather than genuine concern for human rights abuses, are what motivate the U.S. to intervene in Iran's affairs. Otherwise, there are plenty of human rights abuses in many parts of the world to which U.S. remains silent (Saudi Arabia and Egypt, just to bring a couple of examples, continue to be in this blind spot!). Let's not forget that many undemocratic regimes and groups have been backed up by the U.S. (Wahhabis and Taliban are two other examples of U.S. sponsorship of fundamentalist religious movements).
Secondly, I think economic pressure does not really hurt the "ruling Mullahs." It is often the ordinary people who suffer from these economic policies. Look at the case of Iraq and see how the sanctions killed so many people. That was diplomacy... as lethal as war. I doubt that Saddam suffered from lack of clean water or food during the sanctions! Thousands of children died as the direct result of sanctions in Iraq, prior to the "shock and awe" of March 19th, when U.S. bombs killed many more.
It is not just Mullahs who rule Iran; in our times, forms of governmentality have changed. Soveriegn nations no longer are "sovereign!" There are multiple networks of power to which we need to pay attention. Without going into a theoretical discussion, I'll just bring an example: Recently, Halliburton got a major gas contract in Iran, despite the sanctions!! Wasn't Cheney the Chair of this giant at one point? Now, let's see which Iranian voices are being shut down by U.S. companies becasue of the sanctions: ISNA, the Iranian student agency!! We shut down the only viable voices that can bring about change in Iran, in order to advocate democracy?!! It is O.K. to dig gas, but sanctions must be implemented when it comes to Internet technology? I think tightening sanctions can only hurt people who have been working towards change in Iran. Not to mention the misery and hunger that it would put people through (again, think of the way sanctions hurt people in Iraq).
I did sign the petition, as I said in that post, because I am strongly against war, be it in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other place for that matter. However, if diplomacy is going to mean sanctions, the way it worked in Iraq, I would ask the U.N. to back off and let the Iranian people be!
Peace,
Sima

Sanctioning Internet use

2005-01-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

It seems like the U.S. companies have started restricting access to Iranian Internet users. This seems to be the result of enforcing U.S. sanctions on Iran.
You can read about it in Hoder's blog. ITiran has an article about this subject in Persian.

Letter to the U.N.

2005-01-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

Here is an online petition that I've received through e-mail. It is drafted by a group called "Earthlings United." The petition is preempting a preemptive attack on Iran by asking the U.N. to intervene and prevent a possible war. I am very skeptical about U.N.'s role in some international circumstances. But for the sake of showing my opposition to war, I signed the petition. I am wondering where all these talks about possible attacks on Iran are going. But, let's hope that Bush does not start his second term in office with another war.

San Francisco Rally

2005-01-20T23:01:00.000-08:00

The rally in S.F. was not nearly as big as the one in Washington D.C. I joined a couple of friends and we marched from Civic Center to Embarcadero (I was really tired and the march felt really long!) Here are some pictures.
And here is my favorite dog at the rally! The name of his moneky, I was told by his owner, is George!

------------p.s. I took out the pictures from the body of the post, because on some browsers it only showed an empty frame. See pictures from the link above.

Dissent in the Age of Empire

2005-01-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the national day of protest against Bush's inauguration and I am posting another flash that the International Answer Coalition has produced. I don't necessarily agree with some of the internationalist agendas of this organization, but they have organizing power in the U.S. and this event is a coalition event. The short documentary is called "Dissent in the Age of Empire."
Here is the information about the San Francisco protest.

MLK's words

2005-01-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

I got this today and thought to share it with you. MLK's words on a flash that invites people to join the protest in response to Bush's inauguration. One interesting point I found is the way people constantly appropriate other's words and give them new meanings. In the vigil on Sunday, the Zionist organizers of the event had produced brochures that had a quote from MLK on the front page: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere." Who would argue with that? But the question becomes whose "justice?" They had named their event the "Rally against Global Terrorism." And again, who defines what terrorism is?
In any case, for the purposes of the protest against Bush's selection, I am posting this flash. If you're close to Washington, you may want to attend. I am for sure joining the protest in San Francisco.
Peace.

Postcards

2005-01-17T16:04:00.000-08:00

By the way, yesterday I got a series of postcards from Americans for a Palestinian State, which are designed to be sent to U.S. legislators. Here is the text of the card:

Dear Senator[...]

In view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict being a threat to World Peace, we request that all aid to Israel be redirected from the military and illegal settlements to the removal of the settlements and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, or a unitary state with equal rights for all. Both parties should observe all relevant U.N. resolutions and international laws. Please support S. RES. 276.

Sincerely yours,
Please print
Address
Phone
Email
----------------------
According to this organization, the financial cost of Israel for the American people is $155 Billion (direct aid and interest).
I think this campaign may be one way of helping the situation.

Film Festival at Stanford

2005-01-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

For those of you who live in the Bay Area, Stanford's Coalition for Justice in the Middle East & Muslim Student Awareness Network have sponsored a film festival in January and February. Should be informative.

Iraq Film Festival
Thursday, January 20 – Sunday, February 13

----------------
Thursday, January 20 7:30 PM BLDG.320-105: Generation X- Saddam

Preceded by Larry Everest, author of Oil, Power, and Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda, on “President’s Bush Agenda for Iraq & Beyond”

--------
Sunday, January 23 7:30 PM BLDG 200-034: Greetings from Missile Street

----------

Jan. 27, 7:30 PM BLDG 200-034 - Daily Baghdad

----------
Jan. 29, (Saturday) 6:30 PM BLDG 320-105 - About Baghdad (Introduction by Director Adam Shapiro)

------------
Feb. 3, 7:30 PM BLDG 200-034 - Downwind: Depleted Uranium Weapons in the Age of Virtual War (200-34)
------------
Feb. 6, 7:30 PM BLDG 200-002 - Paying the Price (to be preceded by panel – ‘Cost of War: Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq’)

------------
Feb. 10, 7:30 PM BLDG 200-034 - Outfoxed

------------
Feb. 13, 7:30 PM BLDG 200-034 - Control Room

Demonstration

2005-01-16T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today, Christians for Jews and Israeli Action Commitee displayed a bus that was bombed in Israel in a public Park in Berkeley. Middle East Children's Alliance called a silent vigil in response to this form of representation. I went to the vigil and took some pictures. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were on the sidewalk across from the park, where Israeli state proponents had gathered. After holding the picture of a Palestinian child who was killed (Samer Tabanja, 12 years-young. Killed on October 1st, 2000 in front of his home), I walked through the park and took some pictures from the posters on that side as well. One poster that drew my attention said "we provide you with everything you need to support Israel on the street!" There seemed to be a lot of plain-cloth agents on the Israeli side (the wired guy you see in the first picture from behind). On the pro-Palestinian side, there were a wide range of people: Jews for free Palestine, people who held rainbow flags, Women in Black, Not in Our Name, and people like myself who were not necessarily affiliated with any group, but had come for support. Seeing a group of Iranians at the vigil was very heart-warming. There were also a small group of pro-Israeli demonstrators who were shouting at pro-Palestinian folks, and as expected, a small group of people who were shouting back (I was very uncomfortable with some of the exchanges between these two groups).
In any case, I tried not to take people's faces and that's why most of the pictures have captured people from behind.
I also got a beautiful Palestinian paintings calendar from a friend. Visit the site and buy the art if you are interested. The money goes to palestinian artisist in Palestine.
And here is a poem from Suheir Hammad, which I posted on my Persian blog this morning. I will post it here as well:

By the river of Babylon...

2005-01-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the Guardian published this article about the damage to the site of Babylon as the result of war. Isn't it sad the way this war is destroying lives and history, both at such a fast pace? I guess it's not Ishtar who sits on the saddle of the lion, it is U.S. helicopters.
Here is the song, "al-atlal" (ruins) by Om Kalthoum...

-----------
P.S. This is an excerpt from a site about Om Kalthoum for those of you who are wondering what the song is about:
"'Al Atlal' (1966) is a particularly famous work from this period. The text is a love poem, but the words were commonly given other interpretations. Virginia Danielson writes: "Several of the climactic lines took on political meaning: 'Give me my freedom, set free my hands! I have given freely, I have held back nothing. Ah, how your chains have made my wrist bleed. . . .' In 1966, these lines were perceived by some as addressed to the repressive measures of 'Abd al-Nasir's government. After the Egyptian defeat of 1967, they took on a wider meaning, suggestive of the bondage in which many Egyptians felt the entire Arab world to be held." (Voice of Egypt, p. 180) The title itself translates as "The Ruins" or "The Traces." The piece draws heavily on Western classical music, but long stretches of it rock or swing with Arabic rhythms. Instrumentation includes a violin section, a prominently featured upright bass, and kanun. Though late in her career, Kalthoum's singing is quite powerful throughout this work, which is extremely dramatic even by her standards. Kalthoum's vocal delivery is relatively straight, with few obvious improvisatory digressions."

Pentagonexoneration!

2005-01-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

I was reading the Iranian and saw this bizarre article about Pentagon's proposed research to develop an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would provoke "homosexual behaviour among troops"! (enemy's that is!) I thought it was a joke and followed the link to the New Scientist article about this. Still not trusting my eyes, I searched the Sunshine Project, an organisation that exposes this kind of research. There I found the 1992 document about "Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals."
The top of page 2 in the pdf format (category # 3) made me laugh. I am still not sure about the accuracy of these documents, but if this is for real, whoever came up with this plan must be on crack! This is based on the bigotry that discharges gays and lesbians from military. Not that I am in favor of gays and lesbians being in the military in the first place... But my reason is mainly because I oppose the military industry all together, and not because I think that "homosexual behavior" will make the military "weak!" And to use "homosexual behavior" as a weapon? Give me a break! I guess this is much better than nuclear weapons on which the Pentagon is probably working. Maybe they came across a sticker on a car that said "make love not war!" and thought, "let's kill them faggots while they're making love!" Who knows... I am still thinking this is a joke, but if it's not... If it is not, bring it on! [p.s I meant the aphrodisiacs!!]
Seriuosly speaking, Pentagon's investigation of the Abu Gharib abuses of Iraqi prisoners resulted in the conviction of Charles Graner...
The word of the day, dear farangopolitans, which I've decided to add to my dictionary is: Pentagonexoneration!!
Have a peaceful weekend, my friends.

What is in a name?

2005-01-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

When I first started this blog not too long ago, many of the comments I received on my Farsi blog were in English and from people who encouraged me to use "Persian" rather than Farsi to refer to the language. The contestations over the name of the language in English are not unrelated to contestations over national identity and territory. Interestingly, many Iranians in Iran may not care whether you call them "Persian" or "Iranian," but it seems that the issue of naming has caused many debates among diasporic Iranians. Here is an interesting article that Roozbeh Shirazi has written for the Iranian. He doesn't talk about Riza Shah's change of the name (in English) from "Persia" to Iran, which took place in mid 1930s as a result of state's racial and national territorial agendas. Ironically, Riza Shah's Foreign Ministry argued that "Persia" had negative connotations in international arena, as the word evoked the "ignorance and weakness" of old Iran. "Iran," they argued, symbolized progress among other "civilized" nations (and they argued that Iran was the birthplace of Aryans). Ironically, this change of name to Iran was accompanied with a systematic "Persianization" and suppression of ethnic minorities by Riza Shah.
I think it is interesting the way names change their signification. It seems that the same kind of arguments are being made today, except that it is "Persia" and not "Iran" that holds the privileged position in this naming contest. And this, of course, has to do with the baggage that comes with "Iran"; from "axis of evil" to the "hostage crisis." After all, the violence that many Iranians experienced in 1980s made Persia a safer name than Iran (or Eye-ran!). Persia seems to take us to the times immemorial... to the glory of pre-Islamic Iran. In this journey back in time, however, big chunks of history seem to be falling into the swamps of amnesia...

Occupation, cats, and mice....

2005-01-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

"Trapped Like Mice: Palestinians under the New Israeli Disengagement Plan" is an interesting article about the game of numbers (it adds up to 47% after all, despite the claims of the "new map"), the continuous building of Israeli settlements, and living like mice under Israeli surveillance. Obayd Zakani's "Qasideh Moosh va Gorbeh" comes to mind:

گربه کرده است ظلم بر موشان

تا شده عابد و مسلمانا

سال یک موش می گرفت از ما

حال حرصش شده فراوانا

این زمان پنج پنج می گیرد

تا شده عابد و مسلمانا

Need I say more?

Sex change, Civil liberties pledge, etc.

2005-01-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

Before you read on: I just saw this survey about the Iranian diaspora in Canada. In case it applies to you...
Also, ACLU is asking people to take a pledge on Bush's inauguration day. The pledge is called "Refuse to surrender your freedom" and is in response to the Patriot Act, the attack on abortion rights, gay and lesbian rights, etc.
Now the sex change post:
A couple of days ago, I wrote a short piece in my Persian blog about sex-change surgeries in Iran and critiqued the reification of sexed and gendered binaries through the use of tropes such as "being trapped in the wrong body." I pointed to the history of this trope in the U.S. and questioned the "truth of sex" that it sought to establish. I was pleased to see that in today's Iranian.com, Afsaneh Najmabadi has eloquently written on this subject and has addressed the issue, using her expertise on the history of sexuality in modern Iran. Three years ago, I wrote a review of Farkhondeh Aghayee's book, jensiyat-e gomshodeh ("lost gender"), a psycho-social account of sex-change surgeries, in which the author perpetuates the view that transsexuals suffer from psych-sexual disorders. Since that time, the proliferation of the discourse on sex-change has enabled more and more surgeries to take place, which is a positive change for many Iranian transsexuals. This discourse, however, continues to construct non-heterosexual desires as "disease" and "abnormal." Sex change is legitimitized only as a way to fix "abnormal" desires. As such many forms of sexuality that remain outside of this naturalized heterosexuality continue to be marked as abnormal, deviant, and "sick." I think currently in Iran, medical, psychological, and religious discourses are coming together to produce and discipline the category of "do-jensi." While the discourse has proven to be productive in that it has given legitimacy to many transgenders in Iran, it also reconsolidates heterosexuality as the only legitimate form of sexuality. In any case, read Afsaneh's article and if you have any thoughts, let's discuss them here.

Good news: filtering updates

2005-01-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

I read these in the Iranian about the filtering situation in Iran:
January 11: "Third note:I'm writing again to update you on the filtering situation. This will most likely be my last update on the story, since everything seems to be back to normal, so to speak. [Petition to unblock Orkut]
Neda Network is back. Rumor has it that they refused to filter Orkut and that's why they had to close down briefly. Pars Online apparently never closed according to some, and was "plumbed" according to others.
People are just figuring out different ways to circumvent the filters and get to Orkut. One of the most effective ways to do it is to use Orkut's IP address instead of the regular URL, which would mean just typing http://64.233.171.85 in the address bar in order to reach the site. Of course, proxies could be used for the purpose too. There are a few guides on how to use proxies already on the web.
Most importantly, the rumors about the restriction of blog sites definitely don't seem to be true and only hype. Persianblog, blogger.com and the rest are all functioning as they always did. The filtering only concerns Orkut. >>> First & second note
-- Anonymous, Tehran"
[January 9]:
"Second note:Hi again,
I'm writing to update you on what I reported earlier about the crackdown. I've checked persianblog.com, and contrary to what the BBC is reporting, it is alive and well and living on the Iranian web shores. [See petition to unblock Orkut]
There are no updates on rumors concerning Pars Online and Neda, but this also might be of interest: Apparently, there has been a case made against [Vice President] Abtahi at the clerics' court ("daadgaah-e rowhaaniat") after he created the commission to investigate allegations of mistreatment made by arrested bloggers. This is also still a rumor, but the difference is that Abtahi himself has claimed having heard about the case.
I'll attach two screenshots [from my computer monitor in Tehran] of the now filtered Orkut as well as the filtered petition site.
First note:Thought you'd want to know that there are rumors of a major Internet crackdown over here. Orkut has definitely been filtered "be dastoore ghovveye ghazayie", Neda.net is not working anymore (though according to the company itself, it's only for 24 hours), Pars Online has been "plumbed" ("polomb!") this morning according to another rumor, and so on.
Weblogs haven't been filtered (yet?), neither is iranian.com -- at least not on the ISP I'm using. People can still get on Orkut if they use the secure version of the site (by using https for every page they're trying to retrieve), but apparently, there's a way to filter that as well.
-- Anonymous, Tehran"

The drama of elections in the Middle East

2005-01-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

The elections in Palestine seem to be coming to an end. Alrhought the results won't be official until Monday, it seems like Mahmoud Abbas has won the elections. The mainstream media news is full of narratives about the prospect of peace and democracy. This is another view which I found interesting.
And this is an article I read in ProgressiveTrail.org today. The author, Dahr Jamail, makes an analogy between U.S. troop increases in Vietnam war and the recent increases in Iraq. He says, it was called escalation then, it is called elections now...
I read in another article today that the U.S. support for Tsunami so far equals a day and half of the cost of War in Iraq. Sigh...
And finally, I received an email from MECA (Middle East Childrens' Alliance) about a silent vigil in Berkeley on January 16th. If you are a Bay Area resident, you may be interested in this.
On a happier note, Joojeh Kabob was lovely and Sanam seemed to be doing great.

Between a rock and a hard place: secular Muslim

2005-01-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

Oops, I've done it again.... Not in the Britney sense, but in the sense that I am posting a long comment here as a post again! I am not an engineer and not tech. savvy at all, so please bear with me until I learn how to send my long posts to another vitual place, as hyper-text. I guess I need to get my own domain in order to do that. No? I'm not sure.
I am back home, on the “hot seat” behind my computer. It is raining outside and in this cold weather, sitting on this hot seat is actually not bad at all. Although I don't know why my cat, Sepeed, has decided to go out cruising in this rain!
Pantea-ye aziz, I am not sure what in my posts makes you come to the conclusion that I “believe in Islam.” If by believing you mean that I am a follower, then no. If you mean that I believe that Islam is a reality of many people’s lives today, then yes. I think I have tried to explain by using anecdotes, and through a simplified explanation of performative identities, what I mean by being a Muslim. I am not going to repeat what I have said in my last two posts and comments, but let me just bring examples, through which I may be able to make myself more clear.
A friend of mine, an Iranian queer woman, always takes issue with my claims to Muslim-ness. She grew up in a very religious family, which wasn’t quite the case for me. Although my mom became born-again Muslim before the revolution, soon after the revolution she became less religious, because unlike others in my immediate family, she was a Shah advocate! (She was religious, but not in favor of the Iranian regime, which is the case for many Iranians). In any case, my family came from all kinds of political inclinations and as I have said before, I ended up becoming a leftist at the age 11. I was even expelled from school in the 7th grade, because I took “Tarikh-e donyaye Qadeem” to my Islamic Knowledge (Ma’aref-I Islami) class in order to prove to my teacher, a “hezbollahi” woman, that there was no God (I tried to do this through the Darwinian evolution theory!) Thanks to “party-baazi” of a relative who taught in that school, I was re-admitted with a permanent red mark on my school file! So, I too, have occupied the subject-position of an “atheist” at some point in my life. But, saying that I am a Muslim does not mean that I have repented, brainwashed, or that I am a “believer.” I say I am a secular Muslim because I come from a part of the world, where Islam has had a significant cultural influence (as a joke, I always use the example of my beloved Aftaabeh. But that is a joke, people. Don’t start sending me comments arguing that Aftaabeh is an Iranian invention and not an Islamic one!) In any case, because of my positioning as a diasporic subject in a Christian-dominated location (and we can talk about how religious the U.S. is, despite all its claims to secularism), I have found myself in a position of being interpellated as a Muslim and also in the position of being denied my history. In the 15 years I have been here, I have encountered so many different ways of being fixed into rigid stereotypes and subjected to many instances of being required to prove my “authenticity.” From, “but you don’t look Iranian, where is your veil or long hair?” to “Oh, I should have guessed that you don’t drink alcohol and you don’t eat pork, because you are a Muslim.” This last one coming from an anthropologist who specializes in a Middle Eastern country (I guess after all, not all anthropologists are that smart, huh? One point for engineers, Mo! :-)). [By the way, let me digress for a moment. I take issue with social sciences and humanities being excluded from the realm of being “scientific.” Back to my story now…]
I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t eat bacon, not because I practice Islam, but because I have stomach problems, and because I was a vegetarian for 13 years (I just started eating meat again, due to health issues... And joojeh kabab is my favorite now!). Believe me, eating bacon and drinking alcohol are the least of offenses that would have made me into a kaafar in some people’s eyes! That is why my queer friend objects to me: “but how can you be a Muslim?” Well, that is exactly what I am trying to complicate! “Being” vs. “becoming.” This is my point about questioning essentialist notions of identity. "Being a Muslim" does not just mean one thing and does not remain the same. As David has put it, identities are not immutable. So, my Muslim-ness in Iran has a very different meaning than my Muslim-ness here in the U.S. I am constantly becoming, as we all are. We are subjects in making. My Muslim-ness now is contingent upon the transnational discourses on Islam and my geographic, political, and cultural positionality in relation to these discourses.
Now, why do I not approach Sura Nisa (Nesaa)? Because there are many different forms of feminism and I do not have the same approach as the feminists who try to re-interpret Islam. Many Women who live under Muslim laws have taken up this approach, either for strategic reasons and the immediacy of the issues they deal with, or because they believe in Islam as their faith and are negotiating a legitimate space for themselves in patriarchal settings (remember the recent discussion about the meaning of “rijal” in Iran?) Mernissi, for example, questions the whole notion of “sacredness” of the text, pointing to the political and economic issues that were at stake after the death of the prophet of Islam in Ad 632. In a sense, she questions the history written by male elites and without refuting Islam, points to relations of power in the formation of a patriarchal Islam (this would require a long discussion, so if you are interested, read Mernissi’s The Veil and the Male Elite). Now, it may be the anthropologist in me, but I do think that rather than whole-sale rejection of a theory or concept, we can take pieces from it and develop new ways of approach, a bricolage, in anthropological terms. So, there is no way I can tell you, Pantea, “exactly" what being a "Muslim" or being "Secular" mean. They have different meanings in different locations and times (I witnessed a very interesting version of it when I was doing fieldwork in Istanbul last summer, for instance). “Exactly” is an impossibility in my view. We can only get near, get close to meanings, as they always shift and are deferred (the “excess” that I was referring to in my last post).
Dear David, I hope I have to some extent answered to your comment. Let me say that print actually enabled the massive distribution of the bible, as the first thing that was produced through what Benedict Anderson calls “print capitalism.” Also, I have added two new books (not available yet, but forthcoming) to the side bar. The one by Minoo Moallem talks about fundamentalism as a modern phenomenon. Elsewhere, Moallem has shown how egalitarian feminism and Islamic fundamentalism share many principles and histories. Both, she argues, are engaged in a crisis of rationality and identity (again, she is not talking about all forms of feminism, but egalitarian feminism). I would highly recommend her new book to those who are interested in the subject. The one by Afsaneh Najmabadi talks about the masquerade of homo-eroticism in modern Iran. It is also a fantastic re-writing of history.
--------------------
On a different note: In my Persian blog, I had written about my friend's finch, Sanam, who became very sick when my friend was away. While Sanam was in the hospital, we found out that "she" had been a male bird all along! (It's hard to tell their sex when they are babies. My friend has had Sanam for four years, thinking that she was Sanam Khanoom!) In any case, I just got a call from my frined. Sanam is doing better and is back home. To celebrate, I am going over there for lunch tomorrow. We are having joojeh kabob!! Sanam's name remains Sanam and her owner has decided that she will still see sanam as a female bird. Sanam and Julio, her male cage-mate, are apparently all over each other! I thought that was funny :-). What can I say.... Performativity of gender and the discursiveness of sex!
--------
Post-script: Isn't it saddening when someone removes you from their list of links when you disagree with them on something? I guess I need to become "poost-koloft" and get used to being "de-linked!"

on identity...

2005-01-07T13:34:00.000-08:00

The last post was an interesting experience for me. I wasn't quite surprised by the comments, yet it was interesting to see the reaction from two seemingly opposing sides: Those who reject religion as a rational way of answering questions of modern times, and those who seem to be religious and refer to Qur'an in order to answer to today's social issues. Their approaches may be different, but there seems to be a consensus between the two sides (well, I only had two people who voiced their concerns in this oppositional manner, so really by "them," I mean the two sides who saw my statement about being a secular Muslim as paradoxical. By no means am I attempting to generalize their views to the bloggers in Weblogistan. Of course there was also another person who went beyond the either/or binary). "How can one be gay and Muslim?" "How can one be a feminist and a Muslim?" The multiplicity of one's identity seemed to be seen as an oxymoron. More dichotomies were created in the course of this long discussion. Science became opposed to religion, mathematical reasoning took the privileged status.
Here are my post-discussion thoughts and some explanations that may be helpful in shifting this discussion to another level:
When I put forward the idea of being a secular Muslim feminist, the first question came from a friend who was interested to know what my interpretation of Sura Nesaa was. I said in my comments that interpreting Qur'an is not my expertise. I think there needs to be a clarification: there is a difference between being an Islamic feminist and being a Muslim feminist. The former is interested in re-negotiating Islamic laws and operates within those laws, the latter may not even practice Islam, but uses her/his Muslim identity to refer to being implicated in a culture that has historically and politically been informed by Islamic discourses. So, when I say I am a Muslim feminist, it doesn't necessarily mean that I am religious.
But a more important issue that I am going to address here, is the way one is asked to choose between being a feminist and accepting Islam. While I do not consider myself to be an Islamic feminist, I still do think that Islamic feminism is legitimate, as neither Islam, nor feminism are monolithic categories. It is only when one tries to fix Islam and feminism by rigid definitions that the possibility of Islamic feminism becomes paradoxical (or halted).
So, when I say that I am a secular Muslim feminist, one of my goals is to destabilize categories that are often defined as exclusionary. We all use identities to represent ourselves in one way or another. One may see he/his career as an important part of her/his identity. Another may use something else as a way of representing her/himself. We use our identities as a way of REPRESENTING ourselves. This means that we are not inherently something or another, but are always a representation of something that itself is a representation. So, when I say I am a Muslim secular woman, none of the three parts of this identification is fixed. Muslim has multiple meanings, so does secular, and yes, so does woman. All of these are discursively defined. They have different meanings in different times and locations and become meaningful according to discourses that are available in specific historical junctures. By this, I don't mean that we can pick and choose freely from what we want, as if identities are free-floating. No. We are often defined by dominant discourses (be it discourses of gender, race, religion, science, etc.) and as Althusser would say it, we are interpellated by these discourses (although Althusser used "ideology" and not "discourse"). Yet, we are not without agency either. We are subjected to these discourses and become subjects of these discourses through what Butler, using Derrida would call "performativity." That means we occupy the available subject position of being a "man," a "woman," "Muslim," or "queer," and then through repetition, we make these into identities. So in a sense we consolidate these hegemonic discourses, but at the same time we shift them, because in every repetition, that womanhood, or manhood, or Muslim ness, or queerness, moves a bit further than what it was before. There is always an excess. So, while we may not quite transgress these hegemonic discourses (as we are subjected to them and implicated in them), these discourses do not remain the same. They do employ disciplinary apparatus to produce subjects (who are law-abiding, religious, etc. etc. depending on which discourses are dominant at the time), but this doesn't mean that we are docile subjects and that these discourses remain fixed. that would be depressing, no?
O.K. this post is getting too long, but let me just add one other thing: Islam and modernity are not mutually exclusive. I think there are plenty of examples that can attest to this.

From Islamic movements to queerness

2005-01-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

O.K. I am posting another long response to a comment, in the main body of this post. If I am disrespecting blogging etiquette, I apologize. But disrupting conventions is not always bad either. Besided, I think this subject deserves to have a discussion of its own.
Here is my response to Ahmadreza, who has kindly engaged with me in a discussion about anti-Arab sentiments and queerness. his comment is under my last post...
I don't disagree with you about the anti-Islamic base of anti-Arab sentiments in the U.S. (and elsewhere) today. yet, anti-Arab sentiments have histories according to their context. Among Iranians, it is actually connected to the Arab conquest of Iran and its traces go back to Ferdowsi's poetry (Kathryn Babayan in her Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs has an excellent chapter on this "Persiante ethos"). Many Iranians, of course, also become complicit with anti-Arab sentiments that are prevalent in the "West" and are connected to the Orientalist discourses that people like Edward Said have critiqued. The anti-Arab sentiments that we witness in the U.S. today, also have their links to the post-WWII ways of governmetality and "civilizational thinking" of likes of Huntington, whose Manichean rhetoric is echoed in Bush's crusade. The Islamic movement, which you refer to, however, is vague to me. Islamic movements have their specific histories in diffferent locations and different times. As Tim Mitchell has shown, some of these movements (such as Muwahhidin in Saudi Arabia) have not been in opposition to U.S. expansionism, but very much complicit with it.
My point is that anti-Arab sentiments among diasporic Iranians are contingent upon historical events. The same goes with hegemonic Anti-Arab sentiments in the U.S. Yet, this does not mean that these sentiments discriminate when it comes to targeting Muslims- or people who are from parts of the "Muslim world" (many queer Arabs were bashed after september 11... No one cared if they were "practicing" or not! Many Sikhs were killed, no body cared that they were not Muslim!) This was also demonstrated when many Iranians in Los Angeles were arrested during "special regstration" processses. I recall that many Iranians attempted to distinguish themselves from Arabs, by saying that "we are not terrorists, they are!" Unfortunately, it seems like there is a lot to be learned about coalition-building in the face of anti-Muslim, anti-Middle Eastern hatred.
But, let me go back to the issue of Islam and homosexuality. I believe that there are many forms of Islam. Who am I to say that "this is Islam, and the other is not!" Some feminists, like Fatima Mernissi have argued for different interpretations of Islam, while some queers, such as members of Al Fatiha have reinterpreted Qur'an's Sura, Lut. Now, you can call that a "sin," but you will be surprised to know that they even have Imams among them here in the U.S. They practice Islam fully and observe all its principles (some are Sunni, some Shia).
For me, Islam is something I grew up with. My mom, a born-again Muslim, took private Qur'an lessons before the revolution, as I sat next to her, listening to her teacher, Mr. Atashkaar, who was a talabeh at the time. It was then that I added divinity school to the long list of occupations that I wanted to be when I grew up! Of course, being a doctor, a lawyer, and an engineer were on the top of the list. I never did any of that. I ended up becoming an anthropologist and a feminist instead! Like many teenagers, I was also exposed to Islam's teachings as a "child of revolution." I was a "joojeh" leftist, and my mom never attempted to force me into practicing Islam. Yet, Islam in America took a different signification for me. At times, I was interpellated as a Muslim, by default. At other times I defended it in a political gesture against fundamentalist Christians or fundamentalist Zionist jews.
In any case, Islam in its different forms has been a part of my becoming and my identity. I do not practice it, but consider it as a fragment among many fragments that constitute me as who I am. I consider myself to be a secular Muslim woman, and frankly, I do not see a contradiction in this iteration. Is this the Islam that you believe in? Probably not. Is it one that you can tolerate? I certainly hope so, because I am willing to tolerate you, my friend. Am I a liberal? Not a chance! I have had my disillusionment with tenets of liberalism. However, I certainly hope that we can accept criticism from each other without hostility. I do believe in coalition politics and that is very much needed in these times.

Sacred profanities

2005-01-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

This post started as a response to a comment below, where Alireza Doostdar has problematized Iranian.com's "nothing is sacred" slogan. Since my response became too long, I decided to make it into a post:
It was in fact this slogan that initially incited me, some time ago, to object to a cartoon on the pages of Iranian.com which had angered me. In my response to that cartoon, I questioned the way "freedom of speech" had itself become the untouched "sacred," while enabling hate speech. However, later I came to appreciate the possibilities that this idea of questioning anything and everything sacred that Iranian.com's slogan suggests. To me, this slogan means that one can question many notions that are assumed to be "sacred" and remain untouched by many diasporic Iranians. This includes things like the "freedom of speech" (or an abstract notion of "freedom" for that matter), nationalism, heterosexuality, "democracy," "Iranian-ness," and many other issues that people often take for granted and don't think about when they say "sacred." Unfortunately, however, more often than not, it is the hegemonic discourses that easily find their way into the pages of Iranian.com. I just wished that more people would write and challenge some of these taken-for-granted idea(l)s. Even though, Mo has rightly encouraged me to ignore people such as the author of the satiric piece to which I had referred in that post[Muslim fags], unfortunately, I think likes of Baniameri are many. Besides, if we accept, in an Austinian way, that to say things is to do things, then we have to admit that the performativity of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-queer hate-speech does in fact have material effects.
Again, I wish more people would write to create an alternative space of dialogue on the Iranian.com, since it is the largest diasporic Iranian online magazine (and I know that Jahanshah Javid is open to posting those writings as well). But, I also know that we choose our battles and that the academic Fordism in the U.S. doesn’t allow many of us, students of humanities and social sciences, whose work should include cultural critique, to write in response to pop culture. But, writing for (and in response) to popular culture, is perhaps another way to destabilize the binary of “sacred” and “profane.” By giving weight to the profanity (or “vulgarity”) of popular cultural forms such as Iranian.com or blogs (as you [Alireza Doostdar] have eloquently written about), one can challenge the sacredness of the “high culture,” and question the assumed profanity of the “low culture.” It is the “high culture” that many Iranian intellectuals seem to insist on preserving, not wanting to admit that all sacredness is already contaminated… That, I think, is the beauty of life: its paradoxes and its impurity. I am digressing again! In any case, I hope that we take this “nothing is sacred” at its face value and question the sacredness of the “sacred,” whatever that may be.

Philosophers for Tsunami

2005-01-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

For those of you who live in the Bay Area: The proceeds of Javad Tabatabai's lectures will go to the victims of the December 26 Tsunami. A good way to help.
Here is the email I got today:
Seminars by Javad Tabatabai, prominent Iranian philosopher.

To get more information on the seminars and Dr. Tabatabai please check:

http://www.geocities.com/berkeleypersianlectures

Please note change of location.

The proceeds of the seminars will go to the victims of Tsunami disaster.

The funds will be given to Doctors without Borders through “Iranian Society for Human Rights in Northern California” who are exploring fundraising activities to help in this catastrophe. To help in their efforts please contact koshesh@aol.com

The seminars will deal with current social, economic and political crises of Iranian society. Based on his new research on Iranian history, Dr. Tabatabai will discuss the principle of a new approach to the perennial problematic issues of the Iranian civilization.

Seminars are given in Persian language.

Date: Saturday, January 8, and Sunday, January 9, 2005

Time: 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM
2:00 – 4:30 PM

Place: Language Studies International2015 Center StBerkeley, CA 94704

The two days of seminars are related but do cover different topics and may be attended separately.
Fee for each day is $75.00 (Students $50.00)

Sorry for the short notice. Space is limited. If you are interested, to reserve space,
please send an e-mail to: berkeleylectures@yahoo.com

Muslim fags

2005-01-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a cafe, working on a course syllabus. I have had no electricity since yesterday morning. Even though I started the new year in the dark, I tried to have a good attitude and look at the bright side- at least for the first week of the year! That was until I saw this. I love Iranian.com and admire Jahanshah Javid for being able to maintain this fantastic online magazine despite all the strange material he receives. I often read and move on when I'm annoyed by an article, but there are times like this when I cannot take it any longer and have to say something. No matter how strongly one disagrees with suicide bombing, I find it appalling when in an attempt to condemn it, one subscribes to hegemonic representations of Arabs and Muslims. Baniameri's article not only others Muslim men, but also targets queers by using homophobic and hateful language. His satire is a distasteful repetition of the famous "hijack this fag"- only this time written on pages of a cyber magazine rather than on a physical bomb. How many times have we heard the stereotypical pathologization of Muslim men that uses the narrative of virgins and its psychological implications- a knowledge that is informed by post World War II terrorism studies and has established itself as "scientific truth"? How many times have we seen homophobic men use references to anal penetration in order to belittle others? Can one be more creative in her/his critique or satire and move away from cliche stereotypes?

Happy New Year

2004-12-31T17:28:00.000-08:00

I wish you all a great year to come. Happy 2005.

Exilic candidate for Iranian elections!!

2004-12-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

This is the funniest email I have received in a long time! My eyes are still teary from laughing. ouch, my ribs hurt! You've got to read this.... Before you read on, you should know that this person has sent me several emails, saying that Iranian women in Iran are lazy monsters who are oppressing their husbands... Just a bit of background!
"Man shoma ra nejat khaaham daad, no englees, no amrica
I shall rescue you, not the British nor American imperialism

Are we all aware that Khatamy has invited Iranians in exile to put their names forward as candidates for the next presidential elections in Iran?

I am and so I have decided to throw my hat in the ring and declare myself a candidate to be the next president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and here is my Manifesto.

(1) As the president of Iran I will revolutionise the Education System so as to make gentlemen of Iranians who choose to join it; for a decent education system must be proactive and enable today's children, tomorrow's adults constituting society, to think for themselves and stand on their own two feet and provide for themselves, instead of looking out and up to the State to provide for them.

(2) Iranian Education System will deliver gentlemen/women to Iranian society and world stage as of the day one of my presidency. No Iranian will ever again consider him/herself inferior to English, American, French, Italian men and women. They shall see themselves as equals to all Western men and women and behave as equals with them when coming into touch with such men and women from the West.

(3) New Education System in Iran will ensure children and adults are able to distinguish friends from foes; will appreciate good from evil; will acknowledge good deeds and promote not only good deeds but also people who act them out.

(4) New Education system of Iran will teach by means of personal experience and will not learn / know anything unless seen, tasted, felt, known by physical experience, and will denounce any kind of learning by rote.

(5) Children will be brought up free from fear of any kind. Parents will be punished severely if they use any kind of psychological or physical threat or abuse against their children.

(6) Children will learn to respect their neighbours and never trust foreigners about whom they know nothing. Having mutual respect for one another, peer groups, class mates, neighbours, work colleagues, and other fellow Iranians shall be the cornerstone of the New Education System, by means of which all social skills such as odaabe moasherat va lozoome gozardan e ehteraam be deegaran e hamnoo shall be taught and learned.

(7) I will eradicate unemployment in Iran using the same resources available to the current govt of Iran; and I will guarantee a well paid job to any Iranian which is born anywhere in Iran and all jobs shall be well paid, and include perks such as long annual holidays etc.

(8) I will provide a home / roof over head for every single Iranian that lives in Iran and therefore is entitled to a decent home. My policy would be Home for Heroes, as Iranian people are heroes and have put up with a lot in the last 26 years under the inefficient Islamic Republic.
Homes shall be big enough to accommodate all members of family quite comfortably.

(9) Free Health care will be provided for all Iranians throughout the country and shall include dental care, optical and care for ear, nose and throat.

(10) Income Tax will be abolished categorically and completely, and redistribution of income shall not be allowed under no circumstances.

(11) All foreign politicians residing in Tehran, as well as foreign advisors to Khatamy and his cabinet shall be dismissed immediately and removed from the Country as soon as possible.

(12) All foreign employees of the govt and various institutions within and without Iran will be dismissed, and their jobs will be offered to Iranians with a decent salary.

(13) Training for doing all kinds of jobs will be provided by the govt free of charge for all employees without exception.

(14) Universities of the Country will become centres of search and analysis on a global basis so as to provide advisors and experts on international relations and domestic issues and policies for the govt and its executive personnel.

(15) Learning of all languages spoken by the people of the planet earth will be compulsory for pupils, students, trainees and applicants for various posts in the country.

(16) One of my main objectives would be to establish an Institute of spoken and written languages on the planet earth, which will have branches in every nook and corner of Iran.

(17) Creating, building and establishing an infrastructure for the Publishing business and industry will be another one of my main objectives as the president of Iran.

(18) All publishing business and industry shall be nationalised and their employees shall be considered govt employees; and all books, pamphlets, periodicals written and produced by Iranians in Persian language shall be published and distributed throughout Iran by the nationalised publishing industry.

(19) Price of buying books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, magazines shall come down dramatically in order to encourage Iranians to become readers, researchers and seekers after knowledge and information.

(20) All land belongs to God and therefore I shall nationalise all and make it impossible for the crooks, estate agents, and besaazo beforooshha to do as they wish with the valuable and rich land of Iran. All people who earn their living via these means shall be employed by the govt according to their skill and inclinations, guaranteeing a good wage / salary to them so as to make sure they will not become impoverished and anti-state.

(21) My slogan in this election will be: Homes are to live in, not to make money out of. And so selling homes in which one lives for profit will become illegal.

(22) All homes will be owned by the State and no trading / transaction respecting them shall be allowed; this policy will be a national one so as to encourage Iranians to be fruitful and earn their living by the sweat of their brow, instead of what they now are: parasites which live off the wealth and produce of others.

(23) Earning your living by possessing land or homes will no longer be possible; since I shall guarantee a well-paid job to all Iranians, there should not be a need for such preposterous acts which has resulted in sucking the blood of fellow Iranians; the culprits must learn to live off the sweat of their brow; work to earn their living, instead of possessing lands in the middle of nowhere and selling it for a fortune to desperate Iranians. A crime which Ayatulla Haashemee y Rafsanjaanee is also guilty of, and should be punished for, as soon as I become president of Iran.

(24) All loans from foreign banks and IMF shall be returned to the loan-givers in order to ensure a free and independent govt. Particularly IMF loan must be returned and all future loans from such loan-sharks must and shall be forbidden and resort to such illegal acts shall be considered a treason, if any body in the govt decides or chooses to borrow from foreign authorities.

(25) IMF and World Bank and all similar imperialist institutions do not have Iran's best interest at heart when they agree to give a loan to Iran's govt. And so whoever chooses to go for such loans must be considered a traitor and his or her doings will be treason and punishable by death.

(26) Iran under my presidency will not be interested in joining any Imperialist institutions including World Trade Organisation, whose prime objective is to suck the blood of people of 2nd and third world, so as to make the big business and the rich in the West even fatter and richer.

(27) Any cabinet minister who is to blame for Kaser budget / budget deficit shall be dismissed, arrested and imprisoned immediately and if found guilty of gross misconduct shall be subject to summary execution.

(28) Under my presidency people of Iran will not be punished for unprofessionalism and inefficiencies in the Cabinet or govt. The responsible member for Kasre Budget shall pay for it with his own money, time and energy.

(29) Under my presidency prices of goods and food stuff will not go up under no circumstances; let alone because of Kasre Budget for which Cabinet Ministers alone are responsible.

(30) UN's declaration of Human Rights shall become the law of the land in Iran. Also UN decration of rights for women and children.

(31) All economic rights declarations by the UN shall be studied carefully and if found to be useful for the nation of Iran, shall be implemented immediately so as to enable Iranians to abide by them.

(32) Iran will be a democracy and so the highest authority and power in the land of Iran will be Majles Shouraye Islamy, in order to achieve the ideal of govt by the people for the people.

(33) In order to make Majles representative of all Iranian people, I will encourage Majles to change the Constitution and provide for every 50,000 people to send one representative to the Majles in order to voice their needs, opinions and wishes and make sure it is heard.

(34) Shouraye Negaban will be advised to strengthen their power-base in Iran by electing their members by means of general elections: so that their existence cannot be questioned by anyone inside and outside Iran.

(35) I will advise Majles to insert in the amended Constitution that Shoraye Negahban is no different to the American Senate, and its existence is a must in a democratic Iran.

(36) In order to strengthen Shouraye Negahban, I will ask Majles to amend the Constitution to include the need for Shouraye Negahban to be representative of all Iranian people and so it must have one delegate from amidst every one hundred thousand Iranians.

(37) Rahbare Engelab or Ayatullah Khameneye shall remain in his post as the highest authority; just as the Queen of England is the highest authority in the UK; that is, he will give advise, assurance, criticism, guidance; and his signature will be required before bills can become laws by which all Iranian people must abide.

(38) The rule of law throughout the country will be a MUST and no one, regardless of how great or small they are, shall be allowed to consider him/herself above it.

(39) President and its cabinet shall be executive arm of the govt (goveh y mojreeye) and act within the laws enacted by the Majles Shoraye Islamy. Cabinet ministers who refuse to abide by this constitutional law shall be dismissed and imprisoned for at least one year.

(40) Moral values will be adhered to quite stiffly; so all pedophiles and abusers of children and young adults shall be executed summarily. Anyone accused of child molestation, incest, rape, sexual harassment and / or any kind of sexual and physical abuse of others shall be arrested, imprisoned; and become subject to summary execution.

(41) The right of people to go about their business freely throughout the country shall be guaranteed; and abuse of no kinds in this respect shall be tolerated.

(42) Freedom of dress is tolerated, as long as men and women of Iran are prepared to respect their fellow countrymen, by not appearing before them in any immodest and outrageous shape or form. That is, wo/men can dress as they wish, but they will not be allowed to expose their private parts in public; meaning no one can walk the street of Iran in mini skirts or in topless clothes.

(43) The slogan Azaady e man dar jaayee khatm meeshavad ke Azaadee deegaran dar onja shoroo meeshavad will be adhered to. That is, wo/men must dress modestly for the sake of respecting other people's freedom not to have to set their eyes on things they do not wish to see in public places and in wider society.

(44) Foreign Relations: There can be no relations with the West unless govt of Iran agrees to consider itself below and subservient to it. Therefore speaking of relations with countries such as England, USA, France, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain is absurd. For as far as these countries are concerned Iran is a "savage" and "uncivilised" country and they are coming to "reform" and "civilise" it according to their own understanding of these terminologies. While Iranians are a nation which is considered to be the super race on the planet earth. Iranians are the true Aryans, whether the English govt likes it or not; and so, I as the president of Iran will not accept anything less than being the super race, above the Anglo-Saxon race. Iran and all 3rd world countries are indeed the civilized nations and countries; it is the West, American and the English who are uncivilised and must start reforming and civilizing themselves.

(45) And so, there will either be no relations with the West, or the West will have to consider Iran an equal partner and an equal player on the world stage. My govt will not allow any Western govt to get away with forcing Iran into a subservient position in relation to the West.

(46) Before starting any negotiations with the West, I shall ask it to refund, reimburse and return to Iran all the frozen assets belonging to Iran (since 1979) and in which govts in the West have been having a free hand for the last 26 years. It shall be, for the West, payback time when I become the president of Iran.

(47) For as long as every penny and every cent of all frozen assets belonging to Iran has not been returned to Iran, there can be no relations with any Western power or "allies". I shall force Tony Blair and George Bush to respect Iran's Govt and Nation as equals to their own govt etc.

(48) Iranian army shall be trained and mobilised fully so as to be able to face and challenge any threat from UK and USA.

(49) Since Iran is a country superior to all other countries in the West, any attack or interference within its borders, any forceful and compulsory requirement imposed upon it, shall be responded equally forcefully; if necessary by bringing them on so that the Iranian army can play centre stage and show its true qualities to bullies like Blair and Bush; Iranian Army shall from day one of my presidency be brought into the centre stage of international relations. For Iran under my govt shall not tolerate any imperative commands from anyone, not even UK or USA.

(50) For as long as UK, Israel and USA have nuclear bomb, Iran will have it too. For equals must be equally armed, before anyone can claim to have won any wars with foreign govts and nations. There is nothing to be proud of in defeating unarmed, weak and unaware nations and govts. Blair and Bush must be ashamed of themselves because they only go to war with govts and nations who are unaware of their true intentions respecting them; stabbing others in the back, when they are not looking, is cowardly and disgusting; Iran under my presidency shall not put up with such mean and outrageous policy on the part of British and Americans.

(51) Iran is equal in power and authority to USA, Israel, uk, France, Germany, Japan and China. And so Iran will demand to have the right to VETO anything it does not like within the UN.

(52) All cities on the borders shall be developed andstrengthened and shall become known as and amongst the major cities of Iran.

(53) Iranian army shall have bases in all cities bordering Iran.

(54) All borders shall be protected by the presence of Iranian army so that Israel cannot infiltrate into Iran by the back-door, just like its allies in the West, by means of back-stabbing, and when Iran is not looking; Israeli army shall never be allowed to infiltrate Iran via Turkey as if mooro malakh.

(55) Freedom of speech, press, gatherings / ejtemaat, movement shall be guaranteed to all Iranians under my presidency.

(56) In order to ensure these freedoms will not abused, I shall appoint a Press Secretary whose job it shall be to provide answers for any criticism, accusations, allegations and charges against the govt and all mass media will be required by law to publish such responses by the govt to all critics; so that mogarezeen / provocateurs (including Britain and USA and their secret agents) could be prevented from achieving their unholy goals within the country.
(57) Because Iranian govt is engaged in trading with the people of Iran; buys cheaply from and sells back to Iranians very expensively; I shall put an end to this practice, either by nationalising all production industries, or by dropping this practice altogether and allowing individual private tradears and businessmen pick it up and start buying and selling internally, doing business with the people of Iran without any govt interference. I shall do all in my power to encourage Iranians to do business with one another.

(58) Because the state has been in the business of doing business with Iranians for over 200 years, since the English East India Company started doing serious business within Iran, giving back such power to individual traders and businessmen may be too daunting and difficult; or even impracticable. For producers are used to selling to the govt and retailers are used to buying from the govt under whatever condition and for whatever price.

(59) So I propose to nationalise all production facilities and industries; make all producers govt employees by paying them decent wages and keeping them happy at all costs, to make them willing to continue producing food stuff and other produce which is consumed by Iranian public. This will give govt the power and necessary authority to keep all prices down and affordable for the masses at all times.

(60) Once the process of electing me to office of the President is complete, I shall invite all Iranians to contribute to the improvement of economy of the country as a whole. All ideas and comments in this respect shall be taken on board; listened to and meditated upon, in order to find the best solution for the economic problems of Iran. I shall not be afraid of putting to practice good ideas offered by Iranians.

(61) For to-date no one had paid any attention to the fact that it is govt of Iran which is buying from and selling to Iranians. It is a recently discovered fact that the Iranian govt has monopoly over the "capitalist" market; thus making capitalist system of economy a ridiculous system. Iran's economy has been an state-run economy ever since the British East India Compay became a good friend of Kings and queens in Iran, some 250 years ago.

(62) And so, with all due respect, I submit that nationalising all production facilities and sources is the best solution to this problem; and as the only way to ensure current levels of productions of all kinds can be maintained; as well as maintaining the necessary control over prices which are inflatory right now because Khatamy govt is a corrupt govt. and so for the sake of either keeping prices down or raising salaries and incomes to an extent that a decent standard of living could become a reality for all classes of people in Iran. In other words the best solution to current economic problems in Iran is nationalisation of all production facilities.
(63) Right now senior and junior ministers in the Khatamy govt are busy robbing the public treasury / taking all they want from the foreign currency reserves; selling off all assets belonging to Iranians as a whole, and keeping the money for themselves; refusing to do anything for the people; I am anxious to invite all Iranians inside and outside Iran to take all necessary steps to stop Khatamy govt and its senior and junior staff, including ambassadors in the West, from selling off Iranian assets, and turning them into liquid assets for the sake of stealing them.

(64) Right now any decent Iranian must be fully engaged in stopping ministers of Khatamy govt in their dealing with foreign powers, for the prime object of making liquid public assets, for the sake of pocketing them and running away with them. What more can I say, regarding this matter. Right now Iranian ambassador in London is doing all in his power to sell off the buildings and lands which form Iranian Counsul and Embassy in London. We must stop him for it does not belong to him, and so he cannot do with such public assets as he wishes.

(65) I have informed you of this very important fact; I hope you will do all in your power to stop the current Ambassador from getting away with day light robbery of public assets in London.
This is a provisional Manifesto; once I am accepted as a running candidate I shall elaborate on how I shall be running Iran, and give more details about my future administration by means of which I shall be running Iran.

Susan Moeen"

"youth crisis"

2004-12-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

Every time I talk to my nieces in Iran, a feeling of joy and hopefulness occupies every cell of my body. Not because they are my nieces and I am biased about their achievements (I am biased, I won't deny), but because I am constantly amazed by how they and their friends are so well-read and politically aware. They are in early years of college in Iran and yes, they complain about the problems they face as young women, and as students. But, they also, very playfully, talk about the way they fight against restrictive conventions that they face in school, on the streets, or at home. Some time ago, after having a discussion on a Yahoo chatroom with a young American, my niece asked me if Americans really thought that the U.S. was liberating Iraq! We talked about what it means to generalize and say "all Americans think like this, or all Iranians are like this." I digress...
I think of my nieces, and other Iranian youth whom I met in my last trip to Turkey, as anything but docile. The level of political awareness and self-motivated eagerness to learn among this group of youth has been amazing to me. I guess, when you don't have certain privileges, you do not take them for granted...
So, I was quite surprised, to say the least, when I read this article on SF Gate today. I frowned when I read Ms. Enssani's suggestion about the United States encouraging Iran to invest in its youth. One has to think of the United States as the big brother (let's call him Uncle Sam) who has mastered the art of parenting its youth, for one to ask Uncle Sam to give advice to the Iranian state about its youth! For the purposes of this blog post, let's put aside the problematic view of nation as family and state as father, which is implicit in Enssani's article. Let me go along with Enssani's rhetoric for a moment. I live in Berkeley where countless homeless youth sleep in the nearby park; where in neighboring Oakland, black youth are killed as the result of gang violence, drugs, and police brutality on a daily basis. And is the government (state or federal) showing any sympathy? Apathy is what I have seen during my 15 years of residence in the Bay Area. 6 of these years were spent on doing crisis-intervention work in San Francisco, where a large percantage of kids in Bay View Hunter's Point suffer from serious health problems caused by factory waste.
I am not denying that Iranian youth are facing apathy, and believe me, I have heard about the rising problem of addiction among Iranian youth. But Ms. Enssani seems to assume that Iranian youth are helpless victims, waiting for some invisible hand to rescue them! "Let them be young," Ms. Enssani suggests. What does it mean to be young, any way? Watching Disney films and playing war-simulated video-games? I have been a teaching assistant in a few U.S. universities, including Stanford and Berkeley, which I suppose are among the good ones. To me, the level of ignorance and lack of knowledge about the rest of the world among some youth who are raised in the U.S. is disheartening. At Harvard, after watching the Russian Ark for a film class, an art student asked if there had been a revolution in Russia... all I could do was to force myself to smile.
This post is getting too long again. Let me suffice by saying that the decay of nationalism, which Ms. Enssani is so worried about, should be the least of our concerns. Nationalism (be it Iranian nationalism or American nationalism) is well and alive, and that, for me is a source of concern!

Neocons and their plans for the future of Iran

2004-12-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

This is scary! But again, "peaceful" regime change through building alliances with "the people" in Iran is nothing new. This strategy seems to have been in making for a while now. Soon after the beginning of the "war on terrorism," Bush made statements in support of "the people of Iran"; Senator Brownback suggested support of pro-democracy Opposition groups in Iran; the conservative think tank, Hoover Institute (with people such as Condoleeza Rice and George Schultz) hired Abbas Milani to start a program on the "future" of Iran; and .... I am sure many secret meetings have been taking place with those who the U.S. government wants to hire for this project (there seems to be a happy neoliberal alliance between neocons and conservatives on this matter!)
Well, neoliberalism as a new form of governmentality is at work... Are we surprised? The only thing these nice people fail to tell us is that neoliberal economic policies have created huge gaps between the poor and the rich, all in the name of "development." Neoliberal policies have often supported dictatorships, in the name of freedom and democracy.
Things that one can do in the name of "the people and "for the "good of the people!" Can someone please tell me, who are these "people" for whom so much advocacy is being done in U.S. think tanks, and by politicians who have significant investments in multinational corporations? I am sure many who live in Iran and its diaspora desire regime change (I myself being one). But the question is, at what cost?
It seems that the Internet and diaspora are envisioned as having a major role in this plan for "peaceful" regime change in Iran. Can I hope for resistance that comes from within power? Can I hope that people in weblogistan resist such intervention?

Flu talk

2004-12-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

I arrived late at Timoshenko Lounge last night. Having driven more than an hour from Berkeley to get to the plantation I have come to call “school,” I mumbled to myself as I pulled the car into the parking lot, “it’s too late. I should go back; it’s almost 8 PM.” But the light was on and through the window, I could see dark-haired (and some hairless) heads, whose ears were attentively listening to someone in that room. “Thank god for the Iranian time,” I mumbled again, as I parked my car and lazily dragged my flu-struck body to the room filled with Iranian bloggers, students, and Internet savvy Bay Area residents. For once, I felt more “authentic” than any Iranian in the room, as I was by far the most fashionably late person there! But, too fashionable for my wits, as I had missed Hossein Derakhshan’s talk all together!
Fortunately, however, I got to hear a discussion about the political potential of blogs. In this discussion, Hossein said something that was interesting to me (a point that I had noticed when reading the comments on his blog before). He said that he doesn’t know why many people who visit his blog are neo-cons. The laziness of the “Left” for not noticing the potential of blogs, he said, was perhaps one of the reasons for this. His statement led to a discussion about the disillusionment of the “Left” in the U.S., with the concept of democracy. As my fashionable tardiness had excluded me from the earlier discussion, I decided to shut up and listen to what was being said. But I decided to jot down my scattered thoughts about last night’s discussion here in this post --and don’t expect any coherence, as I am drugged by Tylenol Flu capsules, which seem to be working pretty well!
My thoughts: It seemed to me that there was an underlying assumption about what constitutes the “Left” and what characterizes it. I noticed a slippage back and forth between what “Left” means in the U.S. and what it has connoted/does mean in Iran. I think, one needs to recognize that what is known as the “Left” in Iran now- and in the U.S. for that matter- is very different than what it has meant in different historical junctures. The outcome of this sort of generalization, I believe, can be the wholesale rejection of an assumed unity (“the Left”).
Having said this, I want to embark on a little engagement with Hossein’s statement. Let me also say early on, that to critique someone is not to reject them. Unfortunately, many times we seem to take a “naqd” as a “naf-y.” This is certainly not my intention. How else are we to have productive discussions, if we don't engage in critiques of each others work? I am putting these issues forward, hoping that we can have further discussions about them. I don't want to have the last word on these issues and know that there will probably be no agreement on many of the things I say here.
Unlike Hossein, I don’t think that the internet is the turf of neo-cons. In fact, different groups that may identify as being a part of the “Left” have utilized this form of communication in organizing and disseminating information (obviously, there is always the “digital divide” and issues of accessibility that one has to take into consideration, when talking about the political possibilities of the Internet. But we won’t go there in this post).
Now, why is that neo-cons seem to favor a blog such as Hossein Derakhshan’s, is a totally different matter and can have many reasons. I am not in the position to give a causal explanation for what seems to have bemused Hossein, as I don’t think it is clear why someone such as, say, Michael Ledeen would leave supportive comments for this loveable Iranian blogger. But, I want to point to one aspect of this dynamic... and that is: despite the intentions of the author, his/her text will produce different meanings at different times and different places. This point- Derrida’s famous “the author is dead”- seems to be an obvious observation, but one that is often taken for granted and missed. So, while Hossein’s intention may not be to get the support of neoconservatives, it happens that many of his readers in fact belong to this camp. Why? Because it is only within discursive fields that what one writes (or says) produces different (and deferring) meanings; AND these meanings are not separate from relations of power (notice that I am not just referring to the somewhat obvious fact of multiple meanings or polysemy, but pointing to discourse as embedded in power) . So, within a transnational field of power, it is certain hegemonic discourses (such as, say, neo-Orientalist ones that have a particular history) that produce “preferred meanings” and organize particular subjects into the realm of representation. What we say or write is not outside of these discourses and is informed by them. It is at the intersection of competing discourses (and I am not excluding Islamic fundamentalist discourses that are very much transnational at this point) that subjects, such as “Iranian bloggers” who aspire to democracy come into being. Often, this production of subjectivities is implicated in the process of Othering. For example, notice the extent of Othering and violence that is embedded in this comment, sent to Hoder: “They are part of a world-wide Islamic Insurgancy that has taken up arms against the West, primarily the citizens of the United States and Israel. These are enemies, not criminals and need to be treated as such, that is, killed or captured when we can - not subject to the rights of citizens. Bravo to you for sticking your thumb in their eye. Posted by Greg Johnson at November 8, 2004 05:39 PM.”
Or, this other comment: “hoder - be careful. this is serious. your ideas and insights are important, but it is necessary to separate your web and real identities, as nihilia suggested. one day 'they' will be an adult and able to argue - but today 'they' are more than a few and are willing to live in a death culture. take care - an american christian who values your mind and ALL the people of the books. Posted by r at November 6, 2004 10:36 PM.”
Notice the way “they,” in this comment have been infantilized and juxtaposed to the rationality of the “American Christian.” The messianic promise of “one day they will be,” is perhaps the hope for an outcome that a missionary crusade can bring to this American Christian. There are many more of these examples that one can find among the comments sent to Hoder. Although, there seems to be a distinction made between him and the “bad Muslims,” this form of Manichean logic often homogenizes people and places them in camps of “good” and “evil,” while prescribing what is “good” and what is “evil.” Let me clarify that bringing these examples is not to minimize the level of threat that Hossein Derakhshan, as a pioneer blogger has felt. I, too, am concerned about his safety and would encourage him to take necessary precautions. But, Hossein's intentions notwhitstanding, his blog does not escape the politics of location.
One last Tylenol-flu inspired point and I will end this long post: To point to the discursive production of Iranian blogger subjectivities is very different than thinking of them as being victims of “false consciousness.” False consciousness- something that was not named as such, but seemed to be implied last night in talking about the dismissal of democracy by the “Left” in the U.S.- is not certainly a theoretical concept to which I subscribe. Being skeptical of uncritical uses of notions of democracy (which are by the way, the noql-o-nabaat of every diasporic Iranian political gathering, and the legitimizing factor for (neo)colonial projects that we are witnessing today), does not necessarily translate into the wholesale abandonment of this concept . Nor does this skepticism mean that the skeptic perceives Iranian bloggers as “puns of Imperialism.” Perhaps there should be room for an in-between position that neither assumes fully constituted sovereign subjects, nor denies any form of subjectivity to people who are subjected to different discourses. Perhaps this is the reason as to why I have chosen to do an ethnographic project among Iranian bloggers: To see the way Iranian bloggers negotiate their subjectivities both online and offline, as they are subjected to multiple discourses that surround them.
And finally, a not- so-irrelevant piece of news that may be of interest to some of you: The NY Times article about SF's battle against the conservatives' ban on gay marriage: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/national/23marriage.html?th
I am off to get some rest. By the way, my apologies to people whom I greeted with a hug and kisses on both cheeks yesterday. I hope I didn't pass on the flu virus!
Post-script: As I was reading Alireza Doostdar's blog, I noticed that there was a comment for me in his comments section. I think my comments link is not very user-friendly and that is probably why Sahand has left his comment in Parishan Blog. I posted the comment here and will respond to it soon. I thank Alireza Doostdar for adding me to his links. I will try to change my comments format in both of my weblogs soon.

2004-12-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

I guess, in my last post, I wasn't too off about the curbing of civil liberties of Muslims by the state. This was in LA Times today (I saw it on Iranian.com).
On a happier note, Hossein Derakhshan will be at Stanford tomorrow. Here is an email I got from the Persian Students Alliance at Stanford:
"Please join us for an evening with Hossein Derakhshan (Hoder), an Iranian blogger who currently resides in Toronto and publishes "Sardabir:Khodam" at http://i.hoder.com/. Hossein has created a tutorial on how to create a weblog and has encouraged many Iranians develop their own weblogs.
Date: Wednesday December 22, 2004
Time: 6:30PM
Location: Timoshenko Lounge - Stanford UniversityAddress: 230 Ayrshire farm ln. Stanford, CA
http://www-facilities.stanford.edu/maps/download/TransportationMap.pdf
Agenda: 6:30 Socialize 7:00 Hoder: Talk and presentation 7:30 Questions and answers
We will then leave to a nearby restaurant for dinner/dessert and informal chat. Please feel free to forward this e-mail to your friends who are interested in this subject."
I look forward to this event.

Internet Panopticon

2004-12-20T08:47:00.000-08:00

I hate to fall into the trap of utopoia/dystopia binary that has for the most part characterized "cyber studies." After all, it is my interest in the productive potentials of computer mediated communications, such as weblogs, that makes me spend the rest of my graduate student life (and perhaps beyond) studying weblogistan. But, let me burst a little bubble here. Last week, at the Internet and Society 2004 Conference at Harvard, I noticed that many people eagerly talked about the utopian mission of taking democracy to far away places... Iran seemed to be a prime example. Well, actually, the South Korean OhMyNews -with columnists such as Howard Rheingold, the Internet enthusiast who is famous for his book, Virtual Communities- won the implicit popularity contest in the "Global Voices" section of the conference. But, Farsi blogs and their democratic potentials did not cease to be mentioned over and over again, in almost every session. The confetti thrown into the air in this happy union of Internet geeks, investors, and politicians? Totalitarianism vs. American democracy; The free "we" in the U.S. vs. the censored "them," there. Well, read today's NY Times article and the bubble may get a bit deflated:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20covert.html?th. Although internet surveillance is nothing new, with all the talk about increasing security, we are all in for a free national colonoscopy! Was I being rude? I'm sorry. But, what else can be a better metaphor for the way our daily diet is saturated with highly manipulated notions of "democracy" and "freedom"? And aren't we told that"terrorism" is the cancerous side effect of this healthy diet? And hence the need for colonoscopy, dear farangopolitans!
----post-script: And yes... then there is Cornell University's national poll about restricting the civil liberties of Muslims. I guess we should not complain. The greatness of U.S. multiculturalism guarantees that the colonoscopy shall be done with proper Islamic codes and in culturally sensitive ways!
----P.P.S. An anonymous reader has left a comment, to which I have replied in the comments section. Since I don't have her/his email, I am hoping s/he will read my response here:
"I am a bit confused about your point. Are you implying that I am comparing Iran and the U.S., and thus reifying binary oppositions, or are you suggesting that one needs to mention Iran, as being run by a government that curtails civil liberties, when writing a critique of the U.S.? If you are saying the former, I don't think I have created a binary. I have pointed to the way discussions about freedom and democracy in conferences such as Bits and Bytes are constructed vis-à-vis narratives of repression in places such as Iran, thereby operating on binary oppositions. If your point is to remind me of the latter, let me clarify: There is no doubt in my mind that many civil liberties are curtailed in Iran. However, I think we need to point out that freedom in the U.S. has its limitations (and the NY Times article is only one minor example of US government's increasing level of surveillance). If you don't believe that the civil liberties of Muslims are being curtailed in the U.S., just look at the news and you will find plenty of examples of people being fired from their jobs, travelers being subjected to humiliating searches in U.S. airports, and students being denied enrollment in certain fields, all in the name of posing the "threat of terrorist activitiy." By the way, "I hate..." is a figure of speech. I don't think any of us is capable of escaping these binaries, as we are implicated in them. Shifting? Perhaps. But escaping the fall, I am afraid not. "
Let me add here that my point is not to compare Iran and the U.S. , but to pay attention to the emptiness of hegemonic discourses such as "freedom" and "democracy" that have historically legitimized violence, here in the U.S., and elsewhere. Have we already forgotten the way that "freedom" was resignified in a violent occupation that came to be named "Iraqi Freedom?" Need I say more?

MIT survey

2004-12-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

Speaking of homes, MIT's Iranian Studies Group is conducting another survey among Iranians "who consider the United States their primary home at this time." I hope ISG is also circulating this survey among the Iranians who don't have access to computers, or do not speak English at all.

Where is home?

2004-12-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

I saw this on Iranian.com today:
"WRITING CONTEST
New California Media (NCM), in collaboration with the California Council for the Humanities, is launching a contest to "Write a Letter Home" to a real or imagined relative about their life in California. The twelve best letters received statewide will win a $1000 cash prize each. Please send your "letters" to iranian.com [times@iranian.com]and we will forward to NCM. The winner will receive the full amount of the award. NCM will have them judged by a distinguished panel. The deadline is January 15."

This sounds like a good opportunity for getting paid to write creatively. I look forward to reading the $1000 letter. I wonder, however, what the organizers have in mind when they say "home." What to do with multiple homes?

dwelling in farangopolis

2004-12-15T15:47:00.000-08:00

Mapping the house and housing the map, the peddler who carried shahr-i farang on his shoulders walked through my childhood alleys, where my young ambivalent female body, not marked by a deviant desire yet, deviated from school to the world of sight-seeing.
شهر شهر فرنگه بیا و تماشا کن... از همه رنگه بیا و تماشا کن
It was this rhythmic song that drew my seven-year-old body to pleasures of scopophilia. Shahr-i farang, the house-shaped box that sat on the shoulders of a man who traveled through my -then familiar and now unfamiliar- city, Tehran, shaped the porous frontiers of my traveling imagination. Putting my ten Rial coin in his scabbed hands, I would wait for the tired peddler to ground the four-legged box and open the round window to the liminal space of this house that contained the world. My left eye (always stronger than the right one!), would connect my body to the peephole, not blinking once. I would let my imagination travel through time and space with the narrator’s voice, as I tightly framed the boxed foreign cities with my young eager hands.
Not too many years from then, the same hands would turn into fists and write anti-Shah slogans on the walls of the revolted city. In another ten years, those hands would be laid on a cold table in the house of immigration to be mapped for their marked foreignness. Having changed their status of alienation, my hands would be summoned to be fingerprinted in the home they had inhabited-but not considered to be habituated- for fourteen years. And with a permit to dwell and travel, the same hands would increasingly be under surveillance for the possible “threat” they could pose to “homeland security.” Yes, my fellow farangopolitan, the same hands, a quarter of a century after framing the window to foreign cities in domestic alleys on a mobile house, would type these words and touch the keys to the house of this box, reaching for other diasporic bodies.
This blog is my grownup diasporic shahr-i farang. This time I look to touch, both optically and haptically, across geographies to imagine a community of Iranians on-line. I take this journey knowing that not all bodies travel and not all dwellers move, except perhaps phantasmically. “This that you see, my child, is Taj Mahaaaaaaal and we are in Hindustan nowwwwwww… This one is the Statue of Libertyyyyyyy, and here is Americaaaaaa. ” This rhythmic voice and the box of pictures that housed my dwelling and motion, are all distant memories now. Liberty remains nothing but a statue.