Us and them
My friend has explained some of the issues regarding Iran in her weblog beauifully; I recommend it to those who would like to know us a bit more to read it.
As I have previously wrote here we have an e-zine called Cappuccino. Actually it's the first Iranian weekly e-zine and we're a group of young Iranians in Tehran, Mashad, and even in the US that run it. There we have a column called Iranology. It begun from the beginning of Iranian civilization and is going through the history to demonstrate where we were and how we got where we are today. I think it would be an interesting source of information for those who have no idea who we really are.
I have heard ridiculous comments about being an Iranian woman which make me think about the sound minds of those who say them. We are not that much blessed with sources of information and knowledge in our country but at least we know what is going on in other countries and what their races are or what they do. Apparently, the same doesn’t apply to other nationalities.
People call our language Arabic. They think we are Arabs. Once an American guy visiting Iran told me "I thought all of you guys are black!!" There is this funny idea among westerners that we live in tents! They think our women are imprisoned in their houses and have no permission to do anything. Once an English guy in a chatroom asked me, "how are you connected to the internet? Do the people in Iran have computers? What do your computers look like?!!! Won't your father or brother beat you if they found out you were talking to me?!!!"
Some subjective and unfair materials provided by shortsighted individuals following specific personal benefits has formed this horrifying picture of Iran and Iranians in the minds of the ordinary audience of the mass media in the west. All they see are these women wrapped in black chador or a bunch of people in rallies shouting "Down with America" at the top of their lungs! That, my friends, is not us! That is an image presented by those in power. Unless you travel over here and connect with the real people, there is no way that you get to know the real "us".
Ok I don’t want to make it long again, just let me say again that the Iranology page can tell you about our race, so you'll find out who we were and are; I'll try my best out here to picture the real Iran that exists in our houses and our community.
This is not a political post, just my worries!
First let me apologize for this very long post but it was inevitable if it was to be a thorough and complete one, I'll try to write less and less from now on :D Oh and the Paypal link on top is a donation account for an Iranian widow who has had a heart surgery recently and is in need of urgent help now that she has been instructed by the doctors not to work at all and has orphaned children to feed, your help is truely appreciated, thanks :)
People email and ask about the election, how it went, whether I voted and whether it has affected my freedom to write in this blog. Well first of all I was one of those people who believed that we should all vote although our choices had been limited by subjective elimination of competition. Democracy, I think, has to be practised, otherwise, it rather not exist. But then again we are living in a country where there is no organized movement among people who have the same beliefs.
The parties acted extremely poorly during this election, they did not give out any kind of practical suggestion for the crisis; they just froze in their protesting mood which I believe was rather selfish. Just because their own candidates were crossed out they asked everybody to sit at home and do nothing. In my opinion, this was not the right way to approach the issue.
As far as I know there is no revolution going on in my country and as far as the people are concerned that one revolution is still haunting them after 25 years, they are still suffering due to the repercussions and just want to be left alone. In the present condition what would it mean for me not to take part in an election that determines the future of my country's law-making for the next couple of years?! The only outcome would be the absolute and powerful victory of those I believe not to be fit for the position at all. Well I cannot complain about it now, can I? I cannot refute the laws they make or say they are not my representative 'cause I simply lost my chance to make a difference or have say in the matter.
I was trying my best to persuade people to go and vote for the independent candidates at least. I mean let's be realistic here, no change of regime is going to happen any time soon and our only way towards freedom and democracy is through moderate and gradual change. We are the majority who are dissatisfied with the way things are but at the same time we are the silent and passive majority. On the other hand, the minority is a very organized and loud one; one that is ready to kill and be killed, hit and be hit for the cause. As for us, the majority? No way in hell you're going to get any of these people who are consistently nagging about the ruling power to leave their cozy homes and come to the streets, I repeat, NO WAY! And why should they anyways?! Experience has shown us a worse choice with emptier pockets are just waiting to get to the top on our shoulders.
And one other thing that my friend so cleverly mentioned in his blog (written in Persian unfortunately) we should not judge Iranians' reactions and actions upon the data we receive from the internet. I mean what percentage of people all around Iran has access to the online world? The participation in small towns and cities was fairly high and even in big cities people took part in spite of all the propaganda against voting.
One thing there were saying as a reason for not voting was that by this we legitimize this regime, well excuse me, correct me if I'm wrong but all those years that nobody was voting and therefore nobody was legitimizing anybody what happened? Ok let us presume for one instance that if we don’t vote the regime is not approved by people and so it's illegitimate, now what?! The international pressure, you say? Who has been suffering and is going to suffer because of that kind of pressure and sanctions in reality? The government? The leaders? Those who disqualified all those candidates? Those candidates which were disqualified? The president? The MPs? Of course not, you know it and I know it that it's the PEOPLE who are going to suffer the most, just like Iraqis who suffered all that time while Saddam was having a ball!
Do you really think our people are the kind who would want some foreign force to come and bring them freedom overnight? Let's take a step back and ask this first: do you think freedom and change can be achieved by interference of a foreign power that has no idea who we really are, overnight?
I sincerely believe in gradual and moderate change; I am annoyed by the present status as much as any other Iranian with the dream of a free and developed Iran, but I also think that this is not the right path we are on, I suffer due to all the absurd and inhuman attitude of my leaders but by not participating in civil actions that lead to the selection of the members of the most important legislative power of my country just because one or more parties did not have representatives in it, is not the solution.
I did not vote, but I should have. I did not vote because I knew my vote was not going to make a difference because in an emotional, radical and irrational decision my fellow countrymen chose to be passive. Now this passivity is going to have consequences for all of us and I just hope that now that the reformist movement disappointed us so horribly we can see some positive changes and reforms from within in the party that took hold of the parliament this round.
I am hopeful that they just might have realized how and where they have lost our trust and faith and try to earn it with useful and logical lawmaking. Let us pray that my optimism is not so far off :)
Cheaper by the dozen!
I was watching this movie starring Steve Martin, called Cheaper by the Dozen and it got me thinking. In the movie the couple loves big families so they end up having 12 children!! Oh my God I think this is a nightmare! I personally do not like children which is why I never accepted teaching children classes or even junior high school classes, on the other hand my husband adores children! Of course, I'm hopeful that he is not thinking of a big family of 14 (!) but even one child is one and I really don’t know how I should deal with her/him as i expect everyone to act maturely all the time! After watching the movie I was even more horrified at the concept of becoming a parent!
Well the movie was actually a comedy but apparently not for me! There were some really funny parts when for example in a TV talk show they asked the mother whether it was difficult giving birth to 12 children which included two sets of twins! She thought for a couple of seconds before saying: Well you know after the 5th one (I'm not sure about the number) they kinda just walked out!!!! At first I laughed and then when I started thinking about what she meant I was about to cry!The rest of the movie was mostly based on situation comedy of the Home Alone kind, I think it would be fun to watch it with someone who likes children to make them change their minds :D
I'm learning a lot in the workshop about HIV/AIDS, and I'm surely going to share what I'm learning with my audience in our e-zine and also my weblog as I think there are serious misconceptions about the disease among us, Iranians, which can be a source of danger to all of us.
Thanks for your beautiful emails, and I'll try to answer them gradually, but cannot promise for anytime soon, just be sure that I read all of them and appreciate them immensely :)
The unbearable lightness of traffic in Tehran!
It took me 2 hours to get to work today! Can you believe that? We are talking about a distance that should normally take at most 30 to 40 minutes. I was going crazy in the horrendous traffic :( Now the main problem here was something else. First let me explain what the situation is.
There is this workshop in the former Diplomat's Club in Niavaran St. arranged by the UNICEF and I was invited too due to previous cooperations that I had had with them during the MR national vaccination campaign. I have no idea what it is exactly that I'm doing there! I mean the participants are all medical specialists in high levels of different ministries of health, education, internal affairs and some NGOs! 80% percent of these people are my mom and Dad's age and oh my God they are so formal :( Now imagine me there!
I'm trying to be cool and act as a grown-up but well you cannot change a person overnight, can you?! I'm there as a journalist! Taking notes and writing reports for some interested parties. It is very well-paid but… now picture this: it's the first day, I'm all shaken up and intimated by the big names and ages (!) and then they say the day after each session we choose two people to give a presentation of the feedback they got from the previous session. We will draw names written on pieces of paper from a small bag.
Guess whose name came out first? Hehehe, isn’t that just fantastic?! I tried my best to persuade everybody that I'm just a nobody, leave me alone for crying out loud! But nobody would listen! And so today I was supposed to be there at 8:30 and give a presentation, well you know what? I arrived at 9:15!!! While I was on the way I remembered one other thing as well, I remembered that one of the ground rules of the workshop was that they would clap really hard for anyone who would arrive late :((((( I wanted to return home and quit the job altogether but stupidity stopped me!
When I arrived awaiting a round of applause, everybody smiled and said hello very nicely, nobody clapped and they just continued with the session! But as a punishment I was made the speaker of groups, I had to check with groups during group works and talk instead of them :(( I think tomorrow I'll leave the house before dawn!
Melancholy among my peers
The majority of our youth is suffering from serious depression, some hidden and some are clearly showing signs of it. I have had contact with lots of young people due to my work as a teacher, a supervisor in an institute and in university. They seek refuge in things that seem to be aggravating their situation drastically.
During my years of teaching in classes we had monthly terms, meaning that each month I was dealing with a new lot of usually 20 young girls. As incredi
Let the game begin!
So here is my English weblog at last. As far as I remember it was more than a year ago that Hoder asked all Iranians who can write in English to start writing English weblogs and here I am with only a couple of months delay!! Anyhow it would be a good thing, I guess, to be writing my thoughts in English now after two years of writing them in Persian.
As for the introduction part, I'm an ordinary Iranian girl from an ordinary Iranian middle class family living in a city which is anything but ordinary! I'm nowhere near a political activist if that’s what came to your minds after seeing this AP article, and I wouldn’t wanna be one if I had a choice! These things have prices to pay and frankly speaking, I don’t think I'd ever be wealthy enough to afford this one! I mean don’t get me wrong, I do care about my country, how it's doing, I'm extremely interested in my community, its social relations and all that stuff, in case that's any consolation to those who were looking for radical opposition rhetorics over here!
As for my education and occupation, I've been abusing my knowledge of English to the fullest and have done all sorts of jobs due to my ever-changing mood and taste in everything. Holding a BA in Translation of English and an MA in Teaching English as a foreign language I have been a teacher, university tutor, translator, interpreter, online journalist and then an e-zine editor, account manager in an international advertising company, consultant in content management of some sites, and this week I'm gonna be taking part in seminars on the subject of AIDS! I despise the theory behind this saying "Rolling stone gathers no moth", I've gathered a considerable amount of moth indeed! So Don’t mind this saying as it is an outdated one, now is the age of change and I believe experiencing as many as you can is the right way to improve.
In my Persian weblog I usually write about my personal life and some notes on the social deficits of my community resulting from some traditional and cultural trends which are, in my opinion, illogical and harmful to the society as I've personally suffered because of most of them and have friends and other young people that share the same turmoil. Unfortunately although I always try my best to avoid any political argument it comes back to hunt me whatever issue I try to address! This is what we call a politicized society, and unfortunately so, we are living in one :(
Well I would be doing the same thing here I guess. I don’t know yet, let's see where it takes me.
For the time being Welcome to Pinkfloydish, the English version :)
PS My sincere thanks to all the kind people from everywhere in the world for the beautiful emails, I am overwhelmed :) I am so sorry but believe me answering them is absolutely impossible! There are just too many! I thank each and every one of you here and hope that we can all communicate as human beings all over the world in peace and understanding. Cheers :)