Saturday, May 31, 2003

Getting more readable

I am trying to understand what movable type is. I liked the weblogs made that way.

Friday, May 30, 2003

Iranian identity

When my son was born I sent a few Iranian names to my colleagues and asked them for their feedback. I was looking for an Iranian name which had an English equivalent or was easy to pronounce in English. One of the guys who is British ( normally the Europeans are much more politically educated and cultivated than north Americans) got back to me with the name Saddam. Of course he was kidding, he told me as a matter of fact Saddam is now a well known name in west and the guy himself is a hero back there. I asked back where? He said in Iran. I said no way, Saddam was no hero in Iran and he'd better go to hell.
He said he had seen many reports coming from Moslem countries showing demonstrations and interviews in favor of Saddam and he thought Iran should not be an exception.
The most difficult thing to explain here is that Iran has a distinct and different identity from most of the Moslem countries. It is difficult to explain this difference, because it exists and does not exist at the same time. In Middle East the most important thing we have in common is the religion: we are Moslem. At the same time the most different aspect is religion: Iranians are Shia ( other Moslem countries are mostly Sonni) and they have experienced an Islamic revolutionary government for about 25 years now which is almost unique in the region. The Majority of Iranians does not look at Islam the way other Moslem countries do. We have seen how cruel a government can get by applying the absolute religious ethics and values directly to people's everyday life. which is very much relative in nature. We feel it very urgent and strong why a government should be nonreligous why democratic institutions are necessary rather than more Islamic ones.
Besides all these religion based factors, the Iranian culture plays an important role in our overall Identity. The same thing is true for the other side of the line too. Not long time ago the other Moslem countries under the Arab Nationalist and Iraqi flag fought Iran. Being an Arab or an Iranian is not the same thing , we are just coming from two different backgrounds.


email your feedbacks

I am a new blogger and I am fairly illiterate concerning the html language and these stuff. I am really interested to know about other people's opinion regarding my postings, I believe this is the way to evolve and go forward.
You can send me your opinions by email. Meanwhile I am trying to learn how to get people's feed back for each posting.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Let us alone for god's sake!

Dealing with dictatorship and Iran's conservatives is Iranian people's internal affair and is not the American's business at all. By active commenting about and meddling in Iranian politics, Americans just make things worse and hard for Iranian people. My theory that there are strong links between Iranian and American conservative factions gets stronger regarding what is happening. There is not going to be any military intervention or any thing like that. They keep Iran as it is a weak nation strangled in a theocratic dictatorship that is good for both Iranian and American conservatives.
In Shiraz university we had a Tork professor. Once he told one of our friends : “Abbassi you have failed your midterm exam and you'd better drop the course”. Our friend told him that his name was not Abbassi, the teacher just replied him that it did not matter what was his name, he had failed the exam and he'd better drop the course. That is what U.S. Is doing now. This arrogant behavior is killing me, they do what they want to do, no fear of anybody or any protest. They ride on an open road. I hate the same attitude of the conservatives in Iran. They go ahead full steam regardless of how people feel and other concerns.
I should stop reading Iran's news. I get so depressed and helpless when I see no way out of this political mess. Things repeat and repeat and you think something is gonna happen soon and nothing happens. I am not in a good financial position right now and very ready for depression so I better back off for a while and stop following the news, but I can't.
I have been engaged in a start up company since I got laid off from Nortel. The good thing is that our manager and some other big guys are here with us and unlike myself they are very organized and looks like they have a clear road map for future which is good. The bad thing is that we are not getting any salary before we get money from our contracts.

Monday, May 26, 2003

Just another US meddling in Iran's affairs. You know what? we are not going to see the face of democracy any time soon. Just remember what the Iran-Iraq war and the stupid Mojahedin's move did to democracy in Iran. It is going to be another cold war during which everybody should shut up and enjoy the ride.