[Unfortunate] Thoughts

I have so many thoughts about this country that I love. But some have warned me against the writing of these thoughts. Although I try to keep my content positive and assure that I do not post controversial things or make generalizations, people still tell me that it could be interpreted in a bad way. Some of the most interesting things I come across and want to share and comment I do not post about, which unfortunately makes my blog rather bland and not as dynamics as the thoughts I have about Iran in my head.
There really is no place like Iran. Firstly, its society and government is like no other in the worlds'. But yet there is also so much beauty about the culture, the place, its people, and much more. To me, its not just a feeling of nationalism that's embedded in me, but Iran is a study that I want to pursue at the post-doctorate level when I am older.
But will writing what I feel jeopradize my chances of going to Iran? I didn't think so, but after some advice and research of people being jailed relating to Iranian media and computer matters, maybe I should think twice. But maybe I shouldn't. Because this is what I love to do.
And I realize, this is one of the dilemmas that many people living in Iran must face: some cannot express or do what they love to do. Freedom of speech, performing, are some things that they cannot exercise to the fullest. Although I do think that there are certain positive aspects to this. But this is an entirely different topic.
And so, as much as I would love to write about the most interesting of posts and my thoughts, I am in a dilemma. A dilemma I need to think about for a little while more.

Iranian Stunt Team Gets Called for James Bond Movie

Stunt 13 is a small group of stunt performers in Iran, consisting of 2 men and 1 woman. Although passionate about their career, they worried about its future, as they got very few jobs working for Iranian TV shows and when they did get a job, they would get paid very little. This all changed when they were discovered by James Bond's movie's stunt director and they were recruited to shoot in Turkey. Not only that, but in the prestegious Screen Actors Guild award the movie "Skyfall" won the award for "Best Stunt Ensemble". Interesting and amazing acheievement! 

Watch the video on CNN here. 

Iranian Painter Beautifies Tehran Streets

Tehran Home with Moveable Rooms

Click here to read more.

Maestro Shahrdad Rohani

I just spent the last hour and seventeen minutes watching Maestro Shahrdad Rohani's beautiful concert which features famous singers such as Emel Sayin, Moein, Martik, and experts from Hayedeh. Mr. Rohani is one of the most famous conductors and composers in the world. He has won numerous awards, including Thailand's Piaknes award for outstanding orchestral performane in 1999, which is arguably one of the world's most famous artistic acheivements. 

He was born in Tehran 1954, and left to study music in Vienna in 1975. In the early 80's he accepted a scholarship to UCLA and became a citizen of the US in 1994. 

Rohani claims the opportunities he had in America were endless and enabled a great deal of professional growth in him, he believes that staying in Iran would have afforded him the same opportunities had the Revolution not occurred. 

The US government's website, iipdigital, claims that Of course, Rohani does appreciate the advantages of living in a democratic society and the freedom of expression that is available, particularly for those in his artistic field. He also points out the benefits of encouraging economic pursuits and rewarding those pursuits accordingly that are so much evident in America.

Rohani however says “I am an artist and my perceptions and goals are, to a great extent, untouched by the environment I am in. The greatest artists in history have achieved the heights of artistic expression under the most difficult of circumstances. On the other hand, given the lack of restrictions in a democracy, there is infinite room for the manifestation of one’s ideas. America, being the land of opportunity, [has] certainly helped, but the land of opportunity requires one to bring talent and hard work to the table. It is not a land of free lunches!”

Iran is a land of amazing artists and musicians. But yet many of them leave Iran for many reasons one being what Rohani claims; "the lack of restrictions". Famous rap artist, Shahin Najafi said "A singer who wants to take the stage in Iran has to stand there like a piece of dead wood and is not permitted to move to the music". He illegally organized a concert in 2004 in Iran in which the militia bombarded. He was faced with criminal charges but left for Turkey before his sentence began. He now lives in Germany. Najafi's case is one similar to the struggles that many "illegal" musicians in Iran face. 

Khosrow Hassanzadeh

Khosrow Hassanzadeh lives and works in Tehran. The last three photos above are from his series called Terrorist (2004) where he questions the concept of 'terrorism' in international politics by portraying himself, his mother and sisters as 'terrorists'.

~

"بگو دوستت کیست, تا بگویم کیستی"

"Begoo doostat kist, ta begooyam kisti"

"Tell me who your friend is, for me to tell you who you are"

Farhad Moshiri

The Situation of Our Youth

Interviewer: I would just like to ask you a few questions about the Iranian government.

Woman: No 

Interviewer: Its not about anything specific, I just wanted to ask about the upcoming presidential elections. Are you willing to speak? 

Woman: Go ahead.

Interviewer: Sorry, my question for you is: what are you expecting from the next Iranian government as a young Iranian? 

Woman: Expectations... It doesn't make a difference to me. Give a vote, for what? 

Interviewer: Imagine that your vote counts and can make a difference for your own future. What would you expect from the president that you would vote for? 

Woman: Good sir, four years ago (2009 Revolution), we had the same situation and on the 2nd of May, we went and cast our vote. But nothing changed. What changed of our situation? Our country's sitation, our economy's situation, the sitation of our youth? Nothing has changed. Myself... I am a youth. I study computers, at computers university. But I know I have no future. Nothing in my life will change. My nation is preoccupied. Preoccupied with insignificant matters. My nation is sick of its relations. I can't do anything. And how many youth with degrees like mine are stranded in the street? How many are there like me? How many people are there that have masters, Phds, because of poverty, because of a lack of money, go to private companies and work under uneducated bosses, and then a thousand other problems follow? Come and look how many young people like me are flooding these streets! We don't have anything! We had so many concerns but nobody answers! Who will answer us?! 

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The situation of youth in Iran is devastating. There are so many educated people with high level qualifications but will not find any jobs. This is an explanation as to why so many people leave Iran in hopes for a better future, in hopes for a better future for their kids. In Iran, you will hear many people chase other dreams, not have children, or fight to go somewhere else because they claim there is no emkaanaat in Iran: possibilities. Possibilities for a better future. 

Thinking about this is upsetting, but when thought about indepth, it is very difficult for a government to fix this situation. In order to create well-paying jobs, or jobs in general, the entire nation's structure needs to be changed. Everything has to be modified: the legal system (to deal with corruption and injustices in the workforce), the government's modification and adding of strategic public sector jobs, inflation,  and so much more. Everything would need to change -- and that would take a very long time, even if the government starts initiating this right now. 

The anguish becomes even greater when it is believed that the regime is a result of this issue. This is partly true. The economy and nation's structure has disseminated  into a way that undermines educated people more than under the Shah's regime. But even before the revolution, many people were in extreme poverty and in despair because of highly unequal distribution in wealth. In fact, the revolution was instigated largely by "peasant revolt": the lower class protesting due to their unfair circumstances. This is to say that although this problem is huge under todays government, there may have been many other problems under the previous monarchy's as well, although they may not have been the educated not finding jobs. This whole issue consists of "maybe's" and is very complex: an issue that I do not think I am qualified enough to speak of, nor could I find ever find enough evidence to prove that something "may" have been better. 

Although the employment situation is horrible, and Iran was on a more "modern" or "better" path before the 1979 Revolution, I still find myself comparing Iran to its neighbours or other Middle Eastern Nations. Afghanistan is currently war ridden and occupied by the US, with many people lacking basic needs, and Pakistan shares many of the same problems as it currently has internal conflicts making it unstable. To its West is Iraq and Syria: both of which are very unstable and where its innocent people are currently under threat of ISIS. Others Middle Eastern countries where its citizens have huge issues, many lifethreatening, due to national instability are Libya, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Palestine. 

If we were to make a list of Middle Eastern countries with the top ones ranking highest in wealth, stability, strength, safest etc., the first ones would most likely be Saudi, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and the UAE (not in that order). Following that, would probably be Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and so forth (not in that order). 

What I am trying to say is that Iran has many issues, but if you look at it as a whole, as where it is regionally placed and compared to its counterparts, it doesn't fare so badly. Yes, there is always the huge probability that its youth would have been better off, and so many of the problems it is having today internally and externally would be non-existant if it was under the previous regime, but it isn't so bad. Of course, there is always room for improvement, and we can compare it to some of the appparently "best" countries in the world to live in, such as Norway and Canada. But regionally, it isn't bad. If we want it to be comparable to some of the "best" internationally, the government needs to take serious steps and probably change, to see results within the coming decades. 

Math Award and Iranian Education

Yesterday, math's highest honor was given to a woman for the first time. And that woman was Iranian.

" Maryam Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford University, is a recipient of the 2014 Fields Medal, the top honor in mathematics. She is the first woman in the prize's 80-year history to earn the distinction"

Click here for the original source. 

Maryam Mirzakhani graduated from Tehran's Sharif University:  the top engineering/maths university in Iran, and arguably, the world. In the documentary "Mirase Alberta", a Standford professor stresses that Sharif University is unarguably the best engineering universtiy in the world.

The Iranian school curriculum is extremely tough from a young age. I remember seeing my 9 year old cousin doing algebra that I had learnt when I was 15 in high school. Getting into public universities is also tough as yearly there is a national exam students take and are ranked from 1 to the couple million students who take the exam. The top couple thousand students are offered free entry into some of Iran's top universities like University of Tehran, Sharif University, and Shahid Beheshti University to name a few. 

But unfortunately, most of the top students leave the country and go study in North America or the UK. This, however, is understandable. Many worry about their job prospects when they graduate and their future in Iran and its unstable economy. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that the geniuses of the country leave and frequently never return; investing their knowledge in a foreign country. 

Watch the documentary below which explores this situation in Iran. 

Mirase Alberta 

The Rial

"45 years ago, my dad bought a house for 500 rial. Today, a kilo of pistachio's is 500,000 rial", said my dad when we were walking around in Iran. The two pictures above are pictures I took of old notes from my great aunts place. Today, the 20 rial pictured above is worth $0.0008.

My thoughts: Women Without Men

If you have seen how women in Iran were portrayed in her piece "turbulent", her movie has the same effect. Her movie is set in Iran during the coup d'etat in 1953 's portraying the lives of 4 women from different classes between the ages of 15 and 50. Relating to the title, all the women's problems are essentially because of men. Each of them have their freedom (right to life, sanity, virginity, practising art etc.) taken away from them metaphorically because of the men in the film. It portrays how mens' rights are disproportionate to womens' rights in Iran, and how the women feel 'strangled'  in Iran, just because they are women. Interestingly, this is before the 1979 revolution and the islamification of Iran. This movie was largely up to interpretation, where one of the main characters does not even speak throughout. One could easily write a hundred page essay just analysing the symbolism portrayed in the film. It is also not for the light of heart, and emotional ones will shed a few tears throughout numerous scenes.
It also distinctly portrayed how Iran was divided into 2 classes in the pre-revolution areas: the 'openminded' or artistic and educated, and the religious. These two groups had very different ideologies regarding politics, but yet the absence of women being involved as proportionately in politics is shown through one of the characters' longing to be involved in the coup and the absence of many women from the coup scenes.
I really recommend this film as a historically accurate artistic representation of feminism in Iran.

Iranian Plane Crash and Sanctions

A passenger plane has crashed on the outskirts of Iran's capital Tehran, killing at least 39 people and injuring nine others, government officials and state media. 

 

Reportedly, Sanctions have been a factor impeding Iran's ability to buy new aircraft and their parts. 

This is sad, sad news. My condolences to all families of the Iranians. 

Click here to read the full Al Jazeera article. 

Shirin Neshat

"In Turbulent, Neshat's 1998 two-screen video installation, two singers (Shoja Azari playing the role of the male and Iranian vocalist and composer Sussan Deyhim as the female) create a powerful musical metaphor for the complexity of gender roles and cultural power within the framework of ancient Persian music and poetry."

The video above is Shirin Neshat's interview with TED Talks about herself, the revolution, and its affect on art in Iran. 

   

Above, is Shirin Neshat's photo series: Women of Allah.

Watch the trailer for Shirin's movie: Women Without Men. 

As an artist who spent her youth in the pre-revolution era and visited Iran many years later, Shirin has a perspective that no other Iranian artist will have in the coming decades. She is an extremely important artist regarding Iranian femininity and in giving other Iranian artists a voice. 

Under Western Eyes

 

 

 

Hoda Afshar’s series "Under Western Eyes" comprises digitally manipulated photographs that are designed to shift the conversation around the representation of Islamic women as subjugated and suppressed. Afshar, who is originally from Iran now lives in Melbourne where she is a practicing photographic artist.
Afshar believes "Veiled women are often described as a homogeneous group and mostly pictured as powerless subjects with their veil either symbolizing oppression or an exotic commodity...

“In Western societies, the veil is mostly seen as unknown, threatening and mysterious and it always provokes strong reactions and counter-reactions. What is quite interesting to me though, is the paradoxical nature of these reactions that are often changed by the world events and responses towards Muslim communities.”Afshar says her intention with this series is to “question the system in which these stereotypes are fabricated and commoditized and also question the works of many of the artists of Muslim background whose practices feed into this climate of sympathy for Islamic women”. 

Afshar doesn’t dispute the veil “as a forced enclosure” and has no intention “to deny the oppression of many women in Islamic regions. I just believe that this issue has been strongly highlighted, overtly discussed and has become the only expected theme in representing the identity of Muslim women in the West. I do not judge that all the women who wear the veil are forced into it; for many it is a personal choice that they make based on their religious or cultural beliefs. Not all women of the Islamic background wear the veil or share the same belief or ideology, but unfortunately in the West, we only get to hear the voices of misery and negativity”.

Click here for original source.

Letters to my Torturer

"Prominent Iranian journalist and political activist Houshang Asadi was used to being arrested. This time, however, was different. Little did he know in 1983 that he would spend the next six years being brutally, mindlessly tortured by those he supported. “Brother Hamid”, Asadi’s torturer, stopped at nothing to extract his “confessions”. Asadi was a spy for Russia, for Britain, for anyone or anything. Hamid became an ambassador; Asadi a fugitive, haunted by nightmares and persisting pain. His feet lashed till lame, he was grilled until he could no longer answer a simple question. In these letters, discover how, through his accidental friendship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, a fellow cellmate under the regime, Asadi was saved from execution – and confronts his torturer one last time. In 1983, Houshang Asadi was imprisoned in Tehran. Under torture, he said he was a spy. Many of his friends also confessed and were executed. He was released after six years. Today he lives in Paris with his wife, Nooshabeh Amiri. They write for the Iranian news website Rooz Online"

Read its reviews on Goodreads by clicking here.

Iran is Not the Problem

"Steps to war: 
1) demonize the enemy

2) exaggerate a threat

3) fake a diplomatic effort

4) establish a pretext" 

For over a century, Iran has been battling against countries like the US and the UK who have tried to take advantage of its resources and weaken its power as a nation. This documentary shows the common narrative the US repeats through its media in order to demonise Iran and get what it wants. 

Iran: Egypt dragging its feet on allowing aid to Gaza

"Iran criticised Egypt on Wednesday for delays in issuing permits to bring in aid to Gaza and to transport wounded women and children out of the area for medical treatment.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said on Wednesday 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid had been waiting for days for Egypt's approval to be taken into Gaza.

"For the past days we have provided the Egyptian foreign ministry and their interest section in Tehran with information on shipment of humanitarian goods and the list of 57 severely wounded Palestinian women and children we have offered to bring here for medical treatment, but they have yet to issue a permit," he told the official IRNA news agency."

Glad to see Iran attempting to help the Gazan people stuck in the midst of war when so many other world governments are just sitting back and watching. 

Click here to read the full article. 

Fashion in Iran

 

 

 

Look at how Iranian youth have adapted global fashion trends and brands to comply with the clothing restrictions. Along with the hijab, women in Iran need to wear long pants and a manteau, but that doesn't stop them from looking amazing. 'The Tehran Times' is an amazing Iranian fashion and art blog I found. Not only does it shows show Iranian fashion, but also brings to light how people's perception of the clothing restrictions and the hijab in Iran are far from reality. It also highlights how women can be fashionable when modest and 'covered', contrary to trends depicted and followed in hollywood and the West.  Click here to check out 'The Tehran Times' blog.

Golestan Palace

Pictures I took in the Kaakheh Golestan (Golestan Palace) in Tehran. Unlike most castles, it looks relatively small on the outside -- but don't let that decieve you. The inside is covered with shattered mirrors, jewels, and colored windows. A definite must see in Tehran. 

Jewish Iranian's living in Iran and the Misconception

The video above is an interesting mini-documentary I found regarding Jewish Iranians living in Iran. The blog features the life of Iranian Jews living in Iran who lead normal lives practicing their religion openly amongst Iranian Muslims in Iran.
It really is a shame that there is a misconception that Jewish and Iranian, or Jewish and Muslim people are "against" each other. Judaism and Islam are 2 of the oldest and widely practiced religions in the world. For people or nations to be against each other because of their religion is ridiculous. How can one claim to dislike an entire population who practices a religion?

Frequently, people associate Zionism or Islamic Fundamentalism to Jewish or Muslim people, but this is a huge mistake. An entire religion is not responsible for the people who have taken religion too far or for political purposes.

Hello

Hello to all readers reading my blog about Iran. You may be asking yourself why a young woman who was born in Canada and never lived in Iran has a blog dedicated to this country. I must admit, I was never infatuated with Iran from the beginning. As a little girl, I hated going to persian literacy school, I dreaded long mehmoonis (house parties), and preferred a plate of pasta to a plate of Ghorme Sabzi. As I grew older, I started actively reading about Iranian politics, history, and pop culture, and grew a stronger sense of patrimony to my homeland. Admittedly (and regretfully),  I still never looked forward to going to Iran in my mid-teens -- Until I went during my gap year between high school and university. I stayed for 2 and half months and barely wanted to leave. As I 'matured', I explored the cities of Tehran, Esfahan and Kashaan, and promised I would one day return and explore every province. I learnt more about the different array of people it has, the different cultures, and the rich history. When I went back to Canada and university, I couldn't help but read articles about Iran online and on the news, and make excuses to write my university papers on issues related to Iran.

This blog serves as a platform to spread things I come across about Iran, ranging from foreign policy, to fashion. By doing so, I hope to positively promote Iran's artists and aspects of its culture. I also hope to counter against Western media which portrays the nation as one of oppression and fear. Mind you, I know that Iran is far from perfect. Many people living in Iran do suffer from a flawed economy, or government policy, or other things, many of which I will touch upon in this blog. But yet, despite its flaws, many Iranians feel a strong connection to their homeland with reason. And this is what I would like to share with you. The perfect, and not so perfect aspects of Iran that make it the unique country that it is today.