letters of the living

95 Theses

2010-10-07T13:22:00.005-05:00

I have not been blogging recently because there's been a lot of pressing life to tend to.

But I have just been reminded of why I started this blog in the first place, and even of my very first post.

Today I have received disturbing communications from a Bahá’í once-friend who ended our generations of friendship today in rarified double-speak, because I am not a Bahá’í, and because of what I say about that fact on this blog.

And even though that is a private thing, I thought I would just make public what that experience is like for an ex-Bahá’í, for the benefit of my still-Bahá’í friends, so you will not act so cruelly. Or so mistakenly. And because I know you are not talking openly about it where it counts. Because the tide of our shared upbringing encourages you to cast leave-takers aside. And it also encourages leave-takers to shut their mouths in silence. And in shame. That's the anatomy of ostracism. It unfolds in small acts, not just in the published announcements in The American Baha'i that so-and-so has been administratively sanctioned in some way.

But the love we share is better than all that, so I know you will forgive my lack of silence and complete lack of shame, and recognize I still speak to you because I love you and I have nothing to be ashamed of.

When you break bonds of friendship and love because I am a once-Bahá’í by birth and now not Bahá’í by conscience and adulthood, you break my heart a little. Because I will never ostracize you back. Because unity in diversity is actually a real principle I believe in, not just give lip-service to. When you end real friendships because I am not a Bahá’í, I am sad because I come to realize you are afraid and have no real friendship in your heart. You do not know what unconditional love is. You do not know what family is. You do not know what freedom is. You are violating the spirit of every morally wise bit of scripture and poetry the world has ever known. You probably don't even laugh at the funny parts of movies. If I prayed, I would pray for you. But I don't. And I won't.

When you ostracize me for leaving the Faith, you remind me again out of the blue why it was I left to begin with. You make me so grateful to be free of dogma and fear that oppressive and blinding. You make me remember one of my favorite passages of Bahá'u'lláh, "Thus have their superstitions become veils between them and their own hearts and kept them from the path of..." ...friendship. Common sense. Common decency. Civil society. The blogosphere.

Ending friendships overtly, or just asphyxiating them slowly over time out of fear, because your friend is different from you and not ashamed of it, (and knows how to use blogger) is a morally reprehensible thing to do. You would think the last 166 years of Bahá’í history, of being persecuted for your beliefs, would have taught you the Golden Rule. Treat Others The Way You Want To Be Treated. If you want freedom of belief, it has to be for everyone. That (shockingly) includes people who disagree with you. Trying to manipulate and coerce others into silence or into agreement through exerting social force is tacky. And I'm from the South. You know "tacky" is meant, in this case, as a very weighty insult. The biggest I can muster. I could've gone with something like, but hey- if monolithic public opinion and suppression of free thought is your thing, there are regimes that agree with you. Except, you keep having to ask me to blog about your rights to freely believe and speak whatever you want in the land of your religion's birth. I guess my ability to use social media only comes in handy when it's your opinions we're protecting.

I guess you'll have to learn how to be ecumenical after all.

So, here's my advice. My 95 Theses I'm nailing to the wall. They aren't theological. I could give a rat's ass about theology.

Be Nice.

Oh, wait, I guess it was just one. It's so easy to remember I guess you only have to say it once, not 95 times. ;)

But maybe do try it every day.

Children Are Listening

2010-10-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

#G20: This is NOT What Democracy Looks Like

2010-06-28T20:58:00.001-05:00

Amy Miller - Alternative Media Centre, Independent Journalist from Darren Puscas on Vimeo.

Jesse Rosenfeld - The Guardian and Independent Journalist from Darren Puscas on Vimeo.

One Year Later.

2010-06-12T16:41:00.003-05:00

Azadi.

2010-06-11T22:47:00.003-05:00

I will be spending today envisioning a Secular Democracy in Iran. A separation of Mosque & State. A place where the green grass of spring and youth is no longer trampled by humanity at it's worst. I will be imagining a place worthy of it's people.

I will give thanks for every act of protest this year has seen, large and small, that I forgot was possible. For the shocking vision of multitudes taking to the street and my body shaking as their vision made my hope real. I will give thanks for every act of protest and inching towards democracy and self-determination over the last century in Iran. I will hope for the future.

Farrokhzad in the NY Times

2010-05-17T16:57:00.002-05:00

From today's New York Times Book blog, Paper Cuts, a translation of Farrokhzad's "I will greet the sun again."

I will greet the sun again;
I will greet the streams which flowed in me;
I will greet the clouds which were
my lengthy thoughts;
I will greet the painful growth of poplars
Which pass through the dry seasons;
I will greet the flocks of crows
Which brought me, as presents,
The sweet smells of the fields at night;
I will greet my mother who lived in the mirror
And was the image of my old age;
And I will also greet the earth whose burning womb
Is filled with green seeds by the passion she has
For reproducing me.

I will come, I will come,
I will come with my hair,
As the continuation of the smells of the soil;
With my eyes, as the dense experiences of darkness,
Carrying the bushes I have picked in the woodlands
beyond the wall.
I will come, I will come,
I will come and the entrance will be filled with love;
And at the entrance I will greet again
those who are in love,
And also the girl who is still standing
At the entrance in diffusion of love.

-Forugh Farrokhzad

Why I Do Not Support Brainquake (& Think Sloppy Argumentation is Dangerous)

2010-05-07T22:34:00.000-05:00

A False dilemma, *Post hoc ergo propter hoc,* Straw Man & The Red Herring: The Lost Logic- it sounds like the makings of a new Dan Brown novel, but it isn't...it's Brainquake.

Red Herring

I am a feminist and have an IQ larger than my cup size. I am more than happy to flaunt both in mixed company. But it is #Brainquake I find offensive and degrading to women, not #Boobquake. I find it offensive to our bodies and our minds- to good thinking and sexuality. And you can etch that notch right alongside the others on the goalpost of my resume. But be careful, goalposts seem to be moving around a lot in this debate.

In addition to recent backpedaling, there is a lot of talk about visibility and gazing in Brainquake's unfortunate backlash against the protest/social media experiment created by Purdue University student, Jen McCreight, known as Boobquake. I cannot make an argument here about what Negar Mottahedeh and Golbarg Bashi, founders of Brainquake, are thinking, because that is not in the realm of what is reasonably arguable. Appealing to the thought processes and motives of Brainquake's creators would amount to a logical fallacy- a Red Herring, a slight of hand changing of the subject from the evidence of their actual assertions. It would be intellectually dishonest and make this argument about everything other than what it is actually about. So, rather than fallaciously averting our gaze from the argument they have bared before our eyes, we will gaze directly upon the visible, knowable, (refutable or supportable) chain of assertions that made up Brainquake's genesis. Rather fitting, since McCreight created Boobquake to test an assertion using evidence.

So what were Brainquake's original assertions? According to an announcement on Brainquake co-founder Negar Mottahedeh's blog titled "#Brainquake: Why I won't be joining Boobquake" and a statement posted on the Brainquake Facebook Event, here they are, in chronological order:

1) "[Sedighi] of course joined fellow fundamentalist religious preachers such as Pat Robertson who have made similar claims about marginalized groups, women, the poor, third world nations, etc being responsible for natural disasters."

2) "The Sedighi comment was no news to Iranian women,"

3) "nor was it a funny joke."

4) "For over 3 decades the Islamic Republic has used and abused women's bodies and women's socio-economic and political rights in shaping and defining its repressive policies."

5) "Iranian women have fought back in various ways, one of which has been to dress “subvervily” but as it is evident in the Green Movement (the name the Iranian opposition is known by) , it is not their “beauty” or bodies that they have utilized in fighting against a brutal theocracy but their brains, their creativity, art, writings etc."

6) "Golbarg Bashi and I are saddened that Jen McCreight (a blogger at Blag Hag), and the so-called feminist response has been “showing off some cleavage for ‘Boobquake’ this Monday."

7) "This campaign has aroused the evidently insatiable enthusiasm of the web community, male supporters in particular who can’t wait to see “regular” girls and women, many their direct friends to “showing off their tits”."

8) "Her own words suggest a lighthearted mockery, a statement on women's rights and a desire to scientifically test Sadeqi's claims. "

9) "Everyday women and young girls are forced to “show off cleavage” and more in order simply to be heard, to be seen, or to advance professionally."

10) "The web is already filled with images of naked women; the porn industry thrives online and many young girls are already vulnerable to predatory abuse."

11) "Violence against women and girls has consequences for the sexualisation of women and girls. The extent of their sexualization is evident in the hundereds of replies that pour into the “Boobquake” Facebook page where women write, apologetically: "I don’t have boobs, not fair" or "Hey, I only have a C cup… ” and “what about those of us who no longer have a cleavage? they sag too low.”

12) "World-wide, the sexualisation of women and younger girls, as young as pre-schoolers is a genuine problem and as mothers, feminists, and young women ourselves we believe that it is time to move away from this “bare it all” mentality."

13) "Let’s create a “Brainquake” and show off our resumes, CVs, honors, prizes, accomplishments (photo evidence), because the Hojatoleslam and the Islamic Republic of Iran are afraid of women’s abilities to push for change, to thrive despite gender apartheid (Did you know that over 64% of students studying at universities in Iran are women?) Let’s honor their accomplishments by showing off our abilities, our creativity, our ingenuity, and our smarts on our blogs, on Wikipedia, on Twitter, on Youtube, on Flickr and all over Facebook. And remember to use hashtag #brainquake on Twitter."

Mottahedeh clearly restates in a subsequent blog post that Brainquake was not a protest of Sedighi's statements, but of Boobquake, itself. A protest of a protest. She uses the phrase, "direct response," and elsewhere "celebration." But the discourse and original assertions were clear, as was the official designation of the Event Type on Facebook: "Cause-Protest."

Red Herring, Sian Storey

What and who is she protesting?

According to her blog post, "#Brainquake and Boobquake: Reflections on two social media campaigns", Mottahedeh writes:

"I think it is clear that the Brainquake campaign on Facebook and #Brainquake on Twitter was a response to the Boobquake campaign which was started by Jen McCreight. In other words, in my thinking anyway, there have been plenty of pronouncements of "the Sedighi variety" on women and women's bodies to which we could have responded with any number of campaigns, but we haven't and we didn't."

No, they didn't. McCreight did.

Mottahedeh goes on:

"Brainquake was a direct response to Boobquake and an effort to celebrate the lives and achievements of women in Iran and elsewhere. In my thinking, again, and I cannot speak on behalf of Golbarg, there is a lethal cultural context which harbors a blatant orientalism (a notion of backwardness vs. progress) in which Boobquake was born. Combine this with misunderstandings of the Iranian women's movement and Iranian feminism & its historical, social, political and cultural contexts and mix in boobs and what you have is --wow-- explosive." [emphasis mine.]

So, in this paragraph, Mottahedeh locates the purpose of her protest in a rejection of Orientalism. Whose Orientalism, one wonders? She does not directly site that Orientalism within McCreight's immodest proposal. In fact, it's location is left ambiguous, as is the location, ownership, and accountability for the "misunderstandings of the Iranian women's movement and Iranian feminism & its historical, social, political and cultural contexts" that are her cause for protest. Is it McCreight she accuses of being an Orientalist? Is it the concept of testing Sedighi's assertion? Where is the Orientalism? Who is the intended target of Brainquake's protest message? Whose "misunderstanding of Iranian feminism" and whose "Orientalism" is at stake....and, where can it be found?

To me, this is the central question. And one that Brainquake has failed to answer.

It is without a doubt that Orientalism poisons the cognitive environment of the vast majority of discourse in North America surrounding anything to do with Iran, particularly around issues of gender. It is without a doubt that that history and context is invisible and misunderstood by the majority of people who have heard of the hashtags #Boobquake and #Brainquake on Twitter. It is without a doubt that the historical deployment of the soteriological, scopophiliac discourses of Western feminism that construct Iranian women as veiled, oppressed sisters in need of rescue and enlightenment by the West are not evaluated by the general consumer of North American social media in terms of their patriarchal, imperialist contexts. It is without a doubt that many spectators to Boobquake were unaware that Iranian feminism has it's own roots and it's own wings.

However- Brainquake isn't a protest of Orientalism-out-there-in-the-world, generically- a protest of the "lethal cultural context" Mottahedeh cites. No, it is a protest of Jen McCreight's Boobquake. It is a protest of women choosing to dress immodestly, however they define that word, to mock and test the assertion of the Earthquake-phobic Hojatoleslam. And that is where things fall apart ominously. Like two unrelated images shown together, one after the other in a film montage, these two ideas become forever linked in Mottahedeh's argument by association: Boobquake. Orientalist. A one-two discursive punch with no logical argumentation. Or connection. And it is at this point in the plotline of Brainquake that an almost invisible narrative device is introduced: A Straw Man Argument mischaracterizing both the text and context of Boobquake.

The beauty and wonder of a straw man argument (and logical fallacy, for all you Brainquakers out there) is that when you misrepresent your opponents position and instead create your own imaginary, fictitious simulacrum version to argue with instead (like a straw man, or woman- in this case) some people actually won't notice the difference! They won't notice the slight of hand exchange of your opponents real position for the words you are now putting in their mouth. Or on their bodies, in this case. So you can proceed to go to town on your fake straw-woman-blow-up-doll, win an argument your real opponent was never having with you to begin with, and save face. The only problem is, you still didn't actually address the original argument- you sidestepped it completely. You obfuscated it by making everyone avert their gaze.

In the case of Brainquake, I hold out the possibility of an accidental straw man. A failure to evaluate McCreight's actual assertions due to unknown factors. Misunderstandings can and do occur. I am unable to evaluate the motivations that led to this particular discursive practice on Brainquake's part. But I am left to fume at the eyebrow raising logical failure that ensued- and it's implications. I am also left to fume at the readiness to castigate the intentions, motivations, and choices of other women, other feminists, rather than to actually address their assertions.

Mottahedeh named two lethal cultural contexts as her reason for concern and motivation for protesting McCreight's Boobquake: 1) Orientalism, which she has failed to locate in McCreight's proposal, and 2) The sexualization of women, as evidenced by the ogling of male spectators.

Mottahedeh writes:

"Everyday women and young girls are forced to “show off cleavage” and more in order simply to be heard, to be seen, or to advance professionally. The web is already filled with images of naked women; the porn industry thrives online and many young girls are already vulnerable to predatory abuse. Violence against women and girls has consequences for the sexualisation of women and girls. The extent of their sexualization is evident in the hundereds of replies that pour into the “Boobquake” Facebook page where women write, apologetically: "I don’t have boobs, not fair" or "Hey, I only have a C cup… ” and “what about those of us who no longer have a cleavage? they sag too low.

World-wide, the sexualisation of women and younger girls, as young as pre-schoolers is a genuine problem and as mothers, feminists, and young women ourselves we believe that it is time to move away from this “bare it all” mentality."

I find it profoundly disturbing that Mottahedeh here conflates any expression in dress of female sexuality rejected by the Hojatoleslam, i.e. "immodesty," with sexual victimization. Mottahedeh entirely excises the agency of women's own sexual and bodily expression in dressing themselves from the equation. She evaluates female sexuality from the standpoint of the male spectator or gaze only, as if women were mere paper dolls having their clothes changed by men. When allowed- meaning, when the komite doesn't beat and harass you, when you are not arrested and detained for it, women express their sexuality for their own purposes and pleasure, including in our dress. And in a multiplicity of ways embraced by Boobquake. But Mottahedeh's analysis conflates the exposed fact of female bodies with the facts of male violence. Where is a woman as a sentient actor in this analysis? Pornography and male violence are not the same thing as items of clothing that do not obscure the female form. A woman's narrative point of view matters. It counts. It counts more than the snickers of adolescent trolls leaving asinine comments on Facebook or catcalling when we walk down the street. Female expressiveness, desire, and secondary sex characteristics do not equal male exploitation. Brainquake's rhetoric devalues female sexuality on it's own terms.

But it gets worse. In locating the source of the sexualization/exploitation of women's bodies by the male gaze, the alleged target of her protest- Mottahedeh actually transfers the onus for that exploitative male gaze onto women's bodies. Onto Boobquake. Her language holds women and boobs responsible for the sexist and immature behavior of male spectators. She could have launched a protest on Facebook of the ways social media sites do not equally apply harassment and hate speech policies in cases where the target is a woman being harassed for her body. There is, actually, a feminist discourse about that. But she didn't. She instead protested our use of our own bodies. And our voice. She writes:

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes..."

No, I'm only joking, that was Sedighi. But I make the joke for a reason- look at the parallels in the logic of his statements and of Brainquake's. Mottahedeh blames women who do not dress modestly for leading young men astray, which (consequently) increases chaos on the internet, not in the earth's tectonic plates. But boobs are still to blame for boy's bad behavior- it's the same discursive strategy. Holding women accountable for male actions. Even actions that she regards as oppressive. Here's what she said:

"This campaign has aroused the evidently insatiable enthusiasm of the web community, male supporters in particular who can’t wait to see “regular” girls and women, many their direct friends to “showing off their tits”."

"Boobs and frivolity on one end, and violent explosive anger on the other. Kendall Thiessen really said it best: "Once you introduce boobs, you KNOW the kind of response you are going to get. Clearly the message was lost."

"...anyone who was on social media in the last week, knows that while the #boobquake hashtag brought attention to the situation in Iran and the post election crisis (and I saw this as an excellent development from where I stood), it also brought with it the hordes of heterosexual men egging women on for a cleavage show on Monday. Add to that, the commodification of breasts, cleavage & women's skin in the global context of the media, and the campaign, sure enough, became a piece ripe for porn magazines. Playboy of course picked it up."

"...mix in boobs and what you have is --wow-- explosive."

Now, why is it a bad idea to blame women for male behavior? Why is it an especially bad idea to blame women's sexuality for male behavior, whether in the form of rousing lust that causes internet trolling or earthquakes? Because doing so is a primary tenet of Rape Culture in North America and in Iran. Think about it- what one important step has been left out of the "boobs cause earthquakes" and "boobs cause internet chaos" paradigms? Men. Sedighi said women's bodies incite men to lust, who are then basically compelled involuntarily to have sex with immodest women, and it is that sex that Sedighi claims causes earthquakes. Mottahedeh's argument is not far enough away from that for comfort. Summarizing the fray, she writes: "Kendall Thiessen really said it best: "Once you introduce boobs, you KNOW the kind of response you are going to get." Really? Do we? Involuntary male sexual aggression and gawking? It's outside of their control, is it? Nonsense.

The merit of a protest strategy initiated by what other marginalized and oppressed group of people would be judged by the standard of the sexist, hegemonic, moronic backlash thrown in their faces by their "oppressors?" What an insane standard women are being held to here. When Mottahedeh complains of the "hordes of heterosexual men egging women on for a cleavage show" that the #Boobquake hashtag "brought with it," one wonders if she would make the same justificatory complaint in other protest contexts. Would Civil Rights marchers in the South be blamed for "bringing with them" the klansmen discursively obfuscating their message? Do Gay Rights protesters "bring with them" Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church? Do women walking alone at night "bring" catcalls and rapists? No.

This is victim blaming.

A reminder of the nature of the chronology involved in social change might be useful at this point:

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

Or this one:

If you are a woman protesting- that laughter will be sexual. It will be demeaning. It will be about your tits. And because women's political and bodily oppresion is still naturalized discursively as existing within the private/personal/intimate half of the public/private dichotomy, it is constructed recursively as "not-political." That is why it lingers- because even other women, with quaking brains, contest the politics of your own bodily integrity.

Jen McCreight, by the way, is not responsible for the behavior of misogynistic adolescent boys with internet accounts. Jen McCreight is not responsible for the misogynistic behavior of grown men who used Boobquake as an opportunity to exploit women. Neither was Boobquake. Neither was every inch of exposed female flesh, or "meat" as Mottahedeh calls it. But in targeting their protest of the male gaze at women's bodies instead of men's eyes, Brainquake does all women a disservice, no matter how we chose to dress.

McCreight never said the history of the oppression of Iranian women was "a funny joke." (Point 3, above.) She never said much of anything about Iranian women, at all. That was never her goal, and isn't her field. She is a scientist- and not a social scientist. She was recognizing a dubious and misogynistic pseudo-scientific claim about the causation of earthquakes floating around the blogosphere and set out to publicly, and comically, test it. That's it. She offered her own boobs in the Name of Science, and extended the invitation to a rather small group of her own friends. She never attempted to patronizingly unveil women in Iran, or scopophilicly equate her definitions of immodesty as liberation:

"I'm asking women to wear their most "immodest" outfit that they already would wear, but to coordinate it all on the same day for the sake of the experiment. Heck, just showing an ankle would be considered immodest by some people. I don't want to force people out of their comfort zones, because I believe women have the right to choose how they want to dress. Please don't pressure women to participate if they don't want to."

But Mottahedeh patronizingly calls McCreight "precious." She even sees fit to point out McCreight's atheism as if it is somehow relevant:

"She's an atheist, a soon-to-be-PhD-student, and a skeptic and she wanted to test out Sedighi's claims regarding the correlation of quakes and women's immodesty. Her curiosity is precious..."

Precious? Now, that is patronizing. Are other scientists assertions "precious?" Oh, how adorable, the atheist soon-to-be-PhD made a little precious experiment in the potty. In the infamous blog post that ignited Boobquake, McCreight outlined a very simple, unprecious premise. She writes:

"This little bit of supernatural thinking has been floating around the blogosphere today:
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader.
I have a modest proposal.

Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose?

Time for a Boobquake."

Anyone who has experienced the patriarchal terrorism of chastity policing and gender apartheid knows that although smart women are not welcome in a man's world, it is not your vocabulary or IQ scores slipping out from under your hijab that can result in your beating and arrest. Sedighi did not say women's smarts- our grasp of ancient literature and the sciences, causes earthquakes. What McCreight has done- and what Brainquake has failed to do, is demonstrate those smarts in action. Perhaps a more relevant use of Brainquake's "upload your resume" tactic in relationship to Sedighi's words would have been to ask women to name and list their experiences under chastity policing and gender apartheid. Encounters of street harassment and brushes with the komite.

I am struck by the parallels in this debate with the processes of linguistic standardization, which legitimate certain forms of speech and mark as authoritative certain speakers while disenfranchising others. It brings to mind Bourdieu's reminder that we learn to falsely misrecognize "authoritative" speakers and "legitimated" speech as innately superior, when, in fact what we are recognizing is the hidden history of power relations behind that authority. The vergonha inflicted on speakers of dialects that do not have broad social Power backing them is symbolic violence. This is occurring in this debate. Women's bodies and physical appearances are a non-legitimated form of speech when women choose to use them to communicate. And Brainquake seems to have been about attacking that legitimacy and our authority as speakers.

So, who do we have a right to hear from? What do we have a right to say? The historical discourse surrounding a poet who communicated with both her body and her mind is shockingly similar to what has arisen over the last several days. Táhirih Qurratu'l-`Ayn's unveiling at Badasht has for many years borne the brunt of discourses that connect unveiling to Western imperialism, harlotry, and heresy, and fueled anti-Bábí and anti-Bahá'í violence. She was a Qur'anic scholar from Qazvin born into a family of theologians. In one of her poems, we hear her speak:

Táhirih wrote:

"Just let the wind untie my perfumed hair,
my net would capture every wild gazelle.

Just let me paint my flashing eyes with black, and I would turn the day as dark as hell.

Yearning, each dawn, to see my dazzling face,
the heaven lifts its golden looking glass.

If I should pass a church by chance today,
Christ's own virgins would rush to my gospel."

How immodest. What would Sedighi say? What would Mottahedeh and Bashi say? Does this image, penned by a woman flaunting the power of her own sexuality, ignore the "historical, social, political and cultural contexts" of Iranian women's struggles?

Our sexuality has a right to correct the opacity of the discourse.

Until then: 36-D, out...Peace in the Middle East.

"Gozár-e man be kelisá agar fetad roozi Be deen-e khish baram dokhtarán-e tarsá rá"

#boobquake

2010-04-22T21:56:00.004-05:00

So, I was happy to clarify the causality of extramarital sex and earthquakes for my Qom-based readership the other day, who I figured might not only appreciate the sisterly advice but the break from searching for Shadi Sadr on my blog. (Using Google- how ironic.) But I am down-right elated to inform them of an up coming "Flash Mob" of sorts.

#Boobquake.

Look alive, men.

Earthquake Survival Tips.

Female Sexuality Survival Tips.

(Image by Foxtongue at http://flickr.com/photos/51035655711@N01/2747695451)

Earthquakes

2010-04-20T23:27:00.004-05:00

Since I do have the occasional visitor to my blog from Qom, I thought I would take this opportunity to clarify for those esteemed readers a point recently in the news:

Extramarital Sex Causes Earthquakes, Iranian Cleric Claims

You are mistaken, sirs. GOOD extramarital sex causes earthquakes.

You're welcome.

Fath-e Bagh

2010-04-18T11:17:00.004-05:00

Garden Conquered

That crow which flew over our heads
and descended into the disturbed thought
of a vagabond cloud
and the sound of which traversed the breadth of the horizon
like a short spear
will carry the news of us to the city.

Everyone knows,
everyone knows
that you and I have seen the garden
from that cold sullen window
and that we have plucked the apple
from that playful, hard-to-reach branch.

Everyone is afraid
everyone is afraid,

yet you and I
joined the water, the mirror, and the lamp
and we were not afraid.

I am not talking about the flimsy linking
of two names
and embracing in the old pages of a ledger.

I'm talking about my charmed tresses
and the burning peonies of your kiss

and the mutinous intimacy of our bodies
and our nakedness glittering
like fish scales in water
it is a matter of the little fountain's silver song

sung at dawn.

In the green, flowing forest
in the anxious, cold-blooded sea
in the strange, haughty mountain
we asked one night
of the wild hares, the pearl-filled shells, the eagles
"What is to be done?"

Everyone knows,
everyone knows
we have found our way
Into the cold, quiet repose
of Simurghs

we found truth in the garden
In the bashful look of a nameless flower,
and eternity in the never-ending moment
when two suns gazed at each other.

It is not a matter of fearful whispers in the dark
it is a matter of daylight, open windows, and fresh air
and an oven where useless things are burnt
and an earth pregnant with new crop
it is a matter of birth, and completion, and pride
it is a matter of our amorous hands
connecting the nights
with perfume's messages of breeze and light.

Come to the meadow
come to the large meadow
and call me from behind the breath of Acacia blossoms
like a deer calling his mate.

The curtains are full of hidden anger
and innocent white doves
from the heights of their white towers
look to the earth below.

-Forugh Farrokhzad

Love Thine Enemies

2010-04-16T22:29:00.004-05:00

"At times,
I watch you hold your heart
aloft from ruin-
us splendor.
Wielding words to fend off phantoms
Whose lives have long been disremembered."
-Kemba Saran, From A Dress of Steel Mesh

I hear theoretical talk in political, activist, and religious circles about "loving your enemies-" always at some theoretical remove, as if it is an altruistic or clinical decision you make to gain the moral high-ground. It positions the "enemies," presumably people who commit acts of injustice against you or build a world where you are oppressed- as somehow out there, external to your intimate world. A world of good-guys and anonymous bad-guys where your enemies come pre-packaged and labeled, perhaps even mustachioed, so that you might identify them easily as strangers behind a bush, or behind an ideology you despise. First you "other" them. Then you love them. This is liberal feel-good love-at-a-distance. I think they make an NPR mug for that if you donate $75 during the right fundraiser.

There are certain struggles for moral and social justice where this anonymous model may apply- "enemies" are faceless baton-wielding riot police who enforce segregation and don't live in your neighborhood, or bused-in basij you have never met. They do not live in your house. They do not sleep in your bed. They do not kiss you good morning and break-up with you because you glass-ceilinged your way to a raise and now make more money than them. They do not threaten to hit you when you are arguing about sex. A full half of the world's population is regularly targeted for political violence committed by "enemies" they know and likely love. 76% of the 1.5 million rapes and physical assaults of women annually in the US (to women over the age of 18) are committed by a current or former intimate partner, husband, or date.* Love-rs. That statistic doesn't include other forms of acquaintance rape or childhood violence where the perpetrator is likely someone else that woman may have loved and trusted- a friend, teacher, colleague, religious leader, or family member. So, the men battering and raping women- and I feel secure in calling those men the "enemies" of women's safety, lives, and well-being- ARE ALREADY LOVED by their victims. Intimately. Dearly. And yes, I called this violence "political violence." The presence of love does not make it a-political. Like slaves, women have been considered private property until recently historically. A man of privilege had the legal right to hit his slaves and his wife. To rape them. To expect them not to speak if it irritated him. We now recognize racist violence as political violence- but violence and power plays based on gender are still so normative culturally we barely recognize them at all. But male dominance is deeply political. Even if the perpetrator is your boyfriend. Even if he can't spell the word politics.

Almost 40% of all men living intimately with women have used force and the repeated threat of force to control and dominate their partners during the course of the relationship. [Bathrick, Dick; Kaufman, Gus Jr, PhD. Male Violence and Male Privilege, accessed 11/02/08.]

One in 12 college men admit to acts that meet the legal definition of rape. [Koss, Woodruff, and Koss, 1990. Statistics on Sexual violence Against Women: A Criminological Study.]

What the hell do we do with that?

According to the UN Commission on the Status of Women- globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. 1 in 3. Do you have a mother? A sister? A daughter? One of them has very likely been raped or beaten. I had a vivid dream last summer during an argument with a man that I care for deeply. I wanted him to understand my motivations. In the dream I was in his arms weeping- explaining that all I wanted to do was throw shattered glass and twisted nails onto the street in front of the oncoming basiji forces. It was as profound a feeling of powerlessness conjoined with unrepentant will as I have ever known. In the dream it did not represent my desire to literally blockade the agents of the IRI regime, but the forces of male violence. Patriarchy. The same intensity of rage, of instinct for self-preservation exists for women- the "weaker sex" as for men. When I hear that another friend is trapped in a marriage with a man who throws her against the wall, gives her carpet burns on her face from dragging, threatens her with kitchen knives, injures her so badly she is hospitalized- I am enraged. 1 in 3. It starts when you are young, the stories. "So-and-so was beaten black-and-blue in her fortress of well-being." Then another. And another. And another. 1 in 3. Treated differently, targeted with violence because she is female. Violence against women is the second leading cause of death among 20-24 year old American women, and the third leading cause of death among 15-19 year old girls. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2004 Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, All Females- United States http://www.cdc.gov/Women/lcod/04all.pdf, accessed 11/02/08.] I feel as strongly about Azadi for every woman I know as I do about the freedom of Iran or any other tyrannical nightmare. When the story broke that political prisoners were being raped in Iran, it was met by global activist outrage. *Every woman who is raped by the man she lives with, is married to, or in a relationship with, is in prison.* 1 in 3. Where is our Twitter Revolution? Where is our trending topic? hashtag #1in3. If men were targeted this way we would have an armed uprising. We would have a volunteer militia and a Twitter Revolution. But they're not, so we don't.

Women are targeted. So, mostly, we have silence. We have "it's your job to _______ (listen to, agree with, fellate, tolerate) me," "if you don't ________ (fuck me, soothe me, shut up, etc) I'll ________(make you)." We have reporting rates of 16%, 37%, or less than 50%, depending on who's counting. We have rape shield laws that have actually had to be put in place to protect the VICTIM of the crime from accusations.

Boys who witness their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes. (Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, 1993) Abuse includes non-physical forms of force and coercion. Abuse includes disrespect of personhood. If you would wage an uprising if someone systematically did it to you, don't do it to women. Sometimes we "watch you hold your heart(s) aloft from ruin-us splendor." We know you were the little boys watching their mothers and sisters being tormented. Being demeaned. We know it tormented you, too: "Wielding words to fend off phantoms Whose lives have long been disremembered."

Azadi.

Decisions

2010-04-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

I do not feel well today, but the atmosphere outside is warm and inviting. It's only 13 days into Spring, and it already feels like Summer. The wind blowing through the parks, treetops and small city-spaces between apartment buildings rushes my windows and tears artwork off of walls.

I live between two college campuses. A campus alert went out a few days ago that a girl was raped in the middle of the day- the day after Naw-Rúz, in broad daylight between the campuses in my neighborhood. She was walking home from class.

In the middle of the day a man walked up to her, showed her his gun, and forced her to walk with him to the river, where he raped her. What is extraordinary about this story is that she was raped by a stranger. Most women who are raped are raped by someone they know and trust.

On the 13th day of Spring-Sizdah Bedar, you throw out the sabzeh, wheatgrass spouts, that have been growing in celebration of the New Year on your haft sin table. As it grows from seed before the first day of Spring and the New Year, it symbolizes new life, rebirth, and fertility. Afterwards- on the 13th Day, you throw it out- into a body of water, if possible, outside of your home. It takes with it and absorbs all your bad luck.

The part of the river in my neighborhood where the rapist took the girl by gunpoint and then raped her is where I threw my sabzeh into the Chicago River on Sizdah Bedar last year.

This is what violence does to women. It marks every location and memory with danger. It erases freedom.

The man hasn't been caught. And the police aren't doubling their efforts, because rape is "normal," especially near college campuses. But they are asking the women in the neighborhood to: "Not be so raped." They tell us, "Don't walk home from school *in the middle of the day.* Don't be so raped. Double your efforts." As if that is a reasonable suggestion.

"Don't be so raped, ladies. Don't be so raped, women and girls."
Don't walk outside alone in broad daylight on a busy city street.

Fuck you, Chicago Police. Find me a safe place to walk in the middle of the day. Find me a safe place to throw my misfortune into the river.

So, what would you do, readers? Too sick today to trek out to where the real Sizdah Bedar banishing of the bad is going down- in a group, where, according to the Chicago Police, I am less likely to be raped because,
1) apparently, they can't read rape statistics and are unaware that rape is usually a crime of intimate violence where you know your attacker.
2) though it would involve broad daylight, apparently now a "Rape Risk," it would segue into the cover of darkness and a wicked dance party. Um...Known rape deterrents.
3) drinks are being served....also a popular deterrant in Bizarro-Rape Mythology...

I am struck by the notion that the Chicago Police, and other rape mythologists/apologists, believe the cause of rape is womanhood, rather than violent men. So, for public safety we are corralled out of the daylight for Walking While Female. We are corralled out of bars and nightclubs and college sidewalks. Maybe if we learn to be less female we can be less raped, is that it? Walk with less of a swish, ladies, because rape is your fault.

Maybe I wouldn't take this message away from the Naw-Rúz rape if I had seen a single additional police car in the neighborhood since it happened. If I had seen a cop looking for the rapist, instead of telling me what to do.

So, I didn't make it down to the river today. But I gathered up my sabzeh and went for a walk. As I walked I tried to think of how to dispose of my misfortune. When I was a religious schoolgirl, I would sneak out of class to say my daily obligatory prayers, and I remembered the provision in the Aqdas that says if you are traveling or cannot find pure water, or the use of water would be somehow harmful to you in performing your ablutions before prayer, you could instead five-times recite the verse: "In the Name of God, the Most Pure, the Most Pure." That no longer jives with my secular belief system, but it gave me an idea.

I walked past a school yard with multicolored children's chalk drawings of hearts and star & crescents and "We love our teacher," and "Jessica was here" scrawled on the blacktop- which seemed as sacred a space as any former glory of Lake Orumiyeh. On the sidewalk was a small broken off branch of a yew tree. In the first solo short play I wrote 10 years ago, a character travels to her mother's birth place and plants a yew tree upon her grave. The roots of the yew in mythology travel down to the dead and carry their voices above ground to speak to their offspring. I carried the small yew branch to a spot across the street, and thought of my verbal ablutions. A line of Tahirih's poetry entered my mind: "I would explain all my grief, dot by dot-point by point, If heart to heart we talked, and face to face we meet." I imagined the many women in my neighborhood, and in this world, who have suffered the pain of rape over the generations- 1 in 3 by today's statistics, and what they would say to me now. I felt land-locked. It was, after all, the middle of the day, between college campuses. And I was tired and sick. I could not safely access water. And there it was, suddenly, as clear as broad daylight in my mind-my verbal water-way, gushed up from the maternal burial ground under that Yew Tree: "In separation from you the blood of my heart gushes out of my eyes in torrent after torrent, river after river, wave after wave, stream after stream." Tahirih's words. Then Hafez, arguing with ascetics, directing them to perform love's ablutions with heart's blood, only.

We are the river.

I threw my sabzeh into a waste bin there on the corner, uttering poetry under my breath.

And yes, the blades of grass were knotted together. But 13 is still my lucky number.

Images:
http://www.persianmirror.com/Images/Articles/1271/Sabzeh.jpg
http://www.ancient-yew.org/treesinmythology.shtml

Women's Words & Violence Blog Carnival Submissions

2010-03-29T22:58:00.003-05:00

NoRouz at Evin Prison

2010-03-21T19:18:00.003-05:00

Payvand: Norouz Behind Evin Prison's Walls in Tehran

-----
I do not spell نوروز in one uniform way in English. For some reason, Bahá'ís insist on transliterating it as Naw-Rúz. If I'm specifically referring to a Bahá'í celebration, that's how I'll spell it. Otherwise, I can't find an ﺍ in there so I'll opt for any standard-ish spelling of و as fair game. If I am quoting a source, I will use their spelling, as in this post.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 19

2010-03-20T22:29:00.004-05:00

Happy Naw-Rúz.

Day 19- Sabzeh.

Supporting Iranian Prisoners of Conscience

Help Iranian Journalists

Cyber Sofreh: Day 18

2010-03-19T22:27:00.005-05:00

When I first "left" my life-long role as a religious believer in the Bahá'í Faith, I was struck by the lack of terminology or respect for the Divine Feminine in my previous God concept. Although lip service was paid within the community to a non-anthropomorphic God who was an "unknowable essence" and not a stock character patriarchal deity, the God I had been taught to pray to was a "he." Although a certain argument can be made that *all* "he's" are unknowable on one level or another, this "he" came with a backstory that included all kinds of gendered division-of-labor tasks, like smiting. If the God of the Torah and Bible and Qur'an was still the same "Unknowable Essence," I was directed to call "he" in the here and now, I knew what ground I stood on.

I honestly hadn't thought about it until I met my first witch and I became incredibly uncomfortable. She talked about Divinity having male and female aspects, which she referred to symbolically as Gods and Goddesses. Intellectually, I told myself that was no different than a Bahá'í reading of God as an Unknowable Essence. Some names of Allah would correspond to what we considered masculine, and some to what we considered feminine. But *emotionally* I rejected the idea of worshipping God as a Goddess out of hand as sacrilegious. It frightened me because it felt disobedient. Recognizing my feelings on that one made me realize just how Male the Bahá'í God-concept really was for me. And unfortunately, reading the Bahá'í Writings only made it worse. There is a line in an Ani DiFranco song, Alla This, where she sings, "I won't pray to a male god cuz that would be insane:"

"i will not stand immersed
in this ultra violent curse
i won't let you make a tool of me
i will keep my mind and body free
bye bye minutiae
of the day to day drama
i'm expanding exponentially,
i am consciousness without identity

i am many things
made of everything
but i will not be your bank roll
i won't idle in your drive-thru
i won't watch your electric sideshow
i got way better places to go


i will maintain the truth
i knew naturally as a child
i won't forfeit my creativity
to a world that's all laid out for me
i'll look at everything around me
and i will vow to bear in mind
that all of this was just someone's idea
it could just as well be mine


i won't rent you my time
i won't sell you my brain
i won't pray to a male god
cuz that would be insane

and i can't support the troops
cuz every last one of them's being duped
and i will not rest a wink
until the women have regrouped


i am many things
made of everything
but i will not be your bank roll
i won't idle in your drive-thru
i won't watch your electric sideshow
i got way better places to go"

Think of what it does to little girls to grow up worshiping a male god. Exclusively. Think of what it does to their sense of self. To their relationships. Righteousness becomes male, falling from grace female. Who will have the power in that relationship? Who will have their say?

The Goddess Persephone was Queen of the Underworld. She lived there half the year with her husband-abductor Hades and returned to the fecund above-ground world each Spring. Her absence from the world above provoked Winter and grief. Nothing could grow without her presence. I wonder if anything can grow without her presence now.

The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton (1891)

Persephone, Demeter, and Hecate made up a trinity of Divine aspects older than the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Maiden, Mother, and Crone- they represented the wheel of life, growth, and decay- and nothing could move forward without them. The Underworld, the place where Persephone breaks open before returning above ground as Spring, is where all new life takes shape. These three represented the seed-grain cycle on which human life depends. It's no coincidence that Christianity implanted it's Easter celebration- a seed falling from a tree to die for our well-being, only to return from the dead in new life alongside pagan seasonal celebrations of just that motif. But when did we actually start believing it was Jesus, the Son of the Father, and not the grain, that did this birth-giving reinvention annually? When did we forget the punchline, exactly?

On my haft sin I have sprouting wheat grass I planted from seed. I have sweet sprouted wheat pudding, samanoo. And I have vinegar. Each third of the grain trinity is there. Persephone had a name that became taboo to speak. But it's in every bit of sustenance we draw from the earth, and remains imprinted in the basic seasonal rituals stolen from her and given over to a male god.

Day 18- Samanoo, Sprouted Wheat Pudding.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 17 #OR318

2010-03-18T13:58:00.000-05:00

The March 18 Movement from Esra'a Al Shafei on Vimeo.

It was one year ago today that Omid Reza Mir Sayafi died in Evin Prison. The March 18 Movement is a grassroots network of individuals who believe the first blogger to have died in prison should be the very last. Speak out. Stand up. Don't let this happen again.

Follow the #OR318 hashtag on Twitter today, and tweet for freedom of speech in Omid Reza's memory.

"Perhaps in the thousand ages of divine-like patience even this rock of mindlessness will be dented by the regular dripping of roof water!"

-Chinua Achebe, Anthills of Savanna

Day 17- Serkeh, Vinegar: Patience, Endurance, Change, Wisdom & Time.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 16

2010-03-17T18:53:00.002-05:00

http://twitter.com/lettersoftheliv

Day 16- Apple.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 15

2010-03-16T23:26:00.007-05:00

In the fairy tale, The Handless Maiden, a well-intentioned Queen and a well-intentioned King are forcefully evicted from the nakedness of their naivete and Eden-like connubial bliss by a series of tricks by the Devil. The King has a battle to fight, and is off engaged in a war that consumes him, but is necessary for survival. The Queen realizes she is pregnant soon after he leaves for the front lines, and becomes consumed in a battle of her own. They each write letters to the other of their news, and entrust their messages to a servant boy to be safely delivered.

Unfortunately, the servant boy falls asleep under a tree- just stealing a short nap, on each journey to and from the castle. While he sleeps, the Devil exchanges the royal letters with his own devilish alterations. The servant boy awakes, delivers the Demon Letters unawares, and chaos ensues. The Queen is shocked to read her husband questioning her faithfullness, accusing her of conceiving a demon child with the Devil himself, and demanding the small child be killed as soon as it is born. The King is shocked to read his wife's confession of infidelity and witchcraft. They are both filled with horror and confusion. The Demon Letters have worked. To avoid the murder of her soon-to-be-born child, the Queen flees the castle and doesn't see her husband for 20 years. To rescue his marriage from infidelity, the King abandons the battlefield and the war is lost.

The idea of the devil stealing correspondence and changing it just enough to obstruct intended meanings has always struck me as the perfect metaphor for both miscommunication and prejudice, which are very related. "Thus have their superstitions become veils between them and their own hearts and kept them from the path..." We can go wrong in so many places. And do. The Devil that masks our intentions can be fear, anger, or a million other unnameable things. And the masking can happen within us or in our audience. Our messages are not always received.

But our intentions remain. And they were always good.

Happy Chahar Shanbeh Suri, everybody. Sometimes lighting a fire when a fatwa tells you not to is the most loving, patriotic thing you can do. Sometimes protesting is patriotism. Sometimes fighting is friendship. Intentions matter.

Day 15- Senjed. Love.

Peace.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 14

2010-03-15T21:29:00.005-05:00

There is a certain kind of happiness I sometimes experience that I privately can only describe as "lemon happy." Like tasting lemon curd, it is piercing while holding a sweetness that is beyond my taste bud's comprehension. And it is due to the influence of outside forces: lemon and sugar, or the existence of a fellow human being. Things that are gloriously outside of my control.

When it was first explained to me that flowers turn their faces towards the sun and move their bodies to dance with sunlight all day long, I didn't know how to believe it. It was a fact that perched uncomfortably between my childlike classification of flowers as Things That Just Sit There and Do Not Dance and my sense of what it was like to be a living being that moved.

A poetic someone pointed out that the flowers were in love with the sun, and their movement was a kind of love-based devotion. A prayer.

Sumac flowers. It reaches for the sun each day and somehow by a miracle of photosynthesis and genetics manages to capture the scarlet taste of sunlight in it's fruit. We dry it and crush it and eat it, and the whole cycle of how it goes from sunlight into our bodies and is then consciously remembered as the taste and color of the sun reminds me of the physicality of dervishes during sema, with one hand up and one hand down:

"As you act as a conduit in the turn, the light comes through the right hand, and the left hand brings it into this world." - Mevlevi Sheikh Süleyman Hayati Dede

Day 14- Sumac.

Images: http://www.klyoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/sun-salutation.jpg
http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/products/spices/sumac/

Cyber Sofreh: Day 13

2010-03-14T16:25:00.003-05:00

Health and Healing.

Day 13- Garlic, seer.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 12

2010-03-13T15:46:00.007-06:00

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with an excellent person about some of the challenges that come along for the ride with identity politics, culture, and marginalization. We all have multiple identities and at times they surface and come into play in different ways. Despite our "melting pot" culture, we have very simplistic ways of understanding cultural identities that don't handle complexity well. This is possibly due to the generations of "racial" segregation and encoding in the U.S. born from the ideology that races are actually distinct taxonomic realities, when, of course, they are not. Our diversity of color, features, languages, traditions, and meaning are forms of human familial heritage that are genetic and cultural- nature and nurture.

Yesterday I was carrying a bag of groceries and an arm full of spring flowers home from the store, and stopped quickly into a sandwich shop for a soda. Confusion ensued.

Guy-in-Sandwich-Shop: "Who's the lucky man?"
(Pointing to the bouquet of flowers I was carrying.)
Me: "Oh, no- they're for New Years. Spring Equinox."

Guy-in-Sandwich-Shop: (Eyebrows creased.) "New Years......?" (Looks at me like I am crazy, it not being January.)

Me: "Um, Naw-Rúz- The first day of Spring."

Guy-in-Sandwich-Shop: (Total Confusion.)
Me: Iranian New Year. (I didn't feel like going into Zoroastrianism, Islam, and the Bahá'í calendars. "Iranian" covers them all yet skips theology. Perfect level of disclosure for a sandwich shop. I don't feel the need to bring Hallaj, secularism, and my relationship to my religion of origin- that he's never heard of- into this, so- "Iranian." )

Guy-in-Sandwich-Shop: New Year.... When is it?

Me: Next weekend...

So, he was momentarily confused by the appearance of a stereotypically green-eyed white girl* celebrating "New Years" at the "wrong" time, and then bringing up Iran. I can only imagine what "Iran" brings to his mind, and I won't condemn him without asking. But I will guess. I will guess it is something along these lines. Right after the fraudulent June election, when masses of students were flooding Tehran's streets in protest- someone who knew I had ties to Iran asked me, "Does this have anything to do with the terrorism and the terrorists?" meaning Al-Qaeda. I was floored.

I was asked directly if I was Iranian yesterday, in a completely different conversation. And once at the market 2 days ago when I bought samanoo. No. My nationality and genetic heritage are not from Iran. I am not Iranian. I am an American of Provençal-Anglo-Mixed Celtic-Native American genetic ancestry, from a third-generation hard-core Bahá'í family. And I am not religious, but culturally in-tact. So, what does that make me? The older I get the more I realize how Iranian the Bahá'í Faith is, how things I thought growing up were unique to Bahá'í traditions, theology, or culture are just straight-up old-school Iranian. It is an interesting thing to be a part of. Bahá'ís live as outcasts in Iranian society, even so far as being written out of the constitution. But are they still Iranian? As a no-longer religious Bahá'í, who handed in her administrative rights- including the right to Bahá'í marriage and funeral, the right to attend Feast and contribute to community consultation through legitimated channels, along with her Bahá'í ID card, several years ago- all in recognition of something quite askew with Bahá'í law, where does that leave me?

It leaves me happily buying flowers for my Haft Sin and laying out the termeh that my mother kept on our family's year-long sofreh table in the dining room.
When the sofreh was almost exactly my height, I would have been about 5 years old, I would stand next to it for long periods of time and take in the red and gold of the termeh, touch the gold edging along the sides, pick up and smell my mother's prayer book that she always kept on top of it, with fragrant rose petals from her pilgrimages and frequent visits to Haifa to visit my grandmother pressed inside. I would stare up at the pictures of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the photos of my grandmother and family members at Bahjí. I would look at the designs on the samovar from Iran my mother had bought at one of many fund-raisers for the human rights of the Iranian Bahá'í community, and eventually make my way into the kitchen, or to sit at the dining room table with my mother. It was a daily remembrance of who we were.

And one I don't mind keeping.

The execution of Mansur al-Hallaj .

*One feature of my early childhood was often being spoken to in Farsi by the Iranian refugees in my Bahá'í community who assumed I was Persian because Iranians are often as white and green eyed as any Southern brunette. Nakun. Where is your mother.

Day 12- Termeh, sofreh, and heritage.

Images: http://www.imagemosaic.com/1387/Persian-NewYear-WhiteHouse_a.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hallaj.jpg

Cyber Sofreh: Day 11

2010-03-12T23:10:00.003-06:00

Goldfish in a bowl of clear water. Anahita.

Day 11-Goldfish.

Image: http://misseccles.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/jennifer-taylor-animals-goldfish.jpg

Cyber Sofreh: Day 10

2010-03-11T09:29:00.003-06:00

A controversial ﺱ/ﺵ S/Sh Sofreh item....Wine: Sharab. Read this great blog post by Farhad Mohit about the origins of the Haft Sin Sofreh, the ﺱ/ﺵ S/Sh controversy, and the meaning of
Wine. Then read this this and scratch your chin. Interesting Islamic overlay on a pre-Islamic Iranian concept.

"Drunk, blouse half-torn off, her disheveled hair a chaos of curls
Singing poems through smiling lips, wineglass in hand,

In the middle of the night she stumbles into my bed
Eyes challenging, mouth muttering regrets.

Whispering softly she scolds me,
"Tired old lover, is sleep already conquering your sense?"

Any lover offered night-transforming wine
Betrays love by not worshiping drunkenness.

Ascetic, be gone. Don't blame me for drinking.
We were given no other gift since creation.

Whether aged in paradise or today's beaujolais,
We drink what's poured into our glasses.

From laughter of the wineglass and a lover's binding curls,
So many promises are broken, like one Hafez made."

-Hafez,
Your Lover's Beloved, Translated by Mahmood Karimi-Hakak & Bill Wolak

Day 10-Sharab. Wine.

Photo: Andreas Levers.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 9

2010-03-10T18:59:00.004-06:00

Take away our sickly paleness and pain, and grant us your rosy glow of health.

Also, make us able to see what the fuck is going on in our lives. Sometimes it's really, really hard to tell.

Day 9- Candles.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 8

2010-03-08T21:47:00.005-06:00

Hafez was a baker's apprentice.

(Before he became known for writing the most powerful mystical love poetry in the history of the world.)

He had a wife, who appeared in his poems, when he immortalized his grief at her death in ink.

I wonder if he baked for her.

Day 8- Bread.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 7

2010-03-08T15:31:00.002-06:00

"It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses."
George Eliot.

So, okay, roses aren't sonbol (hyacinths, pictured above) but you get the idea.

It's International Women's Day and worth remembering the hard work, determination, vision, and commitment women activists the world over put into planting the seeds of a better world every day. Though occasionally met with Tulip Awards and international recognition, more often than not women activists are met with hostility, invisibility, jail time, or worse. So, remember- if you are enjoying a rose, someone planted it for you. Today is the day to thank her. Consider starting with this particular her.

And speaking of Sonbol, invisibility, and International Women's Day, I want to read this book.

Day 7- Flowers. Hyacinths, Sonbol.

Image: http://www.arenaflowers.com/product_image/large/1061-mothers_day_hyacinth_cube.jpg

Cyber Sofreh: Day 6

2010-03-06T22:54:00.004-06:00

Self-Reflection.

And

Accurate/ Equal Community & Discursive Representation, versus Simulcra.

Day 6- Mirror.

Image: http://cocohouseandcompany.1stdibs.com/archivesD/1stdibs/122109/CocoHouseFL//7/x_1.jpg

Cyber Sofreh: Day 5

2010-03-05T22:41:00.006-06:00

Sometimes words give us life. When they reflect our experiences back to us in a world that otherwise marginalizes or ignores them. When they act as incantation or spell- sparking new ideas, insights or entrance into a world we had never before seen. They are a most human, humble gesture- the molding into coherent symbol of some part of ourselves and offering it to another.

"Ηoly Books" are often placed prominently on sofrehs for Ηaft Sin and weddings, and play a dominant role in the daily rhythm of Bahá'ís during the Fast who awaken before dawn to recite prescribed prayers and who again visit familiar, annual prayers before the evening meal.

So, here are my holy books. The sacred writings on my mental sofreh Ηaft Sin this year. I've been changed in some way by every book that's crossed my path, but these signaled grace and purpose.

For colored girls who have considered suicide, when the rainbow was enuf

Veils and Words

Your Lover's Beloved

Three Uses of the Knife

Ηere All Dwell Free

Why We Can't Wait

100 Selected Poems

And finally, I remember the blog and life of Omid Reza MirSayafi- the first blogger to die in prison, who died in Evin prison one year ago this month before having the chance to see this.

All our words are sacred.

Day 5- Sacred Writings.

*****

Let the First Blogger to Die in Prison Be the Last. Support Freedom of Speech on March 18.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 4

2010-03-04T23:02:00.008-06:00

Back in the days when I was a teenager, before.I.had.a.job.and.before.I.had.a.pager, this was a favorite passage of mine from the Bahá'í Writings:

"Take some honey, recite "Ya Bahá-u-Abha,"
and eat a little thereof for several days."
- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

Some girls in my Workshop took this on as a daily spiritual practice, a kind of Tasty Bodily Salat. None of us are observant Bahá'ís anymore, incidentally, but we are all quite happy. Make of that what you will.

We liked it because, at the time, and taken terribly out of context, it sounded kind of like something a really nice mother or father would say. "Sweetheart, eat something. You look famished." Love given through the gift of sugar on the tongue. Taking a little honey every day and telling myself that was what the Unknowable Essence was about in some way- manna, was a good and meaningful thing. Ηappily I had not then read (or understood) the sucker-punch that is the rest of the passage...the bit about detesting the temporal world. Downer, 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

But the honey bit is a nice symbolic practice- especially to remember during the Fast: every day, ingest what it is that sweetens your life. If you don't know what that is, find out quick. Get out your compass.

Aziz Yazdi, who spent time living in the household of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, told the story of 'Abdu'l-Bahá catching him trying to sneak sweets out of the kitchen when he was a little boy. The awe and trepidation he described feeling being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, looking up at the imposing figure of the man who was the Center of the entire Bahá'í world at that time (not to mention the master of that particular manor and a grown-up) was greeted by 'Abdu'l-Bahá with a pat on the little boy's head. Ηe gave him an apple and the coveted sweets. When Yazdi told this story in the later years of his life, he would become overwhelmed with emotion at the details of the feeling of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's prayer beads on his head and being given a gift even in the moment of his imperfection. My father and aunt will sometimes access a similar powerful gratitude and love when they talk about the kindnesses they received from grandparents, aunts and uncles as children. To the aunts and uncles, the grandparents, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, these acts may not have registered in memory. They were mundane- giving a kid an apple, holding a child aloft in the water at the beach when waves began to come with more force from the sea. Love. Common, ordinary, instinctual acts of love. Mother's milk.

We prioritize suffering in an inordinate way and confuse it with hard work. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who I believe meant well- as our parents, aunts, and uncles usually do, wrote the above instructions on honey-taking, it was in reply to a woman who was suffering and writing to him for help. She suffered from disease. I wish I could read her letter and know what she actually said to him, what ailments and heartbreaks she hoped he might relieve. In his reply, he salutes her very warmly, tells her that he read her letter but does not have time to give a thorough reply. Instead, he tells her that her body is suffering, and apparently her heart, too, because God wants her to detest this world. Apparently, she was in so much despair over the lack of control she had over this bodily affliction, she blamed herself. She believed she had brought it on herself through sin- that she deserved it. That she just wasn't good enough. She came to him to name and alleviate that suffering, the way we go to doctors and surgeons.

"What.do.I.have.to.do.to.make.this.stop?"
"Why.is.this.happening.to.me?"

That is a startlingly common response to illness and trauma. It is easier to believe there is a cause within our control (even if it implies our own shittiness) than a cause we can't control or predict. We look for meaning.

'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote:

"For these thy prevailing diseases are not on account of sins, but they are to make thee detest this world and know that there is no rest and composure in this temporal life."

Fuck.

There is a distinction made in Story Theatre between actors taking a "complaining" tone or a "lamenting" tone. A complaining tone is a type of self-referential talk we all sometimes use with others when complaining about the facts of our lives. It's meta-message is "Me. Waaah." It has it's place in real life, but doesn't work well on the stage. Lamenting, however, is very different. It isn't about whining, it is about connecting with other human beings in empathy and grief. Acknowledgment. You can play the exact same line in a complaining tone or a lamenting tone, but the intention and effect is different. Lamenting increases intimacy, complaining is intended to an audience of just yourself. Complaining is verbal inflammation, lamenting reaches out to others. Both state the exact same true facts, even with the exact same words, but one in a way that connects with and reaches out to other human beings.

When we think the world is out to get us, that "there is no rest and composure in this temporal life," we fill our days and our relationships with complaining tones. We begin to genuinely detest this world both within our internal monologue and in how we speak to each other. This further insulates and isolates us from other people.

If we can lay the same ugly facts on the table- that diseases strike us down, that traffic is infuriating, that our bodies and our lives cannot always bend to our wills mustering the power of a genuine lament- state the actual threadbare or awful, painful facts and look at them truthfully with another, we unravel 'Abdu'l-Bahá's logic. In other people, we find both rest and composure, if nothing else. We find a world much less detestable.

Shirini is what makes life sweet. But you can eat buckets full of pastry and candy and not even remember the taste if you are hiding from connecting. Sweet can only taste sweet if sour is also sour on the tongue.

Know who and what your sweets are. Don't rush through the communion with them. Tell them your sorrows and your joys. Take the time to lament.

Day 4- Shirini, Sweets.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 3

2010-03-04T11:04:00.005-06:00

Day 3-Sekeh.

Know Your Worth. It can't be counted in mithqals.

Still I Rise, Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Cyber Sofreh: Day 2

2010-03-02T23:59:00.013-06:00

http://www.luckymojo.com/aspand-peganum-harmala-all.jpg

Once upon a time there was a beautiful and good queen (and I imagine she was also smart-as-a- whip, though that's rarely mentioned) and a strong, fair-minded king (who one imagines also felt very deeply about the world, though no one ever thought to record it) who lived in great luxury. They had piles of everything they could possibly need laying in stacks around the castle- shiny things, soft things, warm things, cold things, and yet they were not quite happy. It felt as though they had nothing, because the one Wanted Thing, a child, was out of their reach. One day the queen went jogging through the park in frustration, and on her way home saw that a small fish had somehow beached itself on the side of the riverbed. She leaned down, scooped the fish back into the water, felt a nice stretch in her hamstrings and walked home. What she didn't know was that this was no ordinary fish. It was a wish-granting fish, and nine months and a few rounds later, she gave birth to a daughter.

http://www.imagemosaic.com/1387/index_02.jpg

The king felt really good about having accomplished this. Ηe also felt like he would break in two pieces when he looked at his daughter's little fingers and toes, realizing he had never loved anyone or anything so much in his life. It physically hurt. The king decided to throw a party and show the kingdom (and all those guys from school who never thought he would amount to anything, not to mention the queen's parents, who had had their doubts) that he had hit the jackpot. There could be no greater treasure to show off than his girl.
The queen agreed, as long as she didn't have to do anything. She hadn't slept in a fortnight and breastfeeding was not as easy as she had expected. She also asked that her aunts, the 13 Fairies, be invited, to bless the baby and help her figure out this breastfeeding thing. Or honestly, to just hold the baby while she napped. Or took a freaking shower. She hadn't talked to an adult in days- that might be fun, too.
The king agreed, but he had had that fight at their wedding with the one weird aunt from out west who was always talking loud and freaking out the guests. Also, they only had 12 golden plates, and it would be rude to invite all 13 and serve one off of IKEA. So, they compromised, and decided to just invite the 12. Probably Aunt 13 would never know, she was probably busy Fairy-ing it up with her old hippie friends, anyway. She probably wasn't even in the kingdom, but out on some commune dancing around a fire. She had always said the word "king-dom" was just a vestige of the patriarchal industrial complex, anyway. Better to just let sleeping dogs lie. Also, she tended to criticize the place-settings.

The Festival Day arrived, and in front of an audience of the entire kingdom, the 12 Fairies lined up in procession, blessing the baby girl with her magical inheritance one by one. Fairy #1 gave eternal beauty with the flash of her wand. Fairy #2 gave eternal wealth with a smashed up handful of eidi shoved down into the lining of the crib. Then, quite unexpectedly, the uninvited, loud-talking Fairy Aunt #13 busted the doors open, clicked her tongue, and with a raised eyebrow marched across the room to the baby. She shook the crib, pointed her finger, and said, "I bless you with death on your 15th birthday. You will prick your finger and die." The dumbfounded room sat in horror as she marched out, pausing at her niece, the queen, and nephew-in-law, the king, just long enough to say, "See what happens when you don't invite the old 13th Fairy?"

This is, of course, the first scene (with a few minor updates) from the Grimm's Fairy Tale Briar Rose, also known as Sleeping Beauty. You know the rest of the tale- girl grows up, girl hits puberty, girl starts wandering the castle looking for pointy, phallic things- resulting in girl getting pricked in a locked up, sealed off forbidden room of the castle her parents thought she would never find. All too familiar, for anyone who lived through Bahá'í adolescence. That forbidden room is pretty much the only part of the castle young Briar Rose has any interest in. Because, you see, it is forbidden. And a secret.

The way myths work, the first "setting of the scene" is the diagnosis of the community or individual gone wrong. So, I will save the telling of the rest of the story to Grimm and (shudder) Disney and just focus on Act 1, Scene 1: What the Fuck Ηappened with That 13th Fairy? And, in the interests of time, I will sum it up thusly:

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you
bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is
within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
-Gospel of Thomas

Set a place at the table for what scares you. Put it front and center on your sofreh. Ask it why it is cranky at Feast. If you don't, it will leap up and bite you on y our own psychological ass anyway.

No need to use religion or morality or philosophy or ideology- or just plain old prejudicial fear- to keep the monsters under your bed and your closet disallowed. Just leave them a glass of water before you go to bed at night. Ask them what they need. For one nanosecond, suspend the great dualistic warfare and stop to ask questions first.

Ηow does this relate to the Fast? Well, in addition to table settings, the number 13 has a checkered history within modern patriarchal religion. Just ask anyone why elevators have no 13th floor or the origin of Sizdeh Bedar. What's so goddamned awful about the number 13?

Once again, we have calendar drama: lunar versus solar. Our first calendars looked like this, and were amazingly technologically advanced, capable even of human speech and math. They most often said things like, "Not tonight, honey, it's Day 14 and we can't afford another baby." The first known calendar actually looks like this:

She is the Venus of Laussel, and is cleverly pointing at her pregnant belly and holding up a crescent moon with 13 notches-both a calendar and sex education. Not too shabby. There are approximately 13 lunations each year, and as you may have heard, one lunar cycle=28 days. Just like the average menstrual cycle. Women bleed 13 times a year. People used to notice. We invented time.

"...honey, I'm late."

So, throw some esphand on the fire, give a little word up to Spendarmat, and don't be so afraid of what scares you. Dance with the one that brung ya.

Day 2- Esphand.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdfarm/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

------

Individualize your sofreh! What scares the crap out of your community?

Mix & Match!

Gay Rights!
Diversity!
Politics....ewww!
A Woman's Right to Choose!
Sex Outside of Marriage!
Intimate Violence!
Not Being Perfect!

Cyber Sofreh: Day 1

2010-03-02T18:03:00.001-06:00

In the days leading up to the celebration of the New Year at the Spring Equinox, two rituals unfold that measure the passing of time:

Bahá'ís fast while the sun is up, watching the clock to determine the precise moment of sunrise and sunset, and many Iranians around the world watch sabzeh, sprouts of wheat or lentil, grow from seed into luscious plates of green grass. Whether you are watching the hours of sunlight grow longer, or the centimeters of sabzeh grow taller- Spring is clearly around the corner.

This span of consecrated time very roughly corresponds with the season between the Christian liturgical calendar's timing of Candlemas- the ritual purification of Mary- and Easter, the death and rebirth of Christ. Curious.

What do these observances have in common? Decorated Eggs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cristic/ / CC BY 2.0

Most people have a hard time coming up with a coherent explanation of the connection between colored eggs, an Easter Bunny, and the crucifixion of Christ while keeping a straight face.

During the two weeks before Naw-Rúz, the dishes of sabzeh on the sofreh (cloth/altar-like spread) inconspicuously set up in the Bahá'í Center where I grew up were a more obvious symbol to me- Green, New Life, Spring Equinox. As I saw more elaborate sofrehs in friends homes, with the traditional Seven Items of the Haft Sin, plus special individual touches reflecting that families individuality- colored eggs, candles, a mirror- it drove home the point that Naw-Rúz (NoRuz) was about creation and renewed life. It's hard to take any other message away from it. That made Fasting and deprivation all the more confusing in contrast.

Candlemas, Imbolc, is commemorated by pagans and witches as the moment in the wheel of the year when new life first sprouts underground-invisible to the eye-after the harshness of winter. The victory of life over decay. Those sprouts equal the first fluttering and kick you feel from a newly growing baby in the womb of Mother Earth, a sign of her fertility and sexual powers that keep us moored to this planet. The Christian overlay of Candlemas's Ritual Purification of Mary onto this seasonal pagan fertility festival (as well as onto Rome's Lupercalia- the precursor of Valentine's Day) makes a very clear and demeaning statement about Mother Earth's sexuality as something from which we all need saving, rather than the ground of our being. In fact, it makes a statement about all mother's sexuality. The Christian rite of "churching" (and before it, Mosaic law) prevented women from entering sacred spaces for 40 days after childbirth, because they were seen as ritually impure from such a carnal, vaginal, bodily act. This was true of all women, and is the root of the practice of baptism- to clean the vajayjay off of the newborn and re-birth it with the amniotic fluid of the patriarchal Church. What astounds me, is that this belief in the polluting nature of female sexuality was so strong, not even giving birth to Jesus Christ, "God Himself" exempted a woman from it. Some theologians claim Mary wasn't defiled by the act of vaginally birthing Jesus of Nazareth, because he was, well- Jesus, but I think the fact of the establishment of a Feast Day for her Ritual Purification speaks for itself. They made an example out of her, for all the rest of us. Not even pushing God out through your pussy could redeem it- Ηappy Candlemas. The Holy Male Metaphysical Infibulation of Biopower vis-a-vis the Church had to step in to redeem her. Even her. And subsequently, everyone else because of her kind. Later, as you may have heard, Jesus had to go to the trouble to die for our other bodily sins.

So, going back to Easter, the Rabbit, and the colored eggs that wound up on the Sofreh Haft Sin and inside the Easter baskets of children at this same Spring time of year....What does this have to do with the Fast?

Before the Arab invasion and Islamic conquest of Iran, the month proceeding NoRuz, Esfand, was sacred to the Mother Goddess Spendarmat. The Mother of all humanity and of the first human couple, her month was filled with celebrations of love, sexuality, womankind, and fertility. The Feast of Esfandgan in February honors mothers and unconditional love to this day. The imposition of a fasting ritual rooted in defamation of the material world during what was originally a month of reverence towards the Divine Female Progenitor of that world strikes me as a fairly obvious example of "churching." In Christianization, the old gods and goddesses became demons and their celebrations were coopted by the Church. The same is true of Islam, or any conquering religion. And in the establishment of a uniquely Iranian Bahá'í calendar, the Fast has implications of biopower, and a continuing "churching" or ritual purification of the female body. Of all human bodies.

So I am happy that colored eggs have remained on the sofreh for Iranians, and I am happy they remain a focal point of Easter. (Easter, named for another fertility goddess.) The Eggs are about honoring what rituals of purification actually shut out: Sexuality. They were dyed red and passed around long before Jesus was ever born. Centuries before.

This year the Letters of the Living Feast-during-the-Fast will be a Cyber Sofreh. A table set with reminders of what we consciously cherish as a community, no matter how rag-tag, and also of What We Disallow.

Day 1- Eggs.

Nineteen Day Grove-able Feasts- Gather ye tastebuds while ye may...

2010-03-01T16:00:00.000-06:00

The Bahá'í Fast, which begins tomorrow, was always my favorite time of year growing up Bahá'í and when I was still a believer. It was a time when it was impossible to not reflect on your Bahá'í identity throughout the day not just because you were, frankly, hungry and thirsty, but because of the ways preparing for and enduring the Fast shape your day. Waking up before dawn to pray and drink tea with my mother. The mindfulness and planning (and appreciation) required for every evening meal. And the evening meal with which we ended our Fast each day was more often than not shared in community, not wasted and ingested mindlessly in front of the television. It was savored. I saw my Bahá'í friends and family each night, not for the usual reasons, but to share in the ritual of an ecstatic meal. This was not a bad preparation for existentialism.

At school and at work you were marked while the sun was up as different by this outward observance of Bahá'í-ness. You couldn't go to lunch or share in snacks. You snuck away to pray in private. Or curse in private. But the best part, was the feeling of connectedness to all other Bahá'ís around the world, who were fasting, too. A sense of connectedness to your own family and community.

I still observe that heightened ritual of Community and Life Savoring during this time. I think it is spiritually sound. I do, however, observe it on a full stomach.

When I began this blog in 2008 out of concern for what was and wasn't being said in my community of origin, normal boys and girls were just trying to get honest and daring to speak their minds and found themselves labeled "apostates" from within our own Bahá'í-originated ranks. Apostate, a term that has come with a death-sentence in Iran, and has been the accusation on the lips of the hangman and executioner in all of our recent, shared, communal Bahá'í memory. The irony- the pain and sting of Bahá'ís calling other Bahá'ís apostates to squelch freedom of speech (and thought) may have been lost on my not Bahá'í readers back in 2008, but has probably come into sharper focus now as the Islamic Republic of Iran has escalated it's human rights abuses during the last year. The fear, mudslinging, and violence we grew up isolated within as a community is now written in black and white headlines across the pages of the international press. Time magazine called it a story of the year.

So, back in the maiden voyage year of this blog, I initiated a 19-day long event to coincide with the Fast and culmination of the Bahá'í year, archived here. Ending on Naw-Rúz, (NoRuz) a Bahá'í holy day and Iranian New Year's Day. NoRuz is celebrated by people of all faiths, originating in Iran's Zoroastrian past, though it's celebrations are frowned upon by the Islamic Regime. It's Spring Equinox, when life begins and we celebrate our continuing verdant exploits on this planet. As an adult, as a feminist, and as an organism that is 70% water, I have some objections to the bodily-defamation of fasting- abstaining from food and water for a month to improve your soul. In fact, I think it's a shitty way to honor Life and Spring and Fecundity. They call it Soul Food for a reason, and our bodies are not the Great Satan, in need of punishing and rejection. I say, drink a glass of water with your noonday prayer and thank mother earth for it and your ability to drink it. Be alive. Taste it as it goes down. My readership always spikes during the Fast/LoL FEAST, so I'm going to assume that particular message is appreciated in some quarters. I'll sum it up here once again, in Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

So, I will continue to come together in existential wonderment of food and water and life and love with my community during this time, believer or not. And I will not go hungry. The power of community is that we are meant to, if it is within our power, not let a single one of us go hungry. Physically or spiritually.

And thus was born my theme for Year 2's Blog FEAST. In our community, in every community, some people are not let in. They are left to fast all year long with no sense of community to come back to at the end of each day. Their prayers before dawn are not listened to by the group, and their voices and needs and wisdom remain outside the circle. I decry the lack of public spaces for Bahá'í women to voice our experiences and insight, safe from attack or judgment. My life is constantly enriched by the tabletalk and midnight phone calls of my Bahá'í and ex-Bahá'í sisters, but that wisdom is still, largely, an oral tradition and inaccessible- and therefore invisible- to the outside world and Bahá'í men. It is mainly unpublished. It is not printed in Ridvan messages or heard in the Seat of the Universal House of Justice. It is barely articulated in ex-Bahá'í forums. When I do hear another voice in the wilderness, I am grateful in a way that I am also grateful for water. It is life-sustaining. It is reality affirming. It mirrors my experience. But, it is far too rare. Speaking out at this historical moment, feels as lonely and brutal as integrating any other public institution- the Discourse. So, last year, I highlighted female voices that nourished the spirit and the mind, Bahá'í or not. It was my prayer before dawn.

Get Ready to Rumble. I'll see you in the A.M. for Year 3. A Moveable Feast.

Enjoy your tea.

Virtue, Vice, & Valentines- A Round-Up

2010-02-14T16:55:00.006-06:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pirasteh/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Last year, before the election and subsequent turmoil, Reza Sayah at CNN did a story about Valentine's Day in Iran.

In 2004, NPR interviewed Farnaz Fassihi in the following piece about red, heart-shaped boxes duking it out with the Office of Vice and Virtue in Tehran.

In 2006, filmmaker Shaghayegh Azimi interviewed people on the streets of Tehran about love, Valentine's Day, and the regime in this 3 minute film. Azimi's notes on the Frontline blog are worth reading.

Last year, history goddess and author of Sexual Politics in Modern Iran, Janet Afary, wrote about the sexual revolution taking place in gender roles in her article for the Guardian: Tehran, city of love.

This year, protesters in London sent a Green Valentine to protesters back in Iran.

And this article from the Ukraine reports on young Iranians celebrating the day in 2010, amidst ongoing escalations of political repression and violence.

Here are some Happy Valentine's Day tunes, themed for this crazy 31st anniversary of the Revolution week, to any of my readers still able to access Letters of the Living inside Iran...

22 Bahman

2010-02-10T23:50:00.003-06:00

Have news to report of today's events in Iran?

Call Lotfan's HOTLINE +1-330-3LOTFAN (+1-330-356-8326);
Send sms or leave voice message with news.

Follow events as they unfold:
http://twitter.com/lotfan

On the Eve of Revolution (Day)

2010-02-10T20:41:00.002-06:00

It's 6:15 a.m. in Tehran, on 22 Bahman. 31 years since the '79 Revolution.

This was the sound of Tehran last night.

Bahá'í Women

2010-02-05T16:25:00.009-06:00

"Shirin Ebadi and Zahra Rahnavard are Zionist B ahá'ís."

Reading the news lately? First of all, Bahá'ís are not zionists- but you already knew that. But these esteemed ladies Bahá'í women? We should be so lucky. We would be lucky to count either of them among our numbers, but they are not Bahá'í women. Why is calling someone a Bahá'í woman singularly the most inflammatory pejorative insult thinkable in certain parts? Like the signpost of the outer-most reaches of morality? And why do smart, talented, courageous women who present challenges to patriarchal authority find themselves saddled with that label?

And where does that leave actual Bahá'í women, who have quite a bit of patriarchy to contend with within our own ranks?

It's complicated.

Images from Ashura, Last 24 hours

2009-12-27T10:24:00.003-06:00

Ashura News Link Round-Up

2009-12-26T21:40:00.002-06:00

Stay informed of today's events in Iran:

Street Journalist

Daily Nite Owl

Enduring America

Lotfan

#13Aban

2009-11-03T17:18:00.004-06:00

Death to No one.

"RT @iranproxy: Remember: MARG BAR HICHKAS! (Death to NO ONE) #iran #iranelection #13Aban"

Love, Respect, and Prayers.

Vote for Omid Reza. Before Midnight.

2009-11-01T18:46:00.003-06:00

Let your votes be counted and Let the First Blogger to Die in Prison Be the Last- Please take a minute now to honor Omid Reza Mir Sayafi and freedom of speech by voting for OR318 blog at the Paley Center for Media ThinkSocial Awards. Send the link to your friends, the deadline is Midnight November 2 and OR318 is currently in 2nd place.

Enduring Freedom

2009-10-21T21:49:00.008-05:00

A recent CNN report on women in Afghanistan revealed that as many as 90% of Afghan women are victims of domestic violence: "Abusers are rarely prosecuted or convicted, and many women do not know their rights or who to turn to."

Huh. What about in the good ol' US of A?

“What is almost as horrifying as rape is how normative it is in our culture: FBI crime statistics tell us that close to 40 % of all men living intimately with women have battered their partners during the course of the relationship. By "battering" we mean the use of and repeated threat of physical force to dominate and control a woman. From this definition and these statistics, we might conclude that battering is "normal" behavior in this culture. Seventy-five to ninety percent of rapes are committed by male acquaintances: family members, co-workers, classmates, dates, boyfriends, husbands. Battering and rape aren't, as many of us would prefer it, being committed by pathological freaks. Women are most often victimized by men they once trusted and loved.”

(Male Violence and Male Privilege, Bathrick, Dick; Kaufman, Gus Jr., Ph.D.)

40%. In the "Land of the Free." Why do we have no problem extending a sin-covering eye towards ourselves with such a high number? Add to the 40% statistic the unaccounted-for intimate violence perpetrated against women by men they do not live with- whether in the form of dating violence, stalking, or sexual violence, and the number would become astronomically higher. Women can usually expect their attackers to be men that they know, friends, family, lovers, husbands. But stranger violence also occurs. One in 2.5 American women is a victim of sexual assault in her lifetime. One in three girls is sexually abused before she turns 18. I'll let you tally up the percentages there. What's more, according to the CDC, violence against women is the second leading cause of death among 20-24 year old American females, and the third leading cause of death among 15-19 year old girls. Well, thank God we're not in Afghanistan, eh? Kind of makes you want to raise a glass to making it past 24.

Speaking of Afghanistan- it turns out rates of "spousal aggression" by US soldiers are climbing. It has become so intense Congress created a task for to investigate domestic violence on military bases:

"One of the first places it visited was Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which became notorious only two years later when four army wives were killed by their husbands or ex-husbands in a six-week period; three of the cases involved Special Operations soldiers who had been in Afghanistan, and two of the perpetrators killed themselves as well. In all, there were 832 victims of domestic violence at the base between 2002 and 2004, according to the army's own figures."

Operation Enduring Freedom, was it? I'm not sure how much longer we can be expected to endure. Not to mention the female soldiers being raped by their male "brothers" while in the line of duty- what vision of enduring American freedom was it they are bleeding to uphold? How again was their being raped going to free Afghan women? Or was it supposed to find Osama bin Laden, I forget....why are we still there again? 60% of women in the US Military Reserves and National Guard report Military Sexual Trauma. My question- if you get raped by Uncle Sam, does that get reported as family violence or a war crime? Again, I forget.

A friend told me today she thinks it's like the guidelines the FDA uses to decide how much rat hair, insect fragments, and feces are acceptable levels of contaminants in any given food product that will be consumed in the US before it's pulled from the shelves. These guidelines are called the "Action Levels." They measure exactly how much shit Americans are willing to swallow. Example: 3 rodent hairs in that vat of Apple Butter? No problem. But, four rodent hairs means the processing plant has to throw it out. A 40% wife-beating level is apparently okay with Americans, no problem in fact. Maybe we'll all benefit from the hidden extra protein- besides, what we don't know won't hurt us. But a higher percentage? One we actually have to talk about and think about and see the broken fragments of on CNN? One that's perpetrated by folks who pray to Allah and not good ol' Apple Pie? Well, that's down-right un-American.

One Million Signatures Campaign Wins Raw in War Anna Politkovskaya Award

2009-10-08T22:45:00.004-05:00

Iranian women won this year's Raw in War Anna Politkovskaya Award, for the One Million Signatures Campaign, marking the first time the Award was won by a group and not an individual woman.

The Award was originally established to support the work of women human rights defenders in conflict zones who stand up for the rights of victims, "often at a great personal risk." It is named in honor of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist and activist who was assassinated in 2007 for reporting the atrocities perpetrated against civilians in Chechnya.

Congratulations and many thanks to the women of the One Million Signatures Campaign.

the movement is located in the home of any Iranian who believes...

2009-10-07T23:38:00.007-05:00

Shirin Ebadi on Gender Equality:

"Although lacking a leader, headquarters, or branches,
the movement is located in the home of any Iranian
who believes in equal rights for men and women."

And now take a moment of silence to let that sink in.

Check out the rest of what she and Azar Nafisi had to say about Iranian women and gender equality in yesterday's Guardian, Comment is free: Liberty Central.

Also check out the One Million Signatures Campaign, if you haven't already. Lend a hand. And remember to start at home.

Iranian Queer Railroad

2009-09-29T23:02:00.007-05:00

An assertion that crops up repeatedly in the near-1500 comments on my YouTube videos in support of LGBTQI Rights is that Bahá'is support the human rights of all people, including gay Iranians, despite Baha'i teachings that condemn and sanction homosexuality.*

Well, I'm calling you on it, people- here's a chance to literally put your money where your mouth is and help an oppressed group of Iranians gain asylum so they can live free from systemic persecution...sound familiar?

It's the IRQR- the underground Iranian Queer Railroad, and they need your help.

"The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century Black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and mainly to Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. In Canada they had their freedom. In the past few years one of our major activities was about asylum seekers who must escape Iran due to their sexual orientation and we will continue this work under IRQR. Iranian queer refugees are resettling in Canada, and also in United States and in parts of Europe."

IRQR is "an international, non for profit, queer human rights organization that helps Iranian gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered refugees all over the world." They:

"help when Iranian queers are threatened with deportation back to Iran.
assist Iranian queers in obtaining asylum in friendly countries."

IRQR's founder, Arsham Parsi, was recently featured on the blog of the Moral Courage Project for his outstanding commitment to human rights.

So, let deeds not words be your adorning....
Donate to IRQR, and support the human rights of all.

*And while you're at it, speak up against Bahá'i discrimination against the LGBTQI community. Sign the Petition.

Green Scroll

2009-09-24T13:04:00.002-05:00

Time to Turn Our Irons On, NY

2009-09-23T13:51:00.002-05:00

United4Iran's Balatarin photo:
Every Citizen=A Media

Bird's Eye View posted by @joannemichele.

Some protest coverage can be found here:

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

http://www.cnn.com/live/

And live tweeting from NY can be found here:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23greenNY

I will keep updating http://twitter.com/lettersoftheliv with new developments.

To all the thousands of protesters in New York today, we are all there with you. Thank you. To all those still protesting in Iran, we are all there with you. Thank you. New York is Green today.

Iran Freedom Caravans/Project Green Light

2009-09-19T22:55:00.001-05:00

People who believe in human rights and a free Iran are gathering in New York next week to protest the visit of Ahmadinejad to the United Nations. Follow Iran Caravans on Twitter for news and updates:
http://twitter.com/IranCaravans

You can also visit Iran Caravans on Facebook and http://iranfreedomcaravans.wordpress.com/:

"Please Join Us:

Iran Peace and Freedom Caravans will begin to assemble together in the morning of Wednesday, September 24 at:

Dag Hammarsskjold Plaza, First Ave. and 47th St., Manhattan, New York

We will join together again on Thursday, September 25 in the a.m. and will join the rallies on that day.

Please look for banners saying Peace and Freedom Caravans for Iran. Caravans are encouraged to have signs indicating Peace and Freedom Caravans for some of their banners.

We respect all Iranians who seek freedom, democracy and human rights for an independent Iran. We strongly condemn Ahmadinejad and the despotic theocracy suppressing Iranian people. We call for an end to theocracy and the establishment of a parliamentary secular democracy in Iran. We demand the immediate and unconditional release and freedom of all political prisoners. We call on the United Nations to appoint a special rapporteur to investigate widespread human rights abuses in Iran."

Please join the Caravans in New York and sign the petition:
"We, the signatories of this statement, declare our solidarity and support for the Iranian people in their struggle for democracy and human rights and voice our opposition to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s expected presence at the United Nations annual gathering. To this end, our caravans will gather in New York City on September 23 and 24 to witness and affirm our solidarity with our fellow compatriots before the world body. In as much as human rights are a matter of global necessity, we ask all world citizens who believe in and seek freedom for themselves and others to join us in our just cause. Together we will demand the immediate release of all political prisoners and call on the United Nations to establish a special rapporteur to investigate widespread human rights abuses in Iran."

The Petition.

And in the meantime......

http://united4iran.org/

We Are All Together

2009-09-16T22:41:00.003-05:00

September 18, we think of you, we stand with you .

Thank You, Mideast Youth

2009-08-30T19:28:00.004-05:00

The latest video from the Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights, of Mideast Youth- speaks for itself. And you and me. Thank you. This is what solidarity looks like.

Enlighten Me Now, Bitch

2009-08-26T15:06:00.002-05:00

Here's a little Ms. Manners bit of Feminist Etiquette Advice for my Male Readers, with a special bonus factoid treat for you to savor at no additional charge. A tip from me to you. You're welcome.

We'll start with the factoid- think of it like a gooey Rice Krispy Treat, wrapped up in wax paper and ribbon, made especially for you- yum yum:

Did you know your ignorance (about women) is a symptom of structural sexism? Yes, that's right! You have caught yourself a social disease. Minus the itching. (Okay, now deconstruct it- first take off the ribbon)

1) Yes, you are ignorant. There is an invisible world you do not know or likely see. It is vast. Yes, kind of like the Matrix. No, this is not a mean Rice Krispy Treat. Eating it is good for you, I promise. It was wrapped in ribbon, that means it was made with love.

Why are you ignorant? Perhaps, even despite being otherwise quite clever? How did you catch this social disease?

2) Because you, a MAN, are a victim of structural sexism.

"WHAT?!"
"Me, a man, a victim of anything, especially of girlypants sexism?! Impossible!! What do you think I am, some kind of....."

Ahem.

Yes, you are a victim of sexism, or rather of "structural sexism," the way sexism shapes and permeates society. We can also call that patriarchy. "How is this possible?" you say. "Isn't sexism only about keeping *women* down?" I mean, isn't that what all these women are always telling you? Well, not entirely. Here's how it started for you, gentleman reader. You were not always a man. You were once a tiny, cute little baby, and then a little boy. We women know this about you because when you wake up first thing in the morning sometimes you are so adorable and still kind of look like one. It is awesome, in a manly kind of way. But, when you were a boy, you relied on grown-ups to teach you about the world, and my friends, what they taught you was something like this:

The very small fucked up tip of a very invisible iceberg. But that, sirs, is way, way, way too much to go into right now. And you are no longer little boys. You are men. And you are now not only victims of structural sexism, but also profiting off it's drippings, so you will have to do some of this homework on your own.

But here's a way to begin navigating doing that homework. The etiquette.

Ms. Manners Instructs...

When engaging in conversation with the ladies about sexism or on any topics regarding gender, feminism, or their oppressed status, if you find yourself in over your head as a neophyte, lacking the lived experience of your conversation partners and perhaps not as familiar or well-read on the topic at hand as they are, several scenarios can emerge.

1) The most-likely scenario, and one you have no doubt knowingly or unknowingly encountered, is one where your female conversation partner will simply not present any facts you might find distasteful. Conditioned to do your conversational bidding and to please, (remember the iceberg) and fearful of being called a bitch if she makes an assertion or thesis-statement (having certainly experienced that before,) she will likely avoid the subject entirely or sit quietly by while nothing interesting is said about the topic at all. She is probably afraid of the word feminist, like the two women you see standing next to their husbands being interviewed in this video. If this happens, she is being your self-esteem fluffer, and not a genuine conversation partner. This is an etiquette violation on her part. However, she may be motivated into voluntary silence by substantial fear-based conditioning, or know the costs she will pay for speaking truth are greater than she would like to ante in that moment. We hope she feels better soon.

2) If you are lucky enough to converse with women who actually know what feminism is, and are not afraid of it, you are likely to hear a declarative sentence or two. This means your conversation partner will make assertions without her voice going up at the end like she is a little girl asking you for candy, or as if she is asking for your permission to proceed. Don't be scared- some sentences end with questions marks: "?" (that high, rising sound at the end of sentences) and others with periods: "." or, even exclamation points: "!" indicating that they are statements of fact or opinion. This is normal, even when coming from a woman. It is not the end of the world. Nor is it a sign she is actually getting her period.

Although it's very impressive, it is counter-intuitive and dumbassed to respond to your conversation partner with hostile demands for on-the-spot, immediate, lengthy explanations of basic feminist ideas you have yet to read a single book about or encounter in your privileged, XY chromosomed life. The reason? Little-known fact: Infantile narcissistic rage is a poor quality in a conversation partner who is ill-informed. The More You Know...

Instead of insisting on being immediately and urgently conversationally serviced like a sex-addict with a 5-spot by your lady friend, here is what you should do first:

Take a deep breath. You will be okay.
Remember that, yes, assertions can and should be backed up with evidence and proof, and it is a delightful thing that you are in the presence of a lady who has uttered such an assertion. Take another deep breath in gratitude for living in such a wonderous age as this, where a new lady miracle occurs every moment.
Do not, under any circumstances, barrage the woman with 5011 arguments when she is:

Doing something else, goddamn it!! (Examples: Going about her life, on line at the Tesco's, just chatting with her friends, eating a burrito, discovering radioactivity, etc.) In other words- respect the Marie Curie, Hannah Arendt, or Mileva Einstein in question and do not expect her to literally drop Science so that she might drop science for you at the drop of a hat. Homegirls are busy. Get in line. Make an appointment.
Not interested in talking to you. No.means.no.
Hip-deep in another conversation already that is 14 layers deep and requires graduate-level course work in gender studies OR an hour and a half of lived experience as a 14 year old girl.
Telling you to stop talking to her.

Happily, and much to your relief, there is a simple two-pronged solution to your conversational dilemma. Prong One, just have some manners. Say please and thank you and act like you've got some sense and some dignity. Not like you've got woman-explaining coming to you as your birth-right. That kind of sexist entitlement grates on the nerves and is a conversation stopper. How would you approach a man who knew more about something than you did? Probably by doing a little homework and with a little respect. Not with hostile demands for informational breastfeeding.

Prong Two? It begins with the use of a revolutionary new technology made possible by your brother, Johannes Gutenburg, and his forebears in Asia- possibly for this very purpose, and it is called:

A Book.

Read something. Google a bit. Go to a library. Take a class. Even give Wikipedia a whirl. Educate yourself. Why in the world should every unfortunate woman you ever meet be responsible for taking you to raise and bringing you up to speed on Feminist Theory 101. And, for free? We paid tuition for this learning, my brothers. In cash, and sometimes with our blood. So either fork over the cash and get in line or get yourself a library card and a little initiative. We ain't yo' mamma.

Take a look. It's in a book. A Reading Rainbow...

Read You This

2009-08-25T08:43:00.005-05:00

Fighting Without Violence. The latest post from Feminist Collective deserves a read, my friends. Thanks to The UnDomestic Goddess for pointing it out. It begins,

"Why, at every juncture, with such frequency, do I feel like being a woman is having to fight?"

Verbally, linguistically, physically, economically, reproductively.......and with no acknowledgment that her struggle is political, it makes a girl tired. Listen to what Feminist Collective has to say. Her reflections on a night getting pushed and shoved by a harami, groped by a male acquaintance, and discursively blotted out by her most trusted friend reveal an often boundary less world where a woman's words weigh less than a mans. So she is left with only the power of her screams.But, look at what she screams.

(Beautiful image above from http://feminist-collective.blogspot.com/
She is shouting "woman.")

50 Ways to Leave Your Dictator

2009-08-10T00:04:00.006-05:00

I will tell you a truth. Passing on the news from Iran becomes a challenge when the IRI hogs the mike and spouts nothing but lies and propaganda like bad karaoke all weekend. Hey, Islamic Regime- it doesn't matter how loudly, how long, or how badly you sing. We've heard the original. We know what truth and dignity *actually* sound like. Your audience in Iran and abroad both know the difference. You won't have that mike forever.

One thing we've learned in recent days? According to the IRI, The Velvet Revolution was brought to you by Google Translate. And Facebook. Yes, every time you fill out a "Which Sex and the City Girl are You" Quiz, a member of Hojjjatieh loses his wings.

"I did it, it was me, the Velveteen Rabbit. I planned the legal, constitutionally valid, non-violent protests against election rigging....I mean evil British Velvet Revolution-ing.
I am most like Samantha."

Ugh.

But here's something cool, brought to you by the same folks who brought you, "Hey, Dictator, Watch Me Confess!" Behold! It's the Top Ten Ways to Overthrow a Regime Using Google Translate Contest!

Here's a little background from the creators:

...the thought that Google Translate can be part of a global conspiracy is so amazing that we thought we would invite all of you creative people out there to help us understand this claim by coming up with a list of imaginative ways in which this could be possible. We invite you to comment on this post with different ways to overthrow the Iranian government using Google Translate. We will then try to pick out some of the best and compile a list of the top 10 ways to overthrow a regime using Google Translate!

I say, have at it. The real threat posed by Google Translate is that it enables people to harness the power of language- and THAT, my friends, is no small thing. THAT has these freakshow hardliners quaking in their boots. Google Translate is essentially a glorified dictionary. Who's to stop it's users from looking up what words mean? The Orwellian IRI karaoke rhetoric currently monopolizing the airwaves has the intention of obscuring meaning, which is actually the opposite of what effective communication should do. But no word, no matter how beautiful, that the regime manages to croon out in coming days, and no matter whose mouth it manages to force that word out of by means of torture, can hide the writing on the wall:

That Velayat-e Faqih has come to mean, and come to be, a giant Velayat-e Fuck You to the People of Iran.

For Darya, the Color Blue, Mothers & Daughters, And for My Dad

2009-08-02T18:55:00.000-05:00

Shadi Sadr released her first note since being released from Evin Prison on Friday. I am profoundly affected by it. It deserves more attention than a simple link can provide, so I have provided the full text below. As the daughter of a former political prisoner, her words describing her thoughts on her own daughter being impacted by her imprisonment touched me deeply. It is my wish that every parent who is imprisoned for their sense of conscience, for their commitment to right and wrong, and in the faith that their sacrifice will ultimately "change the world," know that your sacrifices are not wasted. You change your childrens worlds- you create them. And in taking the stands that you do, day after day, you teach us that we are worth fighting for. That Justice is non-negotiable. And because you are the best-beloved in our sight, we listen. We learn. And we will never forget. It is a gift you pay for dearly, but we recognize it for what it is. A powerful, powerful gift. A sign of love and kindness. Because that's what all this fighting is for, at the end of the day. It is for love. We want the people we love to be free.

It was been two days since I have been outside the tall barred walls. Two days ago at this time I was in a long narrow hallway on the second floor of 209 (Evin Prison), wearing a prison chador and blindfolds, sitting and waiting for someone to come take me outside and after 12 days tell me: take off your blindfolds!
And this is the meaning of freedom, which in all those days did not reveal its azure face; on all those days, which I paced back and forth in my cell with thoughts of Darya; a girl, who like all the children in the world, had not chosen her mother. On all those days, in the morning, noon and night I would tell myself, you have chosen your own career but she has not chosen to have a mother who is active in the women’s movement, a mother who runs from day until night and at night falls asleep while still in front of the computer. She has not chosen for her mother, for the second time, to end up in 209, a place that you neither have control over going to nor control over leaving, a purgatorial place filled with the crippling sense of paralysis.

Being a prisoner, in a place like 209 is a predicament that when combined with the state of motherhood changes your experience of pain; a change that is difficult to explain and contingent on the moods in each solitary moment of imprisonment. In one moment you tell yourself, wasn’t it for Darya’s that I started to work on women’s issues? Wasn’t it for this that I promised I would build her a better future? What now? Didn’t you know from day one that you are threading on a rocky path? . . . The next moment, when the confining walls, the blinding light in the cell which was forever alight, and the July heat in Tehran unhindered by any cooling agents would press down on you, you would remember that it has been many nights that you were unable to sleep, an anger surfaces and take over your entire being, all this injustice! And you ask yourself: Why should my daughter be subject to so much injustice.

But at times the guilt of motherhood sometimes when I am confronted with Parvaneh in the public cell who after 15 years of hardship and violence, with broken teeth and a broken nose, was able to divorce her husband who was her cousin and in doing so had to leave her 9 and 13 year old daughters with their father who has all the money, a house and a job, while she is left with no job and no education to return to her father’s house, a house crowded with 6 people. Parvaneh was arrested on the streets, and like me she was accused of acting against national security by encouraging people to protest in violation of the police. It had been weeks that she had not seen her daughters, not because she had been imprisoned but because her ex-husband was granted custody of the children and he had taken them to a far off village to his mother.

For days and days, I am trapped in the deadly head of the cell devoid of a cooler except for the monotonous and bothersome sounds that pass through its air ducts circulating through all the wards until they finally arrive at each prison cell. I think about Darya, and all the daughters and mothers that are deprived from seeing each other and being with each other. But there are also thoughts and memories of others who in the words of Nima Yooshij: “Keep me Alive,” those who are near and unreachable, and those who are far and unreachable.

Those closest to me, somewhere in an adjacent cell, or in the barred cells in behind, lying on the carpet or military issue-blankets, those who without a pen or paper, through scratches made by their nails, mark the days of their imprisonment on the walls. Shiva Nazar Ahari, one of my clients whom I could not even help when I was outside of jail due to the lack of communication from the revolutionary government’s prosecutor’s office; Jila Bani Yahghoub, a journalist who suffers from Thyroid disease and is in danger if she drinks water from the faucet; Mahsa Amrabadi, whom I don’t know, but I have heard is pregnant, and I know how damaging the anxiety of interrogation and the uncertainly that comes with having no access to news which consumes the space in 209 can be for a pregnant women; and many other whom I know or whose letters I have read in newspapers.

The memory of my far-away dear ones, those who are on the other side of the walls, and suffer my pains, and breath-in the seconds of anxiety, keep me alive. My family, who I know have fallen-away from sleep, food, work and life, whom I know toil aimlessly each day from Evin prison to the Revolutionary Court. My lawyers, who instead of pursuing profitable cases that can bring home the bread spend their time tirelessly suffer the burden of hearing self-righteous answers from authorities; my friends in Iran and all over the world, who through their minutely news reports shared in my pain and the pain of all prisoners; this unity which is based on solidarity amongst people; people whose kindness was like a shield protecting me in those difficult moments; a unity which ultimately led to my freedom.
Now it is exactly two days since the doors of 209 have been closed behind me. They took back my blindfold and I returned my prison chador at the door of Evin prison, where I was not greeted by anyone; a place, however, where many were standing in wait. Waiting for their sons, daughters and spouses who were suppose to be freed. A place where everyone asks you: Have you seen our loved one?! And again and again I recounted the rule of blindfolds, the rule of silence and the rule of censorship. When I climbed down the steps, I knew that I owed these stairs, the shade of the bridge in front of Evin, and the taxi that I was riding to many people; many people whose remembrance will light the way for my today as well as my tomorrow; all those who kept my memory and the memory of all political prisoners alive.

Sadr's description of the suffering of women, so close to each other, but separated inside prison walls also reminded me of the suffering of women outside prison walls. It reminded me of the suffering of women over generations, mother-to-daughter, separated by years and by silences. We are closer than each others life vein, but isolated and remote. I think of the phone calls from friends in far-away places going through mirror-images of my life by nature of what our bodies and society dictate. Blindfolded. Scratching out our sentences with our finger nails on the wall:

“Keep me Alive,” those who are near and unreachable, and those who are far and unreachable."

This is what we are fighting for. For freedom. "And this is the meaning of freedom, which in all those days did not reveal its azure face..."

"Why should I stop, why?
the birds have gone in search
of the blue direction.
the horizon is vertical, vertical
and movement fountain-like;
and at the limits of vision
shining planets spin...
a bird which died advised me to
commit flight to memory. "
-Forugh Farrokhzad

What Power Looks Like.

2009-07-30T12:05:00.012-05:00

This photo was taken today in Tehran, during the demonstrations marking the 40th Day of Mourning after the Murder of Neda Agha Sultan.

Mourners again, demonstrated en masse- carrying flowers to cemeteries where those slain in the days since the June 12th Election are buried. Public grieving for those slain by the regime has been banned, and police and basiji attacked and arrested many at prayer at grave sites today. A twitterer remarked that now prayer is illegal in the Islamic Regime.

But the Iranian people continue to demonstrate to their government and to the world what actual human power looks like. It does not look like the batons of the thugs patrolling the streets of Tehran. It looks like the young woman sitting nonviolently, unarmed in protest on the ground in front of a line of armed militia on the anniversary of another young woman's death at their hands. It looks like protesters throwing flowers at forces who are throwing pepper gas at them .

It looks like the looks on the faces of the protesters, compared to the basiji, in these photos:

Or, today- the spirit of people as they ride the metro:

The photoblogger, Jarvo, today points out, in his Sunflower for Iranian Prisoners:

"You can grow a flower behind barbed wire, but that will not destroy it's beauty. You can keep a man behind barbed wire, but that doesn't mean you can destroy his spirit."

And he offers the following from Viktor Frankl:

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance.”

There simply comes a point when there are not enough guns, not enough batons, not enough lies or jails- to break the spirit or the will of the people. Like wildflowers- no matter how hard you try to cut them back, they simply find new and hardier ways and places to grow. There is nothing more powerful than that.

(Thanks to @madyar and @onlymehdi for wonderful photos and links.)

Global Day of Action – Respect for Human rights

2009-07-24T23:10:00.000-05:00

Saturday July 25, 2009

Global Day of Action for Human Rights in Iran Chicago, Illinois

Federal Plaza, 12 Noon Dearborn and Adams Street, Chicago, IL 60604

(This action has been designated by the organizers as

“a non-partisan collaborative of individuals and human rights organizations”. Full details concerning the genesis and aim

of this initiative may be found at http://united4iran.com/)

Roxana Saberi, Iranian-American Journalist, recently released from jail in Iran, will be flying to Chicago to speak at this event. Other Speakers will speak as well.

Chicago is one of more than 60 cities throughout the world that will hold such a Rally.

Please bring your family and friends for this event and publicize it in your ListServs. Chicago Needs to Show a Strong Support!

Nonviolence & Revolution: "I Know the One Thing We Did Right, Was the Day We Started to Fight...."

2009-07-03T12:41:00.000-05:00

Today Americans are gearing up for 4th of July events, buying fireworks and getting out the grills to celebrate the success of the American Revolutionary War.

(Photo: http://www.vivekhegde.com/photos/index.php?showimage=48)

Journalist Ann Curry, whose work on Iran I respect, penned the following tweet this morning:

RT @AnnCurry: On July 4th, praise revolutionaries, without whom, America would not have won independence

Marjane Satrapi, Iranian graphic novelist and author of Persepolis, wrote a very powerful Op-Ed for today's New York Times titled, "I Must Go Home to Iran Again." In it she captures a portrait of today's revolutionaries:

"The question much of the media asked before the election was: “Are Iranians ready for democracy?”
“YES!” came the answer, loud and oh, so clear.
With a voter turnout of 85 percent, they started to dream that change was possible.
They started to believe “Yes they can,” too.
It’s likely needless to remind you that this was not the first time Iranians showed how much they love freedom. Look only at the 20th century: They launched the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (the first in Asia); nationalized the oil industry in 1951 (the first Middle Eastern country to do so); mounted the revolution of 1979; and engineered the student revolt of 1999. Which brings us to now, and that deafening cry for democracy.
Almost 20 years ago, when I started studying art in Tehran, the very idea of “politics” was so frightening that we didn’t even dare think about it. To talk about it? Beyond belief!
To demonstrate in the streets against the president? Surreal!
Criticize the supreme leader? Apocalyptic!
Shouting “Down with Khamenei”? Death!
Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were.
They hold hands and scream: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We are together!”
They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.
They understand that unlike the generation before them — my generation, for whom the dream was to leave Iran — the real dream is not to leave Iran but to fight for it, to free it, to love it and to reconstruct it.
They hold hands and scream: “We will fight! We will die! But we won’t be humiliated!”
They went out knowing that going to each demonstration meant signing their death warrants.

Today I read somewhere that “the velvet revolution” of Iran became the “velvet coup,” with a little note of irony, but let me tell you something: This generation, with its hopes, dreams, anger and revolt, has forever changed the course of history. Nothing is going to be the same.
From now on, nobody will judge Iranians by their so-called elected president.
From now on, Iranians are fearless. They have regained their self-confidence.
Despite all the dangers they said NO!
And I’m convinced this is just the beginning."

These young people have given her the hope that she will one day not only be able to return to Iran to die, but return to Iran to live. There is nothing more revolutionary than hope. And this generation of young people has given Iran back this gift.

Another Tweet from today:

RT @IranRiggedElect “There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.” -- Baruch Spinoza

I remember on this celebration of revolutions past, the words spoken by Commander Nathaniel Greene inspired by the fight in my own hometown:

"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again."

It is a strategy that works. So is nonviolence. Keep your eyes on the prize, my readers inside and outside of Iran. Peace in every step. Nothing can defeat you if there is no place for defeat inside you. Here is a picture, taken from The Negarponti Files, of what a people who will have justice, who will have freedom, who have already won the most important battleground- the battle of the psyche, looks like to me:

Tehran, A city transformed by love and silenced by force.

We shall overcome one day.

Oh, SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and So You're Back, From Outer Space

2009-07-02T12:45:00.009-05:00

We now take a brief break from our recent discussion of (still) unfolding events in Iran. We digress, not because of Michael Jackson's death and a subsequent feeling of obligation to initiate a global media Michael-Jackson-Muharram in his name, but because something *actually important* has happened:

SWEET JESUS ON A BISCUIT, THE CONTRACEPTIVE SPONGE IS BACK!!!!!!!

If you have a uterus and live in America, there is no need for me to explain the great auspiciousness of this occasion. De profundis clamavi ad te, oh, Sponge. Gloria in excelsis Walgreen's. I have remarked on this before, but the cat-and-mouse repeat disappearances of the Sponge from the American market are profoundly impactful on the lives of American women. If you are a man- (He jests at scars that never felt a wound)-imagine ALL condoms being inexplicably pulled from the market. And then imagine that any emissions that exited your body and made contact with a woman would then grow, magically attached to *your* body, tapping your folate stores, bank account, and will to live for the next nine months to twenty years. Scary, huh?

I wrote this the last time the Sponge was pulled off the shelves, the beginnings of a meditation on reproductive bodily authority and social control, but I got too spooked to keep writing down to the marrow:

"The Means of Production

There are two kinds of “onslaughts of fucking” that can occur after a trip to the Family Planning section of your local pharmacy. The first is what I like to think of fondly as, “the good kind,” and requires no explanation. The second, or “the bad kind,” is what happens when you are a woman and your pharmacy has run out of contraceptive sponges. You walk briskly down the aisle, the Family Planning aisle, that is- let’s be clear, scanning the shelf for the familiar item you have come to depend on. The one semi-reasonable method of over-the-counter contraception that can be controlled entirely by you, and you alone. That requires no consent, technological savvy, math, or due diligence on the part of your male partner, and may, in fact, protect you from any “pilot error” on his part. You scan the aisle again….not there. “Maybe they moved them…” you tell yourself, feeling the cold wash of panic sink your stomach to the floor as you hear yourself tell this micro-lie in the solitude of your panicking mind. You push thoughts of the 1995 disappearance of “the sponge” to the back of your mind… “Let’s see…not mixed in with the condoms, the 4,492 different brands of condoms….no….Not next to the vaginal film, foam or other magical thinking-make-a-wish devices…Not even wrongly shelved next to the basal body temperature thermometers that can only protect you if you are willing to forgo sex during the phase of your cycle you crave it most.”
Hmmm…Not giving up hope just yet, you venture to the counter, and with a slight edge in your voice, you say to the very male and very young and very embarrassed clerk, “I don’t see the Today’s Sponge on the shelf. Do you still carry them?” You think back on the days back in high school and college when you were embarrassed to even purchase tampons, much less contraceptive devices, and would certainly have never dared speak their names aloud. You recall the “beard” purchases that went along with those midnight acquisitions: “Yes, I’ll take one pregnancy test, a box of matches, and a Cadbury Cream Egg." So much for camouflage. But now, the utter nakedness of your question is an urgency hanging in the air between you and the male pharmacist behind the counter, who is a lovely pink color by now, as he musters the professionalism to answer your question.

Pharmacist: "No, they are off the market."

You: "Fuck." "Fuck." "Are you serious?!" "Fuck."

Fuck. A great, nationwide, "Fuck." The "Fuck." heard 'round the world. Why? Because we are all fucked, sisters. We are all greatly and monumentally, Fucked."

American women, like many women the world over, have been experiencing escalating hits to our reproductive freedom in recent years. I do not use the word "freedom" here lightly. When women are not allowed or empowered to control when and with whom we become pregnant, it is one of the gravest forms of human suffering and oppression. Access to birth control that a woman can control herself, is a basic human right. There are very few forms of safe and effective birth control that a woman can buy over the counter, and have complete bodily sovereignty over. The Sponge saves lives. Not only that, it makes enjoyment of sexuality possible for a lot of women. There is no greater turn-off than the constant fear of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. Forget giving her a Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg inspired gift in a box, give her a box of Sponges.

But, as with any fickle, inconstant, oft-disappearing lover, I am now afraid to give the Sponge my heart again. To give it my open hand and my trust. It monthly changes in it's circle orb, and it's love may again prove likewise variable. Paloma Negra, you Sponge:

Ya me canso de llorar y no amanece
Ya no sé si maldecirte o por ti rezar
Tengo miedo de buscarte y de encontrarte
Donde me aseguran mis amigos que te vas
Hay momentos en que quisiera mejor rajarme
Y arrancarme ya los clavos de mi penar
Pero mis ojos se mueren si mirar tus ojos
Y mi cariño con la aurora te vuelve a esperar

Quiero ser libre vivir mi vida con quien yo quiera
Dios dame fuerza que me estoy muriendo por irla a buscar.

Or, in other words,

"At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
That I grew strong
And I learned how to carry on...
and so you're back
from outer space
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face..."

But, I will forgive you, Sponge, sad-look and all, for leaving me high and dry in my hour of need. Twice over. For disappearing and reappearing at the random will of a largely male controlled corporate logic. (Don't they realize women would give up chocolate and Manolo Blahniks, bread, roses, and printer cartridges for a constant, reliable brand of Contraceptive Sponge? Know your demographic, menz!)

I will forgive you, Today's Sponge, because I have to. Me, and the 150,000,ooo other American women you've burned before. Weren't you the one who tried to break us with goodbye? Did you think we'd crumble? Did you think we'd lay down and die?

Oh no, not I.

--------------

"as long as i know how to love I know I'll stay alive"
Remember, ladies. The Sponge doesn't protect you against STD's. Be smart. Do your homework. Ask questions. Be safe.

Info:

Planned Parenthood
Our Bodies, Ourselves
You've got all your life to live
You've got all your love to give
Make sure You survive.

Cry Freedom, Cry/How Can I Turn Away

2009-06-30T11:19:00.003-05:00

"How can I turn away
Brother/Sister go dancing
Through my head
Human as to human
The future is no place
To place your better days

Cry freedom cry
From a crowd 10,000 wide
Hope laid upon hope
That this crowd will not subside
Let this flag burn to dust
And a new a fair design be raised
While we wait head in hands
Hands in prayer
And fall into a dreamless sleep again
And we wave our hands

Hands and feet are all alike
But gold between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
But fear between divide us
All slip away

There was a window and by it stood
A mirror in which
He could see himself
He thought of something
Something he had never had but hoped would come along
Cry freedom, cry
From deep inside
Where we are all confined
While we wave hands in fire
Wave our hands

Hands and feet are all alike
But gold between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
But fear between divide us,
Slip away
In this room stood a little child
And in this room this little child
She would remain
Until someone might decide
To dance this little child
Across this hall
Into a cold, dark, space
Where she might never trace her way across this crooked mile
Across this crooked page
Cry freedom, cry
From deep inside where
We are all confined
Till we wave our hands

How can I turn away
Brother/Sister go dancing
Through my head
Human as to human
The future is no place
To place your better days

Hands and feet are all alike
But gold between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
But fear between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
Hear what I say
Hear what I say
Oh, so be it

How can I turn away
Brother/Sister go dancing
Through my head
Human as to human
The future is no place
To place your better days"

Who By Fire

2009-06-29T15:46:00.000-05:00

If Solidarity Fell in the Forest, Would It Make a Sound: (#cnnfail- the whole world is watching YOU, too)

2009-06-26T11:39:00.025-05:00

And now, I will translate the last few day's of US headlines for my stalwart readers, not from Farsi to English or English to Farsi, (for that you must go here,) but from complete and utter BS to transparency. Take any newspaper, magazine, or mainstream Internet/telecommunications headline from the last few days and hold it up to the screen- secret-decoder-ring-style. Ready? Go:

"Americans Deprived of Pop Icon/Iranians Deprived of Life, Medical Care, Body Parts, Votes, Loved Ones, Media Coverage"

THIS is what democracy looks like?

(Photo cnn.com)

What Does Solidarity Look Like?

This is certainly NOT what it looks like:

Jackson dies, almost takes internet with him:

"Twitter crashed as users saw multiple "fail whales" -- the illustrations the site uses as error messages -- user FoieGrasie posting, "Irony: The protesters in Iran using twitter as com are unable to get online because of all the posts of 'Michael Jackson RIP.' Well done." The site's status blog said that Twitter had had to temporarily disable its search results, saved searches and trend topics"

Not to mention that CNN, et al. have all but dropped any new Iran coverage (yes, fair readers- the crisis and resistance is STILL going on in Iran, even though Michael Jackson is dead) since TMZ leaked news of the pop star's 911 call. TMZ, CNN, and Perez Hilton- pumping clouds of thick and obscuring Michael Jackson-media-smoke over the already burning streets of Tehran: Just in case ANY news could escape the Islamic Regime based media black-out. Who needs to arrest journalists when you can get them to stop covering real news by distracting them with shiny things?

(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

This is ALSO not what Solidarity looks like:

Protesters Break Into Iranian Embassy in Sweden.

Truth- I do not know who was behind this. Fact- I am deeply suspicious that this was NOT carried out and motivated by the same masses in Iran who have struggled nonviolently at great personal cost for the last two weeks. Has some violence occurred from some demonstrators in Iran? Yes. Have hundreds of thousands of other demonstrators remained peaceful, holding silent marches, quoting Gandhi? Yes. Has the leadership of the reform movement demanded nonviolence from the protesters? Yes. So- who broke into the Embassy in Sweden? A handful of angry protesters, breaking from what the rest of the Iranian diaspora is peacefully doing? Maybe. But, if anyone here remembers the 60's or is familiar with how state powers often respond to nonviolent resistance, in following this story I advise you to follow the "money" so to speak. Who benefits from world attention picking up a story that Iranian protesters have gone wild and are (gasp) taking over embassies? Who? (Pause for reflection.........) Yes, you guessed it- the same regime that brought you the faked Khomeini Shrine shoe-bomb of last week. Clever trick, if it was them. Undermine the movement. Plant agitators in the nonviolent crowd. Especially because it plays into Western stereotypes of Iranians. Was it them? I don't know. But I know I saw a hailstorm of "stay nonviolent" on Twitter when the story broke.

Think critically, consumers of news media. Practice discernment. (You want a piece of allegorical advice from an ex-Baha'i atheist apostate? Here's a good working (allegorical) definition of prejudice and it's etiology, taken from the Baha'i sacred writings: Thus have their superstitions become veils between them and their own hearts and kept them from the path of God.) I have been horrified at the lack of empathy or common sense emanating from certain quarters of the American media-consumer-bloc in trying to grapple with Iran. People who would normally respond to this level of human atrocity with good-will, decency, respect, and love- have instead exhibited a kind of soul-paralysis when it comes to these events. How is that? What cobwebs are filtering this information from actually impacting people's hearts? Why the bypass around basic human decency to a cool, ignorant apathy?

بنی آدم اعضای یکدیگرند، که در آفرینش زیک گوهرند.... چو عضوی به درد آورد روزگار، دگر عضوها را نماند قرار.... تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی" سعدی

Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain.
- Sa'adi

See how a story fits in with your preexisting narrative about a people or a situation (your superstitions) before you metabolize it completely. See how the absence of a story does the same. Sniff it's bouquet before drinking it down. Because, despite everything, I still believe that people are generall y good at heart. So if you find yourself reacting to the situation in Iran without empathy or humanity- without heart, start inspecting what's come between you and your four-chambered, blood-pumping soul.

Stories fitting into current American preconceptions of people from the middle east get more news coverage than stories that exist outside our preconceptions, and they put us to sleep. They do not engage our hearts to feel and act and ask. Iranians feminists? Freedom-lovers? Gandhi and MLK-inspired nonviolent demonstrators? These stories don't mesh well with our superstitions of who Iranians are.

What if this is the face of the next Martin Luther King:

What if this is the face of Gandhi reincarnated:

And what if they don't make it onto the news because this is the only face you can see:

(Not Iranian, btw.)

Or, this:

You better check yourself, American media (and consumers) before you wreck yourself.

---

Worst question I've received so far, over the last two weeks: "This is all so scary- does it have anything to do with the terrorism and the terrorists?"

Uh, no. No, it doesn't. But I'll meet you after this is all over with a a first-grade level history book and the hope you've washed the racist stink off of you. And hopefully, some forgiveness if I can manage it. Inspired by the love I have witnessed again and again in the nonviolent actions of Iranian demonstrators over the last two weeks.

Yes, America, I hold you accountable for where you put your eyes. If you mean it, that you want the world to be a better place and the divisions between the so-called "East" and "West" to come down- that you want to heal from the Bush years and everything that happened before- put your eyeballs where your mouth is. Pay attention to what is happening in Iran. The Iranian people are showing you who they are, who they have always been. Will you believe them? Will you take it in? Will you bear witness?

I'm talking to the Man in the Mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways.

Just bear witness. That's all anyone is asking. Why is it so goddamned hard?

--------------------
Coming up:
It's been a big day in Iran. Human kindness, nonviolence, hope, and determination- still going strong.

Offensive.

2009-06-25T17:49:00.007-05:00

#cnnfail:

"iDeskWe have CNN International Bureaus and Reporters all over the World on standby on the Michael Jackson story. www.cnn.com"

The above tweet appeared at approximately 3:20 pm, PDT, Thursday June 25, 2009. The 911 call from his house was made at 12:21 p.m.

Apparently it takes a pop star a maximum of 3 hours (not counting waiting for the ambulance, traffic, arriving at the hospital, and time for it to leak to the press) from 911 call to full CNN global mobilization.

Shame on you, CNN. How many hours did it take you to cover Tehran like you had any sense?

It was around 3 am in Tehran when you mobilized "International Bureaus and Reporters all over the World on standby" because "There is no doubt Michael Jackson story will be Global."

They will be waking up for prayers soon in Tehran. Let's hope you remember them in your prayers. They remember you.

Here's a prayer you remember what journalism is actually for:

The facts of this world seen clearly are seen through tears

2009-06-21T19:08:00.012-05:00

The last Revolution, in 1979, was not an Islamic Revolution. It did not start that way. It was an Iranian Revolution- everyone working together, communists, atheists, Muslims, clerics- all with the goal of ending the oppressive regime of the Shah. Azadi.

It became Islamic, largely because the mosques were the only safe place to gather and coordinate. To move forward.

What about Iran now? Today? Bleeding in our arms? Fighting forward, daily, on the streets? Where is it's refuge, it's safe place? Where is the sanctuary of this Revolution?

It is, in part, online- in the sustained, concentrated gaze of bloggers and tweeters and citizen journalists who will not allow Iranians voices to fall to the ground. Every sound- every sound- that is being inscribed into 140 character messages, into YouTube videos, into flickr images, into Facebook and Twitter, into strategy, hope and memory- is the sanctuary of this Revolution. Social media is just one manifestation of the human relationships, untiring discipline, and bonds of community, of love- that are the refuge of this Revolution. I do not use the word Revolution as a prediction or inflammatory reference, but in it's truest, most literal sense: a radical and pervasive change. The Iranian people are taking shelter in the tabernacle of each other. And in the solidarity of global attention. We must not look away.

(Title from Margaret Atwood's Notes Toward a Poem That Can Never Be Written.)

Iran Is On Strike- Spread The Call: Neda ندا

2009-06-21T01:46:00.007-05:00

Iran is On Strike.

Spread the Word.

#Neda-

ندا

Noun A 1. Calling, proclaiming. 2. A voice, a proclamation

.

#gr88

2009-06-20T06:24:00.001-05:00

Shirin Ebadi: Void Elections, Gandhi-Inspired Methods, Listen to What Iranians are Really Saying

2009-06-19T07:31:00.012-05:00

This is an excellent, succinct description of the situation in Iran by Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi. (Events will develop fast today and over the weekend in response to Khamenei's speech at Friday prayers.)

You will be inundated this weekend with coverage reporting rephrasings of Iranian State Television, and "official reports" which are the mouth piece of the coup d'etat. These will be used as news sources even for CNN and other western media, trying to make sense of things at a distance. *Consider the source.* They are low-balling numbers of protesters, inventing violence on the part of protesters, under reporting their own acts of violence and criminality. It is not news, it is an agenda.

Listen to what Iranians are saying, not their unelected aggressors.

Need help listening? Google released a free Farsi-English translator this morning.

In an open letter to the New York Times, an anonymous Iranian student speaks directly to misunderstandings Americans have of this movement.

And here is "An Open Letter From Iranians TO The World-Spread it World Wide," in video form. Forward it, embed it, show your mom:

It was sent to me along with this news footage:

"Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain."
-Sa'adī, the great Persian poet

And finally, a statement by the Iranian American Bar Association urging the End of Violence against Peaceful Demonstrators and Respect for the Rights Afforded to Iranian Citizens under International Law.

Now get to reading. It's gonna be quite a weekend.

----
This, by the way- is how invisibility happens. (Forwarded by a friend.) Someone interview Paul Farmer.

"What I have witnessed." A powerful note from a female medical student in Iran, translated from Farsi by a trusty reader.

Hello,

It's painful to watch what's happening.

I don't want anything to do with what has been said this far, as I neither have the strength nor the resilience to face all these unfathomable events.

I only want to speak about what I have witnessed. I am a medical student. There was chaos last night at the trauma section in one of our main hospitals. Although by decree, all riot-related injuries were supposed to be sent to military hospitals, all other hospitals were filled to the rim. Last night, nine people died at our hospital and another 28 had gunshot wounds. All hospital employees were crying till dawn. They (government) removed the dead bodies on back of trucks, before we were even able to get their names or other information. What can you even say to the people who don't even respect the dead. No one was allowed to speak to the wounded or get any information from them. This morning the faculty and the students protested by gathering at the lobby of the hospital where they were confronted by plain cloths anti-riot militia, who in turn closed off the hospital and imprisoned the staff. The extent of injuries are so grave, that despite being one of the most staffed emergency rooms, they've asked everyone to stay and help--I'm sure it will even be worst tonight.

What can anyone say in face of all these atrocities? What can you say to the family of the 13 year old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?

This issue is not about cheating(election) anymore. This is not about stealing votes anymore. The issue is about a vast injustice inflected on the people. They've put a baton in the hand of every 13-14 year old to smash the faces of "the bunches who are less than dirt" (government is calling the people who are uprising dried-up torn and weeds)

This is what sickens me from dealing with these issues. And from those who shut their eyes and close their ears and claim the riots are in opposition of the government and presidency!! No! The people's complaint is against the egregious injustices committed against the people.

Happy Juneteenth.

Be The Change You Want To See

2009-06-18T10:22:00.004-05:00

Last Night Andrew Sullivan posted this reminder of the change Iranians were voting for in this election. Each image is powerful- one individual, alone, or two- giving voice to desires for the future.

Days later, the same streets are flooded with hundreds of thousands of Iranians- giving voice en masse to the will of the people.

The whole world's watching. Let's make sure we're listening, too.

"1 (Girl in street): Defending civil rights
2 (Boy next to old man): Counterbalancing poverty/deprivation
3 (Boy pushing away donation box): Nationalizing oil income
4 (Man standing on rooftop): Reducing tension in international affairs
5 (Boy sitting next to satellite dishes): Free access to information
6 (Girl sitting besides her mother): Supporting single mothers
7 (Girl with cast): Knock down violence against women
8 (Boy): Education for all
9 (Boy infront of man locking car): Increasing public safety
10 (Girl on rooftop): Ethnic and religious minority rights
11 (Man on rooftop): Supporting NGOs
12 (Girl in front of wall): Public involvement
13 (Boy and girl): We have come for change
14: Change for Iran"

Chicago Demonstration Link Round-Up

2009-06-18T01:48:00.004-05:00

(Katie Gardiner/Chicagoist)

The permit WAS granted:

http://chicagoist.com/2009/06/16/iranian-americans_get_permit_protes.php

Despite previous reporting by CBS, that seems to have now been removed from their website:

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/iran.protest.permit.2.1046240.html

Here's what it the rally looked like:
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/2009/06/iranian-election-demonstration-hits-chicago.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nphase/3634165746/

And 250 people protested in the rain. After much confusion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/16/iranians-protest-election_n_216538.html

http://www.examiner.com/x-4454-Chicago-Geopolitics-Examiner~y2009m6d17-Chicago-Iranians-Protest-Election-Results-Where-Is-My-Vote

http://chicagoist.com/2009/06/17/iranians_in_america_where_is_my_vot.php?gallery0Pic=1#gallery

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/06/local-residents-protest-iran-vote-results.html

Iranian-Americans Denied Permit to Protest in Chicago Today? What's Going On?!

2009-06-16T11:44:00.006-05:00

There was supposed to be a demonstration at 4:30 at the Federal Building today....but the permit was denied to the group of Iranian-Americans who applied for it, apparently. The story is being picked up by CBS, Huffington Post, Chicagoist, and of course Windy Citizen.

What the what?! What's going on, people? Please spread some news. None of these sites have actual information. What's going on? Are people still going? We've done it before without a permit.

What happened around the denial? Who was involved? How can we help?

"Chicago's denial of various permits to political demonstrators and to Yippies during the Democratic National Convention in 1968 came after prolonged attempts by the groups to secure the permits."

Ugh, Chicago. Why does this give me that uh-oh feeling.

Chicago Tuesday 4:30 Federal Center

2009-06-16T00:02:00.004-05:00

Chicago!

People are gathering at the Federal Center, Tuesday June 16th for a Peaceful rally in solidarity with those in Iran.

Tuesday, June 16th
4:30pm
FEDERAL CENTER, 230 S Dearborn

Check Twitter and WindyCitizen for Updates.

(A few folks told me they were going to go to the protest at 190 N State yesterday, but left when they didn't see anyone else there. Suggestion- if the crowd is small, identify yourself to other would-be protesters before things start up by wearing or bringing something big and GREEN. I think the crowd will be bigger Tuesday, but don't scatter if you don't see a crowd at first. Wait for people to gather.)

Azadi, #IranElection, 30 Birds

2009-06-15T09:36:00.012-05:00

BBC Persian is showing live footage of Enghelab in Tehran.

Here's a picture:

(http://twitpic.com/7gpyg from www.radiofarda.com)

Follow the most up to the minute updates on Twitter- by watching trending topic #IranElection.
You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lettersoftheliv

If you know of demonstrations happening outside of Iran, please comment here and give me the info or send me a message on Twitter. I am getting requests and would love to pass on any information to my readers that I can. I will keep checking all day. I have heard that Iranian-Americans are going to the White House lawn for candle light sit-in at 5pm? Anybody have confirmation of this?

The two most recent tweets from Tehran I have posted, both withing the last 5 minutes:

"!!!! RT @persiankiwi Have just been out to see Valli Asr is an ocean of green marchers. #Iranelection"

"RT @persiankiwi Militia still attacking people in sidestreets but main roads are peaceful marchers. #Iranelection"

I am so moved. I am in total awe of the Iranian people.

If you have a Twitter account, RT the news from Iran!!! Re-tweet!!!!!! Let the people's OWN voices be heard unfiltered by any agent. This is about the unfiltered voices of the Iranian people being heard- all over the world. Here is an article on how to "RT," how to "re-tweet" if you need some help. Adding the hashtag #cnnfail has gone a long way to get this story on the news.

"Tweet" is onomatopoeia for birdsong. Birdsong. I am thinking of the Conference of Birds, of the Simorgh, the powerful mythic Bird of Farīd ud-Dīn ‘Attār and Ferdowsi. Azadeh Moaveni, wrote in the final pages of Lipstick Jihad, of the powerful spirit of the Iranian People she saw rising in the days of Khatami:

"The Simorgh, she explained, was a mystical bird, the leader king of all birds thousands of years ago. One day, the birds were summoned and asked to undertake a journey to reach their king. They accepted, though it was a hazardous journey, fraught with obstacles and valleys. Some of the birds-the nightingale, the sparrow- dropped out along the way.

With closed eyes, still tuning out the ululations around me, I tried to remember the story, as it had been told to me on that terrace so many years ago. Yes, in the end, the birds that made it through to the final valley gathered and waited expectantly to meet their leader. Their guide turned to them, and announced that there was no leader, no Simorgh- that if they looked around them, they would realize that they themselves were the Simorgh. The tale relied on a play of words in Farsi, si- means thirty, and morgh- means bird. The birds looked around, and realized there were thirty of them."

Today there are 3 million of them. They are starting to gather in Azadi Square. A tweet from Tehran:

"naseemfaqihi Tweet > pen > sword :) #iranelection #cnnfail"

______

Azadi means freedom. This tower was erected in commemoration of the 2,500 Anniversary of the Persian Empire, and originally named in remembrance of the Shahs. It was renamed Azadi after the revolution in 1979, and is the most visible symbol linking Iran's past with it's future. It's architecture is uniquely Persian, and incorporates symbolism from religions practiced by many divergent Iranians, including the persecuted Bahá'í minority.

(Simorgh image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bahram_Alivandi_myth.jpg)

Where you Can Protest Today in Canada and the US, and Tomorrow in France and Tehran

2009-06-14T10:44:00.009-05:00

Places to Protest Today:

Toronto:

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Time: 2:00pm - 5:00pm Location: Mel Lastman sq.
Street: Yonge st.

Vancouver:

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Time: 4:00pm - 8:30pm

Location: Vancouver Convention Center
Street: 1055 Canada place

Paris:

Monday, June 15, 2009
Time: 4:00pm - 8:00pm Location: place des innocences. (métro : Châtelet)

Boston:

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Time: 11:00am - 2:00pm Location: Harvard Sq.

Winnipeg:

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Time: 3:00pm - 5:00pm Location: University of Manitoba, in front of Administration Bldg.

Look at this link for info and organizing for the Facebook groups for the above events.

Other events:

Los Angeles:

Sun. Jun 14. 11:00am-1:00pm, Federal bldg, Westwood, Wilshire & Veteran st, LA, CA

Chicago:

4 to 5 PM at 190 N. State Street (State & Lake) by ABC 7.

Tehran:

March at 4pm on Monday on Vali Asr, and National Strike on Tuesday. The TehranBureau site is currently hacked, but info is accessible through Facebook. Be careful. (I'll post any more info I get about it on Twitter.)

Peace be with you, whether your green is secular or otherwise.

Peace.Be.With.You:

"It is not simple to adopt the credo that moral force has as much strength and virtue as the capacity to return a physical blow; or that to refrain from hitting back requires more will and bravery than the automatic reflexes of defense...We proved that we had the most formidable weapon of all- the conviction that we were right. We had the protection of our knowledge that we were more concerned about realizing our righteous aims than about saving our skins."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait