White Balloon

Daily Journal of Mahaan, an Iranian-American student residing in USA.

Friday, March 28, 2003


Photo of the day:

Police officers ring a cluster of anti-war protesters during a midtown demonstration Thursday morning, March 27, 2003, in New York. Hundreds of chanting anti-war protesters lined Fifth Avenue and dozens lay down in the street at the beginning of a series of civil disobedience actions planned for throughout the day. (AP Photo/Robert Mecea) (Click for Large Photo)
Today Richard Perle resigned. He was one of the main architects of the Iraq war who has been making billions of dollars from defense contracts. I don't think that's gonna affect the war that much as Bush has a club of these guys around him and this resignation was a move to avoid controversies like the resignation of Kisinger from the 911 investigation committee (by the way, God know what happened to that committee).

I keep reading and hear about these typical comments from Iran that: Why US is not attacking Iran? There are a large group of people who seem to forget the war and the way these guys are attacking people. The growth of these kinds of superficial types of judgments are really dangerous for Iran. The other day a friend of mine was saying why these people, who think that US attack will be useful for Iran, are not taking part in a more serious revolt against the conservatives in Iran. If they don't care about their safety and life that much that they prefer that US attacks Tehran with hundreds of missiles and bombs in a single night, then what's there to loose if they really come to streets of Tehran and face the oppression of Sepah or police!

Ranginkamaan has written that there is a large population in Iran who believe that having a pro-US puppet government is better than the current system. Why are we loosing our historical memory and forget the frustrations that Iranians were feeling towards Shah's pro-US policies. I believe there have always been a historical leftist tendency among Iranians a fully capitalistic model which is applied completely in US and partially in countries like South Korea can never work in Iran. When I look at history and read about Mazdak, Abu Moslem, Shaah Esmail and even Khomeini, I see a continuous battle in Iran for achieving social justice when Feudalist (I see them as old versions of capitalist) and capitalist governments were running the country. So how on earth now we're considering a pro-US government (probably Mr Pahlavi) can make Iranians happy in the 21st century? Do we think that Iranians are like Egyptians who sit and see thousands of foreigner come to their country and dance on luxurious tourist facilities while Iranian kids don't have basic educational systems. How much the pro-US government of Iran can be different than the ones in Egypt? Those who think that a pro-US government can bring prosperity to Iran similar to the gulf states are completely zoned out. Today Iran has 70 million populations and the only way that Iran can become a prosperous nation is by having a healthy, democratic government, because its sources of income are not that vast that it can produce that much of money that the low class of country can have benefits similar to small gulf states. And I really don't think that the pro-US government that seizes the power through a military campaign is ever gonna bring any sort of democracy and healthy government in Iran.


After writing: I read an interesting and related article by Mr. Farokh Negahdar in Iran Emrooz.

Thursday, March 27, 2003

It has been quite a stressful wait for the admission results. I guess it started mid February and now it's end of March and nothing possitive has arrived yet. I tried to ignore it for 10 days and now that count down feeling is back.
I was thinking how ordinary people are able to enjoy their daily life without looking that much beyond their current condition and the fact that I can not be like that. They can easily enjoy of the superficialities of life, but I am all the time looking for acheiving something big and of course looking for a more stable condition. The part that bothers me about not going to PhD schools this year is this continious wait process which will happen next year. These days, I'm so how happy with the work that I'm doing on my Masters project. If I can find a good media related project, I really won't have any problem with working for couple of years and then maybe thinking about PhD. I guess for now I have to wait and later speculate about these possibilities.
Thanks to my beloved Friend, now I have a beautiful logo up there. Good night.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

My friend told me about a weblog named anti-khorshidkhanoom or so and that was the start to look at some of the weblogs that I hadn't seen before. I'm talking about some of the webloggers (mostly male) who feel seriously threatened by female webloggers. Weblogging is a serious trend in Iran today for the new generation and females are not an exemption of it. Actually for a country that basic norms of outdoor activities are still quite unbalanced for females, Internet of course plays as a vital source of entertainment and communication. Previously I had seen many nasty type of comments on other weblogs by readers and also in other Iranian online communities, but today I discovered about some weblogs that their base is to attack some of the famous female bloggers with a very dirty language. By looking at some of these weblogs and the affiliation of their authors, I could easily see that they belong to rich traditional uneducated bazaaris class of society. I believe that if one day a real cultural reform (that I see the primary step for development of Iran) is going to happen, this class of society will show the major resistance. I can see that dealing with many of the true religious fellows is much easier than this dangerous class which keeps growing. This class is based only on capital movement in a sick economy system in Iran which has gained almost anything but culture. Bahram Beyzaii, one of the leading Iranian film directors has pictured the growth of this class in Iran in his recent masterpiece movie “Sag koshi”. Although Islamic fundamentalist such as Ansaar or Basijis which are nothing but a militia force might look like the main enemies of the cultural reform today in Iran, but since I see sincerity and in some way brain washing in many of those young fellows, I can easily see a day that they stop their harsh resistance as we saw a enormous change in radical left wing think-tanks who practically formed the 2nd khordad movement in 1990s.

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

The war continues and now it's becoming the 2nd hand story in the media's coverege. Since the start of the war, I haven't been able to stand more than 10 minutes infront of the TV. The coverage is so terrible and does not have any journalistic value. The whole tragedy was being reported as a video game for entertainment of the western audience. Even in alternative sources like Guardian, I couldn't find that much of alternative reporting. Maybe that's because the alies are not letting alternative resources to get a hold of the scenes. Today I read that the sale of Aljazeera satelite channel has been doubled in Europe. One interesting resource that I keep hearing, a personal weblog from Baghdad named Salam Pax . Still people are doubtful the fact that the weblog is being written in Iraq. But so far it sounds to be a valid claim.
Michael Moore made a historic move in the OSCAR last night when he attacked Bush with no reservation. Probably the last time that I felt this much happy was when Iran scored victory in the football game with US in the Worldcup 1998. The general theme of the OSCAR was quite anti-war last night and that's why media was so pissed off this morning. He continued his speech in the backstage interview which was as interesting as his stage speech. It's tough to judge about America these days. From one side I see Moore's claim that majority of Americans are aware of the darkness of the ruling republicans and I also see the people who go to streets of different cities in protests against the war and from other side I see pro-war protests and shocking supporting polls and opinions for the war and the fact that Americans voted for these guys in the most recent election. But I should add that Moore's speech was quite promising for me and after days of depression that made me unable to do anything productive (except protesting against the war), I was able to catch up with life today.

Friday, March 21, 2003

It's Norouz. The first day of Spring. My White Balloon is ready to start its fly. Happy 1382.

Why Whiteballoon?

I started writing this blog on early days of Spring 2003 around Persian New Year (Norouz).... White Balloon that is one my most favorite movies is a great introduction to the current Norouz culture of Iran.... Quite a nostalgic picture ... A theme that is also present in this blog....

I have been and probably will be an slacker in improving visual and technical aspects of this blog.... But at least I keep it up by my random notes.

Welcome to my little cozy space and thanks for visiting!
 
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