BLESSED ARE
/ the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven / those who mourn, for they shall be comforted
/ the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth / those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied
/ the merciful, for they shall receive mercy
/ the pure in heart, for they shall see God
/ those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
/ Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven.
> Worldwide expressions of support for Palestine, the Lebanese resistance, and the Islamic Revolution, against the Pharisee illegal occupations and Anglo Pharisee Imperialism. Scenes are from dozens of cities around Iran, as well as Berlin, Karachi, and London. More rallies were held in Stockholm, Malmö, Toronto, Paris, Alipour (India), throughout Palestine and Lebanon, and several other places of the planet. This is my personal take on the genuine manifestations of the people's will, unlike the fanatic covering of a few hundred of Iranian traitors in the streets of Tehran, a 0.001% of the people of that city portrayed as representative of anything.
Extracts from the article Some Angles on the Islamic Revolution by Ivor Benson, Christian journalist / analyst from Sweden
An exploration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran conveys two great truths with vast implications:
Religion can still be a more potent mobilizer of mass political action than can secular ideologies, and the longtime hegemony of Western social models has ended. The Iranian Revolution thus emerges as one of the most important events in modern history, on a par with the watershed French and Russian revolutions.
Extracts from the article Some Angles on the Islamic Revolution by Ivor Benson, Christian journalist / analyst from Sweden
An exploration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran conveys two great truths with vast implications:
Religion can still be a more potent mobilizer of mass political action than can secular ideologies, and the longtime hegemony of Western social models has ended. The Iranian Revolution thus emerges as one of the most important events in modern history, on a par with the watershed French and Russian revolutions.
There are innumerable reasons for believing that the emergence of highly dynamic Islamic fundamentalism in Iran is a development of incalculable worldwide consequence. The Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had this comment:
"The Iranian Revolution has highlighted one of the principal religious and political developments of our time: the revival of Islamic fundamentalism from Indonesia to Morocco and from Turkey to Central Africa."
Dr. Algar, professor of Persian and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, observes:
"The subject of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is one whose importance hardly needs underlining. With the passage of time, its importance will become even clearer, as being the most significant and profound event in the entirety of contemporary Islamic history. Already we see the impact of the Islamic Revolution manifested in different ways across the length and breadth of the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia, from Bosnia to the heart of Europe down to Africa."
Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute, London, offers this assessment:
"Since the revolution in Iran I have been moving around some of the Sunni countries, some of the most reactionary if I might put it that way; I can assure you that the people in those countries have been absolutely galvanized and their imaginations have been captured ... Some of them take the precaution of locking their doors before they talk about it. If national boundaries were taken away, probably Ayatollah Khomeini would be elected by acclamation by the Ummah as a whole as the leader of the Muslim world today."خِرمان
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Open pledge to prosecute Mousavi and the traitors of Iran
Published August 13, 2009 by Germán 兄弟 خِرمان.
[Sign] the petition to try the corrupted Iranian opposition leaders (Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi). The wall of shame of the secularist mafias of Iran. These very same corrupted people who turned Iran into a rogue regime from where Ahmadinejad came to rescue the country, are supposed to be leading "change" and "freedom" (rather McFreedom) in Iran?
In the hope that the real responsible pay for every single drop of Iranian blood spilled.
Brief background
The Iranian opposition has been plaguing Iran with mafia networks that have resulted in serious corruption and inefficiency problems.
In the last years they have become desperate because of Ahmadinejad's dealing with their corruption schemes, and have all united to confront him and the Iranian people who are behind him.
It is time that they pay for all the harm they have done to Iran, leading the Islamic Revolution astray, cooperating with the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, seeding insecurity, corruption and decadence in the Islamic Republic, and ultimately being responsible for riots and the spilling of Iranian blood in the recent unrest.
خِرمان
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Clinton admits US role in 'velvet revolution' unrest in Iran
Published August 10, 2009 by Germán 兄弟 خِرمان.
> While some responsible of the attempt of 'velvet revolution' against Iran are facing trials in Tehran and admitting cooperation with foreign powers, intelligence agencies and terrorist groups, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, makes her own confessions.
[Sign] the petition to try the corrupted Iranian opposition leaders (Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi).
In the hope that the real responsible pay for every single drop of Iranian blood spilled.
Brief background
The Iranian opposition has been plaguing Iran with mafia networks that have resulted in serious corruption and inefficiency problems.
In the last years they have become desperate because of Ahmadinejad's dealing with their corruption schemes, and have all united to confront him and the Iranian people who are behind him.
It is time that they pay for all the harm they have done to Iran, leading the Islamic Revolution astray, cooperating with the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, seeding insecurity, corruption and decadence in the Islamic Republic, and ultimately being responsible for riots and the spilling of Iranian blood in the recent unrest.
[Sign] the petition to try the corrupted Iranian opposition leaders (Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi).
In the hope that the real responsible pay for every single drop of Iranian blood spilled.
Brief background
The Iranian opposition has been plaguing Iran with mafia networks that have resulted in serious corruption and inefficiency problems.
In the last years they have become desperate because of Ahmadinejad's dealing with their corruption schemes, and have all united to confront him and the Iranian people who are behind him.
It is time that they pay for all the harm they have done to Iran, leading the Islamic Revolution astray, cooperating with the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, seeding insecurity, corruption and decadence in the Islamic Republic, and ultimately being responsible for riots and the spilling of Iranian blood in the recent unrest.
خِرمان
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Germán
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Labels: Ahmadinejad, CIA, Clinton, Elections, Fraud, Iran, Karroubi, Khatami, Mousavi, Neda, Obama, Opposition, Propaganda, Protests, Rafsanjani, Revolution, Riot, Tehran, Vote, West
> I made this video as my personal take on the deaths of these two martyrs of a global war against spirituality: Marwa Sherbini (Egyptian) stabbed to death in a German courtroom by a hater of Islam, and Neda Soltan (Iranian) one of the victims of the artificial unrest in Iran encouraged by media and its associates (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) eager to wipe genuine Islam from that country and forcefully impose secularism on a mainly Muslim population.
خِرمان
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Labels: Ahmadinejad, Egypt, Elections, Fraud, Germany, Green, Hijab, Iran, Islamic, Islamic Revolution, Islamophobia, Khamenei, Marwa, Mousavi, Neda, Propaganda, Protests, Sherbini, Veil, Youth
> This is a video I made one day before the Iranian elections of 2009, noticing that the world media and its partners (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) had built up an atmosphere to justify protests and unrest in Iran after the imminent and predictable landslide victory of Ahmadinejad. Sadly, they didn't heed my warning on the opening of the video, and those plotters behind the protests got the dead people that they needed to continue with the artificial chaos (just like that they play with and use human life),
The images - illustrating the prevailing atmosphere in Iran before the elections - were completely censored by Western media, which only showed scenes of Moussavi supporters, making people believe they had a chance of going to a second round or even winning, and that his clear defeat - obvious to anyone aware of the Iranian reality - would mean there was a "fraud".
The next videos are of a couple of Iranian friends who I managed to give a space in Western media (an American radio), so they could express their views and try to counter a bit the bias of mainstream media outlets. I took the audio from the radio show in which they participated, and added ad-hoc scenes.
> This is my friend Setareh (24 years old) from Isfahan,
> And this is my friend Mostafa (23 years old) from Mashhad,
The images - illustrating the prevailing atmosphere in Iran before the elections - were completely censored by Western media, which only showed scenes of Moussavi supporters, making people believe they had a chance of going to a second round or even winning, and that his clear defeat - obvious to anyone aware of the Iranian reality - would mean there was a "fraud".
The next videos are of a couple of Iranian friends who I managed to give a space in Western media (an American radio), so they could express their views and try to counter a bit the bias of mainstream media outlets. I took the audio from the radio show in which they participated, and added ad-hoc scenes.
> This is my friend Setareh (24 years old) from Isfahan,
> And this is my friend Mostafa (23 years old) from Mashhad,
خِرمان
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Germán
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Labels: Ahmadinejad, Claims, Elections, Fraud, Green, Hashemi, Iran, Islamic, Islamic Revolution, Karroubi, Khamenei, Moussavi, Neda, Propaganda, Protests, Rafsanjani, Youth
« Color revolution » fails in Iran
Date: June 27th, 2009
Source: VoltaireNet
Why Should I Look Down On The Iranian People’s Choice?
Date: June 23rd, 2009
Source: VoltaireNet
Date: June 27th, 2009
Source: VoltaireNet
Why Should I Look Down On The Iranian People’s Choice?
Date: June 23rd, 2009
Source: VoltaireNet
خِرمان
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Germán
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Germán
Labels: Ahmadinejad, Claims, Elections, Fraud, Green, Hashemi, Iran, Islamic, Karroubi, Khamenei, Moussavi, Neda, Propaganda, Protests, Rafsanjani, Revolution, Youth
Warning Please make use of critical thinkingThe CIA And The Iranian Experiment
Date: June 19th, 2009
Source: VoltaireNet
The 'Stolen Elections' Hoax
Date: June 18th, 2009
Source: Global Research
Based On Terror Free Tomorrow Poll, Ahmadinejad Victory Was Expected
Date: June 14th, 2009
Source: The Huffington Post
Iran Finds US-Backed MKO Fingermarks In Riots
Date: June 21st, 2009
Source: PressTV [Website supported Moussavi during elections]
Rafsanjani Playing Role In Iran Unrest
Date: June 21st, 2009
Source: Associated Press
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution"?Date: June 20th, 2009
Source: Counterpunch
Israeli Effort To Destabilize Iran Via Twitter
Date: June 15th
Source: Charting Stocks
Polling In Iran Shows Real Support For Ahmadinejad
Date: June 14th, 2009
Source: Washington Post
Moussavi Supporter Admits Elections' Numbers FitDate: June 14th, 2009
Source: The Independent [Extremely biased but contains key anecdote]
US Poll Shows Ahmadinejad Leading in Iran's Presidential Election
Date: June 8th, 2009
Source: Voice Of America [US government anti Islamic Republic outlet]
خِرمان
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Germán
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Germán
Labels: Ahmadinejad, Claims, Elections, Fraud, Green, Iran, Islamic, Khamenei, Moussavi, Neda, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Youth
by Maryam (on Iran's Parliamentary elections)I couldn't believe it:
As I stared at her sitting on the floor, ironing my dad's shirt, I didn't know if I was more angry or sad; whether I should leave the room in protest, or try to convince her to give me my birth certificate.
As I stared at her sitting on the floor, ironing my dad's shirt, I didn't know if I was more angry or sad; whether I should leave the room in protest, or try to convince her to give me my birth certificate.
No, I wasn't running away. I wanted to do something that most people get to experience once in their life time, at least where I'm from: I wanted to vote.
It was the day of the election of the 8th Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I had to vote. But as it turned out, the wall standing between me and the box full of votes was one of my own.
At first I thought she was joking, so I started laughing, because that's how you react when you hear a joke, sometimes even when you don't get it... I didn't get it. Who would have thought someone like my mother who, I dare say, if had woken up a bit earlier, would have been amongst the students to seize the American Embassy 28 years ago; who walked for miles in the cold just to hear Khomeini make his first speech after arriving to Iran in that glorious return.
Yes, she was that kind of a person, but now the person is merely visible in the hatred on her face. Something must have gone wrong in between.
That "between" would be me and my brother: The children of the revolution. We are designed to hate it, and not just that: We are also supposed to 'spread the word'. I'd say most of my generation have succeeded, and so did my brother. He got to my mom. And I clearly failed to do that.
The youth in my generation are well known for being "lost". I have never been more aware of myself, and maybe that's too much of a surprise to her. But still I got the one thing that all my efforts, and the person guiding me through all this pointed me towards, taken away from me. How can that be fair. I know this goes way back to my childhood...
[7AM] No, that's not when I usually wake up, but today sleeping wouldn't have done me any good, as I lay on my bed looking around: Books, CDs, a globe, a camera, my unwashed paintbrushes, and papers full of candidates' names, lots of them, with my checks and little notes all over.
It was the day. After many of reading any article that was even slightly related to the election, I had finally made up my mind. I was a bit more excited than I should have been. I knew why: It was my first time voting.
Maybe that's not entirely true. I remember being seven, and taking my father's grandfather to vote. I wrote the name on the piece of paper, even though I had no idea who I was voting for.
From then on I've always longed for the day to be standing next to a box full of votes. Maybe I waited too long, but at least now I'm ready. I've made up my mind, I had chosen some very special cases, individuals that most people around me would look puzzled if I mentioned their name, but I couldn't care less. As an Iranian woman it was my right to vote. At least that's what I thought until I stepped into my parents bedroom, and saw my mom.
Maybe I'm still not old enough to vote. The difference is that this time I knew exactly who the people I was going to write on the piece of paper were.
Almost 6PM. I look at my fingertip: Its not blue. So I figured, from now on, I don't have to long for the day to be standing next to a box full of votes, but rather stand next to my mom beside the box full of votes.
مریم
Monday. I softly open my eyes and...[08:46]
- I knew it! I shouldn't have shut eyes the dawn before! Now it is too late. Inevitably too late. And unlike most previous times, I'm not dreaming. I repeat: this is not a drill! The homework is due at 9 am and besides from living a whole obscene hour away from campus, my morning showers are famous for a generous temporal expansion.
To make things worse, not handing in my own assignment on time isn't even the bad thing: just a few hours earlier, I saw myself assuring Daniel I would hand in his own solved problems, that they would be on the assistant's hands right on time. Calamity. "Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is". Wise sentence for this time of crisis, but how come the tune wasn't playing in non-stop fashion that previous night when I decided to give in? Why would I even need a song to get things done? Why am I caught again in this stream of nonsense thoughts instead of getting out of bed!
But should I? Isn't everything lost already? I guess I can... Sure, I should. At least try and beg him to accept Daniel's assignment, at least present it in a fashionable way... What are you talking about: not only am I late, but the pages aren't even joined to each other. A disaster. I certainly dont remember having signed up for an applied Murphy's "Everything that can go wrong will go wrong" law's course. But I can drop it, right? What's the website? Still in bed!?
To make things worse, not handing in my own assignment on time isn't even the bad thing: just a few hours earlier, I saw myself assuring Daniel I would hand in his own solved problems, that they would be on the assistant's hands right on time. Calamity. "Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is". Wise sentence for this time of crisis, but how come the tune wasn't playing in non-stop fashion that previous night when I decided to give in? Why would I even need a song to get things done? Why am I caught again in this stream of nonsense thoughts instead of getting out of bed!
But should I? Isn't everything lost already? I guess I can... Sure, I should. At least try and beg him to accept Daniel's assignment, at least present it in a fashionable way... What are you talking about: not only am I late, but the pages aren't even joined to each other. A disaster. I certainly dont remember having signed up for an applied Murphy's "Everything that can go wrong will go wrong" law's course. But I can drop it, right? What's the website? Still in bed!?
U N D E R · C O N S T R U C T I O N
Labels: Babel Beauty Colours Destiny Fate Gods Nature Observation Pantheism Time Academicism
Ian and two other German students I met on my last stay in Tehran, made it by train, crossing Turkey, starting their tour in northwesternly Tabriz; a couple from Oman, spending their honeymoon in the Shirazi oasis, had come through the Persian Gulf; and a guy from Karachi who loved Isfahan (who can blame him!), took a bus running along the Eastern highway crossing at Zanjan from Pakestan, to meet with the piece of land he liked so much.As long as you don't belong to a group of marines covering spionage missions inside Iranian borders (in which case I wouldn't suggest you to expect a stay in a five star hotel, a free guided tour around the cities, and a V.I.P. treat out of nothing, mainly because, let me think for a moment, oh yes: you committed a punishable crime), stepping into the Persian lands for the first time is all that it takes for you to start opening some senses that you thought you had made up in dreams.
I had naively thought I could prepare myself for any of what was waiting, so I gathered images, stories, guides, and whatever at reach I thought was able to tell me something medular about the things I was soon to start discovering on my own. But none of them ever told me enough about the spirit of what I came to experience, not even of that as early as my first minutes in Tehran.
It was simply the most wonderful chapter to give a start to the book whose pages I will never figure out how to get my eyes off of:
One small step for man, one giant leap for a soul
I close my eyes right before Persia shakens the plane from its wheels. We reached MehrAbad some hours before the Sun did, after what had been a long trip for many who had spent their winter holidays keeping in touch with their relatives in Europe: one of them, an iranian old man I met right after taking off from Heathrow on delay, with whom we later on rushed together all along Schipol airport, so that we wouldn't miss our flight, while he would entertain me with twenty years ago none of this would have happened kind of stories. All his sons and daughters were studying in different european countries, but when asked about himself, he would answer me, it's the modern times for them... but I can't leave Iran: to me, it's... everything. That was my first on-trip confirmation of me having caught the flight in the right direction.
Many people dream of a world without borders, without countries and whatsoever. Me, I can't help but to be grateful that they are still dreaming: I will never manage to homogenize things that were never meant to be the same. To me, there is something beyond the mere names and geographical coordinates that pushes my heart to beat differently when crossing from the West to the East of this planet and viceversa. Antiglobalizing nostalgia? No. Better try these ones: sincere observation, awareness, and uninterested sensibility.
The ones who search for the splendour of Babel might preach about tolerance from mouth, eyes, and pores, but what do they really know about tolerance, when what they actually see in difference is an obstacle to be overcome via cultural standardisation, rather than a new symphony to be apprehended? They preach about freedom, but the first thing they do, is to define, as images of it, those which please their narrow minds and their childish inability to take an intime stand on anything existence has to offer them.
So we can set up liberal markets, cute graphic systems, international monetary funds, 'united nations', and other fancibly named absurdities like such -so that only few suspect the actual sham covering their whims and power interests-, we go out to name the nameless and to count that which is not a quantity. Numbers of unemployment, inflation, GDP, external debt, and then more sophisticated reports which are just more of the same but typed in golden characters, are supposed to characterise the way in which a nation vibrates and pulses.
Bad news for them though: I have just visited a country whose collapse their sacred numbers prophetized to have taken place 20 years ago, and which is, however, not only surviving, but feared, in that it represents an alternative way of building things around, and that it is not only stable, but in which Western democracies invest money, blood, and efforts to try to, at least, make it look as unstable as their own nature is deep down inside, where its contradictions arise oftenly in the form of social schizofrenia.
If not numbers... then what?
I don't get tired when I travel and, to be fair, the trip hadn't even been comparatively as long as the one it takes to cross the Atlantic Ocean in almost vertical fashion. But maybe because of the time being so early -or why not, the West-East crossing effect-, everyone else seemed exhausted. I had all the time in the world so early in the dawn, so I went for patience, and waited for all the passengers to have gone through the immigration issues before going through them myself. The picture traced in that waiting state started to unveil Iran to my eyes. Even in the impossibly more standard territories of an international airport, almost the entire country was sketched to me before leaving the facility behind my first footsteps in the East.
A ridiculously simple picture of Imam Khomeini dominating the scene from the far back wall, absolutely every woman wearing a hejab, and frightening police officers inquiring through the rows of people something in Farsi about Afghanestan -a place that doesn't really exists where I am from, and which seems more like a gone-wrong fairy tale- indicate that something different awaits behind the exit gates of the building. But just like in an unreleased movie -our modernized version of schools- on Iran seen from the outside, in which the starting propaganda gradually fades away, the scenes start giving everything the explanations that no one finds profitable and/or convenient to display in any way. Maybe because the time to understand doesn't happen to fit properly in our everything right now timescale, maybe because most people of any age are already too old to change their own views, or maybe because the globalized world envisioned -with the according shares destined to each one of its prophets- is designed to fail when real and valid Difference raise and become fairly expressed.
With a sincere 'Please', the last conversation the last immigration officer was to hold during his shift ending that Bahman dawn starts. After the silence he takes to give another look at the condor and huemul on my probably not very usual passport, I am aware that the seemingly unbreakable hardness on the iranian officers' posture comes just as part of the job, and genuinely shattering: 'Please, wont you extend your visa' he continued, and referring to the month I got from the Iranian embassy in London, 'You are staying for so little mister. You could stay for three months. It would honour us so much you staying longer'. And, as soon as that, I was starting to regret not having arrived to Persia earlier -that month or in life-, to have been able to spend there even one extra day.
U N D E R · C O N S T R U C T I O N
Labels: Babel, Beauty, Freedom, Globalization, Iran, Observation, Propaganda, Tehran, Tolerance, Travel, Western Ideals
I arrived to Persia exactly 600 years before having arrived to the West. When leaving it, I came to notice the only ineludible mistake made during my trip: not having planned to stay there for good.I wish I could write for everyone, about what it is like, through the eyes of someone who doesn't live where things 'happen', but I know there will always be people that isn't properly designed -or that is too deeply brain-washed to put it in other terms-, who would never manage to cope with a different and valid reality, other than the one continuously injected right to their bloodstreams through modern box-shaped schools.
When you pack for Iran for the first time, you are very likely to forget making enough space in your bags to fit the according high expectations. Not that you would need them in the end, but it might just turn out too dramatic finding yourself in there after having opened your eyes to the different ways it offers you, and completely loving every inch and second wandered and spent in the persian lands.
It is not what some nights in there teach you to try to use a list of very well polished adjectives to explain why is it not only possible, but easy, to fall in love with the country you always heard nothing but smartly selected propaganda to make it look exactly like what it is not. How is then one to at least intend to communicate what even guide books promoting tourism there run extremely short on praising?
Continues...
خِرمان
Labels: Beauty, Iran, Observation, Propaganda, Travel
While the universe allowed him to use only half the space I use in it today, his mother would allow him to benefit from the window seat whenever possible in every metro ride they took. Patterns formed in front of his eyes as the subway moved underground and the fluorescent lamps from the tunnels' walls followed each other in a simple path, lighting the apparent nothingness through the fortuitously elegant effect.At that age, details like that meant everything to him. The "stepping-into-conclusions stage" of his life was very probably triggered by the peace he always got when contemplating at the slightest breath exhaled through the common episodes from each day of existence. From the weekly fluorescent wakes highlighting the certain presence of something beyond the tunnels' darkness, a copious flow of observations and their respective ideas arised.
From then on, while he grew up and started using more of the universe's space, the curiosity and the imagination propelled by the basic gestures coming from the ones surrounding him, played a major role in building up his person and in sharpening up abilities. It all made him a respectful being, as well as bringing in a more excited pumping of blood into his developing veins. He learned to love life from that perspective; a perspective which also helped him to become who I am this very day, showed me the best knowledge field for me to study, and taught me how to wait for the best possible woman to love that I could have never imagined, while the fluorescent lamps in the dark were always guiding me in that direction, which now explains why their path always seemed to look like a suspicious smile. Now I use twice the space I did back then, but I am quite sure the universe doesn't mind all that much, since at least half of that volume has been made to enjoy existence in the highest affordable way.
The reason why this all came into my head, is because some other day when coming back from classes in the metro, I saw a mother sat his son -who occupied some half of the space I do in the universe- right next to the train's window, but as we left the station behind and he leaned towards the dark staring at the fluorescent lighting inside the tunnel, his mother pulled him back from the window telling him, "Stop looking, there is nothing out there". I suspiciously smiled to myself.
خِرمان
Labels: Beauty, Education, Metro, Observation, Pantheism, Peace, Santiago
He headed towards the riverside, along with his already dismounted bicycle. The way the Sun's agony had tainted the skies was certainly worth the bit of attention, even in a city where everything -and mostly time- costs as if it would have been covered by gold. Offering full countenance to the exaggerated afternoon tides of colours, he let his veins absorb every single ray the picture had generously spreaded throughout the atmosphere, and stood there for a considerable amount of seconds according to London's time-cost scale. As expected, he couldn't help to give away a smile that betrayed his intention of hiding the fact that he was actually enjoying the most memorable moment of the day, while he still held his bicycle against the promenade's railing. To him, and no doubts about it, that was the-most-beautiful-display-of-daily-coincidences.Generally I would have fully disagreed with him, except for this one time.
The first time London was offered to my feet, I got the impression that it was an endless city. Not because of its geographical boundaries, but rather because of the infinity of corners where to stop to take a good photo that it sheltered. It seemed like no conceivable number of visits would have ever been enough to capture all the forms of lights and shadows coexisting in different shades in each wonderfully set victorian street, in each majestic building and square, and in each paraphernalic monument erected either for courage's or for cowardice's sake.
However it only took a couple more of such visits for me to have gone through all of the above mentioned, as responsibly as the kind of traveler I am. As simple as that, to my curiosity, the very well fed stronghold nurtured with the most different kinds of gold slices, from pretty much every latitude of the planet, was over. Not as fatalistically as it sounds of course, but quite as drastically.
Of course I was to be wrong. Not because of great engineering feats undiscovered in between the mazelike urban network, or because of crazier and more intoxicating night events previously ignored. No. I realised I had been wrong right after starting the last walk around the city before leaving it for good. That last time, in which no camera was compromised, and familiarity was the accomplice of every step undertaken. What was then different? The day was clear, and what I could perceive was not anymore the buzzing and random slashes of light that the city decided to reflect towards my eyes, but the complete set of intimately related dances engaged by the beams when rather softly grazing the metropolitan skin, right before becoming corrupted by the human arrogance inevitably impregnated in every square inch where Man had intended to overcome the higher wisdom.
The smile drawn up in my face made it all the way with me to the bench I decided to conquer by the riverside. Although no sunset had started yet, nothing seemed to be out of place anymore, even in a city where everything -and mostly time- costs as if it would have been covered by gold.
A dull pink tone commenced invading the skies, to which more enthusiastic and genial brushes followed continuously in what I figured out to be an uprising celestial painters' challenge, competing for londoners' glances and several-karats-gold-bathed time. It would have been impossible to declare a fair winner among such a fair display of compositions, however it was definetely long after the best ones had been completed when he arrived by the riverside with his dismounted bicycle. I had been there all along, and having admired the complete display-of-daily-coincidences I could'ave firmly stated that that definetely hadn't been the-most-beautiful from them all. However how sure was I? Generally I would have fully disagreed with him, but now who was I to declare a fair winner among the daily moments when, after all, me, the full set of tainted skies, my bench in the promenade by the riverside, him, and his dismounted bicycle all belonged to the same uncorrupted dance of light?
خِرمان
Labels: Beauty, Colours, Light, London, Observation, Pantheism, Time, Travel
Who would have guessed that the hard striking coldness, threatening every step directed towards the same horizon the Sun romanced with all day long, was soon to become a mildly perfumated atmosphere, coloured not by colours, but by the certain feeling of them surrounding you in the chiaroscuro... that tirany of the nose over the senses.It didn't took me too long to catch up the chaotic -but never random- steps of my sri lankan mate, Myuron. He was just living the sidewalk with some friends of his, leaving an afternoon of lectures behind, just as I was doing.
I joined them for sheesha, in a friendly sheesha place which dragged us all the way through Rusholme's special universe, where I had the chance to exchange some words with the other guys. We sat at the back corner while "Sanman" asked for the sheeshas in his moroccan arab, and Myuron turned the small table into an improvised card table. I taught them how to shuffle the deck of cards they had brought, and a moment after I was winning my first international card game against Richard, Myuron's Cypriot friend, and the others were filling the room with the orange and cherry aromatized smoke from the pipes. The rings and smells really seemed to light up the numbness of the tired afternoon light with fluorescent gusts, which followed each other with the patience and the perseverance of the tides.
We didn't leave until I got to win my first card world cup against a Sri-lankan, a Moroccan, a Cypriot and an Iraqi (Tam, the second I know now), and Richard had a problem solved: he had told some friends of his some days ago, that he was going to a party with them that night, but had regreated the decission and then felt bad for stepping off -a dilema I got to see resolved via cell phone in greek.
Me and Myuron headed then for Owens Park where he taught me you can safely stop a two-floors bus in the street for you to cross the road, just by raising your arm in this certain way. A trick I wont be performing as often as the people who want me dead would like me to, but ad hoc for giving an end to an afternoon of invisible colours and coldness once again beaten.
خِرمان
Labels: Beauty, Manchester, Myuron, Pantheism, Random, Rusholme, Sheesha
It doesn't rain here as much as they said it would, I remember arguing last Sunday, and since that very night water has been falling from the sky every single day -I shouldn't have opened my mouth? Maybe, but then again what does the weather has to do with me?So it was indeed raining that day I ran into Abdullah at Oxford Road right before our Farsi class, on my very way to wasting my time in who knows which waste of time I wasn't really meant to end practicing anyway. I can safely state the latter since I ended up in a cafe drinking my first cup of tea in the UK ever with the only iraqi person I've known during my life. Abdullah speaks quite loudly, but not in the usual annoying way: rather in the way it makes you happy to be seated in the same table of that person who is filling the atmosphere with echoes of passion.
I learned a lot. Quite a lot more than I would'ave learned reading a fine stack of material on the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s. Biased or not, I take the story as it comes because nothing advices me to resist, plus for a good reason I was that Monday sitting at a table with that precise iraqi guy, instead of wasting my time shelttering from the rain rather than breathing under it.
Abdullah thinks way too many people enter the universities these days, when the real purpose of higher education institutions should be focused on a smaller elite group of people, which would be able to generate and create knowledge, a group to which he doesn't feel he belongs to. The rest of us should just get to work right ahead, he says, of course in a more plausible way than just that.
I agree to what he thinks in an own convenient interpretation. What were universities first created for? Many wrong reasons pop into my mind in a reasonable flow. Focusing on careeras rather than in life? Forgetting one is aiming to fulfill one selve's spirit rather than one's Curriculum Vitae? Believing that there is more to learn inside a classroom than outside it? Quite obvious wrong reasons yes, perhaps throughly debated and discussed over and over again even in highly academical environments. In spite of what I do admit I sometimes forget so, but as long as I am always catching up with the real meanings of existence every once in a while, the beauty of the world keeps shining clearly right in front of my very eyes, and I see it even under the rain on our way to our Persian class, leaving our cups of tea behind.
خِرمان
Labels: Abdullah, Beauty, Education, Iran, Iraq, Manchester, Pantheism, Passion, Tradition, Western Ideals
It's hard to ask anyone to stop paying attention to something as tragic and unfair as what has been happening in the Middle East for some weeks now, and to redirect it towards a country in which nothing is going on on the surface. Even harder when the governments of the western world have remained silent and actively calmed (the G8 justified Israel policies -that is, killing hundreds of civilians from a not involved country- as selfdefense -that is, justified by the kidnapping of two soldiers who were where they shouldn't have been in accordance to things called borders, few times respected by the Jewish state) right in front of the extermination of the Arab population neighboring a Zionist fictionary state which promotes state terrorism, not only without any punishment, but with the support of -who can be so narrow-minded to think George Bush is the only one to blame?- that same Western world.So, perhaps, I couldn't have chosen a worst time to write about it, and to cry out loud to be counted in the list of paranoids who seriously think about the Zionists taking over the Southamerican Patagonia, currently shared by Argentina and Chile. But one has to think: if these people are commiting such desperate crimes against their neighbors, whether they are counting on the Muslims not helping each other, or they have got a hell of a plan B. You can't just invade everyone around you and think they will end up forgetting it in some decades when your country has grown significantly compared to the one some foreigners decided to gave you -of course it wasn't like they just offered it to you, you had to invent a myth of holocaustic proportions, to persecute around the globe the deniers, and to put behind bars those real threatening ones, making everyone to believe it, to get yourself such long lasting "reparation" measures.
What would a plan B sound like? Well, it might even seem like the B thing stands unappropriate for something as well prepared as what the first Zionist congress, held in Basel back in 1897, determined through its founder, Theodor Herzl: the recovering of the historical promised land in 50 more years, and the conquest of the authentic promised land -not such a hostile and arid land as the one in Middle East- in some 100 more years, from that date on.
I have never agreed with the claim that the southamerican Patagonia is such a rich area because of the usable water availability it does contain, making it an attractive place for everyone to control, but a safe place is a safe place, and having Chile and Argentina as neighbors can't definetely be that dangerous as living between Muslim countries whose armies haven't been continuously disarmed.
Ok, Chile have bought some new planes and ships, but I've done my military service, and the real situation of the army is pathetic: not only the military service isn't compulsory anymore -what a coincidence that the ones who negociated this were Jewish-Masonic institutions and surprise, now we've got loads of old fashioned israelite weapons in the army!-, and the military centres are disappearing from the big cities, but there is no money for the real needs of an army. And we definetely don't have martyrs over here and will never have because of no one being even close to religious fanatism since, guess what, the media -I don't think it's a surprise anymore who manges it- has idiotized all the population so that no one really even holds any spirituality any longer -yes, they would fairly claim the Christian population is over the 70% here, but have you really put them to test? Save efforts: believe me that you will get highly disappointed (isn't it a world tendency anyway?). So yes, what a safe and quiet place to move to the Southamerican Patagonia, let's keep that in mind.
U N D E R · C O N S T R U C T I O N
- It clearly resembles the end of days, I tell him, timidly convinced of what I'm saying. Inside the large library it seemed it took longer than the normal for the red tides to taint it all, even though an improvised chaos had already started to set in. People had emerged from places no one ever cared to occupy before, as if it would have had to do with a universal conscience waking up inside them all, driving everyone to the omniscient moment no one really felt like facing, or at least not just yet. But as they busied themselves, anyone could tell that they completely ignored so.Someone rushes from our backs as we walk through the isle eyes opened, and runs towards the horizon with that same electricity dogs invade the air with when sensing an earthquake is heading up, or that of sea waves announcing it. Ineludibly, something beyond our reach is taking place. But we are satisfied just by watching it happen: doors not opening, electric barriers not working, backpacks lockers colapsing, and as much trouble a library can get; after all we were there just for a book, and so we just kept walking.
U N D E R · C O N S T R U C T I O N
Long ago, a very well dressed up speculator from a very big metropolis came up with a supposedly genial idea: "everything has a price; and so, everything can be bought," he thought to himself, completely overwhelmed in self admiration.He liked it so much how the echoes of his own brightness stroke on walls that sheltered nothing but cerebral tissues, making his already numb senses even dimmer, that he set up a meeting to be attended by the greatest speculators of the most modern cities of the region, even though his agenda was pretty full. That generous was the man towards his own genius.
The meeting, held at the most fashionable conference center many countries around, was a complete success. The atmosphere had that precise degree of thickness at which secrets don't leave rooms and lies get enough faded to almost sound like timid truths. The speculators all congratulated each others for having found such a cheap formula for making their 'jobs' even simpler and more profitable. One of them even walked towards the room's window and stared at the gray city below them, carefully watching how it changed every time a new speech was pronounced.
How proud they all were after delineating the next steps to be taken. They first thought of promoting their resolutions driving their Mercedes to the most crowded squares and making their chauffeurs to shout out loud subtle insinuations for people to take the bait. But of course they instantly remembered that was not the way in which those things were done anymore. And so, they headed to television stations, education institutions in charge of elaborating education programmes, news agencies and book publishers, as far as it was profitable to do so, of course.
It just took some years, some wars and some lives, for people to finally accept it. But it was done. No matter how strong the appearance of sour romantics' poems and songs about keeping priceless things seemed to be, economists would always argue -and they were right in doing so- that there were still opportunity costs involved for those who claimed to treasure things that couldn't be bought. The market didn't have that area quantified yet, but wasn't it just a matter of time? After all, whose priceless things were really to remain invaluable?
The speculators were not only interested in this concept to have a long life, but they were also willing to put to test anyone who would be daring enough to threaten their model. There were lots of people who pretended to do so, but of course the ones who really had something strong to back it up with were as rare as wrong site surgery.
But as rare doesn't mean impossible, one day a person like that showed up. He claimed his ideals were priceless, and so his intention wasn't to become rich giving interviews, but rather teaching others that everyone could find something in their lives that could live beyond any limit. The man quickly caught the attention of the worried speculators, and was instantly taken to a trial. There he found himself surrounded by nervous and elegantly dressed-up men, some of them smoking as if the world was coming to its end. "It's simply outrageous," some of them thought through their bodies, while the man waited patiently for his judge to begin.
Suddenly, the speculator who had first thought of the 'inexistence of priceless things' strategy arrived at the room with the judged man's best friend, an old man, and a criminal. He tied them all up in front of machines the speculators quickly unveiled. They all consisted on a shotgun located at the end of extremely intricate tubes, in which bullets were carefully accelerated so that they could pull the triggers and the people at the other end of the tubes would die minutes later. That certainly gave the speculators the idea of them been completely innocent.
The first speculator started: "Do you give up your ideals for the life of this criminal? He has murdered people, but you would still call him a human being. Do you give up your ideals for his life?"
The judged man was indeed sad, but then smiled at the criminal and said: "No, I wont give up on them." The first speculator then pulled the first trigger.
The second speculator continued: "Do you give up your beliefs for the life of this old man? You don't know him, but don't you feel pitty for this man that you would still call him a human being? Do you give up your beliefs for his life?"
With his heart once again drowned in sadness, the judged man smiled at the old man and replied: "No, I can't sell you what's inside of me." The second speculator pulled then the second trigger.
With his heart once again drowned in sadness, the judged man smiled at the old man and replied: "No, I can't sell you what's inside of me." The second speculator pulled then the second trigger.
The third speculator shouted filled with wrath: "Don't you have what you would call feelings? What ridiculous ideals do you have that you let other people die for them? I will never understand you beasts. There's only your best friend left. You know more about him than I can tell you, so would you save him in return of forgetting what you say is in your tissues?"
Entirely overwhelmed by grief, the man ran to his best friend, hugged him tightly and then said: "No, you can kill him if you want, but I know of something that can't be bought." The third speculator pulled the trigger.
The fouth speculator, filled with wrath, tied the man in front of the fourth machine and then asked...
Lots of reporters waited for the man outside the courtroom, and when he finally left the building he was intercepted by the mass of cameras, flashes and questions. "How could you let innocent people die for what you think while you weren't able to sacrifice your own life?" "How can you be so insensitive?" "Do you feel like a murderer?" Indeed the man didn't seem at all to be sad. He took a calmed pause and replied to everyone:
The ones who died will turn into heroes if they were glad to know they were dying for something bigger than just their lives: something that can't be bought.
Why would I feel like a murderer? On the contrary: while speculators not only took their lives away, but deprived them of real ones, my beliefs offered them a way to become great men. Whose ideals pull triggers and whose gave them real lives?
About me, they might have shot me too, but they couldn't kill me.
خِرمان
Labels: Hope, Propaganda, Speculators, Spiritual War, Two Races, Western Ideals, Zionism
A country has been interested in attacking another one since long ago. For press to be stating that it has been planning it for some days now, can mean nothing but that war is something just a few weeks ahead no matter what.The saddest part is that I really feel that there’s just too few people in this world -even considering the ones legally related to the defending country- who will experience such a deep depression as me when TV stations broadcast the first images of the attack. Not only because I am against modern day wars –where a soldier can't even struggle for defending his country-, which would be a too cheap and comfortable statement to make, according to the situation, but because this new episode in the war against our spirits has already started to be lost, while it was so easy and simple to make out of our victory the refreshed starting point for the years to come. Not a single bomb has been dropped and already all hopes are lost.
It all goes a lot further than just noticing the victims escaping from the country in every possible sense, where not only political borders are left behind, but also powerful traditions, unifying religions, and a priceless cultural spirit all become avoided. It is right there where we have started losing the battle, not in having insufficient military strength or in lacking conciliatory diplomatic alternatives. It is what we give up to what makes us weaker, it is what we leave behind that which haunts us.
What hope is there in a devastating war where all that is left to rely on are just some ideals, some good will and picturesque dreams? I would say that a lot. And I would say so not only because I am a young idealist, but also because of the real war’s purposes. Who was naive enough to think a previous war answered to the need of erradicating massive destruction weapons, might be satisfied with the explanation of a new battle to fight against nuclear proliferation. But I guess there is people a lot more inquisitive than the ones pleased with CNN or Michael Moore’s entertaining approaches to supposedly controversial matters.
If one would want to destroy nuclear weapons, why would one secretly encourage the enemy’s country minorities, and finance terrorist groups to invent the idea of national division? Of course the real purpose is to end up with their revolution, but is it only because such revolution is a constant threat to world peace? Is it only because they would prefer more efficient routes for the oil business? Why are the attacked ones always the bad ones? It is not like the western civilization would be defending here some priceless ideals. I know it, I live here. If a tourist would ask me to take him to the most important temple in my city I would probably take him to the biggest city's shopping center I know of. What God is praised there? Probably money in the first place, and not less important, every individuality. Everyone’s whims, everyone’s childish desires, everyone’s selfishness. Is that to be defended destroying another country? Well, perhaps what is really to defend in the west is freedom, tolerancy and diversity. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Ok, so let's stick to those for the moment since we seem to be running out of things to defend over here. What an interesting way of defending those ideals precisely by depriving another country of freedom, not to tolerate national systems that we don’t feel comfortable about, and disintegrating -as much as we can- cultures that are different to ours.
No. No reasons please me. Not only because contradictory ideals were never real ideals for a start, but because it is not reasons what I am looking for. As I said: I live here. And that implies I can feel what is happening here. That implies I can taste the dessert's dust surrounding what our western culture intends to stand for. Nothing. Chaos. Universal homogeneity. A universal language, a universal culture, and a universal religion called indifference. That is what we stand for. That is the reason why the biblical God punished the builders of Babel’s zigurat: not only because they were trying to compare to Him –aren't western science and technology like that?-, but mainly –and always forgotten- because their ideals were the ones of becoming one Single People.
Then there is hope for us. Because they might kill thousands, they might destroy the military power, but that wont make them win, because it is not that what they are looking for. They can, and will make us cry, and make out of frustration a shadow for us to follow every step. But that is as far as we can let it go. Because if we can't stop bombs falling, we can beat an overwhelming opposing force by not losing faith, by standing for the centuries that preceeded us. It will certainly not avoid people dying or suffering the consequences of such an unfair war, but it can surely make of us all soldiers, and if it is true what we say about caring for our people, our culture, and our spirits, we will fight: never selling our souls no matter that the shiny modern world gets better advertisement out there in the streets. We will never allow our own comfort to become a justification, and we will never let money to be praised.
Some people might run away: they really think that there are no chances because their buildings aren’t shinning as bright as others. But it doesn’t matter: they were never from that country to start. Some others, from the attacking country, feel profoundly embarassed about it: they really feel that they will never win anything if their leaders keep fighting for the ones interested in universal homogeinity. But that's alright: their country is not the one their passports state. We all have belonged to both countries at least once in life –since I am not necessarily talking about Iran and the USA-, and it has always been up to us which one wins. It is simply a matter of faith.
خِرمان
Labels: Gods, Hope, Iran, Islamic Revolution, Propaganda, Spiritual War, Two Races, Western Ideals
It's a sort of freezing morning, no matter that the summer hasn't ended yet. Walking towards the bus stop, I go through the familiar neighborhood, staring at the noisy parrots -who trade the small square's tall trees for cables-, and testing different turns along the sidewalks, just to try and break the routine established between me and the possibilities offered to me by the urban design.
Right where the friendly and peaceful neighborhood ends, the traffic lights announce the inevitable crossing of The Street. Seemingly placed there to give continuity to the path that brings together the highest mountains with the coast, the eternal glaciers with warm beaches, The Street's six tracks -no islands in between- threat anyone naive enough to think that tranquility could have lasted more than some blocks.
However, there's no point for anyone who heads downtown to stay on my side of the street, and so one is to be aidded by pedestrian's traffic lights to survive the daring challenge of going right through the road uniting the mountains and the sea. The previous blocks should’ave helped on you building yourself the necessary self esteem to beat the ‘who am I to oppose to the marriage of the biggest ocean and the longest mountain range on Earth?’
I wont walk as long as the traffic lights meet my eyes in that reddish mood of theirs. It doesn’t matter to me that not even a feather is flying along the tracks blown by the morning breeze: I am just too proud to let that cynical attitude of ‘desperately running towards where you are not welcomed’ to kick in. So yes, I would wait. There’s nothing wrong in looking that dumb. Nevertheless, it can get dumb: when I know the lights are about to change –since we have been knowing each other for some years now, and I am able to crack those subtle details- and they wont give me enough time to get to the middle of the street, I will still stick to my sidewalk while the traffic lights greet me with their greens and the motorists turn into spectators awaiting for me to make the audacious move. So no matter how sure I feel about it, it just looks dumb since there’s no one moving.
That’s why I do my best for reaching the crossing at any time except that precise one. In spite of it being the tiniest moment in the traffic lights honorable cycle, I somehow manage it to arrive to the corner at the exact time at which I wont get to the other shore of The Street without turning my peaceful walk into a rushed one. It doesn’t matter I leave home some minutes earlier, some minutes later, it will turn out happening that way.
One day it was different: it was one of those days you could say it was going to be a perfect one, right after you left home in the morning, one of those you could tell Fate is watching out for you. I couldn’t help to put my mood and predisposition to test with the traffic lights. And so, I forgot about the peaceful walking through the last blocks of my neighborhood, rushing towards the crossroad: I was pretty convinced that that day it would be different. And it was.
In the rush, I forgot not only about the parrots but noticing the traffic lights, and it was already too late when my eyes stumbled across with that unique and familiar traffic light moment in which I feel dumb. Fate had surely done me a favor that day, but how was it going to know I would be dumb enough to forget my dear peace walking through the friendly neighborhood and spoil its gift with my hurried steps: after all, it’s Fate, but it’s also just Fate, what can we do about it, and what can it do about us.
Right where the friendly and peaceful neighborhood ends, the traffic lights announce the inevitable crossing of The Street. Seemingly placed there to give continuity to the path that brings together the highest mountains with the coast, the eternal glaciers with warm beaches, The Street's six tracks -no islands in between- threat anyone naive enough to think that tranquility could have lasted more than some blocks.
However, there's no point for anyone who heads downtown to stay on my side of the street, and so one is to be aidded by pedestrian's traffic lights to survive the daring challenge of going right through the road uniting the mountains and the sea. The previous blocks should’ave helped on you building yourself the necessary self esteem to beat the ‘who am I to oppose to the marriage of the biggest ocean and the longest mountain range on Earth?’
I wont walk as long as the traffic lights meet my eyes in that reddish mood of theirs. It doesn’t matter to me that not even a feather is flying along the tracks blown by the morning breeze: I am just too proud to let that cynical attitude of ‘desperately running towards where you are not welcomed’ to kick in. So yes, I would wait. There’s nothing wrong in looking that dumb. Nevertheless, it can get dumb: when I know the lights are about to change –since we have been knowing each other for some years now, and I am able to crack those subtle details- and they wont give me enough time to get to the middle of the street, I will still stick to my sidewalk while the traffic lights greet me with their greens and the motorists turn into spectators awaiting for me to make the audacious move. So no matter how sure I feel about it, it just looks dumb since there’s no one moving.
That’s why I do my best for reaching the crossing at any time except that precise one. In spite of it being the tiniest moment in the traffic lights honorable cycle, I somehow manage it to arrive to the corner at the exact time at which I wont get to the other shore of The Street without turning my peaceful walk into a rushed one. It doesn’t matter I leave home some minutes earlier, some minutes later, it will turn out happening that way.
One day it was different: it was one of those days you could say it was going to be a perfect one, right after you left home in the morning, one of those you could tell Fate is watching out for you. I couldn’t help to put my mood and predisposition to test with the traffic lights. And so, I forgot about the peaceful walking through the last blocks of my neighborhood, rushing towards the crossroad: I was pretty convinced that that day it would be different. And it was.
In the rush, I forgot not only about the parrots but noticing the traffic lights, and it was already too late when my eyes stumbled across with that unique and familiar traffic light moment in which I feel dumb. Fate had surely done me a favor that day, but how was it going to know I would be dumb enough to forget my dear peace walking through the friendly neighborhood and spoil its gift with my hurried steps: after all, it’s Fate, but it’s also just Fate, what can we do about it, and what can it do about us.
خِرمان
Back when I was a kid, it made me sad to think I would never get enough time in a lifetime to listen to all the beautiful music the world had to offer, and that my ears would inevitably miss who knows how many worthwhile sounds.In my fifteens, I was decided to dedicate my whole life to living some ten to fifty more years than the normal -if not becoming physically immortal of course-, so I would enjoy life as much as possible, since I didn't believe there was an existence after this one. Watching other people wasting their lives through religions and other things that clouded the goal of living more, just made me feel sad and tremendously worried about them. In any way, enjoying life as much as possible never meant for me that devaluated premise of carpe diem, but rather filling my path with a subtle, honest and peaceful density.
Today, I would give up as many decades of life as necessary if that sacrifice would make my life a denser one. I no longer see life valuable on itself, but on how it is appreciated, and so, more years of it don't mean anything on themselves. Living two more years of good life -because isnt life always good no matter what- is not better than living just one more year of good life. What's the real difference, when you wont be measuring how much you profited on it once you are dead? People might remember you for a whole extra year of things you shared with them, but eventually they will as well forget. What is so awesome in just a bit more of time with our senses opened?
Then I should be asking, what am I writing for? This is certainly not a suicidal note: I love life how it presents to me, I am in love with such a perfect nature that surrounds us all and how it performs its play in the setting my senses serve for it. It takes my breath away to see how some eyes meet sunsets overwhelmed by bright and yellow rays, while for others the Sun sleeps covered in red shades, and neverminding the color, both address to beauty on its pure form.
U N D E R · C O N S T R U C T I O N
Maryam was in Isfahan that day, visiting her brother who had went there some years ago to study.She lived in Tehran, however sharing her footsteps with the dry -though sacred- ground from Isfahan was something that not even her glances of Tokyo or Singapore had been close to equal.
Pretty likely because there is something between the ancient bridges, which would take one a lot further away than just the other shore of the Zayandeh, and the seven echoes below the Emam mosque's dome, granted even to the most improvised tourist, which simply can't fit into the sensibilities of even the best prepared from those who would be willing to bet their success swearing that we go around continuously evolving and reaching perfection here in the west. To them, the warning layed by Molavi should be effective and true enough: If in the world thou art the most learned scholar of the time, behold the passing-away of this world and this time!
She could walk through the Meidan-e Emam like few iranian women would: bearing the hope that in the same Iran, the traditionally dressed up women wouldn't be stared to as something bizarre because, even though she didn't like wearing khimars herself, she used to put that in the second plane it deserved for her, feeling again that which is bigger than one individual's comfort, and for which there would never be enough sacrifices.
That same afternoon, in which the Sun turned golden the ground of Isfahan's streets, Maryam went up the stairs of one of the Jonban minarets. Where the steps were over, she settled her hand on the curved walls of the minaret with solemnity... and then pushed.
Right away, that minaret, along with the other one several meters away, started rocking in synchrony, and even the same mausoleum that sheltered the hermit Amo Abdollah-e Karladani took a part in the dance. The entire holy architecture moved then at the pulse of Maryam's palm.
Without suspecting it would be the last time her hand would animate the imponent mausoleum, she went back downstairs and some days later she was back to her Tehran.
Some months later, inspired by who knows which picturesque National Geographic article, a gang of western researchers arrived at Isfahan to study such an interesting phenomenon between the minarets, so they could later entertain who knows which pseudo cultural media audiences. They certainly enjoyed perturbing Emam mosque's peace with their respective clapping of hands to listen to the seven echoes, before they started their work some miles away in the Menar Jonban.
Amused with the obvious beauty of the city, the researchers began their study...
Today, the most conclusive result of that study, result that any iranian is capable of observing visiting Isfahan, must be that the Jonban minarets aren't moving anymore or, as Maryam says, they no longer work.
Why that stupid 'ruining what we don't understand' craze of ours just to lower it to the immensely limited human reason's reach? Why are we so ineludibly designed for destroying what surpasses us, instead of trying to take a part in it? There's nothing as monstrously ours as giving a name to what is unnamable, and to make out of it senseless details and observable features cheap right and wrong's encyclopedias; nothing as ours as letting our existances to be driven by what were never meant to be more than arbitrary conventions to help ourselves, and which end up being the rules and laws that don't let us see beyond. Why must we be the cancer that poisons an organism that shelters more life and more beauty than an inexistent humanity just because we believe ourselves to be the center of the Universe?
Isfahan is an oasis in the middle of the desert, but it's not trees and tropical fruits what you'll find there, and the dessert sorrounding it consists not on the dry ground from the Zayandeh-Rud plain. Probably soon however, a vast majority of iranians will be proud of leaving their religions and traditions behind, and forget that their most valuable resource lies not on their signs of westernization or in petroleum, but on what they are starting to run away from, to become just what they once hated and for what they never noticed that their sole spirit was an urgent alternative.
خِرمان
Labels: Hope, Iran, Isfahan, Maryam, Peace, Spirituality, Tradition, Western Ideals
Refreshed anew life's pulses beat and wakenTo greet the mild ethereal dawn of morning;
Earth, through this night thou too hast stood unshaken
And breath'st before me in thy new adorning,
Beginst to wrap me round with gladness thrilling,
A vigorous resolve in me forewarning,
Unceasing strife for life supreme instilling.-
As a kid I remember letting my cat sleep on my chest, as I layed down on a random -or perhaps not that random- couch staring at infinity. What I did then was to try synchronizing my breathing rythm with hers, so that I would bother her as least as possible. It really seemed to work as she not only stayed there for a while but, from then on, it made her keep looking for me every time she got sleepy.
What really caught my attention about it all was the idea that perhaps it was the way in which we breathe what makes us who we are, and I felt it very likely to already have started becoming a cat, since I had spent several afternoons serving as a synchronized cat bed.
It would be right hard for me to say why, but it had nothing to do with my later atheist idea of thinking that by replicating every atom from a person you would be getting that same person (how else will people accept to be teleported when teleportation is available?). It had nothing to do with a biological or a psychological analysis on how breathing influences the body's methabolism or the blood pressure.
It just had to do with the tuning in of two different beings of nature, bringing together a higher order through a simple -though at the same time profound- bond. It might sound just too exaggerated to allow such attributions for a naive kid spending some time with his sleeping cat, trying to replicate its breathing rythm , but that's just about it. It's not something complicated really, but beautifuly simple. To talk about it and give names to something that acts in the level of the nameless is just accidentally veiling the true essence beneath it all.
Should we all be breathing at the same speed rate then? I would say that synchronizing breaths is not an elevated process on itself, but rather a well intended action. The importance doesn't lie on what's being done but on what's happening inside of you. The beauty and truth of it are shelttered on that time you dedicate to becoming part of what sorrounds you, instead of spoiling nature, whether it is by forcibly imprinting on it the pinch we think to know about who we are, or by investing the gifts of life and conscience in building a private world for our own sake.
What will I become if my heart beats in affinity with the flickering of the stars, my breath coincides with the swinging of a falling leave and my blood runs through my veins with the swiftness of the wind that heads to the horizon?
Yet how superb above this tumult sallies
The many-coloured rainbow's changeful being;
Now lost in air, now clearly drawn, it dallies,
Shedding sweet coolness round us even when fleeing!
The rainbow mirrors human aims and action.
Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing
Life is but light in many-hued reflection.-- Johann Wolfgang Goethe
خِرمان
Labels: Beauty, Breathe, Nature, Pantheism, Random, Synchronizing
Today, many carnivals around the globe are shut down. A real shame for the ones who were out celebrating. They turn off their colours and movement in supposed respect for Lent's beginning, after partying as if the world was coming to an end, seizing the time previous to a fasting no one will do, and previous to a time for meditation that no one will take.But is there any point in criticizing festivities which have forgotten every ground and which have been emptied of any content? In the end one can say that these carnivals are cultural expressions as important as the ones emerged from religious rituals. Why not, maybe not for me, but to other people, so why not. Where is space for critics is the only last bit of sense that still remains right from its beginnings, when the religion was in the centre of it all, and one could'ave really felt like doing some crazy things before the 40 days of respect and interiority.
Good for people to take the trouble of the ritual. But that human, all too human attitude of living betraying one own convictions, showing that the 40 days were nothing but an inconvenience which, given their human condition, they had to compensate with some other weeks of hedonism, since remembering the sacrifice of their God, doesn't last more than a couple of days for them, and a few sporadic flashes every once in a while.
Today it is pointless to criticize it since, after all, what tiny percentage of not more than one digit trully believes in gods? And so many from the ones who think to believe who speak more from their brains and synthetic rationalities, to try not to sound too fundamentalistic to Harvard and Tel-Aviv's scrutiny, frightening away anyone who intended to look some support to maintain some faith at all. 'Christianism's rationality' is one of the subjects we will be treating in a theology class in my catholic university, and I wonder, why on earth is a true religion supposed to be rational, when rationality is just one of the products from practicing the passion of faith? What kind of bonus is that in the contest between which religion is the most adequate one? Just to satisfy the academicism of hermetic classrooms and theoretical theories, even the ones who should be conserving the right direction of religion reject the organic and passionate aspects they should have to be what they actually are.
I often write about modernity, these times, and decadent people, but it is so true this time that even the ones who should'ave been allied are unwilling to keep a priceless tag on that which is invaluable, nor today nor in the times in which it had to be done so that we wouldn't end as we are going. At the end, the fault is always of the ones who know and remain quiet, or of the ones who don't know and talk.
Labels: Academicism, Carnival, Fast, Gods, Lent, Religions, Tradition
Once the Shiite Ashura mourning was over, the Iranians who still haven't got bored from the Islamic Revolution, celebrated yesterday the 27th anniversary since Imam Khomeini officiated the marriage of Islamism and Iranian politics, turning them into one same thing, while also emancipating Iran from the Western ambitions. The words referred by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, within this context, to the millions of citizens gathered in the Meidan-e Azadi (which, unfortunately, doesn't imply that Iran's vast majority of people trully support the Revolution), betrayed that, besides from having followed the Ashura mourning, Ahmadinejad has also been carefully reading my blog.I must confess that I also sheltered the absurd fear that Ahmadinejad and the toughest Muslims had the maquiavelic plan of destroying the non Islamic world or to conquer every other nation, but now it seems so clear to me that that stupid prejudice equals the universally and powerfully publicized idea that the Nationalsocialists wanted to conquer the world or to turn everyone in blue-eyed blond-haired beings, when they explicitly followed the ideology according to which every country and every culture was meant to be proud of the richness of each one, contrary to the bloody and materialistic globalization which would have happened in the exact same fashion under the blue ones or the red ones. Ahmadinejad's words show that the Islamic Revolution is not that wrongly directed after all.
With respect to the fact that zionism has lost its philosophical grounds, he invited the western countries to renew their adoration to the Almighty God, and to not be satisfied dishonoring him in exchange for selling his glory conforming the zionists.
Renew our adoration to the Almighty God... I am not christian, but I couldn't agree more with Ahmadinejad. He himself had highlighted how in our western world nobody cares about the caricatures drawn destroying Gods' reputation nor about religion being ridiculized, while in several western countries they will send you to jail for a good amount of years just for thinking that the Holocaust didn't happen exactly as they tell it. Not that I dramatically think that those who speak badly about God should be sent to prison, but the whole thing speaks for itself about the kind of priorities we've got.
Some western governments, specifically the USA, support the sacrilege against prophet Mohammad (PBUH), while they continue to deny that the Holocaust is a myth, from which the zionists have been taking advantage to put pressure on other countries during the last 60 years...
Moreover, Ahmadinejad is not even telling us to offer cult to prophet Mohammad nor to Allah, but he invites us to follow Our God. It certainly is a stunning image. If one can concentrate a bit and see in which prehistorical landscape we actually live, with respect to how decayed the spiritual dimension of our environment is, and look towards the East and notice Iran, we would certainly feel like the people from those polinesic newly discovered tribes who see a Shanghai-like city for the first time. That is, an animalistic contrast. Ahmadinejad calls us to defend the spiritual world from which us westerners so stupidly feel nostalgic about and which we, at the same time, find pleasure in tearing appart. No wonder why mental diseases have risen up fast on this side of the world: the Western must be one of the most schizophrenic civilizations recorded by history.
It is in things like these in which one can tell that the thousands of years of persian culture haven't passed by like water between the hands for Iranians: they might not have the most sophisticated Holocaust memorial museums (fortunately, in fact none), but they have compensated there, where we have turned away from. Ahmadinejad is far more than Iran's president, and Iran is far more than one of the countries that I would be willing to live or to die for.
It is in things like these in which one can tell that the thousands of years of persian culture haven't passed by like water between the hands for Iranians: they might not have the most sophisticated Holocaust memorial museums (fortunately, in fact none), but they have compensated there, where we have turned away from. Ahmadinejad is far more than Iran's president, and Iran is far more than one of the countries that I would be willing to live or to die for.
Texts from IRNA
خِرمان
Labels: 22nd Bahman, Ahmadinejad, Azadi, Eslam, Iran, Islamic Revolution, Khomeini, Propaganda, Spirituality, Tehran
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