And yet … dream of a miracle‎

Defended my thesis on January (I think I’ve told you that), graduated with flying colors…

Now I’m looking for PhD grants abroad for Translation Studies… I can’t afford to pay for it myself now.

I’m working part time for a H.uman R.ights NGO here in Tehran now… and a couple of newspapers and bulletins …and there s a new book contract with a good publisher…

I’ve started painting all by myself and… I desperately need a good patient teacher…

After a year of fiddling with my camera I finally registered in an art centre this Saturday to learn photography.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/selma-1982/

It’s all quiet on the romance front … nobody comes, nobody goes … no complaints.

So…how have you been?

Following the news on Iran?

Tell me what’s going on with the world…

I think I’ve been in a selfish comatose self chosen seclusion for the past few months

The day you’ll leave me, won’t be gloomy. ‎
The day you’ll leave me, won’t be my last.‎
To our songs, I won’t cry …‎
I’d in fact refuseTo die that day … ‎
And I’d live ‎
Another day, ‎
Even if it’s just ‎
To show you how strong I am.‎

This is my land, where dreaming of justice, claiming of the right to speak up, crying out for truth and equity

… is a crime of Moharebeh … punished by death!

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Monday

If there was a God, and if this God of yours really was as merciful and giving as you think he is …

Why wouldn’t that omnipotent infinite being of yours, do something?

Why is it that his followers are always the cruelest of the gang?

Why is it that his followers are the ones torturing, crucifying, burning, murdering, putting people under inquisition and preaching for a greater good?

What greater good has ever come from this? Aren’t thousands of years enough to know?

What is it about God that makes people so blood thirsty? …

If it’s not what he wants, why wouldn’t he stop it? If it is what he wants, why shouldn’t I be mad at him?

Was it Stendhal who said: God’s only excuse is that he does not exist…?

Well he’d better not exist; otherwise he’d have a good deal of explaining to do!

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Wednesday

These days I hate all the fundamentalists, anarchists, fascists, intellectuals, reformists, atheists, theists, believers, non-believers … why can’t we just be ?

Do we really have to put a label on our foreheads and a fence around “our crowd” and either beat others to death for not being like us, or hate them for being what they are?

Why couldn’t the world include 6 billion groups of minorities, each having only one member?

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P.S: Friends being arrested, blogging still a risk, news as shocking as ever … nothing new!

Life feels real ‎
So surreally real sometimes

He is looking around for his glasses. And you think: “He has left them at work ‎again.”‎
‎ And you seize the moment to watch him in his confusion. And his crazy music doesn’t ‎bother you at all. He says: “I’ve come to accept my fate as a man Selma” and you laugh.‎

He says: “I thought humans were beyond it – or capable of being beyond it – for a long ‎time. Now as I review the evidence, it is just not so. We are slaves!”‎
‏ ‏You smile: “We are…”‎
He is still looking: “Slaves with voices, but slaves nonetheless”‎

And you want to let him talk, and talk and talk…about how he “more or less agrees with ‎Robin Hanson that academia is primarily an institution for credentialing folks as ‎intellectually impressive” or how in his research “rather than cost and returns, he is ‎interested in cost and risk, the flipside of returns”‎

And you want to hear him when he is pondering over his morality “Questions”. He tends ‎to “think aloud” with you… he goes over all the things he loves to do and ends up with ‎‎“but I want hose things terribly, and there is NOTHING wrong with that”‎

And he has a typhoon of energy locked inside, and you want it unleashed! You want it ‎turning your world upside-down. ‎
But he is unsure. You think: “he skips around it” … he says: “See how I skip around ‎it…”‎
You smile again: “But you don’t need to…”‎
He is all lost: “But I still can’t say that stuff”‎

You smile and want to reach out to touch his tired eyes.‎
‎ He sighs: “I’ve left them at work again” ‎

Life feels real ‎
So surreally real sometimes

Watching the rough patches of paint on the ceiling, appreciating the slow movements of smoke dancing in the air …

I was thinking that I wanted my children to live…

Because I have not.

I want them to live a life that is nothing like what I’ve lived…

I want them to know how it feels to kiss a lover in the streets and proudly let every passer watch you. I want them to make love without feeling guilty. I want them to love without fear.

I want them to wear all the colors of rainbow in one go, and feel safe. I want them to know that the police are out there watching the rapists and criminals, not young girls wearing skinny jeans and laughing a free spirited laugh. I want them to drink…I want them to party…I want them to let the breeze caress their hair… I want them to think of headscarves as occasional accessories, for fun, a fashion statement …not a fascist obligation for everyday…I want them to join face book without the need for anti-proxy software.

I don’t want them to know how it feels to sleep in a bomb shelter, when you are five. I don’t want them to know what a red alert siren before the bombings sounds like. I don’t want them to watch anti air craft rockets against the dark sky, and remember that every time they see a shooting star when they are 27. I don’t want them to shiver at the sound o thunder storm.

I don’t want them to know what revolutionary executions are. I don’t want them to know revolutions never create the idealistic heavens they preach.

I don’t want them to be tortured and killed for their vote. I don’t want them to sigh every time they hear “civil liberties”. I don’t want them to cringe at the thought of another 4 years…40 years…who knows…

I was thinking that I wanted my children to live…because I have not.

But it’s all quiet on the eastern front, and I don’t think I’ll ever want to have kids.

For years I had refused to take part in the rally, because I saw it as propaganda for a way of thinking that had nothing to do with reason, justice, or humanity.

This year, the gathering and protests were no longer about a conflict somewhere in the world I’d never been to, and hardly knew the story of both sides… This year, the protests had nothing to do with the strangers who could have found a way to solve their conflict by now, if it weren’t for others meddling in the process.

This year, we went to the rally to protest against a domestic oppressor…the tyrant who got hold of our future, by means of coup (or whatever you like to call it…)

I don’t want to go into details about the controversies that give rise to weird/unanswered questions.

When the photos say it all…why ramble on and on?

The guards were blocking our way, opening way for the pro-government crowd and at times attacking the green protesters with batons to scatter us away. We’d soon get back in the street and again form our wall against them.

Oh and it rained! … I’m in love with Tehran’s Autumns…

We were  shouting “down with dictators” and tasting rain drops

We are here for “change”!

I walked myself to the point of exhaustion today, shouted at the top of my lungs(talking hurts tonight!) and ended up dehydrated and aching…but it was worth every second. Now the world knows we are still fighting…and we will fight this battle to the end.(My father just brought in some tea and asked me to be careful about posting today’s photos!…well sorry dad, too late! )

This is a quick note to my dear Noga, to thank her for all her kind words and her patience when I drift into one of my depressed/selfish/silent blackholes… Noga jan, merci!

I’ve been working on my dissertation in the past few weeks (and finally managed to finish the last draft this week… yay!). I took that project as an excuse to stop writing here for a while and reflect on my choices and decisions before and after the election. Those days, took their toll on my personal life as well as wrecking a good part of my perception about “right” and “wrong” and truth… and politics. The unpredictable phases and emotions and thoughts that I went through and the way they changed me, had scared me more than anything…Now I’m just accepting me…

P.S: I’m still looking for my vote though!

I took a few days off, packed and ran to the seaside.

Things are back to normal, yet they are far from “normal”. And all this is taking its toll on my personal life.

Tired and confused, following the news, reading about the new arrests and the up coming events, I need to resort to the silent-land and watch the world from a safer distance … all alone.

And I always feared this loneliness the most!

‎“Confirmed” becomes an axe…hitting you on the back…resting on your shoulders…‎
And when you breathe ‎
If you breathe
Life burns a whole into you

Mourn, mourn, mourn

Hear their shrieks in your sleep…See their faces covered in blood …‎
When you look into the mirror…It’s batons and fragile bones

Walk around like wandering ghosts…worn away by memories that once, where reasons ‎to live

Hear your self cry, from far far away… hear yourself beg ‎
‎“Please! He is not strong enough…” ‎
Sleeping on concrete floors, dark cells jammed with bodies, swollen, aching, bleeding…‎
Broken bones, broken jaws, broken hearts…broken wills.‎

‎ Hear your self cry, from far far away…‎
Where are my friends?‎

 Now I know that we are not alone in this struggle…I’m strong enough to nurse my ‎bruises and endure the agonizing hours that pass with no news from our missing ‎friends… ‎

Now I have enough power to keep repeating our chants of: ‎

Where is my vote? ‎

Where are my friends? ‎

Until we get an answer or see justice.‎

Thank you Jeremy from Sydney, Tara from U.S, Katrina from Philadelphia, Mattia from ‎Milan, Stephanie from Kuala Lumpur…‎ Thank you dear Noga, Bob… ‎

Last night nursing my bruised shoulder, I was thinking …‎

If we get the chance to stand up, if this movement is not suppressed at this stage, if things ‎continue as they are… What I fear most is that, we get used to it. ‎

That the world loses interest and this new shiny strange toy loses its novelty and ‎glamour… then… like what happened to many other struggles for freedom in other places ‎of the world, people would no longer even bother to follow the news, let alone supporting ‎the cause…‎

We need to have a plan … we need stronger, more experienced leaders for the movement ‎‎… we need the world to hear our voice and put pressure on the government to accept the ‎will of the Iranian people.‎

Don’t let this fire die … let everyone know what goes on here … ‎

Now everything is gone.

I’m gathering the minute remains of hope and staring at the news broadcasts from behind a veil of tears… as if in a dream.

And I keep asking myself…How could they do this to us?

But we will rise …like the phoenix from our ashes we will rise …

This afternoon I was looking back at all those photos I’ve been taking these past few weeks, and listening to this:

Hey you, don’t let them bury the light …

Don’t give in, without a fight!

These are just a few of  hundreds of  photos I’ve taken during our campaign for change (couple of days before the election):

These are the news after the election …

For 17 more pictures visit  this page => Riots in Tehran after election results

For detailed reports see:

An attempted coup in Iran

Riot police in violent clashes with the opposition

Newsweek reports

Cellphone systems were shut down in Tehran the day of election, right now we can not send text messages and internet speed is very limited. It took me hours to post these and I don’t think I can answer comments, moderate suspended comments or edit typos and whatever a blogger is supposed to do here…I’m not even sure if I can write here again anytime soon…

Let me be honest with you…I AM scared!…But I’m not giving in without a fight, vaille que vaille.

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P.S:  Hey do you happen to know where our votes are?

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Tehran – 14th of June 2009

Selma

Wrapped in a warm blanket she says: “There comes a time when you feel too old for all ‎that confusion.”‎
‎ ‎
And she knows this all too well …that there is a time when adventure doesn’t give you a ‎rush of blood in your head and a tingling in your heart. ‎

‎ “No. Seems like I’m never going to get to put my feet up…I’m never going to sit by a ‎warm fire and feel safe …” she says hiding her face behind the dancing apparition of ‎smoke angels.‎

Cigarettes and tears…‎
Not always a good combination…unless you are in pain.‎

Wash your hands once, twice, three times.

Don’t look up to see your own eyes in the mirror, Stare at the hot water running from the tap, let your hands burn, Watch the skin go red and feel the pain crawl up your arms… now close your eyes.

“aaah!” hear yourself moan in pain, because you are a sinner.

Remember your heartbeats last night… shaking you with fear and disgust … remember how determined they were to let you know you were a sinner.

Wash your hands once, twice, three times.

Believe that when you can’t believe your moments of joy are real… they are not … and then you are a sinner.

Wash your hands once, twice, three times.

Why don’t they smell of blood and feces and Spring Flowers’ soap? Aren’t they the hands of a sinner? Aren’t you a believer in fairy tales… and love?

Let hot water burn your skin away …let the flesh melt under the water … let your bones be washed of your sins … you are just a sinner, you’re just a sinner.

You wanted to go, you wanted to know, you wanted to see.

You went there, you knew, you saw …now you smile and pour a cup of tea, the sinner that you are, you wonder how you’d drink your sinful sinful cup of tea.

Smile as sweet a smile as you can …let your hair fall on your shoulders …turn your head so the light can play on your beaded hairpin … look as sweet as you can.

But you know you are a sinner.

Let your hands burn under the water, Watch the skin go red and feel the pain crawl up your arms. Let the flesh melt under the water … let your bones be washed off your sins.

You are a sinner for believing that you were desired. And you are a sinner for wanting to be you…no games …no lies…

You are a sinner for seeing the world from the eyes not belonging to you.

Wash … wash … wash

Wash this piece of shit away … be another or cease to exist …

You ARE a sinner, for smiling, for bearing, for being you.

]]> http://antiutopia.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/be-another-or-cease-to-exist-%e2%80%a6-%e2%80%8e/feed/ 2 From Tehran, with love!