Tuesday, November 29, 2005

To Become Canadian?!

I filed an application, took the exam, made the oath and will have a Canadian passprt in 10 days. Canadian passport is the best traveling document, the Judge said this morning at the ceremony. He himself had two of them! Like most of the other Canadians.

The first holy places to explore are NY, D.C. preceded by Mexico! See you in January!

Are we now citizens of nations? Or villagers of the globe? Except the fact that it eases our travels, what does becoming Canadian mean?

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Best wishes for you on this special Aban the 10th

It is a long time since my last presence. During this time I paid a short visit to Iran for a family emergency. I am now back with loads of work to do.

Today (10 Aban) is the birthday of a very special and old friend of mine who now lives in Germany with her lovely husband. I congratulate her on this day. She was the source of all inspirations for the, then, 15 year old Behrang. I have always appreciated being in her circle of friends, she is a smart and challenging friend. Our history goes back to the Tehran bombardement era. My grand parents, my brother and I joined her family in Garmsar to escape the rockets, my parents stayed behind. It was a group of us, I will never forget the Hide and Seek nights, I will never forget how many times my emotions lost to her rationality in our Jenagh-shekastan ha!!! I will never forget the looks we exchanged then!

Although we never got the chance to mutually build any sort of special relationship and never talked seriously about ourselves since university years but I am sure I have a friend to whom I can rely all my life.

Monday, September 12, 2005

بهزاد نبوی را بهتر بشناسیم

اگر اين منافع در تقابل با منافع مردم باشد، چه؟
ما احساس وابستگي به اين انقلاب و نظام داريم. به هر حال روي اين انقلاب سرمايه گذاري کرديم و هزينه داديم. معتقديم کساني پيدا
شده اند که مي خواهند واقعيت انقلاب ما را دگرگون کنند. به هر حال چون ما مي دانيم اصل اين انقلاب چه مي خواست، ما نمي توانيم با جواني که اصلا انقلاب را درک نکرده، امام را نمي شناسد و ... و حالا خواهان برخورد با ارکان نظام است، هماهنگ شويم. ما در
مقابل انحرافات بايد بايستيم، نه اينکه با اصل آن برخورد کنيم. ما حتي نظام مشروطه را هم نظام بدي نمي دانستيم
Behzad Nabavi in Today's Rooz says he and his followers, among the official so called reformers, cannot stand with (suppoert) the youth who has never understood Khomeini and the revolution and are willing for a major social change.
What I have always been confident in claiming is that the reformers in Iran do not possess the intellect to lead the reform, simply see how he distances himself from a huge fraction of the population to secure the throne!

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Under the Azure Dome

The Azure Dome is a dome where all the Iranian myths live and flourish.
It is the name of our Festival in March 2006. Read the report.
We are hoping to have the support of the Tehrontonians for this magnificent event.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

I am late

It is late. And I am off. Many things to say. Daniel, my supervisor, invited me to his house. I will spend the afternoon with him. Thesis talk and thesis talk! I would like to end this routine and join the profressionals who are performing the art of community development.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

All in One

I do not know on "what" to write.
I am presenting at this conference in Aug and I have to send them my paper by next week, I have to write the final paper for the Social Housing course by mid July. Working at TLC is my other time-consuming responsibility.
I have my aunt went through an opeartion to remove her breasts for the cancer she was diagnosed and worse she is now devastated by the loss of Amou Majid.

All of above! Sometimes it is too much that one does not know how to start, right?

Amou Majid smoked his way through the black castle of death!
Fathers, do not smoke! Now that you have sons and daughters to parent, do not smoke. Please, control your crave!

You offical reformers! you all failed, what did you do to sustain your plan to guide reform after your sinking? Did you help people organize? Did you help to change the educational arrangements at schools so that kids could learn about Rights, Citizenship and Civil Society? Give me an indicator that proves me wrong in claiming that you have done nothing to initiate a grassroots move for reform.

Regardless, Ahmadinejad could be a source of inspiration for further action! He might create a global crisis or address the needs of the people, either way, it is people who win! No long-term worries, though, short-term concern is wisdom.

Reform movement could now re-commence by building on what Ahmadinejad claims he wants to do. In order to alleviate poverty, the system required to do community-based needs analysis, system needs to organize the poor. So any better chance you know that could help speed up the process? Go to the people and help them organize to address their needs even local needs, even needs that seem populistic.

As I have shouted all the time, democracy is decentralizing accountable autonomy to people.
Democracy begins in the speher of social and economic relations and then human rights come in to sustain it and guarantee its progress. Democracy is when a cab driver has a say in transportaion system or knows how and where he could put his idea in and how to monitor its effect.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Amou Majid Mord

Majid died. My uncle, at the age of 53, the exact age his father, my grandfather, died.

Three consecutive massive heart attacks did not let him live the marriage of his three young daughters. In Insfehan, my father at his bed, he laughed and said a few words before his voyage. It is sad but real it is boiling while calming, it is life.

Eight years ago, I lost a collection of best friends in a sudden flood in the North. Since then, death has redefined himself for me, it is scerenity it is life itself, one should water the tears and open up the eyes, one should rethink it.

Although massively breaks my heart but I believe it is a return to the ocean; the return of the soul to the eternity or the body to the wholeness of the nature. Death is Truth!


Saturday, June 25, 2005

Old Shark Drowns The Dragon Flies! The Reform Rationalize!

It is true that the main opposition is the regime itself, Rafsanjani is now becoming one of them!

Now that all the reform is detached from power, it is time to learn, learning that all democracies commence from the root, from exactly where people live and work. Many friends laugh when I say democracy is at the local with national consequences. Democracy is a social and economic act with political effects. Political development is democratization of social and economic relations!

Now that you have to be housed again, you the official reformers, it is in the book, read, think and reflect. Review the UN documents on democratic intervention, study the successful development programs experienced by the world! Then write and get feedback! Spice up the development literature with some Persian taste! The world is much a head of us, simply because they think prior to action, because they pilot their proposals, write about them and reflect on the feedback! They praxis before final action!

Believe me the reformers lack the intellect for development, of any sort! This is what I have always cried out but Pro-reformer (as opposed to pre-reform) friends always satisfied themsleves with the foam not the taste!