Kamangir (Archer)

The Iranian blogsphere is experiencing a very important challenge. Recently, a short video started circulating in the web. At the first sight it is nothing different from the other half of the Internet in which nude people generously offer a long shot of their sexual pleasure. However, this video is one of a kind. Because, the shy girl in this video is a famous Iranian actor.

Recently, a successful Iranian soap opera was aired in the Iranian national television. For a broadcasting organization whose boss is directly assigned by the supreme leader, it is obvious to expect nothing like “Sex and the City”. In fact, soap operas in Iran have very known guidelines; there are bad people who are obviously bad and good people who are always saying their prayers. It is then obvious that having a key “good” girl passionately making out on every monitor in Iran is a personal offense to the Islamic Republic.

Very soon, the lady rejected all allegations and claimed that she will sue those behind this resemblance. Then, blogs were devoted to this incident, posting pictures and the video. Thank to Google, everyone was able to find out all tiny details.

Today, there are fairly serious rumors that she has commited suicide under interrogation (see). Some bloggers blame the Internet or abusive bloggers (see) (see) (see). I don’t. Porn is a synonym for the Internet. I think the responsible party is exactly who dictates artificial “values”. Being an actor, and being a human being, I think it is clear that soon your very private pictures will leak to the public. Why should we take it so seriously? For a sex-thirsty society like Iran, it is more than obvious to have people search for her name whenever they have access to Google.

It is no mystery that “Google Bomb” can be used to carry messages. Like the famous “failure” which leads to the biography of George W. Bush (see). Less known are “Google Mines”, which may explode at any moment, right at the tip of your fingers.

I was finding out more and more people coming to Kamangir, after searching for “سکسی” (Persian word for “sexy”) in Google. Somehow, Google seemed to find a relationship between a post in Kamangir titled “Islamic Sexy Fashion” (see) and “Sexy” in Persian. So, I searched for “سکسی” in Kamangir and I found out that this word is never mentioned here (see). More research revealed that Google directs people to Kamangir, because I had posted a link to that post in Balatarin (see), using the title “مد سکسی اسلامی” (Persian translation of the original title).

So, the passionate people who come here looking for “nice” pictures and stories please don’t blame me. And I am thinking how easy it is to blow off your counter.

A recent thread of discussions in Guardian Unlimited (see) shows another Israeli overreaction similar to what I was talking about before (see). I have had very similar experiences with Israeli friends, too (see). A few years ago, Brian Whitaker wrote a piece titled “Selective Memri” (see),

For some time now, I have been receiving small gifts from a generous institute in the United States. The gifts are high-quality translations of articles from Arabic newspapers which the institute sends to me by email every few days, entirely free-of-charge….The organisation that makes these translations and sends them out is the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), based in Washington…Memri’s purpose, according to its website, is to bridge the language gap between the west – where few speak Arabic – and the Middle East, by “providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media”….Despite these high-minded statements, several things make me uneasy whenever I’m asked to look at a story circulated by Memri. First of all, it’s a rather mysterious organisation. Its website does not give the names of any people to contact, not even an office address….The second thing that makes me uneasy is that the stories selected by Memri for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel. I am not alone in this unease….Memri might, of course, argue that it is seeking to encourage moderation by highlighting the blatant examples of intolerance and extremism. But if so, one would expect it – for the sake of non-partisanship – to publicise extremist articles in the Hebrew media too….

He also adds,

The reason for Memri’s air of secrecy becomes clearer when we look at the people behind it. The co-founder and president of Memri, and the registered owner of its website, is an Israeli called Yigal Carmon….Mr – or rather, Colonel – Carmon spent 22 years in Israeli military intelligence and later served as counter-terrorism adviser to two Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin….

I see these as reasonable questions about an institute and its aims. This is how Memri responds (see),

Brian Whitaker’s Selective Memri is an example of selective journalism. Disregarding the Guardian’s own code – “A newspaper’s primary office is the gathering of news” – Whitaker has simply recycled inaccurate and previously published material. Two days before his piece appeared on the web, he called our Washington office to ask for the Arabic original of an article translated by Memri from the London daily Al-Hayat. He could have used this opportunity to check his facts. He chose not to do so. To start with, Memri is not a “mysterious organisation”. Our telephone number, fax and email appear on every dispatch. True, the office address is no longer posted on our website. Whitaker may scoff, but we have received threats from rightwing radicals in America. Had he asked, we would have provided him with our addresses in Washington, London, Berlin, Moscow and Jerusalem (as well as informing him that I retired from government office almost a decade ago)…. But then, facts might have got in the way of a “good story”…

I don’t get it. It is an obvious question to ask what Memri is exactly doing, with an ex-intelligence officer as its president. the bottom line is, it is all wrong, Memri is a decent academic institution. Why is Mr Carmon considering this a personal offense?

Thanks to Simon for the link.

Ahmadinejad is a big bogeyman for me. He is always captured talking about wipe-off and go-nuclear ideas. But, I have never thought of him as a “horrible man who is going to destroy the world”. That’s what makes him the bogeyman; he is more of the dumb person who thinks aloud.

Does this mean I do not hate his ideas? Not at all, the thing is, he is representing a group of Iranians and he is representing them really well. Assume that you are poor, and you have lost your son/brother in a war which was first a big holy thing and then became outdated. The only thing that you have in the world is a foggy Allah somewhere up in the sky, whose representative, the mosque in the corner, gives you a chunk of names to blame for all wrong things in the world. Next stop? Vote for a guy who the same mosque says will slap those ugly names in the face.

So what? At the end, we do need someone to blame, like a terrifying man with dark beard. That’s when Ahmadinejad comes in and with his genius talents in making people shout against the names, he becomes the great bogeyman.

Who is the real “enemy”? That’s when big names come in, like human rights, free flow of information, and deep bury whatever calls itself sacred and so refrains people from asking simple questions.

So, for the Halloween, Azadeh bought two pumpkins and we carved the bogeyman. Click here to see how it was done.

p.s. I found another idea for pumpkin, here (see).

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Only for the record; women in some cultures have no problem with being beaten, in contrary, they consider it as an “expression of masculinity” (see). However, beating should be carried out in a special way which “must not cause bleeding” (see). This is what the “women’s manual” suggests and “we shouldn’t be ashamed before the nations of the world who are still in their days of ignorance” (see).

Israeli flag with “peace” in Arabic at the middle, from Lisa (see).

I have a question for fellow Israelis, or whoever can provide a reasonable answer to it. And I am hoping that I will not be bombarded by Lisa (see) again. Why is Israel very frequently acting as a spoiled kid who is always overreacting and then denying everything?

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel revealed that an incident took place on Tuesday this week, quoting a German junior defence minister as saying two Israeli F-16 fighters had flown low over the German ship, firing twice….”There was no such incident,” an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters….But in Germany opposition lawmakers demanded further explanation (see)

My understanding is that in a country in tense relationships with most of its neighbours, it is understandable to find warlords ruling the country. Though, many of those problems return to previous overreactions.

“On April 2nd 2003, Kaveh Golestan was killed when he stepped on a landmine whilst working as part of a BBC news crew in Kifri, North Iraq” (see). Since then, an annual photojournalism award under his name has picked many of the best shots of the year. This year’s results were recently announced (see). many of these pictures show decisive moments for the Iranian society (see). I do recommend watching these pictures. (more…)

Frances Harrison writes about her experiences as the not-so-welcome BBC correspondent in Iran,

There is an expression in Persian – “Do you think I come from behind the mountain?” It is these “behind the mountain”, back of beyond places that Mr Ahmedinejad has made a point of visiting since his election….One year after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power these people still have faith that he will change their lives. Elsewhere in Tehran there are rumblings about the president’s failure to curb the rising price of food but here the poor still believe in him….Interviewing the crowd proved problematic. As soon as we started talking to one woman someone had the bright idea of sabotaging the interview by urging the crowd to shout “death to America” very loudly….When we left we received a call from the president’s office. They said we were not allowed to broadcast any of the interviews we had done with the crowd. We said we would then have to announce that we had been censored….The bizarre aspect was that everyone we had interviewed had been positive about the president – one young girl had even said she had come to get a glimpse of him from afar – like a film star.(see)

The presence of the foreign media in Iran is an irritant to those abroad who want regime change but here we are spurned as the propaganda machinery of the enemy, and, increasingly, Iranian officials will not talk to us…There are some people who are not happy when, for example, we report on the Iranian civilians who are slowly dying because they were victims of chemical weapons used by Saddam Hussein…When my colleague was asked whether we were with Islam or them – she said we are independent. But increasingly we are being asked to take sides. (see)

Does anyone have any idea what is this boy doing in the first row of the magnificent Fetr Prayers in Tehran? It it amazing to see that these serious guys, including the supreme leader and Ahmadinejad, are not distracted by his orange bulldozer.

I admit that I am possessed with finding pictures of children in public religious/political events in the Islamic Republic. I have a very good reason for myself. Children are among the most vulnerable groups in the society. If parents do not learn to tolerate their kids’ way of living, who else is going to practice tolerance. See here for more pictures of kids in the recent Fetr Prayer in Tehran (see)

Blogged with Flock

The “Faith Parade” was held in Freedom Square, Tehran. A news agency close to the municipality reports “the parade is for Tehrani girls who have just reached the “age of duty” (Persian: سن تکلیف)” (see). According to Islamic teachings, when girls become nine years old, they should practice all rituals including prayers and fasting. In most girls’ schools (all schools, before university, are uni-sexual in Iran), this event is celebrated and girls are presented with Chadors (the covering which is used for saying prayers) and other Islamic symbols.

The importance of this colorful parade is that it is happening when a great opponent of Ahamdinejad in the election, Dr Ghalibaf, is Tehran’s mayor. He pushes very hard to show a moderate picture of himself. Knowing that Ahmadinejad previously held the same post, Ghalibaf has a good reason for being so open; the picture shown above is form a parade regarding faith. That is strange enough in the Islamic Republic.

The showmen in the parade were a funny puppet, a famous child-show actor, and a cleric. Well, at the end, it is “Islamic” Republic of Iran . See their pictures below. (more…)

It is obvious that Religion, like many other human institutions, brings about its own politics. While the struggle for being divinity’s guy is continually happening here and there, the last days of Ramadan are the scene for a very naive war between top figures in the Islamic society.

Muslims know quite well what to do during the month of Ramadan. They refrain from all bad habits as well as eating and drinking. As Ramadan approaches its last days, it gets important to know when it exactly ends. This is not because Muslims want to return to a normal daily life. In contrary, they are rigorously concerned about their holy ritual. Because, they may loose most of the credit they have earned in long Ramadan days, if they fail to correctly find the last day.

According to Islamic teachings, fasting in the last day of Ramadan, called Eid Al Fetr (Persian: عید فطر) is a sin. Thus, it is vital to exactly know when Ramadan finishes. The classical method for finding out this day is through watching the sky for a new born moon. This has been practiced for centuries.

After the revolution in Iran, the clergy system seriously called Iran as the “Land of Islam”. So, obviously, they could not follow other not-very-decent Islamic leaders of other countries. That meant, the Iranian clergy started to announce the beginning and the end of Ramadan in Iran, independently. Then, having dozens of top clerics in Iran, most of whom do not accept many others’ Fatwas, that meant having even two days announced as Eid in one year.

As the forces of divinity started to act in bizarre ways, a few concerned scientists stepped in, urging the use of scientific means for calculating Ramadan’s arrival and departure. Soon, the clergy issued a statement banning usage of science in divine affairs.

As a Muslim, if you do not know when Ramadan finishes, and if you are too traditional to individually look at the sky and find out if the moon is there, you have to look for a compromise. According to an Islamic “rule”, if you have to leave your city and travel a few kilometers away (the distance is carefully mentioned in the books), you can postpone that day’s fasting to another one. So, if you do not know if today is Eid, and if you are not going to take the risk of not fasting in a Ramadan day, which brings the punishment of having to fast for a month, and if you do not dare to fast in Eid, there is a very simple way: get out of the city! A friend of mine once did so.

The picture shows a cleric using a telescope for finding the moon. It seems that the divinity guys have found no other way rather than relying on trivial man-made things to go to heaven.

They say two children are enough [a famous slogan for controlling Iran's population growth in the last decade]. I oppose this. Our country has a huge capacity. It has the capacity to have many children grow in it. It has the capacity for 120 million people [currently the population is 70 million]. Westerners have this problem, because their population growth is negative and they are afraid that if our population increases we will defeat them. Thus, they have exported their problem to us.

These are exact words of President Ahmadinejad in a meeting with members of Parliament (see). It reminds me of what the Islamic Republic advocated for during the war with Iraq. Then, they encouraged people, through financial aids and propaganda, to enlarge their families. At that time, they needed soldiers. The result was huge demand for all services. For example, every year, to get into a university program, a million people take part in an exam which forces them to spend at least one year to prepare for. One million years of Iranians creativity is wasted this way, and we have not talked about the fraction of these attendees who get depressed because of not being able to pursue a decent life.

Sometimes I think who cares if US really attacks Iran; we are under “friendly” fire right now.

p.s. Lady Sun writes (see),

And the irony is that this is the body of women that should always be negotiated in Iranian policy. Once they boycotted veil in Iran, then they made it mandatory. Once Khomeini asked for a baby boom to create a 20-million-member army. Then they realized the baby boom is screwing up our economy, so they started birth control policies (which was one of the fewest successful policies of the government after the revolution.) Now this moron is asking for a baby boom again. Please, let the women decide about their own bodies.

A few years after the revolution, and thanks to Khomeini’s fierce order, we started to celebrate Halloween in Iran, just like all other cool people. This is how we do it.

We wear costumes.

And make funny puppets,

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Rainy days in Tehran always bring a sense humour. After all, it is not very common to have rain there. See more pictures here (see).

Ahmadinejad chose Islam Shahr as the scene for his last with-the-people show. Islam Shahr (Persian: اسلام شهر), literally meaning city of Islam, is an underdeveloped suburb of Tehran. While Ahmadinejad loves poor areas, he has also another very understandable reason for not going very far from Tehran. When a Muslim goes away from his hometown, many Islamic rituals change. For example, for a traveller, number of Rakaats (parts) of praying are half. Also, a traveller can not fast. This, it is generally discouraged for a Muslim to travel in Ramadan. As I remember, Islam Shahr is an hour south of the central part of Tehran. Still, according to a Fatwa by Khomeini, regarding “big cities” (Arabic: بلاد کبیره), it is a part of Tehran.

When Ahmadinejad goes to cities and towns, I look for signs of creativity. This time, it is the picture shown here. The “Islamic Virus Scan”, has detected bush as a “so dangerous” virus which can be defeated by “unity”. The dialog’s icon looks very familiar to me, but I can’t recall where I have seen it. The good thing is, after all, the “Islamic Virus Scan” works on Windows xp. To see a few other very typical images of his trip see the rest of this post. (more…)

Although, most Islamic Republic leaders live and operate in Tehran, the city has a fantastic not-very-Islamic culture of itself. Azadeh always loved the big giant at night; when the traffic doesn’t make you mad and street lights are on. This video is from Youtube (see), thanks to Balatarin for the link (see). It shows parts of Valiasr St., close to Park Way intersection, I think. Isn’t it amazing to see girls in veils dancing at the middle of the Islamic Republic territory? At the end, we are all human beings.

p.s. I can not embed Youtube videos here. Any idea?

Exactly two years ago, I created an account in blogger and published my first post (see). The day after that, I wrote the first piece which mildly criticized the Islamic teachings (see). I then had to censor a part of that post because of concerns mentioned by close friends. That post also brought me the first comment (see).

In the 730 days which has passed from that day, I wrote over 760 posts and got over 1,200 comments as a result of the approximately 40,000 times a part of Kamangir was read. I know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of blogs with the same number of visitors a day. But, Kamangir is important to me because it meant getting to know many new people from around the globe. Many of these acquaintances turned into concrete friendships. Above all that, Kamangir meant I had the chance to speak out against whatever I found ridiculous. And I’ve loved it!

This curve shows the number of posts per day. In the first year, there were months where I did not post anything at all. At that time, I was very busy finishing up my studies in Iran and coming to Canada. Then, the second year comes, with April 2005 as the peak when I wrote about three posts a day. As the curve also shows, things have started to cool down. I think that will be the general trend of the third year, too. I will try to write less in numbers and more thoughtful in content.

When I look back, there are moments of joy, like this post which was mentioned in a few blogs (see). Obviously, there was also always fear accompanied with the joy. Because, at the end of day I was denouncing a non-responsive regime. There were also moments of confusion, like the case with Amir Taheri’s fake story about badges for the jews (see) and people who were hesitating to call him a liar (see). Sometimes it becomes funny, like when I was advised to “be honest with yourself if you are’nt with others” (see) because of talking about a bug in Notepad (see).

At the beginning of the third year, I am interested to know who are the readers of Kamangir. If this is not the first time that you are reading Kamangir, please leave me a comment. Please let me know more about you.

p.s. I even got a present (see) from my beloved wife. The good thing is that she has started her blog today (see). She will be more than happy to have a few readers.

“Anonymous Martyr” is a very well known term in the Islamic Republic literature. This term is used for the hundreds of unidentifiable bodies found in the places were “light’s army” fought “Iraqi infidels”. In many other countries, a monument is built for the acknowledgment of the anonymous soldiers and paying gratitude to them. In Iran, once every while, the national television announces a public service for transferring corpses to their resting places. Then, it turns into a carnival for chanting the administration’s ambitions and nostalgia for martyrdom.

As time goes on, it becomes harder to dig into the mud and find parts which can be assigned a number and then paraded in the streets. The Islamic burial rituals state that the body should be washed and then wrapped. This would be a serious problem when there is no “body” available. The same Islamic rules give a hand, because, a martyr’s body does not need to be washed. Whereas, the rituals mandate the wrapping to be opened right before soil is poured on it. Fortunately, it can be carried out as one person jumping into the grave and opening the wrapping right before it is hid under ground. If that part is made public, many may start to ask why these corpses are being moved around the towns and cities and are not left to rest where they have been resting.

To see the pictures click here. Warning! scenes of dead bodies! (more…)

The Iranian FCC announced recently that public places and households are not permitted to have access to the Internet at 128kbps or more (see). The writer of Free Keyboard, Jadi, says “this means there will be no access to online radios or video on the Internet” (see). The picture is also from his blog.

The holy month of Ramadan is in progress. Even forgetting that Muslims are invited to “Allah’s feast” during Ramadan, this month contains three of the most holiest occasions in the Islamic calendar, at least for Shias. The three nights of Ghadr (Persian: شبهای قدر, Arabic: لیالی قدر, literally means “value”), are depicted in Quran as being worth a thousand months, each. It is mentioned that the whole Quran was sent to prophet Mohammad in one of these nights, completely, and that’s apart from its gradual inspiration to him. (more…)

Go to your desktop ands make a new text file (test.txt). Then, type “iran win via atoms”, save the file, and close it. Now, open it again. You will see this sentence “畢桳栠摩琠敨愠潴獭” written in the file. An Iranian blogger uses the title “Freedom of Speech, American Version” (see), to announce the new face of western oppression. Another blog warns the readers about the back-doors in Windows and says “this is a new feature added to Windows through automatic update” (see). He also sees this as a hostile action against Iran’s “definite rights”. I am looking for my Chinese friend to come to lab and translate this sentence. Though, my obvious guess is that this is nothing more than another “Jews involvement in 911 attacks has been predicted in Microsoft Word” hoax.

A simple search in Google led to a comment in Yahoo! answers (see),

…actually it’s a bug. notepad tries to understand whether your text is ANSI or Unicode . This effort , fails for texts with this pattern : 4+3+3+5 ( like : bush hid the facts – iran win via atoms – … )

So, I tried “love you big arash”. And you bet! I got the same result. So, Bill Gates does not seem to be involved in the Iran-World atomic crisis.

Ahmadinejad had another trip.

 

Denmark Embassy in Tehran was attacked (see).

A farmer in Babol, a northen city in Iran, picked a strange tomato. The one hundred-gram vegtable has two eyes and the farmer tells Fars reporter (see) “I think it is a sign of God’s power”. Hat trip to Balatarin for the link (see).