Iranian-Americans Seek Heros to Save a Life

This piece originally appeared on Global Voices

Screen Capture of the original piece on Global Voices with Nasim Rad's
picture from Project Marrow Official Website

Iranian netizens are looking for a hero. Not for a revolution or a war, but to save a life. Nasim, a young woman from Northern California of Iranian decent is in need of a bone marrow transplant. Several Iranian celebrities have stepped up to help spread the word to save her. They are using social media to find a hero to give a bone marrow donation.

A project was born to solve this kind of challenge in 2003: Project Marrow. According to its Facebook page, Project Marrow was founded by an Iranian-American, Behnoush Babzani, who herself was once diagnosed with a rare blood disorder in 2003. After being treated with marrow donated by her brother, the special experience gave her unique insight into the lives of patients whose health depends on marrow transplants from people with marrow types matching theirs - usually found in individuals of similar ethnic backgrounds.

The campaign initiated by Behnoush has now apparently come to save other patients suffering from diseases like marrow cancer by reaching out to fellow Iranian-Americans for help. 21-year-old Nasim is one of those patients. Her story has moved people to an extent that community members and celebrities alike have stepped up to try to help to save her. They have posted video messages on Youtube, donated marrow samples and tried to raise awareness through social media. This Facebook page is one example.

In their video message, famous Iranian-Americans, such as actor Maz Jobrani and athlete Ehsan Hadadi, have pleaded to their fellow Iranians for help repeating the motto “I am Nasim” over and over again in the clip.

The video closes with these lines:

If you're lucky enough to match to be able to help and save this girl's life… then they will contact you and it's just a very quick process… it doesn't… they don't rip you open… there's nothing… it's very easy!

We're not asking for money, we're asking you to consider joining the registry.

To be able to donate something from my body…

that would help somebody else would be the greatest gift 

So let's come together!

Save Nasim,

Save Nasim

Save Nasim NOW!

Alia strips again, this time here in Sweden

This is what happened a few days ago here in Sweden. Alia Majed El-Mahdi -whom you most likely know by now- took her protest to the frozen streets of Sweden and the very doorstep of the Egyptian embassy in Stockholm. Alia shed her clothes along with two fellow-activists to denounce what is being done unto her people back home in Egypt. She protested a Muslim-Brotherhood's darling, Mohammad Morsi, for having started to sound much like the notorious Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lately referring to his powers as "divinely-sanctioned and blessed". 

In my perspective, regardless of how brave and courageous Alia was in at least standing up and doing what she could, this was made possible thanks to this benign and benevolent Swedish nation. What the Swedes have achieved as the fruit of the sweat and blood of thousands of people through generations has resulted to the betterment of not only themselves but many people like Alia. Like us who have taken refuge here in this land. This is added reason why I honestly believe that constructive patriotism should eventually evolve into globalism: You can only have a good neighbourhood if you-first and foremost- take good care of your own residence.

All throughout the years I have never relinquished my unfathomable love for my plagued motherland.  In my mental journey I came a long way from ethnocentrism and blind nationalism to a reformed nationalism to patriotism in the sense just elaborated, - also reflected in the very title of this blog. But today I say proudly that just as I will always remain grateful to my beloved Iran, my second homeland is definitely this very wonderful Sweden.

I love Iran and would do whatever humanly possible for her, but it is Sweden that makes it possible for me to do what I need to do. It is Sweden that allows me to write freely now and indulge myself in these very basic freedoms for which people lose their lives in my homeland. 

I will always love you Iran. I sure will do. But allow me this once to rephrase the opening sentence of this post and say: This is what happened a few days ago here in Sweden, my second homeland.

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Screen capture of Global Voices website, retrieved on 12.12.12

Till embryonic research does us part!*

The borderline between “humane” and “evil” turns hazy when it comes to issues such as embryo research, cloning and genetic engineering. In so far as abortion remains to be a hot subject in political campaigns, these issues, too, appear not to have a good prospect of bringing the pros and cons to a conclusive agreement any time soon.

Something that makes the debate prevalent among US and EU politicians alike and even more complex, is that both sides involved in the debate claim their point of contention to be ‘life’ itself!

The opponents majorly base their argument against embryo research upon article three of the United Nations human rights declaration: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Even the Vatican delegation espoused this article rather than taking a more religious stance during the UN 58^th general assembly:

If human rights are to mean anything, at anytime, anywhere in the world, then surely no one can have the right to do such a thing [clone human embryos]. Human rights flow from the recognition that human beings have an intrinsic dignity that is based on the fact that they are human. Human embryos are human, even if they are cloned. If the rest of us are to have the rights that flow from the recognition of this dignity, then we must act to ban cloning in all its forms.

To the better or the worse, the key phrase “the right to life” has opened up an ample space for ambiguous interpretations. Just as seen from the abovementioned quotation the right to life is entitled to embryos at their prenatal stages — a stage that could also be defined as an organismic life stage. Based on that, proponents reason that advancements within the realm of genetic engineering and embryo research can assist humanity in fighting terminal diseases and save millions of lives albeit at the cost of destroying hundreds of thousands of embryos. In his book titled “The Coming of the Body” Le Monde columnist Herve Juvin writes:

When it is possible, or soon will be, to eliminate in advance from a child’s makeup any “leprous” genomes, so called because they carry a tendency to particularly serious illnesses (hemophilia, cancers, asthma, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s Chorea, muscular dystrophy, diabetes…); when future management of health insurance depends to a notable extent on the capacity to conceive and bear children protected against any hereditary illness or defect, and thus on the elimination of the most serious and expensive illnesses; when all these things are with us, only an error of vocabulary can explain why the word “reproduction” is still applied to the human species, in  the way it is applied to animal species in the wild.

As stated, the debates have not remained limited to the UN general assemblies and national and international policy-making bodies have also been addressing the subject, too. The European Union is an interesting case in point having two extremes of the debate in its spectrum: on one side The Vatican State (not an EU member per se, but geographically in the EU) and on another side Scotland where Dolly the Sheep was successfully cloned and lived to be 6.

Funding researches on embryo research seems to be the subject of discussion (or a lever against such projects) as far as EU’s stance towards the said issue is concerned. This matter has raised some serious arguments in EU such as when Astrid Thors, the then- Finnish Liberal MEP and currently-Finnish-Minster of Migration and European affairs strongly criticized EU’s ban on Embryo Research funding in 2001 and expressed her dissatisfaction for EU to be “on a par with the Bush administration.” according to Europeansources website.

In 2002 the debates were hot as a row broke out between European Parliament and Council of Ministers over a temporary ban on stem cell and human embryo research. Things started to get even more complicated for pros against the cons in 2003 as MEPs introduced even more limiting amendments to the already-existings-curbs. David Bowe a UK Labour deputy lamented: "Regrettably, the religious right managed to pass a series of amendments which, if they ever become law, would have serious consequences for stem cell research in Europe; they [the MEPs] are very Catholic and very regressive."

Just as the debate was ongoing among EU members, in 2006 President Bush went far enough to use his veto power to limit federal funding for the research according to a BBC report. The same report lists the “keen” and “not keen” countries in about stem cell research in EU as follows: 

·NOT KEEN: Austria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Slovakia

·KEEN: Belgium, Finland, France, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK

Just recently as the a new repercussion of the EU’s legislation on embryonic research, a court in Germany ruled that “totipotent cells carrying within them the capacity to evolve into a complete human being must be legally classified as human embryos and must therefore be excluded from patentability.” That single sentence would arguably delay developments towrds reaching a promising cure for many terminal illnesses in the near future.

All that said, it does not appear perceptible for the European Union to take a different direction in regards to the embryonic research and how it could be addressed given all the legal aspects and the diversity evident within the various member states of the EU. So far the score results show 1-0 in favor of the Pope’s team against Dolly’s!

----------------------------------------------------------
* This article was written in fulfilment of an academic module requirement in 2011

Nostalgies of the Burnt Generation

In case you did not know we, the Iranian youth born during the 80s, call ourselves 'The Burnt Generation'.

We were born just after a bloody revolution and then lived through an eroding war that lasted a whopping whole eight years, -- that's enough to get you from the crate to school desks; right? We witnessed death at every corner and learnt that life was nothing to be taken for granted while this world was not worth being cherished. All these nihilistic ideas were inculcated onto our young minds throughout the years. We were denied the little reasons to be happy that were congruent with our early years, were segregated at schools from as low as seven years of age and were forced to digest concepts such as martyrdom and self-denial. 

This background insight should be enough to give you just a taste of how things were for us as children. In case you are interested, there are now numerous sources on the internet that will provide you with a more exquisite account of the term and the context. My own piece dated 12.June.2003 might serve as a decent starting point. I still lived in Iran at the time and was 22 back then. 

But as much as The Burnt Generationists led a less-than-jolly-life, we may still take the liberty of indulging in the Western luxuries from time to time. One of those luxuries that still reach us through the labyrinth of sanctions imposed on Iranians is...ehem...nostalgia. 

We are best at this one, trust me! We are a nation that successfully ranks atop, and if not there 'among the tops', of every refugee and diaspora chart. Thus, it is not that daunting of a task to find things that take us back to a state of felicity and joyousness that quite probably never actually existed in the first place!

Here is an example of our nostalgic bits that has been going viral within the Iranian cyber space. It is an extract from one our childhood years' programs that constituted the very little fun we were allowed during those years:

[my translation]

1st puppet: Leave me alone, I wanna go and kill him!
2nd puppet: Not now, it is of no use. Come back.
1st puppet: Let go of me, I wanna go and kill him to teach him a lesson.
...
Host: What's up? Whom do you wanna kill?
...
1st puppet: I wanna pluck out his two eyes.
2nd puppet: But if you wanna kill him I will go with you too.
...
2nd puppet: We will beat the crap out of him so much that he will fall dead.
1st puppet: The lunatic.
2nd puppet: He has a screw loose.
Host: Don't swear kids, it's a sin.
Puppets (both): What? It's a sin? Do you mean you are on his side?
Host: But who?
...
 Host: I am on the side of all good human beings.
1st puppet: so you think he is a human being too?
Host: But who?
1st puppet: the one who attacked...the one who thinks it is his father's legacy...
1st puppet: that gav [Persian for cow]... Sadgav [in Persian 'hundred cows'. Apparently a demeaning term to refer to Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, who was at the peak of his power leading the war against Iran.]
Host: Aha... Saddam... that lunatic must be....
2nd puppet: Killed!
...
Host: He deserves it.
1st puppet: Yeah, he must be mutilated.
2nd puppet: His moustache has to be plucked and he must be beaten so much that he falls dead.
...
Host: But he is dying already, with these attacks launched against him by our dear guardians [of the Islamic Revolution] and Basij [Militia] and army, he would die of a sudden heart attack any day and go to Hell....

And this was our 'Children's Program'!

Of course the host later advises the kids to give up on going on a "Hunt down Saddam" joyride and tells them "to study their lessons instead." But perhaps the message was lost within the early revolutionary zeal that made the scenes such as the one that follows a reality.

The footage shows Iranian minor POWs at a Red Cross camp in Iraq.

My new piece on Roozonline website (in Persian)

Here is the link.

My new piece on Khodnevis website (in Persian)

For those of you who know Persian, here is my new piece on Khodnevis website.

"I owe myself life"

I wanna get back to writing about my personal takes on life, let's give sociopolitical themes a break. After all my 'personal' Facebook page seems politicized enough so why not utilize this place to fill the void? I am writing because of a touching experience I have had with an artistic masterpiece that at the first glance appeared a far cry from my conventional taste: a song by the French heavy metal group "Gojira" titled "L'Enfant Sauvage".  After listening to the song over and over again and savoring every word of it, I am now convinced my musical was frozen in at least a few decades ago.

Dom Lawson from The Guardian gives them a five star review and describes Gojira's new album "a ferociously original piece of work that reaches its electrifying zenith on The Gift of Guilt," being from where I come from I got goose bumps listening thorough "L'Enfant Sauvage", the album's second track as it is as if these words are screamed through the mouth of myself and my peers: 

So long I've been trying to match

It doesn't work I'm trying I don't know The aberration of this world
It killed a part of me and I was raging
The denial
Run away from institutions
I owe myself life


I will respond to this pression anger
There is light in this world I fight for
The reason you won't leave this cage
Betray your child the desire
that you won't serve to reveal yourself
Forgot to create your own life
Anger
Lies
Denial

I try to deal with

The pain is gone

There's no way

Flowing through me

Fereshteh Khomeini and Farah Pahlavi II, faces of Iran's tomorrow

Today is the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran in 1979. A historic event that proved to be a turning point in our contemporary history. Like it or not, this was a day that changed all we were and all that we were yet to become.

Reading all sorts of ideas and commentaries, by those who believe Khomeini's return to be the worst plague that has ever struck our homeland against the ones who would still revere the long passed leader as an "Imam". (somehow an equal to the Christian Saints) I ended up with a moving epiphany. 

Hassan Khomeini, the Ayatollah 's grandson, has posted a photograph of a little girl, presumably his own daughter, named Fereshteh Khomeini. On the other front, Reza Pahlavi, Shah's son and the first in line to the Peacock Throne, has also posted several photos of his youngest daughter, Farah, named after Empress Farah Pahlavi, Reza's mother, Hence: Farah Pahlavi II. 

Look at their faces for yourself. Both kids are cute (as all kids their age are), both are innocent and both could live in a democratic and civilized Iran free from the faults of their past generations. This should be our goal to make that happen, to recreate our motherland and let her embrace all her children. Only that way "Iran will never die". 

"Wherever We Gather is The House of Cinema"

The following article originally appeared on 

the Official Website of Arseh Sevom Civil Society Organization: 

***

Arseh Sevom — “What grace? We would be better off if we forgot about the country and opened an orphanage. People don’t have bread, yet wine is imported from France. There is famine and sickness everywhere. People are forced to pay even for their breathing. The rain of blessings is bestowed upon us for the sake of His Majesty but flood and earthquake descend for the wrongdoings of the people. We have more executioners than barbers. Beheading is easier than circumcision. People don’t look like humans anymore, their foreheads are stigmatized with the seal of smallpox. Their eyes are languid from trachoma and their faces are skinny from opium…”

This was a monologue from a classic Iranian movie, ‘Haji Washington’, by the late Ali Hatami, the renowned Iranian director whose signature nostalgic view of the old Iran is celebrated by many Iranians –a style that won him the title of ‘the most Iranian film maker’. Haji Washington was produced in 1982, three years after the victory of the Islamic revolution, and it was immediately banned.

For the past 32 years there has been a complex relationship between the Iranian cinema industry and the Islamic republic. The ideologues of the Islamic revolution of 1979 sought justice and independence, dismissing the Shah as the figurehead of the status quo and opposing the West. The dawn of 1979 revolution started out with the mass persecution of actors, actresses, singers, musicians, dancers and other Iranian media figures. They were accused of having acted as accomplices of the former regime in propagating Western values – hence ‘westoxification’. Many were forced to sign repentance letters in revolutionary courts from the ‘mischief’ they had committed, for tainting youths’ minds and spreading ‘Western corrupt values’ in the society. The new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, justified their approach by famously arguing that they were “not against the cinema but against prostitution.”