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.

"Wherever We Gather is The House of Cinema"

The following article originally appeared on 

the Official Website of Arseh Sevom Civil Society Organization: 

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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.”