Fly
It should have been a year or so, then how could it feel so warm and lively?
That's her with those sweet brown eyes once again looking down at me at the other side of the road.
Don’t know I'm terrified or released, I just close my eyes to have her behind my eyelids forever…
- No Sarina! Don't do that. its too dangerous
- Come on, it easy just keep it going straight. Put your foot exactly in the same direction; see there is no need to see anything.
- But why should we go blind when we have the eyes?
- Don’t you have something called imagination? It feels like flying, like being free to go…
- I don’t feel anything but darkness and I don’t like it
- But I do. It's all white. And I'm in the air just watching not to fall down. My wings are growing I try to open them
- You're in middle of a shit. Look you're messing everything up. This is not what we came here for.
- Oh really?
- Ya really. You said we are going to be free but this is suicide
- No its not. Its flying, its going where nobody else can reach you. Look! I AM ALIVE.
- Maybe but you've lost your mind. There is a 30 meters wide road here and you're walking on a 30 centimeters rail and with closed eyes
- Believe me. It's safer this way. The road you're walking on is 50 meters high but my rail is fifty plus one meters high. Come up here.
- No thanks. This is the last place I'm coming with you. See that sign, this bridge is for cars only.
- Those who read signs are stopped wherever they tell them. Be free. Signs are just to ...
- Please! I know what you wanna say "these are just to limit us" I've heard it a thousand times
- Ya and you have lost the meaning a thousand times. You can't reach the other side without this signs, this is how limited you are
- And you think you can?
- Sure. See. Its just like flying in white space
- No! Sarina! Truck's coming, oh my goodness…
And I don’t know if she still sees the white space or maybe now she can feel the redness of her own blood. And I look to find an H sign where there may be a Hospital
Maybe It's, Maybe It's Not!
Two days ago, Our news agency posted a report on its site with a picture claimed to be of USA made weapons used by terrorists who killed 11 Iranians in southeastern town of Zahedan. Today the Israeli Yedioth quoted an American site to have proved the picture to be faked and kind of retaliation for pictures claimed by USA to be of Iranian weaponry in the hands of Iraqi militia.
Whether neither of them is authentic and whichever country produced them, they have killed innocent people that had nothing to do with the political or ideological challenges that encouraged the killers to slaughter.
I was just thinking of how our lives are manipulated by some ill minded people to impose their preferred way of life over others who may lack the power to confront them or don’t want to use enemy's evil methods in response.
I've always trusted the intentions of democratic societies like USA or Canada and others in pursuing the freedom and welfare of mankind. But when it comes to combating terrorism, I have nothing to counter those who never trusted Democracy and argue that westerners only think of their own interests; they say west is ready to bargain over the life of thousands when it comes to its interests and security.
At first I cheered those in west who complained about the humanitarian crisis in countries like mine. But now I've found out that when it comes to economic benefits, even short-time ones, they forget all humans altogether! That’s obvious in Iran's case where it seems western powers are ready to bargain our lives with the oil of this Dictatorship and keep it quite about the ongoing slaughter if they don’t make the Bomb to attack them!
If true, we should be sorry for Bush and his team who seem to be the only courageous leaders to keep it tight on terrorists but have miscalculated in counting on the courage and trustfulness of other leaders in THE GREAT EU!!
A Natural Beauty
The Lens of a camera manipulated by our Photo Editor in Chief, Saiid Majidi saved the natural beauty of these migrating birds on Iranian beaches
Watch all of them on http://www.farsnews.com/imgrep.php?nn=8511010611
And God May Survive
Iranians and most Middle Easterners spent hopeful days in late 1990s and early 2000s when new political atmosphere gave their individual and national demands a time to breathe over imposed scared and divine regulations with rigid unbreakable borders.
They got a chance to live their lives based on individual preferences not some black & white definitions derived out of old or new inspirations. The people of Middle East, historically known for their religious and philosophical inclinations, were experiencing something that most westerners never did.
Middle East was going through a religious reform mostly unlike western Renaissance in the way it did not counter religion but tried to formulate a peaceful co-existence, to catalyze the Dialogue among Civilizations by Mohammad Khatami and prevent the Clash of Civilizations anticipated by Samuel Huntington.
But Armageddon did not end the promised way and the evil forces rubbed the victory once more.
Again the extremists got the lead "to save the world from the evil it has been trapped in" and to defeat "wrong doers who are to deceive people and guide them toward hell".
Once more fundamentalists are leading and we are living our doomed life just waiting to see if the forerunners of democracy would fight them and if The Day would come.
The ships are coming, the fighters took off, and tanks departed on their way. Two sides are drawing lines, armoring more and more forces, sending more troops with bombs…but some thing is missing. No one has time to think about us? Will we remain? And how?
They don’t have the time so forget and just pray after this Armageddon, "God May Survive".
You Saw the Rain
Walking through dirty streets he just witnessed the road lines being washed by falling rain drops. Couples under one umbrella embrace each other as close as they can to fit under the round roof which is supposed to save them from rain. This closeness surely invites a real French kiss but that’s not what he thinks of.
Pigeons rush to the nearest hole to rest or to wait for the rain to stop falling. They prefer not to fly and also not to find the food before others grasp it. They know one thing is common among them; no pigeon looks for food under rain. This rain surely invites a peaceful sleep but that’s not what he thinks of.
Even those who only came to have a look at the luxury shops now find their reason to go in. now many inside the shops have forgot the luxuries and watch the drops coming down the door glass which breaks the light and gives an altered view of dirty streets; maybe to help them to be more beautiful. But this is not what he thinks of.
…
He opens his hands just before his face, gives them a fine slope, pushes them against each other to close the holes and this is what he thinks of:
"When the rain falls, as many as drops you catch, you will love me and as many drops you miss, I will love you." Laura said.
You! Who Shape
I just re-read "Time's Person of the Year: You" and got a feeling of being more important and effective in the way my world goes on. Beside I couldn’t help feeling a change. Something has changed! And that is the way we come together.
I remember days in 1990s when I had just started learning English in a private institution in Qom. My great interest in learning a foreign language fueled me to spend up to 9 hours a day trying to speak it with myself! We studied Oxford's "American Streamline" which focused on speaking and that was the problem. I personally dreamed of being able to speak any other language than Farsi. It felt like doubling my friend-making powers (the vital part of my life).
But the problem rose just when I got that power. Again I had no one to speak with, but myself, or in a silly way selecting the hard approach of using the newly acquired language with my fellow classmates.
I can not forget the day when we met the wife of one of our friend – an American nurse. Like hungry vultures seizing the corpse, six of us surrounded her just to talk English. Either I can not forget her face after 3 hours of whirlwind chat with six determined beginners in English field!
But today that has changed. Internet has allowed us to forget the miles-long distance and reach out for new friends. The magic of a PC connected to a phone line has changed even the way we relate with next door friends. Sometimes we meet more On-line than in the park.
On-line communities like Orkut created virtual societies which have the most culturally variant space and no one is un-welcomed. Where people just invite friends before knowing where they live or what religion or ethnic they come from.
And above all that, there are these Blogs. The empty space where we put what otherwise preoccupied our minds or blackened the white papers we now use to have more mathematics practice. These provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to express ourselves to those who may have never heard us if it were not for this Blogs.
So surely something has changed. Something important has changed.
It is for all these that now I and YOU are selected by Time to be the person of the year.
More important: it is for this internet that I found one of my best friends to whom I am so attached that many times I miss her though being miles and miles away.
Death of a Dictator
Saddam Executed
Should I be happy to hear that before I take off my coat at my desk at our News Agency? I have no time to think about it when making a fading smile remembering days when my childhood house in Qom was bombarded by Iraqi fighters.
They say I should not be happy to hear of someone's death. But how could it be true of a cruel dictator who never missed an opportunity to slaughter others. He was responsible for the death if many of my classmate in our Imam Sadegh Elementary School.
You may have seen horrible pictures of children slaughtered by their own ruler and may have pitied them. But I have seen them with my own eyes. I never hoped for the death of others, even for Saddam, but couldn’t help feeling reassured of justice being implemented when I heard "Saddam was executed at early hours of Saturday morning".
March 2003 has turned to be a point of confusion, should US have intervened in Iraq? Could it prevent a huge damage by not intervening in Iraq?
I don’t know. I can not explain how happy I was when I witnessed the initiation of US Attack on Iraq.
I agree it now has turned into a real turmoil due to misjudgments and mistakes as many other conflicts in the world.
Well better not to make an ethical judgment.
US was NOT wrong to overthrow a bloodthirsty dictator called Saddam. Lets work to get other accompanying mistakes right.
Lets pray for those who have the courage to sacrifice for the justice to be done against those who make themselves exceptions by their cruel powers.
