I will fight, and there is nothing you can do about it!

Ever since the June presidential election in Iran my life has had twists and turns that i can not believe. An election in most democratic countries is, well, how can i say, just an election;  there are a few candidates, they campaign for a few months or a year before the election, their supporters go to their campaigns, there are debates, newspapers take sides and all that usual crap that comes with it. Then the election day comes and the people go to the polling stations; usually not in very huge numbers, they go to that little cube thing and cast their vote, then they come home sit in front of the TV, pick their favorite news channel and watch the news for results of the election. VERY SIMPLE PROCEDURE.

In Iran there was a time that well people couldn’t even be bothered with elections and stuff, i mean people just thought: well, hell, they do whatever the hell they wanna do, so why bother! But then in the late 90′s something happened and people felt like: Dude! we gotta do something, this is kind of too much, maybe we can bring some change to the system, so we can breathe a little, have a tiny bit of freedom. So they decided to go out and vote. For who? For a mullah with some charisma, a guy who for the first time after twenty years talked about freedom (and not in that sense of oh! yeah! let’s party on the streets and have gay marriage and women can go topless on beaches and books of any kind can be published, NO WAY) by freedom he meant; let’s stop arresting young people on the streets for talking to the opposite sex, let female university STUDENTS (not teachers) wear a little make up i.e mascara! Let’s not attack and arrest women on the streets if their Hejab is not complete, in general what this Mullah was trying to say was “let’s just have a little (not a lot) respect for the people of this country”.

People were super excited! I mean this was the first time in twenty years that someone had actually taken them into consideration, before that candidates only talked about the values of the revolution and all the other crap which people didn’t even understand. So more than 20 million people voted for this “cool Mullah”; the first Mullah ever to smile! The first Mullah who didn’t look scary and you wouldn’t shit in your pants when you saw him on TV. But, well, the Mullah we are talking about, didn’t turn out to be as cool as people thought he was.

He was around for eight years and then this guy who,  the whole world knows today (thanks to his stupid anual speeches in the UNSC) became the president. But it was one of those elections that no one took part in, because people just thought; this cool mullah with 20 million votes didn’t do shit, so why bother!

So this little guy became president with a ridiculous number of votes.

But after four years, people realised if this guy becomes president again “WE ARE SCREWED” simply because he is an IDIOT. So people voted in HUGE numbers and they united to vote for THIS ONE GUY (moosavi), and everywhere in the country you went people were voting GREEN (the color of Moosavi’s campaign, and then what happens? The polls aren’t closed yet and they announce that the LITTLE IDIOT won again!

I mean this time people went nuts…. I was one of them….

I mean ok, so  for thirty years you’ve been screwing up my country, disrespecting me as a woman but most of all as a human being, taking away form me everything which made me ME, and now you wanna make a fool of me like this?!!!! HAHA; i don’t think so, not this time, not as long as I’m breathing, not on my clock, no you are not gonna fuck me over again this time.

I will fight, and i will prove you wrong, i will scream form top of  my lungs and tell the whole world what cruel bastards you are and i will not keep quiet, because you have already destroyed enough lives and now it is time for you to be destroyed.

I will fight for the freedom of my country and there is nothing, i mean nothing, that can ever stop me.

VIVA IRAN, VIVA FREEDOM

Iranian Woman

An Iranian woman;

Wakes up every morning knowing that she’s not equal to a man in the eyes of the law.

 Fights everyday to be looked at as a human before a woman.

 Is treated as an inferior in the family and then in the society.

 Is forced into marriage and forced to stay in it.

Doesn’t have the right to marry without father’s permission.

Doesn’t have the right to travel without the father or the husband’s permission.

Can not pass her nationality to her children.

An Iranian Woman;

Is told all her life to be ashamed of her sexuality.

Is told that her existence is the source of all sin.

Is told to cover herself up so that men don’t sin.

Is to told to be modest, to not attract attention

 

An Iranian Woman;

Is told to be invisible.

Is told to stay in the dark and not enter the light.

Is told to obey and not question.

But Iranian women have never bowed to these demands.

Iranian women have been fighting for their rights for more than a hundred years; they never gave into what the Regimes demanded from them.

They stood tall and protested.  For thirty years the Islamic Regime in Iran has tried to marginalise women but hasn’t been successful, and now we see that women have come out stronger than ever to fight for democracy, for freedom.

This is why i am proud to say that i am an Iranian woman. A woman who will not be told she is worth half a man.

We Iranian Women will stand tall to the very end. Nothing can break me. Nothing can break you. Nothing can break us.

 

Why is it that news of the death of a leader puts a smile on our face?

I was thinking to myself what would happen if Obama died? How many people in the United states are anticipating his death? A majority? A minority? A power hungry few? Really who? And then I thought about Iran. How many people in Iran are anticipating the death of the Iranian Leader? A majority? A minority? A power hungry few? I mean really how many? Then the rumor was out that the Supreme leader of Iran is in a coma! I mean everybody was calling everybody to double check the news. People would call me thinking, she is a journalist she would know there was this thing in their voice as if they were begging me to confirm the news “hey, have you heard that Khameniee is in a coma? Is he going to die? It will be better for the country if he dies ha?” I wish had the answer to that. What is so unfortunate about this situation is that, a bunch of people who everybody seems to hate are running the country and it seems like that nobody can do anything about it. Ever since I was little and I was born a year after the revolution, ever since I can remember, people in Iran are saying “Inshallah (God willing) this will be the last year they will run this country, they will all go to hell this year Inshallah”. Ever since I bloody remember people have been waiting for Khameneiee to die, when I went to school we wished for him to die so that school would be out, in university we wished for him to die so that Khatami could go on with his reform, before all of this our parents wished for him to die so that they could see the glory days of Iran once again, I mean based on any standards that is just a hell of a lot of dying wishes for one person! The thing is that a year after the revolution I guess most people realized that the whole thing was just wrong, and now thirty years later a generation who was born after the revolution and know nothing but it is anticipating the fall of the system, the death of the leader and a brighter tomorrow. It is this very new generation which will bring the change because it is this generation who has lived under this system and has experienced its brutality and has no other experience. The generation which saw the Shah’s era say at least at that time we had social freedom you poor guys haven’t even had that! And that is true. Now in my opinion if a person like Obama dies people around the world would mourn his death because he stands for something which is regarded as a good value, he stands for peace, equality and freedom ( I know that US doesn’t always stick to what it preaches, but at least this guy is trying to some extent). When he was elected as US president the whole world celebrated his victory and I think when a person like Khameneiee dies the same thing will happen; many around the world will celebrate it because he is the symbol of a brutal religious state which has no respect for human rights, a state which will sacrifice its own people just to survive.

I Think people anticipate his death because his death will be the death of all that he stands for and we all know what those are.

Just a few very obvious reasons why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the Iranian president:

The first and most obvious is the fact that he cares about Palestine and other far away countries and what happens in them more than about Iran and Iranians. I mean you might not believe me but in his speeches the number of times he mentions what the poor Palestinians are going through is maybe a hundred times more than what is happening to Iranians who are rotting in prisons, students who have been banned from universities because of their political preference, underage execution, mass trials, street children in major cities of Iran, women’s rights, and a million other reasons for the suffering of Iranians.
The number of times the Egyptian woman who was killed in Germany by a Russian immigrant was mentioned in Iranian media and the number of times Ahmadinejad mentioned her in Iran and New York can not be compared to the number of times he mentioned Neda, or Sohrab or other twenty something year old Iranians who were killed on the streets of Tehran and in prisons during the post-election protests.
I don’t think any other president in the world is as concerned about what is going on in other countries as he is! He is just obsessed with all the other parts of the world and he seems to really not give a damn about what is happening in Iran.
I remember when inflation was really taking its toll on people and Mps were mad, he came to Majles (the Iranian Parliament) and when Mps talked about how expensive tomatoes have become he just treated it as the most unimportant issue ever, saying something like “who cares, stop making a fuss about this, well why don’t people come and buy tomatoes from my neighborhood? It’s still cheap where I live!” I mean what kind of an idiot could be so ignorant? No, really?

The second reason which we should take note of, is  based on his own statement “we don’t have homosexuals in Iran”. Ok, let’s say he’s right, then how the hell can he be our president? I mean everybody in the world must have noticed that Mahmoud and Hugo have a relationship beyond that of two crazy presidents. They hold hands while walking, they kiss each other like ten times in every bloody meeting they have, they keep giving each other very expensive gifts of oils, refineries and God knows what else, they talk about each other like two lovers would. I mean come one they are you know GAY, and I am sorry we have no gays in Iran so he simply can not be our president.

He claims to have super natural powers which mesmerize those who are in his presence! Yes he does claim that. After he came form his first UN General Assembly meeting he actually claimed that people didn’t even blink when he spoke and that he was surrounded by a light which was divine and all that shit… now how can this defy him being the Iranian president? Well, let me see, because he is a NUT CASE, and NUT CASES can not be presidents period, at least not with the majority of the vote! (meaning the only way such a psychopath could become president is for him to appoint himself or for someone even crazier than him to appoint him, and well we all know who THAT could be! The guy who claims he is God‘s representative on earth maybe!!!!!!!! And we all know nobody voted for HIM. Helllo!!!!!!)

Another reason; HE DOESN’T WEAR HAIR GEL. we all know that any red blooded Iranian man who is not a Mullah wears hair gel.

And last but not least people didn’t vote for him.

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW IT ALL? BUT YOU HAVEN’T LIVED IN IRAN!

I haven’t written for a while but it doesn’t mean i haven’t been thinking!

The thing is that when you come from the Middle East, let me be more specific, when you are from Iran, your life is how can i say; different from those who are not from Iran.

Yeah, yeah yeah, i know you are saying “well everybody’s life is different from the other, how can you be so sure? Who the hell are you to say this?” and a million other things you might be saying in your head.

 

But i truly believe that growing up in Iran i saw things that at least most of my friends living in the West haven’t seen at aaaaalllll!

 

I’m only thirty, which is not that old; ok it’s not that young EITHER and i know my mom thinks i should be married and bring her grandchildren and my grand mom thinks i have been pickled for life and no man would ever wanna be with me, but in a realistic light, i’m not that old!

My first memories of Iran are those of the war; when people were scared to live in Tehran as there was news that Saddam will severely bomb the city, people fled to the north, south, west and east of the country.

We were in Isfahan, and as a kid i thought “cool, i can hang out with my cousins and not go to school, yoohoo”. But at night when the sound of the radio alert would ring through the streets and homes even i as a kid knew that this might be the last time i see my mom, my baby brother and my cousins, i was always scared that i would die but i was also too proud to let my mom know that i was scared.

People would flee in the middle of the night and go to shelters to stay safe from the bombings.

Sometimes you would go to school and see that there are flowers on one of the benches, you knew she had died in the previous night’s bombings, i remember thinking “will they do the same for me if i die?” I now think it was so unfair that i had to think of death at the age of 7.

The other memories; loved ones who were in prison. News of family members and relatives being executed. You know how family members sit around have dinner and talk about stuff, well in Iran the topic was usually “was he tortured? When will he be released? When will he be executed?”

As a kid again it just seemed normal that whoever we knew had been in prison or executed!

As i grew older and became a teenager and well started wearing makeup and talked to guys, i realised, jail and prison were not that farfetched for me either.

If you were a teenager in Iran; you had most probably been arrested on the street, harassed, and scared shitless just because of talking to the opposite sex. I was once put in jail for a day with prostitutes, drug dealers and a woman who had helped her lover kill her husband, oh and a naked woman who was found naked just like that for the tenth time on the Chaloos road which goes to the Caspian region! I was 17.

 A guy i knew was killed either by accident or whatever at his 19^th birthday party by the police who raided the party; i was 16.

Many of my friends were tied to a bed and whipped 100 times by a bearded Pasdar until they bled and urinated just for being in a party! This is all through my teenage years and University.

Many of my friends became heroin addicts and drug users.

I was 21 when a close friend of mine killed herself, i was twenty three when another threw herself down from the Milad Tower in Tehran.

3 of my friends died in car accidents.

All this before i was even 30.

Now at the age of thirty i still continue to see horrific scenes in my country, but this time i said; i had enough, i will not let you torture me like this anymore! I will live the way i deserve to live! I WANT TO LIVE.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN TEHRAN 2019

I told you guys about how a friend asked me about my vision of Iran in 10 years, did i?

Well, the first vision i wrote was the most optimistic vision i could have, in reality it will take way longer for Iran to become that open and tolerant. But it’s never too early or too late to have dream, is it?

Now my most pessimistic vision, the vision that i sometimes fear so much i have nightmares about is what i want to write here today.

Fear and Loathing in Tehran 2019

I hear their boots stomping above me; they are close, so close i can even smell them. It’s still dark.

I know the routine, it’s not the first time they are coming; i close my eyes and pull the sheets over my head, i can’t look at them i just can’t.

Here they come; bang, they open the door.

They are shouting, my eyes are closed but i can see their bearded faces, I’ve seen them so many times that i do not need to have my eyes open to see them, their faces are carved in my head.

They search everywhere, looking for anything, anything can be a crime even a lipstick. Hehehe, the last time they took me away, was because of a Quran i kept at home, a Quran my grandmother had given me! Can you believe it, even having a Quran is a crime.

He’s coming upstairs i can feel him. Knocks the door open, i’m still under the sheets.

“Why are you being so shy today?” he says.

I don’t answer, i never do.

I can smell his dirty damp breath on my skin, i know what to do, just close my head, and go to that good place i have in my head.

“It seems like the last time we taught you a good lesson, i see you have the picture of the leader up, and not to mention the president! Good girl, maybe i can tell Seyyed; our boss, to be friendlier to your parents, Inshallah if you are a good girl they might even get released,” he says with a whisper in my ear.

The thought of my parents, brings tear to my eyes.

They are still searching the house, i hear them break stuff, i don’t know why they keep breaking everything.

I hear the helicopters flying over Tehran, it must be 5 in the morning, that’s when the choppers come, and they will leave soon to raid another place. In just a few minutes another family will be in fear just like me, another woman raped another man beaten up another dignity taken.

They are leaving. I am shaking. The hate just makes my body shake. There is nothing i can do, and that is what i always feared the most to not be able to change the situation i’m in, to have to live with it no matter how painful it is.

I stretch my hand and open the drawer next to my bed, i need the numbness, i take the syringe; probably the only thing which is not a crime in this country these days, i know i will be numb soon and go to a happy place in my head; free!

Tehran 2019

I was having a drink with a friend the other night and like any other red blooded Iranian, after the first sip of wine, oh no, even before the first sip of wine we started talking about the situation in Iran and the whole politics.

 

So she asked me where I see Iran in ten years; from an optimistic point of view, a pessimistic point of view and a realistic point of view, so I thought hell girl, I am gonna write about it in my blog.

 

So where should we start?

Hmmmmmm!

 

I think I want to start from an optimistic point of view:

 

Tehran 2019:

 

I am walking down the streets of Tehran; the capital city of Iran, clean air, I can see the Alborz mountains almost everyday. I get into the first bookstore I see, it’s packed with people buying books, I mean really packed and people are really buying books! I join the crowd, and there are so many books to choose from, the books aren’t cheap and there is no limit to what you can buy and read.

 

I buy a book and continue down the street. I guess it’s lunch time because I see a lot of young people in the Cafes and restaurants, they are having a bite but it seems they are in a hurry as well, I guess they all have to get back to work or to university. Seeing al these young people busy with work and not unemployed or on drugs puts a smile on my face.

 

I get on an electric bus because I am sick and tired of using the metro all the time, the metro goes everywhere in Tehran and it’s quite addictive, so you might not get to see the beautiful scenery of Tehran as you spend so much time underground. Yeah, so I get on the bus and I am heading home; people are just so happy, everywhere is so clean, no sign of street children, prostitutes and addicts on the street, I tell myself “why did I ever leave this beautiful country to live else where?”

 

I get home, turn on the TV and I see our president the President of the Democratic Iran giving a speech in an international conference. There is a smile on the faces of the audience, there is respect; he is talking about human rights and freedom, (Just like Ahmadinejad) hahahaha, the only difference is that there is democracy and freedom and human rights in Iran more than anywhere else in the world by 2019. When she finishes she receives a stand up ovation, people are calling out her name, screaming out her name, I am so proud, I want to be there and tell everyone “see, she is my president, she represents my nation.”

 

I continue watching TV and there is news about Iran, it’s economy and how other countries should follow in its footsteps, it’s social progress, it’s human rights record, it’s social welfare, I mean everything is just to be proud of.

 

I am sitting on my terrace reading a newspaper; a leftist newspaper very very critical of the government and it’s been circulating all around the country for 10 years! I look around me, all around me is beauty, I look through people’s windows families eating their suppers, RICE, MEAT, FRUITS and NUTS are found everywhere, in everybody’s home.

 

You know what as I am writing all these things I have tears in my eyes; why shouldn’t every Iranian have the right to breathe in clean air, have a job, have a president to be proud of, have home, have enough money to eat meat and rice and feed their family, why shouldn’t we be where every human being with dignity should be.

 

Why should I be writing all these little simple things as a dream when I deserve it already!?

 

Why? Why? Why?

Iran’s Fashion Police

I bet you guys have heard of these Fashion police shows and stuff on really cheap TV stations such E! Or on these really lame reality shows and make over shows.

 

You know how they usually have a gay stylist who sits there and all these horrendous looking women come and walk by with some scary looking clothes and then the stylist tells them how bad they look and what it is they are wearing that is wrong. Then the women break down to tears and say ‘oh! Bobby can you please help me get a make over, I wanna make my husband happy. I don’t want my children to be embarrassed by me and blah blah blah…”

So this crew of hair stylists, skin care experts, nail experts and some other weird experts take the women away and bring them back looking quite different.

 

“What we have tried to do here is, you know Liza has beautiful eyes and we’ve tried to bring out her eyes, by…..”

 

Now, you know how they call these shows entertainment shows, this is modern TV, isn’t it?

 

Then I really don’t understand why some people claim that Iran is boring and sad.

 

We are probably one of the few countries in the world if not the only, that actually have Fashion Police on every main square of our cities and every trendy Café, restaurant, shopping mall and high-street. Believe me this concept does not exist even in fashion capitals of the world; Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo ….

 

I totally recommend you come and get some fashion advice in Iran.

 

We have these little Green and White Vans that are just parked there; outside a shopping mall or a café, and there are a few women in black chadors sitting in the van and some really cool looking Pasdars (men fashion police) and they wait for their prey. Sitting there, watching carefully and planning their next move.
So they see a girl with lots of make up coming out of the mall, with her Gucci bag and Prada, shoes, and Blonde hair and French Manicure and then all of a sudden one of the black chadored women blocks her way and says “where do you think you are going missy with THAT look? Get in the van we need to talk”.

 

I mean come on don’t you want to know what happens at the end? Dude this is the real shit. I mean “the Red Carpet fashion police” or the show “what not to wear” or the other one “look ten years younger”; they all imitated the Iranian fashion police.

 

This fashion police thing was kind of over during Khatami’s presidency but now we have Ahmadinejad to thank for making Life entertaining in Iran once again.

Thank you Mr. President for the Islamic fashion police, thank you.

How Ahmadi can be bad for your health!

You know what,

People say a good journalist is an objective one which is true, but today i really am not in the mood for being objective or a good journalist for that matter.

During the past week Ahmadinejad has managed to give me a few cardiac arrests, and that is just too much for me; given the fact that i am only 30. His speech in UN was an embarrassment to the Iranian nation.  The thing is that i really don’t understand why he is so fascinated about going to every single conference, seminar, meeting (even at a ministerial level) and give a speech about how the world should be managed!!!!!!

Seriously, i don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to realize that this guy has absolutely no sense of management. He couldn’t even manage the municipality of Tehran. This guy claims to have a PhD in Traffic management or something like that and his solution to heavy traffic on Tehran’s highways was “U Turns”. Yes this guy actually thought that by having cars slow down on the speeding lane of one side of the highway and making a U turn to the other side of the highway and entering the speed lane of the other side with very very low speed the traffic problems of Tehran would just go away, disappear, vanish!!!!! I mean what kind of an idiot is he?

Now this once failure of a mayor is running the country, so i am not surprised to see Iran take a nose dive.

But he still insists on telling the world about his miraculous ways of management.

Then comes the ever fascinating issue of our little nuclear program, i mean what the hell?????

You know how when you are a kid and you do something you know is terribly wrong, like i don’t know… breaking your mom’s favourite vase, you try to hide it, and hide the fact that you broke it, but then when you kind of know that your mom knows you just come clean before she kicks your ass!!!!! Well, that is how our statesmen have decided to treat the nuclear issue. All i can say is that this is just way too sad.

Oh!!!! How can i forget about his amusing interviews? His answers to questions just make me suicidal and homicidal in many cases; well now days i’m more homicidal. Kidding J

The reporters takes out a photo of Neda’s dead body (for those who don’t know who Neda is, she was a young Iranian woman shot dead by plain clothed people during a protest in Tehran) and asks our president how he feels when he looks at the picture. Well his reply is “i feel sad that she had to die this way” and then all of a sudden he is handed a photo by probably one of his stupid friends he take along, he shows the photo to the reporter and asks her if she knows who the woman in the picture is. I mean dude, seriously what the hell is your problem? The woman in the picture was the Egyptian woman who was killed in Germany by a Russian immigrant! Now, do you see why i feel homicidal!? He started going on and on and on about how western governments are racist and hide the truth and use propaganda to brainwash their own people and blah blah blah as if he is just so not into all that shit.

His technique is to say: If you guys do it why shouldn’t i do it? If you can do it, i can do it better. And that is just stupid.

What bothers me is that when this Egyptian woman was killed in Germany by a Russian immigrant they actually held a huge symbolic funeral for her in Tehran; they named a day after her, and some other really weird stuff, but when an Iranian passenger plane crashed and killed 168 people, he didn’t announce even a day of national mourning, when Neda was shot dead on a street in Tehran her parents weren’t allowed to hold a funeral for her, when people got raped in Kahrizak Prison they called it a little mistake which will be investigated. I really don’t understand this, how can a president care more about other people in the world than his own people.

All i wish for right now is for Iran to be free and managed by people who love it, who care about every single person who lives in it, by people who can’t sleep at night knowing that people are being raped in prisons, i wanna see Iran governed by people who are just, people who are educated, people who are proud of being Iranian, not people who call themselves Muslim before Iranian, I want to be able to live in Iran and be happy.

I want my Iran.

Iranian President’s speech (Funny)

Uhum, Uhum,

123, 123, voice check….

In the name of God blah blah blah….

Can i have your attention please, this is the Iranian President speaking to you….hello, anyone out there? Hello would you please sit down and listen to me…. hey i’m talking to you…. yes you…. aaaahhhhh, hell with you guys, who cares if no body gives a damn about my bullshit i will do what i’m good in and that’s LYING.

So yes, i want to start by talking about freedom:

I personally believe that freedom is very very very good, it’s so good that i actually believe that we Iranians don’t deserve it. But the poor people of the United States living under such an authoritarian regime should get up and fight for freedom. Don’t let me even start on the Iraqis and the Gazans and the Latin American countries, but Iranians better just shut up and suck it all in because come on, who needs freedom when they got meeeeeeee?! the most popular person on earth

The second topic which i think is of utmost importance is the accusations of killings and stuff;

Just as the good old Mighty Python once said in the Holy Grail; “Let’s not fight over who killed who.” Who cares. My argument is that if Americans and the British come all  the way to the Middle East to kill Iraqis and Afghans, why can’t i kill my own people? ha? what’s wrong with that? If i had more money believe me i would go to another part of the world as well but at the moment i have to kill and rape my own people, and as you see they got no problem with it. They love me.

Now i want to talk about Racism, yes, Racism…. aha, see i got you there… We might not let Afghans go to school here, or we might not let a mother pass her nationality to her kids and therefore many kids with foreign fathers (mostly Afghan) have no identity and are being exploited every day, so what!!!!!!!! You are the bad guys anyway; you had slavery and you guys killed the native Americans, we just exploit Afghans.

So i think no one’s left in the room ….. Uhum….

Oh! Now that only the Iranians are here, let me just talk a little about our Hidden Imam; Imam Zaman; isn’t he the greatest? isn’t he just super cool? All the guys who love Imam Zaman put yo hands up in the air, wave them like you Just don’t care……yey, …..

thank you , thank you…

(Iranian delegation clapping like monkeys.)