Tehran Pacer

Hard rain over traditions

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:03:50 PDT

Just like many other cites in the world, Tehran�s spring days are so unreliable. Yesterday was shiny but today is rainy and tomorrow again is sunny! These days we can not decide exactly what to wear.

But indeed, weather is not the essential problem. We Iranians can not satisfy ourselves to wear as heavy/light as we are comfortable. Forget about official rules of wearing (especially for women), people are still standing on ceremonies which cost inconvenienced for them. This quality of Iranian people may be so strange and not-understandable for foreigners who are not familiar with traditional nature of us.

Muharram in Tehran

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 08:45:08 PST

Every year Iranians of the Shias sect of Islam commemorate the death of a descendant of the prophet and their third Imam, Hussein (or Hossein ibn Ali).

The climax of these ceremonies is Tasooa and Ashura (or Ashoora),9th and 10th of Muharram and 1st and 2nd March this year. These two days refer to an event almost 1400 years ago, in 61 A.H. on the lunar calendar, when Imam Hossein and 72 of his followers accepted the call of the people of Kufeh (in Iraq) to come to their aid in getting rid of their tyrannical ruler. When Imam Hossein sets off from the shores of the Red Sea, news came that the people of Kufeh had killed his messenger. The imam decides to set camp in a plain called Karbala.

Meanwhile, the ruler of Kufeh, Yazid ibn Mo�aviyeh, upon hearing of the imam�s intention, gathers an army of 2000 and comes to meet him. The two camps meet at Karbala and on two fateful days a violent battle rages in which all the followers of Hossein, except a few women and children, loose their lives.

Tehrani Shias commemorate Tasooa and Ashura in a special way. In every neighborhood, mosques stage various mourning ceremonies, as do the houses of religious personalities, and makeshift structures with colorful banners and flags play host to mourners who are then reminded of the difficulties Imam Hossein and his followers went through in that barren and waterless desert. These locations are called takiyehs (or tekiyehs).

Out on the streets and during these two days, Tehranis often come across dastehs or procession of male mourners who line up in two facing rows and beat their chests conspicuously in rhythmic motion. These usually belong to the same takiyeh. In front of the procession a cross-like banner (3-5 meters in width and 3 meters in height) can be seen with metal ornamentations. The strongest person in the group carries this banner, or alam. In the back, flags can be seen eulogizing Imam Hossein and his followers. Among the mourners there are banners called kotal in black felt on which colorful stitches in praise of the event of Karbala can also be seen.

The High Noon of Ashura By the end of the day of Ashura, Hossein and his followers perish in the battle. To commemorate this day, city mourners take to the streets. At high noon, various processions return to their takiyehs and stand prayer.

The Night of Ashura On the evening of Ashoora, the city of Tehran becomes scene to groups of people who shed tears while holding a candle and whispering to their God. It is commonly held that on this night God answers to the calls of the faithful. There are countless occult stories about the fulfillment of wishes on this day.

The night of Ashura is a commemoration of the survivors of the battle, who after suffering great hardship are left with the memory of those who lost their lives. As such, the ceremony is convened in candlelight and in the solitude of a personal communication with God.

Experience of Pianist

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:49:07 PST

I watched The Pianist by Roman Polansky this afternoon and enjoy it as other people may have seen and enjoyed it. Except sharp jewish and -so called- zionistic trends in its story, I had a good felling of its spritual and humanistic soul.

I said "except..." because I believe that we can compare situations of jewish people in WWII with present situations of Palestinian people who are now deported from their motherland -which is common between Christians, Jewish people and Muslims, not only one of them- and have been separated in different zones. We can name Eduard Saeid -who died a few weeks ago- as one of those outlandish palestinian people.

If you can watch "bazmandeh" ("The left" in Eng.) by Seifollah Daad, You can point lots of similar factors in situations of their lives in gethos.

I will write more about it...

Request for correction�

Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:30:53 PST

Hello Mr. Derakhshan

Thank you because adding Tehran Pacer to the list of Blogsbyiranians. But there is some information wrong about identity of writer of Tehran Pacer. One of my friends whose name is Hadi has signed up in Blogdrivefor a blog which was called Tehran Walker and we decided to make this weblog a cybernetic place for people �particularly youth people- of Tehran to share their experience of pacing in Tehran. After that, my friend Hadi mailed to you to ask you for adding this site to your list of Blogsbyiranians.

For some private reasons Hadi� opinion about Tehran Walker changed and then we ourselves decide to develop Tehran Pacer. The first post of this blog - As a young Iranian journalist�- was a good starting post for us and due to that we publish it again in Tehran Pacer. May be this repetition has made you confused to think that Tehran Pacer is administrating by Hadi, as you have indexed in Blogsbyiranians.

Here we ask you to correct this information of Tehran Pacer. This blog is now getting written by Tehran Youth, not Hadi and we ask you to mantion that in the index of our group weblog.

Thank you

Tehran Pacer writing group

'Jeegar' vs. political freedoms

Thu, 22 Jan 2004 03:58:30 PST

If you need a proof that Iranian youngsters don't have any interest in politics, you must see this stats report for the most popular Iranian websites.

You see that a website called Jeegar is on the top with over 100,000 visitors everyday. It's content: links to mainly soft porn material on the Net. The next website is Gooya, a simple but old and lucky directory of popular Iranian websites; next is Baztab, a political news website close to the center of the right; then is Dalghak, an entertainment portal without any particular content; and Gooya News is next which is the most popular news site close to the reformists and the left in general, with only 30,000 visitors.

I noticed the huge impact of Jeegar.com when I discovered the hugest hike in my visitors ever as a result of a link on Jeegar to a post in my weblog about board games; over 4,000 visitors had come to my blog by a single link from Jeegar in two days and they keep coming.

Looking at the details of Jeegar.com's stats report, there is no doubt in my mind that what the young Iranian wants is not necessarily an open, transparent government. They need to have fun like all other people in their age group in the World. Although you sometimes do not know what exactly should come first: the democratic and secular government, or social freedoms.

I guess new conservatives are getting ready to ease the lives of young people as soon as they capture the parliament and the government. I don't really like the conservatives, even the younger ones; but I believe that after a few years of reform process which has actually been effective in many ways, there is need to cross some of the borders; and it's only conservatives that can do that. Did you see how quickly and easy they accepted the change of a controversial street name in Tehran?

>>> Editor: Myself

...And The Left-Hand Cook

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:17:20 PST

If you have taste in home furnishing and decoration, or you simply enjoy window-shopping for interesting stuff, like pottery, artificial flowers, candles, ornamental cushions, glass vases, and the sort, you've surely heard of a place called Khaneh-ye Javan (The House of Youth). It's a store on Shariati Street in Tehran, just north of Farhang Cinema, which opened about five years ago.

These five years sufficed for the House to become well known and attract customers that believe its products to be unique and gift-worthy. The place owes its fame mostly to the young owner, Ardeshir Afrashteh, whose ideas of blending business with home-grown art has resulted in a profitable and popular concoction...~>

Last days of an Iranian student

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 07:45:02 PST

These days are last days of first educational term of Iran universities, since most of Iranian students especially student who are educating in Tehran universities (e.g. University of Tehran, University of Allameh Tabatabaie, Beheshti University etc.) are so busy and also disturbed and agitated.

In Iran, there is a very important and huge general entrance exam for universities, called Konkoor (with rout from conquer) and all of Iranian youth must be succeed in it to be able to follow their graduating career in universities that are providing by Iran state. Students should pay nothing for services of these universities which are called �State Universities�.

In a sociological view, Iranian society is a pre-modern one which is in a critical social transform to modern and even post-modern situations. In a semi traditional society like Iran, there are not many ways to change social status and historical class which has been heritage of parents and grand parents.

In a society like that, there is only some few ways and pores that let someone to develop his/her situations. Konkoor is one of most important samples of those pores. Just like passing a funnel, because of very tedious and tiresome pressure of Konkoor, the most part of Iranian youth who are allowed to presence in university classes have no more energy for their first terms of educational progress.

Maybe that�s why Iranian students do everything but studying in most of their days! So last days of our terms in university, are the most important and critical days for us to make our endeavor to just pass the units and the same process will be traced again next term.

This faulty and patient cycle will go on until we make it correct ourselves�

First...

Sat, 17 Jan 2004 04:44:37 PST

As a young Iranian journalist, I experience some significant aspects of Iranian lifestyle (of course if we can categorize Iranian Lifestyle), which may be interesting for some foreign people and even Iranians who are far from motherland.

I will share these moments from my POV, and maybe help you -readers- to have a more real, actual and irreplaceable view of situations of Iranian society.

So click on me...