چندتا چی باهم
اول-آبشخور فکری نئوکانهای انگلیس:
از ماه پیش ماهنامه روشنفکری تازه ای در انگلیس چاپ می شه. “استندپوینت” (نقطه نظر) می خواد “مدافع تمدن غربی در عصر پس از یازده سپتامبر” باشه. ظاهرا دیدگاه راست میانه داره، ولی از این دو تا شماره اولش چنین برمی آد که دیدگاه های مسیحیت پیکارجو و نئوکانها رو ترویج می ده. سردبیرش هم حامی جنگ عراق بوده و هست. انصافا حرفه ایه، ولی شاید حرفهاش درست نباشه.
دوم: محمد الدوره نمرده
همین مجله این ماه یه مطلب داره درباره دادگاه تلویزیون دو فرانسه بخاطر فیلم تاریخی قتل محمد الدوره، طفل فلسطینی، در آغوش پدر زمین گیر شده اش در تظاهرات علیه اسراییلی ها. لپ کلام اینه که دادگاه گفته فیلم ساختگیه. یعنی قهرمان خردسال انتفاضه همه رو سر کار گذاشته! نویسنده تازه از ارتش اسراییل انتقاد کرده چرا این نوع بازیهای تبلیغاتی رو جدی می گیره و در موردش تحقیق راه می اندازه، هرچند تحقیق ارتش نشون داد الدوره رو اسراییلی ها نکشتند! از قضا روزنامه اسراییلی معاریو هم مطلب مشابهی داره. در مقابل هاآرتص می گه فرضا اون صحنه ساختگی بوده، ولی از اون موقع اسراییل هشتصد و پنجاه کودک و نوجوان فلسطینی رو کشته و این عمل باید متوقف بشه.
سه-اروپا هوشیار باشه
استندپوینت یه مطلب هم داره در مورد پرونده اتمی ایران و هشدار داده اگه ایران بمب اتمی بسازه، نه تنها با موشک می تونه پایتختهای اروپایی رو هدف قرار بده، بلکه کشوری مثل ترکیه هم هوس بمب می کنه و اون وقت امنیت اروپا به … می ره.
چهار-سه هزار سال رویاپردازی
مجله پراسپکت یه نقد نوشته در مورد کتاب “امپراتوری اندیشه: تاریخ ایران”. نمی دونستم نویسنده کتاب، رییس پیشین میز ایران در وزارت خارجه بریتانیا بوده. (اصل مطلب رو در جواب به یه کامنت گذاشتم).
پنج-ماندلا دیگه تروریست نیست
سه بار چشمهامو مالیدم و دوبار لید این خبر سی ان ان رو خوندم تا مطمئن بشم اشتب نمی کنم. جورج بوش در دستوری ملوکانه اسم نلسون ماندلای نود ساله رو از فهرست افراد تحت نظر بخاطر تروریسم خارج کرد. همه جای دنیا یه مشت الاغ حکومت می کنن. باز الاغ چهارتا خاصیت هم داره.
شش-قهرمان زنده رو عشق است
طفلی انگلیسی ها دیگه در تنیس ویمبلدون امیدی ندارند. البته از اول هم نداشتند ولی از اندی موری یه پهلوون پنبه ساخته بودند جلوی آقا رافای ما. خوشحالم حذف شد چون بهره برداری انگلیسیها از این تنیسور اسکاتلندی، حداقل واسه چند روز، تموم می شه. در دوره و زمونه ای که اسکاتلندیها چشم دیدن انگلیسی ها رو ندارند، انگلیسی ها بجای پرورش تنیسور، اصرار دارند اندی موری رو فرزند امت واحد بریتانیا جا بزنند. اگه راست می گین به اسکاتلندیها استقلال بدید.
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تیر ۱۳م, ۱۳۸۷ | ۰۱:۵۷
چی شماره ۴:
پراسپکت میگه باید مشترک انلاین باشید(۱۲ پوند)تا بتونی این مقاله را بخونی. می تونی متن را جایی کپی کنی که بتوان خوند.
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ایمیل کردم برات ولی اینجا هم می ذارم.
۳,۰۰۰ years of dreaming
by Robert Irwin
Iran’s history is an astonishing tale of conflict and discontinuity. Parts of Michael Axworthy’s account are more gripping than a novel
Robert Irwin is the author of For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies (Penguin)
Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran
by Michael Axworthy (Hurst, £۲۵)
In 1935, Reza Shah insisted that foreign governments, when communicating with him or his ministers, should no longer refer to his country as Persia and instead call it Iran. This was to differentiate his regime from that of the decadent Qajars of the 19th century. Moreover, the term “Iran” is a cognate of “Aryan,” and, of course, in the 1930s there was a lot of stress on Aryanism in Germany and elsewhere. Reza Shah was fascinated by Nazism, though Atatürk’s policies in Turkey were a closer model for his high-handed western-style reforms.
Michael Axworthy, formerly head of the Iran section in the foreign office, explains the choice of title for his history in the following terms: “The centre of Iranian culture [has] moved at different times from Fars in southern Iran to Mesopotamia, to Khorasan in the northeast and central Asia, and to what is now called Azerbaijan in the northwest; and… far beyond the land of Iran itself.” For this reason, he suggests, “we should set aside our usual categories of nationhood and imperial culture and think instead of Iran as an Empire of the Mind.”
In 1971, Reza Shah’s son and successor Shah Mohammed Reza held a spectacularly extravagant festival at the ancient sites of Persepolis and Pasargadae (Pictured, below right: a bas-relief of tributete bearers at Persepolis). Heads of state from all over the world were invited. The festival was intended to celebrate 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy and to present the shah as the heir of Cyrus the Great. But in 1979 the shah fled, and 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy came to an abrupt end, to be replaced by the mullahs. The supposed continuity of Iranian history was a short-lived imperial fiction.
Axworthy is informative on the early dynasties—the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanians—and, among other things, he stresses the role of religion as the engine of revolt in ancient times. But the middle ages get short shrift, and the achievements of the Abbasids, Buyids, Seljuks, Mongols and Timurids are rushed over, though he gives due weight to the poets Ferdowsi, Rumi, Farid al-Din Attar and Hafiz of Shiraz. Once he reaches the Safavid period (1501-1765), however—the period in which Shiism was imposed on the country and Sunni Sufis were persecuted—Axworthy’s narrative really gets into its stride Indeed, his account of modern Iranian politics and culture is more gripping than most novels.
Axworthy is at his best when he presents thumbnail portraits of leading Iranian writers and intellectuals. Sadeq Hedayat, author of the extraordinary horror novel The Blind Owl (1937), campaigned against the Arabic influence in Persian cultural life and the concomitant power of the clergy. He committed suicide in 1951 and his works have recently been banned by President Ahmadinejad. Jalal Al-e Ahmad, influenced by Hedayat, created the word gharbzadegi, which can be translated as “west-toxification,” and he furiously attacked the unthinking adoption by Iranians of western ideas, values and technologies. Al-e Ahmad was a wonderfully entertaining polemicist and his writings deserve to be better known in the west. Khomeini himself, Iran’s most famous intellectual in modern times, was far from a typical mullah, since he wrote poetry and studied mysticism, activities that his more narrow-minded colleagues looked down on. It is suggested that Khomeini’s politics should be understood in terms of his ambition to become the “perfect man,” a mystical figure who featured in the writings of the 13th-century Andalusian mystic Ibn al-Arabi.
Many of Axworthy’s insights on modern Iran may seem counter-intuitive. After the revolution, women lost some of the legal gains that had been achieved under the shah. Nevertheless, there are more women in higher education than ever before and they have a larger role in the workplace. Some of the most effective resistance to the very different regimes of Ahmadinejad and Khatami has come from the ranks of Iran’s senior clergy, many of whom have denounced nuclear weapons as an unnecessary evil. Many in the clergy have also condemned the tactic of suicide bombing.
Consistently intelligent, notably up to date and lucidly written, Empire of the Mind’s account of Iran today and the challenges it faces is worth a thousand documentaries and newspaper briefing articles.