Interview with the Hero of Uzbekistan. Part 1

Finally I found Craig Murray and he kindly gave me a very lengthy but amazing interview. The following is just the first part of it:

D: As far as I know, the book was supposed to be in bookstores on 1 June, but it was released a bit later. Do you know why?

CM: Yes. Unfortunately, the British Government kept issuing legal threats against the publisher and demanding the book not be published. That resulted in a very lengthy and expensive process of legal consultations before it could actually be released.

D: I see. And could they explain why it shouldn’t be published?

CM: The British Government claims the right to approve memoirs by former government employees and says, without that government approval they are not allowed to publish them. And in my case they refused to give approval. In fact, we believe they don’t actually have any legal authority to back the government’s claim. Because this is a country where at least until recently we were supposed to have freedom of speech. So. We’ve gone ahead and we are waiting to see if the government attempts to take legal actions against the…

D: Actually in many parts of your book you note that the British Government has censored a fact. Why and how were they censored, and by whom?

CM: During the process of attempting to get clearance from the British Government to publish the book, the government asked me to make certain changes to the book. I made those changes on the understanding that if I made the changes they would give me a clearance to publish. However, even after I made the changes, they still wouldn’t give a clearance to publish. I have, therefore, taken the step of putting the information that was censored onto the web. Initially, on my web site, but now on many other web sites. There are links given in the book by which you can get the information that was censored out of the book.

D: Now, let’s talk about your mission in Uzbekistan. Before putting your step on the Uzbek soil, did you really know where you were going to and what sort of challenges you’d face?

CM: I didn’t really know a great deal. I only had six months between leaving my job in Ghana and arriving in Uzbekistan. In that time I had to learn Russian. I started then not knowing any Russian at all. You’ll understand to get the not speaking Russian at all to be able to work in the language in six months was quite a task. So, I was concentrating enormously on language training. I had also a week of briefing on Uzbekistan in which I was told essentially that it hadn’t changed much since Soviet times. And I was told about Uzbekistan’s potentials in oil and gas reserves and about possible routes for gas pipelines in Central Asia. And also, of course, about Uzbekistan’s position as a United States’ ally and part of the coalition in the so called War on Terror… but it didn’t actually prepare me at all for the real conditions in the country.

D: Afterwards you faced lots of human rights issues in Uzbekistan, but hadn’t you encountered similar problems in your previous designations in Nigeria, Poland or Ghana?

CM: Ghana is a very free country. It’s a democracy with a good human rights record. Nigeria had a certain amount of problems, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Uzbekistan. But, you know, Uzbekistan is possibly… Well, in fact, Uzbekistan is certainly one of the five worst regimes in the world. One of the five most totalitarian regimes in the world. So, the chances of encountering anything like it anywhere else are quite unlikely.

D: In a private talk with a former British Ambassador whose name is mentioned actually in your book, he had criticized your way of approach towards human rights issues in Uzbekistan. Indicating difficult diplomacy during the Cold War he had said: “For instance, in Stalin’s Soviet Union British Ambassadors knew that millions of people were vanishing under his oppression, but they didn’t want to risk British-Soviet relationship by raising their concerns and questions publicly. But you didn’t do that in Uzbekistan. Do you think it was a mistake?

CM: I think it was a big mistake not to raise human rights concerns in the Stalin’s Soviet Union. Those were different times. Foreign Office doesn’t move with the time. A lot of old British Ambassadors are very old-fashioned crusty people. The truth is that maybe in 1930s people didn’t care too much about human rights. This is the year 2006, and fortunately, we do care now about human rights.

D: The book is called “Murder in Samarkand” referring to the tragic death of a grandson of Professor Jalal Mirsaidov, who’s a Tajik dissident in Samarkand. His grandson’s dead body was found on the day after you met a group of Tajik dissidents in Samarkand. Did you finally find it out if the 18-year-old guy lost his life because of your visit or was the official version of the incident true? They had said he died of an overdose.

CM: Well, the official version of event definitely wasn’t true, because the guy’s arms and legs had been broken, one hand had been badly burnt and he’d been killed by a blow to the back of the head which smashed his skull. So, plainly the official version that he died of an overdose was a simple lie. I believe in my investigations that he was killed. Although the body was found early the next morning, he was actually killed the same evening that I was meeting with the dissidents. I believe that he was killed because of that. I was told by the Russian Ambassador that he had obtained information from his contacts with the Uzbek security services that that was the case and he had been killed as a warning to dissidents not to meet with foreign embassies. And this was the time when the Uzbek government and the-then-Hakim (Ruslan) Mirzayev were cracking down especially hard on the Tajik community of Samarkand in an attempt to enforce further a kind of Uzbekization of Samarkand.

D: While reading your book I felt that you sound quite sympathetic to ethnic Tajiks in Uzbekistan. Why is that?

CM: Well, I think, everyone in Uzbekistan suffers terribly from the regime. But ethnic Tajiks have particular problems, because they are suffering from an abuse of their minority rights, they are increasingly suffering from linguistic discrimination, closure of Tajik-speaking schools. And so a kind of Uzbek nationalist policy is being pursued by the government.

D: Had you given any particular advice to Tajik dissidents to fight for their rights in a more effective way? Since, as you claim in your book, pressure upon them is increasing and for example, from 80 Tajik schools in Samarkand just 12 have left.

CM: Yes, I think, they have to do everything they can to keep their culture alive. Plainly, at the moment it’s so hard for them to organize any open resistance, because we’ve seen at Andijan and elsewhere, what this Uzbek regime will do to anybody who openly tries to organize any resistance. For the moment, they have to try to keep their culture alive by continuing to speak their language at home, teaching their children, holding cultural events and those things. And then, waiting for better time… One of the things I found very sad is the fact that other communities from the same linguistic group don’t pay any attention. I think Iran should have a responsibility to pay some attention to the plight of Tajik-speaking people. But Iran pays no attention whatsoever. Tajikistan, of course, is a very small, a very weak state and not able to do much, but it would be helpful if Tajikistan would openly express concern at what's happening to the Tajik minority in Uzbekistan.

D: But did you give any particular advice to Tajik dissidents when you met them?

CM: No, I was there really for the purpose of documenting their difficulties and things with their individual cases, in which we could make representations or… But I didn’t expect that individual case to turn out to be the murder of my host’s grandson, of course.

D: As it’s mentioned in your book, Nadira speaks Persian too and she’s from Samarkand’s suburbs. Is she an ethnic Tajik as well?

CM: She’s part-Tajik part-Uzbek.

D: In your book you recall your only direct encounter with Gulnara, Karimov’s daughter. Seemingly, you were pleasantly impressed by her down-to-earth behavior and you notice: “There didn’t seem to be obvious darkness behind her laughing eyes” and you ask yourself: “Was she really behind the corrupt acquisition of all those businesses, the closing down of rival companies, the massive bribes from huge energy deals?” So, did you find an answer to that question finally?

CM: Yes, I think, there is overwhelming evidence that she’s very actively engaged in the acquisition of a huge amount of wealth in the Uzbek state through privatization, monopolies and acquisition of companies. And she’s involved in much shadier activities as well, including involvement in sending young women to the Gulf who end up as prostitutes. So, I think, it’s a paradox. When you meet Karimov, he seems like a dangerous, potentially violent, very strong man. You have no difficulty in believing he has done everything he’s done. Because he comes across as a powerful, potentially vicious person. His daughter doesn’t come across that way at all. She comes across as extremely nice when you meet her.
(to be continued)

Swift Switch or Lesson of Hypocrisy

Before 1979, when the Shah (of Iran) was in power, Washington strongly supported these (nuclear) programmes. Today the standard claim is that Iran has no need for nuclear power, and therefore must be pursuing a secret weapons programme. "For a major oil producer such as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of resources," Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post last year.

Thirty years ago, however, when Kissinger was secretary of state for President Gerald Ford, he held that "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals". Last year Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post asked Kissinger about his reversal of opinion. Kissinger responded with his usual engaging frankness: "They were an allied country."

chomsky.info

Blair Asks For Directives & I Give Them

Now, Mr Blair, stoop down as you did a couple of days ago for Bush so that you could hear what I’m saying. As a marginalized Annan put it today, ‘as we are speaking now 60 000 people are displaced in the Middle East’ and dozens are dying from both sides and most of “collateral damage” belongs to the oppressed side, read Lebanon. Don’t worry, stoop down and I’m not going to use “s” words as Bush did to you and I’m not going to boss you around as he did in response to your pathetic plea: “Can I go to the region too?” He just waved you away by saying: “Yo! Tony, you keep your ass attached to London. Condy is going there!” To make it worse, it was suddenly broadcast for the entire world and everybody had a good opportunity to empty their lungs with a deepest laughter and refill them with fresh air. We knew how and when you fell in with him, but we had no clue about your Master & Slave role plays. Now we have, and now we know what part you prefer and act so vividly. Let me tell you dude: you have achieved your pink dream to become a historic Prime Minister, since no Premier has abased and defamed the Great Britain as obviously as you did. And you still carry on down the entire humiliation of your own nation. Are you waiting for my directives as well? Huh, it seems that's the way you like to be addressed. I got just one directive for you: get your bony ass away from here. Bye!

Today the world witnessed a very wide range of political forces and ordinary people in different countries coming out to protest against Bush’s policy in the Middle East. Al-Jazeera was the only channel which could give you a deep insight in the demonstrations around the world. I was astonished by a demonstration in Tel-Aviv; Jewish people were chanting slogans like “We love you Lebanon!” and “We don’t want invasion!” I could only praise them for the redemption of their spirits. But Condy’s frowns changed my mood rapidly. She was muttering something like: ‘Ceasefire is a false promise’. Have you ever seen such an impudent spinster before? You, the embodiment of cruelty! Perhaps your brain is too impotent to find necessary gears to make out what’s going on. But try to put your own barbarian self in their places. They can’t take it anymore, therefore they don’t see any other way out of their misery rather than suicide. Are Israeli tanks moving into S. Lebanon to kill hundreds and turn thousands more into suicide bombers? You’ll surely become a lame duck pretty soon, un-pretty lady, with your fatal brain failures…

Laughing With Murray

I knew he was a hero, but I didn't know that he was so perfect a writer! Especially when he depicts the Butcher of Samarkand discouraged and disillusioned by the EBRD criticism in Tashkent, can't help cease laughing:

"Karimov first went ashen faced. Then he ostentatiously removed his earphone and tossed it away. Then he placed his head in his hands, covering his ears before slowly moving his hands round to cover his eyes, then allowing his head to slump forward until it almost rested on the table. He remained in this extraordinary posture for ten minutes. At one stage Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, put a consolatory arm around him".

Hahahaha... I wish he'd stay in that extraordinary posture for the rest of his life with the consolatory arm of Nazarbayev resting on his bloody shoulder.

Or another witty sally: At one point Clare Short (who I admire for her heroics too) gets tired of stupid sham statistics and rhetoric of the Uzbek Economy Minister and waves him away quite bluntly by saying "Thank you, Minister. That's all very interesting. But it's 2:30 in the morning, we're very tired, and we're going to bed." Then in the car she asks Craig:


"Is he always like that?"
"No, usually he's worse".
"Bloody hell! Was any of it true?"
"No, this year there has been a growth in fake economic statistics of 182.7 per cent."

And one of the most shocking facts of the book to me was the timing of Clare Short's resignation from the post of DFID minister. After all the horror she witnessed in Uzbekistan she returns to London and the next day she resigns from the government. Perhaps Uzbekistan was the last proof of her being associated with a bunch of miserable thugs and she didn't want to be among them.

And there are lots of facts concerning Tajiks and Tajikistan in the book too worthwhile to be translated.

Is It Just Me Or Is the World Going Slightly Mad?

At least 17 civilians die under Israeli missile attack in Southern Lebanon, Israel is expanding its strikes on Lebanon and has taken the war to neighbouring countries and merely less than a dozen of its bombarded targets in Lebanon were somehow related with Hizbullah. Lebanese villagers fleeing away from the area. Hizbullah keeps trying to hit areas inside Israel deeper than Tiberias. 80 Lebanese killed so far. None of the Israeli hostages have been freed yet. It’s actually a real war that has been unleashed mainly by Israel. But did you see the way he reacted to all these appalling news? G.W.B. was leaning over a St-Petersburg tribune beside his Russian adversary and claiming: Hizbullah captured 2 Israeli soldiers and caused a war. So now Hizbullah has to free them and lay down its guns and the war will be over. It sounds sick and sickening at the same time. It seems the world has gone mad and doesn’t recognize who’s who anymore; who’s the oppressor and who’s the oppressed, who’s the attacker and who’s the victim… We are talking about dozens of civilian innocent people dying for something that’s happened beyond their country’s borders and the mightiest beings of the world are sipping their coffees in St-Petersburg in a “friendly” chitter-chatter show. But something is approaching, because something has to happen…

Murder in Samarkand (Persian)

by Craig Murray
برگردان داريوش
فصل نخست
بيداری

کريس مات و مبهوت به نظر می رسيد.
"خيلی خوب، برويم".

ظاهرا اين واکنش معمولی يک سفير بريتانيا به خبر برگزاری جلسه محاکمه يک ناراضی نبود. ماشين لند روور دم در سفارتخانه متوقف شد و من بيرون آمدم. هنوز از اين که خدمه سفارت تا مرا می ديدند، صحبتشان را قطع می کردند، و با "سر" خطاب کردن من در را برايم باز و بسته می کردند، حس ناگواری داشتم.

ما در بيرون دادگاه پياده شديم. دروازه کوچک و حقيری از طريق ديوار گلی حقيرتر به سمت محوطه کثيفی باز می شد که چند ساختمان پست و پهن سفيدی را در بر داشت. به مانند بسياری ديگر از ساختمان های بازمانده از شوروی، اين بناها هم ناتمام و تقريبا غير قابل استفاده به نظر می رسيد. برای ورود به محوطه دادگاه ما جزئيات شناسنامه هايمان را به دو مامور پليس دم در داديم که پشت ميزی نشسته بودند. خيلی طول کشيد تا موفق شدند جزئيات ما را با يک مداد سرجويده، روی دفتر پهن کهنه شان پياده کنند. من داشتم در می يافتم که نهفتن واقعيت های زشت و سهمگين به پشت ظاهری صميمانه در ازبکستان يک امر معمولی بوده است.

حدود صد نفر در محوطه دادگاه منتظر آغاز اين يا آن جلسه محاکمه بودند. من به طيف وسيعی از آدمانی با ظاهر ژوليده معرفی شدم که از سازمان های مختلف مدافع حقوق بشر نمايندگی می کردند. عجيب بود که هفت يا هشت نفری که در آن ميان بودند، ظاهرا به گروههای واحدی تعلق داشتند، اما بسياری از آنها با همديگر حرف نمی زدند.

يک مرد قدکوتاه اما متشاخصی با موجی از موی سپيد و عينکی بزرگ به اندازه ای پر از خودش بود که با کسی صحبت نمی کرد. کريس که شديدا مشغول معرفی افراد بود، به او اشاره کرد و گفت: "ميخائيل آردزينف، وی می گويد که شما بايد برای آشنايی با او پيش دستی کنيد. من شگفت زده شدم، چون هر کدام از ما اگر می خواستيم در معرفی پيشدستی کنيم، بايد سراسر عرض و طول محوطه دادگاه را می پيمود. کريس اين موضوع را توضيح داد و گفت که آردزينف خيلی از خودش راضی است، چون گروه وی تنها گروهی است که ثبت نام شده و مشروع محسوب می شود. و همه گروههای ديگر نامشروع بوده اند. جالب اين جاست که عنوان گروه ثبت نام شده آردزينف، "سازمان مستقل دفاع از حقوق بشر ازبکستان" بوده است. آن زمان هيچ کدام از اين جزئيات برای من حاوی معنی خاصی نبود و من هم سابقه طولانی تکيه بر کرسی سفارت را نداشتم که از پيمودن فاصله ای دراز بين من و او پرهيز کنم. در نتيجه رفتم و دستش را فشردم. تلاش من با نگاه سرد و دراز طرف ارج گزاری شد.

(دنباله دارد)

A Hero or An Embarrassment?

He is a man called "a hero" by Mohammad Salih, an Uzbek opposition leader, and "an embarrassment" - by Jack Straw. Straw was outraged by his un-diplomatic courage and wailed: "Craig Murray has been a deep embarrassment to the entire Foreign Office". While John Pilger gives an opposite assessment of Muray's bravery: "I thought that diplomats like Craig Murray were an extinct breed. A man of the highest principle". So, whom to believe? The one who deceived his own nation in order to get his teeth deep into Iraqi land (Jack Straw) or the one who predicted the Andijan tragedy and paid with his own blooming diplomatic career for the word of truth (Craig Murray)? I don't know about you, but I prefer the latter one. And no doubt, I would have acted exactly like him if I were Her Majesty's Ambassador in such an appalling land like Uzbekistan. And it will be better understood if you get his long-awaited book "Murder in Samarkand". The Government tried to obstruct its way to our hands and postponed its realease several times. Finally, they agreed to play another act of "democracy" and agreed with its release after trimming Murray's writing with their sharp and dispassionate pen of censorship. Nevertheless, there are still lots of facts they wanted to hide away from our sights that could be found in the book. Some of them are really funny and entertaining, like this one: before flying to Tashkent Murray visits Jack Straw to get his directives for his mission. The talk was short and empty. "As I was walking out, he called after me, 'Oh and, Craig, whenever you get to... wherever it is you're going... tell them I'm thinking about them.' That was the extent of my instructions". Who cared a damn in Uzbekistan if Jackie was thinking of them? They knew it would never change anything in their lives. But their eyes were directed to his Ambassador and he did what he could do for them: he revealed thrilling facts of Karimov regime's savage nature and most importantly, his own governments association in some of the creepiest crimes of the Butcher of Samarqand. I'm thinking about translating it into Persian. Pity, cannot translate it into Karimov's native language.

Some More Pain to Swallow

سکوت پراگ
و لحظه های شمردنی
ستاره های بی رمق
درون شيشه های مات
و انتظار جاودان و آرزوی مردنی

به صبج می رسيم باز
به رسته های بی ته معامله
تجارت درودها
تولد دروغ ها
و خنده های بردنی

به جرح خنده، روی لب
به نور کاذب شعف
...درون ديده های سرد
به دردهای خوردنی

Сукути Прог
Ва лахзахои шумурдани
Ситорахои берамак
Даруни шишахои мот
Ва интизори човидону орзуи мурдани

Ба субх мерасем боз
Ба растахои бетахи муъомила
Тичорати дурудхо
Таваллуди дуругхо
Ва хандахои бурдани

Ба jarhi ханда руи лаб
Ба нури козиби шаъаф
Даруни дидахои сард
Ба дардхои хурдани

A Lesson of Fidelity

You can bump into all breeds of dog-kind in Prague and it doesn’t leave me astonished anymore. Nevertheless, yesterday one of them had a jaw-dropping effect on me again and this time it left me with watery eyes. A little short disfigured woman was trying to make her way down the street with two long sticks attached to her pits and a dog’s extending lead attached to her stick. She was moving very slowly and the little dog was leading her, barking around and making people give her a way in a busy Prague street. It was barking around and looking back at her maimed owner, gazing precisely at her feeble legs as if making sure she’d be able to take one more step. Then running a couple of steps farther and barking again. Then stopping and looking back at the little lady again. The lady stopped to take a rest and the dog ran back to her legs, stopped tightly attached to her legs too and now it was looking only at her as if asking her whether she was OK. The lady tried to move again and the dog made a move too, but this time it was walking step by step with its lady and after each step it was looking back at her face to read it. Reading with no noise and walking with her step by step...

Why Is That?

I noticed a couple of striking moments in today's Mexico vs Iran match in Nuremberg.

The first one was to see Mexican players standing firm and confident at the beginning of the match, holding their right palms close to their hearts and singing their national anthem loud and proudly. Each of them was clearly singing the anthem while holding their heads high and looking at an invisible point somewhere in the sky.

Now it was Iran's turn. They were standing firm as well, but not confident at all. As if funny notes of Iran's "national anthem" were cutting their ears and none of them, believe me, none of them was really singing the song. They were just muttering something upon their noses and staring at the camera as a lost child forced to join a choir. And I noticed, some of them didn't know the words at all, since I do; and I was trying to read their reluctuntly moving lips and they were murmuring something else. As a non-believer caught in the middle of pious praying people. Why is that?

Second point: In the wide sea of Mexican flags, of course, you could see some Iranian flags too. But I'm sure some people were confused: how many nations are playing in the match today? There was no problem with the Mexican flag: the same familiar tri-color. But what about this one with a funny Arabic writing? Oh, is it "Allah"? OK then, it belongs to Iran. How about the other one then? The one with a lion and a sward under a huge Sun? Iran's again? So, how about the third one then? The plain green-white-red one? I can't believe that! Iran again?

Thus, we had three flags for a single country on the same day, in the same city, at the same match. Why is that? Can you bring another example of a similar identity crisis elsewhere in the world?

Despite the defeat, I'm happy for my fellow Iranians. The game was one of the tough ones with a tough side: Mexico! And the first half just amazed me with the dazzling performance of Iran. The second half seemed to be a mistake of the coach, who thought concentrating on defence would keep the score intact. Alas, it didn't happen. Nevertheless, it was a great try against a giant like Mexico.

Partying with Mowlana

by Mowlana
Persian (Tajik) God of misticism

Man gholaame qamaram, gheyre qamar hich magu,
Pishe man joz soxane sham’ o shekar hich magu.
Dush divaane shodam, eshq maraa did o beguft:
Aamadam, na’re mazan, jaame madar, hich magu.
Goftam: ey eshq, man az chize degar mitarsam.
Goft: Aan chize degar nist, degar hich magu.
Man be gushe to soxanhaaye nehaan xaaham goft,
Sar bejonbaan, ke bali. Joz ke be sar hich magu.
Goftam: In ruy fereshtast, ajab, yaa bashar ast?
Goft: In gheyre fereshtast o bashar, hich magu.
Goftam: In chist? Begu, zir o zabar xaaham shod!
Goft: Mibaash chenin zir o zabar, hich magu.
Ey neshaste to dar in xaaneye por naqsh o xiyaal,
Xiz az in xaane, borow, raxt bebar, hich magu.


Ne man manam, ne to toi, ne to mani,
Ham man manam, ham to toi, ham to mani.
Man baa to chenanam, ey negaare xotani,
K-andar ghalatam ke man toam yaa to mani.

Another Year To Become History...

Home alone, watching myself to grow… Last seconds slipping away from my fingers. Another year, another story to write, another poem to recite… passing away for good. A biting feeling of getting older but not wiser. Hindi melody playing in my ears making me feel more romantic and emotional. But no tears, no laugh, as if I’ve had enough, of all of them so far and no worries about some pitiful beings conspiring behind my back and ratting on me. The feeling of compassion is surpassing my egoism as if I want to help those poor creatures to rat on me even more fiercely than before. Maybe it is the best thing to do: leaving them with themselves to rot in their obscurity and negligence as far as they get some masochistic pleasure out of it.

But indeed, I must admit, music is my language! And even little Gareth is able to make me speak and think and shout and cry and laugh and stay still with my index finger attached to my lips:

Oh, my love, my darling
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?

I need your love,
I oh I need your love
God speed your love to me

Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh, wait for me, wait for me
I'll be coming home, wait for me


And Ramesh wakes me up to realities:

Lahze lahzeye jodaiye
Ruze marge ashenaiye!

But I’m still as a stone, while the tide is rising deep inside. Especially when James Blunt makes me feel guilty:

Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

But I’m still behind my shell with the looks of a happiest person of the world. Another step up, another wing to clap, another tale to tell, another man to come… to come and change everything to find the paradise.

Prague
01.06.06
00:26

Even Despair Inspires...

سرای غصه مرا سراب هست و آب نيست
دو چشم تيره مرا شهاب هست و خواب نيست
ندای جبرئيل ما همه دروغ بوده است
سروش مردمانه را کتاب هست و باب نيست
قناری های رستگی همه کباب می شوند
وجود عاصی مرا تناب هست و تاب نيست
:دو سه رقيب ناتوان به من پيام می دهند
زبان بی نزاکتم خراب هست و ناب نيست
به خنده ها سپرده ام من تباه گشته را
به گريه ها غنوده ام که
Lobby
هست و
Job
نيست.
:به من دبير مدرسه چنين پيام داده بود
نهاد ياغی مرا قواره هست و قاب نيست


Сарои гуссаи маро сароб хасту об нест
Ду чашми тираи маро шахоб хасту хоб нест
Нидои Чабраили мо хама дуруг будааст
Суруши мардумонаро китоб хасту боб нест
Канорихои растаги хама кабоб мешаванд
Вучуди осии маро таноб хасту тоб нест
Ду-се ракиби нотавон ба ман паём медиханд:
Забони беназокатам хароб хасту ноб нест
Ба хандахо супурдаам мани табохгаштаро
Ба гиряхо гунудаам, ки lobby хасту job нест
Ба ман дабири мадраса чунин паём дода буд:
Ниходи ёгии маро кавора хасту коб нест

"Dorudi" Memories

اگر کنار من بودی... ای کاش
:و می سرودی
Jak se mash?
مرا شايد شکيب بيشتر می بود
با يک کلام تو:
"درود!"

ولی هر چه هست از "بود" و "می بود" است
...و خاطره های "درود" است

Агар канори ман буди... эй кош!
Ва месуруди:
Jak se mash?
Маро шояд шикеби бештар мебуд
Бо як каломи ту:
«Дуруд!»

Вале хар чи хаст, аз «буд»-у «мебуд» аст
Ва хотирахои «дуруд»аст…

25.05.06 / 23:34
Prague

The Great Pretender

by Freddie Mercury

Oh yes I'm the great pretender
Pretending I'm doing well
My need is such, I pretend too much
I'm lonely but no-one can tell

Oh yes I'm the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game, but to my real shame
You've left me to dream all alone

Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can't conceal
Ooh oh yes I'm the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I'm not (you see)
I'm wearing my heart like a crown
Pretending that you're still around, yeah oooh hoo

Too real when I feel
What my heart can't conceal
Oh yes I'm the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I'm not you see
I'm wearing my heart like a crown
Pretending that you're, pretending that you're still around

London Leftovers

Hola there.

Back to the tiny world of misery and disgrace in a beautiful part of the world. Shiny Sun and drenching rain highlighting and cleaning the features of a tired city. A broken heart left apart from sweet peaches of the garden. I had a Week. A Week of joy and happiness beyond the appalling stance of my present being in Prague. London was still welcoming its lover with a huge open embrace. But the last thing I saw there re-convinced me that we all are inhabitants of a savage wacky world. I was puffing a fag by an annoying oversensitive automatic door that was interrupting our sweet-and-sour talk with a dear being.

A guy, ostensibly an Eastern European, was deeply into a bitter verbal fight with a couple of short and fat policemen. “You are not a man!”, he was shouting at one of them, trying to give the impression that the very saying presumably gives in his native language. That could be translated as “To naamardi!” in Persian that devastates the addressee. But the policeman just wobbled at his place, looked down and up again, straight at the foreigners face and muttered something upon his nose. The foreigner was not satisfied by the impression he gave him. He wanted to see a much bitter face in front of him, I assume, and he went on chopping some more broken English humiliating expressions out of his mouth. A police car arrived discreetly and pulled in. As soon as some chubby figures crept down the car two previously quiet cops started spitting out a threateningly loud “Get down!!!” and beating the foreigner on his knees to make him kneel. The foreigner was trembling under the increasing violent force upon him, but didn’t kneel at all. He was trying to keep his shaky legs steady and looking straight into my eyes as if begging for help. His vibrant voice could tell you about his shock and disbelief: “I’m OK. I’m fine… Why are you fighting?..”

“Get down!!!”, was the only thing the policemen could shout out. But he didn’t. Shaky policemen took him up to the car, put him in arresting pose, one of them was trying to reach the handcuffs stuck in his belt, but couldn’t. The other extended his own handcuffs to him to tie up the foreigner’s hands. They took him away with his rucksack. A typical English couple was watching the scene as well. The old lady smirked and mocked the foreigner and showed her disgust that “a Bulgarian!” had dared to oppose the British police. The old man smirked back and spat on the floor. A policeman explained to this supportive couple that the Bulgarian had been barred from his flight and advised to leave the premises. But he had chosen to argue for his right to fly. After pushing the unfortunate Bulgarian into the car policemen exchanged wide smiles on their satisfied faces and left the scene of crime. The crime of breaching their own code of conduct.

Tonight I wanted to write about something else. Actually about loads of other stuff, like The Da Vinci Code movie that I watched on its first day of release in London and about Craig Murray’s astonishingly revealing book called “Murder in Samarqand” to be published on 1 June. Some fragments of the latter published in the Mail on Sunday made me gasp for some air. A breath-taking jaw-dropping writing. Perhaps I’ll get back to it later on. Now I have to get my beauty sleep to face my self-proclaimed “adversaries” in the office. Ciao for now.

B-E-A-utiful!

I loved this poem sent by Her today:

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Awakening

Today I replied to a dearest friend of mine and I told her how I feel indeed. I haven’t been here for ages and I thought you’d love to know about it too. I told her I was out of a purple bubble; that I had wider eye cuts, not sure if physically, but definitely I have them mentally. That means I’ve been chewing down loads of pleasant stuff for ages and not looking at some crap which could happen to appear among that too. I didn’t know how deeply our problems go, dearest. And please read it again, we have to fight it. We have to be even more decisive to crack it down and devastate it. I can hear you asking: what d’you mean by “it”. That “it” is too dangerous to name even here. It is something ugly like a creepy worm fed by our ignorance and stupidity called “regionalism”. I reckon I’m in touch with the roots of all Tajik problems at the moment. It must be bombed as America’s bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. Even more fiercely. We have to get rid of this bug to move on. Otherwise…. see you tomorrow dear.

Did you know that they call this radio station “ZBC” just because most of their Prague-based workers are from “Z” valley? I’m less lucky to have my roots in that valley as well. It reduces my chances to take my voice up to tell them off by saying: “F… off!” That is something that I had not reckoned with before moving to Prague. Because I was inside a purple bubble shielded by my eternal friends in Dushanbe. I’ve woken up to realities and I don’t like them at all. I wanna get back to that bubble, but apparently it’s blown up and there’s no way back to my comparatively comfortable bubble to deceive myself that we live in a modern world. No dear. We are far behind the schedule of the time. We had to be at least a hundred years farther than we are now. But the History is giving us a rare chance to correct our shameful blunder: LET’S FIGHT REGIONALISM IN TAJIKISTAN!

First things ever

Bruce came downstairs to have a fag. Looked above and nodded with an obvious annoyance on his face. "Again", he said and introduced himself. I knew him via his numerous articles about Central Asia that appear now and then in different sites. By "again" he meant the whirling snowflakes that were making their way down to the little smoking square right in the heart of the building. While for me it wasn't "again". It was "wow! It's snowing!" The first ever Prague snow for me and I took it as a good sign for a new beginning.

Tried the tolerance of the organisation by writing my first Prague piece about Bush's South Asian tour and recorded it for the first time using their odd recording system. It seems to me odd now, but I'm sure, as soon as I get used to it, will not be able to see its present oddity anymore. I hope in the same way my new colleagues will overcome the oddity of my accent. They are trying too hard to ignore it for now and I can see it vividly. Let's wait and see.

Farewell, my city!

01.03.06

London is diminishing into a patchwork of residential areas and fields; uneven cuts and patches spread around the landscape. And even the patchwork is disappearing behind an endless flock of silver stranded clouds... Now it seems like a cotton field back in my country waiting for students to pick them with no anticipation of reward.

No, it's true and it did happen. I don't even try to pinch myself to wake up, because I am awake indeed. I left it behind. I closed a chapter of my life and am trying to open a new one. It was bitter to do that. "Bitter" is not that word to make you understand what I feel right now. I left a world behind. A whole world full of joy and sorrow. A real world that made me fall in love with it...

I left a voice down there. A voice that made me feel a traitor while I'm not. "Please come back. Miss your flight. At least for one more day... come back". And I was heading towards the boarding gate with a hope that something would turn wrong in my papers and I would remain here again. But then the jealous axeman (Lord Life itself) wanted me away. The sooner the better. And my papers took me through check-in points smoothly, as if I was sailing on a buttery surface up to my plane seat. It happens only when you don't wish it at all. "Murphy's law" they call it. In my dictionary it's got a different entry: Life's jealousy...

And now I'm here, in my new apartment in Prague. Filling the deafeningly silent room with puffs of curling smoke and watching them go up to the ceiling, fading and losing themselves, just like the human race. I cannot fathom why we have to follow a smoky path and lose ourselves somewhere along the maze of an illusionary cycle of movements.

Reading messages from there. Some of them cutting my heart into pieces and cooking them on the heat of my blazing mind. And the voice is still here, breaking the silence at times... Miss your flight, please...

It's too late to call Dushanbe either. She knows I need her now.

A while ago I got a call from the world I just lost. It was Behzad asking about my well-being. Well, what to say? Richard Templar's book "The Rules of Life" doesn't advise us to complain, because, he says, the only thing people want to hear is that you are fine. And that was what I said. But after a while I spat on the rules of the jealous axeman and told him how I truly felt and how much I missed my lost world already. He said, he would strive to give me back my lost world and that was what I wanted to hear. To make me believe in something unbelievable. He's still determined about his plans to launch a new TV channel and possibly that would be a way to get my lost world back. It seems I haven't lost the inhabitants of my lost world yet.

Before It Becomes Yesterday…

I never could really believe that this day will finally reach me and catch me in despair and torn me apart, but it did. And I do believe in it now, since the ugly mouth of my bag is wide open waiting for the last items to be dropped in. Just some more ticking of the clock, some more drops on my keyboard, some more melancholic songs playing on my laptop put on reverse and… that’s it. Meanwhile, James Blunt’s guitar is painfully weeping:

You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me…

…followed by a Devdas song that inevitably brings up Aishwaria Rai’s image in front of my eyes: Hamesha tumko chaha or chaha or chaha… and the sound of her bangles that matches the sound of my hasty clock.

And Googoosh is hurrying me up by her brave acceptance: “Vaqteshe, vaqteshe, raftan vaqteshe. Vaqteshe, az to gozashtan vaqteshe…”

“Nepara” is painting a Russian reverie: «Они знакомы давно, Но только не суждено быть им вместе... Утром ничего не случится, Утром будет все как вчера. Грезы – перелетные птицы, Тают, улетают с утра...» Blood-oozing medley of my faves.

And how can I resist my strengthened crave for one more pain-and-time-killer Marlboro?

And how can I not love and hate February at the same time? The very month that gave me a refreshing breather and by leaving me behind (or by being left behind) is throwing me into March’s strange, uncomfortable embrace in a strange uncomfortable place. And throwing out me only, by cutting off my strong 5-year old London-grown branch adorned by plentiful dazzling leaves including the one I’ve admired most.

I would have never left this terribly lovely and lovingly terrible city of the world. I got too much to leave behind in here. But as usual, life is not my Mother. Life is an ugly Bush-like unfair blindfolded blind-hearted thing with a sharp axe in its hand to cut off the branches with ripe fruits of happiness; the ones that make it feel jealous. A little jealous bogey it is.

Seconds are whirling in my absent mind, falling down into my restless heart and sneaking out through my feeble fingers so expeditiously… Where have I heard that clumsy word before: ‘expeditiously’? Well, from an ally of the axeman who was waiting for my ‘expeditious’ decision; the very decision that is sending torrents of torment to me now and again.

Now I can hear Robby singing: “No regrets. They don’t work. No regrets. They only hurt…” Don’t worry Robby. I’m still far beyond regretting and I don’t know whether it’s good or bad. I just don’t feel it. That’s it. But this “no regret” habit of mine doesn’t shield me against pains & hurts at all, if that's what you mean.

Paradoxical Manchester

Packing problems in head, sour and bitter feelings in heart headed to Manchester, a city in the North West of England with an old Latin name: Mamucium + castra (ceaster). The first part is the name of a Roman fort that stood there from 79 AD onwards and “castra” (ceaster, originally castrum) in old Latin means fortification or castle and among Romans “castra” was “a rectangular military camp”. However, the contemporary Manchester with approximately 450 000 population neither looks like nor reminds a military camp; an ordinary peaceful town with more skyscrapers than in London (at least it seems so!) with no signs of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 webbed by River Irwell, River Medlock and River Irk. A rainy city with annual rainfall of 809 mm. This characteristic of the city made me regret for leaving my “hoody” jacket behind in London, while holding an umbrella among the youth in Britain has ostensibly outdated. Thus, I had to find a bit of poetic sense (or nonsense) of raininess (or love to the rain) left somewhere deep inside to enjoy my clumsy trip of a stranger around the town under drizzling clouds.

Our first impression (with my friend) was not pleasant though. I suppose you agree with me that confronting beggars straight away after leaving the station in a strange place is not a good feeling, especially if they turn out to be very rude ones. That was our first encounter in Manchester immediately followed by a similar one. Young white guys (not minorities) with intact pairs of hands and legs (definitely a couple of healthy eyes too; for they recognized us as foreigners straight away) asking for cigarettes and annoyed by our reluctance scolding us: “Why are you lying?” I had to prove that we were not lying. Arming myself with the same sort of rudeness had I to say: “We do have cigarettes dude, but certainly not for you”. And believe me it works.

But the search for brighter parts of the Manchester life didn’t take too long. People (except for beggars) seemed friendly and polite with coquettish Manchester accent, streets were broad and clean with less traffic jams and different minorities co-existing (seemingly) peacefully. I noticed many Arab shops with Arabic names like “Safad” and “Aleef”. In the first one we had a delicious vegi pizza with a falafel wrap and in the second one I bought some poisonous stuff (namely, Marlboro) in order not to give away to healthy beggars. And while stunned by the Madonna-prices of hotel rooms in downtown I overheard a large guy fallen on an armchair speaking in Persian to someone over his phone. (Subject: he was leaving the hotel straight away to meet his friend - or whoever was speaking to him - in Piccadilly in 5 minutes, while enjoying his comfortable chair further on. Five minutes were rather needed for him to get himself up and head towards the exit. He-he. I know I’m too nosy).

But another unpleasant happening just before midnight made me rethink my idea about the peaceful co-existence of minorities and the majority: in an infamous American shop designated for fattening slim nations (namely, McDonalds) an unsteady English dude was angry about something with the sales assistant. Security guard had to ask him out, but he was justifying his behaviour by stating that the sales assistant was a Muslim. Surely, most of the English agree with me that scum of the society like him bring them disgrace only. (As for McDonalds, I have to shamelessly admit that I had a pack of their chips! Presumably I was unsteady too to visit it after such a long boycott!)

Manchester night clubs made me fall in love with the city again. Have you ever seen club security guards joining their customers on a dance floor? Their counterparts in London have forgotten how to smile long time ago and I bet they rehearse their voices at home to make them sound huskier and tougher (but they end up sounding rather funnier). No doubt, they are also busy auto-training themselves in front of a mirror to maintain the bulldog looks or of a person who’s survived a sexual assault by you. But now I’m talking about Manchester club guards that seem absolutely opposite, as if I’ve granted them my Mercedes recently. (If I got one indeed? No, just dreaming on).

Oops, it seems I’ve ranted enough for now, while haven’t said everything yet. Just briefly: on the way back home (it’s still in London; for a couple of more days) popped in Birmingham too. The second biggest city of Britain with a huge shopping centre just opposite the station. The crave of shopotherapy dragged me into the centre and that was all I could see in Birmingham: Debenhams, Gap, Topman, River Island and many more loud labels. And the area around the centre; nice and modern with a tall tower in the middle. Not as impressive as Manchester’s post-modern buildings though.

Tomorrow I’m receiving people from a relocation company. They will collect all my odds and sods to send to Prague. I will follow them shortly, Ahura willing. Excited? Not even for a bit. Why? Too long to explain now. Maybe another day.

Why Do We Quit a Job?

Apparently my decision to change my job has been based on a well-studied theory. It seems I could not adjust myself to the "corporate philosophy" of the corporation amymore. That means when you don't know where to situate yourself within the organization and when you cannot agree with your employer's philosophy and the way business is handled by the management. The results of the study have been published in The Career Journal that highlights four reasons to change jobs:

culture clash,
meager rewards,
signs the company is going down, and
no possibility of advancement.

Four Red Flags That Signal It's Time to Quit a Job.

Off course, I didn't have all those four reasons in my decision, but on the other hand, the list of my reasons might be even longer than that.

Secret Trial in Tajikistan Appears Connected to Upcoming Presidential Election

Kambiz Arman 2/21/06
Eurasianet.org

The secret trial in Tajikistan of former key presidential ally underscores that President Imomali Rahmonov seems intent on choking off all avenues of opposition as the country prepares for a presidential election later in 2006.

The trial of Ghaffar Mirzoyev, a major-general who commanded the presidential guard, resumed on February 15. The proceedings, which began in mid January, are closed to the public. Arrested in 2004, Mirzoyev stands accused of engaging in dozens of criminal acts, including allegedly conspiring to overthrow Rahmonov.

In January, Mirzoyev’s lawyers petitioned to have the trial opened to the public. Authorities summarily rejected the request citing national security concerns. The case against Mirzoyev reportedly centers on "secret facts," according to a representative of the Tajik Prosecutor-General’s office. Qayum Yusufov, one of Mirzoyev’s lawyers, said the government’s ruling did not come as a surprise, adding that the petition was submitted with the intention of calling attention to the case.

Mirzoyev played a pivotal role during the early years of Rahmonov’s rule, serving as a pro-government military commander during Tajikistan’s 1992-98 civil war. Mirzoyev’s detailed knowledge of the Rahmonov administration’s decision-making processes and activities provide a strong incentive for government officials to ensure that the trial’s testimony remains sealed. In mounting his defense, some political analysts suggest, Mirzoyev is likely to offer testimony that is politically damaging to the president. Defense lawyers have hinted that they would move to call Rahmonov as a witness if prosecutors proceeded with the coup conspiracy charge. Given the trial’s secret nature, there is no way to determine whether or not the coup conspiracy charge has been dropped, or whether a verdict has already been reached.

What is certain is that Rahmonov has taken steps in recent months to eliminate potential rivals for power. The president has moved firmly to neutralize domestic political opposition. For example, in what many analysts see as a politically motivated conviction, Democratic Party chairman Mahmadruzi Iskandarov received a 23-year prison sentence last October on abuse of power charges. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Rahmonov also has purged his administration of potential threats. Mirzoyev appears destined to share the same fate as former Interior Minister Yakub Salimov, who is serving a 15-year sentence following his 2005 conviction on treason charges. And in January of this year, Rahmonov carried out a wide-ranging personnel reshuffle aimed at strengthening his grip on regional political administrations, local political analysts say.

On top of neutralizing political rivals, Rahmonov appears intent on constraining the development of civil society. In a February 11 interview published by the Vecherny Dushanbe newspaper, a Justice Ministry official, Davlat Sulaymanov, revealed that the Rahmonov-controlled parliament was debating a new law governing the activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). "Tajikistan needs a law stipulating strict control over NGO activities in the country," Sulaymanov said. NGOs should report annually to respective ministries and agencies on the work."

Vecherny Dushanbe quoted another Justice Ministry official, Rustamsho Megliyev, as saying the draft legislation does not at present envision "the strengthening of financial control" over NGOs. Most of the legislative changes are "related to the registration of these organizations."

Editor’s Note: Kambiz Arman is the pseudonym for an independent journalist based in London.

Historian jailed for speaking out… 17 years ago

Who else would dare to say that “freedom of expression” is a Western value? Realities are proving the contrary. Filtering Iranian web-sites in the US was not enough to show the whole picture, since America has always been a bit backward than Europe in terms of democracy. However, giving 3 years of imprisonment to a British historian (David Irving) was the best effort an Austrian court could have taken to show that “freedom of expression” is just another modern myth.

David Irving is jailed for denying the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz. He thought, most of 6 million Holocaust victims died from different diseases rather than by Hitler’s gas chambers. But (a big BUT), it was David Irving in 1989, in 20th century. And David Irving of 2006 believes that he was wrong then and he believes that “the Nazis did murder millions of Jews”.

Nevertheless, the Austrian court, keen to wash away the stain of shame from their recent history, decided to show the powerful Jewry of the world the drastic change in their natures: now they love Jews, the very Jews they used to torture and kill, and while no one is able to return them their stolen lives, the children and grandchildren of Austrian Nazis will punish whoever dares to doubt the fact of them being murdered by Fascists, particularly Austrian Fascists. Very moving! But not convincing. And not constructive at all.

Read the title again: “Historian jailed for speaking out… 17 years ago”. It is not happening in Iran; otherwise the entire Western world would have cried foul. Nor in other parts of the so called “third world”. Europe – the greatest “defender” of freedom of speech has done it. They’ve put in jail someone not for doing something, but for saying something. This is a sheer Stalinism reviving in a wrong place and it must be confronted.

By the way, Austria provided the best subject for the Iranian International Cartoon competition ridiculing Western double-standards. I’m sure dozens of cartoons would be drawn about such a perfect example of Western double-standards.

It seems US & EU have got their own selective approach towards some notions like “democracy” and “freedom of expression”. The Iranian Cartoon Competition is not recognized as an effort to exercise cartoonists’ freedom of expression and its sites are banned in America. But Danish Mohammad cartoons are a matter of freedom of expression, according to America, however, "the artists had to feel responsibility". An Israeli terrorist party “Likud” wins the election and comes to power in order to kill Palestinians with more authority. It is a matter of democracy, for US & EU. A Palestinian terrorist (liberation) group “Hamas” wins the parliament seats and forms a government. US & EU are stunned and outraged: no way! This is not the kind of democracy we want! We don’t accept this sort of democracy. Show us a different one; otherwise we’ll impose it upon you!

All empires get lost amidst their arrogance and ignorance and fall down into a bottomless pitfall of eternity. Modern empires are following their steps by breaking their own rules and values.

Can We Practice What We Preach?

Apparently the American ostrich is going deeper into its sand pile, but there are some concerns that it might burry itself under the pile eventually.

According to latest reports, some Iranian websites like Hamshahri and IranCartoon.com have been blocked for their users in the States and hacked for world-wide users. Because these 2 institutions tried to retaliate the Danish Mohammad cartoonist by announcing a cartoon competition on Holocaust.

They stated that their real intention was "to measure the sanctity of freedom of expression among the westerners" or in other words, to measure the extent of the Western tolerance. I have no doubt that their competition is a bad reaction to a bad action. However, they've suceeded to prove that the US government is as an ostrich as the Iranian regime. For those who are lost in this ostrich tale I advice to get back to our first ostrich tale on 14 February.

...and Something More Important

Now let's forget about unfortunate ostriches and congratulate our halves. Happy Valetine's Day, T!

A Tale On Two Ostriches and Their Piles of Sand

What is happening to the BBC Persian web-site in Iran these days reminds me an ostrich that just by hiding its head under a pile of sand believes that the horrible dog threateningly approaching it has disappeared and there is no more threat that could bother the ostrich anymore. The site has been blocked by Iran’s new puritan rulers almost a month ago. Presumably they have used a censorware such as Smartfilter produced by the same threatening dog – the States – to filter the website. Anyway the American communication company Secure Computing had been accused by a research corporation called OpenNet of providing Tehran with a censorware. We have no proof of the accusation so far though.

But what is well-known is the origin of that kind of software, of course the US. They use it in various purposes including blocking services for rogue states like Iran. But usually it is not Ahmadinejad and his gang that feel the deprivation of any sort in the Internet field; probably they’ve already been provided with an anti-censorware by the same dog. It’s again those with a forbidden word in their hearts that have no access to some American domains, not able to download Google in their computers and deprived from PayPal services; the very site created by EBay; the very EBay created by Pierre Omidyar, a French Persian. It sounds ironic, doesn’t it? But it proves that, funnily enough, dogs can metamorphose themselves into ostriches too at times.

How far can you go by hiding your head under the sand? Physically, not even for an inch. Mentally, you will definitely go backwards up to the 7th century maybe or even farther and at the end of the day will find yourself in a deep and dark pitfall. Or finally will wake up from a deep sting on your ass left by the very threatening dog.

I just don’t understand why they don’t put their sordid minds at rest and move on. Centuries of wisdom have failed to make them understand that forbidden fruit is even sweeter; to be more precise, the ostriches have failed to realize this truth. Tight control over net-surfing and weblog-creating in Iran has put this country on the top of the list of the countries that host more blogs. As far as I remember, Iran was the forth last year with almost 70 000 weblogs. More than 7.5 million Internet users in Iran will not rest their hands on their keyboards and wait until the fruit becomes un-forbidden and consequently un-sweet. I’m sure a loophole will be found, only if not found already, and the bottom of the ostrich will be bitten badly. Ouch!

And the American ostrich has no reason to be proud of its sandy haven either. I know a couple of Internet worms in Tehran that easily can use PayPal transactions whenever needed after typing the word “ostrich” in their Google browsers. Hence, ostriches, beware!

PS. The first attempt to filter BBC Persian website in Iran occurred on 16 January, when all five veto-wielding powers of the UN plus Germany were plotting against Iran in London. However, by blocking the site the problem has not been solved yet, nor Iranian inquisitive writers have stopped questioning the crisis.

Uncivil Civilizations Endanger the Global Civilization

On the margin of a comment left under my previous posting

Dear Esphandiar,

That's really funny. How could he be recognized indeed, that unseen mysterious prophet of Islam? But I think the cartoons have got some hints in Danish. I recognized there the word "profet". We can guess what it might mean in English.

As for cartoons, it would have been related to the notion or value of freedom of expression only if that value would be observed regarding anyone and everyone. Or if the infamous cartoons were drawn by a Muslim artist, it could've had an absolutely different effect to show the struggle for freedom of expression within Islam. Nowadays we witness another clash of "civilizations" and undoubtedly we are tired of that already.

On the other hand, if the same sort of cartoons were drawn and successfully published in Europe depicting Jesus Christ as a Bush-style or Blair-alike crusader or showing Moses breathing under a respiratory machine while holding the trigger of a gun tight in his bloody hands, I would have said: Well done, the West and western values! I adore you, I admire you, I love you!

But how can I like either appalling hypocrisy of the West or desperate savage pathetic retaliatory reaction of Islam? To me, both of them are coward and reactionary not worthy to follow. Both of them are bogged down in their shameless double standards. But it is hard to see the world in trepidation because of the clash of two uncivil civilizations. Do you agree?

И без тебя...

Монолог у порога Би-би-си

И без тебя можно грустить,
И вне тебя теплом не дует.
Душа томится и хрустит
И разум чаянье не чует.

И можно так же уставать
От сладострастной суеты,
И бесконечно задавать
Вопросы, как учила ты.

И без тебя солнце выходит
Из устарелого Востока.
И без тебя душа уходит
В глубины смутного порока.

И без твоей аббривиатуры
Стараются сломать замок,
Как на роковых карикатурах
Боеголовочный пророк.

Сидишь во мне, или на лбу
Как пластилинова липуха.
Тебя забыть я не смогу,
Консервативная старуха...

Tajik Girl Challenges 7-century Mindset by... Singing

Sometimes we cannot realize that heroes and heroines live side by side with us and, alas, usually we discover it after they demise.

But it's better to notice it right now that we got one of them alive, lively and young or as AFP reports from Kabul, "sultry", who succeeded to put an end to ages of women's imposed silence on the stage in Afghanistan - Manizhe Dowlat.

We must recognize it and thank her for such a rocking bravery. She had to overcome fears of a war-stricken country like Afghanistan swarmed with blind-minded "puritans" stuck in the 7th century and she did. She went to cure the wounds and maladies of her own Persian sisters and brothers in Kabul and Mazar-i Sharif as the first woman after woeful domination of Taleban and Taleban-alike beings to unvail her face, hair and tastefully dressed figure as a free human being, sing and dance to show a better way to enjoy one's life.

I don't care a button if any financial or vested interests were involved in this perilous adventure or not. It sounds really preposterous to indicate that issue here indeed. All professional performers use their talents as means of their financial independence and self-preservation. But not all of them were ready to face the challenge of visiting their stuck and hapless siblings to take some remedy of music and joy for their exhausted souls. This step for a young and attractive girl like Manizhe derives from some extents of selflessness as well. And the sense of patriotism too. I am proud of you indeed, Manizhe. Well done, sister!

PS. The AFP report is hidden in the title and could be visible by a click of yours. Although it goes a few days back, but good things never age.

IRAN FORGES CLOSER TIES WITH TAJIKISTAN

EURASIA INSIGHT

by Kambiz Arman

With Russia’s apparent blessing, Iran is pressing ahead with efforts to forge stronger ties with Tajikistan.

Tajik President Imomali Rahmonov paved the way for an expansion of bilateral ties with a January 16-17 visit to Tehran. During the trip, Tajik and Iranian leaders issued a Joint Declaration on Broader Relations, as well as signed agreements providing for Iranian assistance for several Tajik infrastructure projects, including construction of the Sangtuda-2 hydroelectric power station and the Shahristan Tunnel.

"Iran and Tajikistan are one spirit in two bodies," Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying after he welcomed Rahmonov. "Broad and deep grounds have been established for bilateral relations and there are no limits to the expansion of relations."

The visit showed that the deep-rooted cultural ties between Iranians and Tajiks are capable of overcoming political-religious differences between the governments. Rahmonov is a Soviet-style secularist who has acted steadily to curb the influence of Islam in Tajikistan’s politics in recent years. Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, is the product of an Islamic puritan movement that wants to restore the guiding principles of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Following Ahmadinejad’s victory in Iran’s 2005 presidential election, some Tajik political analysts predicted a downturn in Tajik-Iranian relations, citing the two governments’ apparent ideological incompatibility. Ahmadinejad has proven such predictions wrong, however. Some observers speculate that US and European Union pressure on Iran over its nuclear program prompted conservative Islamic leaders in Tehran to set aside long-standing political and religious considerations in their search for international allies.

In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist tragedy, Tajikistan developed into a forum for US-Russian geopolitical competition. The Rahmonov administration initially embraced closer ties with the United States only to later distance itself from Washington and return the country to Russia’s close embrace. Last October, Moscow and Dushanbe signed a far-reaching strategic cooperation pact that sanctioned the establishment of permanent Russian military bases on Tajik territory. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Given Russia’s dominant geopolitical position in Tajikistan, local observers say it is unlikely that Rahmonov would have made the trip to Iran had he not had Russia’s approval. Moscow has emerged in recent weeks as one of Iran’s main backers in Tehran’s ongoing nuclear dispute with the United States and EU. In an interview published by IRNA on January 24, Russia’s ambassador to Tajikistan, Ramazan Abdullatipov, offered a vigorous defense of Iran’s peaceful intentions concerning its nuclear program. US and EU leaders believe Iranian research is geared toward developing nuclear weapons. Abdullatipov stated that Russia would resist calls for UN sanctions against Iran and would maintain nuclear cooperation with Tehran "in accordance with previous agreements," the IRNA report said. Iranian officials have reacted positively to a Russian proposal under which Moscow would enrich uranium for Tehran’s use.

Iran had extended an invitation to Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, to visit Tehran at the same time Rahmonov was in the Iranian capital. Karzai declined his invitation blaming "bad weather," "technical problems" and his need to prepare for the donors’ conference scheduled to be held in late January in London. Political analysts suggest Karzai stayed away from Tehran so as not to jeopardize Afghanistan’s ability to attract economic aid from Western donors.

A few observers in Tajikistan express reservations about the benefits of stronger Tajik-Iranian ties. They harbor concerns that Iranian hardliners, acting in the spirit of 1979, could possibly seek to use Persian-speaking Tajikistan as a vehicle for promoting an Iranian-style Islamic revolutionary movement in Central Asia.

Israel v Iran: Family Feud

I liked today's Ecomonist's remark:

"Iran' President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says Israel is an alien implantation whose people should return to Europe or perhaps settle in Alaska. So it is an irony that Israel's President, Moshe Katzav (Musa Qassab), is in fact a Persian-speaker born in Iran. Ditto Israel's defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, who is doubtless preoccupied nowadays with how to destroy Iran's nuclear programme. He is advised by Dan Halutz, Israel's former air-force commander and now chief of staff. Lieut-General Halutz was born in Israel, both his parents in Iran. They seem to have taught him a sense of humour. Asked how far Israel would go to stop Iran's nuclear programme, he replied: "two thousand kilometres".

I think Economist has forgotten to mention it that Dan Halutz has presumably inheritted a very big mouth from his Iranian-born parents too.

Diplomatic Heat Rising Over Iran

London’s Monday meeting of the UN powers signalled the rapprochement of once strictly opposite positions regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. Ostensibly Iran’s latest actions and remarks, such as removing UN seals and resuming research at a nuclear plant in Natanz without IAEA’s approval, refusal of Russia’s proposal to enrich Iranian uranium on Russian soil and threatening to disregard the Security Council’s decision on its nuclear ambitions have provoked the leaders of the veto-holding powers, the US, UK, France, Russia and China together with Germany to discuss the remaining steps of preventing Iran from acquiring its own atomic bomb.

Iran has never admitted to have such a plan. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Iran’s unwillingness to acquire nuclear weapon insisting on the peaceful aspect of his nuclear program. However, Tehran’s passionate contention to save its nuclear program in defiance of international disapproval has caused a wide-spread suspicion over its sincere purpose.

But still, it doesn’t seem that the world’s main powers have a real consensus over their next step. Britain, France and Germany cannot foresee any promising development in further talks with Iranian authorities and prefer to call an IAEA emergency meeting to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. A step that would be approved by the US too. Russia appears to have changed her position slightly as well and seems reluctant to hinder this process. The main reason could be Russia’s lost labour persuading Iran to transfer its uranium enrichment process to Russia’s territory.

China’s position remains obscure and no official statement in this regard has been made by Beijing so far. But China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya has been quoted by agencies as saying that referring Iran to the Security Council might toughen Tehran’s position on its nuclear program. According to him, China wants a solution, but referring Iran to the UN, he believes, might complicate the issue. Most experts say that China is not interested in imposing sanctions against Iran, since those sanctions will inevitably damage strong economic ties between Beijing and Tehran. Apart from intensive trade with Iran, China heavily depends on Iranian oil too and in 2005 China imported about 14 % of its crude oil from Iran. According to a Reuters report from Beijing, China would “frown on sanctions against Iran efforts to curb its nuclear program be brought before the UN Security Council, but analysts say it would more likely abstain from any vote than use its veto power.”

“If you look at some of the analogous examples, China doesn’t like to be the sole opposing power in the UN Security Council”, has said Taylor Fravel, a China foreign policy specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to Reuters.

It is not only China that is concerned over economic consequences of possible sanctions against Iran. While it is not clear yet if the London talks would lead to imposing sanctions against Iran at all and what sort of sanctions they would be, some observers have likened the possible sanctions to a double-edged sword that would undermine not only Iranian, but all economies around the world. Manouchehr Takin of the Center for Global Energy Studies in London has told The Guardian daily that if Iran stopped exporting crude oil the soaring price for a barrel would hit $100, just because “supply and demand are very tightly balanced”. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities, aware of possessing an oil leverage, do not tend to see themselves in the position of a weaker, at least verbally. Davoud Danesh-Jafari, the Iranian Economy Minister has warned that applying economic sanctions against Iran, which is the world’s forth-largest oil producer, would have grave consequences.

And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sounds more than certain that the West needs Iran more than Iran needs the West. His rhetoric about Western “double-standards” in the nuclear question has given him a wider popular base within Iran by turning Iranian nuclear program into a national cause. Ahmadinejad’s statements have found very keen listeners in the region’s Arab countries too. On Monday Amir Saud al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia while visiting London accused the West of partially causing the crisis by assisting Israel to acquire its nuclear arsenal. However, he expressed a hope that Iran would stick to its commitments and pledges not to develop nuclear weapon and called for a nuclear-free zone in the Persian Gulf.

History Is Being Written

Tonight’s Channel 4 (More 4) insightful drama turned me upside down again by realistically taking me back to the dramatic events of over 2 years ago and mysterious demise of a British weapon inspector Dr David Kelly. The more realistic it was the more painfully one could accept it. The reality that in our world – no matter where we live – justice rarely prevails. Previously highly esteemed poor Dr Kelly could not realize why the government was in a wild fury with its own weapon inspector. The government was nervous about his straight forward talks and contacts with the BBC correspondents, while he was hopelessly pin-pointing at a paragraph in his contract with the British MOD that communicating with journalists about Iraqi issue was among his duties.

And I liked the way the playful, weightless and ruthless nature of Tony Blair was depicted in the drama and blind hatred and stupid aggression of Alistair Campbell.

Some people may praise the British democracy for allowing that sort of dramas to be broadcasted on TV. But what does it change? The drama alleges that the American-led war in Iraq has resulted in more than 10 000 civilian deaths. So what? Does anybody in the American or British ruling machines care about those lives to revise their policies in Iraq?

But the drama shows the war between the BBC and Tony’s government perfectly and the unfair way of the government’s victory orchestrated by a suspiciously anti-liberal Judge Lord Hutton in 2003. I remember those bitter days for Dr Kelly how an arrogant cow-faced member of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee humiliated Dr Kelly and called him “chaff”. And the way the abased Doctor was mumbling his words and how the interrogators were ordering him to speak up. All those moments have been immortalized in “The Government Inspector” that I happened to watch tonight.

But on those days that I perfectly remember up to date we in the corporation could not imagine Dr Kelly’s emotional world and his internal struggle to come out as the source of Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts’ pieces about Iraq and 45 minute warning row, because he as a Baha’i convert believed that Truth was the only way out of any misery. But allegedly he found his own way out in leaving the world altogether with its dirt and cheap values. Who knows what happened to him at the end? Even the drama doesn’t dare to disclose that mysterious moment by risking turning a historic drama into a fiction.

But now we know that both the BBC and Dr Kelly were right and both the government and Lord Hutton were wrong in this tragedy derived from a greater tragedy. No WMD discovered in Iraq, the Iraqi SSO looted presumably by American forces that had it under their surveillance for two weeks in order to make the fact-finding mission impossible, the US and Britain lied to the world community and the both still remain in high alert situation as a consequence of their lies and misdeeds.

That was something to remember for tonight.

As for my own history, following a very amicable talk with one the big bosses of the corporation now I got more peace of mind to leave with. Most certainly, the project is going to remain in London and somebody else recruited for it from Tajikistan to replace me. Halleluiah!If we could rely on his words, it could be one of the rare examples of justice been done.

Isthmus

I’m listening to them right now and can’t believe what I am doing and what kind of pool I’m diving in. Sometimes even I doubt that we speak the same language and how to define whose language is more regular and who has to follow whom? And based on the way we sound, I reckon we even possess different kinds of nasal and pharyngeal textures. Do you remember what Lenin had said about a minority and a majority and who has to obey whom in this case? Thank Ahura I do not cherish communism to be worried about my disloyalty to its ideas. Besides, I know that even there we won’t be just a small minority.

It even hurts more when I think what sort of world I’ve left behind. A world familiar to me and never could I notice any kind of difference between us in there. Throughout last two days I’m leaving in my memories and it seems all my bad memories have disappeared or turned into good ones so quickly. I still can hear beloved voices over the phone and still can see Sima’s tears whispering “please, don’t leave us”. But the wind was blowing faster than we could imagine and taking me away in horror, fascination, disgust, pleasure and all sorts of contrast.

Shall I say now, oh dears, accept my belated heartfelt regret and take me back? Do I really regret it already? No. And I think I am one of those dumbest people that do not feel remorse that easily.

But with their talks during last few days I have seemingly grown fonder of that world and their endless invitations and pledges that the doors of that world are open for me forever… The very bosses that seemed revoltingly cold and indifferent were sending me eye-watering messages and giving heart-melting toasts. A month ago I could not believe that the very people that used to look at me with fear and concern of being bitten or mentally maimed would be queuing to have separate farewell drink parties with their leaving “foe”. To make me feel less offended by their previous behaviour? To make me forget the dirt I’ve seen in their world? To make me forsake their stories as soon as I forsake their world? Whatever was the reason, it overwhelmed me. But if that was the reason, I should have told them not to worry at all. There was no need for such a drastic change of behavioural code at all. I would have forgotten them with their stories on the next day after leaving their world.

But I had to shed some sincere tears (and they were my only once last night) for my beloved people that will remain hovering over my heart until kingdom come. But I am certain about the firmness of our ties proven by so many upheavals throughout the years of togetherness. The ties that grew beyond the walls of that world will hold us tight together further on.

And I believe that we can extend those ties even up to the new world of mine and we’ll finally find a common language and will develop the same sort of nasal and pharyngeal textures to comprehend and love each other. Only if Ahura will remain just beside me. Eydun bad (Amen).

It happened suddenly...

It happened; filled with grief and joy it happened suddenly,
Leaving behind the greatest ploy it happened suddenly.

Amazed amidst its tardiness and speedy turning up
I’m left as an inexpert boy; it happened suddenly.

My tears caught in tricky move: to shed or not to shed,
Sweeping away my doubtful Troy it happened suddenly.

The tenure of the chair was a long-awaited dream,
I dropped the chair as a toy. It happened suddenly.

I’m lost amongst my shame and pride leaving no stone unturned
In order to achieve the joy, it happened suddenly.

The wind is blowing to the East to tell my confidants:
He is with you forever. Oi! It happened suddenly.

11 Jan 2006
London

Thanks, Sharon!

It seems Arie listened to our advice and didn't rush to Yahuva; started breathing plainly. However, his friends are still breathing heavily and deeply worried, so that Condy had to cancel her official trip to Aistralia today due to Sharon's health conditions. I thought she was somewhere in Jeruselim as well. But nah, she's thousands of miles away, in Washington, watching Sharon's situation "closely". I don't know how closely though. Well done, Sharon! You got very loyal friends. Australia and all this lot can wait until you really get up on your feet again.

Live Long, Mr Sharon!

Just over a year ago he was up on his feet and brave enough to smile at the face of Death that was approaching his biggest ever foe. He was welcoming the morbid steps of Death to take away Arafat. But it seems Death had an eye on him too and it didn’t took too long before it send a cerebral haemorrhage directly into his brain and his brain started puking out contents of his thoughts – blood. In other words, he’s suffering from bleeding inside his brain. The very brain that made him gloat while Arafat was taking his last breaths.

But the situation is absolutely different now. The very George W. Bush that labelled Arafat’s demise as a positive turning point in the Middle East conflict seems utterly terrified. No wonder if he is lashing his dying friend in his thoughts right now. Just because recently Sharon was urged by doctors to diet in order to get rid of some bulk of his 115 kg tummy – advice reinforced by George who also suggested to him to take more exercise. Alas, he didn’t. George’s best friend didn’t listen to his rarely wise advice and didn’t stop swallowing kilos of beefsteak and pounds of pancakes coated with sugar after having some portions of greasy bacon with his beloved Palestinian shish-kebab. And he didn’t lead his own soldiers to any battle for the sake of his own health and some more exercise.

Let us see who we are talking about. The subject of this posting is “a ruthless soldier who would promise to find ‘true peace’”, as today’s Independent put it. A “Bulldozer”. That was Ariel Sharon’s nickname on his good days. The last father of the existing Israeli state and the architect of the massacre of over 1000 people in 1982 at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Lebanon. The person who triggered the second wave of Intifada by a single gesture: visiting the holy Temple Mount in 2000. The very man who started building the Berlin Wall of the Middle East in defiance of the international laws; the concrete fences even higher than the Berlin Wall itself. The Prime-Minister of the 51st American state that is accused of money-laundering and only a day before his brain bleeding an Israeli TV station reported about police investigation on Mr Sharon’s receiving $ 3million from an Austrian casino magnate to cover campaign funding before he took office in 2001. (Perhaps that was what triggered the bleeding.) The person who was terrified from his own evil deeds and had to pull out from Gaza in defiance of his own Likud party. The leader who had to abandon his ruling party just a couple of months ago to form a new Kadima party that needs to grow up yet. That’s the person who is dying and that’s the person who’s made George Bush pray for him. US officials said that even the entire American nation was praying for Ariel Sharon’s well-being. Of course, I doubt it as any sober person on the globe.

However, let’s join all praying people of the world and wish him a longer life in order to show the difference between us and him. Live long, Sharon and live in pain of the consequences of your own devilish deeds. Anyway, you will never be able to get back to politics, while you’ve thrown your nation into the situation of complete uncertainty. Thus, you have not done anything good even to your own nation by intriguing anti-Semitism all around the globe. But you are extremely pitiful now and we don’t want to give a thumb down for you now. Live with pain of your Ahrimanic deeds a bit longer, Mr Sharon, and with bitter consequences of them.

The Tune of The Day

Keep On
by Will Young

Chorus

You know I'm gonna keep on, gonna keep on
Nowhere else to go
I like it with the heat on, so put the heat on
I get there on my own
You know I'm gonna ride it, I won't hide it
I told you all along
But none of that don't matter, let's get it on

'Cos it pays to do your best
Do it better than the rest
And I hate to say I'm wrong,
I can see what's going on
And at times it makes me mad
'Cos this thing is all I have
Got to see a way,
Oh, how I love it, how I love it

Chorus

It's a way to pay the bills
But I need to get my thrills
Just until I'm satisfied
But I need to feel alive
You gotta hurt before you heal
Take a dream and make it real
I've been waiting too long
Hey I'm coming, hey I'm coming

Like a diamond in the rough
Keep on 'til I've had enough
Gonna shimmer like the sun
I can warm up everyone
It's coming like a miracle
When you rise you never fall
I've been waiting so long
Hey it's coming, hey it's coming

Chorus

Why wait, what you holding on for?
I just go around and around
It isn't gonna take too long
It's late, but not too late
It's time for reaching out
Somebody's gonna take me away

You gotta hurt before you heal
Take a dream and make it real
I've been waiting too long
Hey I'm coming, hey I'm coming

Chorus

Keep on, keep on
Gonna keep on
Keep on now (to fade)

At a Long Long Train Station

Clock is ticking
Heart is beating
Lips are sipping last two drops

No decision
On division
Neither living as a corpse

Murky future
Shaky picture
Of the past and present days

Leaving darkness
Human sharkness
Looking for a stream of rays...

The Hardest Word To Say...

It seems I have reached the ceiling and no use of me for the goal we have followed so far. I had realized that for quite a while, but was working under a self-applied coercion. Now I have to lay down my arm and stop losing myself in a project that has reached its edges and would not move even for an inch anymore with me in it. However, the yacht is done and is still moving with our collective enormous efforts. I am certain it would keep moving without me too. So, it’s time to move on for me, I suppose. Have you ever seen the boiling pot of patience overflowing?

My friends, my dearest friends, would be annoyed by this decision, I know. Nevertheless I believe in their comprehension and I will love them dearly as ever regardless to my whereabouts. I’ve experienced both the sweetest and the bitterest moments of my professional life with them. I have shared my dreams and reality with them. We have so many things in common now and it will not evaporate without a trace indeed.

What I’m not certain about is the direction I am going to move towards now. I need a good rest after this hurricane and I ought to restore my professional and private personality before doing anything else. In other words, I need to lick my wounds and heal them in solitude before heading to a new battle ground. Hopefully the gap of uncertainty would turn into a necessary period of recovery.

However, the triumphant voyage of the vessel I am leaving now is still my pink dream. For it is as dear to me as a child of my own. And I feel as torn apart as a father leaving his offspring or a lover leaving his beloved. But I am absolutely certain that other parents of the child, my dearest counterparts, will still look after it and there won’t be any need for my custody. Therefore, I will be looking forward to hearing about more successes of our brilliant child.

Ин «КАМ», ки лутфи кам зи Лутфи ба у расид,
Рудест, ки ба ин гох зи як хурда чу расид.
Дасти ситам шикаставу чашми хасуд кур,
Фардо бибин, ки коики мо чун ба ку расид.

Something to Remember

Trying to catch up with ruthless days and nights that are rushing towards eternity irreversibly with a grey brush to paint our heads. Memories are piling up in my box and squeezing it so that you can see their traces. But since a while ago it seems that we are living the same year over and over again. Same names and same upheavals are filling up our being. Same pictures of cigarette-like twin towers and smoked tube stations with more details on the war of “good” and “evil”. But the loudest explosion in this lot to me was Robert Fisk’s “Finding Osama”. The Independent correspondent has happened to be the only Western journalist to penetrate al-Qa’ida’s inner sanctum and have several chats with the world’s most wanted man. He has survived some awesome moments like Bin Laden asking him: “Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed that you came to us one day on a horse, that you had a beard and that you were a spiritual person. You wore a robe like us. This means you are a true Muslim”. R. Fisk admits that it was terrifying. However, he dared to tell that he was not a Muslim. He was just a journalist and his job was to tell the truth. Osama’s withdrawal from his proposal sounded sickeningly diplomatic too: “If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim”. You could imagine that this blood-thirsty creature had never lied throughout his life or any of his followers or big enemies. In reality their jihads and crusades are lie-coated entirely.

Another passage from Robert’s book: “I said to Bin Laden that Afghanistan was the only country left to him after his exile in Sudan. He agreed. “The safest place in the world for me is Afghanistan.” It was the only place, I repeated, in which he could campaign against the Saudi government. Bin Laden and several of his Arab fighters burst into laughter. “There are other places”, he replied. Did he mean Tajikistan? I asked. Or Uzbekistan? Kazakhstan? “There are several places where we have friends and close brothers – we can find refuge and safety in them”. I told Bin Laden he was already a hunted man. “Danger is a part of our life”, he snapped back”.

To me it was a bit surprising that Tajikistan was the first country to come into Robert’s mind as Osama’s second haven.

Osama in 1997 explains how much he detests Saddam Hussein, while “Saddam’s support for Bin Laden” was one of Bush’s justifications for attacking on Iraq.

That was something I added to my last days’ memorable moments.

There is something else to remember as well, of course. My baby has made a favour for me that turned up as a big surprise to me. My short story about Hushyar, the lovely dog of my Dad, has been published. I had completely forgotten that she had taken a copy of it with herself back to Dushanbe. That was a very pleasant moment indeed.

Bring My Family Back

Lyrics & song by Faithless

I'm on Lonely Street age nearly three,
Recently Mama's cryin all the time is it because of me?
Or my younger sister, even Dad was weeping when he kissed her,
Face all puffy like a blister, cryin' like he missed her,
Since we moved away from the house where we use ta play,
They say I'll understand one day, but I doubt it,
Mama never say nothin' about it,
How'd it get to be so crowded,
I found it a strain, everywhere I look I see pain,
And I can't escape the feelin', maybe I'm to blame,
So I strain to listen, prayin' for a decision, wishing' they were kissin'
This feels like extradition or exile, Mama finds it hard to smile,
So I make pretend cups of coffe in her favourite style,
She says child I'm working so there's nothing you lack,
Bus she know I want my Dad, I want my family back.

I'm on Lonely Street, age forty-three
Couldn't gauge when tot quit so my wife quit me
Took offence, took the kids, I wish that was the end
But before she took her leave she took care of my best friend
Workin' all the hours God send was not the tactic
Y'see cuz after ten years I'm left with jackshit
Wanted to make the cash Quik so I useta work real late
Bad sex, My woman's vex, even if I stay awake
And if I'm honest, I had a little cake at the office
I was eatin' We'd do our cheatin over coffees, makin' tea for the bosses
Makin free with me and I agree I got sleazy too easily
But I'm forty-three, this doesn't usually happen to me
Now I'm lonely, I wonder what my son's doing today
Suddenly I'm blinkin' like the screen on my computer display and I'm drinkin'
Concerned about what's down the track if I don't get my family back

I'm on Lonely Street, number fifty-three
Boarded up properly, I'll probably get pulled down
Litter all around inside there's no sound and no light
But yo it gets busy at night, people creppin'
Derelicts sneakin' to fix, speakin'
On the way my timbers creaking', roof leakin'
And bricks comin' loose, knee high in refuse
But even though I'm a slum I'm still of some use
There was a time when my walls were decorated
And under my roof children were educated
But now paint's faded, windows are all smashed
A crash in the economy robbed me of my family And no strategy
combats negative equitiy so that's it. Like violence it's drastic
I'm freaking', and seekin' to be more than just a house of crack
somebody bring my family back

Another Pantomime

Dragging myself to the office in the morning again. I gotta shave my face before in order to give the most profound feeling of artificial sincerity to our bosses to assure them that the conciliation is still on and their asses are firmly attached to their chairs for a longer while. Of course, it IS a difficult task to even move them a bit in solitude.

No reason, but I feel as empty as possible. As if it is not me who’s living this life. On the contrary, the life is living me out... Perhaps, I’m cheating again. There must be some reason(s). Some reason(s) that I don’t wanna take out of the shadow. Let them be there until they want to crawl out themselves. And they definitely will.

But this shadowy being and uncertainty is definitely the last thing I wish. I suppose zamharir must feel the same.

No Bravery

by James Blunt

There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he's been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Houses burnt beyond repair.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It's another families' turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel to accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Yes, he has been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Whisper of The Night

The world is round
The life is plain
Bang-bang is a sound
But its essence is a pain

The knife is blunt
The cake is hard
The life is a cunt
A traitor of my heart

Till when I gotta drop
Bombs of sorrow and regret?
Do you think this facken soap
Is gonna wash the dirt I've shed?..

Bitter Honey

No, I'm not going to that house anymore. The dull and soulless house suffocates me.

The other day just the image of a fallen pot with a withered flower in the backyard darkened the entire world for me and squeezed my throat to produce a tear or two to roll down my distorted face. My birds were not around to fly over it and to look after it. My nightingales are looking after other flowers now in a dearest remote part of the world… I’m craving for that sweet headache caused by their giggling, swirling, shouting and laughter.

No, I do not enjoy my life anymore like this. Despite the fact that this sad being is still addicted to sorrow that stirs up his internal world to bring up something new. But the new is not always the wanted.

Have you seen a restless bee striving to taste something new in variety of flowers? Have you noticed how it leaves a flower indifferently for another one just because either the experience wasn’t that new or the new experience was not wanted?

But still, it does not reject to try a new experience. And still, it produces the same shit that we love so much…

Am I ranting now? Perhaps. But that’s the honey I produce.

…Loneliness is the mother of vice. I don’t know how other bees assess it. It might be the mother of creativity to a few; nothing distracts their attention from producing some sweeter honey. But certainly, I don’t belong to that category of bees. Loneliness is a ghost that leads me to the Sinland.

Can you feel the revoltingly sweet taste of the chilli pepper white wine in my mouth? That’s another flower in the garden I am visiting right now and lining up these nonsense sentences to find out the quaint-essence of this flower…

The customers of this Irish pub are lost: who’s this weirdo lost in his thoughts with a broken pen and a torn piece of paper?.. I am lost too indeed. Lost without you, my nightingales…

It’s not the whole yet.

A narrow neck keeps the bottle from being emptied in one swig.

I Need You, My Blog!

Blogging is a strange stuff: you need it when you don’t feel needed by anyone else and it embraces you whole-heartedly and amicably with no sign of grievance.

Perhaps human being is the only creature of God to nurse a grievance. While I do try not to bear a grudge against anyone, but some people just die for being disliked by me and do whatever they can do just in order to see me down, because it is much easier to kick somebody when he is already down. Certainly, I am still trying to stick up for myself, but what makes it worse is that I’m getting indifferent towards whatever is going on in that bloody mad-house. A gang of losers is trying to punish and subdue loud voices. No doubt, they have to dream on and I still bear in my mind the axiom: everything and anything changes; because it has to…

Especially when you see a Pandora’s Box opened in the whole city and panic dictating your routine life, those little conspiracies in the mad-house look even more miserable and unimportant… I am just thinking loud now to convince myself in what I am saying. But I can feel a great sense of resentment inside while my hope for a change in the office has died… It died today actually. After my long and biting conversation with the person who was supposed to sort the problems out and to let the fresh air in. Disillusion is painful indeed.

On the other hand, London is getting mad too. It is almost broken without its main tube lines. Manhunt that started earlier today is still going on and as a reporter said today “by no means it is the end”, it’s rather just the beginning of a new era of terrorism and counter-terrorism in this beautiful land. A man was shot dead this morning within a train carriage in front of the passengers by policemen. They shoot at him five times. Because he ran away from them and they chased him into the Stockwell tube station. This is just a day after 4 explosions and blast attempts and 2 weeks after the bloody 7 July. The ghost of horror is hovering over the city and every Asian or black with a rucksack arouses suspicion. A good time for pathetic racists to let out their hatred on innocent ones.

Leftover From A Trip

24 June 2005, Dushanbe-Moscow

A skinny little woman that unnaturally looks older than her real age is sitting beside me with 3 of her toddlers. Out of a sudden all of them started a loud crying symphony and put their mother in an unpleasant situation. She is going to St-Petersburg to visit her husband – one of many thousands Tajik labour migrants in Russia. I was wondering how she would manage to get to Petersburg from Moscow by herself with 3 little crying kids, while she merely speaks a couple of Russian words and she wears national Tajik long sleeved clothes. No doubt, she would suffer from annoying Russian check points within and outside the airport with their humiliating behaviour and tone. Because she is a Tajik in Moscow and that’s written on her face and she is defenceless with three kids…

I am a Tajik too and it is written on my top. For the first time in my life I saw a T-shirt with that sort of patriotic writing in Tajikistan with a beautiful map of the country. My dearest friend found and bought it for me and I am terribly obliged to her for such a perfect gift. Just imagine: walking with a “Tajikistan” T-shirt in Moscow, Zurich and London! People would look at me first with confusion, and then at least they would memorize the sweet name of a beautiful piece of land behind one of the highest altitudes of the world: Tajikistan… Such a pleasant feeling!

Meanwhile, an ageing Tupolov-154 is increasing the geographical distance between me and my beloved piece of land whereas the hearty distance between us is diminishing so vividly. Four weeks I inhaled its perfect air and suffered under (rather enjoyed) its hot and burning Sun. I can feel how my love deep inside is growing to a bigger feeling towards the God-forgotten land whose continuous prosperity is my eternal pink dream.

The Wind of Change

Life is going on in here and the wind of change is still blowing away the remainder of the past. However, you will not be terribly surprised, if you haven’t been here for the last ten years.

But I was pleasantly shocked by brand new cashpoints in Dushanbe streets! I saw 2 of them installed as openly as in London, not behind walls and windows as in Prague.

I rushed towards the first one as soon as Shamsi showed it to me and embraced the cold device firmly hammered in the wall; the device was innocently blinking and inviting confused passers-by in three languages (Persian, English and Russian) to insert their cards. Many cannot get the message yet: what sort of cards? What for and so on.

I remember how a guy was asking me if I'd won a lottery, while I was getting my own money from the Supermarket (CUM) cashpoint…

Gotta go now. Hope to get back to my Dushanbe travelogue one day…