Windows on Iran 46

A beautiful oil painting by the young (and talented!) Iranian artist Adel Younesi, depicting a scene from the streets of Iran (please see the end of this

Dear All,

I hope you are all well. This window must have surprised you. I apologize for the very long delay, and thank you all for the kind messages of inquiry that you have sent me during this time. If you wrote to me recently, you know that I am on leave of absence from the university, and that I have been trying to spend the time for research and my next writing project.

So many of you have had questions about Iran, and particularly the new set of U.N. sanctions imposed on the country that I feel I must come out of hibernation and send out this special window:

* The new set of sanctions make it harder and harder for Iran to maintain normal trade relations with the world. And even though it is usually presented as an alternative to military action against Iran, it in fact gives the U.S. Navy the right to inspect any “suspicious” cargo that would go in and out of Iran. In other words, it could very well pave the way for further confrontation.

* Unfortunately, the message sent by the U.S. media is a repetition of the old line: Iran is getting a slap on the wrist because it continues to defy the “will of the international community” which wants it to abandon its ambition for nuclear power (possible to be used for producing weapons down the road).

* In fact, the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)- which the members of the Security Council do not seem to have payed any attention to – appears to provide the opposite picture. The report indicates that the Agency considers the major questions they were investigating ” no longer outstanding at this stage.” Furthermore, the IAEA Director Mohammad ElBaradei said in Q&A with reporters: “we have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment program.” The question for the world to ask at this point is: Why would this conclusion not lead to the easing of sanctions and a change of the interactive mode with Iran from confrontational to cooperative?

* In many places in the world, people are asking this very question. Here is an excellent article by Siddharth Varadarajan published in The Hindu, the on-line version of India’s national newspaper. In his perceptive and carefully argued essay, Varadarajan expresses amazement at the U.N. for escalating a problem which seems to have in fact been resolved: http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/05/stories/2008030554841000.htm.

* The latest IAEA report, and the fact that Iran has been cleared of all outstanding charges, can indeed be a chance for starting a new relationship with Iran and ending the nuclear crisis by implementing the additional protocol which would guarantee the country will not use its nuclear resources for a weapon’s program. Here is another interesting analysis: http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4185.

Iranian artist Adel Younesi (click the link on the left for more of his oil painting renderings of scenes from the streets of Iran).

* Before I close this very brief window, I must honor our tradition of sharing a visual delight with you: a slide show of a recent exhibit of a very young Iranian painter Adel Younesi who paints with oil on canvas and has an eye for people on lively street corners. Please click here: Adel Younesi Oil Paintings. Enjoy!

Until the next window,
Best,
Fatemeh
===================================
Fatemeh Keshavarz, Professor and Chair
Dept. of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures
Washington University in St. Louis
Tel: (314) 935-5156
Fax: (314) 935-4399
==================================

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Windows on Iran 10

Iranian-American Dr. Lily Afshar is considered to be one of the worlds best female guitar players. More recently, she has also began playing the Persian instrument setar (see below for more information).

Greetings everyone,

I hope you have all had a great weekend. Many thanks for all your kind notes and for joining the listserv. I received enthusiastic comments about the calligraphy exhibit that I sent in window number 9. I am glad you enjoyed them and will keep an eye open from more calligraphic works I can send.

As usual, please give me about two weeks to get back to you if you have any questions. If you send me a kind note of support or ideas for future windows, I might not be able to respond simply because of the volume of correspondence. Please forgive me. I do read all your e-mails with great interest. If you signed on during the past two days, you will get this window (and the previous windows, if you asked for them) with a day or two delay. Again, that is because it usually takes JoAnn and I a couple of days to process new requests.

Current Issues:

* I did not find Iran in the headlines (itself amazing news).
Instead, I attach an informative interview with Dr. Trita Parsi
the US-based scholar on Iran (and the current President of NIAC).
He talks about the position of Iranian politicians, the executive
powers of the Iranian President, and possibilities of diplomatic
solutions to the nuclear standoff, among other things:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1543504,00.html

Iranian Americans:

* The prominent Iranian American I would like to introduce to you
this week is again a musician. This is, in fact, one of the top
female classical guitar players in the world, Dr. Lily Afshar.
Born and raised in Iran, Lily Afshar completed her graduate work
in music at the Boston Conservatory. She has been teaching in
University of Memphis since 1989 and, at the same time, has been
performing internationally. More recently, she has started the
Persian instrument setar. To see a picture of Lily Afshar and read
about her achievements, click on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Afshar
Isfahan Slide Show:

* As you can see I have not forgotten the slide show I promised last
week on the historic city of Isfahan. After I sent my slide show
on Shiraz, a friend wrote that he included the topic of Shiraz in
one of his lectures so he could share the slides with his
students. I hope you find the slides of Isfahan equally beautiful
and usable in the classroom. Just click here: Beautiful and Historic City of Isfahan, Iran.

Naqsh-e Jahan Square in the historic city of Isfahan.

A Major Contemporary Persian Ghazal Writer:

*Reference to Persian poetry usually evokes thought of classical figures such as Omar Khayyam, Hafez and Rumi. From time to time, the modern verse of Forough Farrokhzad, Ahmad Shamlu and others of their generation becomes available in English. Twentieth century Iranian poets are known almost exclusively for their reformist tendencies that transformed classical genres into what Iranians now call ‘shi’re now,’ literally “new poetry.” In this poetry, figures such as Farrokhzad introduced wonderfully fresh ideas which were not considered fit for poetry before. In the poem “From darkness,” for example, Farrokhzad wrote:
I  called you
my whole being held in my hands
like a bowl of milk
the moon glanced blue on the panes
The fact that is almost entirely unknown outside Iran — because
very little translation has been done — is that twentieth century
Iran has great ghazal writers some comparable to Sa’di and Hafiz
only writing their ghazals in a new poetic language. Houshang
Ebtehaj with pen name Sayeh (b. 1927) is one such master poet. For
a recent photo of Ebtehaj during a poetry reading click on
http://saamhouse.co.uk/gallery/archives/000029.php#000029 . Despite
the imposing look, and his reputation as a poet with political and
social comittment, Ebtehaj has a vast quantity of gentle lyric
poetry in ghazal form (as well as many in modern poetry). To my
knowledge, there are no English translations of these ghazals. If
you read Persian click on
http://www.easypersian.com/houshang_ebtehaj/sineh_sardan.htm to
see a couple of the ghazals in Persian (and a short and basic
biography in English).

* On the topic of classical persian poetry, if you are interested in
reading stories from Firdowsi’s classical epic Shahnameh/The Book
of Kings as comic books, click on:
http://www.hyperwerks.com/series/rostam_chara1.html (courtesy of
Ladan Foroughi).

Iranian Cinema:

* Iranian women’s most recent international achievements have
included the movie “Friday Evening,” Mona Zandi’s directional
debut, which won the special jury prize in Cologne film Festival
last week: http://www.payvand.com/news/06/oct/1170.html.  In fact,
the festival dedicated an entire section to Iranian women film
makers. On the topic of cinema, another Iranian (this time male)
director Azizollah Hamidnejad won the Tegernsee Award for his film
“Tears of Cold” in the Mountain Film Festival held in Germany,
Oct. 18-22.

Visual Delight:

* I leave you with two oil paintings by the young painter Adel
Younesi. The theme of both is street side peddlers. I find them
both delightful: http://www.elahe.net/photo.php?picid=3474 and
another one on the same theme
http://www.elahe.net/photo.php?picid=3473

Have a great week.
Fatemeh
========================
Fatemeh Keshavarz, Professor and Chair
Dept. of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatuares
Washington University in St. Louis
Tel: (314) 935-5156
Fax: (314) 935-4399
========================

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