Quote of the Day

Here is one of my favorite quotes by a hojatollah-e-Islam we met with in Iran:

"'In God We Trust' is on your money, but it is on our hearts."

New Peace Museum in Tehran

Here is an article by Scott Peterson for the Christian Science Monitor on the new Peace Museum that is set to open in City Park in Tehran. It is a very moving article about how the idea of the museum came about and a reminder of the devastation of war. Museum director Shahriar Khateri also discusses Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, a subject that has been given very little attention in the West.

Amazing Slides of Iran

With all of the spin in the mainstream media about Iran, it can become so easy to buy into the demonization of the entire country. A colleague forwarded me a link to Jadid Online. It has some amazing slide shows of life in Iran and it covers a wide range of issues from the Iranian perspective. My favorite so far is "The Heart and Soul of Isfahan." These slide shows really put a human face on what we, by and large, do not see here in the mainstream media - a complex and nuanced picture of a 7,000-year civilization.

Famous Iranians

This is much less substantive than a normal post, but it's Saturday night and I'm on my computer, so...here is a video circulating on YouTube about famous Iranians and famous people of Iranian descent. The goal of video is to put a human face to Iran with which mainstream America can identify.

State of the Student Movement in Iran

Roula Khalaf has a new article in the Finacial Times on the state of the student movement in Iran. This paragraph is good sum-up, but I suggest reading the whole article.

"Amini-Zadeh, the 'starred' former student leader, tells me such protests show students still have a voice. 'It’s the students who raise violations of human rights and defend the rights of political prisoners. Ahmadi-Nejad was told ’no’ in the most blatant way and it was the first direct challenge to him.' But Amini-Zadeh acknowledges that students need a new cause. 'During the Khatami period the strategy was clear: you have to win elections and try to reform parts of the system. But that turned into a failed strategy. The problem we have now is that we don’t have an alternative. Ahmadi-Nejad is rejected at Amir Kabir but no one says what the alternative is. It’s not just the problem of the student movement but the problem of the whole political system.'"

Images of Tehran

These are images of Tehran you don't see everyday.