Will Yong's blog/

Chadors, Haft-e Tir Square

"Just the kind of photo that all your Western friends want to see from Iran right?"

There's a not inconsiderable industry for Iranian artists who want to sell the image of Iran that the West wants to see. Tradition juxtaposed with modernity, conservatism against a backdrop of consumerism. Well here I am, guilty as charged.

I was explaining before a theory of Iranian-ness which I heard was doing intellectual rounds at the moment. It's basically more pop-anthropology to try to explain why Iranians are so backward and Iran lags behind other countries. Of course, the real answer as always is historical, political, economic - but Iranians seem to have self-flagellation in the blood (there I go with my own pop-anthropology!)

The Islamic Republic of Iran's international news channel. For better or for worse, this is where I currently work as a news anchor.

The name “Pars” is an expression of Iranian national pride which goes a long way back in history.

There are a lot of internet community sites out there and I've tried a few of them. I started out with Yahoo360. In Iran I think it's the most popular choice - mainly because most people are still on dial-up connections and it's not such a heavy download. In theory it's not that different from ipernity but the overall feel always struck me as a little too chatty. Noone was sharing anything particularly interesting, i hated the ads. I gave up on it pretty quickly.

So then came Facebook. Again, I can only use it at work so that's one drawback but more than that  - It's all a bit slap and tickle isn't it? Poking, giving beers, joining funny groups - do you talk about your Facebook lives in the pub and laugh about how funny it was that X "set the Grinch on you" and you retaliated by "using the force" against him? Being out of the country I guess I've missed the true facebook phenomenon which is surely mainly occurring 9-5 in offices all over London. I imagine there's already a "too cool for Facebook" crowd who look down on it like they probably did on Big Brother and other peurile pop culture fads.

But like I say - here in Iran Facebook isn't really happening because of government internet censorship. I'd be interested to hear how it's affected your lives back in London.

Shows you how long I've been away - the last big London pop-culture fad I remember was Big Brother!

Even in normal weather conditions parading up and down Tehran's more fashionable streets is a kind of pastime for Iran's entertainment-starved youth. Now, with Tehran in the grip of heavy snow, the city's youth are taking the opportunity to enjoy another kind of automotive entertainment.

Where I live, in the foothills of Mt. Tochal, there's a wide plateau where last night dozens of cars were pulling hand-brake turns and spinning in circles to the tune of loud techno music. A kind of semi-organic organisation had emerged with cars parking to block off both ends of the street. Plenty of the partygoers were quite obviously drunk and the festivities were quite obviously going to continue for some time into the night. I was on my way to work and didn't have my camera on me but next time I hear screeching from my apartment I'll run down to try to capture the atmosphere.

"Man must accept the responsibility for himself and the fact that only by using his own powers can he give meaning to his life. But meaning does not imply certainty; indeed the quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."

"The disharmony of man's existence generates needs which far transcend those of his animal origin. These needs result in an imperative drive to restore a unity and equilibrium between himself and the rest of nature. He makes the attempt to restore this unity and equilibrium in the first place in thought by constructing an all inclusive mental picture of the world which serves as a frame of reference from which he can derive an answer to the question of where he stands and what he ought to do."

"...there are many other strivings which are looked upon as entirely secular which are nevertheless rooted in the same need from which religious and philosophical systems spring."

“In our culture the picture is so particularly deceptive because most people ‘believe’ in monotheism while their actual devotion belongs to systems which are indeed, much closer to totemism and worship of idols than any form of Christianity.”

“All men are ‘idealists’ striving and are striving for something beyond the attainment of physical satisfaction…. The very best but also the most satanic manifestations are expressions not of his flesh but of this ‘idealism,’ of his spirit.”

It’s the third day of the holy month of Moharram.  For the last few days, Tajrish Bazaar has gearing up for the Tasua/Ashura holiday. Two days of sorrow and weeping in the memory of the Imam Hossein. The raised stage in the main hall where the fruit and veg sellers usually are has been cleared and decorations for the festival are up everywhere.

From the time of classic and medieval literature up to the end of the nineteenth century a great deal of effort was expended in describing the vision of what the good man and the good society ought to be. Such ideas were expressed partly in the form of philosophical and theological treatises, partly in the form of utopias. The twentieth century is conspicuous for the absence of such visions. The emphasis is on critical analysis of man and society in which positive visions of what man ought to be are only implied. While there is no doubt that this criticism is of utmost significance and a condition for any improvement of society, the absence of visions of a “better” man and a better “society” has had the effect of paralyzing man’s faith in himself and his future (and is at the same time the result of such a paralysis).

- Erich From, Man for Himself, 1947

"There is hardly any word which is more ambiguous and confusing than the word "love". It is used to denote almost every feeling short of hate and disgust... People feel that they love if they have "fallen for" somebody. They call their dependence love and their possessiveness too. They believe that nothing is easier than to love, that the difficulty lies only in finding the right object, and their failure to find happiness in love is due to their bad luck in not finding the right partner."

"... it is believed that to fall in love is already the culmination of love while actually it is the beginning and only an opportunity for the achievement of love. It is believed love is the result of a mysterious quality by which two people are attracted to each other, an event which occurs without effort. Indeed man's loneliness and his sexual desires make it easy to fall in love and there is nothing mysterious about it, but it is a gain which is as quickly lost as it has been achieved. One is not loved accidentally; one's own power to love produces love."

Father and Mother, and Me,

Sister and Auntie say

All the people like us are We,

And every one else is They.

And They live over the sea,

While We live over the way,

But-would you believe it? --They look upon We

As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef

With cow-horn-handled knives.

They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,

Are horrified out of Their lives;

While they who live up a tree,

And feast on grubs and clay,

(Isn't it scandalous? ) look upon We

As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun.

They stick lions with spears.

Their full-dress is un-.

We dress up to Our ears.

They like Their friends for tea.

We like Our friends to stay;

And, after all that, They look upon We

As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.

We have doors that latch.

They drink milk or blood,

Under an open thatch.

We have Doctors to fee.

They have Wizards to pay.

And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We

As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,

And all good people say,

All nice people, like Us, are We

And every one else is They:

But if you cross over the sea,

Instead of over the way,

You may end by (think of it!) looking on We

As only a sort of They!

For years I've been a self-taught (ie. largely incompetent) guitar player. Play and play as I might, I only got stuck in ruts and repeating circles - after ten years I should have amounted to more than this surely? But here in Iran I came face to face with an entirely new musical culture, and I've taken the opportunity to start again - properly.

blog response to polkadotspeedo

blog response to polkadotspeedo

polkadotspeedo wrote:

...people seem to group the Middle East in one package. But Arabs and Persians are two different cultures right? So do they perceive the world differently? Or has their religion amalgamated their perception?

I'm currently experiencing the apprehension of a new stage in my career and the possibility that the past may come back to haunt me. From next week I will be giving up news anchoring and devoting myself to editing in the newsroom. Until now I've never been afraid to step on people's toes but so far the "strongly worded advice" that I've often dished out to my colleagues has always been compromised by the fact that noone has ever been forced to take what I say seriously. So only now have I realised how much more comforting it is to not have real responsibility.

In the end it all happened so quickly. It'd been months that I and a small group of like-minded colleagues had been discussing and debating - but mostly despairing - at the situation here at Press TV and in recent months it had got into our heads that the only way to get something done about it was to take proposals right to the top.

The CEO became an almost mythical figure for me. I had never met him but he was the divine force that was to reach down from above and turn my world into the utopia that I'd been praying for for so long. I delayed it and delayed it - until I myself had taken on a kind of totemic presence in the newsroom. Writers with a grievance, producers on the brink of resigning, anchors at wit's end - talk to Will, he's going to see the CEO. I was the chosen one, It was I who was to climb the mountain to the fifth floor office.

And on Tuesday I finally did it. There he was, dressed in a simple green turtleneck, smaller than I thought but with a tightly-knitted brow that said "get to the point". I'll admit it was partly deliberate that I let some of the last few months pent up emotion rise to the surface. But at the same time it wasn't an easy job trying to channel the constantly potent cocktail of frustration, rage, disillusionment, and indeed hope, that pumps through my veins every shift into a quiet chat with the boss. I allowed my voice to stammer as a token of the intensity of my emotion.

So when he brushed me off with "it'll get better", "things are already changing" and "there's nothing we can do about that for the time being" I started to question my faith in God's omnipotence and omniscience. But then he asked me for concrete proposals. If you think things are so bad what do you think we can change.

And the idea which he had actioned within 48 hours of my suggesting it was this. Take me off the screen and put me on the editorial desk. Give me (and one similar-minded colleague) license to tear apart the crummy texts that pass for news on Press TV, tear into the writers who think the art of journalism is copy-pasting from the wires and basically be a force for good in the newsroom, encouraging, criticising, guiding, training, assessing, initiating, actioning, following up - all those businessy things that pro-active professionals are meant to do.

But that's where the uncertainty now lies. Now that I have a measure of power, I'm waiting to meet the resistance. Noone took any notice of me when I was just the anchor who was hard to please. Just the few conscientious ones who could tell I had something constructive to offer. It was only they who really took any notice of my attempts to try to make the world a better place. Now that I've been given authority I have to learn how to use it.

Will Yong is bored of facebook. try "ipernity."

SS: I find your status blasphemous!

WY: Facebook is no longer part of my religion. I no longer believe in its existence. It's a parallel world of poking, tickling and sending non-existent beers... if the beers existed I would believe. No beer no Facebook. Simple as that. you back in Iran yet?

SS: Yes, but I find non-existent beers, pokes and hugs heart-warming, as am in a sorry excuse for a country, living with a sorry excuse for a family and it's these little delusions that keep me going, and enable me to suppress the overwhelming urge to throw myself out of the window that posseses me every time I leave the safety and comfort of my bed. Am currently on the verge of tears as am desperate to go out for Ashura, but have to work instead. Sod it all.

SS: Facebook, Little Britain, Bridget Jones and Dylan Moran are the only things keeping me going........*sigh*

WY: in my cold, cold world, I snub pokes, brush aside non-existent beers and reject e-hugs. I slink home after shifts here at press tv and forlornly check, recheck and triple check my ipernity space to see if anyone has marked one of my photos as a favourite, or sometimes just to count the number of extra hits I've got in the last few hours. When the number goes up I feel wanted and temporarily secure and when someone replies to one of my posts I feel super-elated but deep down I know that if that person really knew what a neurotically attention-seeking, friendless cretin I was he wouldn't even cross the street to piss on my burning carcass. Now that's despair. Eat my tears.

“To love is an expression of one’s power to love. And to love somebody is the acualization and concentration of this power with regard to one person. It is not true, as the idea of romantic love would have it, that there is only the one person in the world whom one could live and that it is the great chance in one’s life to find that one person. Nor is it true that, if that person be found that love for him (or her) results in a withdrawal of love for others. Love which can only be experienced with regard to one person demonstrates by this very fact that it is not love, but a symbiotic attachment. The basic affirmation contained in love is directed toward the beloved person as an incarnation of essential human qualities. Love of one person implies love of man as such. The kind of “division of labour” as William James calls it, by which one loves one’s family but is without feeling for the “stranger,” is a sign of a basic inability to love. Love of man is not, as is frequently supposed, an abstraction coming after the love for a specific person but it is its premise, although, genetically it is acquired in loving specific individuals.”

Thoughts on Shia Islam after witnessing Tazieh - the tragic street theatre reenacting to the death of Imam Hossein.

Coming up to one thousand visits - thanks ipernity!

Time for some shouts of appreciation for contacts who are making my ipernity world go round...

Ojisanjake - for constant photographic inspiration and reminding me of Japan

Bigoode in the clouds - super-real blogging, No.1 ipernity networking

Fabian Zerneke - looking forward to P ART Y!!!

PolkaDotSpeedo - kindred spirit lost in the UK

Adam - for constant inspiration for new groups

JapanVisitor - who put me on to ipernity in the first place

Roland Platteau - for inspiring me to learn/write more about my country

nottiestyle - Japan group wa sugeeee!

Lars Sozuer - always on the lookout for "script" group

Everyone on ipernity - stand tall, fight the good fight, everyone say " P E A C E ! "