School of the Americas Podcast!

So WashU's Amnesty Chapter had a cool School of the Americas event last night with Marilyn Lorenz of the St. Louis Interfaith Committee on Latin America as a speaker. She talked about the history of the SOA and of the annual protests outside of the training facilities in Georgia. Thanks to the amazing Peter Jones, you can listen to a podcast here.

Once you get sufficiently ticked off about the U.S.'s meddling in Latin America, go here to take action by telling your congressperson to vote no on the Peru Free Trade Agreement.

And of course, don't forget the event mentioned in the above flier at Mokabe's.

Update: We now have a podcast for the SOA Event at Mokabe's (thanks again Peter).

Question of the Week

How do you think we can get people on campus more involved in the anti-war movement?

Understanding Iran: To Bomb or To Talk

By HENRY J. WATERS III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune
Published Sunday, November 4, 2007

I spent a pleasant hour with a sprightly lady named Fatemeh Keshavarz, an Americanized native of Iran and professor at Washington University who is on a book tour trying to explain to Americans that we have a better chance to get along with her country than we might think.
She told our reporter Iranians are not terrorists seeking to use nuclear weapons against America and most don’t support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

She’s on a campaign to soften talk of military action against her country, not because she hopes for some sort of victory for Iran and defeat for the United States. Quite the opposite: In her book "Jasmine and Stars, Reading more than Lolita in Tehran," she contradicts the notion women in Iran are oppressed. Instead, she says, many are actively fighting for liberation, and the combative Iranian president suffers from low public approval ratings in the George W. Bush range.

She objects to the language used by antagonists on both sides, such as the label "Axis of Evil," thrown out by Bush.

"Speak about the world around you in a different way," Keshavarz said. "Begin to think about the world in a different way. When you hear the same phrases over and over, it closes the possibilities." (click here to read the rest of this article...)

An Ode to America: The World Will Dare to Love You

By: Fatemeh Keshavarz

Fatemeh Keshavarz is Professor and Chair of the Washinton University Department of Asian & Near Eastern Languages & Literatures. She is the author of Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran, and writes a regular email newsletter, Windows on Iran. She read this poem at the No War, No Warming rally in downtown St. Louis on October 20, 2007.
___________________________________

Your tall buildings, the night’s reachable stars
Your vast supermarkets, neat flower shops
Your brightly colored fast cars on gliding highways
Your big guns
They all work

And yet, you must understand the beauty in simple things
That’s how you started
And you must understand that
It has come, once more, to simple things
Bread and soup will save swollen bellied kids from vultures
And shoes will help boys and girls caught in permanent wars
To hold onto their dream of walking to safety
For bare feet, no one can go far

Why scratch the face of the earth? (your own face)
Why be mighty?
When you can be married to amazement
Inviting, intriguing, the world’s light in so many ways

The war is over
It has to be
For soon there will be no peace left for anyone,
Or anyone left to look for peace

The world dares to love you
When you come with your feet humble
And your hands bare, not rifled

The world remembers how to speak
When you turn off the roaring guns
The world, with the people in it walking tall, olive-skinned, and able
Dancing in the vastness of daylight
To the rhythm of flowers bursting open – not bombs
Flowers, giddy with their own scent
The world dancing to the drumbeat of small unknown hearts

Everyone, is always a bit like you…and all the while like themselves

See them!See the suns that rise in their wake
Shedding warmth onto your long winters, the earth’s winters

Let the birds of words – loud and surprising
Take off in large numbers from your fields
As if wild lupines were growing in the palm of your hands

Not words that poison the joy of the unknown
But words that gush forth from lips and cool down
The silent wounds of anger -- like rivers in seasons of drought

Face the eastern horizon sometimes and listen
For the music of a distinct laughter

Do not steel your glance
If you come with your feet humble
And your hands bare, not rifled

The world will dare to love you.

This Week in Peace & Social Justice (10-27-2007)

Clinton Receiving Unprecedented Support from U.S. Weapons Industry

The U.S. defense industry has joined big Wall Street businesses in their robust support for Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This reverses the defense industry’s traditional partiality towards Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/19/4672/


World War III

Bush, in the same week that he signed a new round of unilateral sanctions on Iran into existence and labeled part of Iran’s military a terrorist organization, also began using the term “WWIII” in reference to the situation with Iran. This scary escalation of rhetoric is reminiscent of the sharp escalation in administration rhetoric in the weeks and months before the Iraq War. (Please see the next article below for a better idea on what the real facts are).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/washington/18prexy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin


Commentary: Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad? (Fareed Zakaria)

“The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality…Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/57346


Billionaires Up, Average Americans Down

This quote says it all: "The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn't party time for America. We have a record 482 billionaires - and record foreclosures. We have a record 482 billionaires - and a record 47 million people without any health insurance. Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires - and 5 million more people living below the poverty line."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102507M.shtml


Guatemalan Labor Unions’ Leaders Killed

Marco Tulio Ramirez was the fifth Guatemalan labor union leader killed this year. "Masked gunmen dumped a Guatemalan banana picker's bullet-ridden corpse yards from fields of fruit bound for the United States, a grim reminder of the risks of organizing labor in the Central American country." Pay attention to the U.S. companies mentioned at the end of the article and make sure you select your fruit carefully next time you are at the grocery store.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101907LA.shtml


Quote of the Week: At a Stanford University discussion, Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), the former CENTCOM Commander, said, when asked about the Iraq campaign: "Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that…We've treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations. Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back."

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/65323/

Veil of Silence: A New Play about Iraq

Veterans for Peace presents Veil of Silence: a new play about Iraq, by Andrew Michael Neiman and Suzanne Renard.

Performances Fridays & Saturdays November 2, 3, 9, & 10 at 8 PM, and Sundays November 4 & 11 at 2 PM.

At The Black Cat Theatre, 3810 Sutton in Maplewood. $15 General, $12 Students/Seniors/Veterans.

Tickets and information
314-315-5129 or VeilOfSilence@gmail.com

Ahmadinejad's Columbia Visit

Mr. Ahmadinejad's reception at Columbia continues to generate discussion particularly among the Iranian Americans here in the U.S. One favorite pastime has been looking up previous Columbia visitors who might be described as less than democratic. I have attached one image (the first attachment). The caption reads: " A Petty cruel dictator in Columbia University, but wait he is recieving a Doctoral degree in Law!"

Windows on Iran - 42 (Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz)

Hi All,

I hope you are all doing well. We are here at Washington University right in the heart of the semester which is why the windows have been coming your way more slowly. Still, hundreds (yes, I mean hundreds) of new subscribers have joined these windows in the past weeks. Welcome! I hope you find these enjoyable and informative.

I have three visual attachments this time. However, the content of each is fairly small. Let me know if your computers have problems downloading them.If you know of anyone who signed up but did not receive the windows, do please e-mail me. And now, to window number 42.

The Iran that Smiles!

Thanks to my cousin Abe Massoudi, I can open this window with a colorful slide show of a face of Iran that smiles: a beautiful wedding in a village in Gilan. To see the show, click on the attachment "Gilan Wedding," the second attachment, then on view and then on slide show.

Current Issues

The U.S. Government will impose new sanctions on Iran. While there is doubt about the actual effectiveness of the sanctions, and the agreement of other nations with it, nevertheless the move is another step away from reconciliation. Here is yesterday's N.Y. Times article on the new sanction: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/washington/25tehran.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

A very interesting analysis of the catastrophic economic consequences for the world as a whole of a possible strike on Iran in today's Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502840.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Reporting on Iran continues to be problematic. Words and images project images of religious fanaticism, or violence, even when the content of a report indicates the opposite. The coverage of the visit to Iran by Mr. Putin, the Russian president, in New York Times on Oct. 17 is a perfect example. According to the report, the Iranian, Russian, and other Caspian Sea nations oppose the possibility of a military intervension in Iran and call for a diplomatic approach to all conflicts - including the Iranian nuclear issue. The image used in the article (p. A6), shows Mr. Putin and Ahmadinejad walking past a row of wall decorations depicting pre-Islamic Iranian guards symbolically escorting the two leaders. The caption to the image reads "Presidents Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran followed in the footsteps of Persian soldiers yesterday."

Here is a NY Times article with more details on the visit of the Russian President to Iran which was itself a historic event. The main purpose of the event was discussing Caspian Sea resources including oil. Besides Mr. Putin, leaders from Azarbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan expressed objections to further military action in the region: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/world/17iran.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Matt Miller has shared a fascinating interview/article with the millitary historian Gabriel Kolok from Spiegel. It provides a very interesting analysis of a possible U.S. millitary attack on Iran. Thanks Matt: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,511492,00.html

The identities of the six British Members of Parliament who were present at the meeting with Debra Cagan have now been revealed and yesterday, the New York Times reported a virtual re-confirmation by the MPs that Cagan did indeed say that she hates all Iranians. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) calls on everyone to ask journalists why they have not covered the story of Debra Cagan and her outragous remark, "I hate all Iranians." http://capwiz.com/niacouncil/issues/alert/?alertid=10436826Cultural

If you are in St. Louis on Wednesday, Oct. 30, come to Busch Hall, Room 100 at 7:00p.m. to see a film on ancient Iran by the award winning documentary maker Farzin Rezaeian. In this major new documentary called Iran: Seven Faces of a Civilization, Mr. Rezaeian uses the latest technology to showcase the 7,000-year history of Iran's art and archaeology.
Iranians look upon the recent Nobel Lauriete Doris Lessing as a daughter of Iran: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/oct/1138.html

Iranian men and women chess players maintained their lead in Asian Chess Championship held in Manama, reported Gulf News on Oct. 19: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=197252&Sn=SPOR&IssueID=30213

Visual Delight
Time to close Window 42 with another painting exhibit. This time, the work of Vadjiheh Fakour, the painter from Tabriz. She has had many individual and group exhibits. And as you will see, she has a way with color. Enjoy.

Have a great weekend, until the next window on Iran.

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
==================================

Teach-In For Tolerance

As some of you may know, the College Republicans sponsored an event at the WashU campus this week as part of David Horowitz's "Islamofacism Awareness Week." In response, the College Dems and several other groups (including the Peace Coalition) organized a Teach-In to discuss just how dangerous Horowitz's extreme ideology is. Here is what the speaking lineup looked like:

Speakers:
Eric Reif, College Democrats, Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Howard Brick, Professor of History Professor of American Culture Studies, Washington University In St. Louis

Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, Chair of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, Professor of Persian Language & Literature, Washington University In St. Louis

Rouhollah Rahmani, Muslim Students Association, Washington University in St. Louis

Becky Hufstader, College Democrats, Washington University in St. Louis

Thanks to a certain member of our group and our friends at the St. Louis Indy Media Center, we have the whole wonderful event recorded. The speakers were all excellent, so check it out here!

T-Shirt Slogans

We're going to be screening some T-Shirts in the near future for our group that will probably involve something with a peace sign. Any ideas for a good slogan to put on the shirts?