No Bullet Wounds

After a long day of attending research groups and seminars, I decided to treat myself to a beer before attending the community panel on the documentary “The Interrupters.”  Berkeley was buzzing with its usual mix of characters – students, teenagers, scholars, artist-types and the such.  All milling about, filling up the cafes and restaurants.  I’m taking in the scene, sort of dreamily wondering how I fit in to this crazy fabric of people in this crazy city in this crazy world.  I was tired, just wanted to find a place to escape to for a few, settle my thoughts and sip on something cold and frothy.  I eye a bar I’ve never visited and make my way over. It was a dimly lit old-fashioned bar on Shattuck, a ways from campus so less students and more Berkeley locals and workers.  I’m feeling nice, the IPA is doing what it does and I’m unwinding – exactly what I had in mind.  Then, without notice my short-lived, barley-induced euphoria is interrupted by the sound of a big-bellied, loud-mouthed corporate type hanging out with his blue-collar, Scotch-drinkin pals (weird I know, but thats Berkeley for you).  The topic of conversation, it just so happened, was education.  “Do you wanna know how to fix any fucking public school in this country??,” the man arrogantly, loudly, and rhetorically asked.  You walk in, fire anybody who has a degree from a School of Ed!” Wow, word? Really? An all out attack on the very institution I’ve just agreed to devote the foreseeable future to.  To me, this represented nothing less than an outright dismissal of teaching as a practice, of pedagogy, of the complexity of teaching in the face of poverty and inequality, a denial of the systematic attack on the institution of public education.  I felt like he punched my right in the stomach.  So much for relaxing with a brew, my nerves were rattled.  I contemplated giving dude a piece of my mind (think matt damon in good will hunting type of confrontation) but my mind was full of theoretical education jargon and would have probably done little for the cause, so I paid the bill and set off to the panel, trying to take the L gracefully. As I left the bar, the sun had set and my mind was racing as I walked back down Shattuck Ave. How do I defend, explain or justify myself, my career, and my vision? It was with this frame of mind that I stepped into the auditorium where the panel speaking on the movie “The Interrupters” was being held. Peep the trailer…

The panel was a trip.  It was hosted by the School of Education along with the School of Social Welfare, the School of Public Health and the School of Journalism.  The panelists were faculty from those schools along with the writer and producer of the film, and a principal of an Oakland public middle school.  The audience was less academic, and more community-based.  Teachers, community youth groups from Richmond and Oakland, social workers, and other concerned citizens comprised most of the audience.   Audience members were encouraged to chime in, and that they did.  The tone was tense as Oakland has gone through a recent spade of murders.  An angry (white) woman stood up and practically screamed at the audience demanding an answer to her question, “How many of YOU ALL have personally experienced violence??!!”  Followed with, “I”m fucking sick and tired of do-gooders trying to make change, if you haven’t even been afflicted by this violence we are talking about!!!!”  Her rant stunk of insincerity and boastfulness, somebody desperate for validation. Maybe she thought she needed to appear tough, weathered and wounded because she was white. Maybe she was just crazy, or misguided and really believed her own bullshit.  Apparently even my professor who is from the Gardens (notorious projects in Chicago that come up in the film) was not “street” enough to be doing the work he was doing – her rant and others throughout the evening seemed to incriminate anyone in a position of power trying to affect social change as pretentious.  So, let me get this right.  On the one hand we are trying to end the violence and promote the peace but on the other we are penalizing people who cannot boast of violence in their pasts (the prof from the Gardens admitted he was not a “tough guy” despite growing up in the projects).  Still shaken up from the bar incident, I began to inwardly reflect – is my future as a writer, teacher, scholar and activist doomed because I didn’t gang-bang in my youth, because I didn’t grow up in the hood, because I can’t roll up my trousers and exhibit a bullet wound? Do I need to remind people that I was born in war-torn Iran and many in my extended family are political prisoners, martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war, or that my dad used to take me on the roof of our Tehran apartment to watch the night sky light up from US-backed rockets launched from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Would that make me more suitable for work in poor communities? Is THAT relevant to the discussion I am entering about public education in Oakland?? No, it’s not. People walk different paths – I refuse to apologize for my parents busting their chops, earning a middle class status and giving me the opportunity to live a violent-free, intellectually rich childhood. And I will not pretend that the chaos, and desperation of the country I hail from somehow gives me some credibility in working in underprivileged communities in the United States. It does not. The work I do, the ideas I will develop and the person I am becoming, will themselves give me the legitimacy and credibility to do the work I intend to do. I guess I  better get used to the haters – I have a feeling there will be many on this new path I am embarking on.

George Polya, the Hungarian Mathematician

“The ideas should be born in the students’ mind and the teacher should act only as midwife” – Polya

Dapper Concepts is Now “SepehrV”

I was but a small child, a new comer to the United States of America.  Escaping the same bearded mullahs who run Iran today, my parents and I started a new life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The drastic change of scenery, along with the blistering cold brought poetry to my fathers lips.  As he walked me to preschool in subzero temperatures, I can remember him reciting a poem in Farsi about how life, if lived well, is profoundly beautiful.  As the partially frozen snot was coming down my nose I didn’t fully comprehend the message of the poem, but somehow I remember feeling the fuzzy notion that it was deep and powerful.  In homage to this vague feeling I would make a sincere effort to show I was tough and that the cold couldn’t phase me.  The poem is by Siavash Kasraie and is titled Zendegi Zeebast, which means “Life is Beautiful.”  It is less a Louis Armstrong wonderful world type poem(trees of green skies of blues bright blessed days, etc) and more a somber reflection on the dutiful life.  Perseverance and hope in the face of adversity will illuminate that the struggle itself is beautiful – that type of thing.  In light of today’s struggles for justice and prosperity(from Oakland to Tripoli to Tehran to … ) I find that message to resonate strongly.   Advocates of justice everywhere: I believe the underlying ethos of our collective struggle should be one of hope and strength, not cynicsim and despair.  I will try to carry that spirit in my work going forward and in the stories and reflections I share in this blog.

Those in my inner circle know that I have divorced the 9-5 engineering life and have moved on to focus my energies on education.  I have been active in the outreach organization I started in Oakland (Oakland Science and Math Outreach) and will start a PhD program at Berkeley in the Fall in the EMST program (engineering math science and technology). I will probably end up writing more about this transition as I begin the program, but the short  and rough version is that I identified a career in which I can do something social justice related while also building upon stuff I was already educated in and good at (math, engineering, talking to people, teaching math).  A few days ago I read an online interview with Shepard Fairey (the artist of obama fame) and he put it very nicely.  He said his embrace of street art is a means for him to indulge the many different passions he has; art, activism, politics, pop culture, etc.   I feel that way about education, I can indulge myself (how selfish!).  But its true, I could’nt be happier.  It has an intellectual nerdy theory aspect to it, an activism and political side to it, a social and interacting with the community side, and I’ve chose to focus on STEM so that will draw upon a ton of stuff I’m already familiar with.

With that said, I have to bid Dapper Concepts a sweet farewell.  For those who stuck by me through my literary experimentations, thank you very much.  Please keep reading me at http://sepehrv.wordpress.com.

Despite Our Horrific History of Intervention in the Middle East,

I am encouraged by the news of the United Nations resolution authorizing a force above and beyond a no fly zone in Libya. Being fully cognizant that this places me squarely in the ideological camp of supporting an act of war, I offer my opinion in this matter with the full humility of somebody who will not be directly impacted by the likely bloody days and weeks that inevitably lie ahead. I am moved to speak up in support of military action against Muammar Gadaffi because I believe there is no alternative, and because I believe that inaction will result in a sustained assault on humanity that will serve only to empower dictators around the world while crushing the glimmers of democratic hope that have swept all across the Middle East.

I am prepared to be wrong, and am not oblivious to the troubling moral burden of supporting Western nations to intervene, once again, in the Middle East. But the Arab world has spoken up, brave women, men and children have already given up their lives. To be in a position where we have the military force to prevent the killing of thousands of others, but choose not to act because we will suffer further injuries to our already battered world image is self-indulgent and morally debunk. I disagree with Noam Chomsky’s assertion that suggests we would be out of line to interfere in Libya. His anti-imperialist worldview, one which I wholeheartedly subscribe to, is now being exploited by the likes of Gadaffi and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei. According to these masterful manipulators, any and all attempts at democracy in the region are covers for American and Israeli interests. As progressives, as believers in anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, lets not be so naive, and patronizing, to believe that the blood and sweat of working class people fighting for democracy is all in vain. That all the people in Tehran and Tripoli are mere puppets, being yanked this way and that way by calculating CIA operatives. I hope we can be more respectful of indigenous movements. I refuse to allow my identity as a progressive, as somebody who resists imperialism with mind and soul, to obscure the reality on the ground. And the reality is that the Libyan people are suffering and suffocating under Gadaffi’s armed and funded military regime. And we, as Americans, have the power, to do something about it. And we should.

Revolutionary Hopes In Iran

Tehran was really messed up.   Dont let my pictures of juicy racks of lamb suggest things were hunky dory.  They weren’t.   The general mood of the people was depressed, bitter, cynical and agitated.  Some were even hopeless and broken in spirit.  But I would say most were restless for change.  They are deeply, deeply ashamed of being represented by these unscrupulous, incompetent, murderous thugs who are running the country.  Hence, they hopelessly dwell in their glorious past.  Iranian people constantly, and I mean constantly are waxing nostalgic about the past.  About how life was like during the Shah, about how their ancestors were the pioneers of ancient civilizations.  How their history is storied, meaningful and essential to the human race.  They must constantly remind themselves, and other people, of this history in order to emotionally and historically distinguish themselves from their current plight.  Inside the confines of an Iranian house, you find every member of the family expressing these sentiments.

The conversation at lunch, or dinner is always having something to do with another disappointment, frustration or headache from the daily grind of life in Tehran.  The corruption, inefficiency and general chaos of life there has worn everybody down.  Grandmothers and grandfathers sport looks of deep worry and sorrow for the world they are leaving their kids and grandchildren with.  Adults are solemn, carrying about their daily life with a sense of duty and resignation.  Young folks are restless and oppressed the most visibly.  They can’t legally have sex, drink beer, go to a concert, make music or speak freely.  They graduate from college but have no job opportunities.  If you are a college graduate in Iran and landed a job at a bank, you have made it big.  In the U.S, if you went to college and landed a job at a bank, you did something wrong.  While the young and educated in Iran are the future of the nation, many actively seek avenues out of the country.  To Canada, Europe and the United States they flee for a better life.  Others feel burdened under the moral weight of their situation.  If they leave, Iran may suffer endlessly under the grip of the current mullahs.  So there is tension.  There is societal tension and tension inside of every Iranian.   What I sensed in my brief month in the country was a deep resentment, on all levels of society, for the current President Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader.  I don’t how or if the current showdowns in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia will impact the revolutionary spirit of Iranians.  But whatever the impact could be seems to have scared the shit out of the regime.  They have incarcerated Mousavi, Kharroubi and their wives, which is a definite sign of panic.  I hope Iran has its day soon.

More Tehran: The Food, Etc

The food.  Mmmmm.  Boy was the food good in Iran.  From the plethora of bakeries and pastry shops to restaurants and cafes, food and eating was a central part of my trip.  Come to think about it, food and eating is a central part of life in Iran in general.  Life sort of revolves around it.  This picture here is from a small mehmooni (casual Iranian gathering of friends and family) held for no special occasion at my dad’s cousins’ house.

This delicious little treat awaited me at the end of a hike through one of Tehran’s most famous parks: Park-eh Jamshideyeh.  It is a beautiful park that fools you into thinking you have traveled hundreds of miles outside of the dense urban center of Tehran into an area resembling Yosemite.  Except it is spotted with these little restaurants that look like cabins from the outside.  Inside they are cooking up a storm.

Freshly baked bread everywhere in Tehran.  EVERYWHERE.  Whereas we here in the U.S tend to swoon at the sight of a real bakery, in Iran it is a way of life.  Every morning my grandma would send me off to buy some Noon-Lavash or Noon-Barbari  while she prepared the tea.   Little holes in the wall all up and down her street would sell a particular type of bread.  Fresh off the rack.  It was so hot I would sort of toss the bread from one hand to the other to avoid getting burned.  Our breakfast would typically be the bread, some butter and some home made jam.  And of course like 8 cups of chai.  As if to compensate for the elaborateness of lunch and dinner, breakfast in Iran tends to be sort of simple and dull.

This is the best asheh-reshteh I’ve ever had in my entire life.  For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is a soup.  Thats all I know and care to know.  Its just delicious.  A delicate balance between spicy and savory.  This is at the King Abbas Hotel in Isfahan, which I will mention again later.  I’m done writing for now, getting hungry.  Bout to throw in a hot pocket.

Lot to Take In

First few days felt like a constant blizzard of new places and new faces, seen through the haze of my still jet-lagged brain. First came quality time with the close family..cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmother. Many, many cups of sweetened Persian chai straight from the spigot of my grandma’s somovar kept the conversation flowing. Endless fruits and pastries, noon-o-panir brunches, and ghormeh sabzi lunches. The first few days were spent in the warm embrace of family, as if to energize me and help brush up my Farsi. Next came extended family, many of whom I was meeting for the first time. Said my pleasantries to the best of my abilities and tried my hand at the delicate and utterly insincere taroof game. Was mostly met with amused chuckles…After a few rounds of that I was ready to shake free of the extended branches of the family and venture out into the city.

This is Imam Khomeini Square…the downtown and hub of Tehran. Where the 4 million Green Movement protesters marched, blocks away from where Neda was murdered. The Tahrir Square of Tehran. Tehran University is right down the street, and dozens of revolutionary book stores line the main thoroughfare. The intellectual and cultural nucleus of anti-government activity is in Imam Khomeini Square. The name of the square spites them all.

Just pause for a second and imagine 4 million people swelling around that roundabout a year and a half ago. In Egypt, a country with almost 10 million more people than Iran, Tahrir square filling up with just hundreds of thousands of protesters toppled Mubarak. The Ayatollahs of Iran haven’t budged.

Disclaimer…

I am eager to write about my trip, and share with anybody who is interested in knowing about what I encountered on a visit to this very volatile, storied and seductive part of the world. What I want to point out, though, is that my views or reflections are nothing other than one ill-informed man’s perspective on Iran. And certainly will be colored with my own bias. (after all thats the whole point of blogging right?) I feel the need to point this out only because of how much is at stake in Iran right now. And because of how unique the circumstances were that allowed me to enter the country. I traveled there as an Iranian, with an Iranian passport, and had to leave the country before my allowed 3 months if I was to avoid the required 2 year military service. I observed quite a bit during the month I spent in Iran, traveling as far north as the Caspian Sea and as far south as Shiraz. To my already vast interest and passion for the Iranian people and the Iranian experience, I added one months worth of observations and reflections. This is a country bubbling over with anxiety and frustration and anticipation for a better day. My next several blog entries will share what I saw, felt and thought about this amazing country with beautiful people. I make all of my commentary with utmost reverence for the ongoing predicaments and struggles of the Iranian people.

Iran Trip, Part 1: Putting away my Nano

I synced my ipod before I left for Iran so that I could listen to some new music during my trip. I had just purchased Kanye Wests ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ and was looking forward to strolling the streets of Tehran clad with headphones and a Kanye-inspired self-assurance. Visually taking in my Iranian roots, stopping to greet passersby with gratuitous enthusiasm, then eagerly returning to my swaggerish American self by simply pressing “play” on my little purple nano. In my mind I glamorized and romanticized this duality of experience, feeling I would have an edge over everybody because of my deep connection with two lands, so distant.   It didn’t end up working that way though.  Save for my flight from Frankfurt to Imam Khomeini, my ipod remained in my suitcase for the duration of my trip. As an umbilical cord must be cut to fully experience a new reality, if I wanted to really dive into Iran I had to wind up senor nano and tuck him away in my suitcase.   This was because Iran was more fundamentally different in every imaginable way than any other country I have ever set foot in. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, and really not that compelling of a claim given that I’ve only been to a half dozen other countries, but I was surprised to have experienced more culture shock here than I have anywhere else. And I’m Iranian! I speak Farsi, and have Persian parents. I have cousins and aunts and a lovely grandmother living in the Geisha district in Tehran(no bizarre link to Japan as far as I know). Still, I was jolted.   From the obvious stuff like different food and language to the more subtle things like social contracts binding people, the standards for aesthetic beauty, the range and associations of the political spectrum, sense of humor, body language, etc etc. Life just seemed to be moving to an entirely different beat. The charisma of hip hop just didn’t seem to apply. Kanye would have to wait.  To try and bring in an element of American subculture just seemed not relevant, even jarring.

Tehran…First impressions..

With naked ears and eyes wide open like a rocksmith, I began to experience the Iranian capital.  Tehran had a pulse unlike any other place. Intensity-wise, just nuts. Think NYC on crack hashish and a few tokes of hukka.  Nerve-wrecking, loud, fast, and exhilarating.  Taxi cabs, a newly built beautiful subway, a pedestrian-culture complete with street-peddlers and pick-pockets…a population of about 15 million.   Polluted-wise giving Mexico City a run for its money. In terms of modernity it looked more like a 3rd world Latin American country than I expected. The aesthetic leaned Euro and the people looked..well, Middle Eastern.  Tehran, in terms of architecture and natural elements, wasn’t particularly visually appealing, but yet incredibly enticing. All my five senses were constantly taking in something new. In all of its shabbiness, there was something exotically and anciently soulful about the city. Don’t think in terms of American soul though. Nothing at all even remotely like a Stevie Wonder Motown type deal or Bruce Springsteen Americana type soul. A whole different level of soul. I would point to Mohsen Namjoo, the musician, for a sonic and visual representation of what I think of as the soul music of modern day Iran.

Update from Tehran

Dear Anybody Who Has Checked Dapper Concepts for updates on my trip to Tehran,

WordPress is blocked by the government. So is cnn, youtube, facebook and hundreds of other sites. Of course the young Iranian is zerang (street-smart) and proxies are commonplace (at such a place now). Between my grandmothers apartment in the Geisha and the cafe-net a few blocks down I’m a bit limited in my ability to navigate the secret passageways of the web. Instead I’m keeping a journal and will update DC once I get back to Oakland. It’s been 12 days; 10 days in Tehran and 2 days in a small village a short distance outside of the city. In a few days I go to the caspian (shomal) and then on to Isfahan and Shiraz. Below is some text I sent a friend via email…first impressions. Hope all had a Merry Xmas.

Tehran is very oppressive. In every way. The traffic, the pollution, the lawlessness, the smell of joojeh kabob. All very imposing. The young people feel choked to death….literally and methaphorically. The smog and air quality is egregious..although hasn’t been so bad since I’ve been here. Snapped a few nice photoes of the hustle n bustle of tehran flanked by the snow-capped alborz mountains. on most days though the peaks arent visible. The lack of social and political freedom is unfathomable to me…..hard to explain. The economy is bad…everyone resorts to hustling and street peddling. Lot of educated and literate people ( i read somewhere iran is one of the most literare countries), but still most are unemployed. Yet, poverty is much less visible than is in the states. The style of living and society is jsut different. The government apparently takes enough care of the poor where they have places to live and food to eat. Just no opportunity to make anythign of themselves. They keep people just barely alive, without ammunition (again both literally and metaphorically) to rise up and challenge the harsh oppression of the regime.

As far as my trip is concerned, Tehran is has been more than good to me. The hospitality has been unreal. My cousin Pedram who is my age and is the main person who I was intending on spending my time with was not able to be in Iran during my trip. So he told his fiancee and all of his friends to take care of me. It’s been tooo much. They threw me a big party at my aunt’s house on the second day where they all cooked various dishes. Each night they pick me up and take me here and there….restaurants, parks, etc.