نویسنده: شهروند

We the undersigned, Iranian/Canadian academics, journalists, students, lawyers, artists, writers...

The Container, part of SummerWorks gives audiences a taste of what its like to be smuggled across Europe as a refugee.

In SummerWorks, the entire festival is juried. All the work is vetted. We spend months reading from over 200 submissions. We’re looking for work that questions our contemporary system . . .

“I’m independent, with no money, I have one staff member to support my work and I’m only funded for two trips of 14 days each to Iran to prepare my reports. I’m given two reports per year, 10,700 words . . .

Bea is like a kid in a jungle gym, she leaps from her bed swinging from the bedpost with the kind of buoyancy and infectious joy that one only sees in young children at play. Her energy is contagious, her joie de vivre radiating across the theatre . . .

He has the talent, he has the vision, he has the drive… all he lacks is the paper to draw on. The Rooster Trademark Paper is Iranian director Maryam Milani’s touching children’s film about Amir . . .

IAAB is a youth-led organization of Iranians living in the diaspora, committed to bridging links among young Iranians across the globe though education and leadership programming.

With all due respect to Tunisia, it all started with Iran. No, not with the 1979 revolution as claimed by the Islamic regime’s clumsy PR machine, but with the pro-democracy movement that erupted after the June 2009 Iranian ‘selections.’

There’s a tradition in Iran, it’s related to how we mark, Nowruz, our New Year. Just before the official celebrations start with Chaharshanbe Suri, the fire festival that launches the festivities . . .

She’s fierce on stage, cutting words and razor sharp wit, she dominates. Needless to say I was a bit daunted to meet her. Rappers are cool and spoken word artists don’t mince words, and I was feeling particularly geeky . . .

I walk briskly (under the rain[i]), head down, trying to prevent the icy cold needles from hitting my bare skin (umbrellas should be closed); only a few more blocks to home. Maybe it’s what feels like a long winter (How my inside is alone) . . .

Have you ever had a crush on a voice? My first voice-crush was in my early teens on Leonard Cohen, I could care less that Cohen was old and wrinkly by the time I first discovered him. He could have had a hunch-back with a single bloodshot-eye, all I wanted was his “Hallelujah” lulling me to sleep; his baritone voice made me quiver.

It’s a domestic problem, it happens in our neighbourhoods and streets, a city issue, a national story. Some try to pass it off as a problem imported to Canada, but we all know it’s domestic . . .

History was made on January 26th. Kathleen Wynne was elected as the Liberal party’s leader and became the first female Premier of Ontario, and the first openly lesbian leader in Canada

Documenting doesn’t always come naturally to us; we’re more of a handshake-to-seal-the-deal community. Oftentimes our recent history is told as stories whispered between friends in the wee hours of the night . . .

It’s that time of year; for a brief moment we are self-reflective about what we accomplished in the past 365 days. What did we learn? How did we grow? Who did we impact . . .

When it comes to a debate, wording is everything. How you frame the resolution makes all the difference. The tenth semi-annual Munk Debate, which faced off Pulitzer Prize winner and FOX News contributor Charles Krauthammer . . .

I like strong woman. The ones who look at you straight in the eye, the ones that can make you quiver in your boots with the simple raising of an eyebrow.

“My fist exposure to the festival was walking into Innis Town Hall and seeing a poster for the Diaspora Film Festival on the door. I looked at the lineup . . .

It’s no secret, I don’t like Jian Ghomeshi, never have. I mean, I’m a devoted listener of his award-winning CBC radio show Q, I follow his writing in the Globe, Star . . .

The Women’s Centre of York is hidden in an industrial area in Newmarket, occupied predominantly by factory outlets and company headquarters.

I had met Nazanin Afshin-Jam once before, it was in 2004 at an Iranian community event. She was on stage in a fancy green gown, brandishing a trademark pageant queen smile . . .

In one session of the truth commission hearings we heard from the mother of a 15 year old boy who was executed simply because he had a political pamphlet in his pocket.

“I thought I had misread, I blinked once, but it stared back at me from the page: ‘The next person to be killed is Shirin Ebadi.’ Me.”

“It started as a project in school when I was studying theatre at the University of Toronto,” explains Tara Grammy, a 24-year-old Iranian-Canadian actress, about her one-woman play Mahmoud bound for the Toronto and New York Fringe Festivals this summer.

Sometimes watching a documentary is akin to sitting through a lecture by the morality police. You sign up for two hours of being talked down to, only to leave the theatre feeling guilty and despondent . . .

“It was in the summer of 1994 or ‘۹۵, I used to be better with dates but this situation has made me worse. Anyway, I’m not the romantic one, Hamid is,” chuckles Antonella Mega nervously as she recounts how she met her husband Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, an Iranian-Canadian man on death row in Tehran’s Evin prison.

“Don’t forget to get rid of the Greek passport on the plane before landing in Canada, Just go to the bathroom and tear it into pieces and flush it down,” whispered the smuggler urgently to my mom the night before we left Rome for Toronto.

I have this distinct memory from my youth, gathering around the television in our small Scarborough apartment with my sister and parents, watching the game show Family Feud.

It started on Monday with a call from a photographer friend of mine who has recently moved to Canada from Iran. He was interested in capturing images of Nowruz festivities in Toronto and was asking about events and celebrations to cover.

Well this is embarrassing, it seems we’ve been caught with our pants down when it comes to our electoral system in Canada. In a week when the news about fraudulent elections should be focused on Iran’s March 2nd parliamentary selections the spotlight falls on Canada.

In most countries citizens are alerted to the onset of an upcoming election when local politicians and political parties begin to invest greater energy in showcasing themselves.

Doubletalk is nothing new in politics. We’re used to politicians saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. You can even argue that it’s a part of our political institution.

When it comes to Iran, no news seems to be good news. This month has been no exception with reports spreading about the confirmation of the death sentence of 35 year-old Iranian-Canadian web . . .

It’s mainly a sister act. With the addition of a brother and a few other members lending a hand to create what Melody (AbjeeZooloo) Safavi, the singer/songwriter of the Iranian-Swedish band, Abjeez, calls “Persian World Pop.”

Toronto, Ontario – The Ontario Government started the year with a good news story for some postsecondary students by announcing a new 30% off tuition program on January 5th.

To my relief Maz (Maziar) Jobrani is far from being a typical celebrity – despite being a bona fide star – he’s free of all pretention and talks breezily.

It all started innocuously enough with a one foot nothing fake Xmas three perched in the corner of the dining room of our two bedroom rental apartment in Scarborough.

If you’re the Minister of Finance you boast about your experience in the business sector – how you were able to grow a company or save a failing enterprise from certain demise. As the minister of Environment you talk about . . .

I remember sitting in a large lecture hall crammed with over 300 students on my first day of school at the University of British Columbia. A gruff professor . . .

Following the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) November 9 assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, the Canadian government has declared a new set of sanctions against Iran.

There’s an aesthetic that we’ve learned to associate with Iranian concert promotion. Oversized glossy posters, crowded with texts and heavily airbrushed images of the artist looking twenty years younger than their current age . . .

It’s the age of the geek – the eggheads, the nerds; the pocket-protector crowds have officially taken over, no longer confined to their labs, and imprisoned behind their computer screens. Being a geek is now chic.

It’s a small narrow gallery space nestled in a refurbished brownstone, a typical building for Toronto’s east end.

There’s an old proverb: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This month, the enemy for the protestors of the Occupy Wall Street movement, who gathered in over 1,500 cities globally, were the banks and multinational corporations . . .

Don’t blame the weather – don’t say it was too sunny a day to waste in the voter booth, or that I didn’t want to trek out of my house in the fall rain or through the gusty wind.

There’s a formula in action films deployed to captivate the masses. The shoot ‘em up, action-packed sequence of car chases and explosions is interrupted at the mid-way point. The camera slows down taking a break from the adrenalin packed scene with a romantic interlude.

It was our communities – the 905ers, the ethnic vote – that delivered Toronto to Rob Ford. On the night of his victory the hall was packed with people that looked like you and I. Brown faces and an English tinted with the accent of migration.

The entire auditorium was holding its breath, eyes glued to the screen, hands clenched, our frenzied thoughts of panic kept in check by the rhythmic vibration of our pounding heartbeats – the scene was electrifying in its simplicity.

The film opens with a punishing winter escape of rolling hills, barren trees and a long stretch of winding road, in the distance dark clouds hover forebodingly as the sound of howling wind pierces through the heavy silence.

In our community, organizations are often formed through mitosis, the process by which a cell separates its nucleus into two identical sets. Instead of simply growing through recruitment and expansion . . .

It was hard not to feel jealous growing up next to such a high maintenance sibling; he was the prototypical baby of the family. Always monopolizing my parents’ time and energy. Holidays, family outings, birthdays would all be compromised to accommodate his needs.

The anticipation was mounting – week after week, day after day. It’s always like that with big events, years of expectation, months of planning, weeks of intensive work, days of hurried preparation, until heart in hand we wait for the opening night.

Should music always be easy on the ears? Should it fade into the background like elevator tunes dulling crowd sounds in the shopping mall? Should it lull us into the recesses of our memories recalling nostalgic images of days gone by? Should music be indulgent and pliable?

Sometimes it takes an international festival to turn us on to local talents who have been living and working in our city and neighbourhoods for years.

The thirty people strong contingent of Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees members, supporters and allies dressed in white campaign t-shirts flashing peace signs and shy smiles looked a bit somber against the backdrop of barely dressed revelers in feather boas and sequined speedos at Sunday’s Pride Parade

What do rock legends Led Zeppelin, metal icons Iron Maiden, flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia, German classical music composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and Canadian fingerstyle guitarist Don Ross have in common?

“It was very hard and I did it with a lot of injuries,” explains Nima Kiann the Founder and Artistic Director of Les Ballets Persans, about his foray into the ballet world as an adult.

New York based Iranian jazz and blues vocalist Rana Farhan dubs her music as “A unique fusion of classical Persian poetry with contemporary jazz and blues.”

Their passion is palpable even when their voices are filtered through the phone line. They speak of music and poetry in long drawn out sentences that trail into each other, only pausing when breathless.

When I think arts, I think hipsters lounging about in non-descript cafés on Queen West, lanky emaciated boys in skinny jeans and trendsetter girls in vintage-inspired slouchy shirts synched at the waist.

Growing up it was my favourite legend – the greatest archer in ancient Iran, Arash, is called upon to settle a territorial dispute between the kingdoms of Iran and Turan.

Nowadays, in a Toronto that houses an ever-increasing immigrant population, the museum racket is adapting its marketing strategy to address the changing population. Today’s museums are realising that their displaced objects can also attract displaced peoples.

There was a buzz, people who had never voted before, people who had never even imagined working on a political campaign in support of a party, people who had previously decided to eat their ballots, people who had made voter apathy into a lifestyle, people brandishing tattoos that read . . .

Mine’s in the far back corner of the closet, tucked behind a box containing hardly-used items like a sleeping bag and extra linens for guests, protected by a heavy-duty garment bag – the kind you get when you buy an expensive winter coat from the department store.

For us debates are the Olympics of politics. They separate the real contenders from the herd. So with the enthusiasm of sports-fans watching the playoffs, we readied ourselves for the English language televised debates on Tuesday evening.

The media is penned behind a fence about twenty feet-away, far enough to be eliminated from the carefully constructed made-for-TV shot of the politician presiding over a handpicked crowd of supporters dutifully nodding in agreement to his pre-packaged speech.

Let’s be honest Canadian politics is a bit too vanilla, and not that double churned French Vanilla creamy flavour with specs of real black vanilla beans glinting in the butter-cream, but that pasty refrigerator-white low-fat frozen yogurt kind.

But this time they went too far. In a country plagued by censorship, political oppression, gender persecution, unemployment and youth ennui, national celebrations take on monumental importance.

This was no ordinary International Women’s Day, it was the 100th, but it was so much more than just the centennial anniversary that made this day historic. This International Women’s Day promised to mark the dawn of new revolutionary movements in the Middle East.

Fear is a powerful weapon; like religion it relies on blind faith, the total and absolute belief that despite all reason and logic the improbable, unlikely, or impossible, could happen.

It seemed that for a brief moment historical fissured between Iranians and Arabs were set aside as Iranian youth and Arab youth were united . . .

The five hundred people strong crowd at North York’s Mel Lastman Square was electrified with a sense of urgency with most participants sporting renewed looks of determination and defiance.

“Whenever I pick up a new play, I’m always scared to death because I’m afraid it’s going to be a failure,” admits five time Dora award winner Soheil Parsa.

It’s hard to believe that this small space that barely passes for an office is the headquarters for an organization that has been serving the Iranian community for 25 years.

On Yonge Street, just south of Finch, Pegah Books has held a distinguished place amongst the strip of Iranian-owned stores for over a decade. You don’t have to be a bibliophile to have visited Pegah.

The lure of finding a fellow Iranian in this new place motivated me to trek across the city on a very cold and snowy Friday night in search of a piece of Tehranto in Buffalo. To be frank, not just any exhibit featuring an Iranian artist would have motivated me in this way, but I was fascinated by the glimpse I had received into Soheila Esfahani’s work.

It’s a family business like so many others in Tehranto, the father passing on the torch to his oldest son, teaching him the family trade, and stepping back ever so slowly from the daily tasks to allow for junior to take the reigns.

It seemed like a simple plan, gather a few friends, find a Yalda event, and let the celebrations begin. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Super Shayan on Yonge and Elgin Mills in Richmond Hill is not only a place to buy the staples for an Iranian pantry but it also houses Saraye Bamdad; an unexpected bookstore nestled in the back of the supermarket since June 2004.

Unlike its neighbours, B.B.’s Café doesn’t capture customers with a shout, but with a whisper. The café is a stylishly decorated storefront, with walls adorned by a chocolate brown floral wallpaper that envelope the space, tastefully arranged . . .

Vida gently rolls a small ball of dough on the prep table in the cavernous kitchen behind Shirini Sara’s pastry shop. Although it’s a cold and rainy November morning, the patisserie, which is tucked away in a remote plaza on Leslie, is warm with the smell of baked goods . . .

We are a twenty-four hour Farsi language radio station that has been operating since 1997. To this day, we are the only radio station that specializes in news, events, as well as the artistic and cultural activities . . .

Iran Zameen went on air in 1993 as a weekly Farsi language television program, currently it airs on OMNI 2 TV. It’s a thirty-minute program that reaches an Ontario based audience. Iran Zameen deals with local news and entertainment, medical news,and historical events . . .

Our show is a social and cultural program that showcases the activities of the Iranian community in Toronto. We are focused on local coverage, which includes featuring cultural activists within the community.