Differents Narratives of Same Facts

There was a party for Norouz celebration in HKS. Norouz is the first day of new Persian year that is exactly the first day of spring. It s crazy that some people start new year in the middle of winter. One of my friends who studies about Afghanistan was at the party. She is a smart cute french girl. We are doing a program to exchange Persian/English. She had gone to North Korea. No I am not kidding she went to North Korea. I was really curious about North Korea. “is it true what the media always say about North Korea?” I asked. You should know I do not have confidence in the media. She said that those things are all real. She told us so many things about her experiences that prove the things everyone may have heard about that part of word. I don't want to retell all of them for you but one part of her experience was sobering. Do not hurry! I am going to explain. I asked her if she talked with people. “we could not because some officer followed us and we could not to go every where freely.” she said. I said that talking with government guys also could be interesting. It shows how they think and how the official view works. “you know they have been brainwashed. they all were telling some things that were disconnected from the real word.” she said. I asked what was their narrative? “for example, there was some issue between North and South  but in the North they have a completely different narrative. You know they have been brainwashed.” I said ya! Every one who goes to another country could see things that native guys can not see. She looked at me as if i had said somethings weird. May be she wanted to say: Are you crazy? Those things just happened in North Korea.

Having different narration of same fact, is both sobering and some time could show that one side is being manipulated. Let s review some facts about Iran and USA issues. Do you know which is the only country that has used Nuclear weapons against civil people in history? Do you know that US helps financially those countries that have Nuclear weapons in middle east ? Do you know that iranians never, ever do Suicide operations? Do you know that about 60 years ago we, Iranians had a democratic movement and were close to a democratic regime but the CIA did a coup against that government in benefit of the former dictator of iran? Do you that know during the war between Iran and Irak USA knew and helped Irak to use chemical weapons against Iran? Do you know that the US military ship in Persian gulf shot directly  a Passenger aircraft that carried iranian tourists to Dubai? Do you know Iran helped seriously USA to attack the Taliban? Do you know that iran is the country that wages a real war against Salafi extremist in the Middle East? (see chapter 19 of this book) Do you know that one of close allies of USA in the Middle East is the most important supporter of Salafi extremist groups (means Saudi arabia?) Do you know in the last century Iran has never started a war with any country but in last decade USA attacked several countries?

What is your narrative about those facts? Do you still think that brainwashing could not happen in the USA?

Complex arguments for simple stupid things

One of the things that is strange to me in US is how much people here try to justify the actual situation instead of trying to change it. Some time they have excellent creativity to provide complex arguments for simple stupid things. But the problem is that after a while they themselves believe their own rhetoric.

One of the stupid things is how they calculate salary of waiters. In US restaurant owners do not pay completely their employers’ salary for those who work as waiter. And every client is obliged to pay them separately as part of their own bill. Americans name this part of the bill, “tips” but this is not really a tip. Tip is “a gift of money, over and above payment due for service; something given without claim or demand.” The funny part of this story is to know how they justify this stupid custom.

The first argument that they use, is that this system of payment forces the waiter to be nicer to the clients in order to get larger tips. But I see some scientific studies that show there is no meaningful relation between the amount of tip that they gained as part of their salary and their behavior. On the other hand the studies show that amount of tips depends on the general services of any restaurant and in that process waiters are small role. why do we link the salary of waiters to a process that he or she has no control over? and also why don't we calculate part of the chef’s work or restaurant owner’s equity in tips? It means that if we want to stay coherent in this argument, all services should be included in the tip system except for the unprepared food.

The second argument is that tips help the people that have small salaries such as waiter. Really? the minimum wage in US is about 8 dollar per hour but do you know that minimum wage for waiters is 3.5 dollar? Do you know why? Because restaurant owners say that the reason tips are part of the salary, means it decreases the fixed part of salary. Even the government taxes tips! This means that the tip system just helps the restaurant owner to have cheap workers.

Tip systems have other benefits for restaurant owners that is misleading to the client. Unconsciously even if you are accustomed with this stupid tipping system when you estimate the price of the meal, you forget that the tip could raise the price by factor 20 percent.

The problem is that we can not do any thing individually against this system. If we don't pay the tip we punish the waiter. If we pay the tip we perpetuate the system that uses waiters as cheap workers.

Déraciner

“Déraciner” is one of the words the French used for immigrant. It refers to a person who is uprooted from his original place. One of the phrases that we use to damn in Persian is ”در به در بشی” “dar be dar”,it means someone whowas forced to leave her place, her city and her house. Am I dammed?

I left my country 4 years ago by [...]. Why? I was a member of the electoral campaign for the reformist candidate in Iran in 2009. The regime was cheating in the election to keep “Ahmadi Nejad” in power. All we did was trying to demonstrate. I was arrested just one week after the election. I was in prison for 75 days of which two months was an isolated cell. I realized afterwards my father had bailed me out. I realized this was a temporary situation, so after a while I left Iran by foot and went to [...]. i asked some embassies of different countries and the UN to help me. I came to France because they helped me the quickest. I came to France without knowing any word of French, i did not event know how to say “bonjour”. I don't want to tell my history about how I left or how I managed a new life form nothing in another country; may be in the future!

I love new experiences and France was full of new things: new people, new culture, new language, new tradition, new geography. Learning new things and meeting new people was exiting but after while i realized the other side of excitement is my need to feel safe and calm. to feel safe i need the things that i know, i need some tradition which are memorable, I need old friends, i need to play with rules that i know.

You could imagine that easiest part of socializing is saying “Hello” and greeting someone. But I should to tell you even this simple part of social life became something that you need to think and learn about if you are not in your home country. When do you shake hands? When should you kiss cheek and how? Is it necessary to have hug? Those things happened in your country automatically. Of course I could learn those simple things, but you know it does not come automatically. In summary, every simple part of social life could require energy when you are out of your country.

But the only place that I knew was Iran, the only language that I knew how to express my complex feelings in was Persian, the only tradition that i really know every thing about was the Iranian tradition, the only culture that I could ever fully understand that was Persian Culture.

You don't feel like you belong when you don't feel safe and calm, and you don't feel safe and calm if you don't know the situation surrounding you. If your need to “belong” is satisfied then you don't realized how important it is.

It has been just 6 weeks since I moved to Boston (US);there are so many things to discover as well. this is a very exciting situation for me. this time, Iran is not the only place that I know. Now two country seem familiar to me, Iran and France. now I have better feeling for France, now i feel like i miss France and i like that. Does this means I could have the feeling of belonging to another land other than Iran?

Don’t forget their argument

A method I use to improve my English is listening to podcasts. Everyday I listen to podcasts on different subjects: politics, love and history. One of the podcasts that I have listened to is called “Making the Nation.” This series describes several important national events in the US. Some of the episodes that I listened to were about the Civil War in the US. As you know, for a long time Americans kidnapped many people from Africa and brought them to the US as very cheap workers without any citizenship rights. Slaves had to work hard and for that work they received shelter to sleep in and some food to survive. Even after the US Congress finally recognized that those people were human and that just because they were black didn't mean that they should be used as tools the southern part of the country didn't accept. Why? The southerners believed that without those cheap workers their businesses would go bust. They were right. After slavery was abolished, their businesses went bust. Don’t forget their argument: we don't agree with abolishing slavery because our businesses need cheap workers.

To improve my English several people recommended that I read in English text regularly. The first article that I read was in The New York Times because this newspaper is available on my kindle for one free month. That was some weeks ago but that report still remains in my mind. That report was about negotiations between illegal immigrant and republican congressman. Illegal immigrants are 12 million people that live in US without any document. this means they came to US like all the other Americans who arrived without getting visaes from Native Americans. it s necessary to remind you that millions of them were born in US and the majority of hard work is done by these kinds of cheap official undocumented workers. These guys have to work hard jobs without getting the minimum wage. Also, they can't go to the police to sue their master or other person because they are undocumented. On the other hand, millions of human beings in the US have to work too hard to have a shelter to sleep, some food to survive without having any rights. Could we say that US business are replacing black workers with cheap brown workers?

everyone recommends that you learn another language by talking with native speaker. fortunately I could find someone who is interested in learning Persian in return for teaching me English. usually we divide every meeting in two part. one part we talk in English the other part talk in Persian. Usually our subject is political issue. Just after Obama's State of the Union speech, I had a meeting with an African American guy. The part of Obama speech that was about Iran did not have any new points, but some point that he said about equality in opportunity for all or increase in the minimum wage was interesting for me. I asked this African-american guy what he thinks about the minimum wage that Obama mentioned. He said those phrases are beautiful but are not practical. "However, now, so many workers work for 5 dollar or less; they have to work too hard just to have a shelter to sleep or food to survive. Do you know what it does means?" i asked. he said, “you know this is not good but you should not forget that if we increase the minimum wage many of our businesses would go bust. I replied that the problem is that I dont forget this argument but do you remember origin of this argument?

Privacy

This is my first journal in English. Ok! What should I write about? The different levels of privacy in every language! What does this mean? I am going to explain. My maternal language is Persian, in last two years i was learning French, and now I am learning English. Then I learned that comparing those languages is interesting. I don't want to delve into linguistics; instead, I think the differences are tangible. Pay attention to this example: if we want to say something about our friend or introduce him in French you have to choose between “une amie”, “un ami” or “mon amie”. If you choose any of those expressions anybody would understand the gender of your friend. “une amie” it is mean that friend whom you talk about is a girl or if you saying “un ami” that friend is a boy.

But in Persian or English if you say “friend” or “doost”( friend in Persian) you didn't mention the gender. As a Persian speaker I don't understand why that when I speak in French this language forces me to give this extra Information. Moreover, this is not all of the history. Let’s return to our example. For saying some things about your friend in french we also have to choose between “un(e) ami(e)” and “mon ami(e)”. In French mentioning your friend with possessive adjectives means that the relationship is kind of girl/boy friend. I remember one of my french professors asked me “how many girlfriends do you have?”. I was surprised and said “actually none”. “why you introduce your friend with mon ami?” she asked me. In Persian or English when we introduce our friend with possessive adjective it does not mean she is our girl/boyfriend. Maybe for the French the extra information doesn’t matter, but for me as Persian speaker I feel that the French language does not respect my privacy and forces me to expose some extra information that isn't necessary and more importantly I have no choice. Also I feel that English is more respectful to my privacy. For example if I say “I did my homework with my friend” does not reveal whether that friend is female or male nor the kind of relationship we have.

diffusion de la haine

Je suis en train de regarder une série télévisée qui s'appelle Homeland. C'est une série américaine qui raconte l'histoire qui se passe à CIA. Ça m'intéresse malgré tout les clichés utilisés. J'aime son scénario et sa caractéris

ation aussi. Je ne veux pas critiquer cette série, mais je veux partager une inquiétude. Dans toutes les séries, le prénom arabe comme l'origine de mon prénom Hamzé, est le signe d'un terroriste. Les symboles musulmans sont des choses qui nous donnent la peur. Le mot "Salamon Alaykom" qu'on utilise tous les jours comme "bonjour" est le mot secret des terroristes. Les visages des terroristes appartiennent à la même race !

Dans cette série j'ai de l'empathie pour la CIA, et ça montre que dans un événement les innocents peuvent être tués involontairement, et qu'abattre l'ennemie sans tribunal est parfois nécessaire pour la sécurité.

Vendredi dernier, à la fête de Noël en IIEF, au milieu de la fête tout d'un coup j'attends derrière moi quelqu'un dire "Salamon alaykom" et ça m'a fait peur. J'ai eu peur moi-même de ce que je dis tous les jours. J'ai eu peur de mot "bonjour" simplement à cause de la série que je suis en train de regarder.

Ça me gêne et je pense à l'image qui a été construite de nous. Imagnez, moi j'avais peur du mot que j'utilise toujours moi-même, alors les autres seront comment ? Cela n'est pas la diffusion de la haine ? Ce n'est pas la même chose qui se passait pour les Juifs avant l'Holocauste en Europe ?

sur Noel? (1)

ma premiere fête de Noel en France m'est étrange. pourquoi? je vais expliquer. le nouvel an en Iran est le premier jour de printemps et nos compatriotes chrétiens sont en minorité donc On ne fête pas Noel en Iran. 
( Pour moi Noel n existait que dans les dessins animés comme Scrooge que l'on voyait pendant la période de Noel Mais dans la ville ou la vie quotidienne Noel n'existait pas. c est pour cela que lors de mon premier Noel à Paris, la ville est les gens sont soudainement devenus irréels, la ville est devenue comme un dessin animé fantésie que je regardais. c était un fantasme cependant ça aurait pu amusant, mais au contraire ça me faisait mal car je suis venu en en exile je cherchais une nouvelle réalle vie. une chose réalLE c’était le soir de thaksgiving oú j' ai été invité chez Blaine, un camarade des cours de français niveau A1, et encore une fois je n avais aucune idée de ce qu'est le thanksgiving!

lien de l'animation Scrooge McDuck avec doublage persan:
http://facedl.com/fvideo.php?f=eikwqxekeqnxw&-