Yes Mr. Mario! You writers are the ones who encourage sedition. You are the ones who reproduce sedition with your dark books and blasphemous pens. Reading these books one begins comparing the existing situation with that of the fiction and becomes encouraged to do something.

For some time now, Bahrain has been witness to the uprising of the people of this country against the Al Khalifa dynasty and the violent crackdown on this movement. What is interesting here is the level of intervention by Iran in Bahrain. This interference reached a point that Hossein Shariatmadari, the license holder of Kayhan newspaper and close ally of the Supreme Leader in Iran, asked for the direct military intervention of Iran in Bahrain.

“The way I used the term does not refer to criticism of American or European policies, or even cultures. ‘Occidentalism’ is a violent fantasy that imagines the West to be so wicked that it must be destroyed. This is a symbolic West, of course, a demonic image associated with sin, greed, corruption, sexual depravity, etcetera. It is a form of dehumanization, because it holds that Westerners have no souls, just base appetites.”

“I think the onus for self-criticism is mostly for those outside of the country who spent much of the fall and winter of 1388 (especially around Ashura) presenting a triumphalist message that the Greens were going to out-maneuver the state. Not only did these pundits over-estimate the organizational breadth and coherence of the Green Movement, but they downplayed the agency of the regime.”

I don’t want to stick to clichés, but I like my country because I have grown up here. All the mountains, polluted rivers, ancient places that have been destroyed by now, draw me like a magnet. If I was born somewhere else, I would feel the same about that place. But I don’t want to feel defeated. I don’t want to admit that I am giving this land away to the people who have no interest in it and are fantasizing about the day it is ruined. We should stay and resist and call back all Javads, Nasims, and Farhads, and try to put things back to where they should be.

We should of course not forget that the main culprit in all of this is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which forces people like Kambiz to flee their dictatorial regime. But once these people are here, we should show them that we are democrats and not barbarians. We should not let them live like drifters for eleven years and let them end up in flames on a sunny day in the city centre of Amsterdam.

Every sentence in Brown Skin White Masks is an indictment of one of the greatest injustices of our times – the dehumanization and humiliation of Muslims and Arabs in order to justify imperialist wars waged by the US and its allies.

The most important thing the Green Movement is in need of is an efficient intellectual resource that analyzes the situation and provides several solutions for the problems. This is more necessary now that the movement leaders are captivated. The movement is now facing a dilemma and its future depends on the days that lie ahead. It is now in a difficult phase and much consciousness is required.

Injustice is the only thing that makes sense to the Iranian regime. It is the only thing with which they can satisfy their sick brain; it is the only thing that makes them feel powerful and alive when they are looking in the mirror. And when they do so, they can only see their own image and not that of people suffocating in the great prison that Iran has become.

The death of the reformist era in Iran is giving birth to a new revolutionary consciousness, a mindset that benefits fundamentally from the reformist era’s emphasis on the civil rights that play such an important emancipatory function in the United States. There cannot be a return to the original reformist attitude any longer.

We are children of the virtual area, after all we move behind the boundaries set, and we make everyone hear our voice loud and clear. Our manifesto, declaration, and koktel-molotov are Facebook and Twitter. This generation cannot be defeated.

These days, I can truthfully use the word ‘stress’ to describe my state of mind. Let me inhale deeply, then breathe out calmly and tell you why: I am stressed about the 25th of Bahman, the day on which a protest march will be held in Tehran in solidarity with the people of Egypt.

If there is one sensible comparison that can be made, it is between the protesters in Egypt today and the Iranian Green Movement of 2009 – in their democratic motives, peaceful procedure and inventive use of social media.

It is my hope that Western Iranians will try hard to understand their fellows in Iran, but also that Iranians in Iran and the many who are coming to the West today try hard to understand their Western friends, in particular the multiplicity of their identities.

What is a revolution about? What caused the Tunisian revolution? Why is this spirit contagious? Why is it instilling fear in the hearts of the dictators in the region? Do we (the non-Tunisians, non-Egyptians) have a duty to care about what’s happening in those countries?

The main goal of the absurd accusations of the Iranian regime is to stop Iranians in Europe from getting involved in the democratization of their country.

It has been a long time that I don’t like Tehran anymore. Sometimes I feel tempted to go to one of those villages around Tehran where there is even no gas for heating, and start my life there. Maybe I ask someone to make a korsi for me and I get a stack of firewood in the yard, and during long autumns and winters I sit under the korsi.

Of course, we have to be outraged and keep talking about the cruelty of the Iranian regime. But as a writer with a passion for Iran, I want to share with my readers my belief that there is always room for optimism, which is exactly what can help people in Iran who are daily struggling for their future. Why always put so much emphasis on only the bad things that are happening?

Kiosk, Abjeez, Mohsen Namjoo and the complete soundtrack of ‘No one knows about Persian cats’ are the musical future of Iran that we can already discover today. This is the music of a green Iran, this is the music of a generation that is saying salam to the entire world and embraces the entire world in their music, without denying – contrary to the Iranian LA musical kitsch – their Persian origins.

Standing on the mountaintop and looking around gives you such a great feeling of power: it seems as if after having done this, everything else is easy for you. From up above, Tehran is a small matchbox that you can hold with your two fingers and shake out of it whatever you hate and is persecuting you.