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TRUE STORIES TOLD BY SOME OF THE BAY’S BEST WRITERS!

WELCOME TO HOLI-DAZE!

DECEMBER 14 AT MATTER.

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Oh hi.

In lieu of everything I’m scared of — nuclear war, the internet, so many men, conservatives, my ever-wrinkling knees and face, my parents’ sadness, never being close to my brother’s son, dying alone, anyone who doesn’t cry once a week due to general existential malaise . . .

I am trying instead to be excited. I have been talking about being a “country mouse” for a year . . . years longer in my mind. I lived in Brooklyn for five years and now Oakland for four — my life has been a lot of cement, squalor, screaming tire wheels, exhaust, roommates, the urine-y wafts of public transportation, and the general compulsion to do something every night because there’s always something fun to do.

City life is invigorating, smelly, intense, noisy — a bus-stop lives outside my door and the squealing air breaks are busy squealing as I type this — and I’d like for a little while to simply not be
. . . intense.

I’ve rented a house in Guerneville — it’s about an hour and a half away by the Russian River; it’s an incredible community, a mashup of gay bears, hunters and pseudo military folk, and crunchy yuppies who alternate their time between the redwoods and wine country.

It’s a little red house sitting quietly in a shadowy grove of trees. I haven’t been there yet; I’ve just poured through the photographs about 100 times squinting my eyes at all the rooms that looks like someone’s Gran decorated.

But within those four walls I’m hunting too. Solitude. A resting heart rate. I’d like to drink less and sleep more. I’m going to try and finish a play I’ve been working on for years. I’ll bring my guitar, and my art supplies, and my giant Norton Anthology of Poetry which I haven’t poured through since grad school ten years ago.

These things are literally dusty.

There is so much that’s been lost in the hustle, in what I call City Life, but perhaps what has been lost is my own ability to create space.

And so, off I go today to Country Life — to air, to space — back to my own mind. This section of Walt Whitman’s poem felt prescient to me today as I finish packing …

“The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here — that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

Without space, there is no time to contribute anything. I hope you have space. In your mind. In your room. At your desk. In your heart. I hope that you let yourself breath once in a while — in and out, in and out — and know that this is enough, at least for a moment.

With love + rage,
Katie Tandy
Co-founder | Creative Director

Due Process Is Needed For Sexual Harassment Accusations — But For Whom?

By Ijeoma Oluo

I ended the call with USA Today and just sat frozen in my chair for a few minutes. Did this really just happen? Was I seriously just asked by the third largest paper in the nation to write their “feminazi” narrative to counter their “reasoned and compassionate” editorial?

Was I just asked to be one of the excuses for why this whole “me too” moment needed to be shut down? Was I just asked to be their strawman?

‘I Thought I Was Lazy’: The Invisible Day-To-Day Struggle For Autistic Women

By Reese Piper

New research is shedding more light on how EF affects autistic people, especially those socialized as girls. It’s presumed that autistic girls adapt better in life since many display stronger social skills. But a five-year study published this year in Autism Research unveiled a different layer — autistic girls are struggling in their ability to function in daily life, perhaps even more than their male counterparts.

“Our results indicate relative weaknesses for females compared to males diagnosed with ASD on executive function and daily living skills,” the report noted.

In other words, autistic girls might seem better at communicating, but that’s not bleeding into their ability to function at home.

How White Journalists Keep Getting Punked By Nazis

By Katherine Cross

It’s a fact that some Nazis have good manners and like binge-watching Netflix or eating with chopsticks. The problem is that the media lingers on those facts with an almost pornographic languidness, until they overwhelm every other fact about the person in a story that’s already too personal to begin with.

White nationalism and its related forms of right-wing radicalization are a social, structural problem, wired into systems so vast that any narrow focus on one man, by definition, misses what’s most important.

So why the fixation? We can only be blunt here: white, middle class journalists appear to be at once frightened and fascinated by the apparent niceness of some Nazis and white nationalists.

For Many Freelance Writers, Food Stamps Are The Only Way To Get By

By Emily Zak

Erica Langston went on food stamps after finishing a yearlong teaching fellowship in spring 2014. Twenty hours a week working at a ranch — and 15 hours writing — couldn’t pay the bills for the full-time grad student. Langston, a freelance journalist who was previously a fellow at Audubon and Mother Jones, says she couldn’t have focused on writing without government assistance.

“That upsets a lot of people,” she tells me. “The ability for me to step back and say, ‘I’m going to focus on writing. I’m going to continue to pursue writing.’ I don’t know that I would have been able to do that without food stamps.”

Save Your Apologies: Here’s What Women Need From Men Right Now

By Julie DiCaro

Women are the keepers of the misdeeds.

It’s the women, not the men, who catalog and remember which men to avoid, which men to run from, which men never, ever to be alone with. If you want to know if a Hollywood actor, pro athlete, or politician has a history of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, or harassment, ask a woman. We are the archivists of the wrongs.

Women don’t need your insipid apologies, faux shock, and awe at things you’ve known about for years, or explanations that you understand so much better now because you have a daughter. If you, man who has been a creep in the past or has stood by and laughed while his friends were creeps, really want to help change the world, here’s what we need from you…

Ho-Ho-Ho HO-LY SHIT

WHAT A COOL T-SHIRT!

Jannat says her life was in danger.

If the authorities in Iran were to have found out she’s a lesbian, she could’ve been killed.

Meanwhile, her father kept pressing her to get married. Every day it was, “Jannat, you’re so beautiful with your long, dark hair and fair skin. Why don’t you marry this man?” or “Jannat, how about your brother’s friend?”

She couldn’t take it. She was 25, done with her BA in Statistics from Shiraz University, done with the rigor of trying not to be gay, with the seemingly interminable cycle of dating and sleeping with men, cringing at their breath on her neck, their hands traveling blandly up the inside of her thighs, their too-eager dicks.

She had to leave.

So Jannat moved to Turkey.

Ankara, to be precise — where the culture was a bit more tolerant insofar as her gender was concerned; she wasn’t required to wear a hijab in public; she could drink if she wanted; she could flirt openly.

But she was still afraid.

“Oh, there were gay people in Ankara. It’s more progressive.” Jannat says. “But it’s not hard to be more progressive than Iran.”

Still, she explains, she didn’t feel entirely safe. It was too close to Iran, to the threat of her family, the potentiality of corporal punishment or imprisonment for her sexuality — or worse.

Plus, there was political unrest everywhere; the city was perpetually on the brink of collapsing into violent civic unrest. It was 2012 — two years before President Erdoğan was elected, a man notorious for his intolerance of dissent in any manifestation.

“So I had to leave that country too,” Jannat says. “And I had to go far.”

She set about making an appointment to apply for “refugee status” in a new foreign country at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ankara. The authorities there were happy to assist her, so long as she could prove to them she was in danger.

“That was simple,” Jannat says. “I just showed them that I was born in Iran and explained that I could never return because I am a lesbian and my father might kill me.”

Jannat was placed on a waitlist and told to standby in Ankara.

Eventually, her “refugee status” (which — for a primer on the fly — is different from “asylum status,” which would have simply given Jannat permission to stay in Turkey temporarily) was granted because she met at least one of five “grounds for persecution” standards in her home country of Iran:

• Race
• Religion
• Nationality
• “Membership in a particular social group”
• Political affiliation

It’s not terribly difficult to guess which of the criterium above Jannat fell under.

Ilona Bray, J.D., author of U.S. Immigration Made Easy, writes regularly for NOLO.org on the five “persecution standards.” On the “membership in a particular social group” category in particular she writes:

Bray goes on to provide examples of these aforementioned “particular social groups”:

• Ethnic tribes or factions
• Social classes (such as what Bray refers to as “the educated elite”)
• Family members of political/religious dissidents
• Occupational groups
• Homosexuals
• Members or former members of the police or military (who may be targeted for assassination)

“And, in some cases,” Bray writes, “women.”

As in, sometimes, women are granted “refugee status” to other countries just . . . for being women.

As far as Jannat was concerned, though her gender was indeed a problem (for her) in Iran — again she was required to wear a hijab at all times in public, she could not go out alone or with a man, though she was allowed to go to university (in fact, 60% of women attending higher education Iranian institutions are women these days) — her sexual orientation was the major concern.

“But you can’t trust what those Iranian laws claim,” Jannat warns. “Women have been stoned to death for being lesbians. Gay men are always being hanged.”

Not only is lesbianism intensely stigmatized in Iran, but all homosexual acts are considered illegal under Sharia law. The punishment for lesbian sexual acts, which are called “Musaheqeh,” are as follows according to the Islamic Republic of Iran:

Article 239 — The hadd punishment for musaheqeh shall be one hundred lashes.

Article 240 — Regarding the hadd punishment for musaheqeh, there is no difference between the active or passive parties or between Muslims and non-Muslims, or between a person that meets the conditions for ihsan and a person who does not, and also whether or not [the offender] has resorted to coercion.

Jannat’s decision to move as far away as possible from the threat of such retribution was finally realized when she was granted “refugee status” to America in April, 2013.

The weather was windy and grey when Jannat arrived in New York City on December 3, 2013. Her Nationalities Service Center caseworker picked her up and drove her three hours to her new home: Philadelphia.

Jannat’s English was shaky at best. “And after I arrived, no one really told me what to do,” she said. “I made an appointment with the agency about work. My caseworker suggested that I work in an Arabic halal market, which offended me. I’m not Arabic, but my caseworker didn’t care. After she ‘found’ me that one job, she told me I was on my own.”

This experience set a sort of precedent for Jannat. After that, she found herself constantly being reduced to her “Middle Eastern-ness.”

For instance, when she did land a position as a hostess at a national chain restaurant outside of Philadelphia, her boss asked after a month if she’d prefer to work in the kitchen because there were “other Middle Eastern foreigners there.”

“I’m kind of used to it,” Jannat explains. “But it’s really getting worse. People are more rude to me than ever about being Muslim that I don’t dare tell them I’m also a lesbian.”

This uptick in racism, Jannat wagers, can be solely explained by Donald Trump’s vitriolic position on immigration. And his unabashed bigotry has provided ample opportunity for renewed pro-nationalist fanaticism to “go mainstream.”

From micro-aggressions foisted upon her in public (Jannat is asked at least once a month by strangers why she’s not wearing a hijab or burqa), to outright maltreatment by strangers on the street or in stores (“I’ve been told to go back to the Middle East many times,” she says), Jannat sometimes wonders if she made a bad decision in moving to America.

“Even though I know this is the best place for me to be,” she says. “I just had to learn the hard way that this is the reality of democratic societies where people can speak their opinions. I thought America would be heavenly.” She laughs. “My expectations needed adjustment.”

Furthermore, as a lesbian, Jannat says she has encountered double the prejudice. She has been accused of not only bringing her “extreme Islamic lifestyle” to the U.S. by uninformed, bigoted individuals, but for additionally importing her “alternative lifestyle” to boot.

These ill-informed people have no idea how much of an impossibility it would be for Jannat to live openly as both Muslim and gay back in Iran. “They think my country is ‘extreme’?” she says. “Well, my ‘extreme country’ thinks that being homosexual isn’t just ‘extreme,’ it’s something worthy of torture and death.”

At times, Jannat has found herself afraid to hold her partner’s hand in public for fear of public outrage obstructing her progress toward citizenship, even though the U.S. has — for more than two decades — recognized persecution due to sexual orientation as grounds for refugee status.

Interestingly enough, it seems that she is not alone in her fear — the number of self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender refugees entering the U.S. remains much smaller than predicted given that the prevalence of same-sex orientation is estimated to be about 3.8% of the population worldwide.

For example, in 2011, 81,372 refugees and asylum seekers entered the U.S., of whom 3,000 may eventually identify as LGBT, reported the Forced Migration Review that same year. This is because very few LGBT refugees disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity to resettlement agencies, other than the limited few granted refugee status based on the fact they are “members in a particular social group.”

“I do believe I belong here in America,” Jannat says. “I do think I should be a citizen someday. It comforts me to see so many different people in the big cities and even in the little ones.”

But she fears President Trump. “I may never be able to return to Iran because I’m afraid I won’t be allowed back to the U.S.”

And should that one day be the case, Jannat would find her own life back in danger all over again. “If I wanted to survive in Iran,” she says, stopping to think a moment before frowning and shrugging, “I guess I’d probably just have to marry a man.”

If, that is, she wanted to survive.

Credit: Penguin House

By Bridey Heing

The past few years have signaled many changes for Iran. Following the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as President, Iran quickly swerved away from the bombastic rhetoric that had been the norm under his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The change presented a country ready to engage constructively with the rest of the world.

During Rouhani’s three years in office, a landmark nuclear deal was reached that ended a longstanding, seemingly intractable international crisis. Iran has found itself a seat on the international table for discussions on the Syrian civil war; a conversation they had previously been locked out of despite their influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s role in the conflict. Domestically, Rouhani ran on a campaign that promised the same moderation in Iranian affairs, and spoke in favor of greater economic opportunity for women, as well as making overtures to Iran’s non-Shiite Muslim minorities. In some ways, it seems as if Iran became a new country almost overnight.

But for lawyer and human rights advocate Dr. Shirin Ebadi, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

“The situation of human rights has not changed after Rouhani,” Dr. Ebadi shared with The Establishment via email.

“Iran has continued its intervention in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. As for internal affairs, no significant changes have happened. The main reason for this is the law, [which] gives absolute power to the Supreme Leader. He decides [on] major issues.”

In her just-released memoir, Until We Are Free, Dr. Ebadi details her final years in Iran and her exile following the contested 2009 presidential election. That election was a watershed for Iran: A transparently fraudulent election secured Ahmadinejad’s second term despite widespread support for reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, and when massive protests swept the country’s major cities, a violent crackdown followed. The protests predated the Arab Spring, which could be argued to have made enough of an impression on the Iranian leadership that when the next election came in 2013, the popular vote was respected.

Dr. Ebadi, however, was not in Iran for either election. Having remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution, following which her judgeship was revoked by the authorities, Dr. Ebadi was out of the country on the day of the 2009 election. When Ahmadinejad was announced as the winner and the crackdown on dissidents began, it was immediately clear to Dr. Ebadi that she could not return safely, forcing her into exile overnight. But her relocation did not stop the country’s intelligence agents from attempting to get to her.

“In 2009 they attacked my office and closed my NGO,” Dr. Ebadi says. “They arrested my colleagues and put them in jail. They confiscated all my assets. They arrested my husband and my sister. I understood that I can no longer work in Iran and my work would be more useful outside Iran.”

Dr. Ebadi may not seem an obvious target for the intense scrutiny and harassment detailed in her book. She was raised in the Western province of Hamadan by loving parents, who very early on instilled in her a respect for diversity and belief in her own equality.

“They respected gender equality and treated me the same as my brother,” Dr. Ebadi says of her childhood.

When the Revolution came in late 1978, which Dr. Ebadi acknowledges she initially supported along with many others hoping for a democratic future. Until it became clear that the Islamic Republic was not what the crowds had fought for.

“We had more freedom before the Revolution, but people were not happy,” Dr. Ebadi says. “Our situation became worse after the Revolution . . . Many discriminatory laws came into force against women.”

She was a judge in the final years of the Shah’s rule, and upon learning she would be allowed to continue serving under the Islamic Republic due to her gender, she became an advocate for human rights and the country’s most vulnerable citizens, including religious minorities and children. Her reports on the human rights abuses in Iran, including the execution of children and political opposition, became a key tool for international organizations and the United Nations seeking to understand the situation on the ground. In 2003, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the honor.

Although allowed to work, Dr. Ebadi was routinely targeted by the government. She was arrested and held in solitary confinement, denied permits, had her offices shut down and confiscated, and was called in for regular interrogation with intelligence agents. She knew what it was they wanted from her. But their demand, both spoken and unspoken, was one she refused to comply with: her silence.

Until We Are Free offers a unique window into the machinations of the Iranian government as viewed from someone they see as an enemy. The tension and sense of obsession is palpable as Dr. Ebadi discusses the ways in which they spied on her, attempted to intimidate her, and targeted those closest to her in bids to manipulate her. They interfered with her daughters’ passports, threatened people who worked with her, and allowed mobs to deface her home. Here, Iran’s concern with their international reputation is clear: Dr. Ebadi’s reports and interviews highlight the many issues still faced by everyday citizens of Iran. But rather than address the problems she raises, the powers that be have instead attempted time and again to silence her. All in the name of national security.

Despite now working from an office in London, Dr. Ebadi has not given up hope that she can make a difference in the lives of her fellow Iranians. As her book makes clear, Iran is not a monolith; it is a country that was once already ahead of the many regional countries in areas like women’s education, literacy, and political engagement. In order to capitalize on the remarkable potential Iran has, however, the government must get out of their way.

“Iran is a beautiful country with great people and ancient history,” Dr. Ebadi says. “The people of Iran love their country — they want peace, freedom, and democracy.”

***

Lead image: Nobel Peace Summit

I f you ask an Iranian, “How were the Festival of Fires of your childhood?” they may answer you, “I loved it. I loved to play with the fire, to jump over it, to measure myself against the other children — who could jump higher and longer. I loved to stay awake all night long.”

Many years ago, when I was just a little boy, all we had was fire — firecrackers were a rarity. But one day my friend gave me just one firecracker, and I ran through the streets of our neighborhood — proud and full of anticipation — searching for a suitable place to set it off. As was custom, people were sleeping in the afternoon to become fresh for the rest of the working day.

A side street close to my home seemed to be the right place. I ignited the firecracker and threw it against a house wall. The bang was enormous; I imagine Tehran had only heard such a bang in times of war.

I was shocked and delighted, but when I looked around, I noticed that everywhere people were standing still and looking at me. I grew frightened, believing people might hit me in anger over disturbing their siesta. As fast as I could, I ran back home.

But the bang was so beautiful, I could never forget it.

Today Tehran is a blur of bangs. It doesn’t allow for any siestas; its streets wake the sleepers from their dreams. Thanks to the influx of Chinese imports, firecrackers are available in every imaginable variety.

Parents look on with growing worry, and there are serious burns every year, despite warnings on television. But on the Night of Fire, no child can be kept at home, and no adults can resist the spectacle.

On the Night of Fire, Tehran is a living, breathing explosion — colors paint the sky, and everything that otherwise has no release valve goes off; young people in the streets dance to Persian rhythms, the whole neighborhood gathers together, and everybody with legs jumps over the fires. The fires are everywhere.

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On the Night of Fire in Tehran, everything that otherwise has no release valve goes off.
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Jumping over fires has a long tradition in Iran, going back at least 3,000 years. The fire has a purifying effect. With the jump, all sicknesses and problems are offered to the fire. People sing, zardi-ye man az toh, sorkhi-ye toh az ma, which means, the yellowish is yours and the reddish is mine. The yellow color symbolizes all the bad things which people might have collected in the old year, while the red stands for the warmth and life force the fire can give.

The Festival of Fire — also called Chahārshanbeh Suri — is celebrated the last Wednesday before Iranian New Year, which heralds our season of spring; it is not without controversy.

After the fireworks have finished and the fires are extinguished, families sit together and shake the chill off from the streets; rice pudding with hot cherries is served in Persian homes.

From time to time you’ll hear the banging of pots and pans — slowly the city and its mountains are covered by a veil of smoke. Houselights burn through the dust, then slowly they click off one by one, until only the streetlights are burning, and the roads are finally empty.

With the darkness, dreams rise toward heaven. They are dreams of lightning, of fire, of fireworks.