Posts tagged : "Society"

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: Association football is not a very successful sport in Iran, but it’s one of the most popular sports in a country with more than half of the population under 35 years old. It’s conventional for schoolchildren to develop an early passion for football and spend the majority of their leisure time playing with their close friends in the yards, gardens or street football pitches. It can be safely argued that football is the basis for many friendships among young people in small cities and rural areas in Iran. The culture of football in Iran and the passion it generates is comparable to what happens in Brazil, even though the achievements of the two countries in this sport is in no way...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The interrelationship between Islam and the West and the struggles that make integration in American and European societies difficult for the Muslims is a major debate these days. An American philosopher and author says Islamophobia is not a new invention and the difficulties faced by Muslims in describing and spreading their faith and the difficulties imposed on them by governments have together created the misunderstandings that have made the interfaith dialogue an arduous task. Dr. Daniel Tutt (@DanielTutt) is an interfaith activist and philosopher. As a scholar activist, his work addresses Islamophobia and inter-religious dialogue. His writing and work has been published in...

Kourosh Ziabari - CFJ: Steve Adler is the Mayor of Austin, Texas. He is Jewish but his advocacy for the rights of Muslims and immigrants and his vocal resistance against the exclusion of minorities from important social and political decision-makings have made him a popular politician and lawyer nationally and internationally. He has been a practicing attorney in Austin in the areas of eminent domain and civil rights for some 35 years. A noted member of Democratic Party, Mayor Adler was named by the Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 global thinkers in 2017. I did a brief interview with Steve Adler to ask him questions about President Donald Trump's Muslim ban and how immigrants and minorities are doing these days in...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: Working with children with autism is a challenge that few people embrace pro bono. Autism is a developmental disorder marked by difficulties with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. Stereotyped behavior, compulsive behavior, ritualistic behavior, restricted interests and self-injury, problems in social development and communication are the major characteristics of children with autism, and absent support, these challenges can present long-term challenges for individuals. Melissa Diamond is an American social entrepreneur, community worker and writer who has founded and is the executive director of the organisation A Global Voice for...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: Thanks to a royal decree, Saudi women will be allowed to drive cars and motorbikes beginning in June this year. The decision to give the women in Saudi Arabia the right to drive was announced in September 2017 by King Salman and is considered a major step in the course of the normalisation of life in Saudi Arabia, a highly-conservative kingdom in which women have very limited rights and almost no representation in major decision-makings. A patriarchal society in which women are sometimes even treated as commodities with no role to play in social and political walks of life, Saudi Arabia has been incomprehensibly resistant to such changes as giving women the right to drive. Saudi Arabia...

Kourosh Ziabari - Stony Brook Independent: It is difficult to give a vivid picture of Iran’s media and their popularity through figures and statistics. Few studies have been done in this regard, and Iran’s media, including state TV broadcasters and radio stations, newspapers, news agencies and online publications have hardly been successful in surpassing their London or Los Angeles-based competitors in satisfying the varying needs of their audience and their thirst for professional coverage, honesty, fair and accurate reporting and “good news.” It is arguable that Iran’s media have failed the test of legitimacy, as excessive intervention on behalf of the government to manipulate the media content and influence their coverage...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Jane Elliott is a distinguished American former third-grade school-teacher, anti-racism activist, feminist and educationalist. She is known for implementing an exercise called "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" in a classroom of third-graders in Riceville, Iowa, to figure out how racist her students were and gauge the amount of racial prejudice towards otheres among her young pupils. The highly-controversial test created divisions among the townspeople and made her a national icon of fight against racism. She did the exercise one day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and her initiative became the basis of much of what is now known as "diversity training". She introduced this method to firms in the U.S.,...

Kourosh Ziabari - Medium: April is a month in which children have many reasons to celebrate and many reasons to expect to be listened to, taken care of and treated more respectfully, fondly and amicably. April 2, which was last Monday, marks the International Children’s Book Day, which is an International Observance. Then many countries such as Bolivia, Haiti, Zambia, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Palestine and Hong Kong, Taiwan mark national Children’s Day to celebrate children and discuss the important things that relate to their welfare and wellbeing, mental and physical health, and raise public awareness of their needs, including the need for a robust, frank and unaltered dialogue between children and their parents without any...

Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy: Nowruz has always been a very special occasion for me; a time of year when my heart beats faster than usual, when I'm more inclined to see everything through more romantic eyes. It is a time when I think about the importance of nature and why it should be preserved at the dawn of spring, while food packaging companies, nuclear power plants, oil tankers and coal mines don't agree with me; why families entrap themselves in unnecessary clashes and skirmishes throughout the year to finally use Nowruz as an opportunity for reconciliation. Nowruz, for me is an opportunity to contemplate, to ask unanswered questions and sometimes create some of my best works of journalism and writing. It is also a chance to...

Girls walking in front of walls of the former US embassy on Taleghani street, Tehran. Picture by Kamyar Adl / Flickr.com. Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy NAWA: Iranians are discussing many important and crucial things these days: things that the government might not be able to find an answer to in the foreseeable future. The Iranian government is not determined enough to implement change, nor does it have the authority and resources to embrace the reforms people are demanding. Meanwhile, in restaurants, coffee shops, streets, schools, newspapers and sometimes even on state TV, people are discussing and talking about reform. People ask valid questions that rarely find viable answers by those who are supposed to find answers: will...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) is referred to as the richest terrorist organization in the world. In 2015, it earned $2.4 billion through oil exports and illegal taxation and extortion from the desperate people living under its harrowing rule. Defeating the ISIS terrorists militarily appears to be a daunting task, and people hesitate to call the annihilation of ISIS an easily-reachable and plausible target, at least for the time being when the international community is divided on whom to support and whom to fight in Syria, and the influential actors pursue apparently conflicting interests. The latest estimates by the U.S. intelligence community put the number of ISIS recruits at 25,000,...

When asked to expound their viewpoints on the interrelationship between “business” and “society”, people would normally speak of the innumerable benefits business introduces to each society and the horizons that emerge before the citizens through the initiation of dynamic and profitable business opportunities. Undeniably, business is a harbinger of prosperity and progress. Business opportunities in agriculture, real estate, retailing and distribution, transportation, production and manufacturing, finance and other sectors give the people the chance to uplift their lives and the impetus to thrive intellectually and financially. All of us would be excited to hear the announcement that an eminent, accomplished energy firm...