The Scent of my Norouz Magazines
Mar 18th, 2010 by pedestrian
One other very important sign of the new year I’ve neglected to mention before: the special Norouz issue of reformist newspapers which are published as a special issue magazine and span hundreds of pages.
It all began with the first reformist newspaper, Jame-e [Society] and their special Norouz magazine in 1997, in the first year Khatami became president. Subsequently, every other newspaper which was still not banned by the new year would publish a special issue.
Running to the newspaper kiosk and buying half a dozen copies of the magazine, for various family members and my own, was an integral part of my Norouz ritual.
The smell of those pages is very much a part of Norouz for me, and I’m so grateful to my family who make sure to bring those magazines half way around the world for us every Norouz whenever we are not in Tehran.
This year, we were all worried that there would simply be no publications left to print a special edition, but with the lifting of the ban on Bahar newspaper, they are the reformist newspaper to publish a special issue. And it’s got so many great articles to read I don’t know where to begin:
I also have the last two issues of IranDokht before it was closed.I don’t know what they were thinking by putting Hassani [Hassan Khomeini] on the cover – of which would be their last issue. As soon as he appeared on their cover, everyone knew they would be closed down within days … and they were.
But, as in the tradition of reformist papers, and our people, as soon as the old one was closed down, a new magazine was opened. This is the first issue of the new magazine, Mehrnameh, whose editor in chief is Mohammad Ghouchani, one of Iran’s brightest journalists, and the former editor in chief of Irandokht:
Don’t you just love the cover? A photo of Shariati and Soroush – the son’s of the famous intellectuals.
The Bahar special issue is 288 pages, and every page is worth reading. To me, this is a sign of our very triumph: with all the people they’ve imprisoned, tortured, silenced, threatened … who knew we had so many left willing to take pen to paper again, to write again, and think again … and force us to think and rethink all over again?
are any of these available online?
I’ve closely examined the suspicious-looking calligraphy of the ‘Mehrnameh’ title and believe i have uncovered another subversive image aimed at undermining islamic morality. it is clearly a young girl on a bicycle, the ends of her chador fluttering provocatively in the breeze as she speeds along the boulevards of esfahan.
EP, that has GOT to be the best line EVER! You rock!
The problem is that it’s kind of costly for these magazines to get their issues online … and once they do, they are closed down a short while after. So Shahrvand-e Emrouz had an excellent web archive (it’s still up) … but Irandokht never did (as far as I know). Bahar too has a website, but their norouz issue isn’t on it.
you are too kind – my imagination was just stimulated by the materials on this excellent blog.
as for non-availability of the magazines i suppose the positive side is that i won’t feel the need to increase the proportion of my waking hours i spend reading the internet through this flickering screen…
Arghh! Is it wrong of me to wish ill on Rafsanjani and his family? I feel like a savage every time I think or see his face, I think its rather sad that he has lately become somewhat a popular figure among reformist even tho he was is just as bad as the hardliners.
I just hope history will remember him for the bastard he is and not turn him into some sort of Amir Kabir. 
Anyway what does ba-yad ke sepr bashad pish ham-e peykan ha mean? I don’t understand the usage of the word sepr here, I really need to brush up on my Farsi.
Artanian, it’s the title of an article in Bahar written by Samina Rastegari. I think it just means he’s a shield of sorts in the face of danger.
I kind of disagree with you on good ol’ Akbar. I mean, I agree with Bahavar’s analysis that the hardliners are trying to wipe him out (irrespective of his personal merits, or lack of) … and that’s just not a good thing for us at the moment, no matter how we feel about him personally.
All in all, I think he’s a pretty complex character, and one of our few “real” modern day politicians (I don’t mean that to have a positive connotation).