The festival would last for only 3 days in Philistine cinema as they could not hire it for longer. So we had to start watching films from 10am till 12pm! It was very exhausting but at the same time very exciting. The complex had 3 screens and we used to switch from one to another in the middle of films if we didn’t like it. The ticket was very cheap and was requested only at the main door so one could even pay for once and watch the whole program as long as she/he didn’t exit the complex. Moreover, as it was super busy, when the cinema was full we used to sit on the stairs on the floor before the first line of viewers or even sit on each other’s lap. Perhaps it was the only public place where I sat on my boyfriend’s lap several times in the dark. For us, it was such an experience. It was his idea and at first I was hesitant and worried but as the people around showed no reaction we continued.

For me it was a wonderful opportunity to familiarise my eyes with the modern frame of reality and the complex concept of representing reality. The Dutch cinema became my favourite. Unlike French films, which (apart from Duras, Rene and Marker) were mostly about how great France was, what wonderful civilised and cultured people French were, Dutch cinema was pre-occupied with industry, workers, impersonal experience of city and change. They did not fear to show the cracks in their society and were utterly sharp when it came to politics.

The tradition of documentary cinema passed through four generations of filmmakers throughout 20th century starting with Joris Ivens is a great national treasury and that is perhaps the reason why Dutch independent filmmakers started idfa festival in 80s. It protects them from corporate production and distribution while it is a platform for them to promote their authentic frameworks of reality.

Every year nearly 400 films are sent to the festival from Iran which almost 5 of them would be accepted. In Iran idfa has the reputation of being independent and professional. It means whoever the director is wherever she/he is making film, is not important, they only choose the films based on its professional quality unlike 100 of 1000 of festivals worldwide which have many other reasons for having a festival. organizing a festival usually is done in line with political and cultural policies of the organizers. These festivals are held to define and pick certain messages and people. Of course idfa has its own political agendas which makes it quite distinct. One could see the most disrupting, iconoclastic documentaries there. That is partly the reason why BBC and other corporate producers have no representative in the festival.

This year the youth jury awarded an Iranian film called The Last Days of Winter by Mehrdad Oskouei. The film explores the life of the young offenders who are kept in a sort of rehabilitation centre by authorities. Their movements are controled and they can’t exit the place before the end of their sentence but the place is rather like a clean and modern dormatory than prison.The boys in their early teenage years were convicted mostly for addiction and burglery. They vulenteerly speak to camera about their background, their sorrows and memories. No one thinks much about the future. The atmosphere of the dorm/prison is very calm but the speech of boys evoke the traumatic outside world which victimised them. The film catches their glances, gestures and behaviours which were fraught with guilt, sorrow and confusion about right and wrong. All came from lower working classes in the rural areas, often from families whose parents and siblings were in prison too. One talks of his one year old sister who became addicted to heroin while she was a foetus as her mum was an addict. The baby had to consume drugs to be kept quiet, the boy was sorry for her since his parents were arrested and he knew that his sister was not given the drug and must have been in pain.

A stunning scene in the film captured a play which the boys acted out during their endless lonely evenings. Their play was about the process of interrogation by police and they imitated the brutality of police treatment. They interchanged their roles while playing so the police and the victims were not fixed characters and everyone was given an opportunity to be dominant and dominated and show how police threatened them and how they got confessions from the boys. During this horrendous yet magnificently performed play, they beat and were beaten by each other.

The film was the second Iranian documentary ever to be awarded at idfa and the Iranian film-makers there were all very delighted.

Another, interesting characteristic of the festival is its audience which is a mixture of professional filmmakers and very ordinary people. One could see a wide range of viewers young and old, educated and uneducated, wealthy and visibly poor. And the questions they asked were very different too. As someone who goes to festivals in the UK and other screenings frequently, I am often disappointed and annoyed by the irrelevant, self-forgrounding questions that people ask, whereas, Q & A s at idfa arouse one’s curiosity and add to one’s knowledge of the conditions of production and different layers of meaning of the films. One could deduce that there is such a pressure in a metropolitan like London to foreground yourself at any cost. Indeed, the competitive atmosphere which offers any social event as a platform to single out hopelessly similar individuals as a possible difference, only point to the fact that how the concept of other and otherness is obscured and isolated in the capital. If beyond hegemony real diversity existed such a pressure to make the Other appear, even at the cost of identifying as an Other to a small and contingent community of the audience of a film, did not exist. In Amsterdam its absence was very tangible. The pressure to foreground oneself in the crowd simply wasn’t there.

This year the idfa Jury’s award and the audience award went to the film  Five Broken Cameras which depicted the struggles of the residents of a village in occupied territories to defend their land against the expansion of the Jewish settlements. It was narrated through the lenses of five cameras over a period of 6 years. The cameras not just witness the grossly imbalanced struggle literary between poor villagers and technologically advanced occupiers, but also were injured many times as soldiers shot two cameras and smash the rest. What I liked about the film was the way a personal narrative of the film-maker, the birth of his sons, his jobs and the everyday life in the village was mingled with the collective narrative of the residents. In this way he managed to escape the lonely voice of a victim and show us a picture of resistive people who were defending their territory with whatever they could.

I was so surprised when I realized that the film won both the audience and the jury award which is not common. But also very surprised to see that such a bold and frank narrative of resistance inside occupied territories won the heart and mind of all type of idfa viewers. This was a film shot amid blood and death and scream and burnt olive oil trees and terrified children but it wasn’t a film about victims, about fearful and confused people. It offered an alternative image of resistance about people who plan, organise, come up with new strategies. People who were not pets to pity or defend or decide for them or worst speak for them. They were very recognisable humans with the same dreams and fears like us and that was the key to the success of the film.

Having said this, I must admit that still the festival suffered from the flood of personal narratives who failed to establish a collective vision and narrative based on their agenda. It could be easily observed throughout the festival how neoliberal system has deprived subjects from collective properties such as class, political communities, and so on. Even the harshest political struggles were depicted through the minds and eyes of fearful isolated individuals. In this kind of narratives the absence of critical language wrapped in exceptional humour the way that 20th century avant-garde artists were like, is tangible. The story is only recognized once the first person voice or the self-portrait image reveals traumatic experiences. In neo-liberal system subject can only access authenticity through tearing up their privacy. There is no other way to attract the trust of the audience. This is not to say that those kind of films are lies or bad films. In fact they could be deeply effective but they leave the audience with sense of helplessness and guilt rather than shame, determination to act or even anger.

Guerrilla was a short film about a Colombian woman who joined the fighting guerillas against the capitalist state in Columbia with her husband. She narrated how they joined the fight, were hidden in villages, captured and tortured and how her husband was executed without trial. We didn’t see her face during the film only her blurred images as she was working as a cleaner in an international chain hotel in London early in the morning. The narration/film/cleaning work started in the dark when she started to open the curtains, mop the floors and clean the toilet bowls. She told her memories while washing the sinks as if washing away the burden of her past life as a fighter. when the story finished with her escaping to London as an asylum seeker in a couple of years ago, the sun had risen in the sky and she could see it from the messy hotel rooms. I found it valuable that the film gave a space to her to speak the way she wanted and the fact that the struggle in Columbia was registered. The film clearly had sympathy with her but was absolutely neutral to the her political belief. Was it right or wrong to fight? The neutrality of film was achieved as a result of complete de-textualization and de-politicisation.

I think as Communist filmmakers and artists it is very crucial to look for representational forms beyond first-person narration and self-portrait. We should find a perspective which links the individual with its context, the individual should be seen as a representative of her/his environment. Also, this emphasis on trauma, pain, bodily wound and suffering is a displacement to distract attention. The artist should not rely on trauma to gain authenticity and reliability. The trust between artists and viewers should be constructed differently.

I saw nearly 30 films in a week as much as time and budget allowed me and I’d like to write about them, maybe in future posts, but now I finish with the film named Metal Workers about the workers in metal industry in Brazil (think of car industries like Volkswagen whose basic materials are provided by these workers). The film was a collection of interviews with metal workers about their harsh and unbearable working conditions in 70s and the massive strikes in 80s. They also talked about how Lula embodied the hope that “there is a way out of all these miseries”. Lula appears in many Black and White footage and his hyper behaviour ( bursting into tears in the middle of talk, shouting “come arrest me! but we will continue …) is in sharp contrast with the simplicity and sincerity of the now middle-aged or old workers in the interview. Looking at the footage one asks herself/himself who knew that Lula would grow as a Leftist leader only to allow slave-work to return to Amazon?

The last interviewee has perfectly remained in my mind. He was a middle age still handsome man with enigmatic but kind black eyes. He was a close friend of Lula in his early youth but he was still a metal worker this time a temporary worker who didn’t have a stable working place, he had to drift from one city to another, wherever  the factory required him to be, thus he never knew where he would be home, when he would have work or when he would be free. Still with a pleasant smile he said that he was going to vote to Lula.

It was a painful film.

If you like to have a copy have a look at this link. Apart from this year entries you could see many films on-line from their archive which I do suggest.

Here is a new year present for you the dear readers of this restless blog who come to Didaar us every now and again and kindly hear our demanding voice for truth, justice and jouissance. In the video the radical political singer Arash Sobhani and his band Kiosk sing with Mohsen Namjo the experimental singer. There are extracts of the Colour of Pomegranate by Parojanov.

As I am a terrible translator, I only translate bits of it. It is mainly repeatition of  nearly 5 lines which askes Deldaar/Delbar to come. Well dictionary says deldaar and delbar means sweatheart which is terribly wrong. It could be lover but is based on the image of the brutal beloved who has taken the heart of lover. Doubling the ambiguity of Farsi, the words are not gendered so could be addressed to any gender. So Deldaar means the one who has kept the heart, Delbar (also a female name) the one who has taken/stolen the lover’s heart. The lyric goes like:

My deldaar come (deldaarom bia)

My heart is driven towards you

…

Delbar is my life

is my shining moon

come to me

come

come

May our new year have the sour sweet taste of pomegranate

May we fly on the red rugs of desire and our skin smell of blood red tulips

May we exit the dark foyers of modern barbarism into the light

May you didaar your deldaar …

I recived this photo recently which was widely distributed on the net and was taken from the point of conjunction between Azadi boulevard and Nvvab boulevard in central Tehran. Facing north the foto also demonstrates the Tohid tunnel which has made news headlines since every night after 10pm many car crashes happen inside it due to the high speed.

This foto convined me that there is an ideological project currently underway in terms of representing the capital Tehran and its development. It includes flaunting with the newly built infrastructure (such as Tohid tonnel and Navvab boulivard) while putting natural scenes like Alborz mountains at the background. The result is a new vision whereby the supposedly exceptional power of the authority is represented through creating a frame of man-made and natural properties of the new Iran. This is a picture which attempts to rival reginal and global powers.

Many people shared this photo and the foto in the last post of this weblog which I deeply regret promoting. Clearly many people like me easily fell into the pleasure of this ideological trap. To correct the mistake I made, I’d like to explain why on the resistive front against the Islamic Capitalist state of Iran, we should criticise and avoid this sort of representation. The foto is take form above from the point of bird-view and aims at creating a meta-individual  picture of the scene. However, this point of view is not a collective angle since the people who built it and who enliven it everyday are absent. The Navvab boulivard which was built during the so-called reconstruction period (Sazandegi) is in fact one of the main features of the growth of speculative capital through construction industry which was encouraged by the neo-liberal state of post-war Rafsanjani government. The whole project (like many other towers in Tehran) was built by exploiting the lowest social classes. The workers on the site included migrant workers from impoverished provinces like Kurdistan and Ilam combined with illigal Afghan migrant workers. This construction site, buildings and the tunnel, which were built in less than 5 years, are entirely erected by severe exploitation through liberalization of economy and especially the work force. Everyone on the site including the educated civil engineers worked on temporary contracts which had to be renewed every 3 months and no one benefited from any health insurance, bonuses and retirement plans as they were all associated with permanent employment.

What we see here is the picture of neo-liberal state of Islamic republic building up its infrastructure on severe and inhumane exploitations. We cannot be proud of it until the representation includes everyone who worked on the site, until we bring all the unnameable workers into visibility.

Second, the point where the picture is taken is in a junction which played a crucial role in the 2009 uprising. The junction (which we do not see here, the camera is positioned on it) conjoined the main stream of protesters in Azadi boulivard to the important vein of the city Navvab boulivard which like Vali-Asr St on the north-south direction connects the western part of the city to the central. I have seen many photos which demonstrate protesters on this wonderful junction.It was a quite different scene than this photo which only shows us cars. This current ideological frame is based on the absence of conscious and demanding people of the republic. What we see is obidient cars, capital being produced and transffered smoothly in the city.

What cannot be neglected is the inclusion of nature and the way mountains are captured in this foto. The omnipresence of white mountains embracing everything signifies something here. It is protecting the city hence the capital. In other words, the ideological signification is based on demonstrating how the production and distribution of the capital is supported by god-given and exalted powers which the nature represents. The final impression that the foto intends to make is that the power which rules today’s Tehran is beyond the control of man. It is metaphysical and protected by unknown sources.

On the resistive front it is absolutely necessary to create another frame of today’s Tehran whereby whoever is ideologically ignored will be brought to the visibility. The Islamic Capitalist state attempts to create a vision to feed the nationalist project through crashing working classes and enlarging the middle class fantasies about their place in the globalised world of capitalism. This picture intends to rival Dubaie and GCC states. The ideological picture serves the regional competition about who is more developed and powerful. The Tehran vision is cleverly framed since it includes spiritual powers behind the capital, hence endowing a ritualistic meaning to the all movements for and by the capital.

Now, it has even snowed. As you can see the mountains which embrace Tehran have gone white. . Soon there will be snow in the city and ordinary flow of life will be disrupted. Transportation would stop for a couple of days and one wonders: hummmm … life could move on differently too.

This is life for those who can afford a roof over their head and warm food. Winter is monsterous for those who sleep in the streets, for child pedlars who work till late and shiver in the brutal sharp wind after the sunset and for those who are not able to pay for their heating bills after the removal of energy subsidise.

Look at this city. It was stuffed in a valley, expanded into the mountains from the northern side and into the heart of southern desert. They say -reformist and conservative, young and old- it cannot grow more, that Tehran cannot bear the burden of further urbanisation and overpopulation. But it can. There is enough space for everyone, the problem is that the space is not divided fairly. The problem is the imbalanced development.

I close my eyes. I’m driving my mum’s car, we go up the Niyayesh bridge and here it is: the white mountains in snow, with open arms embracing whatever exists. We don’t go down the bridge, instead mum’s car fly up to the mountains and we disappear in the white …

It is said that the current situation is a reaction to the new round of attacks by the New Colonial TV on the illigal and illigitame governmt of Iran and the sharp point of the attack has targeted the figure of supream leader Khameneyi. It is not far from truth. A couple of days before the group arrest, BBC Persian screened a documantry about the personal and political life of Khameneyi, from the time that he was an unknown clergy in Mashahd through the  torbulant years of revolution and the eight year war with Iraq. Numerous interviews were done with people who were close to him like his nephew and people who knew him during his prison and exile under Shah. The crucial bit of the interview was about how he started to rise politically. The documantry discussed that becuase of his power of speech he found his way in the new-founded party of the time the Islamic Republic , then parliment, then presidancy.

In this documantry, the new-colonial tv has taken a totally diferent stance towards the figure of supream leader, this stance is supported by political figures like Tony Blair. This documantry should be seen in line with the new orientation that NATO government has taken after the fall of Gaddafi. Right after the massacre of Tripoli, whereby NATO sloughtered thousands of civilians to defeat the dictator, new political messages started to be sent out to other leaders. First Tony Blair appeared on the media to warn other leaders that it is quite possible that they would share the same fate with Gaddafi. This messages was ecoed in different ways in BBC Persian. Then one step further, the attitides towards Khameneyi shifted drastically. In its short life BBC Persian was very carefull not to mention the figure of Khamaneyi in all its reports and analysis. Even after the coup in June 2009, BBC Persian addressed “government” and never mention Khameneyi’s name. The general strategy was one of denial and displacement, the media refused to accuse any figure clearly because it did not know which side would come out of conflict victorious. In the recent six month, it gradually shifted support towards the side of Ahmadinejad and his gang of multi-miloiners in the cabinet and the presidency office (people like Mashayi, Mahsouli, etc) and now it has clearly set to start a public war with Khameneyi and not the government anymore.

What was crucial about the documantry was that khameneyi was introduced as a week figure who is the puppet of other political players. There was an emphasis on the fact that he was not even qualified as a source of emulation. This stance is absolutely new since during the last three years in BBC Persian, he was always mentioned with respect and was never taken responsible for the brutalities and crimes which the government has committed.

It should also be mentioned that the documentry was made entirely by the high rank staff of BBC Persian. The head of the organisation Sadegh Saba, was personally involved in the making of film and according to the cast more than half of participating people were non-Iranians from BBC.

It would be interesting to know that Sadegh Saba is known as an ex-communist and ex-Todeyi, and many of the journalists who left Iran to work with BBC Persian were used to work in radical newspapers during the time of Khatami – the last reformist president. I personally know some filmmaker friends who were invited to work for BBC Persian, many people even the radicals went there but could not tolerate the racists atmosphere and found the political position of the organisation very problematic. Many returned to Tehran. People who are in BBC Persian used to hold radical beliefs but they decided to give up. However, they are quite fammilliar with the political scene of Iran and they appropriate the radical language for the means of their organisation.

From this respect, it occurs to me that BBC Persian has similar structure with cultural sector of SAVAK ( National Intelligence and Security Organisation of last regime). According to Tortured Confessions by Ervand Ebrahamian, in 70s upon the emergence of armed struggle and gurrila warfere in Iran, SAVAK started to attract the ex-communists who were willing to collaborate. TV programs in the format of interviews appeared whereby ex-communists and ex-Todeyis publically denounced their radical activities and announced that Shah regime was progressive in enforcing White Revolution (erasing traditional feudal system which resulted in massive unbalanced urbanism) and being radical means to be on the side of Pahlavi Regime.

These collaborators whose famous face was Parviz Nikh-khah, were released after the public recantations and started to work for SAVAK in its cultural sector. The ex-radicals became those who monitored and censored films, books, newspapers generally cultural productions as they were famillair with that body of knowledge (phylosophy, political theory, journalism, literiture, arts, etc) and the growing population of intellectualls.

BBC Persian seems to follow the same strategy. It is administrated by ex-radicals who have lost motivation and belife in radicalism. However, their knowledge of the sociaety, politics and growing popullation of intelectuals and activits assissts the new-colonial media to target and address new changes.

It is in line with this startegy that they attract film-makers in Iran who are not willing to directly work for them yet are looking for Iranian audiance and in the absence of authentic media channels, they resort to BBC Persian.

What is so painful is that BBC Persian uses their services but withraws support when it is needed. After the group arrest in Tehran, BBC Persian immidiately reacted by airing a short interview with Sadegh Saba who claimed that no one was working for BBC Persian in Iran. Some people were contacted for their films and BBC Persian had no employee inside Iran. Thus, instead of clarifying the nature and the extence of collaboration, BBC Persian mistified the relation with filmmakers in order to claim that Iranian government is simply accusing people. The new colonial media uses the people and leaves their fate on the hands of information ministry.

All this processes indicate a new emerging political condition between the global capitalism represented by corporate and new-colonial media like BBC Persian and the regional Islamic capitalism: global capitalism after NATO operation in Libya has shifted attention to middle-sized rival regional capitalist systems. Khameneyi will not be treated beyond red lines anymore. In fact the documentary attempted to create conflict and de-legitimate a figure which upen that time he was kept aside.

The new scenario of assasinating Saudi embassedor in America should also be seen in the same line. The NATO government seeks conflict in order to ligitimate attacking Iran. However, it is not easy to enforce this new scenario. Iranian government immidiately reacted to the documantry by the group arrest of film-makers which not just dameged the mask of impatiality that BBC wears but also deprived them of all assistance  from inside Iran. In the atmosphere of terror that currently runs the community of artists and film-makers in Tehran and in the face of totall withrawal of suppert from BBC Persian, no one is willing to continue collaborating with the TV channel. It has lost its contacts from inside Iran.

[Please follow this link to watch the interview with Ahmadinejad]

Furthermore, the reaction to the Saudi assasination scenario was very strong. Aljazeerah, immidiately intervened and aired an interview with Ahmadinejad who totally denied any relation with the scenario. This interview and other programms stressted the fact that the plot was aimed at diverting attentions from Wall Street Ocupation to fictitous threats. It aslo, demonstrated that what a crucial role Aljazeerah has accquired in directing, intervining and affecting poltical struggles in the region. Aljazeerah’ stance demonstrates that reginal givernment in the middle east do not belive the plot and do not support any consequent reaction to it by Americans and NATO government.

In conlcusion, we must be aware that we are in the middle of a media war between rival capitalist orders and  media is used for provocation, to invent and  direct new political and milliatry struggles. Two remaining film-makers in the prison are kept not for espionage reasons but to be used as a way to further neutralise up-coming plots by corporate media. Film-makers are taken as hostage. We understand what drove these intellectuals to co-operate with BBC Persian, it cannot be termed as espionage since they were sincere art-loving people who just intended to connect with wider Iranian audience. But this desire was misused by the TV channel. BBC Persian is no different to IRIB,  monitoring, censoring, inventing and intervening in the domain of information. Authentic resistance inside Iran should not trust it.

Abrahamian, Ervand., 1999 Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran. University of California Press: Los Angeles

V in Vali is missed. I love this about Iran, there's always already something missed and everyone knows that

In this photoblog, we intend to follow the movement of labour and capital. This means we look for all the frames which register the essence of motion in the street, which facilitate and anticipate change and ask how the power relations in the street could be subverted.

The power, importance and influence of this street stems from the people who daily cross this vital street and their activities, all monitored and controlled by the police, anti-riot and authorities. But this street has seen other days. Days which the angry and motivated people took over the control of the street. Those days remain in our collective memory forever. We want to repeat those days. We want to restore the street to its owners; the unnamed masses, the faceless collective.

Vali-Asr St, 20 k human chain, 3 days before 2009 coup detat

First step is to become able to provide a space for reflection. We need to register our imago in the collective consciousness and this photo blog is created for that aim. Photogrophy and video shooting is banned in Vali-Asr St. As our first step, we want to create an image of the street which is not formed and dictated by the formal channels and authorities. We want to reflect this street as poeple percive it, as people see it, as people feel it. Trees, water, animal, passengers, pedlars, cars, buses, squers, cross-roads, students and workers, buildings and ruins, all of them, all together, at once.

Vli-Asr waiting for the next uprising

Hence , the photo blog entirely relies on the texts, photos, videos, and all the possible materials which we receive from people. We encourage people to send us their memories, impressions, ideas related to the past, present and future of this street.

We welcome photos from amatours, photos taken by mobiles and uneditted texts. We don’t aim to put materials into any ready-made mould of representation. The idea of this blog is to search for anOther representation which suits us people of Vali-Asr, our unique experience of this collective time and place, to find the speech for our repressed voices and ignored visions.

Although, the blog is in Farsi, we encourage non-Farsi speakers who have traveled to the country and went through Vali-Asr to send us their photos or write for us their impressions and memories of the street.

Please send them to sahbaa1388@googlemail.com

At the first sight,  it seems like an excuse to diasappont workers. But in fact the justification could be quite real. The sub-contracting companies who binifit from temporary contracts, are in fact a network of buisnessmen among the top rank politicians. It is not possible to simply remove these sub-contracting companies since they are deeply rooted in the system.

What is crucial here is that permanent workers and employees should also join the strike. Reports say that they have sympathy with the strikers (who are in fact the majority of workers) but they kept away. The employers enlarge the distance between them and attempt to confront them with each other as opposing sides. Reportedly, this is one the reseaons the strike does not continue effectively in Imam Complex. The strike should be able to unite them.

In September we have witnessed the start of a new round of strikes in many different sectors which are mostly concentrated in the South of Iran around Persian Gulf. You can follow the detailed news in English through Iran Labour Report. We are very happy to see that the website has decided to regularly update on the strikes. For a better analysis of the strength and weakness of the strikes and to reach another level of effectivity we need websites both in English and Farsi to focus on this matter. What is crucial here is to accentuate the industrial action in different forms. We have already sent out e-mails demanding people involved, to publish photos of the march and protests inside the factories and industrial complexes. This way we could establish a link, attract more attention and support the workers in this difficult times.

A good piece of news is that a group of workers in Iran Khodro, the biggest car-making factory in Iran, have published a solidarity message to the strikers of petrochemical complexes. On the one hand, it demonstrates the spirit of strike and fighting is strong and present among all workers across Iran, on the other hand it shows that workers in Iran Khodro, despite their number and importance, cannot form a group or a committee which could speak on behalf of all workers. Only a group, (number and names were not published) on behalf of themselves publish the solidarity message. This demonstrates how severely they are suppressed by their employers. Only the news of catastrophes leak out, deadly events such as the one occured on Ashoora and Tassoa could only break the inhuman and severe security control and crack the atmosphere of fear which rules the factory. It is up to us to establish links and contacts which could reflect what crimes are being quietly committed against workers in that factory.

So are politicians like Tony Blair, who confidently announced that he was so sure about the necessity of Iraq war as it was his deal with God, psychotic? Was J.W.Bosch who was so sure that “you are either with us or agaist us” psychotic? No, I don’t think so. Rather it is an effective speech for their audiance. It is the discourse of psychosis which has become prevalent.

Last Saturday, CFAR (Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research) seminars started, the first was a roundabout table on Hysteria. Nice to be back at CFAR, to be an entire day in the company of truth. What makes London a bit tolerable.

This year hysteria is at the heart of discussions which I believe that is really necessary. I always thought of hysteria as a crucial concept when thinking of the capitalist economy of desire. Capitalism runs through creating and sustaining hysteric symptoms, subjects who jump from commodity to commodity, who are trapped in the endless circle of empty desires, who are trapped in the false phantasy that “the jouissance that I lack, is there, out there, I’ll find it” thinking that the Other is enjoying this excess bit of jouissance which the hysteric badly and miserably lacks. Hence the constant jump between objets of desire whether it is a commodity or person or situation, etc. Unfortunately, for us on the Left, we often see that being leftist is a hysteric symptom of people, a way to eternally re-create lack through challenging the master. If we really desire to go beyond capitalist framework, we need to go beyond hysteric symptoms, instead of addressing the master we should address the desire. The Left should operate within the discourse of desire rather than the discourse of the hysteric.