Publishing a periodical in the Iranian community abroad:Love or Madness
It is obvious that conducting cultural activities in the Iranian community abroad seems like madness. The members of our community, even the most educated ones, do not practically support the kinds of activities which do not require any motives other than love and passion. I am certainly not talking about pure commercial activities which seem cultural as they do not need that much support, but the group of media that focus on content and are more than just advertising packages or flyers.
Our lack of interest in studying and the profound difference of opinions among the members of the Iranian community outside the country are among many reasons why Farsi-speaking media are not supported. This difference of opinions is partly because of political fluctuations of the last few years, which is understandable, and partly due to different viewpoints in non-political areas, which is beyond the scope of this writing.
Aside from being overlooked and neglected by the majority of the members of the Iranian community, Farsi-speaking media are constantly attacked by those who consider them in conflict with their opinions and taste. Sometimes, these attacks even lead to false accusations and name-calling, as if these attackers were facing their enemies and therefore had no limitations to their hatred and hostility towards these media.
The motives for these attacks are sometimes mandatory and sometimes preventive. Occasionally, a story is not in accordance with the political viewpoints of an individual or a group, so they think that they have the right to falsely insult the authors and staff of the journal without any explanations, and sometimes even worse, to accuse the journal of not covering the story in a way they approve of, as if these critics were the editors of all existing publications and had the right to determine what should be written and what not. For this group of people, freedom of speech is limited to reflecting only their own viewpoints and others do not have any such rights.
All in all, the aforementioned reasons have made the Persian-speaking media constantly fight for survival, and try to make ends meet; therefore, they do not get the opportunity to think about how to survive. This is why I claim that the motives of love and passion help publish journals which are worth reading in this country.
Of course, media are of high importance as bases of democracy in a modern society and at least the educated people of our community should appreciate this type of media. Now that the integrity of our community is threatened by the Canadian Conservative government and each day a new type of pressure is inflicted on it, having widespread media becomes doubly important. Surprisingly, many of us try to suppress a few media that are essentially the voice of our community, as if we wanted to put up with the pressures silently and not to let any voice wake us up from our sweet dreams.
Surprisingly, many of us try to suppress a few media that are essentially the voice of our community
