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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 16, 2013 9:51:25 GMT -5
So...I'm back.
I'll be honest, I feel a little stupid posting here, like "What's the point? This place is definitely a lost cause, and there's absolutely nothing to be gained here."
But then I thought "Hey you fuckin hypocrite SOB! Does every little thing have to be about your personal benefit and gain? What an asshole! What about doing shit just for the hell of it?"
So I thought what the hell...the show must go on!
I dug up a really good story back home, no media-story BS, a real story that's unfolding right now. I even interviewed a few friends, taking notes as they spoke, like I was some journalist/writer for an important newspaper: The Subversify Daily. lol
This story begins over twenty-five years ago, when Iran was at war with Iraq. The Iranian armed forces had set up a training field out in the high desert in Charmahal & Bakhtiari. They had the first generation of combatants dig long trenches like the ones on the battlefield. The area was used for target practice and other training for soldiers from all over Iran.
They'd get basic training there for a month or so and once deemed ready they were sent over to Khuzestan next door, where the war was raging on the plains.
This simulation battlefield was situated a few miles north of a small village and immediately south of a mountain-range, on the foothills. The whole area is still more or less heavily littered with shell casings from AK47s and G3s, mortar-shells, detonators, and loads of other junk.
About fifteen years ago, the hero of our story, then a young man of 25, was roaming about the desert around his home-town one day and as he recalls it, he noticed that although the area was still mostly undeveloped desert, but bulldozers were visible, working in the distance, turning the desert into industrial-scale peach orchards. So he decided to plant a species of very drought tolerant almond (they call it the mountain almond here) on and around the trenches in order to preserve them for future generations. In Iran, the actual trenches on the front-line where battles were fought are considered sacred places by a lot of people. There are even yearly pilgrimages to these places.
As the years went by, the industrial peach farms expanded rapidly, and our hero got the idea of planting wild mountain-almond trees over an area of 500 hectares so that the natural desert-landscape would be preserved. (It is illegal to cut down trees without a permit in Iran.) Today, those 500 hectares are the only piece of untilled, "natural" land in the area. All the rest is now "developed" money-making land. And boy do they make money: just add peach trees + water (+chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc) and you have instant gold=100,000,000 tomans per year from 1 hectare. (That's $30,000USD this year; $100,000 in terms of the exchange rate before the recent round of sanctions.)
To be continued..
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Post by grainnerhuad on Jan 16, 2013 15:27:59 GMT -5
ADP- As far fetched as it seems, I am very interested in this story. Not that I have any sort of agricultural background, but more in that these are the very crops that are grown in my area of California. Along with Walnuts and Plums and nectarines which as you likely know require all similar terrain. It provides a connection. The thing that is similar.
In college I accepted a date with a young man in my sociology class whose family was from Iran. It really did not come to anything other than dancing and mutual study notes. Not that he was shy, he was the sort of man who loved women and wanted to try them on in college but would ultimately settle down with one of his parents choosing. All that did not suit me, being a white girl from California, even if we were compatible, which we weren't beyond a semester friendship, I would never have been accepted by his family. I did have a friend later on who married into one of the Iranian families here in the area who farm. She had a very hard time of it and ultimately, the marriage didn't work. It was family pressure.
But his family had brought their farming skills to this area from Iran and I still see them at farmers market. They have the best fruit.
None of that really amounts to much, I know. It just triggered the memory.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Jan 16, 2013 15:29:32 GMT -5
And please don't give up. I myself am in and out. I am almost never online however over our weekends. Give me 3 or 4 days to get back.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 16, 2013 15:43:20 GMT -5
This area has a very rich soil and plenty of water in the form of qanats. And the Zayandeh river flows close by. So, the rural people have a good knowledge of growing crops and tending fruit trees. Twenty years ago, the old qanat-fed orchards were the only type of agriculture in the region. But since then, the government has been supporting agricultural development projects, pumping water from the river and irrigating the highlands around the river valley.
These projects have resulted in great wealth for the people of this village, and even for people from other places.
After the war, some of the soldiers who had spent a lot of time training here, came back and got a permit to develop one of these projects. I believe it was 50 hectares or something. Once they got their water running, they sold the project and walked away. The people who bought it were from another village a short distance away, but the land isn't adjacent to their town. They, like all other villages and towns in the region, are quite envious of our town for all its wealth and orchards, so they all feel they deserve to have modern agricultural projects too, even though they don't have enough land or water rights. So, the numerous new industrial orchards around our village (there's got to be 2000 hectares at the very least) are owned by out-of-towners as well as locals. Some of the projects are entirely composed of outsiders, like the one mentioned above. It's called the Ahrar project, and the owners are pushing for a Phase 2: another 350 hectares.
I guess it was 4 years ago...I was with the guy who planted the mountain-almonds (Turaj) one night, and he got a call from another friend telling him to get his ass up there fast. Bulldozers were destroying the almonds. We drove up there right away. It took us ten minutes, but once we got there, a crowd of around 30 people had gathered already. Now this place is far away from town, so it's not like anyone would notice what's happening there. But when the first guy noticed, he called everyone he knew.
By the time we got there, the two bulldozer-guys were shaking in their boots. There must have been like 20 motorcycles and 6-7 cars and trucks parked there that night. They kept the bulldozers from leaving until Turaj arrived. One of the drivers was really shivering with fear as he told us "They keep talking about this Turaj. They won't let us leave until he gets here." So, Turaj talked to them a bit and showed them some of the trees, convinced them never to come back there, no matter who hired them. Then he let them go. I was passing around joints all night, cause Turaj thought it was a good time to plant some more almond seeds, since the army was already there. Five of us stayed until morning when all our bags of seeds were empty.
All the guys I spoke to the past few days agree that there must be at least 100,000 of these almond trees out there by now. (age 1-15 years old) At first Turaj used to go there alone but soon other people were joining him and they were pulling all-nighters every week planting seeds. They had to do it at night so as to not arouse suspicion and to keep it low-profile.
The real funny shit, yet to come, is where the corrupt judge, and the legal-system in favor of money and development comes into the picture. Turaj's family owns 7 hectares of agricultural land fed by a qanat (+70 hectares of pasture land) squarely in the center of the 500 ha area where he planted all the mountain almonds. (I can't seem to find the latin name but it's definitely of the family Rosaceae) ..Anyway, he recently got convicted and was ordered never to set foot in that land again. The judge also told him to throw away the deed to his land because it's worthless.
I really want this story to get out, because I want to protect that land. I myself spent a lot of time there planting seeds, looking for suitable trees from other parts of Iran, etc. So, I'm gonna try and bloat this up as much as possible and edit it into something worthwhile. There's still a lot more to the story though.
(To be continued..)
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 17, 2013 14:08:32 GMT -5
www.livescience.com/26328-global-warming-brings-earlier-spring-flowers.htmlThis happened here the year before last. Instead of March 21st, which is the standard date for Almond bloom over here, the trees were in full bloom exactly on February 21st two years ago. Last year, by contrast, spring started exactly a month late: the trees woke up around April 21st. I believe both these years were unprecedented.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Jan 17, 2013 16:11:24 GMT -5
Hmm, I'm going to check out stats here when I get a chance. It seems to me that everything was off last year. In my own kitchen garden things were coming up early and late. It has been a confusing shift.
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Post by karlsie on Jan 17, 2013 19:41:20 GMT -5
I think this is a very interesting story... and disturbing. I know it's difficult to measure reader interest since we don't have a hit counter for the public anymore and comments are sparse, but we actually have a pretty strong following for a small-time mag; averaging out around one thousand readers a day. We aren't receiving the variety of writers we once had because we quit doing re-prints, but we have a great partner site in MicMag, so it's more a thing of changing our face and policies than anything else.
People just aren't using forums that much anymore; they are shifting to Facebook. I think there are several reasons for this: it makes it convenient for keeping up with family members and friends they haven't heard from in a long time. They don't have to follow any particular thread or conversation, just post what they feel, when they feel like it. It's easy to attach and distribute other website addresses, photos, cartoons and slogans. They receive a great deal of visibility, which is, I think, one of the greatest motivating factors.
Visibility is something everybody seems to crave, even while asserting their fondness for privacy. They don't have to be clever, controversial, witty or thoughtful. They post what the kids are saying or doing, their bombed relationships, photos of the meals they eat, their new home decorations, and it's all good because they're part of a group. I'm not criticizing; just analyzing the reasons for Facebook popularity. People are mainly self-involved. It's why "reality" shows have become so popular. A show that doesn't demonstrate any particular talent gives them the hope and dream that they too, can share a moment in the spotlight.
I still see it all as a phase. Eventually, a restlessness will develop for real talent, real stories, real entertainment and for pertinent news. Even the most self-involved eventually grow tired of redundancies.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 18, 2013 4:32:01 GMT -5
Thanks for the encouragement. I'll try to finish it soon...My notes are in farsi and disorganized as hell, but I'll make it work.
Edit: I gave it another shot, but I can't seem to get into the frame of mind where I can write...I'll try again tonight.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 18, 2013 11:48:16 GMT -5
A few months ago Turaj was called to court on account of two complaints filed against him.
He's just a rural guy. He's 40 years old, with a wife and three sons. He is the caretaker of a large private farm, that belongs to an old man from the city. The owner has a large villa on the farm, where he used to live most of the year. But the past year he's been feeling too old so he just visits infrequently now. The whole place, all 65 hectares, is in Turaj's care now, because the owner's sons are too incompetent, in addition to being junkies. The old man, who is an engineer, knows if he hands the farm over to his sons, they'll piss it all away on pussy, crack and meth.
Turaj receives a relatively small monthly income from the old man, plus whatever he can grow off the land each year. The owner doesn't care about making any money off the farm for himself, he just wants someone to care for it and keep it alive and green. The arrangement works for both of them.
Turaj also has a really good hand for pruning fruit trees, especially peaches. The trees he works on always bear plenty of fruit the following year, and a lot of people in the area are aware of this. He's an expert, and much in demand. So, every winter he has a lot of work pruning trees. He even works for some people out of area. He does a lot of other side-gigs (all in the agriculture department) whenever the opportunity arises. This is how he gets by, because he doesn't have any land of his own. It's very rare for someone in this village to not have at least 1 hectar (a little over 2 acres, I believe) in one of the many new "projects." Turaj was cheated out of his share by his townspeople.
Turaj's father, grandfather and uncle were all kad-khoda of the village. That's what the tribal chiefs were called in Iran back when they still existed. Each village or town used to have an arbab (lord) and a kad-khoda (chief) and a dasht-ban. (police chief, or literally translated=watcher or guardian of the fields) These three were the most powerful people in any village in Iran, prior to the Islamic revolution when centralized power wasn't as powerful and extensive as today.
After the revolution, the new leadership encouraged the peasants to kick out the lords and tribal chiefs. They said "The money and resources that are rightfully yours have been taken by the Shah and his Lords. You must throw them out, for your country and for freedom! And we are with you. And Allah is with you."
So, Turaj and his family aren't very liked in town. And when the town's Islamic Council was signing people up for the new agriculture-projects, they conveniently forgot about him.
The past 15 years, he has devoted a lot of his time to planting the mountain-almonds (and some other drought tolerant desert-trees) out in the desert, on the foothills of a mountain exactly north of the farm where he works. A lot of other people have also helped him plant seeds all these years. According to him, 30 people have helped in one way or another. All for free, of course. Neither Turaj nor any of his helpers were ever expecting any reward. (monetary or otherwise) They just did it to preserve a piece of the intact, virgin desert around their home-town, and so that one day perhaps a wild jungle might spring up. (mountain almonds grow to be very large and dense bushes, at least 10-12 feet high)
A few years ago, Turaj discovered that it was possible to transplant a bud from pretty much any fruit tree of the family Rosaceae onto these wild almonds, and that many of them would bear perfect fruit without requiring any irrigation, out in the desert! Sweet almonds, apricots, plums and some others have been confirmed to bear fruit so far. This special species of almond has roots that penetrate the soil to inconceivable depths. A specialist from the city once visited this little jungle of ours, and claimed that the roots of this species can easily go down 30 meters deep!
All the modern fruit-tree plantations in the area use inordinate amounts of water, which they pump up from the river. Peaches for example, need to be watered once every 6 days during the hot season. And they consume really vast amounts of water in the desert where there is no rain at all from May to October, where the scorching sun turns white people into black people. (A lot of the population in the area were born white but turned black (not brown) after some years of working on the fields. This is because of the high elevation, I believe.)
This is all for now.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 18, 2013 12:39:52 GMT -5
Turaj was called to court because the owners of the Ahrar project had complained that he was obstructing the progress of their development plan. And a shepherd who had rented the area (for his sheep) from the Ahrar owners, and was kicked out by Turaj, claimed that his sheep were poisoned. He claimed that Turaj had piled chemical fertilizer on the land, which his sheep ate and died.
Turaj went to court and claimed that the chemical fertilizer was for his trees, and that he had warned the shepherd, whose sheep had previously destroyed a lot of the smaller almonds, (and some of the ones with the fruit-trees transplanted onto them) to keep his flock away from the trees. He even showed a lot of them to the shepherd, very patiently, and asked him "nicely" to go away. Whether the shepherd actually lost any of his sheep is doubtful at best. But what is sure is that he was backed by the Ahrar people.
On the second count, Turaj told the judge his story and emphasized that there are countless trees out there, so how could the judge legally order the destruction of his almonds? The judge requested that a single specialist/expert visit the site and report back if there are in fact trees out there. There is a certain organization in every city where court-approved experts in different fields are employed. Because the complaint was filed by the Ahrar people, they were responsible to pay for the specialist.
Turaj claims that he never even saw this expert at all. The court just informed him one day that the specialist had visited the site and had found no trees there, just empty desert. Turaj was fined $500 and told never to set foot in that land again. He was told that if he did, he would pay another fine and go to jail this time. So, he requested that a team of experts be sent to the site again for a re-examination. A team of three specialists were appointed to the case, and he had to pay $250. Turaj claims that this team never even showed up, but they announced their conclusion and it was identical to the first expert's opinion.
Since these specialists are all employed by the same agency, they are all acquainted with each other, and when they have to go examine a site that's been examined before, they usually ask the first guy's opinion. If he tells them there are no trees out there, for example, the others might not even bother visiting the site at all. Whether this is what happened, or they were payed off by the Ahrar people is uncertain.
This time, Turaj requested that the judge accompany him to the desert and see for himself whether there are in fact any trees or not. The judge countered by having someone sent to the area with a camera to get some footage of the trees. So, a police officer and a guy with a camera were sent to the site. Conveniently enough, they captured footage of every square foot that did not contain trees, but left out the trees altogether.
So, a couple weeks ago, Turaj hired a camera-man and got some of his trees on film. Then he went back to court armed with the CD. The judge, as soon as he saw Turaj, exclaimed "It seems like this little war of yours won't end, unless I give you a hefty fine and some quality prison time, Mr. Z."
Turaj gave them the CD and told the judge that as he understood it, the entire case was based on the "fact" that there are no trees out there. But his film proves that there are. So the people who filed the complaint have no case. But as always, the judge just looked at him like he was crazy.
He says that's how the judge and everyone else in the courthouse sees him. Either that, or they think he wants to "take" that land for his own, and that's why he planted some lame desert-trees out there. The judge thinks he's absolutely insane for trying to prevent "real" development because of some stupid bitter, wild almonds. He knows he can't win this case. He knows the Ahrar group have a lot of money and he feels like the judge is in their pocket.
When I saw him a few days ago, he was totally depressed and ready to give up, even though the thought of losing his almonds was driving him mad. I thought the only thing he could do to save his "nature reserve" was to physically stop the Ahrar people every time they send their goons (bulldozers, tractors, sheep, etc.) Because if their bulldozers succeed even once, it's all over. I thought, and told him, that relying on the court for "justice" was complete stupidity. The court would vote in favor of the side with the most money, as it always does.
Turaj is now thinking about talking to a lawyer to see if he has any chance at all. And he's looking for someone in an environmental protection agency or something, who would be willing to help him out. But since he's a barely literate guy from a rural area, it's going to be very hard for him to make contact with someone who is in a position of power, and who would care enough about the environment and understand what Turaj is trying to do.
There's still a little more to add...I think.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 18, 2013 14:23:12 GMT -5
Many years ago, a fifteen year old boy was playing in the area around the trenches, while his sheep were grazing all around him. He found something shiny half-buried in the dirt. He dug it out and took it home with him that night. It seemed to be some mechanical contraption. He didn't show it to his parents, because he was afraid they would take it away. Apparently, the next day at school the kid showed the gizmo to his friends, and he even removed some of the parts and re-attached them.
That day after school, he gave the thing to his best friend, another fifteen year old boy named Behnam, who happened to be Turaj's nephew. Behnam put it in his pocket after they were done playing with it, and started walking home. He was still on the street when the thing blew up in his pants. He was in the hospital for the next 4 months.
This incident happened around 10-12 years ago. And since then, Turaj has been clearing the area of all the junk left over from when the military was training soldiers there. Among the things he found, the most notable IMO, was an intact RPG grenade that could have killed a whole classroom full of kids.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Jan 18, 2013 16:15:53 GMT -5
Wait, the grenade is not part of the orchard story right?
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 19, 2013 2:08:56 GMT -5
It's just miscellaneous...along with a bunch of other details I don't know how to fit in the story. Is that all you got for me, Grainne?
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 19, 2013 3:30:01 GMT -5
It's so nice to see four names in the active users box, as opposed to just mine. Bill's the only one missing...But I guess he wasn't really in the mix last year anyway.
Love you guys. You're all great, and I hope great things always head your way.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Jan 19, 2013 5:31:23 GMT -5
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