User:A.R. Mamdoohi
My name is Ahmad Reza Mamdoohi.
I really do believe in and appreciate the idea of the Wikipedia, it really seems a free and democratic place. The only not quite democratic aspect of it is the lingual one - if we are thinking of its English version as the international one. I believe if we aim to make an international encyclopedia, it needs to be in an international language, like Esperanto. But if our aim is not intended to enjoy an international scope, then national language versions, like English, French, ... could serve. I have given more clarifications on this issue in a message dated 2 Jan. 2004. There I also wrote about Why among numerous Persian poets and mystics, only Rumi is bestseller in the USA, and about International Cultural Bank we can create by the help of Esperanto in the shortest possible time, with least expensive method, and ...
I am an Esperantist and I believe that Esperanto is the best (fastest and less expensive) solution to the international language problem.
I do contribute to Vikipedio (Esperanto version of Wikipedia), as I know once a subject is published in Esperanto, everyone, where ever in the world can easily learn the language and read the materials in it, while what is written in English, French, or ... any other national language - which is very difficult, time-consuming and expensive to learn - would be accessible only by the privileged individuals who can afford to learn a difficult-to-learn language.
What I will be doing in English Wikipedia, mostly are: to add links in the English articles to the Esperanto ones, to show the richness of Esperanto literature in different fields, and instigate the readers to learn Esperanto; translate into English the pages that do not exist in the Wikidedia, but are found in Vikipedio; and vice versa.
As my first contribution, I have translated an article from its Esperanto original text written by an Iranian called Asad Mahbub on Bam Citadel, The largest adobe structure in the world, which recently, i.e. 26 Dec. 2003 was devastated by an earthquake.
My second contribution to the Wikipedia is a translation of an article (by myself) originally written in Esperanto and published in Irana Esperantisto (an international independent cultural quarterly magazine in Esperanto and Persian) about Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a film director and writer, the creator of movies like The Bicyclist (1987), which was the best picture in Hawaii Film Festival (1991), The Silence (1997), and A Trip to Gandehar (2000), which brought him Federico Fellini Prize from Unesco in Paris (2001).
I have a BA in architecture and an MA in urban design from Shahid Beheshti University (the National University of Iran).
In Vikipedio, I use the Esperanto form of my name, i.e. A.R. Mamduhi.