- Be proud of your sacrifices! Standing is better than sitting.
- Stay positive! You were born exactly when and where you should have been.
- Visit “Eyes on the Prize” to see how a people kept hope and faith through the impossible.
- If you are not in Iran:
- Never, ever, ever give up. EVER!
- call family in Iran and express admiration/ love
- comment on someone’s blog with an encouraging thing to say, never let them feel that you are giving up.
- Defend freedom of speech wherever you are, all change is local.
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I am an American. My American friend and I would like to share a story with you about our facebook friend in Tehran named Shahrooz. Shahrooz is 30 years old and a passionate secular democratic activist for freedom in Iran. He had shared with John and me his revulsion for the Islamic regime and his fervent desire for the end of the political and social repression that is being inflicted on the Iranian people in the name of Islam.
Last Monday, the day after Ashura, at a time when facebook in Iran was supposedly down, he used his computer skills to hack into facebook and tell me the regime had cut all communications via Internet and video out of Iran. He told me the regime was killing, arresting and wounding far more people than officially reported and that it was urgent for me to get the message out to the global media about what was happening to the Iranian people.
This Monday, he emailed John and me and told me he needed to disconnect from facebook because of a “security problem.” He said his mobile phone, Internet, and regular phone were being interrupted. He said,”I think I am under control.”
I think he was trying to tell us that the Basij-SS had discovered him and was looking for him to arrest him, G-d forbid. John and I are left to wait and worry about him. We hope he is able to escape to Turkey or Iraq to avoid arrest at the hands of this regime. We worry greatly about the possibility of him being arrested by the regime and facing torture, rape, and solitary confinement, G-d forbid.
We are both Americans with no familial ties to Iran. But we are greatly moved by the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom and are doing everything in our power to support you. We are speaking out for you and demanding our U.S. Senators and members of Congress call for peaceful regime change to end the clerical tyranny. We strategize daily by phone and email about how to help Iranian people remove this evil regime. Your struggle is our struggle, your problem is our problem. Most of all you are not alone because we are with you, and we are sharing your pain even if indirectly.
Thank you so much for this comment, for being a true world citizen, and for your action. I am hopeful that your friend is alright. A few things I would like to comment on. I was deeply affected by an article by an elder Iranian who has seen several revolutions and change in Iran (posted here under “An elder’s kind and wise words”). He cautions for those of us outside Iran to not become to swept up in the romantic notion of good versus evil. In order to really move forward, Iran needs to embrace its religious and secular diversity. I find myself slipping into the mindset that the people in power are a different specie than the people fighting for freedom, and it often feels that way. But the truth is that these two sides of Iran have lived side by side and what we need now is balance. In the early 20th century, the then king forced secularization on the people (for example, he forbade women from wearing the headscarf), and from my grandmother’s tales, that was also a disaster. Secular might does not work either. We need restraint, civil rights, and the freedom of speech. It is very important that the current victims exert self restraint in their feelings to remember that if we hate, if we become destructive we are not moving forward. In my opinion, “winning” would be tipping the scales towards freedom, not bloody (as you said, peaceful), and many people may not agree with me on this, but not even a revolution. We need an end to Ahmadinejad’s presidency, and then a continuation of the evolution towards democracy that has already started. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.