HEARTBREAK FOR IRAN

Prayers for those bravest of the brave

I sometimes wonder what my life would be had I been born in another country. Yes, my grandparents were all born in places where as Jews they were oppressed, but they escaped to a country that embraced them and gave them a new life. Oppression has never been part of my experience. The older I get, the more I realize what a fortunate person I am and have always been.

Having lived my entire life in a bubble of privilege relative to the majority of people in the world, I frequently ask myself how I would react were I in a country where my basic rights as a human being were threatened. Would I engage? Would I fight? Or would I seek to keep my head down, ride it out and hope for the best?

Never have I wondered about these things more intently than I do now, as I watch with utter awe the bravery of Iranians - particularly Iranian women - now standing up to one of the most vicious, brutal regimes in the world. Before the 1979 revolution, Iranian women were among the most modern and professionally advanced on the planet. Since then, however, they have been subject to cruel tyranny under the regime of fundamentalist Islamist Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor.

The current upheavals in Iran began when a 22 year old woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by the “morality police” while traveling to see relatives in Tehran. Her crime was that her headscarf was worn improperly! She was severely beaten by the police, fell into a coma and died three days later from her injuries.

The reaction of the Iranian people has been furious, born of years of frustration and anger at the repression imposed upon them by the Khomeini regime. Thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to protest, shouting “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!, and due to news and internet blackouts it’s impossible for us know how many of them have been punished or killed. According to Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group, “so far 133 people have been killed across Iran.” Riot police have used teargas on students at Sharif University, seeking to control what they call “rioters and thugs backed by foreign foes.” One can only imagine what is going on behind prison walls once protestors are rounded up.

Let’s pray for the people of Iran right now and keep this story alive. In the video above, the glorious Banafsheh Sayyad says it all with words and dance. And Americans should atone, as well. History would suggest that if our country hadn’t staged a coup against their democratically elected president Mossadeq in 1953 (he had the nerve to suggest that Iranian oil should belong to the Iranians and not to British Petroleum), their historical trajectory might not have led from the CIA-enthroned Shah of Iran to the fundamentalist government they have today. We will never know. But as the people of Iran wage their stunning rebellion against the brutality and oppression of their dictatorial rulers, we can only hope that our prayers are working miracles for them large and small. May they be blessed. May they be protected. And may they be victorious in their quest.

NOTE: We can also help organize and partake in protests and rallies. We can sign and share this petition by Amnesty International asking foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta to do what she can to push the UN to investigate and ensure accountability. We can donate to various human rights causes that have been taking action such, as Amnesty and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. As actor Nazanin Boniadi notes in her post, we can also help get the Iranian people access to the internet through apps like Tor’s Project Snowflake, which can bypass censorship or even Google’s Outline VPN where one can set up a VPN server and share that access with those in Iran.