Home » To Iran, with love
To Iran, with love
Iran is in turmoil. I am a small echo of that turmoil, sitting at my desk in the himilayas.
To say I care about Iran and Iranians would be a gross understatement. Four years ago they were a shape on the map, and any mention of them conjured up images in my of traditional headgear and the inevitable AK-47 held in an upraised hand.
Just days ago I returned from the Peace in the Middle East gathering in Turkey for the fourth year in a row. Just days ago I clasped arms with my Iranian brothers and wished them a safe journey back to Tehran.
They are some of my dearest friends, the kindest people I have ever met (even the world famous good cheer and helpfulness of the Canadians would have to bow out of that race) and I love them dearly. Iran is not a shape on the map anymore for me, it is the amazing homeland of my brothers and sisters, whom I have shared an unlikely and surprising long friendship.
Only days ago I noticed that we were flying over Iran and even over Tehran on Turkish Airlines flight 1070 from Istanbul to New Delhi. I strained to catch a glimpse of it, but it was shrouded in darkness. I contented myself with a prayer and a recommitment of my promise to my friends to visit them in Iran.
“After the revolution” they would always say. Can you listen to Radiohead in Iran? “After the revolution”. Do you think we can have a rainbow gathering in Iran? “After the revolution”. This was always said with great certainty, with a knowing and patient smile. Like saying, after sunrise.
What is happening there grips me, worries me. But that is nothing compared to the great risk that all my many iranian friends are surely taken. they all told me that Ahdeminijab would be gone soon. the election was in a few days. I thought I was sending them home to a new and more hopeful Iran. Instead they are returning to chaos.
I share all this about myself to humanize this. Doubtless if you are reading this you are my friend or family, or maybe someone who just got a little hooked on our crazy life. I am a human being, I suffer and care and act stupid sometimes. I pray and breathe and like vanilla ice cream and anime flicks.
They are human too. By knowing a few of their stories, I see our connection, how they like Radiohead as much as I do, even though they have to listen in secret. They are human beings, believe it or not.
And they are dying. They are being beaten. They are standing up. they are fighting and informing and trying with all that is in them to make their voices heard. So thats what I can help them do, be heard.
follow on twitter here
BEWARE! - Incredibly graphic video, but its much worse to live it than to only have to see it.
So what can you do?
get informed, follow the news. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8106507.stm and many others.
Get on twitter and offer survival info if you have it. Many useful things have been posted to help the iranians, like not using oil based skin products as it binds chemical warefare and riot control agents to the body. To remove the marks put on their houses by the Basij to show they are traitors. To not be violent, to take care and know that people are praying for them. Follow #IranElection, #Neda, #Basij and several others.
If you are a praying person, pray for them. Write congress and ask them what they are doing about it. Sign internet petitions.
Mostly take notice. This will shift the entire middle east region and effect millions of lives, even yours. The revolution is here, it could end in freedom for many of the brutal oppresion of many. maybe you can make a difference.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for sharing your videos. I’ve been trying to access news on what is happening, and Iran has been in my prayers.
What’s so horrible besides all that’s happening is that the world doesn’t know what is happening truly. Also who can intervene?
Terrible, terrible chaos. Again thanks for sharing.
June 21st, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Thank you for sharing. It is a good reminder to me to pray for them. It’s too easy to forget…
June 21st, 2009 at 11:54 pm
This is sooo heavy. I appreciate your post as it is all too easy to live in the comfort and confines of our own little ‘world’… will be praying…
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 am
I have such deep sadness and grief as I read your words and watch these videos. All I can do is pray.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I’m emailing my pastor right now to ask to set up a weekly prayer meeting for Iran. Thank you for spurring me to do it. I wonder if you could send me any specific prayer requests from your friends, or anything your would like us to pray for specifically. Thanks.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 pm
thank you for sharing, Chinua - you put into words things i’ve been thinking, hoping and praying for iran lately. i’ll spread the word. it’s history we’re watching, hoping, and praying for…along with safety and peace for our dear brother and sisters there, fighting with their lives for some liberty. heavy on my heart.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
I too met an beautiful Iranina women last Septemeber in the prayer for peace of Jerusalem connvocation for all nations in Israel. She risked her life to be there …and to say to the nations—that she longed for peace and loved….and so many of her people back in Iran felt like she did–tired of being represented to the world as a country of hate and violence—-I will never forget her—swam in the dead sea..talked into the night with her..laughed with her and cried with her..and not a catalyst for me to be attached to her country—to pray..God will visit his people..He will bring Justice!
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
[...] you know….we all want to change the world. Even the Iranians. Don’t believe me? Read this blog post. YOU can help. You can Twitter, you can talk about it, you can call attention to the situation [...]
June 26th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Hi Chinua,
At the vision council at the gathering we concensed to have the next Peace in the Middle East Gathering in Iran in 2011 (or in Turkey if not possible by then)… Support and prayers from the rainbow family…
June 26th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Thanks for this post Chinua. It can be so easy to just peruse the news and forget the humanity of the individuals. I had a friend in high school who was Iranian, and his family left with the fall of the Shah.
We truly live under the volcano. We feel the earth shudder. We see the smoke rise. We pray.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
thank you for reminding us that we are all, always, connected. that no matter whom it is, as long as one suffers, we all suffer. that we are all human, with hearts. and that love and prayer and action can change the world. blessings.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I’ve never been more hopeful that true revolution could take place. And never more disappointed in the U.S.’s response. I’m praying…