Back from Iran

Back to Holland and our one- year- old life in this country and still thinking of home. I need to wrap up my thoughts and get back to the routine and start being a focused person.
What people went through during the post-election days was mostly the first topic to talk about when I was with my family and relatives. There was no sign of election events on people's faces when I was on the streets and it was even less obvious when we were in the two historic cities of Esfahan and Kashan during our traveling.
I was wondering how many of these people are keeping old or having new concerns about what they were witnessing. You cannot expect those who do not feel generally secure be great fighters, you cannot ask the ones who feel tired to run and don't stop. I was wondering how many of people whom I could see in Kashan had access to anti-filtering software for their internet or if they had any access to the internet. I did not know what percentage of them had satellite dishes. I don' know how many could get informed or cared to be informed but as I talked with those who've been in the heart of their own street stories, they thought this was only the beginning. For them, it seems the election can be fresh starting point for an official religious dictatorship and the people of Iran are waiting for the time to move again. I do not know who will be the winner or if they'll move.

First chapter

In the history books of the 21st century, the first chapter will be about us.
In the introduction, they might write that important events have happened before us, events like 9/11 and war on Iraq and Afghanistan, but those were the remnants of the previous century, with an outdated dialogue and with twentieth century tools: Airplanes, bombs and bullets. And then they will write that the first chapter is dedicated to us because we have been the true children of our time and our dialogue was the dialogue of the beginning of the third millennium.Early in the book, they will write that social movements are born out of communication technologies and at the same place they will write that we were the first movement that exploited entirely all the new communication tools that were established at the beginning of this century.Perhaps they will write a footnote on how these tools changed the social structure and how they changed the world view on the social classes, work flow, production and distribution of wealth, social leadership and management and even changed the world's attitude about the sustainable human values.Perhaps on the same page, there is a photograph of the inventor of the first mobile phone and the portraits of the founders of Wikipedia, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, Podcasts, or maybe photos of their statues in the main squares of the world's leading cities, with captions like: "Figures who built the twenty first century."Idem they will write that previously there were only one-way paths: Somebody wrote and published the newspapers and the rest of the people read them. Somebody spoke while the rest were listening. One person was on TV and the rest were watching. Somebody commanded and led and then shapeless masses followed. They will write that the community structure and distribution of wealth, power and information was pyramidal, and then they will highlight that the new communication technologies flattened the society. It empowered the bases of the pyramid such that they reached the top.It made it possible to communicate with each other, send and receive news, exchange information, tell and listen, watch and be seen, and find new means of cooperation, thinking, criticizing and progress.There, on top of that page they will put a picture of us with our green flags.They will write that we were the first social movement that all of us were its leader and all of us were its organizer. The name which was called the most was only the speaker of a part of our demands.Perhaps they will open a box there to put MirHossein's written statement as an example, where he said: because the people participate in the Friday prayer, he will accept their invitation and join them. They must also add the explanation that previously the leader of a movement used to announce his presence and invited people to join him.They may make a subsection to describe how a movement without a command center was acting so well-orchestrated. How its ideas, desires, and slogans were suggested, criticized, and completed so well, and then one day they were expressed in such a harmony as if all these millions, have practiced together for years. Perhaps there, at least in the electronic version of this history book, they will make a link to a clip of us, where the Speaker shouts from the loud-speaker: "death to the U.S.” and we all respond "death to Russia". Without anybody been preparing for this response, without being coordinated, we shout as if we are all one mouth and one voice.They will write that we were the first party that had no central council, no secretary general, and no political branches. They will write that our party was one of complete anarchy that behaved quite systematic. They may presumably point their sarcasm toward anarchist parties of decades before us that were built systematically to behave as anarchists. They will write that our party had no party organs, but all its strategies were clear and its programs were all set correctly. Our demands were also summarized, reviewed, completed, and expressed in the clearest form of expression.In the same chapter they will write that we lived the last days of guns and bullets and we showed that wherever the awareness, information and enough communication channels for human connection exists, the bullet is pointless. There may put a picture of a single bullet somewhere in our Freedom Museum and will write for its caption "the last bullet that was pulled out of the magazine"A delicate person will calculate the total weight of the electrons that construct our blogs and websites, and will show that it was not even a thousandth of a bullet weight. He may estimate the weight of all the air molecules in our chants, our "death to dictators", our "all political prisoners must be released" and show that they altogether weigh less than the weight of a single wall of the Evin prison.Next they will write that we suggested a new definition for the human society, the human relations, for globalization and for living in the global village. Each of these historians will give us a name. Their simplest may write the “Green Revolution”, another will call us the “Silence Revolution”, somebody will call it the “Smile Revolution”, and at last there will be someone to write the “Awareness Revolution''.

Source and translation from BOLTS, here is the link.

From Iran

Here is Iran, where I am one year late to meet unfamiliar wrinkles. I vividly remember they were not there last time. My parents are growing old, it takes one year of denial...one year of no picture of those new lines and here I am with a memory of a new picture; the new lines.

Here is Iran, where my eyes search for signs, any sign that could tell me things are going to be all right in here.

Here is Iran where I look for its news from the outside when I'm in, where I must and need to be...