true life planet

Part Two of  a series..NOT appropriate for children under age 13. Please have your parents read first! thanks..

In front of the UN is a big sculpture of a broken chair. The chair was put there in the late 90’s to protest the use of landmines.

Under the chair, and directly around it, is an enormous public square, which has been put to use by people from all over the world protesting every thing you can think of.

Walking up to the square was a very interesting experience…I could see the enormous chair, a group of protesters, holding flags, banners, people talking with microphones..it’s a strange sight to see so much activity and color in a neighborhood that is, quite frankly, full of boring buildings and office workers.

The protesters turned to be from Iran.I had never really talked to anyone at any length from Iran. My small town American life back at home does not give me many opportunities to meet Iranians. I was immediately struck by how little I knew about Iran and it’s people. Everything I know I only know from media–newspapers, the news on tv–I don’t really know much more than what has been easy to know.

The protesters had been in front of the UN for about a month.They were all protesting on behalf of their friends and families–some 3500 people– that were living in a camp in Iraq.

The name of the camp is Ashraf. It’s about 30 kilometers from the Iranian border.

Everyone in the camp belongs to a political party that doesn’t like the current Iranian political policies, and they consider the current leader to be a religious dictator. The name of their group is the PMOI, or the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. They are the main opposition movement to the current group in power.

According to the protesters, the problems with the current government running  Iran include the following:

1. It’s a religious dictatorship. That means if you believe something different than them, you either have to change your mind or suffer. For example, many thousands of Muslims who want a more secular and democratic Iraq. For example, many thousands of Christians, who want to practice their faith. And many others..they also control all creativity–as in the type and production of all creative thought by artists and writers.

2. It wants Iran to become a country with a nuclear program, and is making bombs.

3. It has created a terrible situation for women and women’s rights, including the practice of punishing women for not being fully covered/wearing the veil.

4. It has violated human rights, and regularly resorts to things like killing people publicly and torture as a way of repressing people. Things like amputations, public stoning to death, and so on are commonplace.

5. Children and youth are severely limited in educational opportunities and also have their human rights violated.

The people living in Ashraf have managed to do so because they have been protected under something called The Geneva Convention, which gives them a status of “protected persons”. Right now, this means that they are currently under the protection of the Allied Forces in Iraq.

But soon, all that may change, as under a new agreement recently made, the people living in Ashraf will have to return to Iran. To do so means certain death.

More than 30,000 people belonging to this political group have been killed, and what’s more, all of the people in Ashraf have been condemned to death in absentia. What this means is that in the eyes of Iran, is that all these people are all going to be executed the moment they get transferred over the border.

Pretty heavy hitting stuff.

I spoke to a beautiful, well spoken Iranian woman named Sohelia for about an hour about the history of Iran, the current political situation there, and about the lives of those living in Ashraf.

She also introduced me to many others who were protesting there with her, all of who had families and friends living in the camp.

They had big posters, filled with photographs of the people in the camp.

” This is my brother.” “This is my sister.” “These are my daughters.” “This is my grandchild.”

Everyone came over to me and led me to the posters, pointing out those that they loved and were so worried about.It makes it..so much more real..to see the faces of actual people who are in this situation, to hear the stories from their families. It hit home and it made me think.

There were also many, many enormous posters of photographs of people who had been tortured, killed, and executed in Iran. It was..very disturbing to look at, but I decided to look at all the photos carefully to commit them to my memory. I wanted to hold those images in my mind as I continued on this trip. I wanted to remember those people.

That took..a courage I did not know I had. I couldn’t even watch a scary movie a year ago, and now I found myself peering closely at photographs of things I cannot even describe here.Something else I learned is that the methods of torturing killing people who are in the PMOI party are extreme. I will not describe what I saw in the pictures …. I can only say..that a human body was no longer recognizable when the torturers were done. And that was just the torture. The pictures of people who had been executed were even more chilling.

The Iranians who had been in front of the UN protesting for days had not given up hope. They continued to protest, to try to prevent what will surely be a human catastrophe, hoping to be heard…

Unfortunately, they have not had a positive response to date from the UN to date. According to the spokesman of the group, the UN had told them only that, ” ..it was aware of the situation and know all about it..”

Chilling words. If they know about it–then how can they allow it to happen?

I walked away from Soheila and the other protesters, extremely moved…and thinking about how I take so much for granted.

Alot of times people get cynical and hopeless and think that humanity is going to be the end of itself. There is so much pain ans suffering in the world, and it’s all caused by people.

The one thing that gives me a real hopefulness is that people do actually know what is right and what is good, and that they are willing to take great risks and sacrifice to bring that to the surface of what would otherwise sometimes be a very murky and disturbing world.

So, fight your cynical nature. Don’t give up–I’m not.

It’s all about information, education and awareness. The more of these I possess, the more I am going to be able to speak up for what is right and good.

At the start of this trip, I knew nothing….Seriously, I knew so little.

My brain and my inactive life were pretty much a blank canvas.

Oh, I volunteered at at the local soup kitchen and so on..but I just didn’t know much about the world and what people are actually dealing with. Maybe I didn’t want to–who knows? It’s kind of hard for me to relate to whoever that woman was  a year ago..let alone two months ago.

But I am living proof that you can take  a totally inactive person who is content and basically uninvolved in the world and turn them into someone who is actually seeking out being more aware every day. What I end up doing with all this new found awareness remains to be seen–but it can only make my life and the life of others around me better than it was before.

gigi

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