Doing Something

I keep scrutinizing news photos and images on my TV screen for someone or something familiar in the streets of Tehran. When I was in Iran thirty years ago attending the Tehran Film Festival, our hostess-guides wore red blazers and wide, effortless smiles, so when I see a face in the crowd with lips tightly pursed, I envision her as her mother with a smile, and if I focus on a young woman whose face is partially obscured by a chador or a scarf, I try to imagine her as a mature woman in a red blazer.

The streets are cluttered now with bodies and barriers and sporadic motorcycles, some overturned and burning. In those days, the heavily-trafficked thoroughfares were filled with vehicles always inching toward a standstill. The best roads went from the Shah’s Palace to his sisters’ palaces, or anywhere else the Shah desired to go.

The Shah’s portrait with or without his family hung in every shop and appeared to adorn every public fence and wall. I asked our guide Miriam if it was mandatory. She replied, “We love our Shah.” Those portraits have long since been replaced by ones of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamani. I wonder if Miriam and her children “love” them.

“The end of a supreme leader will come through supreme leaders,” reads a newer Twitter message. Is Mousavi one of those leaders, are there others and where will they emerge from? An ominous message states, “Mousavi - confirmed - If I am arrested the nation is to strike indefinitely.” Mousavi confirmed?

The Twitter messages are growing thin with lip service and little news. Some twitterers are contending the government is sending bogus messages and warning us not to be deceived. Others are asking us to “Pls set your Twitter accounts to Tehran time to stop the IR auth from tracking the kids who use it. Please ask your friends too. Thank you!”

Three messages, ostensibly from within the country, sound a repetitive warning note: “pls be careful and keep your cameras at home -- or well-hidden ... !” “A note from Tehran: police/basij pulling cars over to inspect at checkpoints... they will seize any cameras along with the owner's ID card.” "They are stopping and searching cars and peoples bags. They are taking peoples ID cards and cameras."

Little we can do from here. But we can do something. We can show our support and concern for the reformers by signing petitions (which are abundant), writing to our congressional representatives and, above all, by letting the Iranian government know how we feel. It worked for Roxana, I strongly believe, and it just might work or help again.

Write to: His Excellency Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee,
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran
622 Third Ave.
New York, NY 1007
e-mail: iran@un.int

Mahatma Gandhi is not around to twitter. Someone did it for him: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"