I have a confession to make: before the situation in Iran came to a head, I didn't really think of Iran as having people. Of course, I intellectually recognized the broad outlines of Iran's demographics and history. But somehow, I just never thought of people. It was as if its entire population of Iran looked and thought like Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah, and the nation could be abstracted away as a personality, a petulant bully in the middle east.
But then came Friday's election and its aftermath. (More below the fold.)
The Twitter coverage from inside Iran and the heart-wrenching photographs profoundly affected me: it was as if I'd been sitting in a dark theater when the house lights suddenly came on, in an instant transforming the vaguely-defined shadows on all sides suddenly into a crowd teeming with voices, preferences, dreams, ideas, and hopes.
Looking around, I saw something in them: I saw us! They wear the same clothes and listen to the same music. We share the Internet, and their college dormitories could be transplanted unnoticed into any American city.
I felt shocked and guilty: guilty because I should have known that all along. On some level, I must have. But it never quite bubbled up to the top of my consciousness before; for some reason, our common humanity never quite registered emotionally. This is a bittersweet revelation, however, because it comes with the knowledge that these people are oppressed, and are dying for the things that we, by the accident of our birth, already have.
Actually, it's not right to say they're just like us: they're braver than we are. If the situation were reversed, and we were governed by the Moral Majority, would we bleed in the streets? Would we defy the police, blast past barricades, and protest by the millions in the face of death? Or would we keep our heads down, stay inside ever less relevant free speech zones, and let our freedoms ebb away?
I think I finally understand why Lord Byron went to fight and die for the Greeks in their revolution. I want to help too.
Iranians, you have the civil spirit and zeal that we once had, that we should have, and that we hopefully will regain. I salute you.
Update: lineatus makes a good point below: if ten years ago we'd acted more like the Iranians, we could have avoided Bush and lived in a far better world today.