Iran - a nation paralyzed

Written by the son of an Iranian diplomat.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The following is by the son of an Iranian diplomat. Once again we woke up with goose bumps... Once again we woke up with pain and tears... The hard-working laborer in each of Iran's 30 provinces, the poet, the successful journalist or entrepreneur in the West, and even the son of the regime's diplomat - collectively and individually, we have turned into a paralyzed nation of nonbelievers by simply not believing the tragedy which has befallen us. On Saturday I woke up to the dreadful news of Delara Darabi's execution, a young artist imprisoned three years ago for a crime she was alleged to have committed at the age of 17. I read the shattering words of her attorney, Mohammad Mostafaei, describing his feelings toward this unjustifiable sentence, and also a letter Delara had personally written to Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian Canadian human rights activist and a former Miss World Canada. With the words of Ms. Afshin-Jam, "I am at a loss for words. My heart is empty and my tears are flowing." I have read the love poems of Hafez, yet at this moment I can only feel anger and hate. With tears pouring down my cheeks, I asked the God of Jews, the God of Christians, the God of Muslims and the God of all human beings: WHY? How can something like this occur? I received no direct response. Yet I was struck by a sudden flash of intuition, or rather a wake-up call. For too long have we kept silent, when we should have screamed. For too long have we disregarded our own principles, when we should have risen with courage. For way too long have we been paralyzed by the thought that this regime might change from within or eventually disappear with time. TIME AND AGAIN, Iranians have blamed Khamenei (supreme leader), or in this case Shahroudi (head of the judicial system), for disastrous injustices and cruelties. However, what Iranians have failed to understand is that their passiveness as a nation has been paving the way for these human rights abuses, along with the international isolation of our beloved Iran. "I don't know, I don't know how this happened to me. After many years I still haven't been able for even a few minutes [to] resolve it," were Delara's own words to Ms. Afshin-Jam. While on the one hand these words mark the emotional outburst of a young innocent woman, at the same time they may serve as a symbol for the helplessness of an entire nation. If at this point in time the descendants of Cyrus the Great, whom we so often proudly refer to, won't shake off their political paralysis, then the death of our daughters and sons, our mothers and fathers, may have been in vain. We must use this tragic incident as a wake-up call, to prove to the young Israeli generation, the Americans, the Europeans, along with "all the people of this large and vast house," that we are willing to take our destiny in our own hands. With the words of Delara: "I pray that one day everyone becomes a lover, and we all be the guests of the Lord's vast feast."