Iran: The REAL Audacity of Hope
President Barack Obama entitled his second book "The Audacity of Hope" and yes perhaps it was audacious for a young African American man without benefit of an elite family background to aspire to greater things. But look what he accomplished!
The way I see it today however, the real audacity of hope is coming to life in Iran.
It is audacious to think that after 30 years of tight-fisted rule by a small number of clerics groups of outspoken people taking to the streets can honestly hope for and achieve change and freedom in their lives. And yet they are calling for it.
Despite arrests, despite being killed, despite clerics now calling for the participators in these demonstrations to be executed... they have hope. They want change and now their government knows it.
A government that is frightened and now weakened by this vast out pouring of anger at them. It must be quite a shock for them to realize that the control they have isn't as powerful as they had thought.
Once upon a time Persia (Iran) was a great empire. The people can regain that dignity, that greatness not by taking up arms but by taking to the streets and letting themselves be heard. By means of Facebook and Twitter - technology that the clerics under estimated and can't fully control.
Throwing the foreign journalists out of the country did not stop the word from getting out. It didn't keep Neda's death from echoing across the globe. They are losing control and they know it. So they are trying to blame the US and the UK for causing all this and meddling. But the people know better. And they want to be heard.
There will be more deaths before this is all settled and it may very well take years to accomplish... but is it audacious to hope that the ultimate death will be that of this oppressive regime? I think not.
The way I see it today however, the real audacity of hope is coming to life in Iran.
It is audacious to think that after 30 years of tight-fisted rule by a small number of clerics groups of outspoken people taking to the streets can honestly hope for and achieve change and freedom in their lives. And yet they are calling for it.
Despite arrests, despite being killed, despite clerics now calling for the participators in these demonstrations to be executed... they have hope. They want change and now their government knows it.
A government that is frightened and now weakened by this vast out pouring of anger at them. It must be quite a shock for them to realize that the control they have isn't as powerful as they had thought.
Once upon a time Persia (Iran) was a great empire. The people can regain that dignity, that greatness not by taking up arms but by taking to the streets and letting themselves be heard. By means of Facebook and Twitter - technology that the clerics under estimated and can't fully control.
Throwing the foreign journalists out of the country did not stop the word from getting out. It didn't keep Neda's death from echoing across the globe. They are losing control and they know it. So they are trying to blame the US and the UK for causing all this and meddling. But the people know better. And they want to be heard.
There will be more deaths before this is all settled and it may very well take years to accomplish... but is it audacious to hope that the ultimate death will be that of this oppressive regime? I think not.
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