June 2009: A month or a few decades?
It will be difficult to forget June 2009. The political, social and historical lessons of this month is so huge that makes it equivalent to at least the last two decades. All these happened in a month:
- Golden campaign days that we observed the highest level of social and political tolerance among people and also within the regime.
- The TV debates where for the first time a few high ranked official was truely challenged in public.
- The historical turn outs with people standing in lines for hours... People outside Iran rushing to the poles for the first time, etc.
- The shameful hijack of the results that set a record in obscenity of the Iranian leadership
- The peaceful set of mass protests that impressed the entire world, but not the Iranian leadership. 1-3 million people walked peacefully and respectfuly, asking for their vote, with minimal tension and violence.
- And finally a new set of shameful events that proved that where are the root causes of the political troubles in Iran.
As I write, an oppressive clamp down have calmed the situation. It's foolish to think that the storm is really over. This is just the end of a big beginning. Our nation still needs time to digest what happened in these days. Many of us, used to think that despite all the restrictions in Iran, there are ways to reform the system gradually. On Friday June 19th, we were told that our thoughts have been mostly an illusion. We were told that it doesn't matter what's the turn out, what's the vote and how many people are in streets, shouting against an election hijack! Khamenei's speech and its consequent violent crack downs were a large shock to many of Iranians. And that's why we all need time to think all these through and come up with the next step.
What matters the most is that we learned so much in this month. We learned about the impressive potentials of our people and also some leaders like Musavi, Khatami and Karubi. And we learned how desperate and foolish other so called leader and president can become.
Many Iranians experienced something novel in this period. Some in Iran, who went into the actual scenes and saw things as the first witness. Others who tuned into all tight channels to get drops of information and finally many of us the expatriates who almost closed down our lives and sank into a sea of the information coming from various resources. All of us saved some angles of a historical month: June 2009.
- Golden campaign days that we observed the highest level of social and political tolerance among people and also within the regime.
- The TV debates where for the first time a few high ranked official was truely challenged in public.
- The historical turn outs with people standing in lines for hours... People outside Iran rushing to the poles for the first time, etc.
- The shameful hijack of the results that set a record in obscenity of the Iranian leadership
- The peaceful set of mass protests that impressed the entire world, but not the Iranian leadership. 1-3 million people walked peacefully and respectfuly, asking for their vote, with minimal tension and violence.
- And finally a new set of shameful events that proved that where are the root causes of the political troubles in Iran.
As I write, an oppressive clamp down have calmed the situation. It's foolish to think that the storm is really over. This is just the end of a big beginning. Our nation still needs time to digest what happened in these days. Many of us, used to think that despite all the restrictions in Iran, there are ways to reform the system gradually. On Friday June 19th, we were told that our thoughts have been mostly an illusion. We were told that it doesn't matter what's the turn out, what's the vote and how many people are in streets, shouting against an election hijack! Khamenei's speech and its consequent violent crack downs were a large shock to many of Iranians. And that's why we all need time to think all these through and come up with the next step.
What matters the most is that we learned so much in this month. We learned about the impressive potentials of our people and also some leaders like Musavi, Khatami and Karubi. And we learned how desperate and foolish other so called leader and president can become.
Many Iranians experienced something novel in this period. Some in Iran, who went into the actual scenes and saw things as the first witness. Others who tuned into all tight channels to get drops of information and finally many of us the expatriates who almost closed down our lives and sank into a sea of the information coming from various resources. All of us saved some angles of a historical month: June 2009.
posted by Mahaan @ 3:53 PM
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