16
Jun 09MicroKhan on the Supreme Leader.
Brendan Koerner tackles the mess in Iran. The emphasis is mine, because I think it gets at why this struggle has affected me so strongly:
I can’t shake the Iran story because the country is so integral to one of my formative memories: The 1979-80 hostage crisis at the American embassy in Tehran. I was five years old at the time, and had obviously never heard of Iran before. But when I saw terrifying newspaper photographs like the one above, I could only conclude that the nation was a sinister place, as dark and foreboding as fairy-tale forests. And when first impressions are made in a child’s mind, they can be tough to shake.
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To see the streets of Tehran flooded with people demanding a most basic right—that their leaders live up to a sacred promise—has been a somewhat overwhelming emotional experience for me—even more so than watching the Berlin Wall crumble.
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Even though Iran will be irrevocably changed by the events of the past few days, linear progress is far from guaranteed. Tyranny does not melt away easily, because those who enforce it are so scared of change, of the unknown.Sort of like five-year-olds, come to think of it. The future does not belong to them.
Tagged: civil liberty, news, politics