In the third presidential debate with John Kerry, President Bush said the words “I believe that freedom is a gift from the Almighty” and I got chills. I think it was one of the most powerful things President Bush ever said. And he said it with authority. Lately all things political annoy me too much to try to care about. I’m just keeping my head down because I thought maybe it doesn’t really matter in the end. But then I started reading about the protests in Iran and I remembered why it matters. Freedom is a gift from the Almighty. And people have always recognized that. People have always fought for freedom and died for freedom. Why is that? What makes freedom so important to people across all religious and political lines?
In case you are hiding under a rock, the jist of the Iranian conflict is: An election was held and last Friday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected, a lot of Iranians are crying fowl. From the Los Angeles Times
Days after Khamenei blessed the election of Ahmadinejad and urged Iranians to rally behind the president, the spokesman of the Guardian Council urged Mousavi’s supporters to wait for the “final results” of Friday’s election until after the fraud investigation, which will begin today.
For some reason the people of Iran have lost faith in the political process, for some reason, a lot of Iranians do not believe that a rigged election can be fixed through any kind of “fraud investigation”. Hmm. So, despite being threatened with beatings or worse a million people took to the streets (from the same article)
Monday’s crowd — estimates of which ranged to more than 1 million — defied Interior Ministry warnings broadcast on state television and radio that anyone showing up would be beaten or worse, and even ignored Mousavi’s last-minute call to cancel the event.
The protesters found out about the rally despite a media clampdown that brought the shuttering of numerous opposition websites, including those linked to Mousavi, the jamming of satellite news channels and the shutdown of text messaging systems.
In an attempt to help keep information flowing, a Twitter co-founder wrote in a blog Monday that the company had delayed an important maintenance operation.
Yeah, seems to me that if a government is threatening violence to its own people for speaking out–they probably aren’t going to take a fraud investigation very seriously. So all kinds of people came out. They came out to Azadi [Freedom] Square. To quote some of the folks quoted in the LAT article,
“I am fed up with the rigging of votes,” said Nargess Hassanpour, a 24-year-old architect. “I had never voted until last Friday. I am here and I march toward Azadi [Freedom] Square as far as I can reach, and let come what may.”
and
“If I died today it would be perfect,” said Hossein, a 60-year-old retired schoolteacher in the crowd who didn’t want to be further identified. “The nation of Iran has woken up.”
and (this is a chant, not a direct quote, but still)
As night fell, people ascended to their rooftops and chanted “God is Great!” in what is becoming a nightly ritual of protest against Ahmadinejad’s reelection.
And this is what it looks like:
I don’t know why freedom and blood go hand in hand. I guess it is because our blood is the most precious commodity we have. Exchanging blood for the concept of freedom, of a free election, of personal freedom is the most powerful way to say that freedom is indeed a gift from God. And anyone who tries to come between that gift and people who recongize its worth will eventually be defeated. I believe that. There is a lot of evil in this world. And for the purpose of this article I’m defining evil as any power that seeks to take away liberty. It happens all over the world in many different ways. I have no doubt that eventually freedom will prevail. Until then I will always be inspired by those who stand up and give everything they have to make it happen.
Filed under: politics
