Mark Twain Democratic Club of Whittier Presentation of current events in Iran

Arash, a member of the GreeNeda Organization was asked to speak at a meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 27th 2009 of the Mark Twain Democratic Club about the current situation in Iran.

Here is the Transcript of his speech:

We Have a Dream, What Do We Do?

by: Arash E.

In the name of Love I part my lips and open my heart. From Friendship I shall start. Like how they take me to the Highest Peak in the Sky, As if they pull me to the other side of the galaxy, to where god awaits my eternal arrival at my dream beginnings.

In the name of the one that gave us being… and the one that takes it away… in the name of this world and its citizens!

This time, maybe in some ways we might be doing something selfish. Maybe we are asking for too much? May be human beings really should not ask for anything anymore?

Maybe freedom and democracy are not guiding principles we live by as citizens of this world. Maybe the members of Mark Twain Democratic Club of Whittier are only limited to knowing about your immediate democratic values and rights?

Maybe knowing about Iran’s current struggle for Democracy and Freedom are not so important after all?

Maybe knowing is really not enough. Or knowledge by itself is really enough? Maybe understanding your heritage, culture and a longing for democratic values, has led you to…try and understand what democracy and Freedom is…and what responsibilities come with knowing that right?

Maybe a formal expression of preference for a candidate running for the top position of your country… a position that is your symbol to the world… a position that can shape the direction or enable the hope and will of your people to continue towards that dream, is a right that we citizens of this world gave up on June 12th 2009. What was this right?

In a common American Dictionary, Vote is described as a “means by which such a preference is made known, such as a raised hand or a marked ballot.”

Vote is also a collective of the number of votes cast in an election or to resolve an issue. Now that we know what the definition of a vote is, I ask you, do you know what result or effective action your VOTING has?

Maybe it does not matter in a world after June 12th 2009? Maybe like that tearful and sad day…when New York’s Eye’s were taken from the Sky. Maybe we all saw those towers in Neda’s Eyes? Maybe her blood that soiled the streets of Tehran shall one day raise towers in Iran. Towers that we citizens of this world shall one more time respect and cherish as accomplishments of mankind!

By Voting, maybe they dreamed. By voting maybe they endorsed a Free and Democratic system. By voting, they attempted to be the creators of their own destiny, not to be destined for cells of Evin Prison. By voting, they attempted to bring into existence or make available their Dreams. To see them shattered and taken by the destructive arms of its fellow brothers and sisters has crushed their individual lives yet has not shattered their will to fight for their right.

We Dream so we Vote. We Vote so we can continue to Dream. We vote because we care what another person thinks. Maybe we vote because we’ve been given the gift of decision making? Maybe we dream because we’ve been given the gift of making them into realities?

Maybe we vote because we really do value knowledge? May be we Dream because we do value culture and heritage?

This WORLD IS ONE. But ONE IS NOT THIS WORLD! We vote because there is more than one of us. We vote to appoint and elect ONE to preside over our assembly of people. We vote because thousands of years ago, a great king, the king of kings, realized this evident truth. On this same blood soiled land we are talking about today. We vote because during the night, when our mothers sing into our ears, they make us dream, dream about the life of ONE Abraham Lincoln, all the while bombs are falling from the sky and taking with them dreams and votes of those receiving mankind’s gift from above.

We have dreams about him, we have dreams about our freedom, and we have dreams about our democratic rights. As our palace turns into stairways, the stairways become home and shelter to a mother and her boys, a shelter from the rain of mankind.

MANKIND… have you seen anything kind about man? Are you concerned that, The ONE you voted for is going to put you in the same situation as that mother? What you experience today needs to be implemented in some form of action for you to be a beneficial factor in this world. In the End, your world is shaped by many ONES standing next to each other.

The topic of most news agencies prior to the Death of ONE king of pop was the phenomena of the Sea of Ones.

Who is the leader of the new movement in Iran?

Who is the ONE? Is he the chosen One? Is she the ONE? Is the supreme leader the one? Is the religion of Islam the one? Are the “external forces” the one? Was Neda the One? Is Mir Hossein Mousavi the ONE? Or is Ahmadinejad the ONE?

Maybe the Sea of Green [SOG] is the ONE? As an immigrant who fled Iran during the bloody and pointless Iran-Iraq War, as a child who dreamed of that same milkman delivering milk to his doorsteps as that little boy in a small town in America, he Read about long ago, I can assure you, Mankind is The ONE Leader of Iran.

For without MANKIND… Iran seizes to exist… For a land without its people is a desert. A place deserted by most yet inhabited by a few trying to survive in horrible yet manageable climates.

Democracy in the Anglo American sense, occupies a very limited part of the political experience of humanity. Democracy in essence, is ONE key functioning tool of human rights. History has revealed, through thousands of years of democratic evolution that fundamental liberties are required in order for a state of people to function properly.

The Constitution of this great nation, a nation founded on principles of freedom and justice for all is derived from the same principles of the 1st declaration of human rights given to mankind by Iranians.

This segment of mankind, with its religious, ethnic, racial and linguistic divisions at times, understood what human rights were. They valued what democracy stood for and the first drops of rain that formed this sea of green began to fall thousands of years ago.

We have dreamed of keeping those fundamental rights, so we shared them with our children, with our neighbors and friends. As any good farmer would, we planted this seed many moons ago, yet we are still benefiting from the byproduct of this crop. At a time where mankind was not so connected as today where the moon was our only night light, Iranians ruled their land and the land of others with respect and dignity given to all citizens.

We dreamed because our roots were enriched with the intent to raise the next ONE… with this obvious truth. BEING ONE IS BETTER THAN BEING ALONE. Iranians are ONE with their family. It’s clearly seen in their personal traits and characteristics. They value young & old, poor and rich, the mosque and the myths, the mystics and the masons. We value mankind’s benefits to the world. This is why The Sea believes in a free and democratic world. They are made up of different roots and colors, different dialects and desires. The hair is blonde, red, or brown. They look Asian, black, white or tan. The Iranians are in essence the first melting pot of society.

Yet generation after generation, all these colors and shapes and ethnicities have engulfed our deep thoughts about respecting and loving all of mankind. Cherishing and experiencing all forms of contact or theory of the almighty. Today that has led to the visibility of this sea of dreams. Today we are witnessing the path of the Sea of Green towards the Ocean of Change.

The Path of fantastic and far reaching dreams becoming a reality. The moment where the young and old in this sea have started to question the true intentions of mankind. They are visualizing their dreams through the lens that sees no boundaries. The internet has empowered not only the sea to rise but has created a canal large enough for passage to the Ocean of Change.

An Evolution of Revolution! When one dies, we all die. When the right One dies, we all live!! Today I did not come here to be a newspaper reporter. I am here to tell you I am an agent of change. I am witness to the streets of Irvine being lined and connected to the many streets of Iran. An Iran who had many ties to the west, prior to the last revolution. An Iran which was to some the Paris of the Middle East. An Iran historically rich in resources and good deeds to mankind, good thoughts in the writings of the likes of Ahura Mazda and Numerous Poets like Rumi and many more philosophers that came after him.

An Iran, who was catapulting to new heights under the reign of the last Monarchy. An Iran who albeit harsh sanctions has somehow evolved to be a potential nuclear power? What is it about this part of our earth that is so dear to us that while, thousands of miles away, we think of, we hope for, and we cherish its fine foods and warm people? It’s because of “windows” that ONE genius opened not too long ago, which has enabled everyone to realize that INJUSTICE TO ONE ANYWHERE WILL LEAD TO INJUSTICE TO ALL EVERYWHERE. It’s the same injustice that Sea of Green has tried to distinguish and extinguish without raising their fists but by “raising their hands” **You have all raised your hands!!** This sea represents the first step for mankind in which it shall create justice by means of peace somewhere, and it will lead to justice everywhere.

Remember, thirty years ago, a nation which was ruled by kings for thousands of years, evolved into a new political solution for its people. A promise of a new Republic by a totalitarian Theocratic government. Whether that choice was the right or wrong one, it was still considered a Vote of the masses. Maybe not by ballot, but it was still in dictionary terms, a vote.

That same populous went through 30 years of evolving. From No basic rights to some, from limited outside resources to limited opportunities from within, the children of the revolution have become a large pool of academically successful women and men, all striving for that one democratic value of self worth and accomplishment.

Mankind’s thirty year experiment has resulted in a pool of talent that does not want a nuclear armed Iran. A population that wants public freedoms, personal rights, women’s rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and most of all their basic human rights. Yet in this same era, we have another pool of talent that has wasted their lives sitting on streets corners without a job. Living day by day addicted to drugs, willing to sell their body and mind for a buck, only wishing that they were not stuck. This great land is not a land to many, it’s a prison without fences, it’s a university without the proper teachers, and it’s a mass grave without dead bodies. The Sea has realized they are not just changing Iran. They are making each of us aware that Iran is really not “flat”, and that Iran is “Round”!

You are sitting in your seat today because of the same set of guiding principles that formed another Sea long ago. What words does our own Constitution Start with? “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” I don’t recall in history books as ONE person starting America. Just like the SOG, That Sea had many cultures, Colors and Creeds. The Melting Pot of cultures brought a new combined and respected coexistence under one common flag or under the same underlying communal laws. I believe then too, voting mattered.

Why did our founding fathers want to break way from their beloved England? Our Sea understood this principle of coexistence of different cultures and the longing of a human being to be productive for its community and the protector of its land, which in turn led a group of people to love each other enough to give their personal freedom and safety up so that they could all be ONE. Now this was the sweetest kind of Death!!

British Democratic expansions required 6 centuries from Magna Carta in 1215 to the REFORM ACT of 1832. Yet our transition in the US only took over a century.

This leads us to sympathize and relate to the struggles of the SOG. They are basically asking for the same things we wanted here only a few hundred years ago. As one Dr. Recently wrote to Pres. Obama, “I was there when Neda died. I made sure that the world saw the look in her eyes just before she died. So that every tyrant in the world would know that there is always someone watching.” “She died for a reason there; she died for a dream at a time when all dreams were shattered…she died to bring dignity to a country that was becoming one of the most hated states in the world.”

This revolution is making the world see first hand the problem of mixing church and state. The evolution of mankind in accepting the fact that democracy and the vote are 2 key elements in all places on earth that mankind inhabits. Like many moons ago, people will question the roundness of your rational. Many will assume that these are utopian ideology. But I beg to differ.

Today’s struggle for democracy and freedom is not about nuclear arms races or terrorist acts. Iranians need the right grounds for a successful democratic system to gain momentum and ground. Iran will not succumb to the will of one religion. It will once again respect all religions equally. It will solve its internal and external force issues with peace, harmony and most of all with dignity.

We see this in clear examples of recent posters for the upcoming 13th of aban mass movement and sit down for change. They are trying to rid their land of terrorists and fundamentalists by understanding that for one to change, one must be loved unconditionally, and one must continue believing in their dreams. As the new phase of their evolution continues, they will pay the ultimate price of dying in order for ONE to Live. Inch by inch is a synch. Yard by yard is very hard. The SOG is moving towards that ocean inch by inch. They are sending out posters and flyers encouraging everyone to gather to form the biggest hotel in the world.

As one poster states: “Hotel Green and Free in Tehran invites you! -come join us friends! -with flowers we will greet the anti riot police and the internal security forces. -and with our silence we shall sit in the streets -and with our unity as ONE we shall turn days in nights and nights into days. -we will sit silent until our rights are given back

-on the 13th we shall stand as one in the streets because we feel the energy of Freedom.

This will be our last Step- if we come in millions and stay!

The biggest hotel in the world able to accommodate millions of people is welcoming the freedom seeking people of the sea of green.

This Dream shall continue as we realize as individuals that we all have been going through one of the many obstacles in the way of this Middle Eastern Renaissance period. For, Iran is as much part of the Middle East as it is part of Mankind. For Iran understands that a recreation of the wheel of fortune is not necessary. All they needed to do was dig deep in their roots of history and realize as a collective, that their democracy and fundamental right of freedom are like water and food. Two elements needed for survival of mankind.

They’ve had 30 years to learn and research about what mankind did before them. With this knowledge they have reawakened their dreams. Their dreams of one day seeing that wheel of fortune turn towards their path. With this simple yet powerful thought, they have awakened all dreamers. From MLK to ME, from Youtube to You. By form of Twitter to Tehran. All are channeling their dreams of happiness and tranquility. Everyone wants the same things in life. Everyone deserves the same things in life. We have enough love to go around. With this love we will make this dream into a reality. In life nothing that you set to do is impossible. Possibilities of a democratic and free society in Iran tomorrow are not possible. But days after tomorrow they will be possible. For any tree that is planted, it will take time to come up from under the weight and pressure of that dark soil to rise into the sky. To once again turn something that had no physical movement or life and make the surface around us green once again. The Tree you and I have planted is not for us. The tree that the ONE who planted before us is providing that shelter and shade that we need so dearly today. Imagine what that Ocean of Change will feel like when the Sea finally arrives?