Anonymouse

Monda I can feel your

Monda I can feel your pain! Just kidding!  I'm glad that you have cousins who feel the same way so you can understand where I am coming from.

I have no doubt in people's pain and sadness, no doubt.  What I don't understand is the level of expression.  This has nothing to do with how good is someone with words or expressing it.  It has to do with "are you really that sad"?  There is no sad-meter but I find it hard to believe that someone who has no direct relation or personal stake could be crying "all night long".  Now if someone really cries all night long, I'd like to hear about it one way or another and in terms I can understand or feel.

BTW as far as everthing is sacred, you know I believe Mullahs believe much more things are NOT sacred than things i.com thinks is NOT sacred which are the reason i'com has chosen and explained as the basis for this slogan. i.e., i.com thinks few religious things are not sacred whereas Mullahs thinks those "few" religious things are sacred and the "rest" of the world not sacred!

Everything is sacred.

Anonymouse jan

Even though I do not see all the expressions of grief and anger submitted here (or on any other Iranian website), as crocodile tears; however I do see how some pieces may have that "flat" quality, to you or people like you who have recently been inside Iran. My cousins who recently returned from Iran, who had closely participated in the events, pre and post-election, feel similar disappointments about the fakeness /flatness of reactions in us outside Iran. 

I think the quality of reaction that may bother you, lies in our physical distance from the murdered, the silenced and the brutalized by this regime, As much as in our distance from each other Here. How can you possibly see My tears or hear about My sleepless nights, as I watch the heart wrenching images and read news and blogs frantically daily? How can you see My anger and fear while I collect myself daily in order to function at work or at home? Can You see my swollen eyes with dark circles around them, all these weeks? If you were in my vicinity you would. As my family, local friends and colleagues do.

Some Iranians outside of Iran, may not have the eloquent words to write about the grief and fear that they genuinely feel for Iran. In attempts of self expression, they may find themselves hit with words frozen for 30 years. Some may say: tough shit, get over it! but you know, that is what trauma of losing our real home and hopes have done to some of us. We/I have not lost connection with our motherland. That bond still contains immense hope for the future of our country. That hope is the most real and potent of all personal assets that we own here, outside of Iran.

and You are damn right my friend: Everything Is sacred. 

MPD you are spot on

that is the only explanation resonating with me. Thank you for putting it into words.

This series was to

This series was to reflect your feelings and I expressed mine.  I applaud everyone who has taken the task and expressed his or her feelings in this series and ecourage others to participate too. Here is when you can participate "any way" you can.

I don't think I should be explaining my feeling :-) and you either get it or don't get it but here it goes anyway.  I was not talking about those who participated and expressed their feelings one way or another.  I was talking about general response to people's feelings that were and are being expressed.

Bill Clinton used to say; I feel you pain :-) and I thought while an act it doesn't sound like an act.  So when you respond to an expression of sadness why do you have to top it off with more of your own sadness? And then someone tops it off more and on and on it goes.  

Lastly, I was talking about UN in New York in particular and not everywhere else.  Ahmadi doesn't come to California.  During Shah everyone came to Washington, mostly by bus (Greyhound) in those days.  Now it is ok to go anywhere you can and I understand the financial limitations but again I am talking about those who want people in Iran to sacrifice more with armed response and general strikes and so forth yet they are not willing to sacrifice anything themselves.  The reason they won't go is just laziness and not something else.  Now you tell me you can't find a bunch of those people around you?

Not that there is anything wrong with it! 

Everything is sacred.

MPD your brother is right.

MPD your brother is right. My uncle says the same thing, but he also calls me

 هموطن وطن در چمدان

and I'm ok with it. I can understand that. After all there is a difference between us and those who live there and have no other place to go. No 2 way ticket at hand. After 30 years we still belong, of course we belong but I think there should be a give and take between us, perhaps more "give" from them and "take" from us.

.You know they don't listen to the same news and get "brainwashed" (for lack of better word) another way

So when WE talk to each other while we still "belong" WE don't always get it

!?get it

.Everything is sacred

How

How do you determin if someone is showing their care and not showing off ? What precisely makes you wonder if the prorestors are supporting themselves? Would you like to see another Niousha Farahi to set himself on fire in front of the Federal Building for you to feel something? I am really curious ! How much risk should one take for his or her actions to count toward a cause? Is speaking Farsi a pre requisit to taking protest 101 in some college ?

People will do whatever they can within their means.One's committment to a cause is not measured by how far they are willing to travel.

Of course that's the way you feel and I am not you but I can't put myself in your shoes either.I don't know what you expect.The game is being played in Iran and all of us are just spectators including those who go to Iran often and have a chance to possibly sit on the floor and have a humble super cool dinner the"khaki"way with the masses.

MPD

What a nice response.

Will people come...?

Will people come by cars, planes, trains, taxis, subways and any way they can to protest when it counts the most

Before people come, there ought to be a sense of belonging to others. One of my brothers told me this in one of my trips to Iran

“تو متُعلق به ما هستی”

It was hard to believe after living away for almost thirty years, at the time, he still conveyed to me that I belonged to them, and to the land, to the sea, and to the people. Not just with those simple words but also with the storied he told about their lives there. About the dead in our family, and the weddings, the new born, the sorrows, the addicts, the thieves, and laughters, and all the things that made us believe we belong to each other

So before people come we have to tell our stories, our feeling, and what we care about, and what we don’t, and if we feel this sense of belonging, yes we will come

Dear Anonymouse

Thank you for accepting the call.

I believe everyone has been genuine about expressing their feelings, as have you. It isn't a writing competition, nor any other kind of competition. The call asked people to write about how they felt. Someone cried and someone was angry, someone felt pride and someone felt hope, someone felt nothing and someone thought it all felt flat. I think that is a good start for having a representation of how Iranians outside Iran feel about the events in Iran, and I am grateful this body of work was done for the iranian.com community.

Thank you again.

lets be fair

A lot of people write to get things off their chest. A lot of people who wrote essays and poems about the recent events are bloggers who express their feelings by writing.

It's not fair to dismiss their genuine expressions as "showing off". We all cope in different ways. That's totally different from the crocodile tears of the ones who didn't care if these same people were being bombed and now can't stop crying for a couple of them that they have learned their names.

Whether we're involved with serious political activism or not, we care
about our homeland and hurt when we see the young people of our country
are being beaten and slaughtered.
I agree that going to NY when AN is there would be the best thing to do, but not everybody can afford that. I know I can't! 

IRANdokht

But you're wrong, Arastu.

These are not crocodile tears. These images we are bombarded with are terribly upsetting. It's just that people have varying degrees of facility in expressing themselves in words. We just shouldn't turn it into some kind of competition and we should try to give ourselves more hozour dar sahneh. That's all I think.

You are right.

Yes.