The life of this Party Girl isn’t as glamorous as her name suggests! As a volunteer for the site, I look for Iranians all the time. Old, young, beautiful, ugly, inside Iran, outside Iran, stellar, infamous, inside a house, in a field, on a stage, in a kitchen, in a castle, or on a street. I look for them mostly on YouTube. I want to find them and know what of their lives they want to share with me. Then I run as fast as I can (on the web) and I tell JJ that I found another “good” one, here he/she is! About 3/4 of what I recommend is rejected because it doesn’t meet the publication requirements. The days my finds are featured are good days for me. The days the Iranians I found are not featured, though, are a little sad for me. I don’t know how many other people out there are looking for Iranians, but I know I was on that particular day and I did find that Iranian in the North Pole or in a restaurant in Greece, in a high school in Missouri, in a village in Yazd, or on a sidewalk in New York, and he or she didn’t make the cut. Will that person be lost again? Would it matter?
Sometimes I spend hours lost in the labyrinth of YouTube, forgetting what I was doing, watching images. Sometimes I sit here and laugh my head off by myself. Some other times I cover my little YouTube window with my hands for I cannot bear to watch the images of a man being beaten or tortured or hung, but I know that that video needs to be seen. Some days I start dancing spontaneously with the music I am hearing, and some days I sit in my chair weeping for the pain or emotion I am experiencing at seeing something.
I know I like it more and quite possibly you like it more when I share my fun findings. But today I want to show you something that has affected me deeply for a couple of days and I wanted to write about it. Though remarkably brave, it’s sad, I forewarn you. I have a 31-second clip of a young Iranian Basiji, who is talking to an American reporter during the Iran-Iraq war. He speaks a perfect English. Where did he learn that? He can’t be more than 16 years old, but his words are provocative and they will sear into your soul. At the end of the short clip, he shows one of his fellow “soldiers” to the reporter, a 14-year-old boy. Looking at that clip, you wonder where those boys are now? Did they make it? The helmet on the 14-year-old boy’s head looks too big, or is his head too small? I know we all know it, but will our nation ever fully comprehend who fought for Iran during the war?
This clip reminded me of that really sad song by Rasoul Najafian, Rasm-e Zamooneh. You can listen to it here.
قصه برگ و باد خزونه
میرن آدما از اونا فقط
خاطره هاشون به جا میمونه
کجاست اون کوچه
چی شد اون خونه
آدماش کجان خدا میدونه
بوتهء یاس بابا جون هنوز
گوشهء باغچه توی گلدونه
عطرش پیچیده تا هفتا خونه
خودش کجاهاست خدا میدونه
میرن آدما از اونا فقط
خاطره هاشون به جا میمونه
