It is Sunday and the weather is so pleasant that it seems too luxurious. The vast blue of the Mediterranean stretches in front of me but refuses to soothe. The contrast between how I feel and all this beauty surrounding me hurts.
I am glad that my children are out of harms way. (I decided to leave Iran after the election of Ahmadinejad because I did not want my children to grow up in the suffocating atmosphere of Iran.) I was one of the lucky ones who could make the choice to live outside of Iran.
But today I wish I was there. Not because I would be of any help to the street activists at this age and weight! Today I wish I was there so I could add my sorrow, my horror, and anger to the collective one of the nation. I wish I could add my sadness to that sea of sorrow. I wish I was there walking the streets where I grew up and first learned about life so that I could breathe the remorse and horror that they permeate. I wish I was there to share that anger, that grief, that hope against hope, of a people fed up with tyranny.
I wish I was there to mourn the death of the sons and daughters that are fighting for my dream. I wish I was in Tehran where Neda, the young woman we all watched dying on youtube, is being mourned by her parents. I want to shed tears not here in front of this, for me, grotesquely beautiful view but with the parents of those children.
If Tehran was a polluted city until yesterday it has now become hallowed grounds. Those streets where the blood of brave innocents has been shed are now sacred. I kiss the asphalt on which Neda died.
I want to go to the rooftop and cry Allah Akbar. Not because I believe that God is great or that I am a Muslim, but because it has become the cry that expresses horror and hope of a nation in the face of such savagery. I want to go and join my Allah Akbar to the many others and make it sound louder. I want to go and cry at the top of my lungs this lamentation against injustice.
Today I do not want to be here in this beautiful town of Nice where no one is above the law. Today I want to be there sharing the grief, the sorrow and horror of my dear Iran.
