Rock the vote
The silent majority needs
to roar to life and jump in and mix it up
Lance
Raheem
May 26, 2005
iranian.com
Well, well, well ... the Guardian Council has approved
a whopping handful of candidates to stand in next month's presidential
elections out of the more than one-thousand hopefuls who had registered
their candidacies. If there is a single person on this planet who
is surprised by this then surely they must have been stranded on
a deserted island for the past twenty-six years.
If nothing else the Guardian Council's announcement will
give our community just one more thing to talk about. We
have become a nation of talkers.
In all humility, I have to admit that I was wrong when I said all
we do is talk for I have learned in the past few weeks that we
walk too ["All
we do it talk"].
When I heard about the "Iran
Freedom Walk" to the White House, I thought hell yes,
now you've got the mullahs running scared. I bet they were shaking
in their
shoes
just thinking
of
all of
those who walked across the Pennsylvania and Maryland countryside
to Washington D.C. Hell yes, why didn't someone
think of it sooner ... a walk-a-thon ... that's the
ticket!?
The only thing that our more athletic brothers and
sisters accomplished with their multi-state walk for freedom is
to give
both the farmers living along the route they walked and the mullahs
in Iran a good laugh. If you've got balls enough and want
to walk somewhere to show your love for Iran and your dreams for
its freedom, how about having your Freedom Walk from Bandar Abbas
to Tehran on the road that goes straight through Qom? If you do
that then you'll have my respect, but Pennsylvania and Maryland
... not a chance in hell.
What some of us forget though is while we are talking and walking
in North America, Europe, Australia and Dubai, Iran continues to
slide further into the hellish abyss of shit that it has been trapped
in for nearly three decades. We can do something, however and that
is not to boycott the presidential elections, but rather to rock
the vote and I mean really rock it!
Forget those people who urge voters to stay home. This is exactly
what the mullahs want. They will be happier than pigs in shit if
50% of the voters stay home. All they need to be able to claim
some legitimacy for themselves and their regime is go get 50% +
1 of the eligible voters to vote. They can easily get that many
people. All they have to do is take buses into the villages and
hamlets throughout Iran. With the promise of 5,000 tomans
and a free chicken dinner, they'll have no trouble filling
every seat with poor, hungry and uneducated Iranians who will be
more than happy to do their religious duty by voting for Mr. Rafsanjani
while at the same time quieting their hunger pangs.
If you think
I'm crazy, just think about it for a moment. How many of you have
seen the big, "Marg bar Amrika" rallies that the IRI
organizes every once in a while. I, like most of you, have
seen them on television on many occasions and even once when visiting
relatives in Tehran I saw one with my baba bozorg at Azadi
Square. Who are the people who attend these rallies? People who've
been bussed in for the day with the payment of a few thousand tomans
and a box lunch. The silent majority just stays home and away from
these little-get-togethers.
I disagree with those who advise others to stay home on Election
Day simply because our nation has been lied to and victimized by
the ruling establishment. Of course, Iranians have been lied to
and everyone in the world knows that, but staying home isn't
the answer and neither is wholeheartedly embracing the role of
victim anymore. We as a people are very good at blaming others
for our miseries. We have for centuries relished in being victims.
Victims of bad rulers, victims of foreign powers, victims in religious
matters ... we are the best victims in the world or so we think.
We think everyone is our enemy, when in fact we are our only real
enemy.
We are victims only as long as we continue
to allow ourselves
to be victimized. My father told me something long ago that I
think is appropriate here. He said, "If someone wrongs you
once, shame on him, but if he wrongs you twice, shame on you." We
have had twenty-six years of the establishment wronging our people
over and over and over again. It's long past time that we
stop being victims and stand up for ourselves. The only way to
do that is to rock the vote and rock it hard.
Walk-a-thons, referendums, talk of invasions or sanctions are not
going to free Iran - that is clear. If every eligible Iranian voter
and even those too young too vote will pick up a rock on Election
Day and violently hurl it at anyone participating in the process
that would be a wonderful. The only thing better would be if the
intended target were actually hit. Next, pick up a ball bat
and knock the hell out of a mullah, a Revolutionary Guardsman
or a Basiji thug. Start throwing fire bombs at schools, government
buildings and police stations. If chain-swinging Islamic thugs
on motorcycles appear, get your own chains and swing back. Who
knows, maybe you'll hit one hard enough to kill him!
Iran does not have a shortage of people who are willing to lead
a brave charge against tyranny. Iran's problem is that we
have a shortage of people who are willing to follow the first guy. We
usually leave the poor guy who was brave enough to go first to
swing alone from the gallows if he is caught. We just look the
other way and keep out mouths shut. The silent majority needs
to roar to life and jump in and mix it up. Anarchy is contagious
and if enough people will rock the vote with rocks and bats and
Molotov cocktails on Election Day, the Iranian people can achieve
the freedom that they have hungered for since the days when they
stood up against bullets and tanks to bring down the King of Kings.
No more begging people to stay home or crying that Mr. Khatami
lied. It's time to shit or get off the pot. It's time to kick
some ass. There are far more decent Iranians than black reactionaries. Good
decent, hardworking Iranians cannot afford to remain quiet and
law abiding anymore because their silent submission only lends
legitimacy to the regime. If the young conscripts in the army and
ordinary policemen see that the people are voting with their fists,
most of them will not have the stomach to fire on the crowds rising
up for freedom. As for the Revolutionary Guards and Basiji ...
they will either skulk away like the cowards that they are or they
will
fight to the death which so many of them richly deserve. Give it
to them.
For twenty-six years Iranians have been voting with their feet.
That is why we are scattered throughout the world today. The time
has come to stop voting with your feet and running, its time to
vote with your fists and take the country back. If Iranians keep
leaving the country at the rate they have been for the past quarter
of a century, the only ones left in another quarter of a century
will be the those covered in black and beards. Rock the Vote and
Rock it Hard!
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