When the world burns

Like many other Americans, I have been watching the protests in Iran from the safety and comfort of my home thousands of miles and an ocean away, wondering whether there is anything I can do to help them, and wondering whether - in similar circumstances - I would have the courage to face what they are facing. In my comparatively sheltered life, I have stood up for idealism more than once, but never when facing the immediate and physical threat of injury or death. That is the privilege that most people of my (American) generation have - to have grown up in a time and place where our actions of protest are enabled, authorized, and permitted to the extent that we need not fear death if we choose to speak our minds.

Certainly, there are exceptions. There have been incidents, even in my short life, in which people have been beaten by police or by other citizens, in which the military has gone too far, or in which hatred has caused injury or death to a member of a minority opinion/lifestyle/ethnic background. There was 9/11.

But, ultimately, we live in a society where rebellion is controlled because it is authorized. The people in Iran do not, but, clearly, they want to. That is not to say that they (necessarily) want to be American, but, rather, that they want to live in a society that reflects their beliefs while allowing a certain amount of flexibility - the possibility that things might change, that a system might need revision or alteration, that what was best in the past or is in the present might not be in the future.

If we, as Americans, learn nothing else from the Green Revolution, it should be that people are fundamentally far more powerful than they might believe. That the human spirit is wise and courageous and that people from across the world and on the other side of a religious or ethnic divide are just as wonderful, just as amazing - and perhaps even more so - as the people you pass on the street every day. What we should learn is that complacency with our lifestyle is not the solution to the betterment of our world, that permitting atrocity or even mild cruelty (or torture) is an unacceptable way of life.