before the battle

Let's see.  It's just now on 9:00 AM on Saturday in Iran.  Young people are deciding, one by one, whether to risk violent death for the good of their civilizaton. 

It's easy to imagine that they're just deciding together, doing what they're friends are doing, in the way most decisions get made.  But no, they're also deciding one by one, like this:

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow.  Maybe they will turn violent.  Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed.  I’m listening to all my favorite music.  I even want to dance to a few songs.  I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows.  Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see.  I should drop by the library, too.  It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again.  All family pictures have to be reviewed, too.  I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye.  All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them.  I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that.  My mind is very chaotic.  I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure.  So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them.  So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism.  This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

Via Andrew Sullivan, who's coverage of Iran this week has been both thorough and heartfelt.  I almost said his coverage was "heroic," but let's save that term for the young people in the streets, and the jails. 

Comments

[Peter]

It's so hard to relate to, these strangers in trouble, facing tough choices. A friend pointed that out today to me in a Tweet.

This humanizing helps.