Sunday, June 21, 2009

Her name was Neda.

The reign of the Mullahs died with her.
Warning! Graphic content

The Iranian woman who wrote the letter I linked to yesterday, wrote another letter today.

Yesterday I wrote a note, with the subject line "tomorrow is a great day perhaps tomorrow I'll be killed." I'm here to let you know I'm alive but my sister was killed...


I'm here to tell you my sister died while in her father's hands
I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams...
I'm here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind... and like me read "Forough" [Forough Farrokhzad]... and longed to live free and equal... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, "I'm Iranian"... and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair... and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib...

my sister died from not having life... my sister died as injustice has no end... my sister died since she loved life too much... and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people...

my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come... the very end of your last glance burns my soul....

sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet.


I have been riveted all day. Watching the Twitter feeds and the videos as they came out. Already, Neda's face has become the iconic image of the up-rising. I saw protesters holding her picture in front of the White House this afternoon. The revolution has been digitized.
Two sources I would never ordinarily recommend (but they have been doing stellar work on this story) The Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan.

sister have a short sleep. your last dreams be sweet.

Edit: Sorry about the link. I thought is was directly to the video. Scroll down to 2:37 PM.
Here's a YT link (They have been taking them down all day)
Again, I warn that this is very graphic.

Posted by daddyquatro at 2:40 AM

5 comments:

  1. In my life I have never seen the brutality of oppression captured more clearly… This girl sacrificed before our eyes . The supreme leader has done exactly what he said he would do, and this is the sickening face of it. I am a citizen of the US. and I still don’t believe it is our place to interfere. (we have done far too much of that in the past) This is still an Iranian matter. But I see this girl Neda’s eyes… the fear, shock… I want to do something. I will say that although I am not there, and because of this, it would be hypocritical to say I understand completely. The time for peaceful protest has passed PLEASE AVENGE THIS GIRL.

    Dustan - Atlanta GA
    ReplyDelete
  2. According to Time, "neda" means "voice" or "calling" in Farsi.

    What are the odds that one of the Mullahs' snipers would get a perfect heart shot on a girl whose name is "Voice", with camera rolling the viral video to turn her into the "Voice of Iran"?

    One might even think that coincidence were Providential.
    ReplyDelete
  3. Monster,
    I really think (aka:hope) that that shot will bring down the mullahs. Her picture has become iconic in just two days.
    I spent most of last night posting one sentence on every comment thread of PressTV.(the mouthpiece of the mullahs)
    "Her name was Leda"
    I got blocked several times (God love proxy servers)and my comment was deleted several times, but then other commenters started posting the same comment.
    She is the face of the revolution.
    ReplyDelete
  4. The link should be
    http://www.presstv.ir/
    ReplyDelete
  5. The Mullahs way overplayed their hand. It wasn't good enough for them to pre-approve all the candidates. They had to stuff the ballot boxes to make sure Madman I'm-a-damn-nutjob got re-elected. There are more votes cast than voters. They dropped the mask and revealed that they won't even bother with the pretense of listening to the will of the people.

    And Khamenei doubled down when he certified the results so quickly. He's supposed to have some kind of Papal Infallibility thing going on, which means he can't back down now, unless he can figure out a way that he can contradict himself and still be infallible. So now, the opposition wants the Supreme Leader eliminated. Not that they (just) want Khamenei himself eliminated, but that they want the position itself to cease to exist.

    The Iranian people looking at their neighbors in Iraq and Afghanistan getting to have elections, as messy as the ensuing political arguments may be, and saying "don't we deserve as much?"
    ReplyDelete

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