THE MESSAGE
Hi, I’m Cristina from Italy. I’have just graduated and specialized in archeology.
For months, my dearest friends are wondering the reason for my interest in Iran and for its freedom and democracy' cause. They ask me "Why are you doing this?".I think that the best answer for their question are just the words of an iranian girl, a student, that I read one night five months ago....It was on friday 19th June, the night before Neda'killing, the night before the violence in the streets, before the tears gas, before the beatings and the shooting, before arrests and abuses, before the hell was unleashed in the streets of Tehran, before the world saw Neda' s wide eyes an instant before she died....
I was reading news about Iran in post election time and on american blog by A. Sullivan this tweet message was posted: the words of a girl, just a girl like me, ust a student like me who had dreams and desires just like me, who just wanted to live and not to survive, who just wanted to be free like I’m in my country but she could not.
That night in her words I read a courage never known or seen before. A kind of courage that we are used to bind to the “big names”, to the heroes, to the figures from the past that have become myths and icons in our culture. This time, a simple girl, a student like me, was capable of extraordinary courage and strength!
I dedicate her words to all of you who are still standing and keep fighting for freedom and risking everything. I dedicate it to all Iranian guys and girls who have gone and the to the same nameless girl whose I’ll never know her name but who has changed my life that night five months ago:
“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 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…” -
An Iranian blogger,
with more courage than most of us will ever know . 19 June 2009
Since that night Iran, its young people and your struggle for freedom has come in my heart and now it is a part of my life...
Here, in my country, I can have and live a freedom without stuggles or blood cuz some men and women before me have fighted for it and have died for it: I have understand it just reading that message.This is why we will not leave you alone until Iran will be free, until this bloody regime will be overtrown.
We stand by you, we are with you!
With all my love and support,
Cristina Annunziata (Italy)
