Sunday, June 12, 2005

Rock the Vote

Last night Rafsanjani had a Q&A with university students. One asked if he had ever been in love. "My thoughts are on the hereafter," he answered.

Another asked if it was okay to wear bright colors. "Of course," he answered.

Others complained that they were sick of being hassled every time they walked out on to the streets. Girls wanted to hang out with boys. Boys wanted to hang out with girls.

My Iranian friends and political activist friends tend to dismiss these concerns. "Iranians don't really want freedom. They just want to have sex," one friend stated just a couple of weeks ago. When we first came here, K commented: "Iranians think freedom means that they can walk hand-in-hand with their boyfriend or girlfriend."

Well isn't it? Aren't these personal freedoms important? Isn't fun important? Isn't political freedom part of this equation?

UPDATE (2013): a bit of the discussion with Rafsanjani was published on YouTube. For those of you who speak Persian, here it is:

Basically the young woman, a 23-year old student, is explaining why she doesn't want to vote. She's tired of the harassment. She's sick of all the bs. She's sick of the mistrust. "I don't have any expectations from you. Just give me back trust."

How sad is that?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I commented before, Rafsanjani is a political prostitute. Now you may delete this comment as you did my previous one. You have learned your lesson, censorship, from Mullahs.

Kamran and Tori said...

I may delete this one...

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