A Devil Against Humanity

As someone who has recently lived through eight years of being continuously lied to and gaslighted by my government, I can imagine only too well what those massive crowds of protesting Iranians must be feeling. Ayatollah Khamenei's unequivocal declaration of the election as "absolutely legitimate and free of fraud" this morning is nothing less than an arrow through the heart of all of us who have been praying for their success. Protest is now considered officially illegal, and will be dealt with by the savageries of a bloodthirsty Basij militia. Officially at least, we have reverted back to the howls of "Death to America."

In response to Khamenei's provocative speech this morning, an Iranian architecture student sent this email to Andrew Sullivan's blog, "The Daily Dish":

"We have promised not to give up until prove our right. Did you hear what Khameneyi ( the supreme leader) said in his speech today. He is really a devil. He gathered his and Ahmadi Nejad's followers against the people who just want freedom. He ordered to kill everybody who is against his thought and orders. But you can see what will happen in Iran. Unfortunatelly, I can smell blood. People and the student won't accept dictatorship and won't give up even if he kill all of us. Please tell the world we (Iranian) are not like him. He is not our leader. He is againts his country, nation and any other nations in the world. He is just a devil against humanity."

There was also this Tweet: "The situation in Iran is now CRITICAL - the nation is heartbroken - suppression is iminent>"

As for me, I've kept this image by South African artist, William Kentridge, of "Felix Crying" in my blog archive for some time, waiting for the correct moment to use it. A melancholy man dressed in a business suit, stands in a featureless room, hands in his pocket, weeping. His tears are the only color. They become huge streams of blue pouring down his body and filling the room where they have reached his knees as he stands, fully clothed, in a rising pool of his own blue grief. It seems that grief can show up either as blue or, in this beautiful and tragic moment in Iran, as green. Either way it feels inconsolable.

"The question at the center of so much of Kentridge's work," Richard Lacayo wrote in Time magazine in March, "what do you do when the world breaks your heart?"

BREAKING NEWS: Tehran residents shout from rooftops in defiance of Iran's supreme leader. Way to go, Iranians! I guess the fat lady hasn't really sung yet!