• Mood: scared

A prayer for those still living

Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran is still fresh in my mind, so when I read the New York Times article "For Iraqi Girls, Changing Land Narrows Lives", I saw that same slippery slope. Saddam Hussein is an exeptionally poor role model as a leader.

For those of you who will pray, or think good thoughts, or light candles:

Pray that Iraq will form its own government, of the people, by the people, for the people, and that the people will have the teaching to take this charge up responsibly.
Pray that the people of the country will have the freedoms they are accustomed to, with the ability to add more as they become assured in themselves -- rather than ruling themselves by fear such that the days of Saddam Hussein are looked to with nostalgia.
Pray that expression of religious law remain a matter of choice, not a matter of secular law.


I can't begin to say how much that article terrifies me. This happened in Iran, before I was born, while I was in diapers, before I learned to speak, before I learned to comprehend world news. Is Iran a safe place to be a woman now? I don't know. I haven't checked.

Are those who are ruling the last to know when the powerless people in a country can't bear it there? When I'm in terror for myself (I, not garnetdagger), I fold up as small upon myself as I can and am meek and compliant and as bland as can be. Invisibility is the refuge of the powerless. My voice is not heard when I think speaking will earn me the attentions of those I wish to avoid.