Cost of Freedom

A few nights ago, I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Halfway across the world, my peers were standing up against a political establishment, itself, established from popular uprising three decades ago. As I lay in bed that night, I thought about the parallel lives that these young and courageous Iranians were living. Risking imprisonment and even death, they took to the streets in the biggest sign of uprising in the thirty-year history of the current Iranian theocracy. Moussavi, himself, has indicated that he would accept martyrdom in the pursuit of greater freedom.

I often take the freedom that I enjoy for granted. For all its flaws, the American political experiment has survived the test of time, insurrections, wars, and other external/internal factors. It enumerates freedoms that I, as a citizen, am entitled to, and the justice system is, in theory, out to ensure due process of law. I am able to freely express myself, among other things, and anticipate my voice to be heard. I have economic opportunities with the possibility of upward social mobility. I don't fear the state's security apparatus barging into my apartment and dragging me off to prison on trumped up charges. I have the ability to gather in public rallies and demonstrations. I can move around the country and the world without government approval. The benefits of living in an open society can go on and on.

Like many outside of Iran, I've been glued to the television and the internet, watching and reading the most current news coming from Iran. I was particularly moved when it was reported that protesters addressed the issue of government crackdown on public rallies. They said that a million lives lost for greater democracy would be worth it for the forty-some million other Iranians and subsequent generations. This is the cost of freedom. Generations before have all paid their dues, many with their own dear lives. In America and in the rest of the world, brave men and women, often students, have shouldered the call to have their voices heard.

Hopefully, future Iranians and global citizens will look to July 2009 as another watershed moment in the pursuit of greater freedoms.