Saturday, March 24, 2012

Israel-Iran love story, taking our fate in our hands

I don’t know how many of you are aware of the Israeli-Iranian”love” movement that has gain substantial momentum in the last couple of weeks.. it’s amazing. Some Israeli citizens decided to reach out to Iranian citizens with a simle message: love! People to people, heart to heart, mothers to mothers, children to children, a simple human message of love.

It is clear to me that in this day and age, our only hope is for like minded citizens to reach out to each other across the borders, circumventing politics and working together for a common goal. It is the tragedy of our time that our political systems have come to so poorly represent us…I’d even venture to say, so dangerously misrepresent us. Throughout the world, be it in developing countries or in established economies, in democracies, quasi democracies, budding democracies, what have you…we are seeing the same pattern: The political system is dominated by bullies of all shapes and sizes. These bullies are often driven by either personal interests, the interests of influential power-groups, or religious fervor (I haven’t decided what’s worse). What’s clear is, the public good, the well being of every man woman and child and the natural world upon which we thrive, seem to be the last things on their agenda. Egos running amok, games of pride and honor, a russian roulette of fear and threats, all these have become our daily bread. We have, unfortunately, become almost desensitized to them. It seems natural to us that “bad guys” will be in power, wash our brains with stories of our own supremacy, and the dangers involved in opening our doors to the “other”….we are lead to believe that we must protect what’s our violently, that sharing is weakness, open communication pathetic. When finally a “good guy” gets elected into power (like Rabin for example, or Obama, of which I am a great supporter), we are stunned, and then we either murder him or do the political equivelant. I simply cannot imagine anything sadder than the what has become of almost all of us : a bunch of scared, dominated, paranoid, self righteous, self defensive whimps. And numb to the bone.

Key word: almost. not everyone...

In that context, it is so relieving to see simple people raising their voices to say: there must be another way!! A facebook page, a youtube video, a seemingly naïve message of communication above dogma, of humanity above religion and race, of dreams and hopes above and despite politics and the brainwashing of international media: these are the rays of light that will eventually illuminate our path into the future.

Whoever’s reading this, I beg you: don’t become a droid in service of the new age, drugged on i-gadgets and consumer mush, blinded by rhetoric and driven by an insatiable ego. We have all the tools to bring on change. Look to those who have risked their lives in demonstrations throughout history and throughout the world, from Ghandi to Mandella to M.L. King to the Iranian and Syrian resistance 2011/12. They are the heroes of our time. But it is not only with blood that we can change the world: we have words. We have one human soul. We have facebook. We have eachother.

So I say: hello people of Iran…I too, Noa from Israel mother of 3, laugh in the face of the political drug dealers and reach out to you . I send you my love.

https://www.facebook.com/israellovesiran