There are hopes and dreams while the level of uncertainty and ambiguity is high in the Middle East. The oppressive forces inflict more pain, as much as they are capable of, in order to stay in their blood draining hunt for power. Ordinary people are hurting due to loss of jobs, bad economy, careless actions by their governments, and internal conflicts.
Looking at Iran only, there are endless stories of trauma, tragedies, and suffering almost everywhere we turn to. A friend just coming back from a month visit in Iran is talking about how many stories of suicide she heard, how many young people she or someone she knew who had committed suicide. Young people scream for freedom while this scream is being suppressed badly and harshly. Obviously helplessness, hopelessness, and frustration are issues that many of us Iranians are now dealing with, more than ever before. What are the options really?
Daily and extensive human rights violations in Iran do influence us Iranians around the world; however people living in that big prison called Iran, are the one who are paying the price. The danger of war that the regime of Iran would love to have just adds to the pouring rain of tragedies on our people’s head. On the other hand, the request for freedom and the need for free voices have never been this noticeable.
For us, outside, although we are reading the news in the comfort of our homes, still frustration, disappointment, and fear are the real emotions we experience all the time or most of the times. On the other hand we read research results clarifying the relationship about stress/ depression/ abuse on people’s life. It is unfortunate that none of those researches can even touch one inch of the reality that our people are dealing with. In the west we talk about the relationship between our physical and emotional and psychological health. How about the psychological health of a nation who are kept hostile in the hands of most brutal men for 32 years?
Now what is the solution really? Listening to the daily stories of unfathomable implicit and explicit traumas is the salt on an open wound. However, we need to listen to one another in order for offer the other support, who else is supposed to do that if not us?
Would Prayers and positive energy help then? What would help?
I guess seeking support helps while we have to know where we come across that support. Most importantly is that we keep finding networks and groups that are helping us breath fresh air. We need to belong and we need to feel we can do something, even in the smallest scale. Get into groups and break the cycle of isolation maybe that is the first step. Despite all the odds, we have to survive, we have to seek the light that is inside us, the light of hope and the light of resiliency.
