For a long time our Iranian culture has respected certain customs when it comes to mourning.  Day 3 and day 7, and day 40 are those important days when family and friends get together to pay respect to the deceased one.  These days are a manifestation for dignity, care, love, greeting, value, and healing.   The level of anxiety over losing a loved one’s often is helped when a community is offering its support to the deceased family.
When a trauma hits, our Iranian tradition and Iranian culture appreciates a collective action to individuals, families, and communities in pain.  From a clinical stand point this collective response helps to lower the collective grief and loss, while individuals benefit from one another’s solidarity, compassion, and empathy.  In a large scale of trauma, when our people are being beaten on the streets, tortured in prisons, and life in general seem to be threatening, the mourning ceremonies are even more significant.
Our people have carried a huge psychological trauma due to 30 years of injustice while a collective mourning has not been possible.   Now the barriers imposed by government of Iran creating more harm when individuals and families have no way to get help for an emotional processing.
The violence and brutality to stop people from mourning will result in more damages to everyone’s mind and soul to a degree that people’s every day functioning is impacted. A growing level of pain, disappointment, frustration, anger, and resistance are all feeding a boiling pot, in which innocent people will only be more traumatized and left in a psychological chaos.
A collective mourning is people’s right to deal with their trauma.

July 30, 2009
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