I was a young adult in the 1970s and ’80s, and political turmoil filled our nightly newscasts. In particular, this country seemed unable to stop tangling with Iran. Between trying to get our embassy hostages released, helping Iraq wage war with Iran, and selling weapons directly to Iran in the Iran-Contra scandal, that country was always on our mind.
Even so, we baby boomers were an idealistic lot. Many of us believed that rational thinking would win out.
Fast-forward to 2015. A group of Republican U.S. lawmakers has felt compelled to express in writing, lest the message be lost, how self-aggrandized some American politicians have become by sending a letter to Iran.
It seems unlikely that what ails this disconnected planet can ever be healed by world leaders. Like our own social movements of the ’60s that brought great change, people themselves will have to reshape the world.
Most of us know little to nothing about the lives of today’s Iranians, even while our officials squabble with theirs over how to prevent the end of the world. This feels like an episode of “Night Gallery.”
Judging from the 2009 protests in which millions of Iran’s citizens marched in the streets after charges that their presidential election was rigged, many ordinary Iranians also want rational leadership. It seems like so bloody much to ask for these days.
In my small corner of the world, I enjoy connecting with people who at first glimpse are much different than me. When I lived in Los Angeles in the ’90s, I met a young Iranian man at an outdoor YMCA swimming pool one night. He seemed to be in his 30s, as I was. Although it was unusually foggy that evening, he didn’t seem like a member of the axis of evil so much as a guy who needed pointers on his flutter kick.
We became fast friends. His family had fled Iran for America after the 1979 Iranian revolution, like so many of their countrymen. I was surprised to meet an Iranian in my local pool, not previously giving much thought on where they swim. Then I learned it’s fairly easy to meet Iranians anywhere in Los Angeles. (That’s especially true today, with hundreds of thousands living there.)
Beyond his strong love of family, work ethic, outdoor lifestyle and fondness for “Johnny Quest” cartoons as a child, we shared the impulse to do as we pleased. I’d felt compelled to leave Colorado for awhile, and he and his family had to choose between freedom and their country.
Just before they left Iran for good, a hard-line policeman in Tehran, hell-bent on eliminating Western influences, pulled my friend over, having deemed as obscene the American rock music playing in his car stereo. The official forced him from his car and put a gun to his head. My friend said, “Go ahead, shoot.” The cop furiously ripped the cassette tape out and stomped it into the ground.
Seeing past bellicosity and standing one’s ground likely looks the same all over the world.
Miraculously for all of us, divine intervention has arrived: deus ex machina. God in the machine. Our technology lays bare the wounds and desires of people everywhere. Where politicians fail, the Internet succeeds in connecting us. Where connections are formed, there’s energy ripe for change. It’s already happening.
Kathy Ayers works for a health care technology corporation in the Denver Tech Center.
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