The facts of this world seen clearly are seen through tears

The last Revolution, in 1979, was not an Islamic Revolution. It did not start that way. It was an Iranian Revolution- everyone working together, communists, atheists, Muslims, clerics- all with the goal of ending the oppressive regime of the Shah. Azadi.

It became Islamic, largely because the mosques were the only safe place to gather and coordinate. To move forward.

What about Iran now? Today? Bleeding in our arms? Fighting forward, daily, on the streets? Where is it's refuge, it's safe place? Where is the sanctuary of this Revolution?

It is, in part, online- in the sustained, concentrated gaze of bloggers and tweeters and citizen journalists who will not allow Iranians voices to fall to the ground. Every sound- every sound- that is being inscribed into 140 character messages, into YouTube videos, into flickr images, into Facebook and Twitter, into strategy, hope and memory- is the sanctuary of this Revolution. Social media is just one manifestation of the human relationships, untiring discipline, and bonds of community, of love- that are the refuge of this Revolution. I do not use the word Revolution as a prediction or inflammatory reference, but in it's truest, most literal sense: a radical and pervasive change. The Iranian people are taking shelter in the tabernacle of each other. And in the solidarity of global attention. We must not look away.





(Title from Margaret Atwood's Notes Toward a Poem That Can Never Be Written.)