By William Holston
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-862162.mp3
Dallas, TX –
On July 25 I attended a rally in Downtown Dallas protesting the most recent human rights abuses in Iran. I joined hundreds of members of the Iranian American Community along with representatives of Amnesty International and the Dallas Peace Center. We listened to calls to free political prisoners; condemning violence against peaceful protestors and remembered those killed on the streets of Tehran. A good friend asked me why I was attending this rally. I told her that I wasn't doing this to support any candidate or party in Iran, but rather to show solidarity with people who could not legally march; to call for the release of political prisoners; and to condemn human rights abuses. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel once said:
"And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor - never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten."
I thought about this idea, when I heard the story of the sentencing by the Burmese dictatorship of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, on August 11. Jim Lehrer of The NewsHour on PBS asked Priscilla A. Clapp, a former United States diplomat who served in Burma, whether there was any evidence that what happens outside Burma, whether it's done by the United States, the United Nations, or any group of nations makes any difference at all? She answered: "The people care. The people inside Burma care . It means a lot to them that people outside are on their side and are doing something." Our world is much smaller than it once was. What happens on the Streets of Dallas, can make its way onto the cell phones of activists in Iran, Burma, Cuba and Venezuela, where people can be encouraged to know they are not forgotten. Twitter and cell phones are today's samizdat, the underground papers of the former Soviet Union. In Cuba, President Raul Castro's government imposed a blackout of news surrounding the Iranian elections. News trickled through anyway. Our voices can be heard in places we could never be heard before.
There is another reason I march for oppressed people of other nations. We Americans have our own history of injustice. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote from a jail cell in Birmingham Alabama, the state of my birth:
"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
I believe that is true and that I have an obligation to speak up against injustice, whether it is the Rainbow Lounge of Fort Worth, the jailing of monks in Burma or the shooting of peaceful protestors on the streets of Tehran.
And so, here in Dallas, I've been honored to march along with our fellow citizens from Zimbabwe, Burma, and now Iran. In that same letter from jail Dr. King wrote: "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people." I'm committed not to make the mistake of silence. I have a t-shirt from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. It simply says "March On." So, I will. I hope to see some of you there next time.
William Holston is an attorney from Dallas.
If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.