Where do we go from here?

If there is a single message I could send to those who have faced such brutality by going out into the streets following the fraudulent elections in Iran, it would be to say to them, “You did exactly what we hoped you would do. Only, you did it better.” The young, the old, the women, the men, the people not just in Tehran but in cities all over Iran, they made those of us outside our country feel so much emotion. We have watched the images captured on You Tube of young people making human chains as they faced armed militia, of individuals facing the basiji who attacked with clubs and axes and shot at them from rooftops. If these protesters were afraid, it didn’t show. They continued to move forward. Brave, strong, and voicing their call for freedom louder than I have ever heard it before.

On Facebook and Twitter postings and in countless emails I’ve received over the last three weeks, there is a common theme, and it is of extreme pride. So many posts have simply read, “Today I am proud to be Iranian.” The people who are standing up against the government have no doubt, made us proud.

To be outside the country and to watch the images that are now coming from Iran, the images that are clear indications of the extreme violence being used against our people, there isn’t an Iranian among us who doesn’t feel a sense of helplessness, of duty, of wanting them to know how much we appreciate the huge sacrifice they are making for all of us. Many of us want to return. We have recreated pieces of our culture in places like Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, but there is nothing like home. The only thing that stops us is a theocratic dictatorship that has ruled our country for the last thirty years.

So we do what we know. We protest. We take to the streets to support our brothers and sisters in Iran. We rally, we march, and we give speeches so we do not forget the heavy price our brethren are paying even as I write these words.

As the days have turned into weeks, as the prisons in Iran are filled to capacity and spilling the political prisoners over into football fields, we are left wondering what more we can do to help. We continue to meet, but where do we go from here? How do we best support our fellow Iranians from so far away?

First of all, we have to be strategic in our fight at this point. It is no longer just a matter of showing up with a sign to chant slogans for democracy, though that is certainly still acceptable. But we must take what we know, and build the collective consciousness. We must fight with our intellect, with out voices, with our pens, and with our minds. We must build an awareness in whatever country we have called our second home, so that the citizens of the U.S. or Great Britain, or Canada, or wherever we are, doesn’t put the situation in Iran on page 15 of the daily newspaper. Keeping the media interested and engaged is a challenge. They are looking for the news that sells, and how quickly we've seen the passing of celebrities take the focus away from the fight on the streets of Iran. We have to find ways through networking with the media to keep them focused on the situataion there.

Secondly, we have to unite in our cause. Too often we begin fighting among ourselves. This helps no one, and at the end of the day, we all do really want a version of the same thing for Iran. But we must check out egos at the door as we begin to find ways of supporting our brothers and sisters in Iran.

Third, this is a unique moment in time, because we are approaching the anniversary of 18 Tir—the July 1999 student protests that followed a brutal attack on the dorms at Tehran University. Those protests were, in my mind, and in the minds of many who participated in them, foundational to the current protests. We were the first to question the regime in such a blatant way, and the government wasn’t prepared for us. There were only some 50,000 of us. Many people wanted to come out into the streets with us, but they were afraid. The protesters of June 2009 are far greater in numbers. They are not just students, but they are a cross section of the population. Those who ten years ago might have been afraid to come out, put all their fear aside following the elections of 2009. At the same time, the government was more prepared this time. They had seen protests before, and they had planned for how they would deal with them. At least this time, the government's cruelty is brought to light by technology that sends feeds across the world so that we can see the evidence of their brutality in the broken bodies of the protesters.

The ten year anniversary of 18 Tir presents an opportunity for Iranians everywhere to come out in numbers impossible to ignore. Every year students remember 18 Tir in Iran. This year inside and outside Iran we must remind the Islamic Republic of what we started then, and what has continued until today. We cannot let those who have died at the hands of the Islamic Republic, die in vain.

Finally, there’s no way of knowing how long a fight we are in for. In July of 1999 the protests lasted just five days. The protests of 2009 have gone much longer, but the government has become very adept at dealing with those they believe are against them. The fight from within Iran will need to be fought from many directions, not just with blood, sweat, and tears, but again, with the intellect, and hitting them where it hurts economically as well. By this I don’t mean sanctions that ultimately hurt the people inside, but by boycotting the government from inside.

Most of all, we must believe in our efforts both inside and outside of Iran. We must be persistent, and we must not give up no matter the obstacles we face. We are the sons and daughters of Cyrus, and we are free.