Norouz means that no winter is endless...

Our Norouz is here, do you know anyone who mends happiness?
It is a fact that if we do not stop making mistakes, the mistakes will stop us in our track...
When love replaces hate,
When faith replaces hopelessness,
When beliefs replace doubts,
When light replaces darkness,
When kindness replaces animosity,
When ifs replace musts,
When awareness replaces lies and denial,
When there comes an end to the rape and killing of our youth,
When prevention replaces fight,
When education replaces fanaticism and ignorance,
When before criticizing the society we start questioning ourselves,
When before rebuilding our country we rebuild ourselves,
When we move from apathy to unity and solidarity,
Only and only then we will truly be free, we have to remember that life is not a name it is a verb, life is not love it is loving, life is not a song, it is singing, life is not a dance, it is dancing, and life is not about having and wanting, it is all about being and building...

During our Norouz, we need to discard the old rusty thoughts, and just like the earth and nature, let us dig deeper and see how we too can exfoliate our heart and soul and rejuvenate with spring. It is our whole hearted presence, from silence to cries, from the inopportune to the wealthy, from young to old, that depicts our identity and our nationalism. The distance between two hands is a space called ME and YOU, my dear friends, tell me please how we can find our lost souls in this chaos?

We have all grown up with the same children’s stories that began with the same opening sentence, reiterating what lonely beings we all are, and how at the end of it all our long drawn out journey will never reach its destination...

I have been asked time and again why silence?
I always would like to reply with another question: "if silence is bad then how come everyone is silent?

I took a quick look back and saw the echoes of my 40 year old journey staring back at me. Maybe we can hear the echoes of our plight only in utter silence, but I don't believe that silence is the answer. I consider silence as meditation, as a deeper insight into the psyche, the soul, my soul, yours, and our tormented souls which although the pain is eating away at it we remain an audience, it is destroying us but we remain spectators, it is debilitating us but we stay in limbo, we feel death nearing but we sit waiting...

Evolving from myths to facts needs a bit of meditation, moving from reaction to action necessitates some mediation, progressing from failures to victories requires a bit of meditation, evaluation and re-evaluation. Silence is golden when you are pondering on the avenues and means to really hear and feel our inner imprisoned voice warning us to stop living with denials which will only create a sure path to repeating our previous mistakes over and over again.

Don't you think this repetition is enough? Don't you think this history of repetition and this repetition of our history is enough?

Although December 7th (16 Azar) is symbolized as the birth of the student movement in our country, but today I have chosen to share my thoughts with all my countrymen, as well as our students, as I firmly believe that seeking education and awareness must be the goal of every single one of us all around the world. Not only to support the student movement, but because awareness and education is the only thing that will set all of us and our country free.
I hope that the culture of awareness will replace the culture of denial, the culture of dictatorship, the culture of ignorance, the culture of lies, the culture of power hungriness, the culture of slow disintegration into the abyss, the culture of indifference, and the culture of hopelessness and prejudice.
Maybe the most effective way to support our students is to wake up and educate ourselves; maybe the only way to fuel the growth of the freedom movement is for each and every one of us to undergo a cultural revolution, an uprising against ourselves, a freedom from our own mental prisons, what do you think?
Today, instead of talking about the edification of our students, we only hear about their being banned from continuing their education. For years students all over the world have been facing the chalk board, in our country they are facing the hangman’s noose and the executioner’s riffles, student’s worldwide struggle to succeed, but in our country they struggle to survive. In the past, students carried their books and now they carry their classmate’s coffin.
Why should you lock your lips to unlock the university doors? Why?
Looking back you see nothing but the abyss, looking forward the killing fields!!!???
But I can hear the students’ footsteps…
I am wishing for the day when our students will juggle opportunities instead of limitations and censorships,
I am wishing for the day when the classrooms will welcome our students and not the solitary confinements,
I am wishing for the day when the target is the students’ success not the students themselves,
I am wishing for the day when the hearts and souls of our students thrive on the streets of our country and not in the prison cells,
I am wishing for the day when our students are not victims but the instigators of change and evolution and progress,
I am wishing for the day when we as people seek justice by fighting injustice instead of seeking revenge,
And finally, I am wishing for the day when we as people go from being watchers to fighters, when we go from reacting to acting, and fight with our students, our freedom seekers.
Let us cherish and remember all those students who gave their lives in the fight for freedom, let us be the ever present supporters of those like Majid Tavakoli, Fereshteh Shirazi, Ziya Nabavi, Arya Arya Nejad and all their compatriots and our countrymen who are tirelessly fighting every moment of their lives for freedom, our freedom, let us not just be their voice, but be their true partners, allies, countrymen and compatriot and walk and fight besides them.
In this nightmare, you and I are the kind,
You and I are the north, the south, the east and the west,
Don’t fear the dark; you are the light, aren’t you?
Don’t fear the drought; you are the quenching dew, aren’t you?