AFFIRM IRANIAN PROTEST IRAN: WEAR GREEN!

This is something that peace and democracy loving US citizens, and indeed, world wide citizens, should do in support of democracy...BY A LEFTY

> Wear Green to Affirm the Iranian Protest Movement

> The Ahmedinajad- Khatami regime has stolen an election.
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> And now the regime is repressing the nonviolent uprising that welled up to protest. Last night I saw more than 200 photographs from Iran, sent by the people of Iran through Email -- sent despite the regime's shut-down of cell phones and text messages.
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> What can we do? WEAR GREEN -- A SHIRT, A TIE, A SCARF, A RIBBON

> First I want to recommend an action that is simple, that is not likely to bring political change in the short run, but can remind ourselves of who we are and who the people of Iran are:
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> WEAR GREEN -- A SHIRT, A TIE, A SCARF, A RIBBON.
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> Why? Because in the last week before the Iranian election, supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi began wearing green, and during that last week filled the streets of Tehran and other cities with tidal waves of green.
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> The wearing of the green can remind ourselves that these are OUR people, and that proposals for war against Iran are calls to attack, bomb, strafe these people.
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> It is not a foregone conclusion that the repression will work. When the Shah of Iran - with US support -- used the Army, torture, and prisons against the democratic up-welling that became the nonviolent uprising of 1979, the police and the Army ultimately quailed, and the Iranian Revolution of 1979 succeeded. From outside we - and probably even those who live there -- have no way of estimating how resolute the Green Wave will be, and how rigid the police and Army and the Ahmedinajad- Khatami regime will be.
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> So it is early to predict either the collapse of Iranian democracy or its success. And it is impossible tp predict whether even if the regime stays in power, it will seek international accommodations in order to ease internal opposition.

> We should be doing what we can to broadcast truthful information into Iran, to strengthen women's groups and the demand for human rights - all the while, making clear that the US is ready to welcome the Islamic Republic as a legitimate part of the international system, while making clear its friendship with the Iranian people.
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> The task of negotiation will be harder than it might have been. It will be difficult to walk the narrow line between negotiating with the regime and supporting a dictatorship. But God knows the US has done that before when our interests were at stake. The issues between our countries should still be resolved by diplomacy.

Meanwhile, we can make clear to ourselves and others that we the American people stand in solidarity with the Iranian people, and will not bring harm upon them or their nation so long as they do no harm to us.

WEAR GREEN!

The photos I mentioned are at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mousavi1388/sets/72157619592664479/show

P.S. For an analysis of how the election was stolen: See two reports by Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the author of Engaging the Muslim World (Macmillan, 2009), on our website - the home page at http:/www.shalomctr.org and http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1514