What is Freedom

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

A prominent Iranian filmmaker breaks his silence

In a short open letter to the Iranian people, Bahman Farmanara, the distinguished Iranian movie director whose work has won many prestigious awards, declared that the nation cannot be silent and must continue protesting against the government.

Here is his letter:

Greetings to all my friends:

I am an Iranian who believes in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, nowhere in the Constitution am I asked to blindly accept all the lies [by officials]. If I have so far not signed any petition or letter by my colleagues [to protest the rigged election], it is because I wish to be solely responsible for what I say. The present short note is for this reason.

If we [Iranians] attend the banquet of silence to which we have been invited [by the Iranian government], the result will not only be suffocation and loss of our voices, but also eternal shame for ignoring the bloody murders. I believe in what [Julius] Caesar said [in William Shakespeare’s play] that, “a coward dies a thousand times, but the valiant tastes death but once.” Hence, it is with hope for freedom and justice for all Iranians that I take this perilous step [of writing the note].

It is no longer important whether I will ever make another movie. But it is important that I do not dance to the official tune, for it is not honorable of me to do so at the age of 68. I am neither a hero, nor do I want to be one. I also do not know how long my feeble and worn out body can endure jail, before I sign anything I am dictated to.

I would like to end this note with a part of a poem by the esteemed poet Simin Behbahani [a contemporary Iranian female poet], which was written in 1974,

When silver rules gold becomes God
When lie is the judge of any case
When the air, the air that we breathe, the air that sustains life
Becomes the death blanket over hundreds of voices
one cannot remain silent

I live for the day that freedom and social justice become the law of our beloved pure Iran, so as we can sing together the hymn, “Oh, Iran” [a patriotic hymn sung by Iranians that praises the homeland], with the belief in the depth of our hearts that Iran is a truly blessed land.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday’s election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009.

A Northern Ireland journalist is facing jail over her refusal to give police her notes linked to stories about the Real IRA. →

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone;
if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom;
for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

— Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.

— Margaret Atwood

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength

— 1984

Sweden’s Pirate Party is off to Brussels after winning at least one seat in the European Parliament by securing more than 7 per cent of the Swedish votes in the election.

— Internet freedom movement wins EU seat

Joe Dresnok -an American defector in North Korea - I didn't know about this. →

Dresnok met other American defectors soon after his arrival. Eventually there were four of them: Larry Allen Abshier, Jerry Parrish, Charles Robert Jenkins, and Dresnok. The men lived together and were the subjects of “re-education” by the North Korean government. They were forced to memorize large portions of books by Kim Il-Sung and his Juche philosophy in Korean. Subjected to poor living conditions, intense control, and lack of freedom, the four men tried to leave North Korea in 1966 by seeking asylum at the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, but were immediately turned over to North Korean authorities by the embassy. After that experience, Dresnok decided to settle in North Korea and assimilate. Beginning in 1978, he was cast in several North Korean films, including the 20-part series Unsung Heroes, as an American villain, and became a celebrity in the country as a result. He is called “Arthur” by his Korean friends, as that is the name of the character he played in the series.

Kim Jong-il loves cinema so much he kidnapped a director from the South, jailed him and fed him grass, then forced him to shoot a socialist Godzilla. →

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

— Freya Madeline Stark

Doing my tiny bit for democracy - or what’s left of it, anyhow - by placing an X in a box. Revolution Now! Or something.