June 2009

Iran

Today, I'm going to take a trip in time back to December 1977.

There was I, in the transit lounge at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, awaiting my connecting flight. It was snowing heavily outside, the first snow of the winter, the locals informed us.

The place was crawling with the Shah's heavily armed militia who, somehow, had completely lost the ability to smile.

And so it was that I got chatting to an airport worker, who like me, was in his early 20s.

He expressed, enthusiastically, his aspirations for, what was to him, a free Iran under Muslim rule.

Today, as millions of Iranians continue to peacefully demonstrate against the obviously fraudulent presidential election results, I'm reminded of this young man, so earnestly longing for Iran to become a better place.