Unspoken Feelings

The events in Iran have left me angered, grieving and dismayed. Bloggers to be found on the Blogroll to the right, especially Bob and Martin, have said eloquently what I feel, to such an extent that anything I came up with over the past few days was simply an echo chamber (which is better than Yeats' 'polite meaningless words.') I hope that the people of Iran win out against the theocrats and thugs, trusting in no 'Supreme Leader' or 'Guardian Council' [the very names are an affront to humanity] but in their own right hands to shiver the chains of hatred, greed and fear. Two supportive quotations from back in the day: Francau at the 1867 Basle Congress of the First International--"We have been in tow far too long to the dukes of the diploma and the potentates of science. Let us take care of our own affairs; no matter how inept we are, we will never make such a poor job of it as these people do, in our name." And from Big Mike Bakunin: "So long as you have a master in heaven you will be slaves upon earth."

We might do worse than end with Yeats, remembering those young people, young women in particular, the especial victims of rancid religious misogyny, who have paid with their lives in the fight against clerical reaction and authoritarian rule--

'........our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.'