I can’t take it anymore.

It’s midnight…I’ve been waiting for this moment for hours, I’ve been waiting for this moment for days, I’ve been waiting for this moment for months…

I wrote the sentences in my mind while sitting in the bus going to work every single morning; I erased the sentences in my mind while sitting in the bus coming back home every single evening; I changed the sentences every single time I talked to you, I listened to you and I merely looked at you…

There was an illusion that the capacity is unlimited, meaning you can take as much as it comes; meaning you can handle it as hard as it gets; meaning you can live with it as cruel as it can be; though, this was an illusion!

I can’t take it anymore, I can’t handle anymore, I can’t live it anymore!

call me weak, call me fragile, call me pathetic, call me broken, call me whatever you want… I can’t take it anymore, I can’t handle anymore, I can’t live it anymore!

Since I remember when I was a kid, around New Year time, there was a video tape going around coming from the others live over the seas: singing, dancing, wishing to celebrate the next new year in their home country and sing and dance with their fellows and families…more than 30 years passed and none of those people saw their land again! Never thought I will one day become one of those over seas people who wish to celebrate new year with their fellows and families in their home land, but here I am: it’s been 2 years, 2 bloody years that I have not been home and God knows how many more years is going to come…

It is the day that we are going to announce the winners of our contest; yet, it’s a lie to say that I have hopes…I’m sorry to let you down, I can’t take it anymore.

‘people’ getting married...

Friday morning…almost noon: the fresh Dutch breeze on my face, the gentle birds’ melody in my ear, and the soft sunlight on my skin. Sounds to be a good Friday noon…indeed.

‘People’ getting married on this day and it seems the whole world is watching. I am wondering whether ‘this’ whole world was watching the news when protestors and demonstrators were being shot down in different corners of the world…I think they did watch the news but most of them kept drinking the rest of their coffee, refresh their make up, smoked another cigarette, set their next date, followed the football match, had another bite of their sandwich, gazed at the beautiful body passing their seat at the café, and in one sentence continued their lives. What else could they do? That’s what has happened throughout the whole history, isn’t it?

My quest with this contest is almost toward the end: the essays are in, the jury is reading and assessing, probably there will be a conference announcing the winners and a closing ceremony.

What is the next step? Or before that: what have I achieved with this? Spamming you for a while, loosing some friends who did not want to be spammed!
What have we done?
Why have we done this?
For human right?
For humanity?
For sake of doing something?
For nothing?

I can ask the same questions about why the whole world needs to watch ‘people’ getting married.

I got life, and I'm going to keep it…

The refresh button has been clicked so many times on Ali’s screen and mine so many

times over the last 24 hours; with joy, with pain, with excitement, with boredom, with

patience, with edginess…the deadline arrived and I sing “…ain’t got no home, ain’t

got no…what I have got nobody can take away?”

I read the lines in the email:

…I just noticed your contest in the newspaper here in Canada, and realized that it

ends in 2 hours. I was just wondering if you do this sort of thing every year, because I

would love to attend it…

…the muscles on my face move…I believe it’s called smile…

“…ain’t no money, ain’t no name…”

Someone from Nigeria wrote:

…the internet went down, my essay is on its way though; can I have an extension?

…phone conversations late at night: ´we can extend the deadline, can’t we?!’

So here is the news, if you have missed the deadline, your chance is not lost yet:

NEW DEADLINE:

14th April 2011

9:00 PM GMT

Write, write and write…

I got life, and I'm going to keep it [1]…

[1] This piece is inspired by Nina Simon’s song titled Ain’t Got No, I Got Life

…one more time…

You have read the news today, haven’t you?!

If you follow the news on none-biased media, you must have noticed how selective the human rights have been? Or perhaps it has been like this forever, and I, naively, have thought that this was not the case before? or at least not all the times...

I still have not recovered from the Thursday news, let alone the reports about what has happened in Iraq this morning…tell me you know what I am talking about, you have read the news today, right?

…one more time, we have experienced that human life has no value when it comes to political agendas…

…excuse me; I’m too down to write…I’m too hopeless to write…I’m too broken to write…

…one more time…it is the toughest thing to do, to close my eyes…have you closed yours?!

What went through his mind in the last moment?

I used to have a simple life:

making plans,
following the plans,
making new plans

…no distraction, no interruption, everything was very simple and according to the plan…

This, was before I do “activism”[1].

This activism has made me extremely tired[2] and yet I am not among the ones whose lives have tremendously changed after the Presidential Election in Iran in June 2009; I am not among the ones who have spent every single moment of their lives to make a change in the system; I am not among the ones who had to leave their home after the election to save their lives; I am not among the ones whose dreams have been vanished and gone…yet, I am extremely exhausted and tired…I promised myself to leave this way of living soon, to go back to my simple life, to go back to live according to the plan, for my own sanity and for my child…I promised myself that IPY International Essay Contest will be my last project in so called “activism”…I did promise this to myself…yet, I am afraid I’m going to disappoint myself and break my promise as I read this headline news this morning:

The man who set himself on fire yesterday in Amsterdam at Dam Square, died in the hospital this morning. The 36-years old man was an Iranian asylum seeker whose case was rejected and closed!

One question has been going through my mind over and over:

“what went through his mind in the last moment?”

It seems life is not going to be simple, or as simple as it used to be…unless…unless there is a change...

---

[1] Point of clarification: I have mentioned before that I am not an activist or academic. Doing activism is not necessarily equal to being an activist, at least, by my definition.

[2] As I wrote in my first post, these are my confessions…so I confess: I am extremely tired…

There is a fire starting in my heart...

…indeed there is a fire starting in my heart[1]…actually there has been a fire in my heart since that bloody election…some days it reaches the pitch and pushes me to the edge…but don’t get me wrong: I’m not gonna give up…the fire burns me inside out, but… I’m not gonna give up…

Since June 2009 this has been the ‘basic information’ about me on the social network:

..."I move on" that's a fact, as the clouds do in my little sky...but every single night when I go to bed, with or without you, I think to myself how big of a crime is to ask "where is my VOTE?"...

There is a fire in my heart…

This post is to the ones who are in power, the ones who are unlawfully and illegitimately in power:

We have seen you crystal clear…the world has seen you crystal clear…don’t underestimate the things that we will do…the scares of your brutality and hostility on our bodies and minds; yet, our souls are ours and you can never ever break that…

There is a fire in my heart…

You are gonna wish, never had done this to us…you think you have made a home down there, but Iran is ours and for sure won’t be shared with you…we have the truth on our side…the future is ours since the change is in “our” hands…

There is a fire starting in OUR hearts…

---

[1] The title is taken from the song “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele. This whole post is inspired by this song.

for her…for him…for you…for me…

I’ve been facebooking all day, since morning that I opened my eyes and updated my status by this dialogue:

The doctor: take one every night till the 10^th week.
The pharmacist: do you want a pack of 30 or 90?
Myself: 90.
Me: don’t let me down…

...and the whole day went like this, about book donations, about Juliano Mer Khamis, about Spring Dance, about IPY’s announcement on Enduring America…

Though in all these hours one post constantly reappeared on Facebook LiveFeed: Bahareh Hedayat’s 30^th Birthday, she is not much older than me, just a few months…I proudly introduced her to the audience last year on Iranian National Students’ Day, in the conference that IPY held at Delft University, Focus Iran II…I listened to her speech over and over…over the last year, I listened to her speech over and over…very soon after that speech she was arrested…

I keep reading about her, I keep writing about her…I keep writing about him…I keep writing about you…I keep writing about me…

This – this contest and anything else that I do – is for her…is for him…is for you…is for me…I won’t let her hair turn to the colour of her teeth in prison…

Keep writing…