Some Thoughts on the Road Ahead.

These are chaotic times for Iran. Every week seems to bring more unrest, without an apparent strategy on behalf of the protesters. This is a good thing, as no strategy means no leadership that can be arrested or killed to stop the demonstrations.

Also the Iranian community outside of Iran seems to be active without a strategy or even a clear goal. This is odd, as we don't suffer from violence and arrest. In fact, we are allowed to work in complete freedom, yet we have no debate about the type of events we organise or even why we organise them. There isn't much communication between groups that are active, which results in a long time passing without anything significant happening, only to have multiple actions taking place in a few days. We don't even have a site which has a complete list of actions so that the few people who want to get involved know where to go.

I personally think going on like this only serves to make us feel good about ourselves and less frustrated about being powerless to influence even in a small way what happens in Iran.

My own reasons to be active from abroad is to:

- Show solidarity with anyone brave enough to hit the streets and face the bullies of the regime.
- Educate non-Iranians about what's going on in the country and why they should care.
- Give a strong signal of condemnation to the government of the Islamic Republic.
- Create unity in the Iranian community which is splintered in various political groups.

Each of these goals (or a combination thereof) requires a different type of event. For instance, you can organise an event to get non-Iranians involved in the struggle without a single Iranian participating, but that doesn't do much to create unity amongst Iranians themselves.

Tomorrow I will write a few lines about each of these goals. In the mean time, here's a couple of articles to wrap your head around:

Star students in Iran are denied an education (or worse), to keep out undesirables out of the school system:

http://www.bahairights.org/2010/01/02/iranian-regime-continues-to-scapegoat-the-bahais-for-recent-unrest/

Baha'i are being arrested in connection with the unrest. This is especially worrying as Baha'i, more so than Jews and Christians, are considered infidels, so it's not "wrong" to execute them:

http://www.bahairights.org/2010/01/02/iranian-regime-continues-to-scapegoat-the-bahais-for-recent-unrest/