Admiring Ahmadinejad and Overlooking Activists: We're Better Than This

Every year during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad holds a series of strategic dinners and meetings. This year, one of
his dinners in New York was held for American anti-war, social justice and peace
activists, and I attended it.

I firmly believe in diplomacy and dialogue and am disappointed each year with
the growing lack of international cooperation and failing leadership. We saw the
same thing surrounding Ahmadinejad's trip to the UN. The United States and
Iran refuse to talk to each other so they talk around one another hoping that
their messages will get delivered to those they are seeking to court. Lost in
translation between these two countries and the static political posturing they
use are the people of Iran and the United States.

While I didn't know if I would have the opportunity to ask any questions or
raise any issues at the meeting, I was hoping that I would be one among many
that would challenge Ahmadinejad over Iran's human rights violations.

Unfortunately, after over one hour of speeches from other activists in the room,
I found myself feeling disappointed and dismayed. One after another, the guests
at the dinner delivered prepared statements, posing no questions or challenges
to the Iranian delegation. Mostly, people expressed outrage over U.S. foreign
policy. They lauded Ahmadinejad as a hero for standing up to the bullying of the
United States government and likened the meeting to Malcolm X's encounters in
Africa with revolutionaries fighting against colonialism. Many apologized for
decades of dire U.S. policy towards Iran, while calling for self-determination
for Iran and confidence in Ahmadinejad.

Speech after speech failed to address any calls for solidarity with the brave
young men and women in Iran who took to the streets and demanded their rights in
the face of government suppression. Iran has upwards of 500 political prisoners
and the highest rate of capital punishment in the world. In the last year
government critical newspapers have been shut down and countless journalists
imprisoned. An estimated 44 people were killed in street protests in the last
year.

I recognize that many in the room were not there to excuse the Iranian
government's brutality, but their silence was striking. A fundamental role we
have as American peace and social justice activists is to oppose our
government's threats towards Iran, while building solidarity with the Iranian
people. Activists calling for solidarity at the dinner acted as though we stood
in a town hall with our Iranian counter parts; however, the fact is we stood in a
room with the Iranian state, not its people.

Students, human rights defenders, and common folk currently languish in Iranian
prisons for doing the very thing we did on this night - criticize their own
government. This reality is the only thing that gave me the courage to stay at
this dinner. I stood up and expressed my concern for my Iranian counterparts by
stating, that attorneys in Iran like Nasrin Sotoudeh, and student activists like
Bahar Hedayat and Majid Tavakoli have been imprisoned for criticizing
Ahmadinejad. I went on to suggest that Ahmadinejad honor fundamental human
rights and proposed a moratorium on executions and insisted that law be upheld
in the judiciary. I spoke just a dozen feet away from him and looked at him the
entire time. As I named the Iranian activists he put his head down and began
writing.

Nothing I did or said was radical or out of line. But in the aftermath of the
other attendees' shocking adoration for Ahmadinejad and their shameful silence
as to the Iranian government's human rights abuses, I felt extreme and alone.

I refuse to be an apologist for any government's moral bankruptcy--including my
own. As a lawyer, I speak out for immigrant rights and attacks on civil
liberties and I do not believe that we have any chance at a real and lasting
dialogue if we see our struggle through the prism of any state. We need to find
a better way to speak truth to power, whether that power is here at home or just
in town for the week.

Some will say that first and foremost we must not impose our viewpoints on
Iranians. They will also say that the protests were orchestrated and carried out
by western spies. But I know people in Iran, friends, loved ones, and ordinary
Iranians who were beaten in the streets, hospitalized, and arrested because they
exercised their right to protest their government.

I add that Iran, like nearly every other state, is a signatory to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which it has
consistently violated. This covenant expresses what most people inherently know
their rights are as human beings. It upholds the right of all people to
self-determination, to freedom of expression, to receive and impart information,
and to the freedom of assembly.

Who have we become as a peace and social justice movement when we accept and
repeat as fact Iranian state propaganda dismissing the recent uprisings in Iran
and the continued bravery of activists defending their rights? Just as J. Edgar
Hoover likened civil rights activists to communists in order to de-legitimize
them, so too has the Iranian government used the accusation of western spies to
dismiss the relevancy of any resistance. They have thus stated that thousands of
people voicing dissent and protest do not have the will to serve as their own
actors. It is a grave failure on the part of peace and social justice activists
to assume this position and belittle our Iranian counterparts. We must not turn
our focus away from the Iranian activists we aim to work in solidarity with.

I believe strongly in the old adage "speak truth to power." I was taught long
ago, through the antiwar and peace movement--the very community that was at
this dinner--that our job must include speaking up for those who have had their
voices suppressed when we have the ability to do so. It also means having the
knowledge and experience to have a nuanced conversation about the obstacles we
face and not simply taking part in the self-censorship, deference to power, and
accepted frameworks that have come to define any discourse in politics and
diplomacy.

We have a tremendous task ahead of us. Many people have sacrificed a great deal
in both countries to do this important work. Iranians took tremendous risks not
only on the streets of Iran, but also with the videos and messages they
delivered across the internet so that we would know the truth about their
resistance. We believe in their right for self-determination and our voices must
demand it. We owe them better than this.