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Alexei Navalny (on NOT GIVING UP)

Posted by :James Howden On : June 6, 2024
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Category: He Said/She Said

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[2-minute read]

Alexei Navalny died in February. I’m sure somebody knows why and how, but the great WE doesn’t. It is not impossible that nothing acutely nefarious happened in his Russian prison four months back. Maybe his body had just had enough after the earlier poisoning and years spent on the run or in jail. But there is no doubt that, aged 47, he had sacrificed not only his freedom but his life to oppose injustice and to offer hope to the despairing. His death should be remembered. I learned more about him after he left us, and his words and example still work on me.

This is dramatically capsulized in his “final words” to Russian compatriots in the event of his death; they close the Oscar-winning 2022 documentary film Navalny, which chronicles what the dissident lawyer had come to understand following his nearly miraculous recovery from an obviously sinister poisoning in 2020. He is about to return to near-certain imprisonment or even death in his mother country. His interviewer asks him what, in the event of his demise, he would want to say to his fellow Russians. His answer is powerfully simple.

“NOT GIVE UP.” He speaks quietly to the camera, but something in his eyes had me writing it in capital letters. That is his message.

Of course, the film-maker wants more, and Alexei Navalny provides it. He includes a well-known saying, often unattributed or wrongly so¹, but it feels true coming from him. In so doing, he leaves for his countrymen, and for anyone and all peoples facing apparently overwhelming oppression – and hey, even for a Canadian Bahá’í-guy basketball coach with a comfy life and a scribbling itch – these quietly defiant words:

“I have something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power, to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes.

“We don’t realize how strong we actually are.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. SO DON’T DO NOTHING.”

Don’t do nothing, noble reader. And try to do it in ALL-CAPS.

¹ When attributed, it most often goes to the Irish intellectual Edmund Burke, who said something in the same vein but not in these words. Reuters Fact Check has philosopher John Stuart Mill writing a speech saying, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” (Wasn’t that an enjoyable detour?)

Re-Distribution 7.5: Behrouz Prays for His Oppressors

Posted by :James Howden On : November 26, 2015
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Category: At First Glance

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I’ve gotten distracted, just like the world has. For a week last May, considerable global attention — at least, within the bubble of those with the willingness (or the freedom) to look up from their routine concerns — was paid to remembrance and advocacy for seven leaders of the Baha’i community of Iran. Wanting to join the movement, I had to get to know Behrouz Tavakkoli, so I wrote about him.

Behrouz is another man who is widely known and loved — and was taken from — among the Iranian Baha’is, one of the seven who were then entering an eighth year of unjust imprisonment in two Iranian jails.  He and his partners in “crime” were the focus for the international #7Bahais7Years campaign, and now that it’s seven-and-a-HALF years, here I go again. I hoped, back then, that my seven personal essays (this was the sixth) could be of some use in the worldwide protest, and maybe they moved somebody besides me, but the seven still grow old in prison. They are sacrificial lions, bravely enduring pariah status in a country that needs their kind more than it knows. So in case you missed, or would like to remember, my May series on the Quietly Magnificent Seven, prisoners of conscience in Iran for 7.5-years-and-counting, here was Issue No. 6…

They made a carpenter out of him. Behrouz Tavakkoli, in most ways, is probably okay with that.

They made a carpenter out of him. Behrouz Tavakkoli, in most ways, is probably okay with that.

I’ve been reading about Behrouz Tavakkoli. (I’ve known some “Persian versions” named Behrouz. They usually had to defer to the impervious pronunciation of Canadian-born friends and accept ‘Bruce’. Too bad, but Iranians have put up with worse. Declaration: I’ve never had a bad experience with a Behrouz.)

My favourite Bruce, singer/songwriter Cockburn, startled those familiar with his gorgeous acoustic guitar-picking and gentle, Christian-flavoured and granola-fed singing. It was the 1980s. As he became more aware of global poverty and the systematic injustice of so-called “first world” nations, songs like “They Call it Democracy” were wildly angry for a peace-loving Canuck. The most shocking one, of course, and likely the one that put him on an American blacklist for a time, was “(If I Had a) Rocket Launcher”. He wanted to “make somebody pay” for the terrible suffering he saw in Central and South American countries, which were ‘collateral damage’ during that ever-more–ridiculous global struggle (allegedly) between communism and democracy. (Remember the Cold War? Is it even over? Where and how is it being fought now? These are uncomfortable questions. Feel free to ignore them; most do.)

I have nothing so dramatic to say; nobody will pay. However, I read Mr. Tavakkoli’s story, and there’s no doubt: that’s anger rising up into my chest.

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Vahid: Peerless Insight From Inside

Posted by :James Howden On : May 21, 2015
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Category: At First Glance

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Vahid is Vahid Tizfahm, yet another widely known and cherished community servant taken from among the Iranian Baha’is. He and his partners in “crime” are the focus for the international #7Bahais7Years campaign, and here we go again. Danny and Pej asked their buddy, me, to contribute to the social media protests, and I’m hoping these personal essays are of some use in the necessary worldwide conversation. Vahid Tizfahm and his six colleagues are sacrificial lions, bravely enduring pariah status in a country that needs their kind more than it knows. Here is the last instalment of my series on the Quietly Magnificent Seven, prisoners of conscience in Iran for seven years, and counting…

Ever had an optometrist for a hero? I have, now. Vahid Tizfahm is a lion.

Ever had an optometrist for a hero? I have, now. Vahid Tizfahm is a lion.

At 42, Mr. Tizfahm is the same age as his father was when he was executed for being a Baha’i. Three bullets, no lawyer, no charge that we would recognize as remotely judicial. Vahid, the son who is now the similarly arrested father, is quite the youngest of the Yaran, the “friends”, the group of seven Baha’is that worked to guide and encourage the members of their persecuted community. As has become the disgusting norm in Iranian society, it goes without saying — so I’ll SAY it, again — that he did not go to university; as a member of “this detestable sect”, he wasn’t allowed to. He was able to train as an optometrist, and alongside this business he was a youth leader, taught children’s classes and was appointed to generally inspire, encourage, and promote learning among Baha’is. He studied under and supported the BIHE, the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, an underground university that trains excluded Baha’i students in living rooms and by email. He did these things, of course, until he and the other Yaran were arrested, for “crimes” such as these, a little more than seven years ago.

***

Vahid is the Persian form of an Arabic word that means “unique”, “peerless”. Vahid. One of the greatest figures of the violently visionary and just plain violent early years of the Baha’i movement, in 19th-century Persia, was given this lofty title. And now we have another singular man, quietly, hardily, heartily bearing societal rejection and punishment in the name of principle, in the pursuit of justice.

The Tizfahm family. Not sure whether this is a prison visit, or just prior to his arrest.

The Tizfahm family. Not sure whether this is a prison visit, or just prior to his arrest.

Vahid Tizfahm’s son was in grade 3 when they came for him, about the same age his daddy had been when his own father was taken. The family had just moved to Tehran, and my thinly educated guess is that they had done so in order for Mr. Tizfahm to more easily work together with his Baha’i leadership colleagues. (You know, relocation to pursue sacrificial voluntarism, that old story.) The lad is now a sophomore in high school. I have a son about that age, who probably gets more contact with his Dad than he’d like. But what about young Mr. Tizfahm?

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7Bahais7Years: Getting Mad, No Getting Even

Posted by :James Howden On : May 14, 2015
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Category: At First Glance

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UPDATE: After this post, I wrote short personal essays on each of the Quietly Magnificent Seven — Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm. Click on a name to get a quick impression of each.

Now this is really starting to burn my cookies. Must be time to write. (You write beautifully when you’re angry, cooed Howdy’s imaginary mistress of exposition. Liar. And thanks, he replied.)

Listen: I’ve known about the seven imprisoned Baha’i leaders in Iran for a while. I hang around the Baha’i community quite a bit. I am irritated occasionally by their relentless kindness and optimism and my repeated failures of same, it’s true. They’re everywhere you look, but there are never enough of them. But where else would I go for reasonable views on the spiritual life, for a worldview both epically hopeful and practical, for a community that embodies (better than anything I’ve seen) all the grassroots democracy and unity-in-diversity that I can shake an old hockey stick at? Long story short: nowhere. I keep lurking behind the frontlines of Baha’i community-building because it stirs my mind, shakes my lethargy, calms my despair and lifts my spirit. Not bad!

So: the Baha’is in Iran are under assault in their own home, right where this global system of knowledge and practice began. (Call it a religion, if the word doesn’t poison you) Where their Faith originated, they have been vilified, harassed and murdered for a century and a half. The old story. It continues. Scapegoating. Jail. Executions. The whole nine.

Or, in the particular case that’s overturned my emotional outhouse and toilet-papered my trees today — SEVEN. Seven Baha’is. Seven years in two different Tehran jails, and who can say which is more infamous?

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Nelson Mandela (on genuine freedom)

Posted by :James Howden On : December 8, 2013
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Category: He Said/She Said

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“…My hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away

“Madiba”, South Africa’s “gift from God”, an African prince in his tribal regalia–before the 27 years on Robben Island.

someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

“When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But…the truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have…[taken only] the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Out of prison, and into the Presidency. There was rejoicing world-wide, but it surely was not a thrilling ride for him. What a burden to carry at his age.

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), from his 1995 book The Long Walk to Freedom. Among the many things that he was, Mr. Mandela was a practical philosopher on the true meaning of ‘freedom’, a troublesome word in whose name a thousand lies have been told and a thousand oppressions have been hatched.

Afternoon on an Overpass

Posted by :James Howden On : November 25, 2012
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Category: At First Glance

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We don’t see many beggars in Dalian, at least not in my neck of the asphalt jungle. Yesterday, though, on an elevated bridge over one of the busier bottlenecks of traffic, at Heishijiao, was a doubleheader. I am eternally conflicted, and all the more so in China, where most people are convinced that beggars get rich.

Or get someone else rich: the popular belief seems to be that every beggar has a pimp who preys on the helpless sympathy of passersby – in my view, most people are quite well fortified against this! – and of course the pathetic needs of the (often-handicapped, or apparently so) “collectors”. I’ve seen and chronically misunderstood or misread enough of this country to believe that there could be truth to this urban dogma, but also feel compelled to ask those who spout it a head-tilting zhen de ma? (Really? Really?)

I was on my way to McDonald’s, lately my go-to spot for a little (not so) quiet thinking, reading, writing and people-watching. But I didn’t plan to watch that: pedestrians on the bridge parted in oblivious avoidance of a long-haired man, half-naked on a zero-degree day, lying on his stomach on the concrete, muttering as he flopped his head and torso violently up and down, up and down. On the downward stairs at the other end of the bridge, a bundle of clothes (possibly old, possibly female) was kneeling, unseen forehead nearly touching the concrete landing.

I read my novel. I ate a McFlurry. I made plans. I scribbled notes for a draft of a proposal to supplement a project I’ve been avoiding. I read encouraging non-fiction. McChicken and fries followed. I watched the young woman two tables over, hunched over her needlework . (She outstayed my three hours, and ate less.) My introvert-in-the-crowd engagement over, I walked back to the bridge, heading for the number 28 bus back to family, sweet music and fresh hot conversation.

Still, in the darkness of a late afternoon, the kneeling shape silently begged. Still, more than three hours later, the spastic figure wearing only pants jerked and muttered. I put a little money in their hats, and didn’t feel better at all.

WritersFest III: Prisoner of Tehran

Posted by :James Howden On : April 23, 2007
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Category: At First Glance

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So many things to catch up on – it was a jam-packed weekend, but in my non-teaching period at the Home of the Rams I can get a little posting done. (It’s a supply teaching gig, so no marking, no prep! No steady income, either, mind you. Compensations.) Saturday began with an Earth Day festival of story, dance and other artful expressions of faith in human beings (a scarce but renewable resource) and reverence for the environment (ditto). Yes, and worm-powered composts, electric bikes, grassroots community-building and off-grid power. (All of which is green and great but, I admit, has nothing to do with prisoners or Tehran.) Then we roared off to further Ridván (“Paradise”) festivities, which did have to do with Bahá’u’lláh, the exiled Persian nobleman, also a Prisoner of Tehran. But that’s not the prisoner I mean, either.

From the mid-afternoon Ridván observance, I was off and running again to catch what remained of the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival and its second-to-last day. Especially, I wanted to hear more of the story of featured, first-time author Marina Nemat – yes, I AM getting to the point of this post! – who was jailed as a teenager in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Her crime, apparently, was to be a young woman with opinions; she spoke up to a high school teacher, asking that the class get back to what they were supposed to be learning and not the pseudo-religious political dogma that was being spouted. Not a prudent position to take in 1982 in the immediately post-revolution Iran! Her torture and imprisonment, her spookily brutal marriage to her jailer and her eventual escape from Iran have made for a tremendous story, one that she couldn’t tell for many long years as she rebuilt her life in Canada.

Marina Nemat is a very young-looking 42 now. Over the last several years, she found the courage (and perhaps the desperate need) to write her story. “I was a volcano,” she says simply. “I had to write this.”  And in facing the inevitable survivor’s guilt, as one who found a tangled path by which to walk away from Evin when others she knew did not, she eventually decided that making her story public was her raison d’être. “I realized that I was the perfect person to be a witness to what happened to my generation in Iran. I felt strongly that…this was why I had survived,” she told us. “I had to show that they had not forced me to change my mind.”

She speaks with great dignity and directness. At one point, she was asked from the audience whether she fears for relatives back home, or for her own life. There was no drama in her answer, but the simple bravery was breathtaking. There are perhaps “some second cousins” left in Iran, so she does not worry about anyone else in her homeland being made to suffer for her candour. And as for herself, she says, “I will never wear a bullet-proof vest or have a bodyguard. I was a captive to fear for too long, and I would rather live one day freely than 20 years with a bodyguard. That is not living.” We all love our writers at this Ottawa celebration of the power of the word, but after this remarkable window into a world of fearsome oppression, the applause went on and on. It was a day when the standing ovation was not a mere artistic convention, but a symbol of profound respect. The gratitude of strangers.