Ms Mona Ashgari speech, Palm Sunday 2008

War and peace - to many of us these are only words defined as per dictionary, war is “an armed conflict, violent armed combat between differing people (religion, political ideals or theories, race and so on)”.

Ms Mona Ashgari, Association to Defend Freedom and Human Rights in Iran

To some of us these words mean more than the objective definition as per dictionary or other books. It has subjective meaning which allows us to get a better grasp of what they really mean. My life experiences allow me to define the meaning of war better than peace.

Having been exposed to almost a decade of war, I can tell that War is a bad experience, an unforgettable nightmare that will haunt you for the rest of your life.

The message of war is misery, dead bodies, and loss of loved ones: Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and children.

It means loss of security, safety and thus displacement, starvation, anxiety and uncertainty.

Victims of war usually lose their social status; they become displaced, poor and burden on their society.

As an Iranian, who has experienced war, it means all of the above plus unpleasant personal experiences such as:

• Going to school picking up your nine year-old child's body,
• It means walking in the street and seeing a hand is hanging off a tree branch.
• Uncertainty about tomorrow, where you can only plan for the next day and not a life time
• Waking up in the middle of the night with the horrifying noise of sirens and running for cover. I remember, following nights and nights of interrupted sleep, we as a family decided to sleep through the sirens and hope for the best. This is the stage where people give up on their lives, and dreams.

What does peace mean? As per dictionary:

"The absences of war or other hostilities"

• Not giving up on your life
• Having a Plan for your future with some certainty
• Seeing your children growing up, and having a life
• Not picking your loved one's dead body
• As a family, planning a future not deciding to die together.

After having experienced a decade of war living in peace and harmony is nice. But after years of living in internal and external war, the baggage of uncertainty will always be part of you.

Do I want to have a child? Do I want to be in love or to be loved? What if I lose them all over again? Do I want to face that? Can I cope with the consequences?

Take my word for it, living in peace with memory and experiences of war is not the same as living in peace all your life. But still it is beautiful.

I am not here to advice anyone to say NO to war but I beg you to associate the words with their real meanings through others experiences.

I agree with many of you that the Iranian government is a big threat and danger to the rest of the world. Its terrorist activities expanded from Indonesia to Iraq, and Afghanistan, from America to Australia, from India, Pakistan, Israel to Philippines. In fact if there is an Islamic fundamentalist incited bombing, the Iranian government some how is involved in it.

We, as Iranians, in addition to what you have seen around the world, have experienced brutal and fascistic ways used by the Iranian government in the name of religion at home. We have witnessed young girls being raped in Iran's prisons, in the name of religion, and then executed. We have witnessed stoning, flogging and torturing of Iranian women for not obeying what they call Islamic rules. Rules that, post-revolution, have become part of our constitution and then added to the holy book through re-interpreting the holy words.

And believe me, for many of Iranians dead or alive, their last wish is to see the overthrowing of the Iranian regime. We do pray for peace and democracy in Iran, but as a generation affected by war, we don't want Iran's new generation to be exposed to war. We don't want our next generation to be the victim of uncertainty, displacement and the other side affects of war.

War on the Iranian people is not the answer. Democracy for Iran - yes. Political action against Iranian government - yes. But military intervention is not the answer.

There are other solutions such as supporting the largest and most popular opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and their efforts to establish a democratic government in Iran, where people of all different religions and backgrounds are treated equally and where we see Iran as a part of the solution, not the problem, to global Islamic fundamentalism.

We can also pressure the world's leaders, and in Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to recognize the Iranian government as illegitimate and not as representative of the Iranian people.

It is time for the world's leaders to publicly condemn and isolate the Iranian government as the strongest supporter of terrorist activities and violations of human rights, all around the world, and in Iran.

© Walk Against the War Coalition 2003.
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Last Modified: Tuesday, 25-Mar-2008 16:36:43 EST
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