for eman al-obeidy, a libyan woman who's story has been all over the (mostly foreign) online news reports this morning…
i drove through dc, past the south african, israeli and old iranian embassies. i thought about the past, when we would come down to protest in front of these fortresses, bright eyed and determined to bring down apartheid and occupation. i was pro intifada and mandela and wore my amnesty international badge proudly. i stuck a "free palestine" sticker on my first cars bumper, only to have someone rip it off one night while the car was parked outside our house. i believed, and still do, that freedom and free speech and free press are fundamental rights that no government and no people can successfully do without. today, that girl who naively acted too cool for school and who believed that sting, bono and peter gabriel concerts could change the world would be here, protesting in front of the egyptian, libyan, syrian and half a dozen gulf states embassies and would still insist that we should all read the universal declaration of human rights to understand what it is that people are dying and fighting and risking and protesting for. it's a powerful document adopted on December 10, 1948 by the united nations general assembly and it altered my world view when i read it in 1985.
in a couple of hours i will board and buckle, virgin america heading west. i will listen to some old nothing like the sun and joshua tree and think about ordering an "i am neda/madiba/eman/bouazizi" bumper sticker.
history, will teach us nothing….
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