"But with life itself"

Andrew Sullivan has excellent coverage of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Iran as the government apparently cracks down with extreme violence against demonstrators.

Today at work I watched the video clip, much circulated online, of the woman apparently killed over the weekend. Reports say that Neda was watching a demonstration with her father when she was shot. Warning: this video clip is extremely graphic and disturbing.

Strangely, this reminded me of a postcard my mother bought me on a trip to Great Britain a few years ago, which contained a quote from the Declaration of Arbroath, a sort of declaration of Scottish independence sent in 1320 to the Pope. Some of my very distant ancestors signed that declaration, and later fought repeated wars for independence in Scotland and after coming to America.

In the West (especially in America), we take for granted that we can speak what we wish and associate with whom we wish. The brave demonstrators in Iran should remind all of us that freedom is never granted by the powerful; it must be demanded. And once attained, freedom must be tended as carefully as you'd tend a garden.

"For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any condition be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, not for riches, not honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

Almost 700 years ago, my ancestors wrote these words. They were fighting England, but the same sentiment holds true for the people in Iran today. The powers-that-be may murder hundreds of Nedas, but they'll have a much harder time erasing the memory and meaning of what's been happening there for the last 10 days.