Those Images Engraved in My Mind

Throughout my life there have been images of events that have become engraved in my mind--images so lucid that it is as if I had been there. I believe that many of these images in my mind are also stored in the minds of many others and have influenced us to the point of perhaps changing history.

The images in engraved in my mind include: JFK in Dallas at the moment he is shot; Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of his motel room moments before he is executed; the South Vietnamese police chief shooting the captured Viet Cong man in the head; the Vietnamese child running down the road, her clothing having been burn away by napalm; the dying student shot by the National Guard at Kent State University; flowers being placed in the muzzles of the rifles of soldiers in the Philippines; the "tank man" of Tiananmen Square.

A few days ago another image was engraved into my mind. It is of a young woman named Neda dying in the midst of a protest in Tehran:

Before that video/photograph was taken Neda Agha Soltan was unknown to me or to the world. Now, as a result of her tragic death, her face is engraved in the minds of millions.



As with the other photographs engraved in my mind, this image of Neda has stirred me into action. I had been watching developments in Iran since the election with more than a little interest. I have email friends in Tehran; I have college friends from Iran.Since being confronted with the images of of Neda Agha Soltan dying, my interest in these protests have gone from passive observing to active involvement. My avatar on Twitter is now tinted green in support of democracy in Iran.


I have watched the news more closely and signed petitions and written letters to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Obama, and the United Nations regarding Iranian democracy. I feel at one with the protestors. All of this is, for me, in response to an image engraved in my mind that shall never leave me.