Message in a bottle

Doomu Rewmi — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:18:00 +0000

Le Monolecte posted this very beautiful message to the people of Iran, after French Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner spoke very strongly of war against this country.

A message she wishes will reach somehow someone in Iran through the seas of Internet.

A message in a bottle.

Many readers agreed this bottle should reach as many shores as possible. To this end, I contribute a very approximative English translation, hoping to get her bottle a bit closer to the intended farsi audience.

As a kid, like many kids, I used to love releasing foil balloons, red ones with postcards attached underneath. I loved the idea of sending a message to another kid, somewhere around the world, of creating a link, fragile as it was, between people. Though, in fact, my words must have been mostly seeding some field in the neighbourhood.

I even threw a few bottles to the sea - and I must have given to the beach cleaning teams something to enjoy. Of course, I never received any answer to any of these attempts but the idea of those messages left to the whim of currents - of the air or of the seas - still have for me a strong evocative power.

Today, the desire to reach out to the some unknown person at the other end of the world is stronger than ever. And I can use the electronic currents of the Internet as vessels of my thoughts.

Internet is large indeed and I am very small.

Still, I wish to send a message to the people of Iran, telling myself that, through links and backlinks, through translations accurate or not, something of it will reach them.

Because today at last, we, the downtrodden people of the world, can talk to each other, communicate beyond our governments.

Because today, I can't stand any more of the horrors broadcast on my behalf by the official channels.

Because today, I can't stand anymore the leaders who, drawing their legitimacy from a democratic system corrupted by the monstrous orgy of power, money and communication media, dare promise, on my behalf, death and sufferings.

Because today, those who were elected on empty promises unveil their real plan and that plan is to bring, on my behalf, war, death and suffering to a foreign land.

Because today, lies are told in my name and in the name of all my kin.

Because today, the people of Iran are described as a bunch of terrorists bent upon threatening the world with nuclear weapons as real as Saddam Hussein’s WMD. Even though Mohammed El Baradei, of IAEA, insists that the authorities of Iran have always tried to find a pacific solution to the crisis. Even though we can estimate our own nuclear stockpile to 346 heads.

Because today, the "French doctor", reveals himself and promise, in our name, the worst to people whose only fault is to be sitting upon huge reserves of the black resource the whole world craves.

Because today, like yesterday, I believe war is the business of a few cynical people seeking personal profit while the majority of the people would happily do without any war.

Internet is larger than the sky and deeper than the seas, but I am sure that now, there is a good chance our thousands and thousands of little messages, going over all the electronic barriers set up by the cynical people who wish to set us against each other, will reach their audience. I am sure that, within ours or days, somewhere in Teheran (تهران), Kermasha (کرمانشاه), Esfahan (اصفهان) or Zahedan (زاهدان), someone will get my words or another one's and thus get confirmation that Bernard Kouchner doesn't speak for the people of France but only for the warmongers who need to boost their deathly business.

Internet is large indeed and I am very small, but our words go beyond space and time. Internet is wide and inscrutable but it is so much less than the stupidity of people who wet their dreams of riches and power with the blood of others.

Internet is not an ocean that separates us but a web that links us and allows us to transcend space, time and the wedges of languages and cultures. Today I can share with a friend from the other side of the world my thoughts, my pictures, my music.

So, I can tell to Iran that Sarkozy and Kouchner are no more representative of France than Bush and Rumsfield are or the USA, that these people got to their stations with promises of prosperity for each (and not for all), that here like elsewhere the is a Tele-Mille-Collines TV ^[1] that teaches fear and hate, that here like over there we wish essentially to tend to our garden and watch our kids grow.

Internet is so large it can bring together all the people and we don't need people speaking for us anymore. These conflicts they are trying to seed in our minds are not our conflicts but those of big transnational companies dealing in energy and arms who fund trash medias and phoney governments everywhere.

This is why I write today to the people of Iran and to all the people out there who must suffer from the bunch of cynics governing us. This is why I hope, others on the web will do the same, more and more, until we overflow and sweep away the dominant empty thinking.

Internet is large indeed and I am very small. But the power of word is larger still and can bridge over the abyss of misunderstanding and hate dug bay a few

This is my message. May it go everywhere. May it inspire others. Many others.

Le Monolecte

Notes

[1] The author is refering here to the infamous Radio Mille Colline radio channel in Rwanda whose broadcats is said to have fueled the genocide in 1994

Les Nouvelles Chroniques de Ndoumbelane - Tag - Guerre

Message in a bottle

Notes