The Lesser of Two Evils

elle
I'm sure you've all heard about the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi detained, convicted and sentenced in Iran for "spying", and her release on appeal today! Hooray, although I would like to point out that her sentance was changed today, not her conviction, and her 'trial' was an absolute farce. Ms. Sarberi's release may do much for continued talk between Iran and the US, but her career has been irrevocably damaged by the conviction, and she will most likely be leaving Iran (where she has lived the last 6 years) and returning to the US.

In honor of Dr. Shirin Ebadi's talk here at OSU 2 weeks ago, I wanted to highlight the case and the work of Dr. Ebadi for human rights around the world--her organization was involved in Ms.Saberi's appeal. Dr. Ebadi's talk, while definately prepared for her middle and high school aged audience at PeaceJam rather than those of us who do this for a living, both addressed the realities of gender oppression around the world and the absolute necessity of democratic governance to address gender inequity. It can be hard, as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the problems of our democratic government to remember how essential it is to human rights. But from there we have to remember that if 50.1% of the people vote for a bigot it's still a democratic election, even if we don't like it. So, democracy is not enough. We have to educate ourselves and each other, demand excellence and transparency from our candidates, and hold ourselves to a higher standard. At Archbishop Desmond Tutu's speech in Portland last week he admonished the audience by saying that Americans are so warm, open, and generous--why can't we export that instead of guns.