For Shervin: Honour and Courage

My dear Shervin, I have always spoken and written about the importance of individuality and of the one-persons within our society: those individuals who welcome the risk of thinking independently and allow themselves, with honour and courage, to carry the suffering of the people of their time.

Nothing is more magnificent or beautiful than remaining an honest seeker of truth despite one’s solitude, being able to look at oneself in the mirror and see that one person without whom the forces of truth in the world would have been one person fewer.

To be able to tell ourselves, in our solitude, that even if we have not been able to remove the chains from our own hands and feet or those of our people, we have at least been able to free our thought from its chains.

We will all become repetitions and multiplications of you: through our writing, our poems, our paintings, our songs, and our slogans. We will reclaim the sky of Iranian art and thought from darkness and fill it with stars.

My brother Shervin, no prison can bind what you have liberated within yourself, and no bullet will ever reach the bird you have set free from its cage.

Aydin Areta

#Shervin_Hajipour