My compatriot, I know that this pain has stolen sleep from our eyes, and that even for a moment we cannot put out of our minds the difference between an unintended mistake and a deliberate, knowing lie. What sorrow for all those beautiful unfinished dreams and beautiful lives that took flight from beside us.

The prayer of our ancestors, written in stone for this land, was: “May God protect this land from the Lie,” because for thousands of years our belief was that the demon Druj—the Lie—was the greatest offspring of Ahriman.

Aeschylus, the great Greek tragedian, once wrote in words rendered in the Persian source as follows: “The one who learns must suffer: a suffering that, even in sleep, falls drop by drop upon our heart until, in our absolute sorrow and despair and against what we desire and wish for, we come to understand the wisdom hidden within this endless suffering.” Perhaps the moment of awakening has arrived for us as well: the moment to look into the eyes of those whom the demon of the Lie has taken from us and make this covenant—that from now on, wherever we are, we will strive to drive falsehood out of our souls, our lives, and our land.

Those who took flight were among the most beautiful and the best of us. In this suffering and loss we will all stand beside one another. Even if no one declares these days a period of national mourning, we ourselves, grieving and mourning our loved ones, as the people of the Iranian lands, declare “national mourning.”

But eventually we will rise from the shock of this grief and record this day in our calendars as the “Day of No to Lies!”

Your compatriot, sharing in your grief,
Aydin Areta