Iran, Silence, and Waiting
With the sudden and complete cessation of the internet, Iran has fallen into a silence heavier than distance itself. Overnight, I found myself cut off from friends—people whose voices had become part of my daily intellectual and emotional landscape.
One of the reasons I joined HelloTalk was not language practice in the narrow sense, but encounter. I wanted to befriend Iranian intellectuals, to learn from them, and to engage with the layered history of their country and the extraordinary depth of its literature. In the West, Omar Khayyam is often quoted and Rumi widely celebrated, sometimes stripped of context. Those who know Iran more deeply understand that these figures are only the visible peaks of a vast cultural terrain. Iran continues to produce poetry, philosophy, cinema, and art—often under conditions of profound constraint.
Until recently, my friends inside Iran were thoughtful and generous correspondents. Messages arrived daily—reflections on literature, society, family life, and the quiet strategies of endurance people develop under pressure. Since the protests intensified, that correspondence has vanished—not gradually, but completely.
I have known this silence before. And so, once again, I wait.
Waiting is not passive. It is a form of solidarity when action is impossible, and a reminder of asymmetry: that while I wait in comfort, others endure fear, loss, and uncertainty.
My heart is with the thousands of Iranians who have lost a family member—a child, an adolescent, a loved one—to violence and repression.
May the wishes, desires, and dreams of Iranians to live freely come to fruition—sooner rather than later, for them, and for all of us.
