Oct 27 speech: Enough!

Following is the text of my speech delivered on October 27, 2007 at the national anti-war mobilization in New York City organized by United for Peace and Justice.

I am an Iranian-American who loves both Iran and America.

I am Iranian enough to be worried for my people, their cultural heritage, their history, and above all the path towards democracy that they have taken for the past 100 years. I see that today they are closer than ever to reaching this dream: the Iranian women, students, workers, and other groups have worked hard to get here and are willing to even work harder to achieve this dream.

What I feel my fellow Iranians are saying now, and they hope that everyone hears them, is that they are intelligent enough to make their own decisions. I hear their cry, loud and clear, when they say, “Please do not destroy our dream that we have worked so hard for.” I hear them say, loud and clear, “Please let us determine our own future by ourselves.”

They cry out, “Please DO NOT help us.”

And, as an Iranian, I say to you, my fellow Americans, “Please let my people pave the path of democracy on their own. Do not push them. Do not send them back another 100 years!”

I am an American-Iranian who loves both America and Iran.

I am American enough to not want to see more deaths and misery for my country. I do not want to hear people from Europe and other countries, those we consider friends, speak about us as warmongers. More important, I don’t want to see my young American brothers and sisters giving up their lives and dying in order to satisfy the appetite of our blood-thirsty leaders. I do not want to see my American children living in fear as a result of this administration’s agenda for world domination.

I am Iranian enough and American enough to not support more death, more wounded, more war and more destruction. I am human enough to dream of peace and happiness for all people.

So I say, Enough! to “The Axis of Evil.” I say Enough! to “The Great Satan.” I say Enough to War.

Leila Zand is the Iran Program Coordinator at the Fellowship of Reconciliation (www.forusa.org/programs/iran).