Cross-posted from Potkin Azarmehr at For a democratic secular Iran
13th September, 2014. The Iranian national volleyball team is playing in Poland. Amongst the crowds, there is one female Iranian fan, who has not succumbed to the suppression of her national symbols by the Islamic Republic occupiers of Iran. Darya Safaei, as in all the other volleyball matches she attends to, is waving the true national flag of Iran – the green, white and red tri-colour with the historic Sun and Lion symbol in the middle, the true flag of her fatherland. She is also holding a poster of Ghoncheh Ghavami, the girl who was arrested in Iran after attempting to watch a volleyball match.
This is all too much for the Islamic Republic security agents. An intelligence agent of the regime who is leading the Islamic Republic supporters in the crowd, wearing their head scarves and waving their phoney flags, calls a spectator to tell Darya, if she does not bring her flag down, she will be severely dealt with and the stadium stewards will obey his command to remove her.
The dumb Polish officials then move in to obey the instructions handed to them by the Islamic Republic agent. Yet the steadfast Iranian lioness stands her ground and tells them “This is my flag! I will not move!”. Another spectator, who unlike the mushy-brained stewards understands what is going on, tries to intervene and yells at the uniformed order-taker “Are you with the Islamic Republic?”
Darya keeps telling the Polish stewards “That’s my flag!” and the idiot steward pumped up on ignorance dares to tell her “No!” and again Darya is not intimidated and the Islamic Republic state TV is resigned to show images of the Sun and Lion flags during the match.
My blood boils when I watch these scenes and I feel ashamed I was not there to help Darya. I feel ashamed that I was not in the stadium to wrap the steward’s ID sling around his neck. I want to yell at these dumb Polish stadium stewards, “Whose fucking side are you on, you dumb asses? Have you forgotten what it was like when your own national symbols were suppressed by the Nazi and the Soviet occupiers?”
