What courage looks like

Ahmad Batebi, the 21-year-old student who was imprisoned and tortured by the Iranian government because this picture was featured on the cover of the Economist, has escaped to America.

Silent no more

For every thug, the world over, from America to North Korea to Zimbabwe to Iran, in every nation from every corner of the globe, who has rationalized their cowardice in the name of power, Ahmad Batebi is a living example and challenge to you of what courage really looks like.

Ahmad Batebi, now 30, was a student photographer attending a rare and brave student protest of the Iranian government in 1999 in Tehran. Amidst the protests and subsequent government crackdowns, Ahmad held up a bloody shirt presumably belonging to another student protestor who had been attacked, he claimed, by Basij paramilitary forces.

As a consequence of the international notoriety he experienced from that Economist cover photo, Batebi was sentenced to death by the Iranian government.

I want every thug who thinks that their machinations for power and brutality are novel or clever or otherwise respectable to take notice of the subsequent move by the Iranian government in response to the negative international publicity.

The government commuted his sentence for "creating street unrest" to 15 years.

Isn't that clever? You see, they weren't quite as tough or harsh as they might have been. They could have been so much tougher or harsher, you see. But, instead, they showed mercy on young Ahmad. And they only sentenced him to 15 years in prison for holding up that T-shirt.

As the Economist reports:

"During his interrogation he was blindfolded and beaten with cables until he passed out. His captors rubbed salt into his wounds to wake him up, so they could torture him more. They held his head in a drain full of sewage until he inhaled it. He recalls yearning for a swift death to end the pain. He was played recordings of what he was told was his mother being tortured. His captors wanted him to betray his fellow students, to implicate them in various crimes and to say on television that the blood on that T-shirt was only red paint. He says he refused.

He was sentenced to death for 'creating street unrest'. But after a global outcry, the sentence was commuted to 15 years in jail. He speculates that his high profile made it hard to kill him without attracting negative publicity. For two years, he was kept in solitary confinement, in a cell that was little more than a toilet hole with a wooden board on top. He was tortured constantly. Only when he was allowed to mingle with other prisoners again did he begin to overcome his despair.

He suffered a partial stroke that left the right side of his body without feeling. He needed medical attention. The regime did not want to be blamed for him dying behind bars, he says, so he was allowed out for treatment. Three months ago, on the day of the Persian new year, he escaped into Iraq. On June 24th he arrived in America."



I want every thug in America and across the globe to take stock of the ugly rationalization used by this government. Because it is the excuse used the world over to rationalize every power-hungry, vindictive, brutal, ugly impulse that has ever been callously indulged the world over, since the beginning of humanity. It is the source of humanity's ugliest rationalizations of its most ruthless, barbarous, vengeful inclinations since the beginning of its long recorded and unrecorded history. It is humanity's cruelest, most heartless, most sadistic and inhumane rationalization since its inception.

And those who rationalize such brutality, cruelty, and power-hunger in liberal societies are no better, in the largest picture, than these blood-thirsty mullahs, no matter what excuse they may offer.

Courage is not the impulse to impose such cruelty. Courage is the capacity to withstand such treatment, to come away alive undiscouraged, and perhaps emotionally stronger, for the experience, and for stronger values and ideas to prevail over their weaker, more cowardly, and more brutal brethren.

It does not take courage to inflict such treatment on people. It does not take courage to repress. It takes courage to stand up to such repression. And Ahmad Batebi's long, brutal journey is a testament to that kind of courage.

People have rationalized such ugliness since the beginning of humanity. It is the answer to the long-standing question of how humanity could have spent so much of its history in illiberal, undemocratic, and brutal and repressive conditions.

Because such illiberality, brutality, and repression was rationalized by societies, democratic and undemocratic, to cover for their cowardly, power-hungry, vindictive, and brutal ways. It is the same impulses that have rationalized every uncivilized, barbarous, cruel, mean-spirited, and cowardly policy that has ever made its presence on Earth. It is the same rationalization used by the Nazis. It is the same rationalization used by the Soviets. It is the same rationalization used by the Saddam Hussein. It is the same rationalization used by the Communists in Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and China.

It is the same rationalization that has been used since the beginning of human history for force as a governing philosophy, for repression and brutality as the only means of containing those same impulses rationalized to govern them.

I want to say that again and be very clear.

The exact impulses that are rationalized to contain such brutality are the ones being used to rationalize force as a governing philosophy for such containment. Force, so the excuse goes, is the only impulse that can control such brutality. There is truth to the idea that force must be used to confront brutality when no other options exist. But its unending abuse is why liberal societies need a committed presumption against such ugliness when it comes to the use of force, the least necessary force or aggression possible. Because that fact of life is also, now and forever, the source of the corruption to which power tempts into perpetuity.

And it is that temptation that America and the liberal democratic world is giving into, during this political moment.

Courage is what it looks like for people like Ahmad Batebi to challenge such rationalizations and corruption from power, openly and despite punishments or rewards, not because of them. Cowardice is what it looks like to engage in such rationalizations and fail to take responsibility for them and our behavior in accordance with those rationalizations.

If Americans need someone to look to as an example of what courage looks like, it is not found, in its strongest form, at this moment, in any our candidates for President or in almost any of our elected leaders.

Courage is found in this one very brave Iranian young man who stood up for freedom when others were cowered by power.

For Ahmad and the thousands of brave young protesters like him, thank you for your courage. It is a light amidst the dark canvass of power and repression the world over. Thank you for being that light.