Light a candle

In the nineteen eighties when Solidarity looked like they had a chance against the government of Poland, the first significant crack behind the iron curtain since the Prague spring, a whisper went around "Light a candle."

I lived in Portugal then and our media assured us it was all very complicated and we just couldn’t know what to do.  We knew exactly what to do.  We lit candles.  Real ones, on my parents’ cement and stone balcony, electrical ones in the windows of those houses that didn’t have a balcony.

Did it help?  I don’t know.  The media didn’t make much of it — if they mentioned it at all — but these things have a way of being known and when entire villages in Europe glowed at night with candles in the windows and on balconies… well… I figure if word got back to Poland, the bad buys knew we were watching.  And we weren’t amused.

Governments need to take in account all sorts of things.  Like, will they have to negotiate with the bastards if something happens requiring such?  Also, one of the rules I learned early in writing was never criticize an editor to another editor — no matter how much they hate each other, they still project.  They’ll think "if she says that about so and so, what will she say about me?"  Even if it’s a joke about how badly your book was copyedited.  In the same way governments tend to support others that have the power right now, or at least not attack them, unless provoked beyond endurance, because, well  "It could be me next."

We the people have no such restrictions and SHOULD have no moral confusion.  What’s going on in Iran is evil.  Is the guy the opposition could install only marginally less evil?  Perhaps.  But even if movement toward freedom is incremental, it should be encouraged.

Light a candle.  Light one today.

As for me, a candle will burn on my balcony from today until the people of Iran are free from the tyranny that has stomped them since 79.  If for a week or the rest of my life, I don’t know.  And I don’t care.  I’ll stand with those willing to fight and die on the streets for their freedom.

Solidarity is more than a union in Poland.