Thursday, October 25, 2007

Iran-o-rama and Sanctions?

I am wondering what Condoleeza Rice's declaration this morning of the sanctions against Iran will mean for my upcoming trip. Will we still get the visas and be allowed to go? It's an interfaith peacemaker delegation with Fellowship of Reconciliation. As some of you may know, it's been my hope to go to Iran since about five years now, and I'd been planning to go with Global Exchange in summer 2005 but the trip was cancelled. I'm going because I want to meet women and children and doctors and teachers and imams and maybe a government official or two, to know them as fellow human beings we shouldn't be trying to kill any more than anyone should be trying to kill us. After all, when I'm hanging out in my class in my little seminary across the street from a big university and the primary concerns in my head at that moment are when I get to go hang out with my friends next, or what we're doing for student government next, or maybe something about the Bible or theology or ethics---at that moment, I don't think of myself as an evil vicious person who wants others halfway across the planet to die. And I figure that's probably true for about 99% of the people just trying to live their daily lives in Iran. So, why not go and meet them face to face?

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