A Woman’s Death, A Father’s Anguish

posted at 9:28 pm on June 21, 2009 by Slublog
[ Media ]   

In the book “A Darkness More than Night” by Michael Connelly, one of his characters describes what it’s like to be a father. Connelly’s detective Terry McCaleb talks about checking on his daughter while she’s sleeping and says he “could feel her tiny heart beating. It seemed quick and desperate, like a whispered prayer.” When asked what it was like being a dad, McCaleb says it’s like “having a gun to your head all the time…I know if anything ever happens to her, anything, then my life is over.”

Those quotes came to mind when I watched this video (Strong content warning) of a young woman, tentatively identified as Neda Agha Soltan dying in her father’s arms in the streets of Tehran after being shot by the basij. Thanks to the rapidity with which video and images can be spread, Neda is quickly becoming a symbol of the rebellion. Before she was a symbol, though, she was a father’s little girl.

As horrifying as the images of Neda’s death are, what haunts me about the video is not just the fact that we’re watching a young woman die, but the cries of her father. He’s heard screaming in the video, and his words have been translated:

“Neda, don’t be afraid. Neda, don’t be afraid. Neda, stay with me. Neda stay with me!”

Like Jim Treacher says, she was just standing on the street with her dad. To the subhuman monster who shot her, that was enough to justify a death sentence.

I have two daughters. The oldest is three and the younger is one. Since my wife worked today, I spent most of this Father’s Day watching them. We did the usual daddy-daughter activities: watched a Veggie Tales video, played with blocks, read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” for the millionth time or so. I made spaghetti for dinner and laughed at how they managed to get more sauce on their bibs and their faces than in their mouths. As I went about the business of being a dad, the video I had watched the day before haunted me. I couldn’t help but think that Neda and her father once played and laughed together, and that while I was enjoying the company of my beautiful daughters, a man half a world away was burying his.

Neda died because a group of power-hungry men rigged an election and overreacted to the protests that followed. Their desperate attempts to cling to legitimacy died with Neda, and I hope the protesters prevail, and their regime falls. Normally, I’m not the type of person who wishes for the death of others, but I would not be troubled at all by video of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad hanged. They deserve no better.

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