Ruzbeh Saadati – August 14, 2012
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| Ruzbeh Saadati |
In the year 1553, in Geneva, Michael Servetus, a Unitarian, was burned alive in the town square. His resistance to the flames deeply affected those who had gathered to watch. Many among them went on to reject the doctrine of the Trinity. Later, his student Sebastian Castellio wrote:
"To burn a man alive is not to prove a doctrine."
But truly—if he had not been burned, or if he had denied everything he believed in—would his beliefs have been any less valid? That day, he was burned at the stake for the crime of holding an independent faith and rejecting the Trinity.
And today, just because we were born in a place that seems always on the verge of collapse, we are expected to perish under the rubble and in deprivation. That’s how it is—and how it has always been. Sometimes, certain truths are slow to be felt. Perhaps thousands of homes must be destroyed, hundreds must die, before people will believe what the marginalized of this land have been saying for years.
And yet, they still won't fully believe us. For years, we will continue to bear the accusation of separatism. We are born with this accusation, live with it, and suffer because of it. It becomes part of us—part of our identity! And their identity is built on discrimination. There is no other choice. Or perhaps we can be watched with an exotic gaze—as second-class compatriots—while the word humanity is chewed over with pride. As if any word spoken by “us” must inherently be considered inhuman.
One day, we too will live according to our own will. With our own ideals.
One day, somewhere, sometime—when the death of a human being is no longer taken as proof of an idea.
مرگ یک انسان دلیل اثبات یک عقیده می شود
Original Farsi Article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140731031847/http://ruzbeh-s.blogfa.com/post-16.aspx