The Stoning of Soraya M.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

I have had the special privilege of seeing a film The Stoning of Soraya M. , a story rather, become a rallying point for a greater cause.

The film is devastating. I’ve seen it 4 times in focus groups -- at times with activists, once with what seemed like half of the Council on Foreign Relations -- and there’s always sort of breathlessness that overtakes the audience. It confronts us with something we don’t actively spend time thinking about. Stoning, to be sure, but also the notion of having a voice.

I’m pretty well versed in torture and diabolical acts due to my study of genocides and human rights, but stoning last seemed relevant as a biblical reference. It still happens. Honor-killings, where a father may hire a hit out on a daughter who has “shamed” the family, are still a regular occurrence.

But what really is an anvil to the chest is how bound women are in protecting themselves against the flaws of human nature. I don’t think a lot of modern women of my age worry for their lives just for smiling at the neighbor who’s kid they were babysitting.

This recalibrates a lot of how we have to view the world, and what Iran is experiencing right now. The bravery of the protests and the measure of what they have decided to give up in the face of an unknown future. What exactly does it mean to give up your life for something others experience so freely? Would you? Could you? I don't have the reference in my own life to even be capable of answering this. Imagine trying to make that sort of decision over tea. In that odd suspension of ordinary life where the atomic decisions are made to upset your status quo. These Iranian women, and men, like Neda, or Soraya's aunt Zahra, are writing us an algebraic equation of the worth of a life: what risk for justice? What does society do when it is locked on the sidelines?

In a shattering performance, Shoreh Agdashloo bravely wields all the voice she can muster in a smothering and deadly triangle of power against her niece Soraya. And yet it comes to nothing. All she can do in the end is tell a story. But that story spreads.

This leaves you ringing. It’s nothing new to anyone inclined towards these types of films, be it Hotel Rwanda or Born Into Brothels. You’re always left staring at your hands. What can you do?

I leave you with this. Be aware. Once, in this country when we condoned slavery, Frederick Douglass said he gained his freedom when he learned to read. This is because no one could lie to him any longer. Eventually he turned that into a lifetime of work of writing and speaking out against slavery. Awareness becomes action.

Essentially, Soraya’s story is still being spread with everyone who hears or sees it. I heard someone the other day regarding Michael Jackson “dying in the information age.” This is the information age when, like it or not, news is spread because tools for heightening awareness are omnipresent, be it Twitter or Youtube, or and 8-track smuggled out of a compound.

Look at Iran. Let us be aware. Let that be a start.