For Navid Khanjani: “Your smile has spread throughout the world”

This photo of Navid Khanjani was taken recently in Isfahan as prosecutors escorted him to a car that drove him to Evin prison.

For Navid Khanjani: Your smile has spread throughout the world

It is midnight and I have awaken from sleep. I am faced with a swarm of messages and calls: “Navid is arrested.” I break down suddenly, the exhaustion still lingers in my body. Something inside of me falls apart. I don’t believe it. I don’t want to admit what they are telling me. My mind slips into memories of the past: the songs of childhood, the mountains of our land, the stories of our ancestors, the sun shining on our games, and the song of our ancestry rising high in my blood. No, This man is to not to be chained! They could not chain a man from our fatherland and they cannot chain you.

I know it is forbidden to stand here, to stay here, and to regret, but I worry about you. My mind is restless until I see your picture. Your eyes and your smile know what they want from this world. Time stands still when you smile, and the memories return.

We were students [engaged in] discussions during sleepless nights wandering the streets. I was about to forget how we laughed without reason. We loved this world with all its pain.

How on earth did we reach this point now, Navid? What crime did we commit? We said “no” to tyranny, we carried the burden of other people’s guilt on our shoulders, we refused to be silent, we said the students of this country deserve the best universities, and we [tried to ensure] that others after us would not experience what we had to.

How many years gone now, my friend? Your efforts, your enthusiasm, and your exhaustion; all those years are still on my mind. Nobody can forget to what extent this community is indebted to you for all that you have done.

Your picture stares at me. Your smile represents the smile of our generation; the smile of the children of Syrus and Jamshid at the short-sightedness of the tyrants in this country; a smile of the pains we have suffered; a smile that tells us about the firm resolution of this country to reach a new time. Your smile is spread throughout the world, Navid; a world of the memories behind us and our coming future.

Your smile marks a trace on the wounded body of our homeland and presses a mark on the bitterness of our time. There is an entire world visible in your smile; a world that accompanies you. See, my friend, you made the world follow you. This world of ours has no limits.

I know that we are grown up now. I know that these pains are not pains for us anymore and you will not let it be too hard for you there. We will wait until you are free, my friend.

We have a long journey that has not come to its end yet.