The Question History Keeps Asking
There is a question that has been asked before in history, after crimes were committed against people who demanded change: Where are they? What was done to them? Today, that same question is being asked by families in Iran.
This question was also asked in Argentina during the years of dictatorship and severe repression. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo—and later the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo—went to the streets demanding to know the whereabouts of their children and grandchildren. They stood holding photographs of their loved ones because people were taken, disappeared, and silenced. Families were left without answers, forced to live with uncertainty, fear, and grief.
People in Iran are now asking the same question.
They are holding photographs of their loved ones—sons, daughters, brothers, sisters—demanding to know where they are. Many of these individuals were taken by security forces. Some are being held in custody, tortured, or killed. Others are gunned down in the streets. In many cases, families do not even know if their loved ones are alive. The uncertainty is deliberate. It is part of the punishment.
These are not extremists. These are people asking for change. Asking for freedom. Asking to live without fear. That is not criminal. That is not radical. That is democracy, and democracy is sacred.
This is personal for me. As a child, when a coup d’état was attempted, my family and I—along with many other citizens—took to the streets of Buenos Aires to defend democracy. We were standing peacefully, exercising a fundamental civic right. We were doing exactly what people in Iran are doing today.
The difference is this: we were not met with bullets. Families in Iran are.
They are standing in the streets for the same reason we once did—to defend freedom—but they are being gunned down for it. Parents are standing beside their children, children beside their parents, and the very forces meant to protect them are the ones killing them.
We cannot allow this to be treated as business as usual. This is first and foremost about the people of Iran, but it does not stop there. This regime fuels violence beyond its borders. It destabilizes the region. It threatens Israel, endangers Jews around the world, and undermines the safety of free people everywhere.
This is the head of the snake. Allowing it to continue unchecked has consequences far beyond one country.
What is happening cannot be normalized, postponed, or absorbed into the background of everyday life. Every day that passes, more people lose their lives, and more atrocities are committed against defenseless people. Ignoring this and continuing as if nothing is happening is not neutrality—it is complicity. And it is an indignity to our shared humanity.
