Out of sight, out of mind

When I first started moved into my current apartment, my mailbox would regularly be filled with letters for the previous occupant. After the first few times leaving the mail out for the mailman to pick back up, I realized that whoever lived here before didn’t leave a forwarding address. So that’s when I started opening the mail instead. This week, I’ve received two Christmas cards from Iran.

I couldn’t begin to tell you what the hell is written in these cards, but it hasn’t stopped me from poring over every little detail of them. The first card was printed on handmade brown paper with a gold leaf embossed on the front. The second card was printed in English and there’s a short note written in a foreign language (Arabic, I think). The note on the inside is dated 7/12 and the postmark is from 11/12.

When they first arrived, I was surprised that there were people who celebrated Christmas over there. Since the only thing I know about Iran is what I’ve gathered from the media, I guess I kinda figured they were all fundamentalist Muslims who want to kill me. For all the talk about religion (and lack thereof) that I put on this site, I feel slightly hypocritical that I somehow feel closer (in a sense) to Iran now that I know there are people there who celebrate “our” holiday.

Since the news of Thursday’s earthquake, I can’t shake the thought that the people who wrote these cards might be dead. It’s even more troubling that the earthquake which leveled an Iranian city was virtually identical to one that I felt just the other day. Our earthquake only killed two people, but Iran is looking at up to 40,000 casualties.

I know it’s easy to forget about tragedies that happen “over there”, especially when they happen to “the enemy”, but I hope everyone can keep this in mind over the holiday season and realize just how fortunate we all are. We may not know anybody affected by this, but the people of Iran are looking at a loss of life ten times as great as the one we experienced on 9/11. Unlike us however, the only culprit they can blame is a fate that puts them in an area prone to earthquakes with an economy too poor to prepare for them.


posted by greg on December 27, 2003 @ 11:38 am

4 comments

  1. If the cards are from Iran, it’s Farsi script on them; it’s very similar to Arabic.

    I too was struck by the 2 people vs. tens of thousands, as well as the fact that the “3 snowboarders lost in Utah” story nearly pushed the Iran earthquake off the front page.

    Comment by jwer — December 29, 2003 @ 6:22 am

  2. Yeah. When casualties aren’t American, they become non-persons. See the way the headlines are written, and the way the coverage reads, of any story relating casualties in Iraq of late. It’s fucked up, and this is an excellent point. I don’t think we can even comprehend the idea of 20,000 Americans dying in a single event, and that just can’t help our standings worldwide.

    Comment by Megalodon — December 29, 2003 @ 9:52 am

  3. I grew up with some friends from Iran. They celebrated christmas, but I think it was more just a don’t feel left out kind of think with them. Although they did tell me that there are quite a few people who aren’t muslim in the country.

    Comment by andrew — December 29, 2003 @ 10:43 am

  4. Updates to my Memestream

    Okay, so I haven’t posted in a while. Holidays are a bitch and while Kerry continues to work on the new site design (no, this is definitely not the final design!), it’s very difficult to find it compelling to post. However, here is a quick rundown of t…

    Trackback by the supernicety — December 29, 2003 @ 1:08 pm

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