June 27, 2011

President of the United States, Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

If I sit silently, I have sinned. Mohammad Mossadegh

Dear President Obama:

Looking back to 2009 with its daily news broadcasts reporting international turmoil, global economic collapse and personal tragedies worldwide, I recall you saying the world is getting smaller every day. I can still see your hands shaping a very small Earth in the air in front of the TV camera.

About that time I also read an article stating that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would consider meeting with you if the United States would apologize for its past actions in Iran. Considering the destructive impact of the CIA and corporate oil interests in Iran, it’s a reasonable position and one I believe warrants renewed consideration. With concerns for human rights and nuclear armament on the table, an apology seems long overdue.

The world is getting smaller every day, I agree. State actions can no longer be contained by curtains, partitions, embargoes and walls. Correspondence from me arrives instantly in your inbox just as it does in President Ahmadinejad’s. Where communication is concerned, we are nearly face to face. Yet the U.S. seems farther from Iran than ever.

As a citizen with no presidential agenda to satisfy, I can say that I deeply regret the actions of the United States government in 1953 and how much a coup by so few has taken so much from the people of Iran and the people of the United States to this day. I shared my sadness in a letter to President Ahmadinejad. I hope you’ll read it as well.

I’m sure you agree that continuing hostilities and redacted histories, with no foreseeable end in sight, trace back in part to the actions of the United States and England nearly 60 years ago. Neither you nor I would be born for another 8 years yet we have inherited the dreams and mistakes of previous generations.

When we were children, Tehran still welcomed Western students and international influences. A rich fabric of languages, music, cultures and people woven in modernity revealed resilient threads of ancient Islam. I think it’s important that you and President Ahmadinejad and citizens in both countries remember this fact: we were friends.

My mother, who remembers B-29s flying over Yokosuka, to this day says the Japanese people never went to war with America, that the war was between our governments and the soldiers they sent. The citizens participated only in the air raids and blackouts, meager rations and hunger, disease, despair and fear.

It’s time for us to begin again, by talking and listening and behaving with transparency. You and President Ahmadinejad may not agree, but that’s the nature of your presidential agendas; we, the millions of people in both countries, have the most to lose by your stalemate.

In this smaller world with its rogue diplomacy and audacious hope, my voice is one among many I hope you will hear. I hope President Ahmadinejad will, too.