Writing Poetry Can Endanger Your Health by Dave Jaffe. Chapter 21, Section Two

      The Poet as Dissident- Section Two


      Asieh Amini discovered some of the brutal and sexist laws that prevailed in Iran under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. One of these practices or laws was the stoning to death of people who committed adultery. These laws applied to both men and women but it was women who fared the worse because of this law.
    In 2002 Asieh Amini wrote a poem about stoning. In the poem called 'When the "stone rain begins"is written from the point of view of a victim of stoning.
      "Before it makes
      a mountain of stone out of me," wrote Amini
      " it turns your heart into a rock.


      Let's say that I am a sinner,
      that I am a cruel criminal
      that I deserve to be punished.


      You, who are making a stone  out of your own heart,
       and are throwing these stones at me,
      I have a question  for you:
      'At night do you sleep with the  innocence of Mary?' "

    Amini sought out many stories . She came across Leyla, a 19 year-old who was facing execution. Amini's story about Leyla became famous and saved her life. Yet now Amini was in the Iranian regime's cross hairs. She still wrote poetry and journalism. Yet it was clear that Iran's rulers wanted to silence her. Her stories of people being stoned to death outraged the Islamic rulers. She helped found a movement called "Stop the Stoning Forever'..
     "I have killed Pharoah," said one of the assassins of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1982. "I am not afraid to die." Amini was now consistently opposing fanatics like this man, though in her case these fanatics ruled her country. In 2005, the very orthodox Mahmoud Ahmadenijad won the Iranian presidential election. He cracked down hard on anyone who opposed him. He shut down all campaigns and movements that challenged his hard line Islamic rule. 'Stop Stoning Forever' moved abroad.
     At times Amini was very ill. Then her health recovered. Yet she left Iran with her daughter. If she had stayed, she would have been imprisoned and maybe killed. She'd already done time in a jail for her activities. Amini now lives in exile as do so many people whose life have been caught up in revolutions.
     Communist and non-communist revolutions alike have killed millions of people. Among these millions were creative people whose poems, music, stories, novels and paintings outraged the new rulers. "It is not wrong to rebel," said the Chinese Communist ruler Mao Tse-Tung. Mao was right. People should rebel against tyrants just as the young Mao did. Yet as ruler of China Mao too became a murderous tyrant.
     Asieh Amini could have been one of the millions of people killed by a tyrant. Yet she was lucky. She survived and now lives in Norway.