To Be Brave

By:  Susan

She would have been 53 years old this year.  If she had lived.  But Mona Mahmudnizhad was hanged in 1983 when she was only 17.  Her crime was practicing her Faith in a country that did not allow it.  Mona had a choice.  She could have recanted but she refused.  She was taken to the execution ground along with ten other women accused of the same crime.  She asked to go last, so she could pray for the steadfastness of the others.

I think of Mona as one of the bravest people I know.  I have been brave too.  I get on airplanes even though I am convinced I am going to die every time there is a turbulence. I talk to strangers on the train. I teach fourth graders every day. I send my children out into this world.

Being brave makes us the best version of ourselves.  We do or say something that may bring us harm or cause us pain because something more is at stake. What more could be at stake than avoiding pain and harm, than self-preservation?  Isn’t that what we have been told about our species? That we are basically selfish and egotistical and in it to survive at whatever cost? Maybe what we really try to preserve when we act bravely is our true selves: Our dignity, our humanity.

Once, years ago, in that pre-cell phones, pre-Google maps time, before I could speak Spanish, Ben and I were travelling in South America.  We arrived in Puno, Peru,  a small town where our friend Tom lived.  We had not had direct communication with Tom but hoped he had gotten the many letters we had sent about our visit.  The bus depot was really just the front of a store. I volunteered to wait with our suitcases while Ben tried to find Tom from the vague address on one of his envelopes.  I sat on our suitcases, feebly protecting them, and waited.  I only felt brave in retrospect, when in telling the story of finding Tom, I realized I had been in a place where I did not speak the language, had no way of reaching my husband or anyone else and basically was at the mercy of strangers around me. I had looked around and seen people going about their business and realized I was with other human beings.  My small act of bravery consisted of not seeing myself among strangers.

Bravery is a form of self-preservation, preserving our nobler self.  Bravery is examining our lives, looking our fears, our biases, our likes and dislikes in the face and doing something different.  Bravery is asking questions and questioning the answers we have always been given. Bravery is not giving in to traditions and customs that define who we are as women, as men, as young people deciding how to start our lives, as older people trying to live fully to the end.  To be brave is to trust, trust that others are just as afraid, just as fragile, just as much in need of connection.  To be brave is to admit to our mistakes. To be brave is to trust that there is more to this life than preserving our bodies and our egos. 




When I tell Mona’s story and that of many other Bahá’ís persecuted for their Faith in Iran, my friends ask me why don’t they just leave?  I am always surprised by such a reaction.  I figured as defenders of democracy, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we would be outraged and want to do something to stop these acts of repression. My favorite line from the National Anthem, the one I get choked up on, is where it says this is the home of the brave. Are we brave enough to stand up and speak out for justice for everyone? To not see others as strangers? To be brave is to love, because it’s easy to hate.