Iranian artists send letter to global counterparts

A group of Iranian artists, in an open letter, have urged their worldwide counterparts to take action against the United States’ unfair sanctions against Iran amid COVID-19 outbreak.

The letter was quickly translated into English, Italian, French, Japanese and Chinese; and was sent to news agencies, media and newspapers around the world, attracting many global attentions already with the number of signatories on the rise.

Following the publishment of the letter in the BBC news bulletin, three major Italian newspapers, Correira Delasra, Mondo and Huffington were the first to react on the letter by publishing it on their front pages.

German-based public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, the Egypt-based Telegraph and Russian government-owned Sputnik were also among news agencies that published the letter.

The following is the letter in full:

‏All of us, no matter what our nationality is or what country we are from, are citizens of a borderless utopia call “ART” which exists in a world called “CULTURE”. No superpower can prohibit us from being members of our ART nation. In our collective fantasy world, whether we are Asian, European, American or African, we all have a unique gene for understanding culture, an influential talent to make the people understand, as well as abilities for analyzing current developments and making changes.

‏We all create narratives and images with our works of art, using our individual tastes and styles and cultural characteristics for peace over war, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and always for our salvation and resurrection. Our societies of artists strive to improve our nations with our collective works, despite being much smaller than the countries in which we live.

‏Even though the powers and politics that have created gaps to keeps us separate, we have become stronger and bolder and determined and influential in many ways in order to transfer our humanity and collective messages to the world.

‏At present, every one of us regardless of geographic or political situations, have come face to face with a common enemy. We need our message to be passed on as soon as possible. We are all equally vulnerable to this microscopic adversary. The salvation of all, depends on the salvation of one.

‏Coronavirus is not just a virus, it is a simple and historic question that is waiting for complex answers from the peoples and governments of the world. Can Iran’s answer to this question match the other countries’, while its breaths are limited by global sanctions?

‏Is it not rational that the response of artists from around the world to coronavirus will be different and more effective than those of world politicians?

‏This crisis will pass, with small or catastrophic losses, but the collection of tales will also remain. The stories of exhausted nurses dancing in contaminated hospital hallways to raise the moral of patients, as they hide their worries about the lack of medicines and basic hospital necessities; Stories of physicians who haven’t been home in weeks and are forced to work without masks, gloves or gowns as they search for coronavirus victims in the hallways of hospitals.

‏These will all remain in the micro-historical memories of our time, and will be heard by all, sooner or later, either from us or from you all.

‏We hope it is not too late for influential and unified artists of the world to tell these stories of the injustices toward the Iranian people, so the powerful politicians of the world may make the right choices.

‏The people of Iran are facing a crisis today, the coronavirus crisis you are aware of, as well as the “crisis of unjustly imposed sanctions” you might not be aware.

‏For the artists of Iran, it is important for you all to know that now, in this time of our large numbers of infected (including the elderly who are waiting for their turn) are facing shortages of medical supplies…

‏We want to know… What do you think? What do you say? And what will you do?

MM/MM