31st letter

Dear Khodayar, what drives your enemies to plot against you and wish you harm? From which ancestors does this sickness come that makes them hate? I know that I am bound to not disown them; these criminals are my sisters and brothers. They are your sisters and brothers. And it is the urgency of this fact that makes their cruelty against you all the more futile and ugly. There is one sky above, there is one rock below our feet. These fences, these prisons that surround us are our own creation. We do not need to live like this. The food of the world is for all of us to share. No one should be starved, no one should be pushed from the table. Love is the only honest way to live – everything else is based on lies and cheating. The powerful take what they do not need from those whose need is greater. They take food, they take land and they take water. They take warmth and shelter. They will even take life and then call it justice.

Khodayar, you know all this. You have learnt about the ugliness of being tortured and sentenced to death. This all happened to you. This was done to you for no reason. It was for the shape of your face and the colour of your skin and the place of your birth that you were killed. How can people not see the hideouslness of this barbarity? They must be broken minds and sterile hearts that make these cages. Love Stephen