Adel’s story
The story of a 20 year old with a Twitter account
“JUST”, that is the meaning of Adel’s name. I will never forget trying to gain the trust of other people who tweeted, to try and see what they needed and how I could help. He was the first to trust me. Just a few days after the election as he was working non-stop, tweeting and I was reading his words:
Hey!Ahmadinejad’s won 66% of votes,and Mousavi about 31 %,but Everyone was voting for mousavi 2day!I’m getting so mad!
I’m Speechless!Everyone knows almost all of the people voted for Mousavi,but Ahmadinejad…can’t say anything…can’t stand it here anymore
Angry becuz of this …. GOV!!! I thought these days are Ahmadinejad last days!Everyone was voting for Mousavi and now..
All I could think was how could I get in contact with him and maybe find a way to ease his pain. His tweets brought me to tears. All I wished was to get in touch with him. Finally I got a reply when Adel took a minute away from tweeting, and then I wrote to him as I explained who I was. When he trusted me I was in shock. So we tried to chat using different programs but faced difficulties due to the Iranian government’s blocking various web sites and email programs. Finally, we chatted through email, and all I could do was cry as he explained how he felt. For hours he typed and I read and reacted.
Adele was only 20 years-old. He was a student in Bushehr, Iran. According to Adel,
“Most people who have never been to Iran didn’t know the people of Iran until the 2009 Iranian election. They got to know us after the election. They got to know how brave Iranian people are, and now they know we’re different from our government.”
He said it all had started about two weeks before election day.
He and others in Iran were so motivated and cheerful because they knew they were going to see a huge change in their government. Adel explains that the election results would prove to the world that Iran could be a friend to nations and countries all over the world. Adel was confident that the new government wouldn’t fool people into going out in the streets and shouting slogans such as :
“Death to U.S.A, Death to Israel, Death to U.K and so on…:,”
With the election results, he and others like him in Iran believed no flag of any country would ever be burned again. That no terrorist group would be supported. In Adel’s words, he and the majority of the Iranian people
“were sick and tired of all of the hatred the government was trying to raise in the Iranian people’s hearts.”
Adel explains the mood among many Iranians pre-election:
“My friend and I went to the streets and celebrated every single night before Election Day. The city was turned green all over the place, everything has something green on it. We were sure Mousavi would be the new president. People were in the streets and celebrating every night till 4 o’clock in the morning.”
He Tweeted
On june 8th in Tehran, 4 days before the election, a human chain was made to show support for Mousavi, a reformist running for presidency.
The human chain in Tehran was about 12 miles long,ppl r making fun of Ahmadinjedad and his policies in the video I posted
Iran’s presidential election will be held 2morrow! We’re gonna vote for Mousavi,Hopefully we can change the awful situation in Iran!
he and all of his friends voted for Mousavi.
So sure was Adel that he and his friend took pictures after they voted so they could always remember that particular Election Day. When the results came in and Ahmadinejad was named the winner Adel explained to me his emotions,
” I couldn’t believe the result, I couldn’t understand it, Ahmadinejad is not our president, You kidding me?!! I was kinda waiting for Ashton Kutcher who was hidden somewhere and then to be appeared on TV and say “You’ve been all PUNK’d !!!!!”.
I got very angry, I went mad, I didn’t know what I was doing, I was marching in the house and cursing them for rigging the election, I couldn’t help it.” He said people had taken their anger to the streets and he’d felt very hopeful about it.
Adel logged into Twitter and started tweeting about what was happening in Iran declaring
the election’s being rigged!
I WON’T VOTE IN IRAN ANYMORE!!!MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!NO MATTER WHOM WE VOTE FOR,THE SUPREME LEADER ELECTS THE PRESIDENT!DIRTY LIARS! DIRTY
said that cuz I’m sure now that our votes are not important at all!
sorry to say it but I doubt!even faith and love can’t beat this GOV this government is corrupt!
At the time Adel recalls having only about 20 followers. But, as he began expressing his feelings in tweets, only 140 characters long, tweet after tweet about what was happening in his country, his followers grew. Adel told me that he tweeted so much and was so upset by the election results that he didn’t sleep for 3 days. Two days after the election coinciding with his almost constant tweeting, he noticed his followers were increasing at a rapid pace. He went from about 20 followers that first day after the election to 1,300 four days after the election. Adel was so moved that so many people wanted to know what was happening in Iran, he felt encouraged to continue tweeting “to let the people of the world hear Iranians’ voices.”
They responded to him so he let them know how Iranians felt that
ALL WE IRANIANS WANT IS FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY! WE DON’T WANT DICTATORS&DIRTY LIARS LIKE SUP LEADER(KHAMENEI)&AHMADINEJAD!
the government cannot be trusted.
Adel is still one of my best friends, his story has changed my life…
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
Albert Schweitzer
