90 Million People Take a Breath of Freedom for the First Time
For decades, Iran has lived behind a digital iron curtain. Government-approved broadcasts replace global journalism. Social media is banned or filtered. Foreign websites are blocked or throttled until unusable. The state doesn’t just limit information— it weaponizes it. Truth is not discovered; it is decreed. If tomorrow the regime declared bananas are now oranges, you must applaud—or risk everything. Reality isn’t a right; it’s a privilege.
The absurdity of that system is no exaggeration. Iranian state media once claimed a scientist built a working time machine. Another report insisted aliens secretly control the U.S. government. Fars News even republished an article from The Onion— meant as satire—as if it were true. These aren’t journalistic mistakes. They are deliberate tactics designed to replace reason with obedience. If they can get you to nod at nonsense, they can get you to forget what truth even looks like.
This week, Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet opened to Iran for free, and for the first time, millions of Iranians may glimpse unfiltered truth.
Imagine you’re 17 in Tehran. You don’t remember a time before strict rules. You’ve heard whispers about how Iran once was—women dressed freely, music played openly, and laughter echoed in the streets. You’ve seen photos of ancestors smiling like aliens from another world. But for you, the borders have always existed— in your schoolbooks, your apps, even your thoughts. You know which teachers to avoid, which phrases never to repeat, and which songs to delete at checkpoints.
Then, one night, a signal appears. Suddenly, you’re connected—not to the regime’s sanitized version, but to the actual world. You laugh at banned memes, weep at suppressed protests, and see your people’s real story. This isn’t mere information; it’s oxygen, history, possibility. Such digital liberation has no modern precedent—not on this scale, not at this speed.
Your grandmother recalls another Iran—one you struggle to imagine. She once walked Caspian beaches with sunglasses and painted nails, danced to French records, and sipped coffee on rooftop cafés. Her bright smile, bare arms, and defiant eyes in faded photographs tell stories of freedom long gone.
This morning, on a rooftop in Tehran, a sixteen-year-old girl streams a song she was never meant to hear. It’s soft, unfamiliar, live. She watches the sunrise over the city skyline, and for a moment, the hijab that morning feels like a weight lifted—not because she removed it, but because her mind is wide open.
Elsewhere, a father gestures to his young daughter, flipping the pages of a banned book under real light—not candlelight—teaching her words once outlawed. Friends gather quietly in a basement, scrolling through forbidden photos of 1970s beach parties— bikinis, sunshine, open laughter. Suddenly, those images feel possible again.
History echoes this struggle. In the Cold War (1950s-60s), Radio Free Europe broadcasted truth and hope into Eastern Europe, challenging Soviet lies. It reached millions despite jamming efforts and played a quiet role in the fall of several communist regimes. Later, Radio Martí, launched in 1985, brought uncensored news to Cuba under Castro’s regime.
But Starlink’s launch in Iran is different—90 million people aren’t sipping truth drop by drop; they’re drinking from a fire hose. Imagine the shock of discovering that nearly everything you’ve been taught was false.
It’s like stepping into a storm shelter in 1979. You left your bathing suits behind. You didn’t bring your books, or your music, or your coffee shop mornings. You were told it would be temporary—that the world outside was too dangerous, too uncertain. So you waited. And someone stood at the door, whispering, ‘Stay inside. It’s not safe out here.’
But now, the signal breaks through. The latch lifts. You blink into the sunlight. And the world you were told had ended... is still there. Different, yes. But alive. Waiting. And suddenly, the choice is yours again.
It’s hard to wrap our heads around that here in Western Oklahoma. We scroll Tik-Tok. We yell at Facebook. We change the channel when we don’t like what we see. And it’s easy to forget that in some parts of the world, truth isn’t annoying—it’s dangerous. Opinions don’t spark arguments— they spark arrests.
But maybe this moment gives us a chance to remember who we are, too. Because there’s something in the red dirt of this place, something in the way neighbors wave at each other from dusty pickups, something in the homemade cinnamon rolls cooling on kitchen counters that tells us: freedom isn’t a luxury—it’s a way of life worth preserving.
We may never know their names, but we recognize their spirit. And maybe, just maybe, if we care enough to listen, to witness, to speak up—we become more than spectators. We become the kind of people who help the world rise again, one signal at a time.
TO LEARN MORE, VISIT: • Wikimedia Commons – History of Iran
• Library of Congress – Iran Archives
• Flickr Creative Commons – ‘Iran before 1979’ Sometimes supporting freedom means simply refusing to look away.
But let’s not forget to look in the mirror, too. Seek the truth here and question everything— lest we find ourselves falling for obedience rather than truth. Learn the lesson from Iran and other countries in similar circumstances: freedom disappears not all at once, but one silent nod at a time.
SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?
You don’t need to be a diplomat. You don’t need to be fluent in Farsi. You just need to be willing to connect. Seek out Iranian voices online. Share the truth. Amplify their stories. Respond when they reach out—not as saviors, but as neighbors.
Visit forums, language exchange apps, and global chat platforms where young Iranians are beginning to ask real questions. Be honest. Be kind. Be curious. Sometimes, international diplomacy doesn’t begin in a government office—it starts with a comment, a shared laugh, or a moment of mutual respect.
Because in the end, hope doesn’t arrive by decree. It grows from connection. And right now, somewhere across the world, someone is finally seeing the stars for the first time. Maybe all they need is someone to say, ‘We see you too.’
