Silence Is Complicit

For most of my career as a photojournalist and documentary photographer, I’ve tried to use whatever gifts I’ve been given to bring light to stories that reveal hope—stories of resilience and perseverance against impossible odds.

But over the past few months I have found myself becoming increasingly hopeless. At times I have felt nearly resigned to giving up the fight altogether, because the problems we face can seem so overwhelming.

What has stopped me is the knowledge that, by its very nature, silence is complicit. Being complicit in the dismantling of our world is not something I can live with, nor something I want hanging over me when I reach my deathbed.

Recently a friend sent me a video on Instagram that reminded me why speaking up matters.

In the video, a man recited part of President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln delivered those words at a moment when the Union was winning the Civil War, yet his tone was not triumphant. It was humble, deeply human.

He said:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Several weeks ago I began writing periodically about Iran and its people. This was before we formally entered into conflict.

When Israel and the United States killed the Ayatollah, many Persians—both inside Iran and living abroad—felt a surge of hope.

In the weeks that followed, I spoke with many Persians. Almost all of them expressed gratitude toward President Trump. To them, he represented the possibility of liberation—someone who had promised to free the people of Iran and help restore a better future. They believed he cared about them.

But power vacuums rarely stay empty for long.

Another Ayatollah rose to take power and continue the Islamic regime. And now, after the regime’s leaders refused to meet the President’s demands, the Iranian people themselves appear to have become bargaining chips—pawns in a larger geopolitical struggle.

Anyone familiar with the regime understands a painful truth: the leaders of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly shown that they do not care what happens to their own people. Only weeks ago, the regime reportedly killed more than 35,000 Iranians for protesting.

Yet the threats now being made—bombing power plants, destroying bridges, crippling infrastructure—will not harm the regime first. They will harm the people.

Already, airstrikes have struck civilian sites, including a school. Children were among the dead.

As I try to process all of this, I find myself returning to a line from Ernest Hemingway:

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”

And this hurts.

It hurts especially because I experience it through the eyes of my Persian friends—many of whom still have family living in Iran.

There is also a dangerous misconception that continues to circulate in America: that Iranians hate Americans, and therefore their suffering is somehow distant or irrelevant to us.

But the truth is very different.

Roughly ninety percent of the Iranian people living in Iran are believed to be pro-American.

And while the majority of Persians are Muslim, Iran is also home to Christians, Zoroastrians, and members of the Baha’i faith. It is a complex, ancient society filled with people who want the same things most of us want: safety for their families, dignity in their lives, and the freedom to determine their own future.

When I think about Iran, I don’t think about a regime.

I think about my friends.

I think about the conversations we have over coffee, or just sitting in the park, worried about parents, siblings, and children thousands of miles away. I think about the quiet hope they carry that someday their country might finally be free.

And that is why silence is not an option.