Today marks 262 days that Sarah, Shane and Josh continue to be held in Iran for accidentally crossing the border on a hike. The campaign to free the hikers continues to be strong and the families (and moms, in particular) have been amazingly strong advocates for their release.  A saving grace is that they were able to speak to their kids on the phone recently and although Sarah is being held in isolation, she is able to see her friends every day.

Unfortunately, any signs that give hope of their possible release are rare, indeed.  The hope that the supporters have is vitally necessary and mostly self-generated.  Because they are being held in a culture so foreign to our own and because the families and supporters of Sarah, Shane and Josh are not government people, it is hard to know what to make of anything that happens here or there or in between.   Is our government giving the families the whole story about negotiations?  Will the mom’s emotional and spiritual appeals for reunification help?  What do Iranian holidays mean to them and could that help their release?  How does their release relate to the political situation of Ahmadinejad both domestically and internationally?

I think that the possible answers to these questions have all changed over time and continue to change, sometimes daily.  The campaign has had to take every opportunity to appeal on a heartfelt and personal level for the hikers release.  And this is the kind of people that they are, the families and Sarah, Josh and Shane….heartfelt and personal.

I bring this up because Iran has alleged that the hikes have some sort of ties with the US intelligence.  This is absolutely ludicrous and I want to tell you a bit more about how I know them.  I should back up and say that I only really know Sarah and Shane and Sarah’s mom, Nora. I know that the only ties they may have to US Intelligence are to be in their watch list files.

Although I am not aware that Sarah and Shane have ever broken the law, they are an important part of my community, which is an anti-governmental anarchist community in one of the most left-leaning areas of the US.  And most of us are probably in those files because we actively organize for a world with social justice and anti-imperialism,which we believe is antithetical to most of the US governments actions.  To any patriot out there saying, “The US government is the greatest system in the world”, I respond that I realize the US government stands for a lot of great ideals, but they are long transformed into a mere symbol that no longer relates to the system.  Okay, but back to the subject, to put it simply, US intelligence doesn’t actually like us because if most of us had our ways, there would be an overthrow of their damn system.

When I met her a number of years ago, I had been hearing about Sarah “Bean” for a while, maybe a year. She lived with friends of mine at a house that is associated with The Midnight Special Law Collective. Take a look at the logo featuring a dead justice system, a monkey wrench.  If you read the text of the website, they are working to legally support civil disobedience.

I ended up meeting Sarah’s mom, Nora, first.  I was involved with an adult anarchist education project. We sponsored a community-based earthquake preparedness workshop and organizing meeting that Nora and I both participated in.  We talked about having central houses for communication and a central store of supplies in every neighborhood.  We envisioned setting up short-wave radios so that those houses could communicate with each other. We looked at mapping those neighborhoods so that we could check up on each other and offer mutual aid.

So, you see, I am not trying to say that we are a community of hooligans or even simple rabble-rousers (although we are certainly to some degree rabble rousers).  We are a community that is serious, thoughtful and organized.  We run some long standing institutions like a dojo, non-profits and worker collectives. We are sometimes parents, union members, teachers, musicians, artists and writers.  We come from many traditions, including an intellectual anarchist tradition.

I suppose that the one remaining possibility is that Sarah (or Shane) is a mole, a government informant or something.  Well, she is not. I know this because I know her family and I know her life. When she wasn’t doing political work, she was learning massage and teaching English and spending intimate time with her friends.  She wasn’t someone that lived in isolation and could trade her business suit for a black hoodie to show up and infiltrate a meeting. She had long standing accountability in her life. Her life was intermeshed with other lives, the lives of her family and friends.  Because of this, to varying degrees, pieces our lives are on hold until Sarah is back and for some, their lives have been transformed into a project of getting Sarah back.