Iran Calling

We’ve loved talking on the phone since our mother let us babble at our doting relatives when we were toddlers. Now that we’ve matured, we usually use the phone for making plans or doing work. But an anti-war group hopes to use phones with a very long-distance connection to ease tensions between Iran and America.

Enough Fear, an organization that strives to prevent war between the two countries, brings its Calling Iran program to Boston today. The group will set up a red telephone, like the one that connected the United States and Russia during the Cold War, on Boston Common at 1:30 p.m. Instead of speaking to the Russian President, you’ll be connected to a house party in Iran.

The event isn’t a protest—callers are asked to leave their posters and shirts at home. You don’t even need to discuss politics with your new Iranian friends, and translators will be on the line with you, to make sure your meaning is clear.

The organization hopes that increasing communication between Iran and America will decrease the tension between the two countries, but we’re skeptical. In an era of blogs and political talk shows, we think increased communication only drives up the rhetoric. But we may be unable to resist the temptation to find out if the “is your refrigerator running” joke translates to Persian.