MCSDI Meeting notes, 4/8/2023
An introduction to MCSDI and its goals was provided
A summary of MCSDI activities was provided and is listed below:
Since September 2022. MCSDI has organized 24 Saturday rallies in downtown Minneapolis, one car rally, one State Capitol rally; and has participated in three rallies at the University of Minnesota organized by U of M students. Some MCSDI members helped organize the Yalda celebration, and MCSDI was a co-sponsor of 4-Shanbeh Soori and sponsor of 13-Bedar events. These events have been covered by the media on over 20 occasions. Other activities have included contacting members of the US and Minnesota House and Senate as well as state executive branch and local human rights and civic organizations, some of whom have attended and/or addressed a few events.
There have been contacts made with other groups and the first instance of cooperation with others is the planned April 22 rally to call to free political prisoners in Iran, Russia, and Belarus.
Prior to 2022, MCSDI arranged 11 rallies between 2009 and 2021 and organized several 4-Shanbeh Soori and 13-Bedar celebrations.
Introductions of the members present: A total of 36 people attended the initial meeting of MCSDI and introduced themsleves
Open Forum Member observations:
-We should try and create stronger bonds with influential people like University officials, Legislators (both Federal and state level)
-Location of our events needs to be revisited and possibly find a more suitable location
-Bring together different people of differing opinions, allow for criticism, allow for different voices to be heard
-Stop the situations that go against the current movement
-We need to clarify our objectives and expectations - What is our perspective; What is the reason people are meeting up with
-What are our demands of the officials and what is the gain for the officials if they support Us?
-Reaching the gray sector of the society will not be easy
People who need to travel to Iran
There should be no judgment towards those cannot or will not attend
What is our answer to people who wants to be involved but have limitations
-We should be writing out the goals and objectives of each of the committees and let people figure out where they will fit in.
-Invite all the Iranians you know and ask that if they truly are anti regime they should join this cause.
-Figure out a membership fee even if minimal
-Practice democracy among ourselves
-People are still hesitant about this group
-There is a need for transparency and clarity of the missions of the team
-Freedom to choose who is representing this group
-Creation of a board of directors and democratic selection of the board
-Challenges of the democratic society that we live in and using that to strengthen our actions and our practice of democracy
-It is hard to deal with Iranians specially with people who are connected to the regime and yet claim freedom of speech here in this society
-We need a lobbying arm stronger than NIAC that would be reflecting the wants and demands of the Iranian people to the Iranian society
-We need to clarify the disconnect between the current regime lead lobby arm vs the demands of the Iranians who are fighting for freedom
-Antiquated website and need for communication improvements;
-We are a very small group and need to develop stronger relationships with other states
-What are our talking points when it comes to the American community? What is our unified ask
-If we have a specific ask, we need to make that ask clear, so that in talking with Americans we are giving them a clear vision of where we want to go
-Having a common goal leads us to searching for a solution
-Trying to project Iran and Iranian culture at any and all events
-Influencing NIAC members and bringing them over to the side of people instead and the regime
-Using any and all platforms available to promote the cause of the people
-Trusting Iranians has been hard
-Gaining the trust of Americans and shifting the Iranian terrorist mind set takes a lot of effort
-We need to be our own story tellers
-Representation matters and to be represented we need to be organized
-Cyber attacks and the cyber army is strong from the regime side, do not fall for these attacks
Summary of MCSDI general meeting; 4/8/23
To dear friends and compatriots who honored us with their presence in our first general assembly, we are grateful for your time and all the constructive feedback. Although this meeting was long overdue, as the initial step in our way of coming together and beyond our weekly rallies, it was a very helpful opportunity to better get to know each other as well as sharing our collective ideas and concerns. Many of the opinions and concerns expressed in this gathering have been on our minds and been discussed during the past few months.
While during this time, since the beginning of Mahsa’s murder and responding to the development of a new chapter in the Iranian people’s movement for freedom, MCSDI has been very active in organizing and advancing this cause within our community, which most of you have witnessed and attended. However, for many of us the desire to reach further and to be more effective in our mission has been met with many challenges and difficulties which from the outside may not be quite apparent.
As a small group of Iranians in Minnesota, we have dedicated and put forward our best effort with limited resources available to be the voice and help bring awareness and understanding of the Iranian people’s struggle to our community. To that point most of our efforts and energy have been focused on organizing rallies and community actions, while at the same time the need for better organizing our community of like minded and conscientious friends has more than ever been presented itself.
Moving forward and to address our biggest challenges, we have worked on a number of ideas and developed a plan to be more responsive to those needs and concerns of we urgently require to address.
Strategic Goals:
While MCSDI mission statement clearly defines our basic goals, we believe our strategic goals have to be responsive to the current conditions and ongoing struggles back home as well as local dynamics within our state and towns we reside in. Our planning, tactics and actions will have to be flexible and adaptive, based on these conditions
As such, we feel building our community of like mined folks and strengthening the connection to our local compatriots in an active participation should be the main focus and the key to further our mission. This will also help our organization to benefit from the energy, creativity and collaboration of as many people, to be a better representative of our community.
While trust and sense of security is very important, our collaborative approach will help attract stronger bond and sense of community amongst us. It’s only through a strong grass root base of support from our local Iranian community is that we can make an impact on our community at large. In another word, unless we have a strong base of support within our own community, it would be difficult to expect credibility and recognition from the Minnesotan/American community at large.
Plan of Action:
In addition to planning on regularly held general assembly, in order to elevate our efforts and benefit from the present support within our group, we have proposed to create a number of committees to both bring about creativity as well as the energy and resources needed.
The committees are designed to each play a different role and respond to various needs in our overall effort and will be looking for volunteers to join ones most suited to their interests and capabilities, as listed below:
Each committee will be assigned to elect their own directors as the responsible member to help with coordination and communication with other committees and the board of directors.
We are not limited to said committees and open to suggestions by providing an open forum in our next general assembly to further discuss and elaborate on each one and any other recommendations you may find helpful.
