False assumptions

I suppose we all make grand assumptions about other people based on the little we know of them - how they behave, how they look, how they speak. Such assumptions are probably wrong as often as they're right. Certainly people have made some very odd assumptions about me. For example:

• Because I'm still thin, then I must work out at the gym (I've never been in a gym)
• Because I'm a well-spoken white male, then I must have been head of some prestigious organisation (I was mostly a bookseller)
• Because I go for walks in a tatty jacket and ancient jeans, and we have a nine year old Renault Clio, then I must be poor (which I'm not)
• Because I live in a very large house, then I must be wealthy (which I'm not)
• Because I'm fairly fit and healthy, and free of addictions and psychological disorders, then I'm smug and self-righteous (which I'm not)
• Because only 9.3 per cent of Northern Irish folk are atheist, then I'm religious (which I'm not)

Of course I make umpteen assumptions about other people, and probably most of them are wrong. I make assumptions about how intelligent someone is or their political beliefs or what food they eat or how well-organised they are.

I assume that someone has seldom left their neighbourhood, only to find they've travelled all over the world. I assume that someone rarely reads a book, only to find they've read all the classics I've never read.

Well, there's no harm in making false assumptions, I suppose, as long as I'm prepared to correct those assumptions if they prove to be nonsense.

As for those assumptions that I'm simultaneously a hopeless romantic and a hardened cynic, that wouldn't be far from the truth.

False assumption

Just imagine being mistaken for someone who has died and your photo being flashed around the world as being that person. And then imagine the other person was a political activist their government wanted to get rid of.

Quite a nightmare. And Neda Soltani, who was a victim of exactly this mistaken identity, is still trying to rebuild a life that was wrecked by the confusion - a confusion still being perpetuated by indifferent journalists.

Media outlets looking for a picture of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot dead during a demonstration in Tehran, found Neda Soltani's Facebook photo and assumed she was the same person. Her photo went around the world as the other Neda - and is still being misused even now.

Before the confusion, she was a Professor of English Literature leading a normal, unassuming life. In less than two weeks that life was torn apart. She received hate messages accusing her of being both an agent of the Islamic Republic and an agent of Western governments. She was hounded by the Ministry of Intelligence.

She had no choice but to flee the country, eventually settling in Germany where she obtained political asylum. She is still trying to put her life back together. She suffers from depression and nightmares - and total disbelief at the events that shattered her life.

The people she is most angry with are the Western media. They kept using her photo even though they knew it was the wrong one, and knowingly exposed her to extreme danger. She could easily have been murdered.

Simply because her name was similar to someone else's and she had a Facebook photo. Two tiny but disastrous facts.

My thanks to the BBC Magazine, which originally ran this story. Pic: Neda Soltani