2/11/12

Iran is a like a cage. And it is filled with heartache. It is filled with potential that will never come into being. It is filled with longing for simple pleasures like being able to choose what to wear and what website to visit. It is filled with the desire to choose what career to have, to travel abroad for school or vacations, to know that you can work hard and be able to provide for your family, to be able to use your education and intellect to it’s fullest capacity.

But the iron rods are thick and close to impossible to cut through. The blanket of despair draping the cage is heavy. What is fairness? For this is not fair. I have escaped along with millions of others, but what about the other 80 million people who are forced to live a life dictated by the government? I leave Iran and go back to a life that I sometimes take for granted, but what about those that I leave behind?

What do you do with a cage that is rusting away in front of your eyes? How do you tend to the ailing canaries inside who no longer have the strength or desire to sing their song? How do you cure a plague that has been running rampant for 33 years?

2/5/12

Even though I sit amidst all of the chaos taking place in the Middle East, those of you reading this in the States probably know more about what is currently going on around me than I do. In Iran, the internet and news agencies are heavily censored.  

The one year anniversary of Tahrir Square, the escalating violence in Syria, the continued conflict spreading through Bahrain, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan all have less air time on Iranian news stations than the latest round of soccer games and the inches of snow that have fallen on Tehran and northern Iran. I know more about the occupy protesters in America, those that have died due to the cold in Europe, and the lantern festival of Taiwan than I do about the neighboring countries.  

The anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution is this weekend, Feb 11th. The streets and televisions are littered with Islamic and anti-west propaganda and  footage of the 1979 revolution used to emphasize the brutality of the Shah’s regime and mourning for the martyrs that died in the protests. I wonder what the effect of these images really is. I wonder if it will backfire when Iranians compare these protest images to those from the 2009 elections. I wonder if it conjures up feelings of regret instead of victory. I wonder if Iranians feel ashamed of replacing their reputation of class, education, and progressive thinking with that of close-mindedness, disorder, and religious fanaticism. The sermon of this last week’s Friday prayers was given by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Khamenei where he constantly criticized America. He said that a war with Iran would be detrimental to the infrastructure of America and that Iranians are not scared because the protests across the Middle East have proved that the people choose Islam, that the Arab Spring is an Islamic revolution.  

But people aren’t listening. They are more concerned with the rise of the dollar against the Iranian currency. They are more concerned about the doubling price of bread than the threat of global Zionism. They are more concerned about their wages and the future of their children than the spread of Islamic ideals and it’s proposed influence on all of humanity.

They don’t care about the religious rhetoric and most have no respect for the government leaders. They don’t buy into America and Israel as the enemies and they don’t chant “death to” anything. Yes, the American government has done plenty of deplorable things in Iran and the Middle East that does not go unnoticed. But the average Iranian would not be ready to go to war for the sake of defending Islam. Most Iranians are very nationalistic and not necessarily religious.

2/1/12

Our Iran is a place where facebook, youtube, this webblog site, wordpress, and even the website for Vafa, Iran’s first animal shelter, is blocked. It is a place where my cousin goes to a birthday party that has both men and women of all ages mixed together, but the police get notified and arrest all the people. She spends 4 days in jail where the authorities succeed in striping her of every ounce of self-esteem and sanity she had. She awaits her court date which could be months away where her sentence will most likely be 80 lashes and 3 months of jail. The lashes she may be able to buy for $10 a lash but not the jail time. All the while, she is unable to leave the country even though she has her green card.

Our Iran is a place where the conduct police raid a home with mixed men and women and rape the women in front of their husbands. Our Iran is a place where an engineer who has been working for a company for years hasn’t been paid for the last 3 months, forcing him to borrow money for his bills. Our Iran is a place where the anniversary of the revolution of 1979 is celebrated by emphasizing the 10 days of “agony” prior to the regime change and mourning the deaths of the soldiers that died for this freedom. It is a place where any opportunity for success or happiness is dimunitized or crushed completely. Our Iran is a place where most of the young people dream of going abroad just to be able to have normal job and social life.

From what I have seen, most people don’t want to leave a place that is home. They don’t want to be far from their families, They don’t want to leave their friends and what is familiar to them. But this is not living. This is not what people want out of life. This is not what brings joy to people. But this is our Iran.

1/31/12

I am falling out of love with Iran. The internet connection is painfully slow. All of the streets are in a state of decay, with crumbling sidewalks, fallen pieces of buildings and cracks in the walls. It feels like a house that has been sitting empty, untouched for 30 years. There is a film of dirt and soot on every surface. Trash litters every curbside, every ditch, and even every bend of the river that once made the town an oasis. People walk with scowls on their face, not apologizing for hitting your car with their ladder as they walk by. The attention to detail and appreciation for beauty that I attribute to centuries of jasmine and rose gardens surrounding ponds and fountains is lost in the hopeless emptiness of everyday life.

But on the contrary, I am falling in love more and more with my family, those living and those that have passed. I have heard stories of aunts and uncles, of great aunts and uncles, of grandparents, great grandparents, and even great great grandparents. I have heard stories of Iran in the 60’s and 70’s when extended families would spend entire summers together in vacation homes on the Caspian. I have heard about the weddings and funerals that would gather more than a hundred family members and would last for days. I have heard about the ease of life that would allow for family members to spend time together and actually get to know each other. It was a different time and it was a different Iran.