Iranian people have been dehumanised and judged on the actions of their government
As I write this piece, I’m thinking of the hundreds of people — young and old — who’ve been injured and killed in the ongoing and unprecedented protests in Iran, as well as the thousands who remain in detention nationwide.
I can’t help but think of the many detained journalists, including Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi of Iran’s Shargh Daily newspaper, who remain in prison — the two young female journalists without whom the world may have never found out about Mahsa Jina Amini and the aftermath of her tragic death.
I can’t help but think of Ghazal Ranjkesh, a glowing, 21-year-old, fashion-loving law student who, after a long day of studies and work, lost her right eye to a rubber bullet whilst shielding her mother during the protests in Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
I can’t help but think of nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak — a science and engineering enthusiast — who was shot killed in his family car in the southwest province of Khuzestan and is believed to be among the youngest casualties of the Iranian government’s crackdown against peaceful protestors.
I can’t help but think of Mina Jandaghi, a young psychologist, children’s rights activist, and former board member of The Society for Protecting the Rights of the Children (a Tehran-based NGO), who along with dozens of other children’s rights activists and social workers has been detained for weeks.
Tragically, this list, their names, and their stories can go on.
These people are my sisters and brothers— Iranians whose hopes and dreams, fears and aspirations are no different than that of millions of others worldwide. Except theirs is controlled by the oppressive policies of their government.
Since the beginning of the anti-government protests in September — much of which continues to be inspired and led by a new generation of fearless Iranian women — I’ve been once again reminiscing over my life in Tehran— my birthplace that I one day dream to return to with my Swedish husband and children (whenever they come to this world) — all in hopes of showing them the greatness of our land, the richness of our culture, the beauty of our country; but most importantly, the tenacity, brilliance, and courage of its people.
I grew up with dual citizenship and therefore had the opportunity to complete high school in the United States and go to college thereafter. Still, even after moving to the US in my late teens, I would go back and forth to Iran for summer holidays and spend time with my many friends and father (a well-respected physician), who remained in Tehran until his death in 2011.
Thus, I was raised between two estranged worlds, and I often saw myself wanting to connect through all that its people share in common with one another.
Yet, fitting into the mould and dodging the ignorant stereotypes against Iran and Iranians was often a source of anxiety that perhaps inspired me to channel my anger into action and, more than ever, become a “citizen ambassador” of a nation and culture so misrepresented and misunderstood by the western world –something that I so wish more Iranians in the diaspora did over the years; something that I so wish people — not just Iranians— but every minority, ethnic community, and immigrant does to tell their own story and write their own narrative.
“No”, I would tell my American classmates, “I was not prevented from going to school. No, I did not grow up in a desert; and no, I was not forced to walk around the streets covering my face or wear a long black veil.”
From the very start, I longed to explain the many differences between the angry mullahs they’d see in papers and the majority of the people living in Iran. I longed for them to understand that my classmates, friends, and millions of other Iranians back home don’t share the same sentiments as the mobs they’d see on their television screens with chants against “America and Israel”. All the while that I wanted them to understand the many challenges ordinary Iranians face at home and how bravely they are manoeuvring life against the backdrop of a religious dictatorship.
As a teenager, I soon realised that I did not want to apologize for being Iranian, and knew in my heart that millions of others should not either.
The Iranian people deserve to connect with the world, and the world needs to see the country through the eyes of its people and not the governing regime.
Change in Iran will only come from the courage, strength, and will of its people. Thus the more the voices of the people are amplified and their government isolated, the sooner Iranians will reach their righteous goals for change.
Today, I’m an “American journalist” — a career that I started professionally in 2011 with the knowledge that I may never be able to return to Iran. Throughout my career – which has ranged from covering humanitarian crises worldwide, the rise and fall of ISIS, breaking news coverage, and reporting on the plight of refugees from Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh to the Syrian-Turkish borders, I’ve realized a universal fact – that people’s voices matter and their stories should speak louder than that of those in power.
For the majority of those in the west, Iran’s history somehow starts in 1979 and the immediate aftermath of the Islamic Revolution — forgetting that the country remains as one of the cradles of civilization that dates back nearly three millennia. As a result and in the mainstream, the Iranian people have continued to be dehumanised and viewed only through the prism of their government.
Iran is a country of 83 million people, rather than 83 million nuclear heads, and in that distinction rests the humanity and real-life vigour that in long-term can help bridge the people of the world with millions of ordinary Iranians who have so much more in common with them, than what the world has ever been allowed to see.
Focusing on the real-life stories of Iranian people allows the world to develop a holistic, authentic, and textured understanding of the many realities in Iran that would enable them to connect with a society that has long been in isolation and despair.
Today, most of Iran’s population— especially women and girls — are well aware of their rights and aspirations; but more so are aware of how primitively they are being kept from reaching the pinnacle of their dreams.
As I finish writing this piece, protests continue to sweep a country that’s rightfully eager for change. Young and old, women and men, rich and poor, faithful and secular, are at present risking it all for a liberated future that they wholeheartedly know they deserve.
Iranians are well aware that they live in one of the richest countries in the world and long for the day that they bear the fruits of their land — free from domestic and foreign greed, corruption, and occupation.
Iranian people are not victims; instead, they are survivors of perpetual oppression by their rulers and hungry superpowers. They are not waiting to be saved; instead, Iranians passionately know what they want and, most importantly, what they deserve.
As I wrote in the introduction of my book The Heartbeat of Iran, which captures the many stories of ordinary Iranians inside Iran, “Governments come and go, presidents change, regimes collapse, but what will forever remain is the pulse of the people who pump blood into the veins of their land – people who, in this case, are the heartbeat of Iran.”
Today, this heartbeat is paying the price for social, political, religious, economic, and civil reforms and freedoms with its life. And as the people carry out their courageous fight, I hope the world —especially young people — continue to understand the critical value in humanizing the people of faraway lands—places they may not know much about, except the narrow prisms of the mainstream.
I hope the day comes when people’s voices on the ground carry a heftier weight than that of news headlines — not just for Iranian people; but for millions of others living in isolated countries worldwide.
Source: glamour magazine
