By
Azita Ebrahimi (Azi)
I
went to Iran, the country of my birth, in November of 2009 and stayed there for
two months after being away for 30 years. I had left Iran right before 1979
revolution that overthrew the Shah. Before I left for my visit back to Iran, I
was feeling very agitated and depressed about the way things are here in the USA
and I felt like I needed to get away for a while. My trip to Iran was a
pleasant, interesting, and eye-opening trip, but at times I felt strongly the
gloomy atmosphere that was overshadowing the country of my birth.
People are not happy and satisfied with the way things are, and young people
especially don't have much hope for a better and more promising future. I was
constantly asked this question: "How is it in the USA -- is it any better? Is it
different?" And my reply was "Different? Yes. Better? I am not sure," because I
felt the same gloomy and depressing atmosphere here in the USA, and I knew
people in this country are also uncertain about their future and dissatisfied
and unhappy about a lot of things.
At
times, I felt trapped...I was hearing almost the same stories from people miles
away in another continent...people not being happy with their jobs, their
relationships, struggling to make ends meet, the economic hardship that they
have to endure, corrupt politicians, and so on and so on...I especially felt sad
for the young ones. Iran's population is more than 70 million and 75% of them
are under the age of 30. The younger generation in Iran is highly educated and
most of them have university degrees. I think obtaining a higher education for
many of them has become a way of life! It gives them the opportunity to be
independent, to have less boundaries, less limitations in their lives...and to
have a glimpse of hope that someday they might see the light at the end of the
dark tunnel!
I
promised my new young Iranian friends (boys and girls) that I would try to stay
truthful to what I heard from them and to get their message across as best as I
can. Their message as one of them simply put it to me is this:
"We want to live and enjoy life and have a promising future ... a lot of us
don't want to get involved in the world of politics...the world of politics is
a dirty world and has nothing to do with a real change and does not leave
much room for idealistic ideas!"
While I was in Iran, I lived in a girls' dormitory (filled mostly with
university students from different cities of Iran) which was near Revolution
Street, the street that most of the recent demonstrations passed by. Because of
where I was housed, I had the opportunity to hear and watch from the balcony of
the dormitory the demonstrations that took place while I was there. During my
two months of stay in Iran I got the opportunity to talk to people who
participated, as well as some who were heavily involved in organizing for these
demonstrations. They were students, teachers, doctors, small businessmen, and
even factory workers. I came out of these conversations with the understanding
that there is a degree of political maturity among Iranian people and they are
very courageous people with a great sense of pride. But there is no unified plan
of action for people to get out in the streets, or for what the message of the
demonstrations should be.
People get out in streets for different reasons to express publicly their
dissatisfaction and make demands for change! And some are even willing to face
the harsh and cruel consequences of their actions. By contrast, here in the
United States, people for the most part have a tendency to hope for change
rather than actively participate in changing things! And furthermore, people in
this country believe in the current political and economic system. In their
expression of dissatisfaction with social, political and economic problems,
Americans never attack the governing system itself, whereas the Iranian people
do!
In
Iran, most of the people that I talked to openly expressed their anger and
dissatisfaction about the current economic situation in Iran, about high
inflation, about lack of jobs, lack of business opportunities, about the
disastrous outcomes of economic, trade and scientific sanctions enforced on Iran
by the US and European countries.
(for
an introduction on the history of theses sanctions Wikipedia is reasonably good
place to start
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._sanctions_against_Iran)
My Iranian friends were surprised to hear that except for one or two
organizations most progressive groups in this country have done NOTHING so far
to stop these sanctions, and they were wondering if the people of this country
have already forgotten the catastrophic result of the US sanctions on the Iraqi
people during 1990s ??
Furthermore, Iranian people are very frustrated by the degree of corruption
among their government officials, and they feel like they are being robbed of
the money that should go toward providing more social services and creating more
jobs for them. Many Iranians believe that there is a cold war going on between
different factions of the Iranian government, and they believe these factions
are at the service of countries such as US, Britain, China, Russia...
The
degree of economic dissatisfaction is very high but so is social and cultural
dissatisfaction. Iranians think they are also being robbed of their cultural
heritage and in protest a lot of young Iranian especially young girls are
learning how to play traditional musical instruments, learning Persian
calligraphy, and studying Persian literature...there is a great concern among
anthropologists about our historical monuments and places that are not really
being taken care of...there is a cultural war going on in Iran. Being a proud
nation with more than 2500 years of history, Iranians are determined to keep
their cultural heritage alive. This sense of nationalism especially is very
strong among young people .
While I was in Iran I promised myself that when I returned to the USA, and was
asked questions about how things are in Iran, my response would be that things
are very complicated and there are many layers to any given political, social,
cultural and economical issue, and there are no black and white answers to any
question that we might have. But here I am back in the USA and in a conversation
that I had with a dear political activist a couple weeks ago, the first question
that I was asked was "while I was in Iran, did I see any street demonstrations,
and in my opinion, are these demonstrations being led by the people or are they
being organized by foreign agents?" I was very much turned off by this question
and it took me back to the meaningless conversations that I had with people
before I left for Iran. To ask questions such as the one above is an attempt to
simplify a political and social situation that by no means is as simple as
yes-or-no answer. But here in the USA we are trained to think and operate that
way!
There are a lot of nuances involved in shaping any political or social situation
in any country and Iran is no different. I think people in general and the ones
who want to be in the business of changing the world in particular should better
educate themselves about the social and political movements of this country and
other countries to understand better how any political, social change happens in
any given country. The social and political consciousness of people in any
given country has HISTORY and if we are serious about changing things we better
know this history! Otherwise we are wasting our time and the time of others!
The
Islamic Republic of Iran became the governing body of Iran after the Shah was
overthrown in response to the genuine dissatisfaction of Iranian people with the
way things were. This dissatisfaction was less evident among the middle class
and upper class people of Iran than it was among the working class people and
poor sections of the country. When the Islamic Republic of Iran became the
governing body of Iran and so called Islamic rules were enforced upon people,
radical changes started to take place in all aspects of Iranians' life and the
country went through a social and cultural changes as well as political changes.
But
30 years later, one can clearly observe (and not just in big cities but also in
small towns) that these rules and restrictions on the Iranian people on how to
live, dress, or conduct one's day to day business are not being followed by
many! In the past 30 years, average and ordinary Iranians gradually have
changed their situation and have broken some of these rules and restrictions
whenever and however it was possible for them to do so. Ultimately forcing the
government officials to leave them alone in some aspects of their personal lives
if not all! But when it comes to change the resistance does not always come from
the ruling powers and sometimes the resistance to change comes from different
groups of people within the society and as result creates tension among them. I
felt this tension at times during my two months in Iran. That is why I feel like
at this point, Iran is a country of opposite forces (socially, politically,
culturally) coexisting side by side and pushing and pulling the country in
different direction. But how long these opposite forces can continue living side
by side? I am not sure.
What
happened right after the June 2009 presidential election on the streets of Iran
was a representative of a desire among some Iranian people, especially the
younger generation, for some radical changes in the political and social system
of their country. What is being attacked in recent demonstrations goes beyond
attacking individuals who currently represent the system. They are attacking the
system itself...That is why in recent demonstrations you will hear people say:
Death to the Dictator, Death to the supreme leader of Islamic Republic of
Iran, and We say no to the West; we say no to the East; we want an
Independent Republic of Iran. When I heard it myself in the last
demonstration that took place in Iran, I could not help myself from shouting it
as loud as I could from the balcony of our dormitory as demonstrators were
passing by and being violently attacked by Revolutionary Guards and Basij
military forces ...
Some
of the people whom I talked to think the current government should be replaced
by a secular type of government. I found it very surprising that even among
young practitioners of Islam, there is this strong belief in separation of
religion from politics now. Some are suggesting the type of government that
exists in Moslem countries such as Turkey or the type of governments that exists
in countries such as Sweden or Norway. Some people are very clear as to what
sort of government should replace the current government of Iran and some are
not ...but what is clear is that they want a democratic system that will be at the
service of the people.
In
the past 30 years, Iranian people in their attempt to create a more democratic
and just society have made some progress through their civic organizations,
their own personal resistance to rules and civil disobedience activities.
Iranian people know that in their struggle for change not only they have to deal
with resistance from their own government officials but also they have to deal
with manipulation of their struggle by agents of foreign countries, political
groups in Iran or outside of Iran. Of course, knowing that through different
means of operation, superpowers always want to interfere with the affairs of
Third World countries and manipulate their struggle for independence, freedom
and democracy in way that it will serve their interests...DOES NOT undermine the
genuine struggle of people of these countries...
The bottom line is that the ruling power whether in this country or Iran have no
regard for the will and needs of their people...otherwise
we would live in societies that people were more content and happier with their
lives and less worried about their future, the future of their children and
their grandchildren. Here in this country people are losing their jobs, their
homes and their livelihoods and there is still talk about sending more troops to
the Middle East or other parts of the world to wage more wars. Anyone who thinks
that here in the USA people are enjoying more than a superficial degree of
political freedom and democracy better read the following article:
Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction by Chris Hedges
As I
have told my new friends in Iran, people in USA have more personal freedom than
people in Iran, but there is a big difference between having a personal
freedom and having a political freedom which I don't think exists in this
country. And of course, one should expect some degree of personal freedom in
a country that consider itself a model for freedom and democracy for the rest of
the world! So I hope American people will put their focus more on their own
struggle for freedom and democracy in this country and let the rest of us in
other countries worry about freedom and democracy in our countries.
In
conclusion I have to say, overall as a conscientious citizen of this world and a
mother two boys, I am tormented by the ways things are in this country or Iran
or other parts of the world. Let us try for a second to see the big picture here
for a change; let us try to see humanity as whole for a change; let us try to
see in ourselves others for the change...the homeless people, the poor, the
orphans, the ones that they have been cut up in the wars that are destroying
their lives and their countries, the ones that are being tortured and the ones
that are being kicked out of their homes, the ones who don't have money to pay
for their medical bills, the ones that have nothing to eat and eat mud cakes to
survive... the ones that are being denied medial supplies because of sanctions on
their countries...the ones that are committing suicide because they have no hope
for future...the ones that have lost their children in wars waged by powers at
hand to serve their interests with no regards for human life...to them we are
ALL collateral damage and we will remain collateral damage if we stay silent.
In
the past couple of months, I have been thinking a lot about what pushes a
society to go through some meaningful changes and how do these changes take
place. How do we go about creating democratic societies that will respond to the
basic needs of ALL their citizens and in ALL aspects of their lives. How does a
governing body of any society become a TRUE representation of ALL its citizens ?
Please post your comments and your questions on my blog
http://theblogs.net/onehumanfamily/.
thanks,
Azita Ebrahimi (Azi) - Jan. 2010
... Payvand News - 02/03/10 ... --
