Iranian Woman

An Iranian woman;

Wakes up every morning knowing that she’s not equal to a man in the eyes of the law.

 Fights everyday to be looked at as a human before a woman.

 Is treated as an inferior in the family and then in the society.

 Is forced into marriage and forced to stay in it.

Doesn’t have the right to marry without father’s permission.

Doesn’t have the right to travel without the father or the husband’s permission.

Can not pass her nationality to her children.

An Iranian Woman;

Is told all her life to be ashamed of her sexuality.

Is told that her existence is the source of all sin.

Is told to cover herself up so that men don’t sin.

Is to told to be modest, to not attract attention

 

An Iranian Woman;

Is told to be invisible.

Is told to stay in the dark and not enter the light.

Is told to obey and not question.

But Iranian women have never bowed to these demands.

Iranian women have been fighting for their rights for more than a hundred years; they never gave into what the Regimes demanded from them.

They stood tall and protested.  For thirty years the Islamic Regime in Iran has tried to marginalise women but hasn’t been successful, and now we see that women have come out stronger than ever to fight for democracy, for freedom.

This is why i am proud to say that i am an Iranian woman. A woman who will not be told she is worth half a man.

We Iranian Women will stand tall to the very end. Nothing can break me. Nothing can break you. Nothing can break us.

 

Why is it that news of the death of a leader puts a smile on our face?

I was thinking to myself what would happen if Obama died? How many people in the United states are anticipating his death? A majority? A minority? A power hungry few? Really who? And then I thought about Iran. How many people in Iran are anticipating the death of the Iranian Leader? A majority? A minority? A power hungry few? I mean really how many? Then the rumor was out that the Supreme leader of Iran is in a coma! I mean everybody was calling everybody to double check the news. People would call me thinking, she is a journalist she would know there was this thing in their voice as if they were begging me to confirm the news “hey, have you heard that Khameniee is in a coma? Is he going to die? It will be better for the country if he dies ha?” I wish had the answer to that. What is so unfortunate about this situation is that, a bunch of people who everybody seems to hate are running the country and it seems like that nobody can do anything about it. Ever since I was little and I was born a year after the revolution, ever since I can remember, people in Iran are saying “Inshallah (God willing) this will be the last year they will run this country, they will all go to hell this year Inshallah”. Ever since I bloody remember people have been waiting for Khameneiee to die, when I went to school we wished for him to die so that school would be out, in university we wished for him to die so that Khatami could go on with his reform, before all of this our parents wished for him to die so that they could see the glory days of Iran once again, I mean based on any standards that is just a hell of a lot of dying wishes for one person! The thing is that a year after the revolution I guess most people realized that the whole thing was just wrong, and now thirty years later a generation who was born after the revolution and know nothing but it is anticipating the fall of the system, the death of the leader and a brighter tomorrow. It is this very new generation which will bring the change because it is this generation who has lived under this system and has experienced its brutality and has no other experience. The generation which saw the Shah’s era say at least at that time we had social freedom you poor guys haven’t even had that! And that is true. Now in my opinion if a person like Obama dies people around the world would mourn his death because he stands for something which is regarded as a good value, he stands for peace, equality and freedom ( I know that US doesn’t always stick to what it preaches, but at least this guy is trying to some extent). When he was elected as US president the whole world celebrated his victory and I think when a person like Khameneiee dies the same thing will happen; many around the world will celebrate it because he is the symbol of a brutal religious state which has no respect for human rights, a state which will sacrifice its own people just to survive.

I Think people anticipate his death because his death will be the death of all that he stands for and we all know what those are.

Just a few very obvious reasons why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the Iranian president:

The first and most obvious is the fact that he cares about Palestine and other far away countries and what happens in them more than about Iran and Iranians. I mean you might not believe me but in his speeches the number of times he mentions what the poor Palestinians are going through is maybe a hundred times more than what is happening to Iranians who are rotting in prisons, students who have been banned from universities because of their political preference, underage execution, mass trials, street children in major cities of Iran, women’s rights, and a million other reasons for the suffering of Iranians.
The number of times the Egyptian woman who was killed in Germany by a Russian immigrant was mentioned in Iranian media and the number of times Ahmadinejad mentioned her in Iran and New York can not be compared to the number of times he mentioned Neda, or Sohrab or other twenty something year old Iranians who were killed on the streets of Tehran and in prisons during the post-election protests.
I don’t think any other president in the world is as concerned about what is going on in other countries as he is! He is just obsessed with all the other parts of the world and he seems to really not give a damn about what is happening in Iran.
I remember when inflation was really taking its toll on people and Mps were mad, he came to Majles (the Iranian Parliament) and when Mps talked about how expensive tomatoes have become he just treated it as the most unimportant issue ever, saying something like “who cares, stop making a fuss about this, well why don’t people come and buy tomatoes from my neighborhood? It’s still cheap where I live!” I mean what kind of an idiot could be so ignorant? No, really?

The second reason which we should take note of, is  based on his own statement “we don’t have homosexuals in Iran”. Ok, let’s say he’s right, then how the hell can he be our president? I mean everybody in the world must have noticed that Mahmoud and Hugo have a relationship beyond that of two crazy presidents. They hold hands while walking, they kiss each other like ten times in every bloody meeting they have, they keep giving each other very expensive gifts of oils, refineries and God knows what else, they talk about each other like two lovers would. I mean come one they are you know GAY, and I am sorry we have no gays in Iran so he simply can not be our president.

He claims to have super natural powers which mesmerize those who are in his presence! Yes he does claim that. After he came form his first UN General Assembly meeting he actually claimed that people didn’t even blink when he spoke and that he was surrounded by a light which was divine and all that shit… now how can this defy him being the Iranian president? Well, let me see, because he is a NUT CASE, and NUT CASES can not be presidents period, at least not with the majority of the vote! (meaning the only way such a psychopath could become president is for him to appoint himself or for someone even crazier than him to appoint him, and well we all know who THAT could be! The guy who claims he is God‘s representative on earth maybe!!!!!!!! And we all know nobody voted for HIM. Helllo!!!!!!)

Another reason; HE DOESN’T WEAR HAIR GEL. we all know that any red blooded Iranian man who is not a Mullah wears hair gel.

And last but not least people didn’t vote for him.

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW IT ALL? BUT YOU HAVEN’T LIVED IN IRAN!

I haven’t written for a while but it doesn’t mean i haven’t been thinking!

The thing is that when you come from the Middle East, let me be more specific, when you are from Iran, your life is how can i say; different from those who are not from Iran.

Yeah, yeah yeah, i know you are saying “well everybody’s life is different from the other, how can you be so sure? Who the hell are you to say this?” and a million other things you might be saying in your head.

 

But i truly believe that growing up in Iran i saw things that at least most of my friends living in the West haven’t seen at aaaaalllll!

 

I’m only thirty, which is not that old; ok it’s not that young EITHER and i know my mom thinks i should be married and bring her grandchildren and my grand mom thinks i have been pickled for life and no man would ever wanna be with me, but in a realistic light, i’m not that old!

My first memories of Iran are those of the war; when people were scared to live in Tehran as there was news that Saddam will severely bomb the city, people fled to the north, south, west and east of the country.

We were in Isfahan, and as a kid i thought “cool, i can hang out with my cousins and not go to school, yoohoo”. But at night when the sound of the radio alert would ring through the streets and homes even i as a kid knew that this might be the last time i see my mom, my baby brother and my cousins, i was always scared that i would die but i was also too proud to let my mom know that i was scared.

People would flee in the middle of the night and go to shelters to stay safe from the bombings.

Sometimes you would go to school and see that there are flowers on one of the benches, you knew she had died in the previous night’s bombings, i remember thinking “will they do the same for me if i die?” I now think it was so unfair that i had to think of death at the age of 7.

The other memories; loved ones who were in prison. News of family members and relatives being executed. You know how family members sit around have dinner and talk about stuff, well in Iran the topic was usually “was he tortured? When will he be released? When will he be executed?”

As a kid again it just seemed normal that whoever we knew had been in prison or executed!

As i grew older and became a teenager and well started wearing makeup and talked to guys, i realised, jail and prison were not that farfetched for me either.

If you were a teenager in Iran; you had most probably been arrested on the street, harassed, and scared shitless just because of talking to the opposite sex. I was once put in jail for a day with prostitutes, drug dealers and a woman who had helped her lover kill her husband, oh and a naked woman who was found naked just like that for the tenth time on the Chaloos road which goes to the Caspian region! I was 17.

 A guy i knew was killed either by accident or whatever at his 19^th birthday party by the police who raided the party; i was 16.

Many of my friends were tied to a bed and whipped 100 times by a bearded Pasdar until they bled and urinated just for being in a party! This is all through my teenage years and University.

Many of my friends became heroin addicts and drug users.

I was 21 when a close friend of mine killed herself, i was twenty three when another threw herself down from the Milad Tower in Tehran.

3 of my friends died in car accidents.

All this before i was even 30.

Now at the age of thirty i still continue to see horrific scenes in my country, but this time i said; i had enough, i will not let you torture me like this anymore! I will live the way i deserve to live! I WANT TO LIVE.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN TEHRAN 2019

I told you guys about how a friend asked me about my vision of Iran in 10 years, did i?

Well, the first vision i wrote was the most optimistic vision i could have, in reality it will take way longer for Iran to become that open and tolerant. But it’s never too early or too late to have dream, is it?

Now my most pessimistic vision, the vision that i sometimes fear so much i have nightmares about is what i want to write here today.

Fear and Loathing in Tehran 2019

I hear their boots stomping above me; they are close, so close i can even smell them. It’s still dark.

I know the routine, it’s not the first time they are coming; i close my eyes and pull the sheets over my head, i can’t look at them i just can’t.

Here they come; bang, they open the door.

They are shouting, my eyes are closed but i can see their bearded faces, I’ve seen them so many times that i do not need to have my eyes open to see them, their faces are carved in my head.

They search everywhere, looking for anything, anything can be a crime even a lipstick. Hehehe, the last time they took me away, was because of a Quran i kept at home, a Quran my grandmother had given me! Can you believe it, even having a Quran is a crime.

He’s coming upstairs i can feel him. Knocks the door open, i’m still under the sheets.

“Why are you being so shy today?” he says.

I don’t answer, i never do.

I can smell his dirty damp breath on my skin, i know what to do, just close my head, and go to that good place i have in my head.

“It seems like the last time we taught you a good lesson, i see you have the picture of the leader up, and not to mention the president! Good girl, maybe i can tell Seyyed; our boss, to be friendlier to your parents, Inshallah if you are a good girl they might even get released,” he says with a whisper in my ear.

The thought of my parents, brings tear to my eyes.

They are still searching the house, i hear them break stuff, i don’t know why they keep breaking everything.

I hear the helicopters flying over Tehran, it must be 5 in the morning, that’s when the choppers come, and they will leave soon to raid another place. In just a few minutes another family will be in fear just like me, another woman raped another man beaten up another dignity taken.

They are leaving. I am shaking. The hate just makes my body shake. There is nothing i can do, and that is what i always feared the most to not be able to change the situation i’m in, to have to live with it no matter how painful it is.

I stretch my hand and open the drawer next to my bed, i need the numbness, i take the syringe; probably the only thing which is not a crime in this country these days, i know i will be numb soon and go to a happy place in my head; free!

Tehran 2019

I was having a drink with a friend the other night and like any other red blooded Iranian, after the first sip of wine, oh no, even before the first sip of wine we started talking about the situation in Iran and the whole politics.

 

So she asked me where I see Iran in ten years; from an optimistic point of view, a pessimistic point of view and a realistic point of view, so I thought hell girl, I am gonna write about it in my blog.

 

So where should we start?

Hmmmmmm!

 

I think I want to start from an optimistic point of view:

 

Tehran 2019:

 

I am walking down the streets of Tehran; the capital city of Iran, clean air, I can see the Alborz mountains almost everyday. I get into the first bookstore I see, it’s packed with people buying books, I mean really packed and people are really buying books! I join the crowd, and there are so many books to choose from, the books aren’t cheap and there is no limit to what you can buy and read.

 

I buy a book and continue down the street. I guess it’s lunch time because I see a lot of young people in the Cafes and restaurants, they are having a bite but it seems they are in a hurry as well, I guess they all have to get back to work or to university. Seeing al these young people busy with work and not unemployed or on drugs puts a smile on my face.

 

I get on an electric bus because I am sick and tired of using the metro all the time, the metro goes everywhere in Tehran and it’s quite addictive, so you might not get to see the beautiful scenery of Tehran as you spend so much time underground. Yeah, so I get on the bus and I am heading home; people are just so happy, everywhere is so clean, no sign of street children, prostitutes and addicts on the street, I tell myself “why did I ever leave this beautiful country to live else where?”

 

I get home, turn on the TV and I see our president the President of the Democratic Iran giving a speech in an international conference. There is a smile on the faces of the audience, there is respect; he is talking about human rights and freedom, (Just like Ahmadinejad) hahahaha, the only difference is that there is democracy and freedom and human rights in Iran more than anywhere else in the world by 2019. When she finishes she receives a stand up ovation, people are calling out her name, screaming out her name, I am so proud, I want to be there and tell everyone “see, she is my president, she represents my nation.”

 

I continue watching TV and there is news about Iran, it’s economy and how other countries should follow in its footsteps, it’s social progress, it’s human rights record, it’s social welfare, I mean everything is just to be proud of.

 

I am sitting on my terrace reading a newspaper; a leftist newspaper very very critical of the government and it’s been circulating all around the country for 10 years! I look around me, all around me is beauty, I look through people’s windows families eating their suppers, RICE, MEAT, FRUITS and NUTS are found everywhere, in everybody’s home.

 

You know what as I am writing all these things I have tears in my eyes; why shouldn’t every Iranian have the right to breathe in clean air, have a job, have a president to be proud of, have home, have enough money to eat meat and rice and feed their family, why shouldn’t we be where every human being with dignity should be.

 

Why should I be writing all these little simple things as a dream when I deserve it already!?

 

Why? Why? Why?