I notice my phone is ringing. Recognising the electronic beep-boop, I rummage through my bag to locate it and press the green button. It’s Grandma video-calling from Iran.
“Mamanjoon, you’re upside down,” I tell her.
“What?” she says.
“Why are you upside down?”
“Well, the world is upside down, I guess I’ve followed suit,” she says, referring to the sweeping protests across Iran. After the September arrest of , who died after being detained by Iran’s morality police for “improperly” wearing the mandatory hijab, women and men across the country are protesting.
We try to chat but we have to repeat every sentence three times as the line crackles and distorts and drops out, so we end up sticking to the key points, kind of like news anchors.
I ask her about the protests.
“As soon as there’s a hint of a gathering, they block off that road until they’ve suppressed the unrest, so no one can enter or exit,” Grandma says.
When they go, it’s like I’m gripping the quaking meat on my bones until I get a call that they’ve returned home
She tells me protesters are hit with bullets and batons and sprayed with tear gas and that she fears for our family members who attend the rallies.
“When they go, it’s like I’m gripping the quaking meat on my bones until I get a call that they’ve returned home,” she says. “It’s when they chase after them that they get separated, particularly X and Y. They’re the more headstrong of the lot, they go without headscarves. Everything is being monitored.”
I receive the news that my cousin was shot in the forehead with a rubber bullet at close range while she was walking down a quiet street, and that she had fallen, screaming. She wasn’t wearing a headscarf.
The people in one of the nearby houses pulled her inside, disinfected the wound and gave her sugar water. They were very helpful. And it was dangerous what they did, as it’s dangerous to help protestors.
I feel a sense of guilt for being safe
“Even going to the hospital would have been unsafe because they deliver them to the police after treating them, and you know anything can happen in prison,” my grandma tells me.
I feel a sense of guilt for being safe.
But I would hate to look back and know I said nothing.
I remember how I scoffed at the TV after a World Cup commentator said, “I’m happy for them,” when the Iranian team didn’t sing the national anthem. What a profound sentiment, thank you so much for sitting comfortably in your chair and saying practically nothing.
They said the revolution will not be televised, but I didn’t think to take it quite so literally.
We blow kisses through the screen and say our goodbyes. I get my laptop out so I can finish an assignment.
There are two new emails in my inbox from school, one is from yesterday. The first announces, “The current events in Iran are very distressing and we want you to know that we are here to support you in any way we can.” The subject line of the second is “Oops! Email distribution error,” and continues, “On Monday we sent a letter to international students from Iran that I believe you received in error. I apologise for any confusion this email may have caused.”
It sinks in that I have been deemed ineligible for support and suddenly my mouth tastes funny.
What is happening in Iran is also happening to those who have migrated from it. I’ve been feeling the pressure to write something of worth that will raise awareness. My head is noisy. It’ll either be fine or very not fine. I am in a constant war with myself. Am I endangering myself? Am I endangering my family?
It’s as if I’ve been declassified from Iranians in Iran, as though migration is a skin graft and this cleanly incised hunk of flesh now has nothing to do with where it was cut from.
My parents are children of the 1979 Iranian revolution who left the country to give me and my siblings a better life
I decide to splash some water on my face, but when I’m in the bathroom, I just end up staring at the girl in the mirror. My parents are children of the 1979 Iranian revolution who left the country to give me and my siblings a better life. But we all still live with the worry and fear for those we have left behind. I remember the Audre Lorde book I was recommended recently – Your Silence Will Not Protect You.
*Author’s name has been changed.
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