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My heart rests with the people who suffer in New York. The
recent tragedy returns me to a time when I was only eight
years old, and the first bombs began to fall. I remember
the scream of the sirens, the darkness of our basement where
we took cover, and the loud voice of explosions. I remember
the seconds of terror, wondering "Will it be our house this
time?" It continues for eight years – half of my young life
in Iran.
Millions have lived with fear and anxiety for more than
those eight years of the Iran-Iraq War. Since depleting
its coffers in the conflict, Iran, like many nations in
the Middle East, has been coping with a poverty aggravated
by power struggles between reformism and fundamentalism,
UN sanctions, constant inflation, and possibly worst of
all, an exodus of its people. Most of those who could afford
to have left their country and families to seek refuge and
a better life in the West. My 1996 immigration to Canada
opened the door to a beautiful future, but it hasn't locked
away the dark memories of my past. And so I, like most immigrants
in the western world, am forever trying to hold two ends
of a tug-of-war together. How do I show my devotion to my
new country without forsaking the people I have left behind?
This exercise becomes most difficult during a crisis such
as the WTC attack. I am as much of a target for a terrorist
as any other Canadian. Of course I deplore terrorists and
want their networks shut down. I was also born in Iran,
and know what the majority of people in central Asia continue
to experience. I know that they are peace-loving people
who persevere through regime after regime without opportunity.
People who do not support terrorism. People who are seldom
heard by the West.
I often thank God that I am Iranian and am lucky to have
endured less pain than Iran's neighbours to the east and
west. An Iraqi friend, with tears in eyes, tells me of the
Iraqi people, punished from within by Saddam's brutal government,
and punished from without by sanctions. The devastation
of the Gulf War, a decade of the toughest, most comprehensive
sanctions in history, and more western enforcement in 1998
have taken its toll on the Iraqi people. A 1999 UN Security
Council report described infant mortality rates among the
highest in the world, low infant birth weights, and chronic
malnutrition. Only forty-one percent of the population had
regular access to clean water, and eighty-three percent
of all schools needed substantial repairs. Two years later,
Saddam is even stronger as his people become further incapacitated
and remain voiceless.
To the east in Afghanistan, life is exceptionally bad after
several decades of war. Afghani refugees in Iran will accept
any hard job with any salary, as long as they can survive.
From civil war in the 1970's, to the Soviet invasion of
the 1980's, and back to civil war in the 1990's, the Afghani
civilian has not received a break. Under the Taliban, the
majority are kept poor and illiterate, women are oppressed.
Innocent people starved by drought, by sanctions, and by
the ruthless Taliban. And now, another horror: the WTC and
Pentagon attacks. This was not a joyous event for Afghanis.
It leaves an Afghani in Toronto to tell me, "There is no
hope left for life in Afghanistan."
Last week, Americans received a spoonful of what the ordinary
people of central Asia have experienced for decades. Again
wonderful, innocent people dead, buried in the rubble. But
the American story is different. These victims have a voice.
A powerful voice which stirs a frenzy for war, ostensibly
against terrorism, but which also fuels an indiscriminate
hatred for immigrants. And so it seems that there is no
place of refuge? This powerful voice is calling for war.
Against whom? At what cost? Will bombs and troops solve
the problem? Will referring to the religion of millions
of people around the world as a "tribal culture built on
blood and revenge" solve the problem? Planting hatred and
intolerance in western hearts will only be matched by hatred
in eastern hearts. Vengeance, neither a Christian nor an
Islamic value, offers no exit from the circle of violence.
What is the solution? The solution is not a simple job for
a sledgehammer, but a complicated task for jeweller's forceps.
A task that will take many years and extensive cooperation
between nations. A task that must include raising, not further
lowering, the standard of living in all countries to remove
the breeding grounds of hatred. A novel solution that will
make the world a better, not a worse, place for us all.
Published
by permission of The Graduate and the UBC Graduate Student
Society, graduate@gss.ubc.ca.
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