The Roots Run Deeper Than the Bombs

When the Country You Call Home Bombs the Land You Came From

Last week, I sat on the phone with my mom as she shared her pain and her reasons for not wanting to celebrate Nooruz, Persian New Year. The weight of what she’s carrying makes even joy feel out of reach. Hearing her, I felt her ache settle into me too. Nooruz and the festivities leading up to it represent the triumph of light over darkness, renewal of the earth, and the hope embedded in a fresh start. Nooruz has survived many wars because the one thing that won’t be taken from Persians is the sense of love within the community. 

I am Persian, born in the beautiful city of Tehran. My family moved to Canada when I was three years old and we would return to Tehran every summer until the age of 12 when the trips became less. As a Persian person raised in America, I took for granted the beauty of the culture and didn’t appreciate the visits to Tehran as much as I would have liked. Understandably so, as a young child transitioning into adolescence there’s more of a desire for social connections than obligated family time. In full transparency, as a child there were feelings of resentment and shame towards my Iranian culture. Going back to Iran, I struggled to feel connected as there were frequent comments on the ways I was different. My English accent when I attempted to speak Farsi and my “American outfits and appearance” were frequent topics of conversation when visiting family in Iran. The more I was talked about, the further I wanted to run from the community and culture. In America, where I associated home with, I was also talked about. How different I was, from the hairiness of my body to my broken grammar. And yet I craved a sense of belonging in America. I wanted to fit in and be like, and so, in a White society that made it clear that being different was not acceptable, I found myself abandoning who I was just to appease it.  As an adult, my brain developed, I learned more about the systemic issues in America, and more about the generational traumas of my family’s experience with the Islamic Republic Regime. Through therapy and self-exploration my appreciation and love for my culture blossomed. By slowly clearing away the messages others had planted in me, I found my way back to a love that had always lived within me. The love for watching my grandmas and aunts sitting on the floor clean bundles of herbs to make ghorrmeh sabzi and aash reshteh while I eat salted albaloo (sour cherries) next to them. The patience and energy they put into cooking gheimeh and dolmeh and the delicious savory smell that fills the room. The attention to detail in preparing kabab koobideh and gojeh on the skewers, wrapping the kebab in sangak to keep it warm and making sure to get a piece of the sangak that had been soaking in the kabab juice. Through the love of food and eating, my family would get together and enjoy moments of laughter and connection for most meals. I cherish the sweet memories of bonding with family and community through running around picking toot (berries) with cousins to taking family trips to Shomal for beach vacations. Beyond the strength of community, there is the beauty of the people, the melodic and poetic language, and the deep, ancient history of the land. As a child, I remember visiting Persepolis and experiencing an awe towards the ancient ruins that existed and a sadness for how much had been lost. I couldn’t understand how so much damage could have been done to something so beautiful. Now I’m left feeling that same sadness and heart break as this beautiful country, where I was born and my family lives, is being bombed and destroyed. It is devastating to witness the destruction of a land the earth offered us to cherish and tend to. A land that holds the story of Persia and continues to give in more ways than the eye can see. And it is beyond frightening to consider the long-term effects these chemicals will have on the air that people and animals breathe. A damage that will outlast the bombs and this war.

There is a deep heartbreak in the betrayal of knowing that the country I have called home for most of my life is playing an active role in destroying the land where I took my first breath. The place where so many generations before me laid down their roots. I feel angry that violence is being offered as a solution to make it seem as if it is for the best interest of the Iranian people. I do not and will not accept that violence is the answer. For multiple generations the regime in Iran has brought about pain and violence to the Iranian people. They have beaten people in love, arrested and assaulted women for showing their beautiful thick dark hair, killed people for standing up for their human rights, and silenced people’s voices from the rest of the world. Now let me be very clear, the regime in Iran is not a representation of Islam. The Islamic culture and the practice of Islam is a beautiful faith and many Muslim communities practice peacefully. The regime in Iran has taken this beautiful practice and turned it into a ploy to have power and control over communities. So when a group of my Iranian communities celebrated the death of the Supreme Leader at the hands of the US and Israel, I connected with compassion for the brief glimpse of hope that was presented. I will never fully understand the daily oppression experienced by many Persians at the hand of the regime. I bear witness to the stories of people terrorized in the streets simply for what they wear, have felt the reach of generational trauma shaped by misogynistic gender roles, and carry the resilience embedded into my family across generations of living under the regime. As I hold a tender place for the hope that was experienced, I also hold true to my belief that violence is not the answer. Too many Iranian people have suffered and died due to violence of the war between the regime and civilians and the war of US/Israel with the Middle East. Despite knowing my own values, part of me carries guilt, a sense of being an outsider, for not sharing the hope that some in the Iranian community place in this war as a catalyst for change. How horrific that decades of enduring the regime’s brutality have normalized something unthinkable… that our land and culture might have to be destroyed to be free. I hear the tears and desperation in people’s voices, a longing for the regime to be gone, especially as the regime silences its own people while bombs continue to fall. How terrifying it is to not know if your child, parent, or siblings are alive and waiting by the phone, desperate for even a brief, broken signal. Just for the chance to hear that everyone is still safe, still alive. 

I feel tears and heaviness in my eyes as I listen to my mom’s worries for the wellbeing of our family; I feel ache in my heart as I witness my brother’s hopes to have the option to visit the place of his birth and show his son our culture and family. I feel tension in my shoulders and anger in my jaw by not knowing if my family in Iran is safe and by how normalized violence has become for them. I feel a deep, vibrating pain move through my whole body when I think of the violence my family has endured across generations at the hands of the regime. And beneath that, there is a softer ache, something like a child crying quietly in my chest and stomach, for the destruction of the land and my culture being carried out by the US and Israel. I also feel love and support that warms my heart from the caring people in my life. For the Persian community and the lovers and supporters of the Persian community, whatever your experience and your stance, your feelings are valid and your voice matters. I appreciate having this space to share my voice, as I truly believe that no one can take away the love that bonds the Persian community. So whether this Nooruz you choose to celebrate or take a stance of solidarity, I wish you tenderness in your grief and love in your celebration. 

Rumi wrote, “Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”

– Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi, The Essential Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

Hafez wrote, "How did the rose ever open its heart and give this world all its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being.”

– Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Hafez, The Gift (trans. Daniel Ladinsky)

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Nooruz Mobarak,

Melika Biglarpour-Watson, LMFT