Photo by Hybrid on Unsplash

July, 2o, 2020

By Mahshid Hager

I started writing again today. Editing my solo-show script, to be exact. I hadn’t touched any of my writing projects since March. I have felt too worn out, too disoriented, too exhausted to put anything on paper. But there’s a deadline approaching and with some help and encouragement I sat back down at my keyboard.

It was immediately relieved that it was editing and not writing from scratch. But the material, my history, the subject at hand, is still so very hard to tackle. Especially now. I watch in disbelief as unmarked federal troops snatch protestors from Portland streets, dragging them into unmarked vans and I am transported to 1978 Iran, my childhood home. Images of armed militia on every street corner, flash before my eyes and bring back memories of young men and women disappearing from the streets, never to be heard of again. I can’t help but feel the terror deep inside my bones.  Every cell in my body wants to scream how is this happening, again?

I’ve shared this fear with friends and loved ones. I tell them about this undeniable sense I have that our democracy is balancing on a knife’s edge, that I worry we will see more violence against protestors leading up to the election, that Trump won’t leave the White House even after a loss on November 3rd, and that he will deny the results and refuse to relinquish his power. 

In their well-intentioned attempts to calm my nerves, they say things like “That will never happen here” or “The military will step in and remove him”. I nod and try to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. I have watched those safeguards fail before. Iranian’s didn’t think it would happen there either. And when it, did they waited for someone to come save them. “This won’t last,’” they would say in those early days after the revolution “six months, tops, and we’ll have order again.” It’s been 42 years. No one’s come to save us.

I came across a piece of my writing that describes the house we had just moved into during those early days of the unrest. The house was beautiful and spacious. I felt like a princess walking around the yard. It was far away from the heart of the city, the suburbs if you will, and it felt like as long as we were there, nothing would ever go wrong. This piece, like a portal to the past, transferred me back to a time of innocence. A time before chaos, before bloodshed, war and exile. It’s a love letter to my younger, more naive self, an ode to the house that felt like a safe harbor but in the end, was not. It might seem out of place here, but I hope you indulge me:

“The house was located on a windy, tree-lined street. My favorite feature of the house was a giant greenhouse, dead smack in the middle of the main floor. It was encased in glass on all sides with a sliding glass door that faced the entry foyer of the house. The sunshine poured in through the sky light, hitting the small Koi pond in the center, and creating playful light caustics along the back wall of the living room. Exotic plants like Bird of Paradise, Hibiscus trees and Anthurium plants provided an irresistible palette of color and scents. Once we moved in, dad bought cute little Lovebirds who entertained us while enjoying this indoor tropical paradise. Early in the morning, when the house was quiet, you could listen to their song while eating breakfast. They would fly around in there, splashes of bright yellow, green and blue, whooshing by. The greenhouse was the main event, all the other rooms, just a sideshow. Anyone who entered the house would be greeted right away by this luscious, green beauty and they couldn’t help but be wowed. 

Every house on this street was big and beautiful. Our front gate opened to the most immaculate front yard featuring an inviting pool, surrounded by manicured green grass. Fragrant rose bushes lined the edges of the yard and the most glorious Weeping Willow I have ever seen, graced the corner of the yard. The vine covered walls enclosing our yard, made me feel safe and protected. In the summer afternoons, I’d turn the garden hose on full blast and sprinkle these walls until the vine leaves sparkled in the sun. Then I would lean against them and let the coolness of the leaves soothe my sunburnt skin. This yard would soon become my playground, the rose bushes, my best friends and the shade of the willow tree my sanctuary. In the coming months, I spent so much time out here, getting familiar with every last corner, every leaf and every critter that lived there. The pool offered much needed reprieve from the relentless heat of Tehran’s summer days. I learned how to swim in that pool. I watched my baby sisters chase each other around this yard and dissolve into giggles when one would catch the other. We entertained friends and family in this yard, even hosted an aunt’s wedding here. So many happy memories in that house, followed my so many horrific ones…. Such was life in those days. No amount of good fortune could be reliably sustained. Eventually even those beautiful, vine covered walls couldn’t protect us from what was to come.”

We couldn’t have imagined the heinous brutality that was yet to come, just as you can’t imagine now. My parents thought they would grow old in that house. It was the gathering site for friends and family who thought it would always stand there, ready to greet them. Life seemed predictable as it does here, today. We couldn’t have imagined that we’d be uprooted and transported, fleeing our beautiful home, leaving behind everyone we loved, but we did. 

Every now and then, when there is some new unrest in Iran, my mother, now in her 70’s, reveals a hope she mostly keeps hidden in her everyday life: the hope that after four decades she might be able to return back home to a free country. “This time it might actually happen” she’ll say. 

I know how fragile governments and democracies can be. I’ve lived it. I think about my parents in their early 30s, when they made a decision to leave home, when they made a plan to flee the country with their three young children in tow, when they struggled to make a new life in Europe and then supported my move to the US… all of it was supposed to ensure a life of peace and harmony for the next generation. It was supposed to shield me and my children against ever having to experience brutality at the hands of government thugs again. I watch the events unfold in Portland and I have a nauseating feeling that their plan might have failed. 

Authoritarianism and fascism are on the rise around the world and we, the United States, are not immune to them. What I know for sure is that we have to fight now for the freedoms we take for granted.  WE THE PEOPLE are the owners of our democracy. I can’t get complacent. I have to fight back with everything I’ve got. Fight against injustice, against brutality, against racism and oppression. I fight back like my life and your life depends on it, remembering that your liberation is also my liberation. This is my country now. This is home. I’ve got nowhere else to go. So I’ll fight.