IRAN-NOW

Mourning as Resistance in a World on Fire

I offer this reflection trying to stay open, trying not to go numb.

If it echoes something in your own experience of exile, grief, or activism, I'd like to know—feel free to share it with me and others as a comment.

Thank you for reading. Always.

In times like these, when bombs are raining down on my country of origin, Iran, it’s hard to feel worthy of the privilege of being somewhere relatively safe. Much of my disorientation, and my struggle to show up fully and regulated these days, stems from this tension.

Since the exchange of fire began between Israel and Iran, I’ve been afraid for the citizenry’s immediate safety, especially my family's, and for what is to come—not just for the country but globally. But there has also been this tug towards a specific sense of guilt.

When I finally dared to direct the floodlights onto this shadowy part, what popped out was, in one word: unworthiness. I've wrestled with unworthiness throughout my life so it’s not surprising that it took me this long to get here.

To justify the random gift of freedom that I’ve been given, first from the regime’s oppression, and now from Israel’s falling bombs, I’ve tried to earn my right to live in relative peace and prosperity outside of Iran. How? By throwing myself into activism—not exactly a peaceful pursuit—and making a habit out of eating my liver with worry.

If I can't make sense of the privilege, I have told myself subconsciously, I will earn it, through ritualized anguish or publicized worry.

Don't get me wrong, activism or ritualized mourning for the exiled, is a place of belonging, of staying connected—it is necessary, it is a lifeline. It is what keeps us sane and tethered.

My issue is not with activism per se, but with the way I have been performing it as a response to the guilt of having privilege.

But what if activism and the much justified ritualized anguish could be performed as an act of devotion instead? What if activism presented itself like an “offering” rather than “atonement?”

My shift towards recognizing the need for a devotional kind of grieving and activism didn’t happen all at once. At first, I only sensed that something felt off: the more I pushed, the more disconnected I felt. It wasn’t until I began to work with teachers who asked not just what I was doing, but where I was doing it from, that something began to shift. Slowly, I began to distinguish between anguish that fed on fear and guilt, and anguish that was metabolized into offering. Between activism that spiraled outward from panic, and activism that moved in rhythm with devotion.

To investigate, I needed to go deeper and look at what Gabor Mate calls my “working theories” around privilege, guilt, ritual, worthiness, and exile. What have I assumed about guilt? What do I think I need to do to feel “enough”? How did I learn that I had to “earn” contentment? What is my inner orientation towards “privilege” in general? What is my relationship to ritual and performing anguish in community?

The first thing that occured to me was this: If everyone has a birthright to a safe and prosperous life, I will never feel “worthy” enough to carry my story of exile and privilege. I will always wonder: why me? and show up politically in the community hoping to atone for my random good luck. To make matters worse, this atonement will slowly become a way of being—given the instability that plagues my country. I have watched myself come to internalize my failures, my doubts, my driftings, lack of focus, and past silences as moral failings and try to outrun them by doing even more. The damage this has done to my nervous system and my sense of worth has been immense.

In fact, this is how I felt much of the time during Woman, Life, Freedom. Like I was part of a troupe, each of us trying to outdo the other in how much we were willing to sacrifice to earn our atonement. And for what? For already having what Shervin calls in his song Baraye (the anthem of the movement) the privilege of “living an ordinary life” outside Iran.

Worthiness—if understood as a way to atone for the universe's perceived randomness is impossible to achieve. No one is fully “worthy” of the gifts they carry.

But that doesn’t disqualify me from “offering” to share my anguish and my labor. Offering because I am “compelled from the heart.” Every Iranian’s anguished prayer and every activist’s action in support is partially from this place. This is the place where we don't have to be perfect, we just show up, to speak and listen for the truth, to get it wrong, to serve, and be open to being changed. This is the pivot point.

Activism as devotion is about learning to wield privilege. Not downplay it, not deny it, not hide it, or hide from it, or outrun it. It's about showing up as we are, flawed and hurting.

In the Sufi path of Persian poetry, it is not the one who is “chosen,” or the “most deserving” who reaches the Real. It is instead the seeker who keeps returning to the threshold with sincerity. I don't know why my sorry ass got to leave Iran. I don't even know whether that was the best option for me in the long run. There are people inside Iran who live beautiful, meaningful lives despite the relentless repression and the occasional falling bombs. There are those who live in Scandinavia and are miserable.

My point is that activism and ritual anguish, from guilt, can be frantic. From devotion, it becomes attuned. I’ve seen it happen. There are some old timers in Austin, Texas who modeled that for me. For example, there are Glenn Scott¹, and Alice Embree, both matrairchs in the American Democratic Socialist Movement and Reverend Jim Rigby. Action and grief flow from what is most whole in them, not what is most wounded.

It doesn’t mean we wait until we’re healed to act—because come on. But we can act while staying tethered to whatever we consider the source, not spiraling away from it. Whatever we consider the source. You pick.

The goal here is to not pour from our brokenness but to offer from the deepest well we have access to. And to be intentional about not pouring from the brokenness.

Today to stay grounded I remind myself that I don’t have to earn the right to serve. The right is already in the breath I’ve been given. My task is to say yes to it. I offer because I am here. Because I can’t not.

1. Glenn was a dear friend and a true role model. I had no clue how she did what she did for many years. Today, I have more of a clue and am still learning from her by remembering her ways. https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-09-28/glenn-scott-fought-for-her-life-and-yours/