Maryam’s life ended last Saturday. Since then, every minute of every day has been divided between updates from her family in Iran telling them when they might be able to communicate with her and the hours left to speculate what their fate might be.
Maryam is not the only one who asked that we not use her real name for security reasons. The Iranian diaspora is one of the world’s largest, including those fleeing persecution under the pre-1979 Shah, those fleeing oppression under the Islamic Republic, and those seeking financial stability or careers overseas. Now, like Maryam, they live to extract information about the welfare of their relatives in the midst of a war that threatens to engulf the region.
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“My worst fear is what’s happening now,” says Mariam, 33, from Madrid. She was last in Tehran in January, but returned to the Spanish capital, where she was working, after a wave of mass protests that month, in which thousands were killed.
“When I can’t sleep I look it up at 3 in the morning: ‘US Iran,'” she says of her Google search, “just to check.”
“Every piece of that land is like a cell in my body. My father is from the south, my mother (is) from the north, so every inch of that land is me. I feel that everywhere is my home. An attack on that land is an attack against me. Iran is like my other mother,” her voice breaks.
Across the Iranian diaspora, many describe a feeling of helplessness and fear that has grown since the build-up of United States forces along their country’s coast in late January. Then US President Donald Trump warned of a “massive fleet” heading towards Iran “quickly” and with “great force, passion and intent”.
On February 28, the predictions of observers around the world came true, as the first of a massive wave of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran continued, killing at least 1,230 people and causing massive destruction of infrastructure and homes.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among the dead, and the Iranians responded with their own attacks on Israel and surrounding states, fearing the conflict would spiral out of control across the wider region.
‘Torture’ watched from afar
Sara, a student, describes searching every scrap of news footage from Iran for some sign of her family’s home high in the hills above Tehran.
“My grandfather built it on the hillsides,” he says from London, where he has no choice but to watch the war unfold on his country.
“This is our family home. This is where my parents got married. This is where I spent my childhood. This is the soul of my family,” he says, describing the “torture” and powerlessness of seeing much of the city where he grew up.
Hiva, 35, an Iranian Kurd from Sanandaj in northwest Iran, also known as Sain, says he heard from his father last week before the US and Israeli attacks. He is less worried about his family as his place was not among the main targets of the attack. But they can’t be sure that it won’t change in the future.
Hiva fled Iran three years ago, crossing the English Channel to the United Kingdom after saying his friends had been arrested for their pro-democracy activities. Hiva explains that he has already been arrested twice for similar reasons in 2011 and 2014. During the first arrest, he says he was taken from his university, locked in a room and beaten. A second arrest resulted in a month spent in jail.
Now he thinks of his widowed father in his 70s, at home in Sain and suffering from cancer.
“I mean, it’s a big contradiction, you know, it’s a very big contradiction,” he says. He describes his life in the UK, how he can go out, go for a coffee and how people laugh.
“But when you return home, you are thinking about your family. You are in a terrible situation. You cannot balance between them,” he says of a life stretched emotionally between two continents and two different situations.
“I can’t sleep at night,” he says, “It’s affected my studies, my education, my work, everything.”
Political shock
Even before the current conflict, Iranians have struggled to watch unrest in their country.
Protests in January led to a government crackdown. The United Nations and international human rights organizations have accused government forces of killing thousands of protesters. The Iranian state blamed “terrorists” for many of the killings.
Like many in Iran, Maryam and Sara are used to oppression, and the violence it sparks. Maryam explains that her mother was a political prisoner. Maryam herself was involved in the 2009 Green Movement protests following the controversial re-election of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
A few days ago, she went through her attic, looking for things that reminded her of Iran.
She found a photo from those protest days.
“I was sitting down to show that we were peaceful,” she says, her voice warming at the memory of her childhood. “The sun is in my face and I’m kind of frowning. I’ve been through these things before. Everyone’s been through these things before. We’re always new and (it’s) pretend we don’t have it, but this isn’t new. We’ve all seen it coming. What I’m seeing is a repeat of what’s gone before.”
No one who spoke to Al Jazeera knows what the future holds for Iran. None of them expect the country or its people to be better off by the time the bombs stop. For now, everyone is worried about their friends and family, they have no choice but to try and live through it.
Maryam remembers her mother’s mental fortitude in the years following her release from the notorious Evin prison.
“When I was about 13 or 14 years old, they built a highway that (passed),” he says. “When you pass it you can drive and look in. I remember being in the car, my mum was driving and seeing how beautiful and determined she was – to pass all this darkness and not let it (effect) her.”
“She used to take her daughters to town, she wouldn’t let anyone take her away from us in her beautiful homeland,” says Maryam. “I think of Iran when I think of it. I will never allow all the ugliness and hatred that we’ve all been through to keep me away from it.”
(tags to translate) Features
