Remarks at a Rally Against the Attacks on Iran

Elaheh Farmand

Editor’s note: Elaheh made these remarks at the June 26 rally against the Israel and US attacks on Iran in Bethlehem, PA.

Like many immigrants from the West Asia, today I am processing grief. The grief, shock, and outrage as I watched Israel and the US bomb Iran, my birth country. Iran, whose language and songs I speak and sing proudly. Iran, who has been meddled with too many times by Western powers. Iran, whose people are tired of fighting to break free. Iran, whose voices have been repressed too many times, including by their own leaders.

I am a daughter of war. I was born in Tehran in 1987 at the tail end of the eight-year Iraq-Iran war. While I don’t have memories tainted by war, my family does. My family knows the sounds of bombs, and the warnings beforehand, as they hurried their way down to bomb shelters. They know how to be ready to flee quickly, bags packed, eyes alert. They know the feeling in their stomachs, when the skies light up with missiles, and the destruction that follows.

In the US, when my family hears sirens, their hearts race and fear takes over. For immigrants in the US, sirens and fireworks are a reminder of danger — the danger they had hoped to escape when they left their homelands, often as their last option.

All of us here like to believe that we are safe, but safety is an illusion in an empire that prides itself on the mightiest military and uses military force on its own citizens. We manufacture weapons of mass destruction right here, but we go to war with brown people in the West Asia, falsely accusing them of having weapons of mass destruction.

The puppets in power tell us that we are at war to liberate the people of Iran. They said the same about Libya, about Iraq, about Afghanistan. When have US bombs and missiles ever liberated a people? By now we have all witnessed in horror what our bombs, signed proudly by our congresspeople, do to our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

To the few in power, this is all a game show. We are the actors in an absurd, tragic comedy. The question is, will we the people rewrite this script?

I believe that we will. I choose hope over despair. I choose love over hate. Let us show up with love and compassion for our communities, our neighbors, our children. Let us unite together with love as we stand against masked agents breaking up our immigrant communities. Whether in the streets, in our homes or workplaces, let us be kinder to one another and show these puppets that they cannot divide us. For a people united can never be defeated.

Elaheh Farmand is an Iranian immigrant and writer. In 2016, she founded the series, “Immigrants & Exile: Stories of Nostalgia & Longing”. The series gives space for people to share their experiences of nostalgia, exile, and longing. Elaheh fights for and dreams of a society restructured to place people’s needs and wellbeing before profits. She is occasionally nostalgic for her childhood in Iran, but focuses her energy on organizing, connecting with her community, her family and friends.