June 25, 2009
Iranian Native Sees Hope Despite Turmoil In Terhan
The quiet streets of Brawley are a long way from Tehran, Iran. But for one Brawley resident, the current unrest in Iran is immediate, urgent, and personal.Rashine Delkhah was born in Tehran, Iran in 1979, just as the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran and installed an Islamic Republic was taking place.
Nine years later, in 1988, she left with her mother and brother after the end of Iran-Iraq war. She says Iranian authorities did not allow her father to leave the country.
Now, twenty years later, events in her homeland are compelling her to speak out about her homeland.
Two weeks ago, Iranians went to the polls to elect a new president. Because of economic conditions in Iran, some thought that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the conservative incumbent, might be vulnerable to a challenge by the slightly more moderate Mir-Hossein Moussavi. But shortly after the polls closed, and with what some said were incomplete vote counts, the Iranian government declared Ahmadinejad a landslide winner in what had been seen as a close election.
"What they do want is freedom day-to-day, meaning they can go to the school they want, have their kids go to the school they want, be able to walk to the bus stop without worrying about the street police picking up your first born son." - Rashine Delkhah
Iran exploded in protest. Now Delkhah, along with millions of others, watches the shaky video of thousands of Iranians who dispute the election results flooding the streets of Tehran, and riot police cracking down hard in an attempt to stop the protests.
Delkhah, who refers to herself as Persian, says the questionable results of the elections in Iran, and the riots and unrest in the streets of Tehran and in other cities across the country, are of great concern to herself and her family. She says she still has extended family that lives in Iran. She added that since shortly after the election, she hasn't been able to communicate with relatives there.
“We are not able to get through. We are calling with calling cards from a land line. We are not able to get through to any land lines in Tehran,” said Delkhah.
Though her native country is again in political turmoil, Delkhah says she wasn't surprised at the election results.
“When the whole election thing happened, I wasn't that surprised that Ahmadinejad won,” said Delkhah. “I kind of thought it was funny for the first day or two that it was getting so much media attention, because I was just like 'What did we expect? '”
But the ongoing protests changed her perspective
“But when it turned into this rally and Moussavi got involved, and now it a revolution ... I started paying closer attention to it and watching it more,” Delkhah said.
Even though the nation of Iran is still wrestling with the election aftermath, Delkhah said there is still a higher authority in the country that will still be in power no matter who is declared the winner of the presidential election: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who still holds the real power in the country. He is the successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
“This is like a dream of ours, I mean my mom said that she didn't actually think she would see this in her lifetime." - Rashine Delkhah“What people don't realize now is that they are making it about a Ahmadinejad or Moussavi issue and it isn't,” Delkhah said. “The people there don't necessarily want another election they want the regime to change, they want Khamenei the dictator to be out. They don't care who the president is because honestly he is just a puppet, they care more about having a democracy state and better open relations with foreign policies, and the only one who controls that is Khamenei.”
She added that even though Moussavi represented a change from the current leadership, he was still a conservative candidate.
“He is not the perfect candidate, although he does offer more to the people and to the women and the youth than Ahmadinejad does,” Delkhah said.
The recent events in Iran bring to mind a fundamental reality that Delkhah knows from firsthand experience: The freedoms that exists in the U.S. do not exist around the world, elections don't always end with a clear result, and simply walking down the street without being arrested and taken away because of your political beliefs is, for many people around the world, a dream rather than reality.
“I think it's more of a repressed people wanting day to day freedoms,” Delkhah said of the political mood in Iran.”(There are) things that here in the United States, they don't even cross your mind because you can get up, get out of your house, walk out. What they do want is freedom day-to-day, meaning they can go to the school they want, have their kids go to the school they want, be able to walk to the bus stop without worrying about the street police picking up your first born son. I think the day-to-day freedom is what concerns them the most.”
While she acknowledges that conservatives in Iran still have substantial public support, Rashine Delkhah said the I-phone images of protesters standing up to the fundamentalist government of Iran is something she never thought would happen.
“This is like a dream of ours, I mean my mom said that she didn't actually think she would see this in her lifetime,” said Delkhah said. “She hoped it would happen in my lifetime so I'm able to take my own children back there and feel free to walk the streets of Iran and show them where I am from.”