Friday the 13th

Turns out to be ominous. The most ominous indeed.

I first learn the news of the bombing of my country from my best friend, who lives in Tehran. Before registering the attack, my first thought is how much I’ve missed his gorgeously deep voice. My second thought: no time to have thoughts, just panic panic panic. Rage. Internet. Analyses. Insanity. Further confusion and rage. Weirdly, for the first time in my life, I’m glad my parents are dead. Otherwise, they would be in the middle of it. Both being stubborn, risk-taking patriots who wouldn’t leave their home, who returned to Iran in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war to serve their country through its universities. Idealists, really. Now the bombs are falling unsettlingly close to our house in Tehran – that’s my inheritance going up in smoke. Not that financial matters should even matter at all at this point. At least, as an Iranian, I’m privileged that A. my patriotic parents are dead. B. all my siblings and their kids happen to be outside the country right now. Let’s count the blessings and breathe.

I was born right after a war, and I grew up under the threat of yet another war. I don’t recall exactly when this fear emerged in my psyche. I remember it solidified when the US invaded Iraq, and everyone said Iran would be next. I admit this was one of the reasons why I was determined to leave. The other reason was of course the awful government. But I’m so sick of saying that the Iranian regime is also nasty. So what? That doesn’t give other countries the right to bomb Iran. Yet, there is an insane narrative in the Western media, in the Iranian diaspora, and to a lesser extent, sadly inside Iran itself, that if you don’t cheer for Israel, it means you support the Iranian government aka the murderous oppressors of many Iranian civilians. Like most other dichotomies this is also a false one, a simplistic one at best, and a propagandist and reductive one at worst, propagated by both bloodthirsty governments and their naïve and cruel supporters. I’m sick of all these discussions, discourses, and dichotomies. I have done my best to avoid “politics” for a while, but there doesn’t seem to be an escape. Not if you’re Iranian right now or indeed ever.

On Friday the 13^th, the ominous day of Israel bombing Iran, my first impulse after video-calling my siblings, was to escape to the forest near the house. The forest is the only thing I increasingly love and connect with in this area, and often explore when the weather is nice. The forest has embraced my frustrations, my happiness, lust, confusions, and despair before. I know this time it won’t let me down either. It is often deliciously empty other than the occasional white woman with her big dog, or a fit man on a bike. While deciding to take myself to the forest, for the first time in my entire life I totally forgot I had to attend a work thing.

On Friday the 13^th, I was scheduled to tutor Persian at 2:30 pm in Hackney, and I simply forgot to turn up. Thankfully, my pupil was impressively understanding and sympathetic; I think partly because she has Iranian heritage herself. There was going to be a protest opposite the Israeli embassy. My partner begged me not to go there as it would be dangerous, but I felt suffocated in the house, couldn’t see my partner or even my cat, couldn’t speak English. I wanted to be with other Iranians, to hear Persian, and to only speak Persian. I got ready, not exactly knowing where I was going. I was thinking of going to the Israeli embassy to attend the protest, to scream, to somehow stop them from bombing my country. I was finally tired of living like a coward my entire life. I wanted to be brave for once. I dressed up, wore my black skort, even put on some make up. Lined my eyes with my favourite black liner, which is cutely called Perversion. Reddened my sallow cheeks with my new favourite blush, which is annoyingly called Grateful. Even made my bitten lips look less wounded with the help of a gloss. I thought if I was going to get killed at the Israeli embassy, I still wanted to look good, my kohled eyes shining through the blood running down my face, you can’t get any more Iranian than this. I wanted to be one of those beautiful martyrs, ruefully desired even after my demise. I thought of the Iranians slaughtered during the Woman, Life, Freedom in 2022, and one of my British friends asking me, “Why are they all so hot?” Genuinely bemused. I was also thinking of Mishima again, not just his stylised suicide, but also how misunderstood his political leanings are in the West, how he was hijacked by the right. All he really wanted was to oppose the Americanisation of Japan, and honestly, how is this a fascistic idea? Why should Japan (JAPAN!) be even remotely influenced by Cringe America? Ok, he also loved the Emperor. Too bad I can’t even force myself to like our stinky, tedious, regressive, murderous Supreme Leader, but I do love my country, my land, despite not having been there for seven years, because I couldn’t tolerate the government any longer. I couldn’t tolerate the Islamic dictatorship destroying our beautiful land and beautiful people. I couldn’t tolerate my own paralysing fear, my powerless rage. The chaos. The uncertainties. My anxious temperament couldn’t deal with it all anymore, and how I regret my cowardice now.

Friday the 13^th, when my homeland got bombed felt like the day that my mother died in 2016. That was also a Friday, but the 11^th. For a while after, I found myself attempting to convince myself that my mother died on the 12^th, so she would’ve been alive for one more day, but then I realised this wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Now Friday the 13^th feels just right in the most sinister way possible. I think of my grandmother who told me, losing her daughter was of course hard, but what made it harder was the other women in the mosque who started pitying her. She said I might know how to deal with the grief, but I’m not sure how to deal with being pitied.

On Friday the 13^th, I thought about being pitied, and realised that just like my grandmother, I too fear it more than death itself. We have two oppressors now, instead of one. It’s very pitiable, indeed. Though I don’t think we are user-friendly victims; Iranians are far from perfect victims. Unless it’s a young woman brutally slaughtered by the Iranian regime just right before the West is about to impose new sanctions, we are not often seen as victims. We are far too intimidating as a nation. After all, it has been stated that we have nuclear weapons. And we are, let’s say, passionate, at least stereotypically, but also let’s be honest, yes. Not a good mixture: military power with a hot head and a pinch of Islam… Terrorist much? We don’t do much better as secular immigrants either. Iranian immigrants are generally successful in most areas of life, they mostly flourish in the West. They are often from confident, upper middle-class backgrounds. They only date each other or powerful white people. They buy property. They exhibit Islamophobic tendencies. They are a bit snobby with questionable politics, hello, glamorous pro-Israel monarchists. In short, Iran’s situation has always been a bit too nuanced, and we are too much competition for white people to be properly pitied – only passive-aggressively patronised. But maybe being bombed will change this, too. Though I doubt it from the meaningful silence from white leftists who were obsessively and rightfully shouting about Palestine. But I shouldn’t be petty.

Despite being a British citizen, I only really feel Persian, Iranian. I don’t feel British. I know I never will, and frankly, I don’t want to. I appreciate my British passport, and I dislike my Iranian passport, a weak document issued by Islamic Republic, but I don’t feel British, I feel Persian. And surprisingly, I mostly love being Iranian, in fact, I’m one of those stupidly proud Iranians who annoy the fuck out of the self-loathing ones. Because I cannot help but feel that our civilisation, our poetry, our cuisine, our language, our warmth, our pride will outlive all these pathetically destructive politicians.

Once I left the house, I called my closest Iranian friend in London. I was worried about her; she had already been extremely disturbed by what Israel had been doing to Palestine. I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through, with the notorious genocide machine now bombing our own country . . . Where we grew up . . . Our own neighbourhood . . . Our own family and friends . . . I was hoping her parents wouldn’t be in Iran, but of course they were. Of course, my friend was beside herself. But we both calmed down after shouting on the phone for hours, exchanging bad political analyses, and realising we had missed the protest. I wanted to see her in person more than anything else. But first, I went into the woods.