The Right to Life
By Sasha McAria / Fall 2020
I feel my face on the hard and cold cement while my whole body hurts a lot due to severe torture. I like to cry but it is useless and I only feel hatred in my throat, not because of the pain of torture but because of why I cannot have my daily life as a free person. It is now 2009 and I am locked in a detention room. In the past, when I think I see what I have lost because of my beliefs, I remember very well how hard I tried to pass the university entrance exam and I had an excellent grade point average during my studies. The day I went to university to graduate, I was met with a bad response and a strange answer. "You cannot have your degree because you have changed your religion against government law and you are considered an apostate." At that moment, I felt the blow of a strong hammer in my brain. After all that effort, I have not earned anything now. This was looks same as I had been collecting water with a strainer basket for four years, but I was not disappointed and I tried to enrolled in a private university to continue my education and cover all my education expenses by working in the restaurant and delivery. But after two years and before I finished my studies, that university gave me the same answer and I was deprived of continuing my education. Now in this dark room that I think I see, it is true that I have a great interest in education, but instead I live by my beliefs, although this current situation does not mean life. I would to go on with my life, with the experience I had gained in college and the little money I had saved, I was able to rent a small shop and set up some basic equipment for a computer customer service. With a lot of effort, I made that shop bigger and registered a company. After these few years, now I have employees who can run my small company, and I can continue my religious activities. I had taken a Christian theology course for a year and a three-month intensive course in Turkey. However, I was able to satisfy my interest in studying to some extent. Now is the time to work and act. In the beginning, everything was going well and in the first two years of my activity, I could have worked easily because I was not well known to the country's intelligence service, but this situation also ended and I was arrested and now I am in this cold detention center. My whole-body hurts and I like to cry for the suffering of my soul not for my body pain.
The period of detention and torture ended after a few months, and I was released on parole, but not the individual freedom that every human being should have in his/her community. Now I have no longer a company and I cannot work anywhere. I was severely depressed for four months, and it was my only sister who sheltered me in her own home, otherwise I would have no place to live. During those four months, I lost all contact with the world. I was not active and I was scared to leave the house. Until after a while I decided to resume my religious activities. I contacted an Iranian-Canadian via email, and through him I was able to embark on the evangelistic mission that the employer was an American charitable church whose goal was to introduce Christ to the Iranian people. I started my job and traveled to different cities in Iran and recorded a gospel text in different Iranian dialects and languages. In fact, it was a continuation of the previous work for which I was arrested, but I believed in my beliefs and I enjoyed this activity. To be honest, this would give me a good salary.
On a cold autumn sunny day, I was passing by the University of Tehran with a few Bibles and CDs of my work in my backpack. In those days, the people's protests against the government were at their peak, and most of the protesters were students. The church I always went was next to the university, and I was oblivious to the events of the day. As I was walking towards the church, I realized that I was in the midst of the crowds, I tried to get away from it, but the roaring crowd was loud, and I inadvertently found myself in the crowd of protesters. People who shouted and chanted for their freedom and inalienable rights. The right that I also wanted, but I was not one of those people. Maybe it was because of the fear of returning to that dark, cold room and the torture that I did not want to chant. I knew that these protests would be fruitless and that everyone would either be killed or go to prison. The power of the people and their unity was low, only a limited number of student’s intellectuals were who felt they might other people in the community open their eyes and join them. I was no longer seeking freedom, I just wanted to live my life without trouble, even though my evangelistic activities were secretive and dangerous. I was struggling with these contradictions in my mind when I realized I had been arrested along with several students and taken to a van. They took my backpack and put me in a van with some students, and the agents were out of the van to arrest other people. For a moment, the person next to me opened the side door of the van that was near me and he pushed me out to he could get out of the van. At that moment I was really confused and shocked. One of the officers followed the man and tell me to get back in the van. It may have taken me thirty or forty seconds to figure out where I was in that tumultuous situation. I didn't think about anything anymore and just started running. I ran so hard that I had no idea where I was going and what I wanted to do. After about fifteen minutes, when I felt pain and tiredness in my leg, I stood up and saw that I was far enough away from that situation and everything around me was calm and normal. After a short break, I just remembered that my backpack was left in the van, a backpack that contained not only evidence of my illegal activities, but also an ID card and a bank cards that revealed my identity. My whole mind was occupied with this mistake and I was looking for a way out of this situation. Really, why should I live in a country where people are deprived of the basic rights of a free man and should always live in fear? I have never been politically active and my political intelligence is very weak, although during my detention I was accused of espionage and they called me a political activist. The main problem of my society was social rights, a dilemma that could be kindly solved by the rulers of my country. I was now in a country with hard-hearted rulers who deprived me of the right to study, work and live a quiet life, simply because I have a belief in my mind that they do not accept.
All I needed at the moment was counseling, so I decided to contact the church. The priest in charge told me that it would take some time to check your belongings, it is better to leave the country as soon as possible. I had little time and therefore it was not possible to get a plane ticket, so I decided to travel by bus, so I called my sister to get my passport and I was able to get a ticket the next day. I spent the whole night in the terminal and the next day I left Iran for Turkey. The trip lasted almost a day and a half, and although the route was full of anxiety and stress for me, but finally I arrived in Turkey without any problems.
When I arrived in Turkey, I felt better and saw myself as a man of freedom to some extent, but new problems were about to start. Fortunately, I already had many friends in Turkey who made things easy for me. I was at a friend's house for the first week, and with his guidance I took the initial steps to apply for asylum, and then rented a house with the help of friends. Unfortunately, in the first few months, all my savings were spent on household items and food. Now I have to look for a suitable job, but contrary to the notion that I will live freely, I realized that I am not allowed to work in Turkey, but the need for money made me work illegally. I went to several different places to find work, but I found out that when employers find out that I am a foreigner, they consider low wages and hard work for me. I was just like the farmers of William Faulkner’s novel “ The farmers who could not pay saw their homes and land taken away. They become tenants. By 1880, 25 percent of all farms were rented by tenants, and the number kept rising. Many did not even have money to rent and become from laborers”, so I can see the racist sentiment of the Turks was clear. What can be expected from the Turks when I was treated like this in my homeland? I worked hard in Turkey for two years with very low than minimum wage, but hoping to one day move to another country that accepts my refugee application and enjoy the delicious taste of freedom. And after about two years, the United States accepted me and I was able to come to San Diego.
I was happy to come to the United States, and I was very happy to find personal freedom and the right to education. In the very first days, I realized that I was going to have a very difficult life ahead of me. Not knowing English and unfamiliar with the environment and people's culture, made me feel depressed. The People looked at a person who did not know the language, showing a racist feeling. I realized that the joy of freedom I was seeking might be nothing more than a mirage. Anyway, I had to start trying to build my new life, and for that I went to free English classes and looking for a job, but I could not to pass any of the job interviews. finally, I find a job in an Iranian restaurant and earned money for my expenses. In order to achieve my main goal of studying at a university that I was deprived the right to do in my home country, I started researching and realized that in order to be able to use the scholarship, it would take a year to prove that I resident of California. After a year I Successful to entering and enrolling in community college, I experienced this pleasant feeling of freedom. Over time, I became aware of the attitudes of those around me, which may have stemmed from the hidden racism within them, and it was very difficult to find friends in the early days, so much so that I could only make friends with other refugees from other countries. My early friends being the Somali (African) and making friends with them were much easier than befriending white Americans.
After years of living in the United States, I realized that, contrary to the notion that this country is a free country and that racism is a crime in it, I seen some people are still racists, although they do not express it openly, But they still have this sense of racism in themselves. I came to the United States after going through all the hardships in my country and going through the hard way to find freedom, although no one has a problem with my religion anymore, although I achieved my dream of continuing my education, but I can see clearly again to there is no such thing as real freedom. There are always individuals and groups everywhere who disrupt the freedom of others. I remember Martin Luther King Jr. giving a speech in Washington in 1963, he said “ Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.” I must say that after about six hundred years of this speech, if we look deeply at the environment and the behavior of some people in the society, we will realize that these discriminations still exist and have not completely disappeared. I feel that King's dream has not yet come true. who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" he said “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” And says several other "we can never". It is clear that Martin Luther has not yet achieved that beautiful dream of freedom, because there are still George Floyd who are being killed by the police, and this discrimination is not only for our black friends, but other races have the same problems.
I remember in previous years the law "Muslim ban" was signed by the president. I saw the horror in my Iranian friends who were residents of the United States. Fears of not returning to the United States after traveling to Iran would have made fewer people dare travel to Iran to meet their family. Even though I was not a Muslim and I was a refugee from my Muslim country, I was not safe from this law of "Muslim ban", because my first nationality was Iranian and it would burn dry and wet both together. I remember well that I had plan to travel to Turkey at that time so that I could meet my friends and other friends in Iran would come there to meet me, but I was afraid that when I want to return to the United States, It is possible that they will prevent me from entering, that caused me to cancel my trip. The effects of this law on the normal life of people who were Muslims in those seven countries and lived in the United States were nothing but stress and despair for them. It is true that I am not a Muslim, but I have many Muslim friends, and I believe that they, like everyone else, have the right to freedom and should not be judged or discriminated against because of their beliefs. What is the difference between the United States, which is known for its human rights, and individual freedom, and other countries like Iran? If King had a dream for this country, it was related to all races and beliefs, which he said: “we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Works Cited
Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” Speech August 28 1963
Twohig, N. , “SYSTEMIC ANALYSIS FOR EVERYDAY LIFE”. UCSan Diego Bookstore, 2020 p.52.