Twenty years have past since I left my homeland Iran during time of war and terror. The search for life in a better world with freedom and democracy is what brought my parents and many other Iranians to leave there loving family and friends at home.
Leaving such a wonderful country with its rich history and with all friendly people can not be easy no matter how bad the political and social situation might be. Your place of birth is your place of hart and soul, leaving that will hunt you forever.
Just like many other Iranians that left the country during the 80's, my parents fled to Sweden, the cold country in the northern Europe, heart of Scandinavia. For my parent this was a long and hard journey. Not only because of the fact that their past was complicated and sad, but mostly do to the fact that they had been told to worry and fear the future.
No matter how much ambition and hard work they had done and were going to do in Sweden, the fear and worrying took a toll on their strength. Unfortunately their anxieties have past over to me.
At first both my parents were very homesick and unease in Sweden. When the Immigration Board of Sweden gave us our political asylum we where moved to a small community in the middle of Sweden. With us many other Iranian families left the refuge camp and were settled in different parts of Sweden.
It was a very wise plan at first but with time more and more Iranians left the smaller towns to search for better opportunities in the cities. This has left many Iranian families quite lonely in this country. And this for sure leads young people like me to lose our Iranian identity as our Swedish identity grows stronger.
Unfortunately the few Iranians left in my community have no interest in traditional festivities, not even Noruz. In fact we are more interested in finding out which of us will move to Stockholm or Gothenburg next.
For a long time my question has been: Does moving to new homes in big cities leads to prosperity, happiness or simply a better life? The closer I get to an answer, more do I come to see that I have to leave what has become me home in Sweden. Lots of factors have made life harder for me and many other young Iranians.
Even if I know that; what you make out of your life and how you are as a person — that really matters and not the size of your community. I still find it hard to see myself living in a city.
The older I get the more I learn that only you can make yourself lonely. When you are on your own (by yourself) you must learn to like yourself and take care of yourself. When you do that, you know the difference between loneliness and “being by yourself”. This is one of the things I have found almost impossible to learn about other Iranians, specially my dear parents.
As a Swedish-Iranian I don’t feel lonely in Sweden, but often very sad. I have to cheer myself up to avoid dropping into depression (again)! I can’t say I miss my “homeland” because Iran is not my homeland any more. Socializing with other Iranians is not so easy since they all have left our little town. I find it even very difficult to socialize with my parents.
I don’t really have any word of wisdom to Iranians out there and I don’t want your sympathy or understanding. I just want you all to know that it does not matter how much better our life is outside Iran — some of us have pain in our heart and soul. I don’t care about politics, money, power, career and love, I just wish my homeland was the best place on earth so I could move back there.
My name is Cyrus and I live in Karlstad, Sweden.
