Dear Nazy Khanoom,
This is written in response to your touching “My Generation.” Unlike some of the posters who originally replied to your article, I shan’t engage in Monday morning quarterbacking. I don’t wish to blame your (and my mother’s) generation for the revolution that brought to power the deadliest enemy faced by our people in over a thousand years.
Few among you could have envisioned the mess Iran’s revolution would, over the years, prove to be. Your generation has, without doubt, paid dearly for its youthful naivety and unrestrained idealism, but it cannot wash its hands of how things have turned out. None amonst you can absove yourselves of responsibility by saying every generation blames the one before it for something. Nor can you diminish the responsibility you must bear by saying that your generation has sacrificed the most for bringing about the tragedy which has befallen our homeland. Nothing good has come of this revolution, and the one immutable fact which remains after all is said and done is that the younger generations had nothing whatsoever to do with your generation’s revolution.
Those of your generation have paid a high price, but so have the younger generations. The post-revolution generations have paid with their happiness, their freedom, their blood and their lives just as yours has. The biggest difference is that the ocean of blood paid by your generation was mainly paid in defending the nation from a foriegn invasion, which many believe never would have occurred absent the ascendance of the Islamists in Iran, while the ocean of blood paid by the younger generations has been in trying to free our country from the the tyranny of the enemy from within. This enemy was put firmly in place by your generation, and this fact that is beyond dispute.
I am sad that your generation and my mother’s generation had to flee Iran to find peaceful places around the world to live and raise your children. I know that living in foreign countries has not always been easy or pleasant for any of you. You all carry within you hearts a sadness and longing for the homeland you left behind. You have been forced to endure this, however, because of events of your own making.
I am even more sad for the millions of our people who were too young to have participated in your revolution, but who have in adulthood had to flee Iran. While your generation has had anywhere from 15 to 30 years or more to adapt to new languages and cultures in faraway lands, our countrymen to this day are fleeing the terror your generation’s revolution brought.
Then there is the generation of Iranians born in America, Canada, Australia, Europe and other places around the world. This is my generation and I am saddest of all for it. We have been robbed of our homeland, our culture, and our traditions. We are freaks. We don’t fit in completely in the land of our ancestors nor do we fit in completely in the land of our birth. Don’t feel sad for us though, for in a few more generations all that is Persian in our hearts and in our characters will be washed away from the characters of our grandchildren by the melting pot societies we have had no choice, but to call home.. This will be just one more in the many direct results of your generation’s revolution.
At least those in your generation have memories of life in Iran; many of us we do not because we never had the chance to live there! Many Diaspora-born Iranians cannot speak the language of our people, and many more can’t read the beautiful language of our ancestors. Your revolution cost your generation much, I admit, but the price of you foolhardiness will be paid for generations to come by Iranians both inside and outside Iran.
After this many years, as far as I’m concerned, there is no room for blame; there is only room for tears…tears for your generation, for mine, and for those that are yet to come; but most of all there ought to be tears for what might have been.
Khoda Nagah-dar,
Lance
