 We
are all the same
I assured him that religion did not matter to me
at all
By Ariana Far
May 23, 2003
The Iranian
It was almost the beginning of this year. Second quarter had already
started for us college students and it was my first time taking
chemistry. It was a big class with lots of people, most of them
who were all freshmen starting as premeds and dropping out of class
the second week after realizing all the work load that came with
chemistry. The class was good although at first intimidating. I
did not know anybody in the class and was eager to meet more people,
so I could start studying with them.
Although in a big class, it was still quite easy for me to pick
out some Persian faces in the class. You walk in class and you see
someone with the Persian face and you wonder if they are Persian
or not but you don’t really realize until they look back at
you with that Persian “Hey, I know you’re Persian too”
look.
In the first week I ended up picking up one of these faces. It
was a guy, somewhat cute which I was quite sure was Persian. I did
not know if he ever noticed me or not. But I could pretty much say
he was Persian with that dark, olive skin, thick eyebrows, and a
little gesture.
To my luck I finally ended up meeting a girl, ‘Ann’
in my small chemistry section. She was from the same town as me
and she went to the same high school as me, so I was excited that
I finally met someone I could study with. To my surprise, very soon
I ended up befriending couple of other girls in that class and soon
we were all hanging out and going to the study room together.
The funny thing was that these girls all ended up knowing the mystery
guy in that class, “The Persian Potential” as me and
Ann call it. Although everyday after class we would all end up talking
outside of class I never talked to this guy, though he was friends
with my other friends. I was still curious to know who he was and
what he was.
So finally one day I asked my friend Ann, “What is this guy’s
nationality?” because his name definitely did not sound Persian
to me. My friend said she did not know either, but she knew that
he was Jewish and that he lived in a Jewish fraternity. I was finally
relieved that all the suspicions were gone, and concluded that he
was NOT Persian.
I thought that perhaps because he has some Jewish background he
just looked a little like us. But for some reason every time I saw
him after class he would still keep giving me that Persian smile.
I guess it is just something that we Persians just pick up, and
I was sure I knew the kind of smile that a Persian guy gives to
a Persian girl. But we had never even talked except the whole “hi”
and “bye” thing.
Couple of weeks passed by until one day I was in Ann’s room
trying to download this Persian song from the internet. Then, I
got an IM message from her AOL Messenger. I did not know who it
was from, probably one of Ann’s friends. So I just started
talking to this stranger, whom I did not know.
When Ann saw me talking to him, she told me that it was the Jewish
guy from the chem. class. Ann being a typical American did not know
much about the other countries and it took her a while to finally
understand where Iran was, so she never knew where this guy was
from. She just joked around and told me, “He's from the Jewish
land.”
Knowing that I was on the other side of the Internet talking to
this mystery guy, I was excited to finally talk to him. He did not
know I was on the other side of the computer, thinking that he was
talking to Ann. I finally blurred out the question, “Are you
Persian?” Knowing that he was definitely NOT Persian, just
a Jewish guy, I was surprised to get the message, “Yes I am
Persian.”
I thought he was definitely kidding. So I started saying some words
in Persian to see if he knew them. And yes, he could say some little
words like “salaam” or “Haaleh shomaa chetoreh.”
This was getting really exiting and weird for me. I wondered, he
could not possibly be lying. By now he already knew that it was
not Ann who was talking to him and that it was me, so the phone
starting ringing and it was him, and Ann had to tell him that I
was the one talking to him online.
I was surprised to know that this whole time he knew I was Persian
although my name did not completely sound Persian and could have
been basically been from any country. Being excited that he was
a Jewish and half Persian I realized that his real home country
was in Israel. Although eager to hear the story of his dad leaving
Iran at a young age, he did not want to continue the sad story of
his family’s immigration to Israel much. So we left our conversation
at that point and I told him that I had never met a Jewish Persian
before.
When I went home I thought about him a little, I knew that he
definitely did not still fit within the Persian category, or the
Persian crowd at school. It really broke my heart when he told me
that when he told the Persians that he was Jewish, he was faced
with weird looks and ignorance. I do not really know if what he
said was true or not, but I was definitely excited to have met a
Jewish Persian for the first time. Coming from a small town I had
barely met any Persians let alone a minority Jewish Persian.
I asked him if he ever wanted to go back to Iran or his dad ever
missed Iran. I was surprised to get an indifferent response that
his real home was in Israel not in Iran. Although this meeting took
place at the beginning of the year, we ended up talking to each
other and ended up being in the chemistry class again this quarter.
When I saw him at a party one night, he came up to me and told
me something that really hurt me. He said the reason he never told
me at first that he was Persian was that he thought I would hate
him. He said that if I would have found out he was Jewish I would
have hated him because I was technically a Muslim.
Although I was mad at him for thinking such a thing I was so upset
to think that there is such thinking in the world. I assured him
that religion did not matter to me at all, realizing all the wars
that are going on in the world over religion. I just wished that
all the religious differences would have been gone, that all of
us Iranians would be united regardless of that. That it did not
matter if we were Jewish, Muslim, Bahai or Christian but the fact
that we all came from one root, from Persia made me want to love
them. I just wish that more Iranians would have realized that.
I do still pray for a day that everyone can live in Iran where
the home is not where you are persecuted for you religion. So if
you are an Iranian anywhere in the world, I love you and I am united
with you and if you are different from me you are still a Persian
and you make the name of ‘Iran’ beautiful.
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We
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