The articles on this page and the next two pages were part of a discussion, on the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of wide world change, about living under a dictatorship.
See also the article by Azi Khalili, “Living Under a Dictatorship,” on page 77 of the January 2021 Present Time.
Growing Up Under a Dictatorship
I have been discharging on the dictatorship and political repression I grew up under during my first eight years in post-revolution Iran. My very young parents were activists, and we lived in hiding and in constant fear for our lives. Children as young as twelve were executed without trial, sometimes for “crimes” such as selling political newspapers or spreading leaflets. Rape of girls and women political prisoners was openly encouraged. My parents couldn’t openly show their thinking, not even to me, because it could endanger our lives. It was dangerous to think differently, and life threatening to voice ideas and to protest. It was dangerous to tell even people whom we loved where we lived. Everything was secret. I didn’t understand why.
We fled to Sweden, a country that many people think is the best in the world. I became an activist in my teens. However, I stopped my activism because the police did things that everyone denied that the Swedish police would do. They were racist and sexist toward me. They threatened us with violence and rape. I was scared of the things they did, and even more scared of how everyone denied it and how the media didn’t write truthfully about it.
I have been avoiding confrontational activist situations because of what happened to me. But I want to do something about war and the Swedish weapons industry. I want to contribute to the fight for this planet. I want to speak up publicly against sexism. However, I have been feeling powerless, terrified, and incapable of taking steps in these directions.
I have been asked to consider becoming an Area Reference Person (I said yes), and all that I have suppressed and trivialized for so many years has come up. I had already been discharging on those feelings, but not like I am now. There is no way around it now. In order to be such a visible leader I have to do everything that was severely punished during my upbringing, things that can still get two thirds of the world’s people in trouble and, to some extent, everyone else. I have to have an opinion and voice it. I have to trust my thinking. I have to be visible and think about others. I have to put my neck out (show my vulnerability). I have to be open about the great and “impossible” ideas I have for our Area and the world, and I have to trust others. My distress recording “says” that if I am Area Reference Person there will be fewer leaders to hide behind during the next coup and the execution squad is approaching.
HERE ARE SOME OF MY FEELINGS:
Terror: My whole family is terrified (this is evident in our health). I feel I might get shot in the head for writing this e-mail. I have Co-Counseling sessions in which I describe how members of my RC Area will come and kill me in my sleep or hang me by my neck when they find out I have had the audacity to even consider becoming an Area Reference Person. This recording has additional roots in genocide—I am Assyrian from my mother’s side. Her parents survived the 1915-1925 genocide of Assyrians.
Hopelessness: My parents didn’t succeed in making the world or Iran the fair place they wanted. They didn’t get justice from the occupiers and didn’t free their people. All they have done, all the dangers they have been through, all the comrades they’ve lost, and how they sacrificed their youth and my childhood—the feeling is that not much came of it [it didn’t make much difference]. They feel guilty for not succeeding. I feel guilty for surviving.
Humiliation: We had to give up integrity and courage to survive the daily assaults. I feel humiliated that I sometimes still do that even though I can protest now and keep my head attached to my body. It is humiliating that the oppressive system can keep me “in place” without directly threatening my life.
Gothenburg, Sweden
(Present Time 203, April 2021)