Changing the Narrative of Iran

I'm sure you have been reading about the order from President Trump that has closed American borders to refugees and citizens from a number of predominantly-Islamic countries. If you need a primer, here is one report from The New York Times.

Iran is one of those countries.

Throughout history, America has always made broad generalizations about other countries (I am referring more to the perspective of the general citizenry than the government, though there's certainly a longer conversation to be had there as well). In the 1980s, the idea of the Soviet Union was so deeply embedded in the national consciousness that it was almost comical--even though the vast majority of people had never met anyone from the Soviet Union.

On Saturday, a woman named Mona, who was one of my high-school classmates and teammates, posted this as her Facebook status:

Of course, this country wouldn't want any more 1st female Fields Medal recipients (Maryam Mirzakhani), first employees at Google and executive chairman at Trump's beloved Twitter (Omid Kordestani), former #1 tennis players (Andre Agassi), inventor of Lasik eye surgery (Gholam Peyman), founder of ebay (Pierre Omidyar), first middle eastern SNL actors (Nasim Pedrad), president of Expedia (Dara Khosrowshahi), Oscar nominated directors who can no longer attend the ceremony!, doctors, writers, professors, physicists, lawyers, inventors, humanitarians, nobel peace prize winners, mothers, fathers, and let us not forget inventors of the beloved all-American Hot Pocket (David Merage). And you certainly wouldn't want someone like ME or my FAMILY. #iran

It got me thinking about this larger idea of "Changing the Narrative." When most people think of someone who is Iranian, I'm fairly certain they don't think of the people Mona mentioned, or even someone like Mona herself--an entrepreneur and successful businesswoman, a distance runner, a loving mother, and just a generally badass lady who we'd all be lucky to know. And I have to believe a reason for that is that the dominant narrative (in whatever form that takes) is that an Iranian person is not a successful and valuable contributor to American society.

This is just a Facebook post, but I see this as a step in changing that narrative.

Here's the other facet of this situation that I have to be honest about: I knew Mona and her family were middle Eastern, but I couldn't have told you she was Iranian until this post. Part of that, I'm sure, is simply that we weren't close enough that I ever hung out at her house or met her parents, and we were in different grades, so we wouldn't have been in class together where this might have come up in conversation. But something I fear is that when I see someone who's successful, I don't see their whole identity--especially the aspects of their identity that might classify them as other.

For those of you who took American Literature with me, I see this as an unsettling parallel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when Huck decides to stand up for his dear friend Jim, but does so with the perspective of I knew he was white inside.  Because to Huck, being black was still obviously a problem--a fact which escapes a lot of readers, not to mention Huck himself.

I think it's easy--too easy, problematically easy--to look at someone like Mona and simply say, "oh, well, she's an American," because a) she is and b) she fits our narrative of what an American should be. However, it also conveniently lets us avoid re-evaluating our perspective of Iran.

One of my best friends from high school was Lebanese, and I was close to her family and life experiences in a way that forever changed my perspective on that country--when I hear reports of news in Lebanon I know (and not just intellectually know, but know on a deep human level) that is her family. Those are people just like her family. Those are people she loves. That is her.  The news report that someone involved in a terrorist attack is Lebanese has never caused me to evaluate the whole nation of people through that lens because I know more. I know better.

The point of all of this is not that I wish I'd been better friends with Mona in high school, though that's undoubtedly true. Rather, personal relationships are one powerful way we change the narrative, and creating the chance to cultivate such relationships is imperative. But there are other ways to change the narrative, and telling and listening to personal stories is a major step in that process--and a crucial part of why this class exists.

This is perhaps something we'll return to when we delve into Persepolis in a few weeks, but it was on my mind now and you were the best group of people I could think to share these thoughts with.