Both Eyes Closed
I was 9 years old the very first time I went to a protest. It was during the 2009-10 election when the corruption occurred. During that time, if I'm not wrong, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all got shut down by the regime. At that age, I didn't have a phone, and clearly, I didn't know what it felt like to lose my access to a certain "social media". 8 years later, another massive protest started in Iran. The government put more regulations on the Internet, and after the blackout, some news outlets reported 1500 were killed by the regime. Almost 2-3 years later, the tragedy of the Ukraine Plane happened, when the regime shot missiles at an airplane by mistake and killed hundreds of university students and other Iranians who were on their route to Kyiv. More protests. My last experience in Iran was during the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement in 2022. Perhaps that was the first time in my life I felt the fear of death while being in the streets. It was the first time I heard the gunshot, and it was the first time I saw people getting killed by the police. My hometown, Mashhad, is a religious city, and as a result, there are more conservatives and people close to the government than anywhere else. I had never seen any protest as huge as the one in 2022 in my life with my own eyes. It was both glorious and scary to be a part of it.
The regime shut down the internet for a couple of days during that time. Even the best VPNs stopped working. The world was in absolute darkness for us. As someone who was raised with a delicate connection to others, anywhere and anytime, I was terrified of what was happening to my friends. I had no option but to wait for the sun to rise, only to check if everyone is alive and not arrested by the police. To many of us, getting arrested wasn't that different from death. I came to China 2 years later. There were multiple small protests here and there since then, and the internet got shut down for a while during the 12-day war with Israel, but even then, I didn't feel the same level of fear that I'm experiencing now. During the war, there was more extensive international exposure, which could get information from the country, and the internet wasn't as weak as now. Currently, I have zero idea what is happening.
I still have the VPN account that I bought in Iran, and whenever the internet shuts down there, I'll also lose access to it. Last night, the VPN couldn't connect. I just left the cinema with my friends and checked the other free VPN I have and realized none of my friends in Iran has texted me in 3 hours. None of the Telegram channels had a new post, and Instagram was no different. I panicked. I tried my best to keep my shit together, but when I got home, I went into full meltdown mode. Now it's been almost 20 hours since I have no idea where my friends are and what they are doing. I can't focus on anything but that, and the more time that passes, the more I feel fragile. I feel deeply shattered by this pain, and I don't think there will be anything that can heal it apart from seeing them being happy. I was talking to my parents yesterday, right before going to the cinema, and while deep down I have some comfort that they are safe, I know how inconsistent and chaotic everything is in the Middle East. Hopefully, the sun will rise again, and this time, there won't be any grief.