untitled unedited.
Israel bombarded my country 72 hours ago. It's not the first time that this happens. Almost three decades ago, Iraq (or let's say, the axis of every powerhouse) invaded my country around the same time as the revolution occurred and the administration was in its poorest arrangement structurally. Yesterday I saw an image of a destroyed house where there was a book in between bricks, "Zamine Sokhte" (The Scorched Earth) by Ahmad Mahmoud. The book is a novel about the barbarity of Saddam's regime during the war with Iran and how they slaughtered everyone in the southern and western territories. That war was started by Iraq and this war was begun by Israel. We were never the ones who initiated.
I can't deny the fact that the government of my country is not the genuine saviors that now some netizens might consider or the leaders who got assassinated by Israel invasions (among numerous innocent civilians) were indeed righteous individuals who were doing any good to the Iranians, I can't overlook recent events, movements, mass killings and political prisoners. They were certainly the opposite side of it. But at the same time, I can't dismiss the main causes of this crisis. While the government of my country constantly yapped about their motives to fully destroy Israel, any Israeli government capitalized on a similar tone and words to express their own rationales to obliterate not only Iran but every other nation in the Middle East (or perhaps in the world). The disparity was that Israel not only committed an absolute genocide in Gaza and has been destabilizing Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq since the British mandate, but correspondingly never got any International sanctions or backlash from the Western politicians or media. While no matter what is taking place in Iran, associated with the government or not, Iranians will pay through the many sanctions of the same countries who never even condemn Israel. We Iranians are not just the victims of the government's missteps and its totalitarianism, but also the victims of the powers of the world who never supported us.
When I woke up yesterday and saw the news of the attack on Tel Aviv I was satisfied. I knew that I shouldn't be pleased since the escalation of this war, like any other war, would bring nothing but more struggle to the everyday life of my people, but witnessing the ones who were cheerful and parading when the Palestinians in Gaza were getting massacred was fortunate. I understood my sentiments were not humane as definitely there are non-zionist civilians who got damaged, but the circumstances of the last 24 years of my life got me to this point that I have zero sympathies for them, but I'm quite delighted to see they are feeling the bare minimum of what we were been going through for our entire lives.
I saw my Belgian friend last night and he told me "I met many Iranians in my life and you all have something in common, you all hate your government but love your abstract version of the country and people. It's not the same in Belgium or maybe any other European country. We simply don't care about neither country or government" and I responded by saying that we Iranians went through the suppression not just from the government, but also all these other governments of the world. We never had any allies but ourselves and by that, we got closer to each other and this abstract concept of the country. We are Iranian and no matter how much any government in the world puts us under pressure, we will try our best to survive and find a way to support each other.
Regardless, at the end of the day, I'm not living in Iran anymore and undoubtedly, I don't give myself any privilege to question the people in the country about how they should feel or what should they do. I'm not in the position to even comment on their approach toward this war, but as an Iranian who lived in that place for 23 years and most of his family and friends are still there, I hope this war ends as soon as possible and in a way that is the best for my people and anyone who went through the horror of Zionism and radicalism in the our region.