I demand an ending, because that’s what I deserve

It has been 17 days now since I wanted to write something about Iran, but my pen couldn’t proceed. It’s as if my world stopped on January 8th. For two weeks, it was all I saw when I checked Iranian pages, groups, and channels on social media. I lost contact with my original community. Now, every once in a while, someone gets online and sends a message or two, but then, as suddenly as they appeared, they return to digital darkness again. They describe the atrocities they witnessed, which can generally be summed up in three words: They killed everyone.

I’m an Iranian expat in Europe who literally ditched a war and a massacre since the last spring. What a lucky bastard I am! Ironically, five years ago, I didn’t even want to immigrate. Now, I see that my abrupt migration was the wisest move I ever made in my life, and this is the dismal point. When leaving your home, family, and friends with no intention of returning is a rational choice, it suggests that your life was bleak. When millions of people from the same society feel this way, it means that society needs help.

Over the past 17 days, I have thought hard about all the reasons I hate Islamic sovereignty in Iran. Ultimately, I concluded that there is only one reason for that, and all the others can be seen as sub-branches of it. I hate the Islamic regime because it has deprived my society of its potential. It has prevented Iran from becoming the country it could be. A country located at the crossroads of the world with rich natural and human resources should be an economic superpower. Yet, the Islamic regime has driven it to the point that a large portion of its population cannot even obtain enough calories to survive.

Folks who are not familiar with the circumstances of Iran may be surprised that Iranians are chanting in favor of the exiled crown prince. They are chanting in support of the Pahlavi family, a dynasty that Iranians overthrew in 1979. Why has Pahlavi popularity resurfaced? The most obvious answer is the Islamic regime’s awful performance in economics and human rights. But I can rephrase, or better say elaborate, that Iranians have had to face what Persian literature calls the “mirror of grief” every day for the past decades. This mirror is an objective example of what you could have and could be, but don’t and aren’t. The mirror of grief that Iranian society looks at daily is the combination of the small, super-rich Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. Iranian society remembers that during the era of the last king of Iran—which they refer to as the “God-blessed” era—Iran began development plans similar to those of these countries over the past five decades. Foreign investments, tourism, a powerful national airline, and hosting international events were part of Iran’s landscape in the ’70s. Now, all of that is gone, and Iranians must look to the other side of the Persian Gulf to see what they could have been.

News of a possible U.S. intervention in Iran gives me hope because it promises the demise of the regime that destroyed my country’s potential and prevented my society from progressing. Ending the Islamic regime in Iran is a demand I make as an Iranian. Initially, I intended to write “we demand an end,” but then I realized that I don’t represent anyone. I’m not entitled to speak on behalf of anyone else. I’m aware that many other Iranians feel the same way, but I prefer to speak only for myself. I, Ali Deilami, demand an end to the Islamic regime in Iran because I deserve a better government to rule my country. Everyone deserves the chance to fulfill their potential and be all that they can be, and Iranians have fought hard to have such chance. I just want the international community to help my society gain what it deserves.