Fear, Faith, and the Futility of Choosing Sides

It happened.

Israel and Iran went to war. An event long talked about, imagined, dreaded, but still unthinkable when it finally occurred. It had always felt like hollow chants thrown into the wind.

I grew up in post-revolutionary Iran. The areas hit by Israeli rockets - Nobonyad, Heravi, Shahrak-e-Gharb - were places I knew like the back of my hand. I wandered their back alleys, went to pizza places and cafés, held hands and shared kisses with lovers in their shadowy corners. All I could think of was the people who lived there. Friends. Family. I could only imagine their horror.

My only other memory of war was as a child, hiding under our dining table while Iraqi bombs fell. Maman lay beside me and my brother. Baba was at the front, fighting Saddam’s forces. It was the 1980s. Growing up, our walls were adorned with pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini. The war was named “The Holy Defence.” Back then, everything was easier: good versus evil, black and white.

My childhood was shaped by faith and fear, by Sharia law, public piety, and chants of revolution. We regularly attended the Qods rallies on the last Friday of Ramadan, stomping on American and Israeli flags, chanting “Death to America and Israel.”

I mirrored my parents’ prayers and beliefs, until those beliefs began to clash with who I was. By my teenage years, I understood that the words “gay” and “Shia Islam” did not belong next to one another where I lived. I tried to change myself, through prayer, religion and science. I prayed that my gayness, “the phase”, would disappear. I saw a psychologist, hoping to convert to the “right path.” That’s what my faith demanded.

At twenty-two, I began to explore Tehran’s underground gay scene. There, I found a chosen family; one which was as flamboyant and colourful as it gets.

President Ahmadinejad infamously said in 2007, “There are no gays in Iran.”But not only did we exist, we were thriving.

Under the heavy veil of Sharia law, something was shifting. A quiet revolution stirred. Morality police and keffiyeh-wearing Basiji militias raided our parties and protests. Each crackdown brought a wave of hopelessness. But the defiance of our generation, the so called ‘children of the revolution’, endured.

When I visited Tehran last year, I saw women walking without headscarves. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement had left a mark. For the first time in years, protest didn’t feel futile. There was hope. The incessant stir under the veil had been fruitful.

During the Twelve Day War, contact with my family was brief and scattered. Maman, nearly eighty, still had the revolutionary spirit pulsing through her atherosclerotic veins. “If I die, I die... I will be a martyr,” she said over the phone, her voice cracking. Her devotion sincere. I could imagine her praying for the downfall of “The Great Satan,” as the grand Ayatollah called America.

My friends in Tehran sent WhatsApp voice notes: the roar of explosions, the rattling sounds of air defence systems. My cousin sobbed on the phone, terrified. A young man doing his compulsory military service, the same service I once did, was killed in an air raid. He’s now counted as a military target. I can only imagine how much he would have hated that. A woman was killed while withdrawing money from an ATM.

Netanyahu issued a message to the Iranian people. “Rise up, topple your regime, this is your chance”

The Ayatollah sent a message: “Thanks to Allah, we have slapped America and Israel hard.”

Iran’s rockets hit Tel Aviv.My partner is Jewish. Some of his family live in Israel. Neighbourhoods he knows, close to where his loved ones live, were hit; “The slap”.

His family’s warmth - their acceptance of their gay son’s Iranian, non-Jewish partner - is something I once thought impossible. I attend their Shabbat dinners, bar and bat mitzvahs, Rosh Hashanah celebrations. I even wear a kippah out of respect.

After October 7^th, I witnessed his family’s anguish and their tears, and I stood by them. 

Meanwhile, my mother forwarded me videos on a conveyor belt, speeches from Western scholars or Quran verses. All about the genocide. It reminded me of the pandemic; how no one had heard of “social distancing” and suddenly, everyone was an expert.

I see the keffiyeh again everywhere in London now; fashionably worn in supermarkets, at protests, at music festivals. On the news, the Ayatollah still has it draped on his shoulders, giving his victory speeches from a bunker. The same keffiyeh that Basijis wore while they beat protestors and at the check points on posh streets of Tehran. A piece of cloth that once signalled fear: women fixing their hijabs, music turned off in cars, lovers letting go of hands, smiles fading. That fear, intertwined with anger, continues.

During and after the war, everyone wanted to know: "Which side are you on?"

The world online put people in camps “with or against”; no middle ground. The people in between became irrelevant, and the clicks and views dictated choices. But I didn’t choose a side.

I could not choose to side with a country where who I am is considered a mental illness, my existence punishable by death. Nor could I side with a country whose missiles rained down while asking Iranians to revolt.I feared for my partner’s loved ones. I feared for my own.

I am angry at those who choose sides so easily, ready to protest. I sometimes imagine Iranians protesting “Iran arming Hamas.” It’s absurd. It makes me laugh.I am angry at Iranians abroad who cheer from afar, wishing Israel or America would just “finish the job.”And I worry. I worry that once again, it is ordinary Iranians who will suffer, in silence or in cells. Another mass execution of “threats to national security.” 

There are no black-and-whites here. No fairy tale of good versus evil. No narrative that tells the full story. And I will keep reminding myself of that.

I will keep joining Shabbat dinners. And though I gave up on religion years ago, I will continue to pray, for my family, and for my partner’s family.