As \u201cPari\u201d sipped from her coffee at Whyte Avenue\u2019s Block 1912, she used the same word over and over again.<\/p>\n
\u201cErased.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iranian people? Erased. Thousands of years of culture? Erased. Irreplaceable historic buildings and sites? Erased.<\/p>\n
Pari and her family came to Edmonton from Iran in 1978. She was nine at the time, and her mom had just started studying at the University of Alberta. Back in Iran, the Shah would soon be deposed, replaced by a radical government which has sustained to this day, even though the leaders have changed over the years.<\/p>\n
Today, she\u2019s scared for not just the relatives who are currently in Tehran, but the entirety of the Iranian populace.<\/p>\n
Pari asked not to disclose her full name not because she fears for her relatives back in Tehran,\u00a0 but based on the blowback she\u2019s received from the local Iranian community when it comes to her views on the war.<\/p>\n
There have been several public demonstrations in Edmonton before and after the joint Israel-U.S. attack on Iran. The demonstrators, for the most part, called for the installation of Shah Reza Pahlavi, who has been living in exile, as head of the Iranian state. They called for American action before the invasion, and supported it since the attacks commenced. She said these loud voices aren\u2019t kind to anyone who doesn\u2019t see things their way.<\/p>\n
Pari\u2019s views aren\u2019t binary. She said while she wants to see the current Iranian regime brought down, she doesn\u2019t think U.S. President Donald Trump or Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu want to do anything but bring the country to its knees and take its oil. So, she\u2019s worried she\u2019s going to be attacked by members of her own community for not seeing it as a one-or-the-other situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy loyalties lie to the innocent civilians that are caught in this 100 per cent,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat I want to talk about is the human cost, and that is what keeps me up at night, is worrying about my family, worrying about the outcome of this, because it is escalating so freaking quickly. Trump and Netanyahu really, really scare me, because I know what their end goal is. And I\u2019ve been to Iran, the regime is also very scary, and it is not only depriving people of basic internet rights. They\u2019re harassing people on the streets there. It\u2019s a total like lockdown because they see it as an existential threat, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s texted and communicated with her uncle, aunt, cousin and friends in Tehran. Because they\u2019ve been blacked out from the internet by the Iranian government, they get no advance warning of missile strikes. They feel like sitting ducks. They\u2019ve been ordered to stay indoors and they wear masks to help deal with the heavy smoke that even seeps into closed areas.<\/p>\n
Her family said there\u2019s anxiety because water desalinization plants have been hit and food is running low.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family can\u2019t sleep because of the bomb \u2014 the bombs are very, very intense,\u201d said Pari. \u201cPeople can\u2019t breathe because of the smoke. These are war crimes. You don\u2019t blow up a refinery in a city of 17 million people (latest estimates peg Tehran\u2019s metro population at 16.8 million). And so my loyalty lies to those people. They\u2019re sandwiched in between three monsters who don\u2019t care about their lives. They\u2019re being used as tools for these agendas. There\u2019s multiple agendas happening. And so that is why I\u2019m here, because I don\u2019t want to be silent. I want to be the voice for those innocent people that don\u2019t have internet and don\u2019t have a say in this.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the U.S. and Israel, Pari feels they will eventually try and divide Iran, a country of more than 90 million people, along ethnic lines. They want to take control of the oil in a region. And she doesn\u2019t believe that Israelis or the Americans have any interest in giving the Iranians the freedom of self-determination.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the end game for Netanyahu and Trump, and that is to balkanize Iran. And they all fight for the water, because there is a severe shortage of water in Iran, and there will be civil wars, unending civil wars. And that terrifies me, because that means more people are going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
What also scares Pari is that so many people in Canada and around the world see Iran only as a theocratic dictatorship, and discount the thousands of years worth of history. It\u2019s home to historic palaces, mosques and archeological sites. The first recorded human rights charter, the Cyrus Cylinder, is traced back to the 6th Century B.C. And she said each bomb that drops on a historic site is a blow against human history. There are gardens dedicated to some of Iran\u2019s most famous poets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want people to realize that that is the cradle of civilization. Backgammon originated in Iran. Mathematics, right? The Persian carpet, the intricacies of the Persian carpet. So many things originated from that part of the world that are stunning, like like the palaces, the mosques, A lot of readers will be angry at that, because they hate Islam so much, but it\u2019s the Islam they were taught by the regime. The regime weaponized religion, just like Trump is using the coming of Jesus for this war.\u201d<\/p>\n
ssandor@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As \u201cPari\u201d sipped from her coffee at Whyte Avenue\u2019s Block 1912, she used the same word over and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[10537,49,48,23752,5897,1258,207479,207480,862,207478,27132],"class_list":["post-528122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-mehrabad-international-airport","tag-missile-strikes","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-shah-reza-pahlavi","tag-tehran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}