Oh to be a Forever Foreigner
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A few years ago, I was in my hometown in Iran for my late grandfather’s funeral. His body is buried in the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza, a significant religious site for Shia Muslims and the iconic part of my hometown of Mashhad.
The shrine, which is expansive and large, with many great halls, great meeting rooms, and spaces for worship, also comes with its political spaces. I remember being there with my sister to sit by my grandfather’s grave and pray with my sister. But I could not help but hear the deafening chants happening in one of the courtyards of the premises where a sermon was being given. Chants like “death to America,” “death to Israel,” “death to those who oppose the velayateh faghih (basically the Supreme Leader and those who follow him)”. I was disappointed, distracted, and upset that I cannot enjoy the beautiful, historic, and stunning shrine as well as mourn my grandfather’s passing without escaping the Islamic Republic’s divisive, hateful, and oppressive politics.
As Shawndeez points out, many Iranians associate the state of Iran’s affairs with Islam. Islam, in a way, has plagued their lives with oppression, hate, and taken away any sense of love and unity. Shawndeez introduces Parisa’s experience visiting the Imamzadeh Saleh, and her lack of interests in Islam manifesting herself into the ignorance of what can be so beautiful about Islam. Shawndeez says “it is this loss, this disinterest, this emotional distancing between the Iranian American and Islam that prevents any potential for a connection, an understanding.” I, as an Iranian Canadian, one who has lived half his life on one side of the planet, and the other half on the other, will tell you that when you are raised with the slogans of hate, told you are a heathen for not following the velayateh faghih, you are a heathen for being queer, but also told about the glories of Iran before the Islamic Republic, you cannot help but distance yourself from Islam.
Shawndeez later discusses queer expression of Iranians, and that they do not “share, experience, explore, discuss, or articulate their queer or trans identity in Iran or to Iranian people whatsoever.” I could not agree more. I have always been wary of showing my queer identity, because it is wrong, uncultured, matters of the bedroom with no place in society.
And so I cannot help but feel out of place when I am in my hometown in Mashhad. Yet, my experience in Canada does not necessarily and entirely constitute ‘home’ either.
What allows me to find comfort here in Western society is the openness to my queer expression. But I am limited in my cultural expression. As evident in Maghbouleh’s work, the Iranian identity seems to be anything but concrete, meddled with by arbitrary, haphazard legal proceedings and societal expectations.
In Winnipeg, I was a part of the Winnipeg Boys Choir, a choir that performed at least twice a year once during Christmas and once during Easter. I sang in churches, singing hymns and traditional Christmas carols. I really, truly, genuinely enjoyed being in that choir, and I love going to churches, especially during Christmas. I swear, I enjoy Christmas as not just an aesthetic, but as a religious experience that includes the singing of carols, the prayers, the rejoicing, and the beauty. Despite my love for Christmas and my appreciation for Christianity, my experience in this choir was not entirely filled with sunshines and rainbows. Given the traditional and Christian nature of the choir, it was not necessarily comprised of the most diverse bunch, and neither was the audience.
I remember being asked by one of the other members of the choir “where are you from again?” He already knew I am from Iran, and so I told him “you already know, I have told y-” and as I am about to finish my sentence, he screams “you are from Pakistan right? Paki! Paki!”
I was dumbfounded. But this experience is evidence of the “foreign forever” issue discussed by Maghbouleh. Even if I am speaking fluent English and French, singing Christmas carols and hymns in a Church, dressed and poised and presented in the ‘right’ way, I will still be seen as a ‘paki’. Even if I have a better understanding of Christianity, of the English language, of Canadian history, and of Canadian politics, more than many other Christians, Anglophones, and Canadians, I will still be seen as a ‘paki.’ Despite my family in Iran referring to me as ‘westernized’ or a khareji, despite being of ‘Indo-European’ descent, considered to be white in the American legal context, speaking a language with ancient roots that apparently have European roots—whatever I am, whatever I do, I am forever a foreigner…