Front Row to War

An American's Reflections on Self-Extraction from the Middle East Conflict Zone

It may be hard for me to admit, but I know in many ways I’ve been ignorant to the full extent to which dismantled, broken and corrupt governments impact citizens in foreign lands. Sitting at home on the couch scrolling idly past posts of suffering half a world away has made me acutely aware of my inability to retain an appropriate emotional response to these seismic shifts in another country’s stability, to feel there is truly anything that I can do.

But there I was, on that other side of the world, visiting with my extended Iranian family in the UAE, a country deemed one of the safest in the Middle East, seeing the disruption up close and personal – not only from this week’s attacks, but from years (if not decades) of political unrest and it has shaken me to my very core. And I mean that quite literally, for it has been the only time in my life where worrying for my safety involves understanding the nuances of a missile defense system and how bombs bursting in air above our heads are in fact a good thing. There is nothing that prepares you for this.

And yet I am sitting here struck by the realization of just how immensely privileged I am. I’ve always known that, but it is something entirely different to feel that, and to contend with reconciling just how trivial my experience has been compared to those who’ve lived in war torn regions for years. For Hooman’s family, violence instigated by the Islamic Regime has become a way of life, one they’ve grown accustomed to having rearranged their entire existence in search of the freedoms we so often take for granted — freedoms they sought in the very country that put us all in danger.

As a US citizen, I have lived my whole life with the luxury of not knowing what lack of freedom looks like. What it sounds like to be at risk of imminent physical harm. What it feels like to be untethered from control. We've found ourselves in risky situations before — trapped in a Texas snowstorm, broken down on the side of the road in Mexico, rerouted through countries we hadn't planned to visit — and have become well acquainted with the exercise of adapting to a limited set of choices under extreme duress, but never at the magnitude of war. So when those first loud booms from the missile intercept system clapped overhead, every coping mechanism I’d cultivated unraveled, and all that remained was fear.

And wrapped up in that same fear came an undercurrent of deep shame. A sudden reckoning with the fact that I had never properly internalized the extreme versions of this reality that generations of people have endured. I understood it on paper, but never in my bones. As they stared steadily into the sky, it dawned on me how familiar this was for them. They stood resilient in the face of yet another violent upheaval, and I crumbled.

It was on the same day that the attacks began that Hooman’s 6 year old cousin, Lillian, had been brought home from a birthday party and upon bursting into the room exclaimed, “I saw a shooting star! And I made a really good wish.” It didn’t take more than a glance across the room for us to reach a silent agreement, a shared responsibility not to tell her what it was she really saw, but in that moment, my heart broke wide open for her. They wish on shooting stars and we give them wars.

The days that followed have been a surreal blur, navigating a cacophony of unknowns, conflicting information, spiraling what ifs, disengaging, distracting - a delicate balancing game keeping my nerves in check. Deciding to leave a safe home in Dubai felt like a wild act of rebellion – what do we know about fleeing to a neighboring country to find a way home? We were deprived the privilege of unfettered, accurate information and resources, resorting to moving forward on hope and determination alone. Every step we laid ahead for ourselves was precariously stacked on the one before, without any assurance it would work. We were abandoned by the institution sworn to protect us, a cruel irony in the face of a war that they created.

I'm home now, but I am not the same person who left. Returning to US soil came saddled with an odd dissonance – people operating with a bizarre normalcy while I still scan for threats in a place where there are none. It is a strange thing to feel unsafe inside of safety, to have your nervous system upended by a handful of days that will take far longer to undo. I don't wish that feeling upon anyone, yet I already can see the ways in which the comforts of distance may detach us from the reality of whose war this really is — and what we owe the people caught in it.

So as I adjust to this new version of myself, scrolling through the same barrage of headlines through a different set of eyes, I’ll hold tight to the humanity that binds us and the same wish we all have – freedom for ourselves, for our families and loved ones, and for a future the children of the world deserve. We owe it to ourselves to never lose sight of the privileges we have, to humble ourselves to how much more we have to learn, and to broaden our capacity for caring. Let what has happened this week move you – not just in feeling, but in the calls you make, the votes you cast, and the conversations you refuse to stay silent in.

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