In English: Home is where the Heart is

Time flies. It speeds by. I was banned from travel for two years. I had no plans to travel, nor did I have an image of how it would be to live in another land, even temporarily. Nine months ago my travel ban was lifted. When leaving Iran, I was faced with the questions of my friends. An inquiry mixed with worry and hope. “Will you return?” My response was resolute. “This is my home, where would I go?” My response yielded another query: “which home?”

My small 38 meter home is located in downtown Tehran—a city of millions. My home was a refuge for our many visits and discussions. That happy and lively home was a place where women’s stories were recited. It was a place for the unfolding of our collective efforts for the creation of new and public strategies for civil resistance. The lovely peace of that home and its sanctuary were forever disturbed with the intrusion of security forces. But still it was my home and it was bearable. Later, with the increased pressure on activists, writers and journalists, and widespread and illegal arrests carried out through nightly raids, my home became a cause for worry. It became a cause for increased fear and anxiety about the possibility of surveillance or the possibility of my arrest. My family feared that something would happen to me while I was at home and alone. And there was my own fear as well: I knew that my spirit was strong enough to withstand the pressures of an arrest, but would my body be strong enough to endure the strain of prison? Now it seemed that both my home and I were troublesome, and a cause for the concern of others…

The concept of “home” can have a paradoxical and contradictory meaning. My home was no longer safe. When you no longer feel safe in your own home, it means that you are in exile in your own country—an experience that many like I have endured in the past, and many more will have to endure in the future.

I chose to distance myself from that environment for a while, so that I could become healthier and so my body would not fail me upon my return to Iran…

During my first few nights in Malmo, I could not sleep. Was it possible to have only one key, which opened both the entrance door to the building and to door to my apartment—the same key that other residents of the apartment complex also had? Did all these apartments actually have only one key?! The next day I bought a wind chime, and hung it in front of the entrance to my apartment, so that if anyone were to enter I would immediately be warned and perhaps in this way I would avoid danger and would be able to stay alive! Later, I was informed that despite the similarities in their appearance, the keys to each apartment were indeed different and each apartment had its own unique key. My worries quickly transformed into a joke and something to poke fun at. But I have held on to the wind chimes, so that I don’t forget how living in an authoritarian environment can impact one’s spirit and soul. And those who continue to enter my apartment are amused by my naiveté.

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The feeling of security on the “fringes” does not endure either. It is a paradoxical feeling, a fear of entering into a new world of unknowns, where your skills are no longer functional. The Swedish are kind. They all know English and choose to communicate with you in that language. Iranian friends often come to the rescue, so that you do not feel your own loneliness, so that you do not relive their negative experience of life in exile. Despite all this, as a traveler living on the fringes, your language of communication is a visual one. Observation in place of reading becomes the medium of perception. Writing is no longer useful, you can’t read and you can’t write, you can only see and consume your surroundings. And for me—a person who is accustomed to writing—the impact of the visual becomes more attractive than the written. It is amazing how similar these worlds truly are! In a world confined and without freedom of expression and the freedom to write, like in Iran, our language of communication is more than any other the “language of the imagery.” Over the past year too, many of you have heard the objection of the Iranian people through images of their protests…

My temporary home is safe, but there are still worries—what if my actions endanger the safety of those inside? Now, I will not be held directly responsible for and will no longer have to pay the price for my writings, interviews, and actions. It is no longer a matter of taking risks, so that others may admire my courageousness. There is worry about the safety of my family, friends and colleagues inside Iran. How many times do we have to be censored? Are we not even free of worries in a safe geography? Does this fear not constitute a violence which rests on the exertion of control by a totalitarian system that targets you each time from a different angle?

Safety on the “fringes” however holds happiness as well. Apart from the worries and fears, the experience of living in a democratic environment is new. The exchanging of experiences and the effort intent on seeing and hearing the perspectives of others, working toward understanding one another, is novel. This experience offers to me the opportunity to compare two struggles: ours which is focused on a struggle for achieving civil rights and yours which is focused on preserving your institutionalized civil rights; our struggle to free ourselves from systematic violence, executions, and the stoning of the many Sakinehs, who are executed regularly, and your struggle to safeguard the respect for human life. Here I can see the imperceptible fringes of my own society. Citizens who are old, sick and disabled, but still happy and colorful are your accomplishments. Seeing them keeps the memory of my mother, our mothers and fathers, who in my country face a shorter life expectancy, alive. Here I can see the eliminated fringes of my own society…Leaving behind a large multicultural society made up of millions of citizens in Tehran, and entering a miniature multicultural society in Malmo is a new experience of exile with lessons to be learned for all sides. It is based on the experience of exile and safety a mix of two different worlds, a merging of two realities. It is a world in need of study and understanding, and benefits from great potential for change. Can living in such a city lessen the bitterness of living in exile and add to the intellectual and cultural diversity of the host city as well? Can those in exile and on the fringes be pulled to the center of life in this city, and add their own experience and perspectives on struggle and resistance to the collective accomplishments of this city?

For some time now it seems that I no longer have a static understanding of the concept of home. I carry with me the contradictions I have experienced in this respect. At once, I have the sense of belonging to all and none of them.

After nine months, my mother came for a short visit to Malmo, to see me, her daughter. The meaning of home for her too is fluid. I tell her that I want to make the best of our time together and take her to see the beautiful sites in Malmo. “Where should we go?” She asks. “I have come to see you. My home is wherever you happen to be.”

PARVIN ARDALAN

Translation to English: Sussan Tahmasebi