Thanks for your words of support. The experience has been surreal for me.
What saddens me most is that in a sense, I'm one of the lucky ones: I genuinely don't have any connections to Iran. I might be able to complain and have the policy reversed on people like me.
But what if I did have connections to Iran? What if I had immigrated at 22, and still had Iranian citizenship? Or what if I never got a chance to immigrate, and still lived in Iran? In that case, I would be totally rejected by a world that justifies official discrimination against me, in the name of enforcing sanctions that are deemed necessary to achieve geopolitical objectives.
The worst part of it all would be knowing that the world at large considers me expendable, and would accept policies that lead to my discrimination as a lesser of two evils.
There would be no way out if I were in that position, because the quality of mine that is discriminated against is one I was born with, and complaining wouldn't help, because most people would just say "tough luck". When the crowd thinks you deserve to suffer because of what you are, rather than what you've done, it's a crushing feeling. I have a taste of that now and it's terrifying.
Regarding racism and discrimination in Canada: I agree that there is much more of it here than people generally perceive. I do think Canada is less racist/discriminatory than most countries, but the difference is not as big as commonly believed.
What saddens me most is that in a sense, I'm one of the lucky ones: I genuinely don't have any connections to Iran. I might be able to complain and have the policy reversed on people like me.
But what if I did have connections to Iran? What if I had immigrated at 22, and still had Iranian citizenship? Or what if I never got a chance to immigrate, and still lived in Iran? In that case, I would be totally rejected by a world that justifies official discrimination against me, in the name of enforcing sanctions that are deemed necessary to achieve geopolitical objectives.
The worst part of it all would be knowing that the world at large considers me expendable, and would accept policies that lead to my discrimination as a lesser of two evils.
There would be no way out if I were in that position, because the quality of mine that is discriminated against is one I was born with, and complaining wouldn't help, because most people would just say "tough luck". When the crowd thinks you deserve to suffer because of what you are, rather than what you've done, it's a crushing feeling. I have a taste of that now and it's terrifying.
Regarding racism and discrimination in Canada: I agree that there is much more of it here than people generally perceive. I do think Canada is less racist/discriminatory than most countries, but the difference is not as big as commonly believed.