Humanity, including our Iranian American community, is facing multiple existential perils. While we have been well aware of the risk of a nuclear holocaust for over 80 years, other global issues have been added to the equation. The impact of climate change and the fact that we are in the middle of the sixth major mass extinction (this time, both caused by humans) is now felt by everyone around the world… and last, but not least, the recent news about AI agents going rogue and the chance of “Super Intelligence” ending human life on the planet have added a new mind-buggling dimension to our “human dilemma.”
Our community is also dealing with its own major issue. We continue to face unprecedented political polarization, while the leader of this country, which possesses the most powerful military in the world, recently threatened our country of heritage with annihilation while addressing the UN General Assembly. The people of Iran are caught in an on/off war, started by the U.S. and Israel, that has brought unbearable human and economic devastation. All this on top of the repression of the Islamic Republic and before they could begin to deal with the social trauma of the massacres of January, when over 4,600 people were killed.
We can not talk about all of the above without mentioning the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank and the four year devastating invasion of Ukraine by Russia. While the International Court of Justice has ruled with a strong majority that Israel’s war in Gaza is a plausible case for genocide, the UN special envoy for Palestine and many prominent politicans in the U.S. and across the world have called it a genocide. Amnesty International has also called the actions of the Israeli government, along with the settlers in the occupied West Bank, ethnic cleansing.
Civilians, real human beings, especially children, are the ones who pay the highest price in all of this. Over 20,000 of the more than 74,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza were children. Iranian children have also paid the price with over 120 of them killed on the first day of the more than 9 months old U.S./Israeli war against Iran in Minab. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran has said that there is “reasonable ground” to believe that the U.S. committed a war crime in that attack.
Perhaps it is no accident that the Iranian community in San Diego finds the Iranian school and the cultural activities of the Persian Cultural Center safe spaces. Our community members find the school and the PCC and its programs a cherished place where kids, and even adults, can learn and even thrive and enjoy a deep sense of cultural connection free of judgment or harassment. The Farsi school and community center in Atlanta, Georgia, are other examples of safe spaces for human connection and community… and I am sure there are more examples.
While social media for the most part has done significant damage to a sense of community and mass participation in social and political movements for humane causes around the world, people continue to surprise us. Solidarity movements with Palestine have changed the public opinion in the U.S. and around the world in historically unprecedented ways. This fall, the fair rent movement in Spain has shown new strength and the public opinion on AI data centers has turned them into a political “hot potato” all over the U.S. in the midterm elections.
Humanity has been able to deal with threats of worldwide life-ending events in the past. The twentieth-century movements to stop and reduce nuclear arsenals culminated in the START treaties that resulted in the significant reduction of nuclear weapons. While the multiple perils endangering human life on the planet are unprecedented, the same was true about the threat of nuclear holocaust and it was averted. What made the difference was not people building nuclear bunkers in their backyards (less than 2% of American households actually did that), it was the activism and movements worldwide that forced the politicians to take action. The pessimists would come up with many reasons why this time it is different and there is a lot less hope for humanity to have a bright future. I choose to be hopeful.
We can all start at individual and family levels (micro levels) to change our behavior and take responsibility for our future. Taking care of ourselves and our environment at the micro level is only the starting point. Then comes smaller communities of extended family and neighborhoods where we can be examples of acceptance, love, and support. Next are the extended communities, like our Iranian American community in San Diego, where people are empowered by cultural and educational programs… and then of course at city, state, and country levels, we can all choose the responsible activism that makes a difference. The truth is that humanity matters and we can all start today to stand for the possibility of love, connection, justice, and community.
