|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.thefp.com/p/how-the-country-i-was-taught-to-hate?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
How the Country I Was Taught to Hate Saved My Life
(Free Press) Masih Alinejad - Growing up in Iran, I learned to chant "death to America" at the age of 7, along with all the other schoolchildren. In the ideology of the Islamic Republic, America is the monster, the Great Satan. As a teenager, I was beaten by the regime's morality police for freeing a few strands of hair and for daring to wear my headscarf a little too loosely. I was jailed for the "crimes" of writing political slogans and handing out pamphlets that questioned the Islamic regime. I became a journalist covering parliament. When I wrote about corruption among the elected members in 2009, the regime's intelligence officers called me in, threatened me, and forced me to sign a pledge promising not to report on the election. When I ignored the warnings, my car was vandalized. The perpetrators left a single handcuff hanging from the driver's side door handle. I had to choose: Stay in Iran and risk prison or death, or leave and keep my voice alive. I left. Leaving my birth country felt like tearing out a part of my soul. But exile gave me freedom. In America, I could finally breathe. I could speak out without fearing the midnight knock at my door. In 2021, the FBI informed me that I was the target of a kidnapping plot. Iranian intelligence operatives had hired private investigators to surveil me in Brooklyn. They camped outside my home, followed my movements, and made plans to kidnap me and take me to Venezuela. The FBI foiled the plot just in time. In 2022, a hitman named Khalid Mehdiyev lurked outside my Brooklyn home, watching me as I watered my garden. By the time he had retrieved his gun from his car, I was back inside, unaware of the danger. When he returned the following day, the FBI arrested him. It's ironic that a child who once chanted "death to America" has, as an adult, been given a second life in the same country she was taught to hate.