Déraciner

“Déraciner” is one of the words the French used for immigrant. It refers to a person who is uprooted from his original place. One of the phrases that we use to damn in Persian is ”در به در بشی” “dar be dar”,it means someone whowas forced to leave her place, her city and her house. Am I dammed?

I left my country 4 years ago by [...]. Why? I was a member of the electoral campaign for the reformist candidate in Iran in 2009. The regime was cheating in the election to keep “Ahmadi Nejad” in power. All we did was trying to demonstrate. I was arrested just one week after the election. I was in prison for 75 days of which two months was an isolated cell. I realized afterwards my father had bailed me out. I realized this was a temporary situation, so after a while I left Iran by foot and went to [...]. i asked some embassies of different countries and the UN to help me. I came to France because they helped me the quickest. I came to France without knowing any word of French, i did not event know how to say “bonjour”. I don't want to tell my history about how I left or how I managed a new life form nothing in another country; may be in the future!

I love new experiences and France was full of new things: new people, new culture, new language, new tradition, new geography. Learning new things and meeting new people was exiting but after while i realized the other side of excitement is my need to feel safe and calm. to feel safe i need the things that i know, i need some tradition which are memorable, I need old friends, i need to play with rules that i know.

You could imagine that easiest part of socializing is saying “Hello” and greeting someone. But I should to tell you even this simple part of social life became something that you need to think and learn about if you are not in your home country. When do you shake hands? When should you kiss cheek and how? Is it necessary to have hug? Those things happened in your country automatically. Of course I could learn those simple things, but you know it does not come automatically. In summary, every simple part of social life could require energy when you are out of your country.

But the only place that I knew was Iran, the only language that I knew how to express my complex feelings in was Persian, the only tradition that i really know every thing about was the Iranian tradition, the only culture that I could ever fully understand that was Persian Culture.

You don't feel like you belong when you don't feel safe and calm, and you don't feel safe and calm if you don't know the situation surrounding you. If your need to “belong” is satisfied then you don't realized how important it is.

It has been just 6 weeks since I moved to Boston (US);there are so many things to discover as well. this is a very exciting situation for me. this time, Iran is not the only place that I know. Now two country seem familiar to me, Iran and France. now I have better feeling for France, now i feel like i miss France and i like that. Does this means I could have the feeling of belonging to another land other than Iran?