It has always struck me as ironic that the academic year ends in the spring of the year, when all of life is beginning to bloom. Against the backdrop of flowers and sunshine, we end our studies and stride across the stage, dressed in robes worn only for this formal occasion. We are celebrated and feted, our names inscribed on plaques and on formal documents. We are recognized as ready for our next life stage, whether it consists of further studies or our entry into work and responsibility. As one stage of life closes, another begins, and with it, a world of possibility.
When I was a teenager in Iran during the last years of the 1970s and the early 1980s, life educated me far beyond what I had learned in school. When I was just 13, I had demonstrated in the streets of Shiraz against the Shah of Iran whose oppressive system denied Iranians freedom of expression. The Ayatollah Khomeini was swept into power on the wings of the Islamic Revolution that succeeded the Shah, and the new regime proved to be even more repressive. When I stood up for a Baha’i schoolmate against a bully, I innocently set into motion a cascade of events that ended with my name on a government blacklist. I was obliged to leave school and go into hiding. More than a year later, my mother presented me with my options: I could either stay in hiding in Iran, unable to learn and blossom and grow, or travel with smugglers across the desert for an uncertain life in Pakistan and from there, a possible passage to a free country.
I chose the desert passage.
I was promised a quick desert march and a short ride across the sand; it took 20 hours of walking through extreme heat and terrible cold, sinking in sand up to my calves, struggling to reach our destination. Shortly after we entered the desert, one of the smugglers grabbed my arm and urgently whispered, “Hide!” Across a small dune, Afghani extremists were marching to join Iranian Hezbollah, calling out, “Allahu Akhbar!” – God is great.
As I lay, hidden by the dune and shaking with terror, I acknowledged to myself that God is great, but I also thought about the terrible things that are done in His name. I knew that if I were caught, I would be returned to Iran to face execution for having illegally left the country, and for being with men who were not blood relatives. I thought to myself that if I survived, I would find a way to return to school and do something good for people, to encourage them to use the political process for good, rather than to repress their fellow citizens.
As I recount in my memoir, Fleeing the Hijab, I eventually made my way to Montreal, Canada. There, I studied two new languages, worked to support myself and returned to school, becoming a wellness practitioner, a chiropractor and an author, as well as a mother and wife. In this free country, I blossomed, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunities offered to me by this land of free expression.
To the young graduates of 2015: your education has either provided you with the basic skills required for your further study, or with philosophical ideas meant to enrich your journey through life. I would like to offer you something else on your new travels.
Look around you. You live in a country where equality and tolerance are balanced with respect for the individual. At some point, you may come across people who may want to impose their beliefs or their values on you. You will be challenged to decide if these new ideas will allow you to advance and flourish, or if they will impede your progress. In a liberal democracy like ours, we exist in a constant balance, where we all must understand that all ideas must be tolerated, but no one point of view can be imposed or forced on all citizens.
Our Canada is a country of opportunity. Be a servant-leader and maintain our nation, proud and free. We have been blessed with riches of mind and spirit, where all people can co-exist, each person celebrating his or her own belief and living in harmony.
Harmony requires balance. Work towards it. Maintain it. And may you never find yourself wandering in the desert, desperately searching for the right to be free.
Dr. Sima Goel lives and works in Montreal, Canada. Her memoir, Fleeing the Hijab: A Jewish Woman’s Escape from Iran is available in print and digital copies. To contact the author or for more information please visit: www.fleeingthehijab.com