With war affecting families abroad and differing opinions in the diaspora, the ISO remains open to all
By RIVERS STOUT— campus@theaggie.org
Some 8,000 miles away, the ripples of the United States and Israel’s war with Iran are being felt by California’s Iranian American community. At UC Davis, the Iranian Student Organization (ISO) has been working to provide comfort and gathering spaces for students affected.
The club has attempted to act as a unifying space for all Iranians on campus, regardless of their political beliefs, according to ISO President Ava Jabbari, a fourth-year environmental policy analysis and planning and international relations double major.
“We condemn the killings of our peoples, and we condemn the oppression of our peoples along with any other groups,” Jabbari said. “Iran is a diverse place, and we also recognize that there are varying opinions about this within the Iranian American community and the Iranian diaspora. So, our goal is to unite people.”
The war started with a joint strike, commenced on Feb. 28 by the U.S. and Israel to dismantle Iran’s security apparatus, titled Operation Epic Fury. So far, the war has led to the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several other leaders in the nation and of around 1,000 other people in the Middle East — including 168 students and teachers at an all-girls school.
While many celebrated the death of Khamenei — the country’s supreme leader since 1989 — Jabbari said that Iranian Americans in Davis largely fall on two opposing sides with regard to military intervention.
“A lot of Iranian Americans have been asking for intervention, ever since December,” Jabbari said. “Some Iranians in the diaspora do not support that. There’s been other evidence showing that any foreign intervention in the Middle East in general usually leads to further destabilization in the region, rather than any true liberation in the region. But now that there has been further intervention initiated, there has been more disagreement between Iranians in the diaspora.”
In a recent letter to Congress, President Donald Trump said it was “not possible at this time to know” the scope and duration of further strikes on Iran. Nations along the Persian Gulf continue to report missile and aerial attacks as Iran retaliates and targets U.S. and Israeli allies, including Qatar and Bahrain.
Debates over the future of Iran have occurred off and online, according to ISO Social Media Coordinator Brian Borhany, a fourth-year international relations major. He noted that the differences in opinion have threatened solidarity among Iranians and those in the Iranian diaspora.
“We’ve had some arguments over Instagram or even in person [between] members of our community not agreeing with something,” Borhany said. “We’re all on the same side here, it’s just the politics that are driving a stake into our community.”
ISO has sought to bring Iranian Americans together through events, hoping to create shared safe spaces during this time of hardship.
“So many of us cried that night — so many of us,” Shaina Taebi, a second-year political science and philosophy double major, said about a recent ISO vigil.
Taebi, who also hosts the KDVS public affairs show The Missing Middle East, said the vigil connected her with others carrying the same emotional burden.
“I hadn’t heard from my family in Iran, and there was a lot of stress and grief that everyone was carrying,” Taebi said. “In some sense, it’s so sad that we have to be here commemorating the loss of so many innocent lives, but at the same time, it was beautiful that we could be there for one another and to be able to have the space to support one another.”
Taebi explained that, for her, ISO has risen to the task of maintaining a degree of apoliticality while providing a space for Iranian Americans to gather as a community.
“With everything that’s going on in Iran, you can’t fully escape the political conversation,” Taebi said. “But I think that ISO has done such an amazing job at balancing this delicate line between maintaining a safe space for everyone and making sure that everyone’s opinions and ideas are being heard.”
Written by: Rivers Stout — campus@theaggie.org
