Family Values and Iran

One of my concerns when we chose our house in the Denver suburbs was that we'd be moving into an all white neighborhood and that my kids only exposure to people of color would be when we hired someone to do work on our house, mow our lawn or clean our house. That's the way it was in Texas.

Thankfully that hasn't been the case in Colorado.

Our neighborhood is remarkably diverse. One family includes both a mom and dad who grew up in Iran, met here in the United States, got married and started a family. They now have a high school age daughter and an elementary school age son. Every couple of years they try to go back to Iran for an extended trip to visit the (now) grandparents and other relatives.

Today was the day one of those trips began. Mom, daughter and son boarded a plane at noon mountain time to fly to Frankfurt and then on to Tehran. They plan on being gone for nine weeks. Their Dad had to stay home to work.

I'm not entirely sure how they are feeling about the trip but I am nervous for them.

Have you heard what the Iranian government is up to? They are holding some Iranian-Americans against their will. The Associated Press reported this way.

An Iranian-American academic who works at a Washington-based institute is being held in a notorious prison after being prohibited from leaving Iran for more than four months, the institute and her husband said Wednesday.
Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, was sent Tuesday to Evin prison after she arrived at Iran's Intelligence Ministry for questioning, the center said.

The article went on to say,

Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months including journalist Parnaz Azima, who works for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda. Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran's resort island of Kish, and his whereabouts are unknown. Tehran says it's continuing to investigate.

More details were provided about what has happened to Haleh Esfandiari,

The Wilson Center said three masked men holding knives threatened to kill Esfandiari, who was in Tehran visiting her 93-year-old mother, on Dec. 30 as she was on her way to the airport. They took her baggage, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the center said. For several weeks, she was interrogated by authorities for up to eight hours a day, according to the center. Most of the questioning focused on the activities of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. "Although Dr. Esfandiari went home every evening, the some 50 hours of questioning were unpleasant — to put it mildly — and not free from intimidation and threat," the center said.

Now it is very easy for me to sit here in Colorado and wonder if my neighbors should have simply stayed home. But they are going to see family and there really isn't much in the world that would keep me from wanting to see my family. What would you do? Your parents are getting older, so visits seem to be more valuable, you live 7,000 miles apart so visits don't happen all that often and you want your children to know and understand something of their heritage, you want them to understand something of the place where you grew up. What would you do?

I'd be nervous but I'd probably go.

And so, for the next nine weeks, I'll say a prayer for the safety of my neighbors, a prayer for those Americans already being held and a prayer for a more sane relationship between the United States and Iran.