Staying Abroad?
If the situation does not go very harsh in Iran I still prefer to come back home after having finished my Phd. The only moments when I am tempted to deviate from my decision is the minutes of cycling in Vienna when travelling between my flat and the office or across the beautiful Danube together with Maryam.
This is the occasion when one truly enjoys a real pleasure and a healthy entertainment, breath clean air and feel safety and freedom all together. The sort of things quite rare in my homeland and notably in its noisy and polluted capital city Tehran. Listening to the music and smelling the odor of spring flowers I tell myself “you should be too silly to leave such a peaceful life and go back to the country where your wife even is not officially allowed to accompany you during the cycling if there is any possibility of cycling at all”.
What then? I can’t reach the final decision on the bicycle but there comes one strong reason which provokes me not to think about staying abroad: Remembering the conditions of old women and men who have to work at 80 just to be able to afford a basic livelihood for themselves. To the youth who sit around the squares looking forward to somebody hiring them for a day and finally return back home disappointed at the end of the day. The poverty is a constant nightmare for millions of people there. The country needs lots of real changes to get rid of such poverty. Some part of the changes has to happen in the minds of the people themselves.
Although I am only one average man without any affiliation to the power system but I think there is still some room for improvement and I can do a little bit even as somebody outside the government. I hope that the marginal productivity of my efforts would be much higher in my own country (not even in another poor country) and as a person enjoying changing his environment I prefer such chance to having a smooth living condition.
Comments
Dear Hamed
I really don't know how much influence you can have. Don't you remember all those professors in Sharif whose best part of the day was when they were complaining about their current situation? I do not have the answer, yet. But I do think like any practical problem the solution would not be very much of a solution, maybe more of a compromise.
Arash
Posted by: Arash Abadpour | April 18, 2006 07:25 PM
finally I started writing an english weblog. I wonder if you come and visit me!
Posted by: azadeh | April 18, 2006 09:59 PM
I always say there is some sort of passion that originates this "try to make a change" attitude in some people. Those, who have it, can not get rid of thinking about it nor can they be satified with an ordinary type of life.
Posted by: babak | April 19, 2006 03:12 AM
That's the way that everyone, who lives abroad, should think. This change can be done! This country has a big potential! But not everyone sees it like the way you see!
Posted by: Amir | April 19, 2006 10:03 AM
I think to myself that there may be some possibilities to do both. For having an influence and helping a little, there is not just one way. I think it is also possible to stay somewhere abroad to give enough energy and happiness to yourself while doing something for your country as well. I think it is practical to live in Europe for example and have some research centers or special businesses in Iran. Sometimes it just seems as a dream to go back and do a lot and after. Those pressures, noise, pollution, social and cultural problems will tire us completely. For being able to do something good, we should at first be nourished from a normal and healthy situation ourselves because I think we need to take our own minds out of common stresses to to have the ability for doing somethig more valuable. We should obtain a healthy and calm look into the face of life. As a whole, I'm not sure but I assume there would be a lot of different ways to help and we can also take new ways into consideration!
Best
Posted by: Yeganeh | April 19, 2006 11:04 AM
Hamed,
I can completely relate to you. I get a kick out of being able to make a real difference in the lives of other people, and I used to think that this is something I can do in Iran much better than in the US (since I know the culture, and also since there's a lot to be done in a country like Iran).
However, especially during the past few years, I've become more and more pessimistic about the possibility of making a difference by returning to Iran. It looks like working in Iran would be a life full of frustration, without any positive outcome.
I don't know what I will end up doing several years from now, but at this point, I think I will stay in the west, and try to do something for the people of my country from here.
Posted by: Mohammad | April 20, 2006 08:27 AM
Anyway Iran is Iran, and Iran is our country, with all its advantages and disadvantages … it should be built by our hands, can be animated only through our will power … it is the truth and we are all aware of it, but you know, you should sacrifice you yourself, you should sacrifice your dear ones, you have to really own a great soul…
Do I have a great own? It’s my question?!?!?!?!?
Posted by: Mojdeh | April 21, 2006 09:41 PM
Do I have a great soul? It’s my question?!?!?!?!?
Posted by: Mojdeh | April 21, 2006 09:42 PM
I do admire your approach, well I am working here in Iran with my father and brother we have a little factory for manufacturing mechanical equipment and I got really disappointed when I see there are hundreds of educated people living here just for a middle class life in abroad, while even in the worst situations there all great opportunities here. As manufcaturer and producers I have bared worst economical situation but what is worth is that at least I am working first of all for mysefl and secondly as an entrepreneur I help 100 Iranian families to earn money live and learn somthing to improve not only their economical situation but cultural perception. To your friend at Sharif university I should say that even your professors at sharif university where not creative and in the meantime innovative enough since considering our growing industries there are lots of things they can do but they just open their mind as an usual lecturer who might become staff of a governmental companies they do not dare to accept risk of investing not just their little money but their knowledge.Having a chair in the best universities not trying to change educational, research and developing system and nagging all the time for sure will not push our country forward. For your information today in 11th Internation Oil,Gas and Petrochemical exhibition I met a very revered young Sharif educated man who had done research in order to produce Oil process equipment in Iran by their own knowledge and when they do that for sure they will earn money and can build stable life but step by step.
Posted by: Majhoulebivasete | April 23, 2006 10:32 PM
Sorry for some mistakes I wrote so quickly but I`m sure you will understand them.
Posted by: Majhoulebivasete | April 23, 2006 10:36 PM