You Never Owned Me

An open letter to all dictators who tried subjugating me

I never think about you. Not now, not when I was in Iran. Yes, I was shackled by you. Yes, you stole my money, forced me to salute you, censored my speech. You thought of me as your own slave, but the joke was on you—you never owned me.

I realized just how small you were when I heard the news of your death. I felt no fear, no anger—not even happiness. Just a faint feeling of satisfaction—the same satisfaction I get after removing a smudge from the corner of my bathroom mirror.

A tyrant laughs. Millions of slaves serve him. They respect him. They bear his lash on their backs. They sing his praises, they admire him, they hate him, he believes he has dominated them. But he is blind to the immutable reality beneath the surface: the human soul. The body exists right now, you can enslave it, flog it, point your gun at it—but the mind is extended through time; it goes where your guns cannot reach. You can enslave the body, but a mind that can think, choose, and value, can never be enslaved.

When you forced me to salute your robes, I was laughing in my head because I saw you naked. When you forced me to practice your religion, I was secretly meditating with the American music you forbade me. When you emptied my pocket and looted my country, I adopted a different country—a glorious free country—to be my home.

Yes, there were times that I felt overwhelmed. You had made my life so hard that I contemplated my own suicide. But at the end, I rose stronger than before. You never dominated me.

Did you dominate the poor souls under your heels? No.
Once your goons are gone, we will see how quickly the subjects you fancied loyal will deny ever having supported you. Your portraits will be trashed, your holy books will be burnt, and life will be resumed as if you never existed.

The lives that cannot be resumed—the lives you took, the young, beautiful, free souls—the thousands of my potential friends—yes, you took them from us. But no, you could not dominate them either.

They removed the slave rags you forced on them, broke their chains, and bought their freedom at the price of their lives. The pain you gave them before taking their lives was negligible compared to the radiant happiness and camaraderie they felt while they were alive. Anyone who has done it, anyone who—their heads high and spines erect—assumed the responsibility of fighting for their freedom, knows what happiness I’m talking about.

You thought you used people, but in reality, they were using you. They cast you as a circus lion, a hollow authority figure. You were a worm they inflated. They made you a dictator and handed you the keys to power to excuse their own desire not to think, not to learn, and not to endure the effort of persuasion. They sought authoritarianism as a shortcut, lying to themselves that oppression is practical. They obeyed you as they had long obeyed their own fathers. But they have grown up. And like any child turned man, they are ready to take over the responsibilities of their own live.

Now that you’re gone, humanity will dawn in Iran. Soon life will go on stronger than ever—as if you never existed.