Tensions were high between pro and anti-foreign intervention demonstrators at February 28th’s protest on Post Oak and Westheimer, following the fatal U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran earlier that morning.
There were no reports of physicality, but police had to restrict movement as counter-protestors continued crossing over to antagonize the other side.
According to a New York Times investigation, the U.S. likely ‘double-tapped’ the girls’ school in Minab that Saturday, killing around 175 people, mostly children.
The total death toll of U.S.-Israeli aggression is now well over 1,000 as they continue to target civilian structures.
It’s incorrect to frame the nationwide protests as Iranians welcoming the bombings Vs. clueless outsiders, as there are Iranians inside and out who are against intervention. Such people were present at Houston’s protest.
“I expected to feel solidarity at an anti-war protest, but when I arrived, I felt mostly shock,” says Iranian-Mexican Jasmine Khadem González.
Gonzalez doesn’t support foreign intervention in Iran, “especially not” from a government that is enabling the genocide in Palestine and detaining children and separating families at home.
But when she spoke about her father’s imprisonment by the Ayatollah during his time as a student, her words fell on “deaf ears.” She said she realized that fellow protesters were holding up pictures of the brutal leader to memorialize him.
“My story didn’t fit their narrative of an Iranian who does not need freeing. My own beliefs are an unbelievable contradiction of an Iranian who both denounces genocide and American imperialism, but does not support the fascist regime in Iran.”
She thought she’d find allies among those flying the pre-Islamic Revolution sun-and-lion flag as a symbol of a free Iran. Still, many of them had aligned themselves with President Trump, whom she calls a “wannabe dictator.”
Those flying that flag are monarchists who want the son of the king, whom Iranians overthrew for his brutal repression of civilians, installed by the U.S. to reclaim the throne, Gonzalez said. She said she was saddened by the jeers and curses she endured from fellow Iranians.
“I celebrate the death of the Ayatollah alongside so many Iranians around the world. But leaders are temporary, war is not. Wars transcend lifetimes and generations. I want a free Iran, an Iran without state oppression, where its people are free to practice whatever religion they wish. I want an Iran where my family members can have the opportunity to see their homeland, an opportunity that fascism has robbed them of. I want nothing more than that. But I want them to have a homeland to return to, a homeland that is not just rubble, a homeland where their family and friends still live. A homeland with a leader chosen by the people of Iran, not one chosen by the geopolitical interests of the U.S.”
Delivered by Shekinah Abolo
