Mohammad Tajsar and his older brother, Yousef, have never been
to Iraq. But for their entire lives, their parents have told them
stories about the country and why their family had to flee before
they were born.
On Sunday, the two brothers voted in the first Iraqi election in
over three decades, helping fulfill a dream their parents have had
since they left their homeland over 25 years ago.
“They lost family and so much of their lives. (My parents)
wanted to stay in Iraq. … For them this is still a foreign
country. It means so much for them,” said Yousef, a
fifth-year political science student.
Their mother, Jenan, left Iraq the day she finished school
studying to be a pharmacist. She was only 20 years old and said she
left because she and her family were afraid, both for their lives
and that they would be arrested because she refused to join the
Ba’ath party, the ruling party in Iraq.
“We were really in a dangerous situation,” said
Jenan, who is now 44 and lives in Los Angeles. “I had five of
my cousins that were tortured and murdered. It was every day that
we expected that they would be arresting us.”
From Iraq, Jenan traveled to Lebanon and then to Syria where she
met her husband Kazem, another Iraqi refugee. They were soon
engaged but the romance was bittersweet because many of their
friends and family were still in danger and some were being
tortured by Saddam Hussein and members of his regime.
“We didn’t even celebrate our wedding because we
were so sad. … We were not like ordinary couples,” Jenan
said.
The couple continued to move around the Near and Middle East,
and Yousef was born in Kuwait before the family finally settled in
Iran.
Yousef says he remembers their life in Iran as somewhat hectic.
Sometimes his extended family living in Tehran would show up at
their house to live for a while because bombs were being dropped on
or near the city, Yousef said. Mohammad and his younger brother
were born in Iran before the family left for the United States in
1994.
They left so Kazem could obtain another license to practice
dentistry. He eventually studied at UCLA and they decided to stay
in the area after he finished.
For Jenan, the voting on Sunday was not just a civic duty, but a
celebration of the fall of Saddam and the forces that originally
drove them from Iraq.
“It’s not just we are going to vote, it’s a
celebration thing. I feel that I am voting for my friends, those
who gave their lives for Iraq. And of course I vote for the future
of my country and the kids who lost a father and a mother that were
killed by this Ba’athist regime and dictatorship. It’s
like a dream come true,” she said.
Mohammad, an 18-year-old first-year English student, said his
family is excited about voting, but is skeptical of the process and
of how much of an effect it will have on security and stability in
Iraq.
“I think the biggest thing is that there’s a
skepticism about my whole family to reflect how we feel,”
Mohammad said, adding that the elections may only be a metaphor for
democracy and freedom for his family and Iraq.
“It is kind of sort of a closure for my parents to finally
say that we got rid of one of the worst … like a kind of
conversion from the past to the present,” Mohammad said.
Yousef, who has been working at the polling stations as a
technical advisor in preparation for the elections, also echoed
that skepticism of the elections, but said he still hopes elections
will begin to provide security and autonomy for Iraqis.
“The war destroyed any kind of infrastructure in Iraq.
Creating a government is the only way for Iraq to start creating an
infrastructure,” Yousef said.
Despite the skepticism, the Tajsar family made its way from Los
Angeles to Irvine Sunday morning, leaving around noon to make the
hour-long trip.
And though Yousef and Mohammad have never been to Iraq, their
mother hopes it will bring them closer to their people.
“I told them just to have a relationship with the people
in Iraq; just to give them support,” Jenan said. “When
you vote, you build a relationship between you and those people
over there, and you belong to those people.”