Torture and War Will Always Create Refugees | Nasrin Parvaz | TEDxUniversityofStAndrews

Key Concepts:

• Refugees, torture, war, political scapegoating, Western government interference, systemic racism/sexism, capitalism, foreign policy, solidarity.

I. Personal Experience of Torture and Exile

• The speaker, an Iranian torture survivor, recounts her involvement in political activities against the Islamic regime in Iran, leading to her arrest, torture, and imprisonment for eight years.
• Many of her friends were executed.
• After release, she continued political activities but eventually fled to the UK.
• She struggled with nightmares and undiagnosed epilepsy, initially misattributed to language difficulties.
• Therapy at Freedom from Torture and writing workshops helped her process her experiences.
• She has published books, including a prison memoir and a novel set in an interrogation center now turned into a prison museum by the regime.
• Example: She describes seeing a tortured woman with a child in the interrogation center, which later inspired her novel.

II. Critique of Western Government Interference

• The speaker argues that Western government interference in Iran (e.g., the 1953 coup and support for the Shah in 1979) contributed to the conditions that led to her persecution and exile.
• "If the UK government and other western governments had not interfered in Iran... I would be in Iran."
• She claims Western governments were in Iran for oil and cheap labor, supporting corrupt rulers who used prisons and executions to maintain power.
• The interrogation center where she was tortured was designed by Germans, and Western companies exported methods of suppressing workers.
• "We are here because your governments were in our countries first and helped those regimes to torture us and made us to flee."

III. The Refugee Experience and Political Scapegoating

• Refugees are used as political scapegoats, blamed for problems they did not create.
• Western governments are responsible for the conditions that cause people to flee their countries.
• "Attacking and invading other countries that is making war it's creating refugees."
• The solution is not to stop refugees but to address the root causes of displacement.
• Refugees are retraumatized in countries meant to protect them.
• Hatred is infectious, leading some to believe government propaganda against refugees.
• The speaker highlights the exploitation of the working class, who are pitted against refugees.
• "After all it's the poor on both sides um that get killed in any war and in war against refugees the European working class are preached against us refugees asylum seekers immigrants."

IV. Western Complicity in Iranian Regime's Atrocities

• The speaker criticizes Western governments for inviting Iranian presidents to their countries even when women are being oppressed and killed in Iran.
• French-made bullets were used against women protesting compulsory hijab during the "Women, Life, Freedom" uprising, causing eye injuries and targeting women's bodies.
• Western companies sold technology to the Iranian regime that is used to track and suppress activists, despite sanctions.
• Assassinations of Iranian activists in Europe were carried out by the Iranian regime, yet the UK and EU opposed designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
• Mosen Rafus, an ex-IRGC leader, admitted to ordering the assassinations of activists in Europe.
• "Despite all these assassinations and terrorist activity that Islamic regime had in all over the world the United Kingdom and the European Union uh opposed a designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization."

V. Systemic Racism, Sexism, and Capitalism

• Refugees are treated with systemic racism, sexism, and a lack of humanity in Western countries.
• Immigrants and refugees are blamed for economic problems caused by capitalism, such as lack of jobs and healthcare access.
• "Governments don't want people to know that it's capitalism that makes them poor anxious and miserable."
• Internal displacement due to environmental issues (e.g., lack of water) is also a significant problem.
• Presidents who torture people are welcomed by Western governments, while the tortured are ignored.

VI. Call to Action and Solidarity

• The speaker urges listeners to recognize that Western governments and oppressive regimes are the common enemy.
• "Western governments with regimes in power all together they make us and hate us they're ru ruling the world and ruining."
• Invasion and war produce refugees, and those displaced by European foreign policies should not be blamed.
• People should unite against the "guilty guys" instead of fighting each other.
• She encourages listeners to join organizations like Freedom from Torture to support refugees and survivors of torture.
• "Join us none of us are natives all our ancestors came from somewhere and the human the future human being will be a displaced person."

Conclusion:

The speaker uses her personal experience as a torture survivor and refugee to critique Western government policies and their role in creating conditions that lead to displacement. She argues that refugees are scapegoated for problems caused by capitalism and systemic inequalities, and calls for solidarity and action to address the root causes of displacement and support those who have been forced to flee their homes.