I Cannot Hate This Team

There are facts I cannot ignore.

• The Islamic regime has murdered thousands of innocent protesters and arrested and tortured thousands more since January(and for decades).

• It has been exactly 23 years and 2 days since I fled Iran after receiving death threats, constant harassment, and pressure.

• I do not suffer from Stockholm syndrome.

• Some of Iran’s most influential football figures once wanted me silenced because of a couple of my cartoons. After Iran failed to qualify for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, I was warned that two hitmen close to a former national team coach were standing near the newspaper where I worked.

• The Islamic regime wants to use everything to divide us.

• I hated Iran’s national team participating in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

• I dislike the Iranian Football Federation and its stooges.

All of that is true.

And yet, after watching this team, I cannot reduce what I felt to a political slogan.

Iran’s national team fought tooth and nail. They played as if they knew millions of Iranians, scattered across the world and broken by anger, grief, exile, fear, and disappointment, were watching them with complicated hearts.

For a brief moment, they gave Iranians from different political backgrounds and beliefs something shared. Not agreement. Not forgiveness. Not forgetfulness. Just a feeling. A rare, fragile, human feeling.

I cannot blame those who booed the “national anthem,” or more accurately, the regime’s anthem. I cannot blame those who are furious at players who stayed silent while people were being massacred in January. I cannot blame those who do not want to see anything, anything at all, that appears to represent the Islamic Republic.

That anger is real. It is justified. It comes from blood, prison cells, graves, exile, and years of humiliation.

But I also believe this team represented something beyond the regime.

They represented those of us who still love Iran without loving its rulers. Those of us who love the language, the food, the mountains, the jokes, the music, the history, the stubbornness, the grief, the absurdity, and the impossible beauty of that country.

They represented people who have nothing in common politically, yet still hold their breath when Iran attacks, still feel their pulse rise when the ball gets close to the goal, still remember that before the regime stole every symbol, Iran belonged to us.

The Islamic Republic wants to poison everything. It wants to turn flags, songs, sports, grief, and even joy into weapons. It wants us to hate each other so deeply that we forget the simple fact that many of us are wounded by the same monster.

I will not give the regime that victory.

I cannot hate this team.

That does not mean I forgive silence. It does not mean I trust the federation. It does not mean I forget the dead, the tortured, the imprisoned, or those forced into exile. It does not mean I confuse football with freedom.

It means I am still human.

And for a short while, this team reminded me that we are all flawed, wounded, angry, contradictory, and still capable of feeling something together.

Even after everything.

Especially after everything.