The ongoing conflict in Iran has Afarin Rahmanifar reflecting on the emotional toll that the Iranian diaspora is experiencing and on her role as an artist in exile.
“It's heartbreaking to witness the loss of life in recent days,” Rahmanifar said. “As an artist, it's my duty to really document this history, not only from a voice of a woman, but also as a person that has been involved mentally and emotionally [in] recent days, months, and years.”
Rahmanifar is a Connecticut-based mixed media artist, who uses traditional Iranian and contemporary American techniques. She’s also an associate art professor at Eastern Connecticut State University and has been living in the U.S. since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
“My art often navigates the space between personal narratives and collective history,” Rahmanifar said, “especially in moments when events in Iran echo deeply within the diaspora community.”
The U.S. killing of the country’s supreme leader has left Rahmanifar feeling uncertain about Iran’s future. However, she said what’s clear is that people in Iran will continue to push back against the country’s repressive political system.
“I'm not quite sure what's going to happen. Predicting that, it's difficult,” Rahmanifar said. “But from what I'm seeing and from family and friends that I have back home, they're not giving up. They're just going to keep going.”
That resilience is something Rahmanifar said she admires, and is a theme she often explores in her artwork.
“The collective support is both motivating and meaningful because it signals that the struggle for dignity and equal rights is being carried forward by a diverse and committed new generation uprising in Iran,” Rahmanifar said.
One cannot forget, however, the lives lost in this conflict, she said.
“My thoughts are with those who are mourning and with those living in fear or uncertainty,” Rahmanifar said. “In moments like this, it is important to center our shared humanity and remember the cost of violence and ordinary lives.”
Humanitarian ripple effects
Humanitarian aid organizations in Connecticut are also following the widening conflict in Iran and the Middle East.
Janti Soeripto, president and CEO of Fairfield-based Save the Children US, said nearby countries are already seeing the effects.
Speaking on Connecticut Public’s “Where We Live”, she estimated at least 30,000 people in Lebanon are displaced, while schools are closed, and children are in shelters.
“In Gaza, humanitarian access has been closed off, so again, fewer supplies are coming in, and we'll see the impact on children from Iraq to Syria to Israel to Lebanon and Gaza and the West Bank,” Soeripto said. “We're incredibly concerned as we and as we know children are uniquely sensitive and vulnerable in cases like this.”
Provash Budden, deputy senior vice president of emergency programs at Stamford-based Americares, said the challenges of getting aid to the region are immense.
“You have to deal with checkpoints. Border closures. Damaged infrastructure. Rules and regulations. State and non-state actors as well to negotiate access through,” Budden said.
Budden said he is concerned about medical access for millions of people in the Middle East.
“Hospitals – health centers – have been damaged through years of conflict and war,” he said. “They’ve been closed down or they don’t have enough staff to operate services.”
Health care concerns in warzones extend beyond victims of immediate trauma, according to Budden. He said it is important to consider broken medical supply lines that can take much longer to fix.
Soeripto said they are both concerned about the long term implications for the region.
“There are rules to conflict like this. Hospitals, health clinics, schools should never be [hit],” Soeripto said. “Everything must be done to protect them from being targeted.”
Connecticut Public’s Patrick Skahill contributed to this report.
