Is he really asking me for the mic back right now?
I’m halfway through my question to a pensive, kneeling Abdul El-Sayed when he extends his right hand toward me, stopping about six inches from my face. He glances at the microphone in my hand.
I keep talking.
Half a second later, he swiftly pulls his hand back, adjusts his right sleeve with his left hand, looks back up at me, and smoothly settles into a neutral position.
Islamic Terror Regime Supporters in America
Over the last few months, I had grown increasingly frustrated with Abdul El-Sayed’s unwillingness to speak clearly about the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime that has ruled my parents’ homeland for 47 years. After joint U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Abdul was caught on a leaked audio tape admitting that he didn’t “want to comment on Khamenei at all” because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad.”
As a Persian-American, I find it reprehensible that any person in America would support a man like Khamenei and the Islamic terror regime he led. But what’s even more concerning to me is when a sizable chunk of Khamenei supporters rally behind a candidate for the U.S. Senate who, in my mind, shares a lot of the same beliefs as them.
So when I saw a flyer for a campus town hall event with El-Sayed, I knew I had to attend. This would be the perfect chance for me to ask him a question, face-to-face, about the repression that my family and so many other families experienced under a radical Islamic government. For background, my cousin was chased through the streets of Iran by the so-called “Morality Police” because her hijab showed too much hair, and my uncle was lashed 50 times for the crime of peacefully protesting. Facing the gallows, he had to flee the country. Thank God he did.
Questioning El-Sayed
As I found my way toward my seat at the venue, I kept thinking about what I actually wanted from El-Sayed. I knew what I was going to ask him, but what answer was I looking for? I decided not to think about it. He’ll say what he says, and I’ll decide how to feel about it after the fact, I decided.
From the moment Abdul El-Sayed appeared from stage left, I could sense an aura about him. The audience immediately erupted into raucous applause. Despite everything I had spent the previous months thinking about Abdul El-Sayed, I caught myself applauding too.
Abdul: “Money out of …”
Crowd: “POLITICS!”
Abdul: “Money in your …”
Crowd: “POCKET!”
Abdul: “Medicare for …”
Crowd: “ALL!”
After an introductory speech and some pre-scripted questions, I was finally given the chance to ask my own. I was standing in the second row from the front, so El-Sayed approached me and handed me his mic as he knelt to my level.
I began with the story about my cousin and uncle and transitioned into my disapproval of El-Sayed’s silence on Khamenei’s death. Then, I asked him three questions:
Do you disavow your silence on Khamenei’s death?
Do you reject domestic supporters of Khamenei?
Do you stand against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and, thus, with the Iranian people?
El-Sayed began: “For too long and too often, when we think about our role in the world, we have turned ourselves into the world’s policeman.”
He then talked about “solidarity” and expressed disagreement with the Iran war before saying: “While I stand with freedom and democratic movements, I also worry that once you start putting our resources toward regime change in foreign countries, more often than not, the regimes that we seek to change are the ones in which there is a natural resource interest, and it becomes a ploy for the interests of our corporations.”
Did this guy get speaking lessons from Kamala Harris? I asked El-Sayed to disavow terrorists and stand with my people, and all he could muster was a word salad about corporate interests. After another minute, I pressed him, but he still avoided the question.
He went on for another couple of minutes. In that time, he never said he stands with the people of Iran. He never disavowed his silence. He never even said the words “IRGC” or “Khamenei.” He just mentioned vague “movements for freedom and democracy” and said the U.S. shouldn’t be involved in regime change. I challenged him one last time, and he proclaimed a desire for Iranians’ freedom, but still refused to answer the questions I actually asked.
Echoes of a Radical Movement
As I sit down, it dawns on me how incredibly privileged I am. I was born in this amazing country, where I can talk about issues facing the Persian people from the safety and comfort of my world-class American university. And while I would love to see a new regime rule Iran, I’m becoming increasingly sympathetic to El-Sayed’s anti-war position, especially as the Iran war drags on.
But I didn’t ask El-Sayed about the war. I didn’t ask him about our role in Iran’s future. I asked him to call out the evil of an Islamic terror state by its name.
And he couldn’t.
For 92 million Iranians, these issues are not abstract talking points. They are a part of the daily, recurring nightmare that is living under the Islamic regime. Peaceful protesters are slaughtered in the streets. Demonstrators are relentlessly pursued by the IRGC and are reportedly murdered in their own hospital beds. What kind of person kills someone in their own hospital bed?
The internet sleuths have their theories about the origin of my question. Some think I’m a Zionist plant hired to disrupt El-Sayed’s event. Others think I was placed by El-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers, and given a script on what to say. But the reality is much less interesting.
The truth is, I’m just a student with a family that has been through more than I can even begin to imagine. So, when I see echoes of the radical movement that destroyed Iran crop up in my home, America, am I going to back down?
Absolutely not.
