A week of fear, silence, and disappointment

It’s been a week since Iran came under constant attack. There is a war going on, and Iranians living abroad are understandably gripped by fear and anxiety for their loved ones back home. Over the past few days, like most other Iranians, I have lost contact with my parents multiple times trying anything I can to find where they are and check if everyone is safe. The mental pressure our community has experienced is like nothing we have experienced before.

In the case of me personally, Monday night was especially difficult. After an evacuation order for the district where my parents live, news broke of Trump calling for a full evacuation of Tehran (a city of more than 10 million) at 2 a.m.

It took my brother (who also lives abroad) and me two days to convince our parents to leave the home and city they’ve lived in for decades. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would one day be asking them to flee their own home.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how they had left. We asked them to pack clothes and essential documents and just leave (although my mum insisted on waiting for the dishwasher to finish so she can empty it, you know how mums are!). Now, I was thinking about everything they had left behind! My parents are one of those who cherish memories and keep a physical record of milestones. They have kept the first shoes I ever wore, a notebook from my kindergarten days where my daily activities were reported back to them (yes, long before people sent emails), drawings I had “drawn” when I was as young as two, etc., and countless old photographs in physical photo albums. All of these are now left behind, in hope it will be there when (if) they return.

I’m not sharing this to ask for sympathy. I’ve received support from friends, colleagues, and students across the world which I am deeply grateful to. I’m sharing this because I’m deeply disappointed in my employer, NTNU .

But why?

I’m not expecting NTNU to break ties with the Kongsberg Gruppen. That ship has sailed many months back when our university decided to keep ties with a company which is compliset in the death of many people our colleagues from Palastine and Lebnon know. As John Oliver once said, «there is rock bottom and then there is where ever we are»!

If you ask my family and friends, they’ll tell you I’m socially awkward and emotionally reserved. But even I know this much: showing care matters.

Extending a basic gesture of decency (reaching out to affected employees) is not hard. But it means everything. Sadly, NTNU’s leadership, from the very top down to unit leaders, has chosen silence. Not a single message acknowledging that some employees might be affected. Not even a generic email offering support services. Not even one sentence to say, «We understand this is a difficult time.»

Nothing!

It makes me wonder, are we seen merely as numbers, expected to do our jobs regardless of what we’re going through? Or perhaps showing empathy to employees from so-called «red countries» is now considered a breach of export control regulations?

As someone who is in touch with international students, I’ve learned the importance of showing care, especially to those living far from home during times of crisis. That’s why, whenever something major happens be it war in Ukraine, floods in Pakistan, an earthquake in Mexico, or an uprising in Bangladesh, I send a simple message to students from those countries. A few lines, it doesn’t need to be anything fancy, just to let them know that we are aware of the tough time they are going through. A simple email or a few minutes in the corridor costs nothing, but the responses I get shows how much it means

This is not about politics, it’s about being a decent human being.

PS.

Before sharing this article I asked a colleague to read it over and let me know if I was being unfair. What they said was jarring: «They might get back to you, but only because you had to tell them to.» And that’s exactly the problem.

I truly hope this post does not result in NTNU reaching out to us now, just because they have been called out, that would miss the point entirely. Instead, I hope this serves as a wake-up call, not just on a human level, but also on a systemic one. And I hope that, God forbid, if a similar crisis happens elsewhere in the world, NTNU will be better prepared to show genuine care and support, regardless of where the affected people come from.