INTERVIEW

They have moved countries through war zones, conflict, political and religious persecution EastLife kicks off a new series of immigrants sharing their stories of hardship and displacement from their birth country as they risked their lives to find a new home in New Zealand. Turning their narrative around from extreme hardship to success, three Baha’i sisters Gitti Asadyari-Lupo, Jamaliyeh Drake and Sona Asadyari talk to FARIDA MASTER of their dangerous escape from Iran to find hope in the land of opportunity.

Trying to preserve the bloodied clothes her father last wore at the time he was executed with nine other people is a gut-wrenching memory that has stayed with Gitti Asadyari-Lupo since she was 15 years old.

The Flat Bush resident says she remembers running her hand over the frayed, burnt edge – the exact spot where the bullet had whizzed through his heart, instantly killing him. The emotional pain was piercing.

“My sister Sona and I didn’t want our mother to see Dad’s bloodstained clothes as she was deeply mourning his death. We would take turns to get Mum out of the house so that she wouldn’t see us drying them on the clothesline, as we wanted to preserve them,” says Gitti, a test manager for a so ware company.

Her life story was once riddled with heart-stopping moments, dangerously traversing mountains in the middle of the night, risking her life as she was smuggled out of Iran.

One of the rst, vivid memories Gitti has as an eleven-year-old is of looking out of her school window and spotting soldiers lining up against the Catholic School wall in Tabriz, Iran.

“We heard loud noises, and it sounded like a group of people shouting and screaming, sounds of windows shattering and guns being red. There was a lot of unrest, as men in uniform were attacking anything foreign – businesses, banks, people,” she says.

This was in the late ‘70s in Iran, just prior to the uprising in 197879 that resulted in a revolution, toppling the monarchy and led to the establishment of an Islamic Republic.

“Our school principal hurriedly ushered us into the basement of the school building,” recollects Gitti who can still visualise the roads covered with shards of broken glass.

Gitti was the youngest of the brood of six children born to Baha’i parents.

“My dad was a teacher. He was a very progressive man who believed in women’s rights and was very thoughtful and considerate. He was born a Muslim and later converted to the Baha’i faith that respects all faiths. He had made a conscious choice to follow the Baha’i faith which the clergy strongly disapproved of. An agency was funded by the government to identify Baha’is and intimidate them. They were singled out and persecuted. My dad was arrested several times and put in prison. My mum was Russian and loved my dad dearly. She also converted to the faith.”

By the time Gitti was 12 years old, she witnessed the horror of hate crimes.

“As a child it was horrifying to see people being shot down on streets, dead bodies hanging from trees. Iron rods stuck in their backside. People were being publicly executed. It was surreal. I just couldn’t get my head around it.”

Another memory deeply etched in her mind is the rst time her father was arrested.

“All of us had gone out on a family picnic. Only my dad and my older sister Sona were at home when the guards knocked at the door and asked for my dad to appear in court. Next, he was arrested and put behind bars for being an ‘in del’. We had no information on his whereabouts and I remember my brother and the rest of the family frantically trying to locate him.”

Gitti’s father was released from prison 10 days later. He was only allowed to go home because of a tragedy. His daughter had sadly drowned trying to save the lives of two young boys swimming in the Caspian Sea.

“It was such a tough time for my mum, as she nally got to see dad, and yet she was lled with immense grief and despair on having lost a daughter.”

By the time Gitti was 13, she begged her mother to allow her to leave the country.

A er much thought and planning for two years, they came up with an escape route that would lead her to Karachi, Pakistan, where she would be handed over to the Baha’i Centre that would look a er her.

“Being the youngest in the family, all my siblings were well educated by the time I was growing up. Iran was quite a modern country before the revolution. Everyone had enough money, and amongst the Baha’is it is believed that the most important gi you can give your girl child, is education. But with the political upheaval, I was afraid that I would be le behind and not get the education I deserved. I was determined to get out of Iran.”

Gitti’s older sister Jamaliyeh Drake had moved out of the country at the age of 22 and had travelled before landing in Samoa. Jamaliyeh later married Steve, a New Zealander contracted to build a government building in Samoa.

Gitti convinced her mother that she wanted to be with her older sister.

“I can’t imagine what my mother must have gone through to nally hand me over to a group of young smugglers whose boss had been beheaded just six months prior to our great escape. He had been caught smuggling people out of the country. I know I’d never allow my daughter to do the same. But those were desperate times.”

The long journey involved a covert operation travelling with two other girls by air, bus and later speeding in a four-wheel drive with no headlights, dodging bullets, hiding in bushes enroute to Pakistan.

“Many like myself have escaped to freedom,” says Gitti. She admits that when she did nally arrive in New Zealand in 1984, she was in for a huge culture shock.

“Firstly, I didn’t speak a word of English, and I missed my mum and my friends terribly. I missed the food we grew up with,” she laughs.

It took some years for Gitti to adapt and fully integrate into the country she calls home. More importantly, Gitti has the ardent desire to give back.

She has been volunteering at the Hospice for years now. For ten years she wrote biographies for people who wanted to share their stories with their families.

“My family and my faith helped me get through and, in a way, made me stronger and determined to ght back by trying to make my life better through education and faith in humanity. I don’t take anything for granted. I am eternally grateful to my parents for their courage and determination to give us the best they could. I am grateful to be in New Zealand and call it my home where I live free and away from prejudice that my fellow Baha’i brothers and sisters are denied in their own home country.

“When you have been deprived of things, you know the true value of giving back,” she says.

Last photo with parents and all the siblings in Iran.

Jamaliyeh with Steve on her rst trip to NZ 1979.

Sona, Gitti and Jamaliyeh Jamaliyeh and Steve – Wedding day.

“Growing up in a Baha’i family in Iran before the Islamic revolution, we went to school with children who were mainly from Muslim families. We also had Christian friends as well as those from other minorities, and shared a good relationship with them all,” recalls Jamaliyeh. “We were allowed to attend school, university, and nd employment although the hardliners had gained some influence in the government wanting exclusion of Baha’is from government jobs.”

Amongst the six siblings, Jamaliyeh was the rst to leave her home country. Fresh out of university, she had witnessed the rumblings of a political upheaval and decided to experience life beyond its borders.

“A er I nished university at the age of 22, I decided to leave Iran to explore the world. This was in late 1978, and I’d witnessed some street demonstrations with banks being burnt. It was initiated by Khomeini’s supporters. Four months later, the Shah of Iran le the country and Khomeini returned to Iran from exile. Life as we knew it for all Iranians changed forever and for Baha’is it was an unimaginable life of persecution that has continued for the past 43 years,” says Jamaliyeh.

“A er I le Iran, I travelled for a while, and I got to Samoa where I knew a couple of families living there. A month a er, I found a job as an accountant and decided to stay there and see how events back home unfolded. My family, like most other Baha’is, did not escape the pressure from the authorities now in power, su ering loss of jobs, right to education, imprisonment, con scation of properties.

“Those months and years were the hardest for me. Being so far away from home and receiving news of the execution of our father and friends, most of whom were highly educated people who spent all their lives serving the people and the country, teachers, doctors, surgeons, dentists, pharmacists, parents of young children, men, women, young and old.”

At a time when there was no social media and the only means of getting news of the outside world was the BBC, Jamaliyeh says that every time she listened to the news, she would get very upset.

“I was upset with God for letting it happen, upset with the government and upset with people. It’s like watching a Holocaust movie with people dying all around you. It becomes your reality. Life and death take a di erent meaning.

“It was so upsetting that for two weeks I didn’t listen to BBC. It felt like I was always living on the knife’s edge. Two weeks later I got to know that my father had been executed. It was very painful,” she says of the tragedy that still tugs at her heart.

“I wish I was there with my family and friends at the time, rather than hearing of all the atrocities being descended on such peaceloving people who believe in unity of mankind and equality of men and women – all the values that our global human family is now striving for.”

Helping her get through the rough times was Steve, a young Kiwi who arrived in Samoa on a job for a construction company. Soon the two fell in love.

“By the end of my rst year in Samoa, we got married and lived there for ve-and-a-half years. When my husband’s construction job ended, we le Samoa and came to New Zealand.

“My business degree from Iran was not recognised in New Zealand so I had to start all over again and studied to become a chartered accountant. I then started a private training establishment with a friend, o ering second chance training and education in the Auckland region,” says Jamaliyeh, who currently works with Afghani refugees helping them resettle in New Zealand.

Last photo with mum and all the remaining siblings.

“I le Iran as it became unbearable to live,” says Sona, who arrived in New Zealand in the ‘80s.

She clearly remembers her gruelling journey like it was yesterday. “My father was a high school teacher. He was always looking for opportunities to get higher education. All my childhood as I remember moving from one place to another, due to harassment we faced for being a Baha’is,” she says about being discriminated and singled out.

“Finally, when I nished school, I started working as a teacher, but lost my job as the Islamic revolution took place in Iran in 1979. The Baha’is were denied basic human rights. My father was executed in July 1981 along with other Baha’is – around 250 professionals, all highly educated, serving the country in di erent occupations. I was dismissed from my teaching job along with other Baha’is. “Eventually, I decided to leave my home and join my sisters in New Zealand as life was very unsafe in Iran. I escaped through the Pakistan border as we were not even allowed to get a passport or leave the country.

“The escape was a very dangerous with a high possibility of getting caught or killed,” she recalls.

“A er many years of living in Iran, settling in New Zealand has given me a new life as well as a new career,” says Sona, who got a Bachelors of Education degree and worked as an early childhood teacher.

Sona says that the best tip she has for new migrants is, “Don’t sit back and wait for people to do things for you. Get involved in the community, serve the country in any way you can. There are a lot of opportunities out there provided you look for them.”

ATTITUDE is the most powerful tool in our Life Toolbox So, right now... is the best time ever, to check out our own ‘Attitude Set’. The scary part of our choice of attitudes, self-beliefs and interactions, is that they began very early in our lives. Right parents...?

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