The Tragic Deaths of Iranian Canadians

 Pedram Mousavi and Mojgan Daneshmand, professors at the University of Alberta,
 were killed in the crash along with their daughters Daria and Dorina.
Photograph: Courtesy @zaghtweet1 on Twitter

Yesterday a Boeing 737 jet took off from Tehran airport in Iran and a few minutes later more than 170 people were dead after a crash which to this point has no explanation. It was a catastrophic event and as is so often the case it had far-reaching implications, especially here in Canada. A third of the passengers were Iranian-Canadian citizens and three quarters were headed to this country with many of them being students at Canadian universities.

The Iranian community in Toronto is large, over 100,000, leading to the nickname Tehranto. Two dozen or so were part of the Iranian diaspora in Edmonton. Many of the dead were professionals including professors and doctors. Children died with their parents, and a newlywed couple perished. . Exceptional students with bright futures are gone.

As is so often the case now the media has profiled those who have died and we quickly appreciate that these are people who came to Canada to build better lives and have also made this a better country, as is the case with immigrants from around the world. This is an immense loss for Canada. 


This mother and daughter died in the crash

Contrast this with the portrayal of Iran and Iranians by the hawkish members of the Trump administration and the right-wing media after the assassination by the States of a senior military official. We know that he was key to Iran's sponsorship of terrorist cells in the Middle East, but in order to justify this action all Iranians have been characterized as Muslim extremists who are plotting violence and the overthrow of Western civilization. It is part of the heavy-handed yet too often successful strategy to portray others as less than human, including migrants from Central America or Iraqis, or...the list goes on. 

I speak with a guy at the gym who came to Canada from Iran decades ago to flee the oppressive regime and has become a successful home builder. We chat about his Tesla and his solar installations on houses. I wonder whether he has been affected directly by this tragedy. 

We can all mourn the deaths of the passengers on this ill-fated plane and hope that investigators are able to discern the cause. We might consider the grief in mosques in the coming days and include those who have been lost in our own prayers in churches as we gather to worship this weekend. Each of these lives was precious to God and their loss is our loss.