مرگ خامنه ای (Death to Khamenei)
A opinion column by Iranian journalist and activist Sahara Sajjadi
When I went to Iran years ago, my family discussed topics that, at the time, eluded me. I only half listened because it was highly political, and well, I was a child. I remember, though, at one point, my grandma interrupting my mom to say, “Oh sure! Then why’d you cry when Khomeini died?”
My mom isn’t one to challenge her mom, so she remained silent. I don’t know what the context was, if I had to guess, it’d be my dad saying something pro Islamic Republic, my mom something anti, and my grandma interjecting.
But it always stood out to me.
On Feb. 28, 2026, after a morning filled with anxiety and fear, waking up at 1am to the news of war, anxiously checking my phone, later attending an animal sanctuary with my friend, then sitting down for coffee while obsessively checking the news, at around noon, we learned that Khamenei, Iran’s tyrant, died by an Israeli airstrike.
I’ve never really been one to celebrate death. It’s never felt right to me. It feels dark, twisted. When anyone dies, anyone at all, I feel remorseful. It’s something I try to hide about myself, because I’m kind of horrified by it. I’ve felt sorry for really terrible people who have died. It’s just my inclination.
When I read on Fardad Farahzad’s Instagram (the first person to ever interview me by the way) the bolded text, “KHAMENEI IS DEAD” I felt shock. I felt surprised. I felt nothing at all for a moment. I felt slightly irked it was by Israel and not by us.
And then I felt devastation.
I started crying, like my mom did when Khomeini died, but not out of pity or remorse— Out of generations of sorrow. I thought about everything we—Iranians—have lost. How much we have suffered and continue to suffer. I thought about how when my mom shows me her family photos after the revolution, and nobody is smiling, she says, “there was nothing to smile about after the revolution.” I think about my grandpa who was kidnapped by Islamists and held for two weeks, taunted with the prospect of death as they put a bag over his head and pulled the trigger of a gun to torment him, over and over. I thought about my grandma, who died too early because of Iran’s poor medical system, of my uncle, too, who was a journalist, but died again due to a bad medical system. I thought about my cousin, who has cancer, and is struggling due to Iran’s bad medical system, compounded by US sanctions.
I feel sorrow for everyone. But I didn’t for him.
And I hate him for it. You’ve robbed so many people of not only their lives, but their purity, their kindness, their joy and their light. You’ve stolen my empathy from me, you’ve filled me with anger and rage. You have completely rewritten who so many of us are because your corruption is just so sinister. Even in your death, you haunt us like a shadow. You have changed the fibers of our being! You have filled us with malice!
I don’t know how to explain the sorrow to anyone. I struggle to memorialize it or do it justice. I feel enraged. In the moments after learning his death, I felt enraged at all he stole from us.
Amidst tears, I turned to my friend to explain to him that I was crying because of what Khamenei represents for us—a deeply sinister system that has stolen so many dreams.
But while he represents the system, the system is so much more than him. So his death is nothing but symbolism, right? Because what comprises the system is still there. And that rotten system is what has robbed Iran of its charm, its dignity.
I cried for a few minutes to my friend before getting it together. We went to eat but I told him I did not have much of an appetite. I ate only a little bit. Eventually, he had to leave, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I really didn’t want to be left alone, so we parted ways. It’s not really anyone’s job to babysit me.
I couldn’t think straight while driving, one because of how much was going on, two because I’d been up for 13 hours at that point. Somehow, I got home, absentmindedly walked my dogs, took a shower, and then doom scrolled for hours on twitter, waiting for the regime to turn the wifi back on so I could celebrate with my family on WhatsApp.
I’ve felt a wave of emotions since — anger, sorrow, joy, a lot of fear. Fear of what comes next! Fear that it won’t be good. Fear historical patterns will follow.
Anger, a lot of anger. I really need to memorialize the anger. I want everyone, 30 years from now, wherever Iran is, to remember those who propagandized our deaths, who only stood with us when our death certificates were signed by the Israelis, who consistently minimized and discounted our plight, who called us “Mossad,” for documenting a massacre, who have not even bothered to learn a thing about Iran, to post today about “ALL EYES ON IRAN <3” or highlighting, with a clear political motivate to validate their own political views, that our little Iranians girls were killed in an Israeli airstrike. I felt so much rage our youth was being used for political points by people who don’t give a damn about us to begin with. What right do you have to pretend to empathize with us when you romanticize, whitewash, and normalize our killers? What right at all?
God, the rage just eats me alive. And I really don’t like it! I like peace! Calm! Serenity! I suppose i didn’t choose the right nationality nor profession if I was after a peaceful life.
For years, I have chastised myself, you used to be more empathic, I’ll say. I think it’s true. I was. I’m not sure what happened, but I do know that amount of empathy was unsustainable. I would spend hours upon hours crying for other people’s sorrows, I would punish myself for it. It’s probably better I’m not like that anymore, but on the counter, now I am just extremely irritable. I am so sensitive when it comes to Iran’s political affairs. It’s so easy to set me off, even inadvertently! Because we have suffered so, so much, and then we are reprimanded for our right to speak on it, to offer insights, to challenge, to demonstrate, to document.
What right do you have in the West to police our grief? No right at all!
Amidst everything, one collective breath of relief was Khamenei’s death. Despite the online clowns trying to make him out to be a martyr, Iranians from all walks of life have celebrated his demise, only to be chastised by Americans who say we shouldn’t celebrate it because Israel did it. No matter what, or who, killed Khamenei, we’d celebrate, rest assured. If he died of natural causes, we’d applaud. If he died choking on water, we’d bless the water.
It really cannot be overstated the amount of sorrow 47 years of cruelty has brought upon us. So much so, it is undeniable by even sympathizers on the left, who will offer a tired, “The IRI is bad, but….” before explaining to us why we need to put a sock in our mouth regarding our criticisms (of OUR country, not theirs, mind you).
My God, we can’t even celebrate his demise! I received a message shaming me for celebrating while bombs fall on Iran, despite the fact Iranians in Iran took to the streets to celebrate! That after 47 years of tyranny, we got a semblance of justice. For a day, we smiled, and immediately, it was criminalized by the anti-imperialist police!
Do you know, for years, I have felt premature guilt, that my children will blame me for the fact they cannot return to Iran because of my dissidence? I am so afraid they will resent me for it. Do you know how I have struggled to obtain cancer care for my cousin due to US sanctions? That when my uncle lost his lifeguarding job during the water crisis (thanks to Iran’s poor management) I couldn’t send him money because of sanctions? That he asked me how he could sell his likeness to AI so he could afford to survive? Do you know the pain of separation, that for the rest of my life, so long as the Islamic Regime is in power, my feet are barred from the soil that birthed me? That I will never see my family members again, neither in Iran nor the US, particularly because the US has some of the highest rates of visa restrictions against Iranians? That Iranians, worldwide, are often denied visas out of fear they will overstay?
We are being strangled by the Islamic Republic, the Israelis, the Americans! We are backed into a corner and then told to be quiet and get used to our chains. We are extremely misunderstood. We have no real allies, at all! (Well, maybe the Syrians, who equally hate Khamenei).
I cannot even begin to explain the crippling agony that comes with the curse of being Iranian. The shadow that haunts us, the constant pit in our stomachs, the guilt. It isn’t something poetic or artful, it is something deeply harrowing, something I’d move mountains to rid myself of. I really and truly believe that us Iranians are cursed with this nationality, at times.
How much suffering do you want to impose on us? If we smile for a day, that is worthy of punishment? You, who lives in the US, who is free to return to your home country, people do not live with this gaping hole in your chest, have the right to dictate what emotions I can express?
The arrogance! Us Iranians are just expected to suffer to appease Westerners!
The thing is, I don’t really care much about the optics. I don’t care if people label me a Republican, a Leftist, a naive anti-imperialist, a warhawk, pro-IR, anti-IR, pro-Israel, whatever. Everyone has hit me with one name or the other. It doesn’t mean much to me in the end. If our soil could talk, I know it’d be grateful. I know it would thank me. That, alone, frees me from the pressure.
Well, today, a day after Khamenei’s death, I feel a little more mellow, but still angry. More worried. Burnt out, exhausted. Unable to focus. Many things all at once. Sad.
While translating a Dariush Eghbali song earlier today, he wrote that despite our killers having weapons, we have the spirits of our ancestors, and tears welled in my eyes at the Barnes and Noble as I thought of Jina Amina, who inadvertently started a revolution but is not here to celebrate with us. I couldn’t help but think her spirit walked alongside us yesterday in our celebration of the death of our tyrant. I try, as often as I can, to tune out the arrogant voices and remember that my loyalties are to my ancestors along with my family in Iran. That their right to life matters more to me than the useless political affinities of Americans with no stakes in it and no real concerns for us, either. That it’s fine by me for everyone to write us off as “annoying diaspora,” if it means we help Iran free itself from its chains. Because rest assured, we will do just that! And in the aftermath, those Westerners will have to look back in shame at who, and what, they supported. A system of death. A system that depends on the blood of our youth.
I write all this with the hopes that my children will be able to read it and understand what a 24 year old Sahra felt the day after a massive historical movement that had the potential to change our fate. Maybe also so my children know that years (and I do mean years) before their birth, I felt immense grief and sorrow for the fact my actions have barred them from stepping on their homeland. Or perhaps, we’ll read this together in Tehran and laugh at my preemptive, but misplaced, fear.
How I wish I had a diary entry of my mother’s emotions on the day of Khomeini’s death. We probably had a lot in common. Our tears weren’t for the deaths of our killers. They were for the loss of a homeland, and for all that was stolen with it.
I hope I can look back on this one day with a smile on my face because our homeland achieved its liberation. But I am equally afraid I will look back on this and think, “She had no idea what was coming.”
Time will tell.
and i fucking hate you sympathizers. At least some people will have some dignity in recognizing our plight before opposing whatever we say next. You sympathizer freaks live in the USA and don’t do shit from the belly of the beast to disrupt your own shit government and then turn around and shame Iranians for being against our own? Dumbass you live in an America that is actively kidnapping people. Do something? Y’all don’t do SHIT but argue politics in the abstract then go work for defense companies. Kill yourselves!!
I lost my decorum.
for my future kids so i can say this is what mom looked like 24 hours after Khamenei died/me typing this
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