I have been away from Iran for seventeen years without Iran leaving my soul, heart, or thought for even a single day.

I know this is the shared feeling of the more than one million Iranians who gathered around the world yesterday under Iran’s flag in solidarity with their compatriots. That great and magnificent crowd is only a stream from the vast, roaring river of a people waiting behind this dam for the moment when they can move and become a sea.

Do not doubt that nothing except the name of Iran and love of the homeland could have brought Iranians together, inside Iran and around the world. Across all these years, I have never reached a gathering of Iranians where, when they meet, the first thing they remember is not Iran.

Seventeen years ago, one week before leaving Iran, I visited a friend whose relative was staying with him. He was one of those people who used to say: anyone who does not want this can pack up and leave. My friend, out of kindness and affection, said how unfortunate it was that people who loved Iran as much as the doctor did saw no path except migration.

I remember the guest’s reply word for word. He said: “We want them to go. This is Shi‘b Abi Talib, and we want only the pure to remain. The rest have no place here.”

I told him: many who leave, like me, are migrating away from their own Kaaba. Be certain that wherever they live in the world, they will continue to circle this same house—a house that you see as a valley of suffering and, in your own metaphor, a temporary place of residence. I leave with attachment and belonging; you remain without attachment or belonging. Our understanding of Iran and our metaphor for this home are not the same.

Yesterday I saw hundreds of thousands of Iranians circling the candle of Iran like moths.