It’s not easy being Green:
The refugee MP opens up about being a minority in Parliament and her brave battle with multiple sclerosis.
Kiwi MP’s behindthe-scenes battle
It’s a supreme irony that the little girl who fled to New Zealand from an abusive and tyrannous regime in Iran should now have to carry a panic alarm with her at all times due to the two active death threats she’s facing in this green and pleasant land. Sadly, this is the reality of Aotearoa in 2021.
Golriz Ghahraman has packed more into her 39 years than most of us will do in a lifetime. The Green Party MP – New Zealand’s first refugee Member of Parliament – is spokesperson for the weighty portfolios of Justice, Human Rights and Electoral Reform.
She is forthright, outspoken and courageous. Golriz has needed every ounce of that bravery as she withstands a barrage of vitriol while standing up for those who have no voice. While her support of refugees, Palestine and the protestors at Ihumatao, among others, has brought her many accolades, its also enraged opponents.
“I feel obliged to speak out about injustice,” Golriz tells me ruefully. “I feel accountable to those who can’t speak out. I was not raised to be comfortable... It’s not that great sometimes.”
Of the panic alarm, she adds,
“Dad is really worried about the security risk but also very proud and supportive, while Mum is very defiant.”
Golriz was born the year the Islamic Republic was created. Her parents Maryam and Behrooz had been part of the youthful, middle-class uprising against the Shah’s despotic regime.
Their fight was about achieving true democracy for Iran. Instead, just a year after the country’s triumphant overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty, the exiled Islamic hardliner Ayatollah Khomeini returned home and assumed power.
“Suddenly the country was going backwards,” tells Golriz, adding that people like her parents were deeply traumatised. “Every day, leaving the house was scary, especially for women who had to cover themselves from head to toe. It had never been their reality.
“People were sharing the news constantly. ‘Have you heard what the BBC is saying?’ they would say. They’d access it, secretly, on shortwave radio. They wouldn’t hide their troubles from the children. The talk was all about when we were going to uproot ourselves and whose wedding got raided recently.”
Citizens still found ways to defy the Islamic regime. Even small gestures such as wearing ties, which were condemned due to being part of Western culture, or shaving your beard were brave acts.
The Ghahraman family’s escape from Iran has been well documented, suffice to say it was harrowing, particularly for a nine-year-old, but the reception they received on claiming asylum when they finally arrived in New Zealand was warm and caring.
The little girl was asked, “Are you hungry?” and authorities processed the family quickly, with her father’s cousin soon able to take them home with him.
“We were so, so lucky,” recalls
“I feel accountable to those who can’t speak out. I was not raised to be comfortable.”
Golriz. “I still can’t believe it. How green everything was! Once here, we kept our heads down and were so appreciative of our new lives. Moving here, we became part of a minority. We bonded with others in the same situation – migrants of colour – because we couldn’t quite explain the things that were happening in our homeland, the food we ate was weird and we looked different.
“Being Iranian, my parents were constantly trying to regain their humanity. People saw them as poverty-stricken, dirty migrants. Nothing I’ve ever done has been hard compared to my parents’ sacrifice. It’s my job to live an expansive life.”
The family brought virtually nothing with them and yet Golriz arrived with something she sees as precious – the ability to speak out. “I feel that’s such a gift.” But it comes with obligations and responsibilities.
She explains, “If I’m in a meeting and it’s moving fast towards a vote, I go, ‘No, wait.’ I’m propelled to do it. Having a platform is really meaningful. I’m holding the space for certain communities.”
She lives with her cat June in a tiny retro apartment in central Auckland, close to her old school, Auckland Girls’ Grammar. We sip spicy tea and nibble on a selection of sweet Iranian delicacies as we chat, while June stretches languoursly in a patch of sunshine at our feet.
“I’m reconnecting with my Kurdishness,” she says, adding that she’s about to get some traditional Kurdish tattoos. Although Golriz’s family found comfort socialising with the Iranian community in Auckland when they first arrived, they are not so involved now.
“It turned out one of the people in it was connected to the embassy. My parents turned right off it after that was revealed, knowing we and others in the community had loved ones imprisoned and executed by the same regime back home.”
Golriz studied law at the University of Auckland and became a criminal defence lawyer. After a successful few years at the bar in New Zealand, she headed to Oxford, graduating with a Master of Studies in International Human Rights Law. She immediately put what she’d learnt into practice, serving on some of the most highprofile war crime trials in the world, in Africa, the Netherlands and Cambodia.
Is she ever afraid of stepping out of her comfort zone? “No,” she laughs. “I fear not doing it. Imagine not doing that – how could I live?”
Of her return to Aotearoa, Golriz says, “I knew I wouldn’t be planning a wedding or getting a mortgage, so I needed to fill my life with other things. I volunteered for the Criminal Bar Association, in human rights and for the Green Party behind the scenes.”
While she had succeeded at the highest level, Golriz was, however, suffering from anxiety. She recalls, “I was maid of honour at a friend’s wedding, but I couldn’t speak. I literally couldn’t breathe. I felt like an imposter.
“Imposter syndrome gets worse with accomplishment – the more you accomplish, the worse it seems to be. We women are constantly questioning ourselves. That’s wrong. We don’t have a defect to overcome. It’s a rational reaction to a world that’s made us feel that way.”
How does Golriz deal with it?
“Part of it is being able to notice it, feel it and acknowledge it. You don’t have to run.”
It’s taken some work with a counsellor to overcome those feelings, but overcome them she has.
“It amazes me that I can speak in
“Nothing I’ve ever done has been hard compared to my parents’ sacrifice. It’s my job to live an expansive life.”
public now and bring emotion to it.”
It was her former partner, comedian Guy Williams, who was among those to persuade Golriz to stand for Parliament. She’s now in her second term as a Green list MP.
Being constantly labelled “the first refugee MP” felt uncomfortable, she says. “I thought this was going to obscure everything I did. I didn’t want to tokenise refugees. But those communities started celebrating and I saw how important it was to them to see themselves represented.”
She is particularly close to Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson.
“We have a lot in common,” explains Golriz. “We have a shared experience of being women of colour in Parliament.
“It saps your energy being underestimated. We can say to each other, ‘I recognise how that guy talked over you.’ Narratives are really different for brown women. If Marama gets a tiny fraction wrong [in a press conference], she’s treated quite differently than if James [Shaw, her co-leader] gets the same thing wrong.”
Golriz is proud of her involvement in the Greens’ campaign to increase New Zealand’s refugee quota and, in her last term, doubling the family reunification numbers from 300 to 600 per year.
“Families were waiting four to five years to be reunited,” she tells, pointing out that this humanitarian move came at a time when the US was actively engaged in separating families on its border with Mexico.
Golriz sees an opportunity for Aotearoa to take the lead on such issues, to be a kind of moral compass on the world stage. “We have to stop using Australia as our moral compass. New Zealand should be more ambitious and set that standard. We’re not a superpower and that is our superpower.”
Meanwhile, Golriz has been fighting a private battle of her own the entire time she’s been in Parliament. Less than three months into her first term with the Greens, she went blind in her left eye. At just 36, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It was, quite literally, a body blow. The disease is attacking her brain and spine. How quickly it progresses is directly related to how tired and stressed she is. With the help of strong medication, her sight has returned, but she struggles with fatigue.
“It feels like there’s no language for this level of tiredness,” she confesses. “It feels as if I’m lazy or not as committed. As if I have jetlag. It attacks your immune system and nervous system. But you can’t let that stop you.”
Her colleagues in Parliament have been wonderfully supportive, she smiles. “Trevor Mallard has been really, really good. He has a friend with MS. He told me to take as much time as I needed and to work from home.”
But while Golriz was upfront with her caucus colleagues, it was a year before she told her parents about her diagnosis. “I didn’t want them getting emotional about it,” she explains. “I felt I couldn’t handle their emotion as well as my own. But they were quite stoical about it. Mum was particularly staunch.”
The pandemic has been really stressful because Golriz can’t fight infection. “Even the smallest cut on my hand has to be dealt with quickly, otherwise it becomes infected.”
Despite her health concerns, the MP remains focused. She is interested on campaigning for prison reform and getting big money’s influence out of politics.
I wonder if the slow pace of political change might be frustrating for her and perhaps she might achieve more as a human rights lawyer. On the contrary, she insists, “I may get more wins in court, but if I get a win in politics, it affects more people.”
And that’s what drives her. In the long term, this brave, committed woman is keen to continue her studies with a PhD. She sees herself researching, teaching and “doing a bit of barristering on the side”. There’s no doubt Golriz is more than honouring her parents’ sacrifice.
“I may get more wins in court, but if I get a win in politics, it affects more people.”