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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on the 5th of January, 2026 on Monocle Radio. Nicola Maduro pleads not guilty in a New York court. We'll look at an insane couple of days for Caracas. Ukraine resumes diplomatic efforts to end the war with Russia. But does Putin have any appetite for peace? And there's a new social media app. But are we just so over those now? I'm Georgina Godwin. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you live from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Georgina Godwin. My guests Nina dos Santos and Michael Binion will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll hear about women leading protests in Iran over the last decade in a new book for the Sun After Long Nights, the story of Iran's women's led uprising. Do stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. Hello, this is the Monocle Daily, and I'm Georgina Godwin, and I'm joined today by Nino dos Santos, international broadcast correspondent and the former CNN Europe editor, and Michael Binion, foreign affairs specialist for the Times. Now, both guests, I understand that today, today is the very last time that we can say Happy New Year. Is that right, Twelfth Night?
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B
Yes, yes. Everything, all Christmas trees, cards, everything cleared out tomorrow. So this is the last day of the 12 days of Christmas.
- [01:42]
A
Right. Well, Nina, perhaps then you take this opportunity to tell me how your 12 days have been.
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C
I've been very busy, actually. I've been in Lisbon, I've been in East Devon. It's been great pottering about. But I've been doing a lot of sort of breakfast radio shows from various far flung places at ungodly hours, largely because the news agenda has been absolutely crazy since the, the first few minutes of the start of the new year. I've been covering the terrible tragedy that happened in Switzerland, in Krans, Montana. And now, obviously, as we know, we're three days into a US invasion or possible invasion of Venezuela. Even if the United States says it isn't an invasion, it's certainly a defenestration at the top of the tree inside Caracas.
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A
Absolutely crackers and Caracas. And of course, it's always like this for freelancers like you and I at this time of year because everybody else goes off on their nice paid holidays.
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C
And then when people say jump, you say, how far?
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A
Exactly and how much? Michael, how about you?
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B
Well, I've been writing editorials every single day since Christmas because indeed, as you say, everyone goes off, they take a Christmas break. So it's good time for me. So August and Christmas, I keep to one side for work, and that's very profitable and useful.
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A
And I've got to say, I'm actually really pleased that today has finally arrived because I've been sitting there really frustrated at home. Get back to your desk, answer my email, because I haven't stopped working. But everybody, everybody else has. Nobody's getting back to me. It's frustrating, right?
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C
Totally confer. Yeah, I concur, absolutely.
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A
Let's talk about Venezuela, though. I mean, this really is dominating the news agenda. And so it should, because it could have enormous ramifications globally. So we know that today Venezuela's seized President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have appeared at a New York court. They've been charged with various drugs and weapons offenses. Now, they pleaded not guilty, as I'm sure our audience are aware. The pair were taken from their Caracas compound on Saturday and flown to the US as part of a special forces operation, which has now been questioned by Secretary General Antonio Guterres at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. He says that he's concerned that rules of international law have not been respected. Well, let's start there with the legal situation, Nina. What's been said and does it count for anything given that the US Has a veto anyway?
- [04:05]
C
First of all, in the last hour or so, obviously there's that special meeting that's taken place with the UN Security Council in Venezuela, who is obviously the first to get the chance to speak. Its representative made very clear that they believe that this is a breach of the UN Charter, Article 2, essentially saying that a country shouldn't invade other countries, a breach of their right to have their leadership, as that representative believes. Although the United States has countered that. Mike Waltz, also speaking at the Security Council, has said, well, look, no, we're not invading another country. We're just taking out a narco terrorist who is at the top of the tree there. And that sounds like it's going to continue to be the narrative that the United States will use to justify this action against Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
- [04:51]
A
Of course, everybody in the rest of the world is going, well, hang on a minute. Look at Nigeria, look at various other places in the world. This is about oil. Is it about slightly more than oil? Is it about petrodollars? Is it about keeping the currency in which oil is sold in US Dollars? To study that particular UN well, that.
- [05:10]
B
Might be a factor, but I don't think that's the main issue. I think for Trump, the main issue is he didn't like the defiance of someone in his own hemisphere. I mean, it's the, as they call it, the Donro doctrine. Now, he was determined to take out what he saw as a troublemaker, what he thought was an easy target in many ways. And he thought that, of course, the world would applaud him because Maduro was deeply unpopular in Venezuela itself. Millions had fled. He was declared illegitimate. In fact, there may even be an a hint of malice in that. He was denied his Nobel Peace Prize by the leader of the Venezuelan opposition. And rather significantly, he said almost straight away, he didn't think she really had the respect and support of the people. So he's ruled her out as taking over in Venezuela, though she did dedicate.
- [05:59]
A
The prize to him.
- [06:00]
B
Well, yes, good for her. I mean, she's got a big heart. But I don't think he will reciprocate with love. I think the petrodollar thing, yes, it plays a part. And oil traditionally has always been traded, but of course, more and more now there are other currencies around that are also becoming reserve currencies. And I think the rule of the mighty dollar is coming to an end anyway. So I don't really think that this was the main factor.
- [06:26]
A
Nina, do you have an opinion on that? Because, of course, Venezuela is poised to join brics and then would also join that movement to move the currency away from the US Dollar.
- [06:36]
C
I do have an opinion on this. I have quite a strong opinion on it because my father was a commodities trader. So I spent much of my young life listening to these rail politique conversations and how they would affect certain commodities, all priced in dollars, not, by the way, just oil. You know, we're talking about significant metals that China, of course, is gaining more power over. Lots of these particular elements around the world that are more significant to the way we live are being priced in other currencies now. And other countries like Russia and China are trading in kind with each other, trading in yuan. And Venezuela Back in 2019, if I'm not wrong, had already outlined a plan to take itself out of the DOL system and sell its oil in other currencies, like, for instance, the renminbi, the yuan. And Russia, of course, now trades a lot in rubles because it's sanctioned. And Venezuela's oil was sanctioned as well under the previous Trump administration. It got a bit of a hiatus under Joe Biden's time because the US Needed the oil after the start of the Ukraine war, and it couldn't buy it from Russia. But I actually do think that this is partly about the petrodollar system. Back in 1974, Henry Kissinger, of course, made his famous agreement with Saudi Arabia, essentially saying, well, look, if. If you sell oil in dollars, we'll help you with your security arrangements. Saddam Hussein in 2000 tried to diversify out of the dollars into euros. Lo and behold, three years later, another Republican president unseated him. And of course, if you speak to anybody in Africa, and particularly West Africa, they will continue to say Gaddafi would still be in power if he had not tried to take on the dollar system. So if you're trying to sell oil, gas or gold, you really have to sell it in dollars. The U.S. considers, and I, what Donald Trump is trying to reassert here, there's.
- [08:23]
A
Been very little media coverage of this aspect of it. And there's another part of the media coverage that I'm fascinated by, is which we're hearing that some big organizations had advance warning of this action against Venezuela and didn't say anything. Now, normally that would be unremarkable, but in this era of huge mistrust between the White House and legacy media, that's quite unusual, Michael.
- [08:49]
B
It is, yes. Particularly as Americans don't have a system for stopping the media releasing sensitive national security information. In Britain, we do have that system. It's called the D notice. It's very rarely used, but if the government and particularly security services think that newspapers have information that could be prejudicial to national security, if published, they can send round an advisory note known as a D note. It's just advising editors, well, in fairly strong words, please don't publish this. Now, the Americans, of course, have freedom of speech enshrined in their constitution, and they don't have any limits of that kind, but there are kind of voluntary limits that come up from time to time among responsible newspapers where they know that to endanger national security or give away an operation such as what's just happened in Venezuela would be extremely detrimental to their own standing and they would suffer possibly some kind of government, federal government action against them. And I think rather wisely, they thought, this is not something we're going to publish in advance, and they deliberately withheld the information.
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A
I wonder how the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal knew it was about to happen, though. I mean, did it suggest a leak?
- [10:00]
B
Well, they have sources. I mean, these guys have sources all over the place. And the Trump administration, I think, is fairly leaky. I Mean, there are plenty of people who question some of the things that the boss is doing, and they might easily have slipped a word to the New York Times, said, did you know? Or it might have come out through the military, of course.
- [10:17]
A
Now, Nina, you were saying that you were in Portugal for part of the holidays. And one of our Portuguese colleagues has just said to me that there are commentators there saying that Madur Maduro is incredibly charismatic and sticking with this idea of media. What's been happening the last couple of days as he has been filmed throughout this, he's been everywhere, people have had a chance to speak to him. He's been saying happy New Year and all the rest of it. She says that some Portuguese commentators are saying by the end of this, there is a chance Maduro will be more popular than Trump.
- [10:48]
C
Now, it's interesting that you've mentioned the link to Portugal. Regular listeners may know from my surname by marriage that I have a Portuguese husband and Portuguese family by marriage. And this has come up in our conversations over the last three days, lots of Portuguese actually were present in Venezuela and had to flee. Since 2007, since the times that the economy is becoming tougher and tougher, hyperinflation has been a real problem. But lots of them would like to return. And so Portugal is a country where you can imagine lots of people will be looking to set. Lots of them had small businesses, supermarkets and so on and so forth. There are lots of members of the Portuguese community keen to return to places like Venezuela, places like Angola, and, you know, to see a more stable government in Venezuela so that they can reestablish their businesses. And they know people like Nicolas Maduro quite well because obviously they were there until they had to leave under the hyperinflation time. So, yes, I do think that, you know, he had been doing funny things, hadn't he? Like his little dance to the Beatles and stuff like that. He had clearly been on a publicity campaign. But the other thing we haven't talked about as well is that the relationship with Cuba, quite significant. And there's been a lot of writing in certain quarters of the foreign policy press saying that actually it was Cuba that was keeping a very tight hold on Nicolas Maduro and his wife. And at times he had been offered the chance reportedly to leave to go to Turkey or to go to Russia, and it was the Cubans who wouldn't necessarily let him and wanted him to stay in power.
- [12:18]
A
And Michael, of course, his security, the people surrounding him, his personal security, were mostly Cubans. And we're told possibly 20 of them died.
- [12:27]
B
Yes. I mean, we thought at first that this was a completely bloodless kidnapping or whatever you call it, extradition. But it wasn't bloodless. I mean, it's not surprising. I mean, there were a lot of aircraft involved, there were bombing of military barracks. They clearly couldn't just walk into the compound where Medorio lived. And particularly as he tried to scramble into the strong room, there must have been some kind of violence and it's not surprising that some people died. And yes, I mean, given the scale of what happened, you know, removing a head of state, you would have thought that actually hundreds might have died. And it's a pretty neatly planned operation that only a handful died. But, well, it's always upsetting when, you know, it comes to actual sort of war and people get killed. But that's the nature of this operation.
- [13:13]
A
I mean, Donald Trump has been throwing out a list of who might be next, but with Cuba, he's just said they're basically going to do it themselves.
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B
Well, yes. I mean, it's Marco Rubio who's the one who's pushing for Cuba to find the next treatment because he is of Cuban origin. His family had to flee from Castro's Cuba. And of course, Trump, like nearly all Republicans, has a long grudge against Cuba, feeling that it is a country that frankly is just cocking a snoot at the US and needs to be eliminated. Well, not the country, but the Communist Party and the leadership need to be eliminated. And having seen how swiftly and easily it seemed to be to do it in Venezuela, as I'm sure there's temptation to have a go at Cuba with certainly with Marco Rubio's encouragement. And then one wonders, well, what about Greenland? You know, there are all sorts of places you sort of wonder, well, you know, if he does it once, what about doing it again?
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A
He seems to have an appetite for it. With so much attention focused on the US And Venezuela, it is important to remember that the war in Ukraine continues. So this week sees two high level meetings amongst the coalition of the willing. Today, Ukraine hosted a meeting of chiefs of General Staffs of European countries. Tomorrow, European leaders will gather in Paris. Now, these meetings come after Ukraine claims Russia launched over 2,000 airstrikes on the country, indicating that peace is very far from Vladimir Putin's agenda right now. Now, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine will be prepared for both possible paths ahead. Diplomacy which we are pursuing, or continued active defense if the pressure from our partners on Russia proves insufficient. Nina, China, which of Those pathways looks more likely.
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C
Well, first of all, this coalition of the willing continues to be not entirely convincing in practical terms. It's more of a communication strategy at this point, I think, because as we know full well, those European partners just don't have the kind of military might and the money, even if they've managed to, you know, borrow some money on the back of those frozen Russian assets in Belgium, they really don't have the big commitment that they really need to help Ukraine, Ukraine see it through this war, if the United States continues to backtrack as it does. I would say one interesting thing, though, about this Venezuela situation is that it begs the questionand again, this may sound slightly conspiratorialthat Fiona Hill was asking in testimony she gave to Congress, I think, back in 2019, so many years ago, and before the onset of the war in Ukraine, and she floated this idea that Russia and the United States under the Trump administration might swap Venezuela for Ukraine, if you see what I mean, that Russia, which has traditionally always invested hugely in its relationship with Venezuela, sent military aircraft and all sorts, given money to Venezuela, taken some of their oil, helped it on the international market, that they might actually not put up much resistance if the United States were to take Venezuela under Trump's time, if, of course, Trump didn't cause too much trouble in Ukraine. And so I wonder whether that is what we're seeing playing out. Might sound slightly conspiratorial, as I said, I suppose time will see. But one thing we can be sure is that the action in Venezuela, of course, will take the eye off the ball in Ukraine. And that, of course, emboldens Vladimir Putin to double down, which is what he.
- [16:36]
A
Does seem to be doing. I mean, we've had these two competing peace plans. Tomorrow in Paris, Macron will host a meeting. He's promised concrete steps. I wonder what those could be. What can the coalition of the willing achievements?
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B
Not much. I mean, I absolutely agree with Nina. It's more symbolic than anything else. It's only going to be possible to have any effect if there is a peace to keep. I mean, if it can put kind of troops to observe some kind of ceasefire, that is presupposing that there is going to be a ceasefire. And by no means does it look as though there's going to be. Putin is slowly pushing forward, I have to say, at great cost, I mean, pushing along the front line. It's interesting to note that I think in about three or four days it will be and something days since the war started. That is exactly the time it took the Russian army to get from being invaded by Operation Barbarossa. When the Nazis invaded to triumph in Berlin, they got all that way. In that time, they've only advanced 30 miles up to Pokrovsk in Ukraine. So it's clearly a tough fight for them, but they'll push on. I mean, they are not relenting in the slightest. And I don't think Putin has any intention of making any concessions on that front or any concessions in stopping the bombing, because he knows in the middle of winter, if you cut off energy and if you bomb all the essential supplies, then you actually intimidate the population in a way that most people begin to think, let's do anything to stop all this. And that's what he's counting on. He's also counting on the fact that, well, two things. One, that Trump seems to be extraordinarily naive in believing all these assurances that a plan is just around the corner, and B, Trump can never really keep his attention on one world crisis, you know, more than one at once. I mean, think of another world crisis that was so big six months ago, Gaza all but forgotten.
- [18:31]
C
And, of course, the questions of legitimacy over the operation by the United States and Venezuela gives Vladimir Putin cover for saying, well, Ukraine is my sphere of influence. If the US Is allowed to have its sphere of influence in the Americas, that one's mine. And then the question mark becomes Xi Jinping having promised to forcibly reunify Taiwan by the end of this decade, perhaps, would that give him the opportunity to argue that is my sphere influence as well?
- [18:57]
B
I think that's significant because it's interesting that Russia has so far been quite restrained in comments. I mean, China has said that this is a dreadful thing, but Russia actually hasn't said very much. And I think it's because Putin feels, well, he doesn't want to annoy Trump. He doesn't want to come out openly criticize him, because he rather feels that Trump's his man, he can play him over Ukraine, therefore he'll be fairly restrained on this issue.
- [19:20]
A
And, I mean, when you talk about all of these other places, perhaps taking advantage of this, wouldn't you, if you were the Iranian opposition? Absolutely. Be pushing right now?
- [19:30]
C
Yes. Except they haven't. They've been quite quiet, haven't they? Perhaps. I would argue, though, that that's partly because the oxygen of publicity is currently focused on another part of the world at the moment. So we did see a big push by Reza Pahlavi, the heir to the Shah, the deposed Shah, who I think lives in the United States or in.
- [19:50]
B
Paris, is visiting London at the moment.
- [19:52]
C
Yep, indeed. We did see a big sort of PR operation by him, didn't we, Michael? We did, yes, at the end of last. But it's all gone quite quiet over the last couple of weeks.
- [20:02]
B
Yeah, well, unfortunately, as predicted by almost everyone, the regime will crack down as hard as it likes or as it needs to to stop all opposition on the streets. Because they know it starts with political. Sorry. It starts with economic grievances. It quickly turns into blame of the government as a whole. It then calls for regime change. Then you even have young people calling for the Shah's son, you know, calling Reza Palli's name on the streets. And that is absolutely what Ayatollah Khomeini simply will not to.
- [20:32]
A
And we'll be discussing this in some detail on the Globalist tomorrow morning. And also a little bit later on on this show, we'll be looking at how women have been traditionally fighting back in that part of the world. Now, as well as conventional warfare, Ukraine has been relying on cyber weapons. And in the civilian sphere, technology's also proved extremely useful for both sides. So Russia makes extensive use of the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian citizens have taken to social media to organize and to fight back. But more general social media itself is facing a bit of a backlash. Australia's banned use of the apps by under 16s. And there are many studies coming out now about how platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, are bad for our mental health. So do we need yet another one? All right, let me tell you about Tangle. This is according to the FT Biz Stone, a Twitter co founder, and Evan Sharp who co founded the online scrapbooking site Pinterest in 2010. They've raised. Together, they've raised 20 million in funding for a new startup which is called West Co. It has launched its first app. It came out in November. It's called Tangle. It's pitched at a new kind of social network designed for intentional living. Now, it's present accessible on an invitation only basis and it suggests that users share personal objectives or intentions with their friends. They support each other's goals and reflect on how they're achieved. They say it's a tool for meaning that helps people plan with intention, capture the reality of their days and see the deeper threads that shape their life. Michael, Something formerly known as conversation or having a friend.
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B
Exactly. I find this absolutely ridiculous to suggest that it's the answer to all the worries about social media, because here we have A sort of new, clean, personal, you know, person focused weapon to combat loneliness and to combat disorientation and this and that and the other. I don't believe it. I think it'd be just like any other platform and there are plenty of other places where people can outline their objectives. As you say, conversation, talking with friends is the way to do it. I mean, I'm prejudiced because I have no time for any social media and I'm not signed on to anything. And I refuse to, because I'm not going to waste my time spending, you know, crawling through the phone for about three or four hours a day. If I want to find out news, I'll read it, I will watch it on television, I will talk to people, I listen to the radio or whatever. Yes, of course, for things like keeping in touch with people, messaging and all that. That's the pernicious influence of social media on young minds. We've had a lot about this and as you say, Australia has banned it. Other countries are thinking of doing the same. And to add yet another one, I don't think is a way of saying this will overcome the worries about social media. Quite the opposite.
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A
Now, Nina, you are a user, prolific user of social media.
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C
Not that prolific by some people's standards.
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A
Thank you.
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C
You think so much of me, but I've lost a couple of Instagram accounts over the years because they've been hacked in times when I've been working in places like Ukraine once, another one got hacked from Brazil. So, you know, and each time I build up a follower base and then I just end up losing it. And let's not also talk about the amount of appalling sort of misogyny that us female journalists get via platforms such as X and others. And also some more complimentary messages that are a bit flirtatious, which also an irritation. You've also got young children, and I've got young children who reminded me that I accidentally served them Elon Mess yesterday for dinner instead of Eton Mess, because I obviously had my phone in my hand. So, you know, this is a hot topic of conversation in Casa dos Santos. First of all, this new app sounds absolutely ridiculous. Sorry, founders. 29 million in the scheme of Silicon Valley funding means you're a minnow. And the name Tangle, I think is also rather unfortunately named because. Because our brains are scrambled by social media. You just absolutely cannot win on the social media game. Whichever platform you're on, you don't have enough users, you're not posting enough. Your stuff isn't the right Stuff, people will be on another platform and saying, how come you don't have that many followers on LinkedIn and you spend all your time on Instagram, you build up a huge following on X and then it turns into a right wing mess. You can't win. So if we were in a world with less social media and people with real experience opining about things such as, for instance, Michael, boy, I'd love to go back to those days.
- [25:13]
A
But I mean, is there actually any realistic chance of that? I mean, are the old ways dead? Will communication of the future just be different versions, tweaks to the way we interact?
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B
Well, increasingly that will dominate the way people communicate. Yes, I'm afraid there's no turning back. You can't uninvent things. And in many ways it is extremely convenient. You've got a phone in your pocket, you're in touch if you want to be at any moment of the day. The old way is, you know, listening to a radio broadcast, watching television, phoning people. I mean it's slow, it's old fashioned, it's not instantly available. And the one thing that I spent my entire life in, newspapers, I'm afraid, are slowly dying because nobody under 30 will ever buy a newspaper.
- [25:55]
A
That's very sad, isn't it?
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B
It is, it is.
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C
But lots more people are listening to radio.
- [25:59]
B
Yes, radio.
- [26:00]
C
And that's enjoyed a real revival.
- [26:01]
B
Yes, that is good. Yes.
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C
I remember about 10, 12 years ago, very significant media executive who used to run a big US news channel saying podcasts were and they weren't. So there is room for revival. But I do think that I applaud countries like for instance France and Australia that have decided that social media is the wrong way to go for young people and have age limitations. Thankfully, my children at 10 and 8 aren't quite at this stage and I'm hoping that we'll have learned the lessons from social media by the time they ever get a phone in their hands. But I don't know, I think that depends upon the east. You putting up one heck of a fight against the United States.
- [26:43]
A
What's interesting is I have a 25 year old daughter. Not on social media. I mean she's there, there's a presence, but she never participates. And I think more and more we are seeing that from that generation. So look, finally on the show. Today marks the ninth day of deadly unrest in Iran, triggered by a sudden plummet in the value of the nation's currency. Over the past decade, protests against the regime have grown large, larger and angrier, capturing Global media attention, particularly the women's rights marches, which began almost four years ago. In a new book for the sun after Long the Story of Iran's Women Led uprising, Nilo Tabrisi and Fatima Jamal offered their perspectives of the movement. Well, earlier, Andrew Muller spoke to Neela Tabrizi and started by asking her if there was a particular moment she thought that the Women Life Freedom Program protests was something different.
- [27:40]
D
Like many Iranians, I learned about it through Instagram, through Twitter. Just seeing the speed at which people were posting videos online and the moment that I felt like this is about to turn into something bigger than a protest, it's about to be a nationwide uprising. Was seeing the photo of Massagena Amini, the photo that we saw of her, she was unconscious in a hospital bed, dried blood on her ears. It was a really graphic image. And I just started that seeing that shared everywhere that I followed. They were posting it on Instagram. And so I kind of knew in that moment that this is about to be so much bigger than just this one interaction with the morality police.
- [28:19]
B
There's a fundamental question before the details of the demonstrations and the protest, which is something that I think perplexes a lot of observers of Iran, and it's certainly long perplexed me, which is, as you've been able to understand it, what actually motivates the regime where hijab is concerned? Why are they this wound up about what women choose or choose not to wear?
- [28:44]
D
Right. Because for them, you know, it's detailed in the Laurent to cover for women to cover. And if they want to be, you know, a theocracy, you know, a state guided by Islam, they have to adhere to that strict code, to that strict dress code. It's the most visible symbol that this is a Islamic state is seeing women in hijab and in mandatory Islamic dress.
- [29:04]
B
Do you think that is sincere religious conviction on their part, or is it, I guess, leveraging the appearance of sincere religious conviction in order to exert power?
- [29:14]
D
I think it's both. There's many members of the Islamic Republic that do believe in the Shia Twelver ideology. They're guided by that. And then there's, of course, another part of it that just wants this image to be portrayed to the west, that this is what our country looks like, that this is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- [29:31]
B
Given that that was what launched these protests and that they became substantially female led, female oriented, at least, did that in itself strike them as a different manifestation of dissent from what we've seen previously in Iran? Perhaps if we measure it against the protests in 2009?
- [29:50]
D
Absolutely. I mean, this is the first time that we were seeing women leading protests. And it was not just because, you know, Gina was killed by the morality police and people rose up in support of her, but just seeing the videos that came out are clear indicators of that. We saw women cutting their hair, which became, you know, a very iconic image of the movement. We saw women for the first time putting their bodies on, confronting security officers. And we saw women from all women and girls. Like, we saw young girls in middle school that were standing up to basijis that came to their school demanding them to wear hijab. So we really saw women at the front lines in all aspects of this movement.
- [30:26]
B
The book, it is important to make clear is is a collaboration. There was you reporting from the outside and your collaborator Fatima, reporting from inside. Just curious, as a journalist, what were the practicalities of that relationship from day to day? How did you work?
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A
Right.
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D
I mean, we have worked together before. We wrote a partially anonymous essay together for the Paris Review about this moment, and we also wrote in 2019, early 2020, for N1 Magazine. So we've always had a natural flow of a dual narrative, each of us kind of filling in the perspective for a wider readership, and that's the way we've naturally moved forward. But as I mentioned that we've written together two times before. Each time she had to be anonymous because she was in Iran and facing, you know, extreme suppression and hardship in the country. But for this book, she was really clear that she wanted her name out there. And even while we were working on the proposal, before this had gotten in front of any editors, I asked her, I said, what happens if you get arrested tomorrow? What am I supposed to do with your work? Because she had been interrogated for the past year in Iran, and she said, publish it. I want you to publish it. She was really firm. I mean, for the past year, as she wrote in the book that she returned back to Iran, she was interrogated, and they even were kind of needling her psychologically, saying, oh, wouldn't you know, you can't even write. You can't even work in this moment. So she desperately wanted to be heard. And this book is a testament to that. And so we would find ways to communicate with each other, much like I do with many sources in Iran using encrypted apps, having deleting messages, many other different ways to try to evade the security, surveillance state.
- [32:00]
B
Well, which does prompt the question about your levels of optimism about that, because the experience Both of you have is by now very far from uncommon after, well, since 1979. I don't know. I don't know where you would start counting the numbers of Iranians who have left Iran, the numbers of children and grandchildren that they now have who feel, I guess, somewhat of an exile as well. How optimistic is it possible to be that not only you'll get to go back, but you'll get to go back to the kind of Iran you would prefer to go back to?
- [32:31]
D
I wish I had a succinct answer for you, but I really don't know. I mean, what is clear though is the Islamic Republic has lost legitimacy among its people. You know, people for decades now are living in an economy of limbo. Day to day day is really difficult. Each time there's a conflict, even the Israeli airstrikes this summer, the value of the rial plummets. So people are living in a really incredibly difficult circumstance. And so that just shows that people in Iran, most people don't think the Islamic Republic is doing a great job of running the country. So I don't know. I mean, for me, this is a very Iranian answer. But I look back to medieval poetry like I look back to Hafez. Hafez in his time in medieval Shiraz was writing about rulers that were pious in one way and would go home and sin quote. And he wrote about this. And it's, you know, so many people find him applicable because it's similar to the condition we're seeing in Iran. And so for me, I'm thinking if Iranians have survived centuries of oppression, this is a small blip in history. And that's how I view it. And that's where I'm able to live with the optimism.
- [33:33]
A
That was Nilo Tabrizi speaking to Monocle's Andrew Muller for the sun after long nights. The story of Iran's women led uprising is out now. And that's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. A big thanks to my panelists today, Nina Dos Santos and Michael Bunion and the show was produced by Tom Webb and Monica Lillis and researched by Anneliese Mainard. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Georgina Godwin here in London. The Monocle Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Goodbye and thanks for listening.