← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
From New York to Iran: how are young people upsetting the establishment?
00:43:15
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- [00:00]
A
Hi. You might have noticed a new episode drop in your feed. It's the first episode of Cheat Sheet with Ridge and Frost. It's a brand new sky news podcast from Sophie, Ridge and Wilfred Frost. Your 10 minute cheat sheet to the day's news. From politics and global conflicts to pop culture, sport and everything in between. They're cutting through the noise to get you clued up fast. Search for Cheat Sheet with Ridge and Frost and hit follow for your daily news fix. So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. Hello and welcome to the world with me, Yalda Hakim.
- [00:53]
B
And for this week, me, Dominic Waghorn.
- [00:55]
A
And Dom is standing in for Richard, who's currently on his way to Colombia. So next week we'll give you a full update on what's going on as President Donald Trump ratchets up pressure on both the Colombian and Venezuelan governments around the issue of drugs. And just to say, we're so sorry that Richard and I haven't been able to be around for the last two weeks. We were very busy in the Middle east covering events and we just needed to take a quick break. But we're back now in full swing with the podcast and this week, Mr. Waghorn, Sky's international editor and my good friend is here with us. Dom, so good to have you.
- [01:41]
B
Thanks, Jan. It's good to be with you. And as you say, you've been flat out, haven't you? And I think I've also had a break. So I'm coming up for air from a hostile environment course where once every few years we go to a hotel and a bit of the English countryside and we bandage mannequins and we're reminded by ex military types that the job we do is actually a pretty odd one and it does require certain things to keep us safe.
- [02:05]
A
Yeah, and haven't we been going to some really hostile places over the course of the last, frankly, couple of years? It's been so intense. But lots to talk about on the podcast today. It was a huge night really for Democrats. They are projected to win in all the major elections in America that took place over the 24 hours or so. And we're going to talk about one race in particular. We're going to talk about the man who'll be the next mayor of New York City, 34 year old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.
- [02:52]
B
The man the Mamdani of the moment. And he's, he really has just lit up American politics in a way that we've not seen really since Donald Trump. And he's, I think, one of the great political figures as an operator, as a politician, as a man who understands the medium, but also knows how to connect with a voter. You know, he's in the same mold as Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. And he's got this amazing ability to be come across as very authentic and really connect with the voter, but also has an agenda which seems to really connect with the voters. His policy proposals seem to have sort of grabbed the zeitgeist in a sense. He knows what motivates New Yorkers most, and it's a resentment of the incredibly unaffordable lives that they lead. And he thinks he's got a solution to that. And his critics say it's just a panacea. It's a full stone and it'll all end in tears. But for now at least, he's certainly got what it takes to win the, the prized role of mayor of New York.
- [03:51]
A
Yeah. Who is he and why is he such an upset to the establishment? We'll be talking about that. And we'll also be talking about your interview with Sudan's ambassador to the UK Horrifying situation on the ground in Sudan. Our colleague at Sky, Yusra El Bagir, described it as a killing field and the ambassador to Sudan described it to you as a genocide. So we'll be going into that a bit.
- [04:17]
B
Yeah. And for me, that interview, but combined with Yusra's recent reporting, both of those are real wake up moments about what is a conflict and a situation and a crisis that's emerging in Africa that the world really has ignored and is now becoming a huge crisis that's killed tens of thousands of people, led to the displacement of many others, and is going to grab the world's attention, I think.
- [04:42]
A
And we'll also be talking about what's going on in Iran at the moment. You spotted a little clip, a video that went viral from the streets of Tehran, which gives us a glimpse at a different side to where Iran is at the moment and frankly, where young people are at.
- [05:03]
B
Yeah, it's a fascinating insight into what could be to come, I think, in Iran.
- [05:08]
A
And of course, follow us wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify or Apple. Send us your thoughts to the usual place. We love getting your questions. The world@sky.uk so, Dom, as we were saying, the Democrats won in New Jersey and Virginia, where there were big elections over who would become the new governor. But let's just take a moment because the focus really of the last few weeks, the last 24 hours, has been the New York mayoral election. That has been the sexiest of all the elections, because this little known assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, who frankly, a year ago, no one really even knew who he was. Six months ago, people weren't quite sure who he was. And he just has, you know, this meteoric rise, extraordinary rise of this, this young guy who was able to really capture the imagination of, of people through his social media campaign and, and just really through his messaging. He's been described as charismatic, as a once in a lifetime phenomenon being compared to Obama with, with his message of, of hope and change. Just give us a little bit of a brief of about Zoran Mamdani and then we'll talk about why there are those who are also frankly frightened of a Zohran Mamdani win and are threatening to leave the city.
- [06:52]
B
Yeah, so he's a fascinating figure and he's just, he galvanized the race in the mayoral race in New York in a way that we haven't really seen in American politics for a long time. He's got this freshness, he's got this vitality, he's got this amazing energy. He, he's got this mastery of the medium. He understands social media better really than I think any politician in his generation. And the way he was able to use social media, Instagram, his encounters with ordinary New Yorkers, has an authenticity. So he's got the energy and the vitality, but also seems very authentic, but also, I mean, he's just a very, very skilled politician. And I think what we saw in his victory speech overnight sort of showed us a fairly conventional politician, very triumphant, but offering, as we've heard from Clinton, going back to Clinton or Obama, this offer of hope and change, which I think he hopes will propel him to even greater political glories.
- [07:50]
A
Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. I mean, he just kind of is able to use this medium, the power of social media. And he is being described in an age of authenticity as someone who people have found quite likable. He's young, 34 year old, son of Indian immigrants, born in Uganda, came to the United states at age 7. You know, he talks about big issues in a way that the average person understands. So he's made this idea of affordability the centerpiece of his campaign. And he's been out campaigning with, with cab drivers, with, you know, corner store workers in New York, but also going to gay bars across New York, reaching out to the immigrant communities, whether it's, you know, the, the Muslim community, the Jewish community, communities of all faiths. And although he's, you know, the, the, the sort of New York is, is, is the center of, of capitalism in, in the United States. And there have been billionaires who have come out and he has joked about the spirit, the fact that they're spending more campaigning against him than he is willing to tax them. But the fact is that, you know, you go to New York City and we were there just a few weeks ago for the UN General Assembly. I was paying $12 for, for a cup of coffee. It is an incredibly expensive city. Grocery prices through the roof. Did you know that the average median household income in New York for a family of four is about $70,000? I don't know how one can survive in a city where, you know, you're buying groceries weekly. Groceries are about 150, 170, $70. On top of that, things like rent, transport, getting around the city. I mean, it's a very difficult place to live in at the moment.
- [10:13]
B
Yeah, but it's always been very expensive, isn't it, Yelda? I mean, you know, you've always, unless you're an investment banker, if you're going to live in New York, you're going to live in a pretty small flat. You know, the flat Friends was set in, it was always incredibly unrealistic. No one at that age could afford a flat like that. And it's an incredibly expensive place. But I think for the very, for the, for the poorer end of society in New York, what he's offering is free buses. He's offering rent controls, he's offering sort of grocery stores that will offer free goods and cheaper goods. He's tapped into that issue and I think, you know what's interesting is as a skilled politician, he's worked out what is, what is aggravating voters. He's identified that and he's come up with a potential solution. Now his critics would say that this is just going back to the kind of spend lavish spending policies that ruined New York in the 70s. He's not old enough to remember that, but the Economist was fairly damning in its analysis of what his policies could lead to. Free buses will lead to Bad buses. It said a rent freeze will lead to higher rents for other people. And how's he going to spend, how's he going to pay for all this? He's going to increase taxes is the assumption. And then we'll have a lot of wealthier, more enterprising people fleeing New York. And I think that's the kind of jeopardy with Mamdani. He's a very exciting prospect, but he is a democratic socialist. And while he really excites and galvanizes one end of society. So if you look at the results that the youth folk came out massively in favour of Mamdani, what's really interesting is young men as well, of all, of all races. And of course, Trump did pretty well eating into the, particularly the mail votes in New York, which has always been a very Democratic constituency. So Mamdani's done well to win that back. But if you look at the votes for Andrew Cuomo, the more conventional older candidate, his rival, he did very well in the older vote. So potentially, Mamdani is quite divisive. He could polarize America between the young and the old. He will see this guy, as New York Post has said, is a kind of. The New York Post coverer, has a sort of hammer and sickle picture over Mamdani and is predicting sort of a red dawn. So I think for older Americans, he's seen as a potentially dangerous communist and that's exactly how Trump is going to attack him. And I think what we're gonna see, what we're seeing in New York is a kind of battlefield being laid out now between Trump and Mamdani offering alternative visions. And Trump is going to try and terrify Americans about what Mamdani can mean in terms of what the Democrats could offer in future.
- [12:49]
A
Yeah, it's interesting just listening to his victory speech, Dom, you know, he didn't hold back in his continue attacks on Donald Trump and he, you know, it was quite a speech. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. He said at one point, Donald Trump, and I know you're, you're watching, turn the volume up, basically saying, listen to me carefully, you know, we are not going to be frightened by you, we're not going to feel threatened by you. Donald Trump has described him as, and has continued to describe him as a communist throughout this campaign. Every time someone has said, you know, the Democratic Socialist Zoharan Mamdani, he's corrected them, Even in a 60 Minutes interview in the last few days where he said he's a communist and he's threatened to withhold federal funding to New York City. What was also interesting, listening to Zoran Mamdani, he said, you know, this is the city that created Donald Trump, and we're gonna let him know that. We're not going to let him get away with some of the things that he is trying to do to this country. But the truth of the matter is, Dom, America is, and, you know, America. Well, America is an incredibly polarized country right now. It has always been polarized. I mean, you go back to all the way to the 1960s and, and, and even before. It's been a nation that has been polarized. But we're feeling it quite deeply right now just because of the states of social media and the fact that we get, you know, messaging quite, quite quickly and, and instantly. So you have to wait and see how difficult some of those opponents of Zohran Mamdani make his life for him, because people are comparing him to Obama. And I, and I described that sort of change in hope messaging that he has been trying to push. But he's also, in many ways, has done what Donald Trump was quite successful at doing, tapping into the thing that is angering and upsetting Americans, New Yorkers the most. And he talks about those pocketbook issues, those, those issues around affordability, grocery prices. He's tapped into that. And he isn't an establishment person. Donald Trump was not an establishment person. Donald Trump didn't have the backing initially of the Republican Party, even when he was cast out into the wilderness following January 6th and the insurrection, you know, and he went off to Mar a Lago for a couple of years. He watched very carefully to see who his friends and foes were. Zoran Mamdani does not have the endorsement of may major, you know, Democratic leaders, people like top Democrats in New York like Chuck Schumer. So we'll have to see the battle that he is now up against.
- [15:46]
B
Yeah, I think he's a very skilled politician, and I think he's identified in this election what, what will get the voters out. And affordability is the big issue. It's, as you say, hugely expensive city. He's worked out that that's what, you know, gets them to vote for him now. But he strikes me as a bit of a changeling, I think someone who will work out, you know, plotting his next move, what the other issues are. And it's really interesting that, you know, he's won the mayoralty of New York he's not won the leader of the Democratic Party, but his speech was, like, at least half of it seemed to be aimed at the American president. And he's effectively saying, if you want to fight Donald, bring it on. I'm ready. You know, so he's embracing and relishing the idea of a kind of titanic struggle with Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, you know, I think we talked about this in New York, didn't we, outside the United Nations. Yeah. We talked about how Trump sort of. He sees politics as wrestling. You know, he likes to have goodies and baddies. He says, I'm the greatest, he's the meanest, and I'm gonna destroy him. And he's going to use that kind of language. You've already heard it with, as you say, branding Mamdani as a communist. You know, he's gonna say, this is a guy from the radical far left. You know, Mamdani is from the wing of the Democrat Party that wanted to defund the police. These are fairly radical positions. And interestingly, in sort of moved away from that to a more centrist, more pragmatic platform. And I think he'll probably shift again, but he's got that whole sort of hinterland that Trump's gonna make the most of and exploit. So he's gonna do that politically. But also, Trump is also talking about. She's saying, cutting off federal funding for New York. He's also possibly gonna send in the National Guard. So you could see New York turning into, I mean, potentially quite a nasty political battle, but also possibly a bit of civil unrest and the kind of clashes we have seen between the left and ICE and security forces in other American cities. So I think the stage is set for certainly some kind of contest, some kind of conflict in New York, which is going to be fascinating. And I think that obviously, then, is the prelude to the midterm elections and the presidential elections, and that kind of strife and struggle is exactly what Trump thrives on. So I think he will probably be quite happy that Mamdani has won and see him as an opponent he's prepared to take on.
- [18:02]
A
I was listening to some comedians who were interviewing him, and they said, you know, we trust you, because, frankly, as far as your political career goes, this is probably as far as you can. You can go, because you. You can't become president of the United States. You weren't born here. You were born in Uganda. So, you know, the fact is that he can't stand for president. And when he takes on Donald Trump, you know, there are Those who say, yeah, you're doing this because ideologically you're standing against a Donald Trump, rather than doing what most politicians are doing in the Democratic Party. And for now, it seems like their only policy is we don't like Trump. Rather than telling people what they actually stand for as a party, we'll be hearing a lot from Zoran Mamdani. I think, you know, some people describe the role of New York mayor as perhaps, perhaps the second most powerful in the United States. And New Yorkers would say, you know, the second most powerful in the world. It is a great city. And, you know, he's an effective communicator. So we'll be talking a lot about him in our coverage and on this podcast. And of course, for our listeners, if you want to learn more about Zohran Mamdani and what's been going on, you can listen to the other sky News podcast, Trump 100. Just go to Apple Spotify, our website, to have a listen. But, Dom, there's so many issues that we need to cover. I want to talk to you now about the situation in Sudan because it is an absolutely horrifying situation. What's been going on in Darfur to the civilian population. And you've been speaking to the Sudanese ambassador to the UK who's described the situation on the ground as genocide. Thousands, tens of thousands of people have fled Al Fashir and tens of thousands are unaccounted for. The situation on the ground is a horror show. Just give us a bit of a summary.
- [20:16]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the first point to make is that this is the war that the world kind of swore would never happen again, but it is happening again. And I think, you know, we should back up a bit here because I think a lot of people listening don't quite understand what's happening in Sudan. It's definitely a war that has not grabbed the world's attention. That's partly, you know, we have to take some of the blame for that, that as journalists, I think a lot of, you know, the world's politicians of diplomats have preferred to focus on Ukraine and Gaza. But this is a civil war that sort of began a couple of years ago when the elites of Sudanese society couldn't really agree on how to move on from the tyranny of the past. And we had the rsf, which is a paramilitary group, break away and take on the Sudanese military. And that has plunged the country into the most devastating civil war. The capital is being taken and retaken. You know, it's a Fairly prosperous, well educated African country. Its infrastructure has been devastated. Hospitals have been destroyed. 150,000 people have died there. And most recently, the conflict has focused mainly on the west, which is the Darfur region. And the rsf, pushed further west, has tried to take this town of the city of Al Fasha, which is the capital of North Darfur. So it besieged it for 18 months. People ended up starving. They were eating leather and animal feed by the end. And then eventually the RSF was able to move in. And the RSF is a particularly brutal, particularly in Darfur, very brutal, barbarous and bloody organization. And the pictures that have emerged from Al Fasha are truly horrendous of people being shot in cold blood. There's a kind of cold blooded callousness to some of the way the Aras, to the way the RSF commander has been operating, which is really quite staggering. We have videos of commanders talking to their victims who are pleading for their lives and then just getting up and shooting them in cold blood in the head. RSF figures walking through hospitals, shooting hospitals just littered with dead bodies and shooting anything that sort of shows any sign of life. So the alarm has been raised. And in London, it was raised by the Sudanese ambassador, Babakir Al Amin. He said it is a genocide and he said the world has stood by and not done anything. But he singled out in particular Britain for not doing enough because of its historic ties with Sudan, but also because Britain is an ally with the United Arab Emirates. The need for intervention to, I mean, putting pressure on the enabler of this ongoing genocide and to take a firm United States position against that. He was the enabler. It is no secret that the source of their armament and their mercenaries and the logistical support and everything is coming through the uae. The United Arab Emirates. Yes, the uae. Although it denies this, there's mounting evidence that it is deeply involved in the civil war because it's arming the rsf, allegedly in return for deals over gold. There's a lot of gold in Sudan. And the difficulty for the uae, but also for Britain is that British supply weapons and other weapons parts and engine parts have ended up and have turned up on the battlefields of Sudan. So, as I say, the UE deny any involvement, but there's a lot of evidence that they are involved. And the ambassador explicitly said that that's got to stop. He described the UAE as the enablers of this conflict, but also said Britain has got to do more to try and restrain its ally.
- [24:02]
A
You know, I think about 20 years ago, when the likes of George Clooney brought the issue of Darfur to the world's attention. It took celebrity, a number of celebrities coming out, speaking out about the situation in Darfur. At the time it was described as the biggest humanitarian crisis in the 21st century. And I remember at the time reporting about the British Sudanese, the American Sudanese, the European Sudanese that were trying to get out of the country, many of them NHS doctors, for example, many of them citizens of the United States and from other European countries. And I remember the evacuation that was taking place where tens of thousands of people were being extracted from the country. And, and at the time, I thought to myself, and that lasted for about two or three weeks where they were asking British citizens, American citizens, Australian citizens to get to these military bases so that their, their, you know, the countries where they were passport holders could evacuate them out. And I remember thinking, my gosh, when all of these foreign citizens leave this country, this is going to get so much bloodier, so much worse. The violence is going to get so bad and our cameras and the international attention is going to stop. And that is what is so gut wrenching about all of these conflicts that take place. You know, the, the conflict in Sudan, you know, one, it's difficult to explain because it's about the sort of greed and corruption and rivalries and power and the hunger around the huge amount of resources that exist in a place like Sudan. And yet it is the civilian population that gets hit the hardest. I am reading about stories of children as young as 3 or 4 or 5 years old showing up, walking through the desert, showing up to, you know, camps on their own, terrified, traumatized, without their families, hungry, desperate. And you just realize, where are their families? Where were they separated? Are they alive or dead? Tens of thousands of people are unaccounted for at the moment. So it's the horror of the humanitarian crisis, the human rights crisis, and the diplomatic and military crisis that is taking place. And the international community has frankly, just turned a blind eye on the situation.
- [26:35]
B
Yeah, as you say, it's, you know, as often with conflicts in Sudan, it's particularly a small group of men could not agree on how to run the country and share power. And so they retreated to their corners with a lot of weapons. And then other, you know, fairly corrupt forces outside of that country has then funneled in weapons to either side. And they have fought it out and continue to fight it out. And that, in essence, is what a number of conflicts are. You know, quite often there's an ideological dimension to them, but quite often it just Comes down to brute power, as you say. And then the people who pay the price are, you know, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of poor, innocent civilians. And yeah, as you say that, the stories coming out of Al Fasha are particularly horrendous. And it has to be said, actually they're the stories that are getting out because as a massive communication problem, the people we're speaking to at the embassy, so not diplomats, but community leaders, diaspora figures were saying they just, they can't get information about their relatives, so they're desperate. The information they are getting is absolutely appalling. But there are lots of cousins and relatives they just can't hear from. So they're beside themselves with worry. But the ones who they are able to connect with, the lucky ones, have escaped. They've got out of the city in time. They got through RSF lines and they've got into the mountains where they are relatively safe. But they're with families who have been broken up. There are orphaned children, there's been a lot of rape, a lot of men have been taken aside, asked who their tribal affiliations are, and then shot. And so there's ethnic cleansing going on and there's a lot of ransom taken. So a lot of people have been taken hostage. They then take the phone of the person and they say, right, tell me about a wealthy relative you've got abroad. They contact that relative and say, we want this amount of money paid into our bank account. So as one of them said, you know, you name an abuse and it's happening in Al Fasha. And I don't think that's really hyperbole and the world is not really paying attention to it. There's been one UN resolution regarding this, and I think while the world's media is not focused on this conflict, then governments and diplomats do have a lot of other things on their plate and they are turning a blind eye. That's how the Sudanese ambassador put it. It's hard to dispute that, I have to say. Our team, Yusra Al Bagha and her team, our Africa team, have done an amazing job reporting from Sudan in very difficult conditions.
- [28:56]
A
This brutality comes after the RSF encircled, starved and shelled Al Fashir for over 18 months in their battle with the army for the last capital in Darfur under state control. Several high level sources told us that top state commanders, officers and political leaders secured their own safe passage out of the city in over 100 vehicles, some of them armored, leaving civilians and their own troops behind to be captured along.
- [29:21]
B
With the garrison what they have reported is, has been, you know, truly deeply moving, but they can't get into what's going on now in the west either. So I think we have to kind of raise the profile of what's happening in Sudan. It's always, you know, baffling to me why certain conflicts do grab the world's attention. And it's not just the media. The public are more interested in some conflicts than others. But Sudan, despite having a massive diaspora of people outside of Sudan, does not seem to have grabbed the world's attention. But I think at the moment, now it is rising up the news agenda. And I think the world is waking up to a truly, as you say, massive humanitarian crisis. I mean, what you said was said some time ago. Yvette Cooper repeated that saying a few days ago. It is the worst, she says, the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. Britain's giving 5 million more pounds in addition to around 120 million pounds to help. That is a drop in the ocean. The Sudanese ambassador said, you know, it's fine to get money, but what we need is to have action. And what he wants is to see Britain really put a lot of pressure on the uae, who he says is totally unconvincing, and its protestations, it's not in any way involved. And that has got to stop. But most of what he says, the international community, through the UN and other agencies, has got to get a grip on what's happening in Darfur.
- [30:39]
A
Yeah, a truly gut wrenching situation. And we'll continue to, as you say, through our teams. Yusra and others highlight the situation there. Don, we're going to go to an ad break, but when we come back, we're going to actually talk about a story that does give some hope. Something that you noticed, a clip that's gone viral that came out of Iran. So we're going to talk about that in a moment.
- [31:18]
B
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- [31:20]
A
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- [31:22]
B
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- [31:56]
A
Welcome back. Before the break, we're talking about Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York York City, and of course, the devastating situation in Sudan. But I just want to draw our attention to a clip, a video that's gone viral from Iran. Dom, just talk us through this a little bit. And what it was.
- [32:19]
B
Okay, so this is a clip that has gone viral of a band in Tehran. So on the pavement, on the sidewalk, in. In Tehran, it's playing Seven Nation army by the White Stripes, and the crowd are just sort of, you know, swinging and rocking to it. And. And what's interesting, Yadav, is you'll see that the women are not wearing the hijab, which is very striking. And the hijabs, obviously, it's a strict rule of the Islamic revolution in Iran that all women have to wear the hijab. It's a rule that got women out on the streets for a protest movement that motivated the entire nation but led to a massive crackdown. There's an uneasy truce now between the government and those who don't want to wear the hijab. And increasingly, if you go there, you see women are not wearing the hijab. But it's very striking to see that in this video. And I think what this video shows, really, is that this kind of sense of youthful resentment, but also kind of struggle against the autocratic, corrupt old men who run Iran, that hasn't been completely crushed by this brutal crackdown. It's there, it's finding different ways of expressing itself, but it's very much present. And I think it shows that ultimately this regime in Iran has kind of had its day, and it's hugely consequential, I think, what this kind of shows, because I think it shows that, you know, ultimately the government is going to have to change dramatically, you know, more than, I think just below 50% of Iranian society is below the age of 30. And there's a sense when you get there of a kind of irrepressible tide of youthful kind of political struggle for freedom, if you like, that is pushing against the government the whole time. Eventually that is going to break through, and when it does, Iran will change dramatically. So there was a kind of sense, I think, there of what could be to come in Iran. It's also just a. You know, it's a great clip of young people having a good time.
- [34:16]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think for listeners who don't know that the music scene in Iran, first of all, Iran is a society and, you know, a country that's very much rich in culture, music, art, history. It isn't just about the mullahs and the image that the world sees through the mullahs. These sorts of rock bands, rap groups have existed For a long time in sort of an underground movement. And the fact that it's sort of emerged on the surface now is what's extraord and not just emerge but the way that it's emerged, you know, the fact that you're pointing out that the women, the young women are not wearing their hijab, you're not seeing the morality police going around now and saying, you know, what are you doing? Let's not forget the women life freedom movement began because you know, the police were unhappy with how a young woman was wearing her hijab. She had her hijab on, but she was arrested, she was beaten, she died in custody. And you know, it then sort of triggered this mass demonstration demonstrations across Iran and within the diaspora communities outside of Iran for several years. The anger at the regime was palpable. This young generation, this TikTok generation that emerged, 16 year old girls taking on mullahs in the streets, in their schools, wherever they could find them and confronting them and saying, we don't want this. We want, as their slogan went, you know, women, life and freedom. And the basis of it was we want to be free to do what we want like any young person anywhere in the world. And if we think about the journey that Iran has been on in the last couple of years, not only are they dealing with and the regime is dealing with, you know, the sanctions and the austerity measures that people have been grappling with as a result of the sanctions and the economic crisis that Iran has gone through, we then, you know, the United States and Israel launched this 12 day war where we saw Iran and Israel, you know, at each other and there were fears that this would escalate into a greater war. Hundreds of people died in Iran, missiles flying across the country, the regime, you know, top echelon leadership of the regime killed. And, and now what we're seeing is the reemergence of young people in the streets saying, you know what, this regime, we don't want it. And so we'll have to see how it actually grapples with all of these kind of tectonic shifts and changes within the country and the pressure that it's facing.
- [37:09]
B
Yeah, and I think it's fascinating to get these glimpses of shifts in those plates, as you say, and they are only glimpses. It's very hard to, to go there. We went there, lucky enough to have gone there shortly after that war with Israel and there was a tension there between those in the minds, I think, of a lot of Iranians on the one Hand, as one filmmaker said, I hate Israel because you've made me kind of sympathize and support the regime that I also hate. Because a lot of Iranians were so outraged that Israel was attacking them, they felt they had to rally around this government that so many Iranians believe is just basically delegitimized itself and lost all credibility. But I think on the other hand, there is this sort of sense that the protests are unfinished business, that there's an uneasy truce between the ayatollahs and the people. As one actually one of the people who the government gave us to look after us actually said, I think what you must understand is that the young people are just saying, f you. He said, it's slightly coarser language. F you, ayatollahs. How dare you tell me what my sister, my daughter has to wear on her head. How dare you tell me how can you get in my life like this? They've had enough of that. And when you go there, you realize that our view of Iran is entirely stereotypical. We think it's mullahs and missiles and religious zealotry. And it's actually, particularly in Tehran, a fairly secular place in a social sense. A lot of people aren't religious at all. There's a real aesthetic, there's a real sense of cultural expression and which actually shows itself with a hijab. Women who do begrudgingly wear the hijab often wear sort of just a strip of cloth right at the back of their head to sort of, you know, as an act of rebellion, but they can't be punished for it. And they use that to kind of. There's a certain style in which they do it. So there's a whole sense of this sort of repressed cultural energy as well in Iran that is just waiting to burst out and will burst out. And you know, when it does, when this sort of crumbling regime eventually falls or radically changes, its we will undoubtedly see a very different Iran. And I think that's really the sense of what we got in this clip. And that's probably why it went so viral. I mean, the singer Arshani does this all the time. He goes out on the streets of Tehran, he plays Iranian songs, he plays Iranian rock, he plays Western rock. But this one clip I think went viral because it shows a sense of rebelliousness and also a sense of spirit amongst the Iranians that I think we in the outside world found surprising and wanted to share with each other.
- [39:38]
A
And Dom, do we have a sense of what's happened to this rock band and the young people who have showed up at this sort of mini street concert.
- [39:47]
B
It's really interesting, actually, and I think it shows. It's very hard to read what's going on in Iran because some people have said, these guys were arrested. Their social media page has been, you know, the social media footprint has been erased. We don't know what's happened to them. And others have said that they're still at liberty. And certainly Oshani singer, the Instagram account is still alive and kicking, so it's not entirely clear. I reached out to our producer out in Tehran. He said he tried very hard to find out. He could find no record of them being arrested. So that may have been sort of put out there by various groups trying to discredit the government in Iran. You know, I think we can say that there are many more like him and that probably going to see more of this in the future. And I think it's interesting, Iran, isn't it, because we're so used to events moving at sort of warp speed in Trump's world and, you know, a decade happening in a week or a day. But actually Iran is moving at a glacial speed. But when it eventually shifts those plates, when they do shift, I think potentially could be, undoubtedly will be a massive moment for the Middle east and further afield.
- [40:57]
A
Yeah. And I think with any of these sorts of things, you know, I think people test the boundaries to see how the authorities are going to react. And, you know, it's a question of who blinks first before they start to see, well, they didn't do anything the last time. I'm gonna try this again, and then I'm gonna push the boundaries a little bit more. And the less that the authorities sort of crack down on these situations, suddenly it normalizes, you know, just as it has with the hijab. It has been a long, brutal battle for the last few years. But now, you know, the regime doesn't even bother sending out the police to Dr. Women away for not wearing their hijab. So we'll, we'll, we'll watch the events in, in Iran closely. But, Dom, every week when we do the podcast, Richard and I give our predictions. We've never really held you accountable for any predictions that you may have. Do you have anything that you're watching or, you know, keeping an eye on and thinking, you know, I'm, I'm going to watch how this unfolds and develops?
- [41:56]
B
Well, I think it's sort of just following on from what I've, what we've been talking about. So I think Sadan is going to rise higher up the news agenda. A lot more horror stories are gonna come out of there and I think there's undoubtedly gonna have to be concerted diplomatic international action to deal with that. And I think the other thing to watch is what happens in New York. It's part of that. You couldn't have written a kind of better script for Netflix, could you? A far left mayor in New York taking on such a radical and contentious figure like Donald Trump. It's a titanic clash for the ages, I think. And how that plays out is going to be. Be. It's going to be fascinating. It's going to be interesting to watch from afar and I think it's going to say a lot about the future of America in the coming months and years.
- [42:43]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And for me, I'm continuing to watch the situation in Gaza. We know that there's plans to put some kind of international security force together. So just watching how that is going to develop and unfold and whether we do end up getting access as journalists finally to Gaza. So I'm going to be keeping an eye on that for the next few weeks. Really great to have you on Dom on the, on the podcast. You're welcome to join us on the world anytime. It's been great to have you on to talk and thank you for listening and we look forward to recording again when Richard is back next week.
- [43:22]
B
Thank you, Yalda. I've enjoyed it. Hey, it's Sophie and Wilf from Sky News.
- [43:50]
A
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- [43:52]
B
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