← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
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- [00:03]
A
Sky News, the full story first. Hey, guys, it's me. And welcome to a special episode of the World podcast. This week, we're going to be talking about Iran. For two weeks, tens of thousands of people have been out on the streets in Iran protesting the economic crisis, which then turned into a chant for regime change. There's been complete digital darkness for more than a week now. The Internet has been shut down, although some people are getting around it through the Starlink satellites. But mostly very little information coming in and out of the country. And so it's been incredibly difficult for journalists to verify what's actually going on inside the country. But we. There has been a bloody and brutal crackdown on the protesters. At least 2,600 people have been killed. 10,000 or more people have been locked up, with some of those sentenced to death. Iran is more than what happens inside its borders. What happens in Iran does not stay there.
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B
And we want to see a little.
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C
Bit of freedom for these people. These people have been living in hell.
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B
For a long time.
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A
Iran, as we know, is an incredibly important and, frankly, powerful country. Not just in the Middle east, but what happens in that country impacts things right across the world geopolitically. It is an incredibly important country. And I've continued to cover what's been going on inside the country for a very long time. I remember covering the Green Revolution, the green movement back in 2009, where people came out onto the street streets to protest against electoral fraud. There were demonstrations again in 2019, and then, of course, the huge protest which was very much driven by women, called the Women Life freedom protests in 2022, where young girls, women, were coming out on the streets taking on the morality police to fight for their basic human rights and to fight for, you know, the fact that a young woman had been killed by the morality police, Mahsa Amini, because they had issues with the way that she was wearing her headscarf. And then, of course, we've continued to focus on what's been going on inside the country in the last few weeks because of these demonstrations. Iran is a country that I feel deeply connected with. I feel as someone whose family come from Afghanistan. I speak Farsi language that's spoken inside Iran. I feel a shared culture and history and, of course, you know, very much closely linked to Iran. Many Afghans emigrated during the turmoil in Afghanistan over the course of the last 40 years to Iran. I have many, many Iranian friends in the United States, here in the uk, in Australia as well. So I have a deep interest in what goes on inside the country and especially around the treatment of young people. It has a very young population. They're incredibly talented and enterprising, you know, and they want to live the way many young people do across the world. And they have access now to the Internet and they can see how other young people live, and they want that for themselves, too. So the big question then is, what next for Iran, a country where over half the population are under the age of 35 and frankly, have no memory of the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic regime to power, A country where its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are severely weakened or decapitated. And now, of course, the wild card, the trump factor. And he, of course, isn't afraid to flex his muscles. We've seen that in places like Venezuel, his rhetoric towards Greenland, Colombia and Cuba. So where does that leave Iran and the Islamic regime? Is this likely to be the end of this regime that's been in power for the last 47 years, or will it just be business as usual? I wanted to talk to two members of Iran's diaspora about their motherland, their relationship to it, and what they believe is likely to happen next. One of these women is Azadeh Afzahi. She's a human rights activist. And the other is Muj, Muj Madara, who set up the Iranian Diaspora Collective. Azadeh Moj. Thank you both for joining us here on the podcast. It's been quite a difficult few weeks. You're both members of the Iranian diaspora. No doubt what's happening inside Iran is something that you're both feeling very deeply, which is what we're seeing with so many members of the diaspora. But if you can both just give me a sense of, you know, your feelings, the conversations you're having, the conversations you're having with family and friends in Iran and anyone that you are trying to contact inside the country, as well as those you're speaking to outside the country.
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B
Thank you so much for having me. There's lots of emotion going on. It's like a roller coaster, if I may say, because you feel numb, you feel helpless, you feel rage, anger, and then you feel sad at the same time, too, because what's happening in Iran right now, as you mentioned, it's been a week without Internet connection, without any connection to what's happening inside. We don't have any knowledge of what's happening. So we have a range of emotion that we're all feeling. So I'm sitting here on needles, constantly checking my phone, constantly reaching out to My contact to see if we can get any connection.
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A
Muj. I mean, just listening there to Azadeh, how desperate and helpless she feels trying to reach out to her contacts on the ground. It's been like that for so many Iranians who are trying to get a hold of family members, friends, contacts, people they're working with remotely. And it's been a complete blackout.
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C
You know, this event is particularly very triggering for someone like me that grew up with predominantly my family going back and forth for the entirety of my life. I think that my parents in particular always believed that this was a short term moment in the history of the country and they were always going back. So we were always prepared to go back and we were always going back when we could. And so in this moment, we have not been able to reach our family members. And that is a intensely terrifying feeling because my concern since this summer has been that if we cannot push for a regime change, that the past 25 years might be seen as the glory years of Iran and that Iran heads toward North Korea. Isolation from a communication perspective. And so I think this is terrifying. The regime is showing us their ability to isolate 90 million people, which is beyond. I think the other piece of it is we have a few close friends that are mutual friends of ours that have been able to get across to Turkey. And our friend that left yesterday said that he saw so many dead bodies in the streets, he said there was so much blood, 13 year old kids, 10 year old kids, parents and families, children as families had gone out. And I think the diaspora right now is quite broken. I think that Azadeh is one of those people that I look up to. And we really have been in this since the death of Mahsa Amini. And so many of us have been saying that if we didn't do something, this would happen. And so I think for a lot of us this is an out of body experience because whether it was lobbying, whether it was protesting, whether it was advocating, whether it was educating, we have been desperately trying to let people know that there is a very, very, very dangerous regime in the Middle east that first and foremost tests its violence on its own people before it exports that. And these people have been fighting for so long over and over again to essentially let the world know that they want an option to vote and to alternatively graduate from this regime. They don't want this regime. And so this week I think has been maybe the most difficult because I find myself having to say things and do things that maybe three years ago were not appropriate and this summer were most definitely not popular. But I find myself in a position of either advocating for any and all support to the Iranian people, because my anxiousness inside myself is that if we don't push with everything we have, we could end up with a member of the IRGC or a reformist leading this country. And so this is a really bad week for us. Yeah.
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A
Do you, Muj, feel let down by the international community? Because, you know, there's been condemnations and President Trump being consistent in his rhetoric and his rhetoric has been strong, but frankly, it feels like there's a lot of uncertainty at the moment, you know, and if the United States were to act and do something, what would that look like?
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C
At what level level does the Iranian people have to suffer to get beyond thoughts and prayers and Instagram posts? This is unacceptable. So tell me, where in the world would you ever see people massacred at the hands of government and the world sitting there saying, well, let's, you know, negotiate. No more negotiation, no more reform. I am staunchly, as everyone can tell from my feed this week, I am going after every single soft core reformist out there. I'm not having it. And here's what we can do. Apple can turn on the lights on technology and communication. Starlink can do everything they can to turn on communication. And frankly, we know the Chinese government is working with the Islamic Republic to basically build an alternative Internet. We know that. We know that they're using outside foreign resources to shut down communication. So, so where is, where what are we doing to essentially grab everyone where it hurts, to make sure that they do the number one thing that they could do, which is turn on the Internet. So I've said all of this publicly and it's not popular, but I'm at the point where I answer to the Iranian people, my family. This is where I'm at.
- [11:43]
A
I mean, I can hear the anger in your voice and the pain. Azadeh, just listening to Moj, she was saying that she finds it particularly painful on a personal level because from a young age, you know, her family have come and gone to Iran. And the feeling has been that, you know, eventually this whole idea of the Islamic revolution would be a short term thing. Eventually, you know, they would go back as a family. And I know from my interactions with the Iranian diaspora, whether it's here in the uk, in Australia, in America, that that has, that is basically consistent with what most Iranians have felt, that they would eventually go back, that they would preserve their langu, their culture, their heritage, their history, and reclaim it is that something that you feel as well, that you feel deeply connected with Iran, the people in Iran, the families you've left behind and wanting to preserve that in the communities that you've had in the United States and elsewhere, because one day you would return.
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B
Yes, absolutely. Yalda. I always say we're connected through pain. Pain is universal. And I feel like the Iranian people for 47 years have endured that pain and we have had the hope that we will all return. I think that one thing that I always discuss, this has been the conversation at the dinner table as long as I remember. I was 7 years old when we moved to Sweden. And it's always been that notion that we will return back, we will return back to Iran and rebuild it and start basically putting down our roots again. And the fact that it has been so long and we've been ping pong between different ideologies, that is something that I think Iranian people, I know Moj said that there is a fraction, but there is one thing that they have been unified and I've seen it during this time, and that is that they want regime change, all of them. But more importantly, they all want help from the outside. We have the Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi that said recently in an interview that we need to stop the killing at this point, the killing needs to stop. And if we have a Nobel Peace Prize winner that lived in Iran and had to be exiled and saying that foreign invasion, it's what's going to help the Iranian people, people to be set free, then we need to start listening to the Iranian people. And all of them have one voice. They need outside help. And that could look in many different ways. But we really need to stop the talking. Even at the United nations that I go there and advocate, they need to also step up and do something to show the Iranian people that we are behind them. And it's sad for me not to be able to return back. And more than I am doing this for my, for all the, our parents who have had memories in Iran. You know, I don't have much memories in Iran, but every time that there is a glimpse of protest that they are standing up, I see it in my mom's eye that she's like, this time we're going to return back. This time I want to go back. I want to be buried in Iran. And it's extremely upsetting that it hasn't happened so far because we are again caught from some person think that this is not going to happen. And going back to what Mosh was saying Obama in 2009 at the Green Movement, he has apologized to Iranian people, that we should have intervened, we should have helped the Iranian people. And that's all I want. That's my objective.
- [15:40]
A
Azadeh, you said that you were seven when you left the country, and your memories are limited. Moj, you went back as a teenager. Just tell me about some of those earlier memories of Iran, Iranian culture, its heritage. Because I think the world sometimes looks at Iran through the lens of the Islamic Republic and this regime. But it's obviously deeply rooted in a wonderful culture and history and music and art. And, you know, it's got such a long history. And it would be nice to get a sense from you about those early memories, your interactions with your friends, how you all lived and the hopes that you had for your country and the sorts of things that you did then. And, you know, what, you know, about what young teenagers do now.
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C
There's, you know, I'm the oldest of three, so I grew up with my relatives in the home. And, you know, I shared a bedroom with my grandmother my entire life. And, you know, when I was a baby, they took me back. And then, Obviously, they left 1980, brought me back out to the U.S. i was born here, but after the Iraq war, we would go back every summer. And in my opinion, I have never been anywhere that I have felt more loved, more belonging, more at peace, more joy. I have never laughed. I have never been fed so well. I have never been loved so much. It's amazing to see how your relatives that never see you have these pictures of you and of every area of your life in their home. It's amazing the effort the diaspora and the Iranians in Iran make to keep each other alive. I'm old enough that my parents had to take stacks of quarters to call their family and, you know, putting in a quarter, you know, every 15 minutes. And that has been my whole life. My whole life is my parents talking at 4am and 5am to their sisters and brothers and cousins. And so for me, you know, I have grown up. You know, I know it's unusual for someone who's an American kid, but for me, my parents always said, you know, outside is America, inside is Iran. And when they said Iran, they meant the food, the love, the music, the culture, the politics, the intellectual debate. You know, if you've met Iranian people, we love to argue, we love to debate, we love to. We're very passionate. You know, you can find that one day we're at each other's throats and two minutes later, we're hugging and kissing and dancing and at each other's weddings. And so, my God, like, when I went to my grandmother's bar, their garden, like, and the trees, like, for me, this feeling of. The most magical feeling was my father taking me to a sandwich shop that he had been going to since he was a little boy, and the sandwich shop owner recognizing my father as soon as he walked in. And that's how Iran is for me, is this. This insane love and pride of country and people. And there's a real distinction between what has gone on here politically and what is in the hearts and minds of the Persian culture, which is thousands of years old.
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B
Right.
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C
So that is why I fight so hard is, like, Azad, I don't have any family that's buried in the United States or outside of Iran. Not one. And my biggest anxiety in life is having to, you know, God forbid, bury my parents here. That would kill me.
- [19:17]
A
Yeah. I mean, I. I remember I went to a Leila Faraha concert, an Iranian concert in Sydney, and most of the people who were there, many of them were born after 1979. And so, you know, weren't born in Iran and were living in exile, essentially. And, like all of you, waiting to return one day, it's like almost like a waiting game. And as she was singing about the homeland in Iran, and, you know, there was so much pain in the room from all of those young people who, you know, hadn't either visited or weren't born there, but felt deeply connected, which, you know, Azadeh, if I come to you, I mean, that's the point whether, you know, when the Iranian community have built a new life for themselves and for their children elsewhere, they've continued to sort of hold their culture and their customs very dear to themselves.
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B
Yeah. And I think that's something that Iranians can. All of us can be so proud of ourselves. I have three children, and they are so embedded in the culture of what's happening in Iran right now or how we are. And I think that's the pride. I think what Moshe was talking about, because we have so much to give. We have so much to give to each other. We have so much to give to the world and some of the greatest artists and. And imagine if the doors weren't closed and how much more we could enjoy the Iranians. And this is what we see right now in Iran happening. This is with the regime that is stopping women for singing, that is stopping for you to gather, dance. I remember when I was Seven years old, we were at the wedding in Iran. And back then it had to be separated. Women and men had to be separated because they couldn't celebrate under one roof. After a while, the IRGC came in and obviously the wedding stopped. But I still remember that even though during that time you couldn't take away people's happiness. And yesterday as I was scrolling and I could see, even though what's happening in Iran, people still are holding on to that hope with dance, with music, with poetry, with connection, with support, and not to mentioned Persian food. So we have such a rich culture and unfortunately, we haven't been able have the chance to put it on the map and offer it to the rest of the world. And I think our parents understood that very early on, and they're trying to install it in us.
- [22:04]
A
Yeah, you know, I think about the 2009 demonstrations, 2019, 2022, with the women Life Freedom movement, and then these protests, and especially with this particular sort of uprising that we've seen in the country. Many people said it would be different this time. This time, you know, was different and unlike any other protest. But, Moj, you know, earlier you were talking about all the bodies in the streets and families and children. And this is also what I'm hearing when I'm speaking to people who have managed to get out of the country, if they're in Turkey or they've managed to come back to Europe, and they were there last weekend when they saw this take place. Do you think despite this hope and this wish that the diaspora has, that things might be different each time there's a demonstration or an uprising, that this might be the time that things change in Iran? Then the regime cracks down and they close ranks from the top, middle and bottom. Not even the regular army is saying, we're not going to shoot at our own people, that perhaps this won't be different this time, and that they have managed to instill fear by killing so many? The people have returned to their homes and they don't want to sacrifice their family, their children, you know, and send them. Send them to their deaths.
- [23:26]
C
One of our very close friends came back, called us from Turkey last night, and he said that when people are out protesting, they're looking to the sky for drones and planes to be flying over them, thinking that America's coming to save them. This is devastating to me as an American and as an Iranian. I think part of why people like myself and Azadeh are really coloring outside the lines right now a little bit is that there is a real Anxiety that this might be just another protest and not a regime change. And I think one thing that's very unique about this time is that the exiled crown Prince, who is offered himself up as a transitional leader so that there can be a vote, you know, not to return as a monarchy, but to return as a transitional leader, has really been calling not just the people to the streets, but union workers and truck drivers and people who essentially run the overall orientation of these cities. And he has been successful in turning out, you know, millions of people have been chanting, you know, not in the name of a monarchy, but in the name of a nationalism. I'm sure you've heard the chants of, you know, not in Lebanon, not in Gaza, right? Talking about Iranian pride and Iranian nationalism. And so the world has a choice to make right now. They can choose a new Middle east where the region has a chance to reset, and the Iranian people get to have a choice in their own future. And the Iranian diaspora, and I think it is a failure of policy for anyone to compare Iran to Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria. The one thing that the Iranian people have and Iran have is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful, influential diasporas in the world. And every single one of us, myself included especially, will commit to 10%, 20% of everything. You have to go back and reinvest, open a retail store, open a barbershop, open a hair salon, open a bank, bring in distribution. Every single one of us. I said to one of my friends in government, I said, send a DocuSign contract to every Iranian in the diaspora and say, do you commit to reappropriating 25% of your time and money back to Iran? I promise you, everyone would say, where do I sign? Immediately? I've never in my life seen my parents cry this week, like, the way they have, to the point where they had to be, like, medicated to go to sleep, right? And so, like, this may be another protest, but it is a failure of humanity and policy to continue. And it's not just the Iranian people suffering. Look at the misery that the Iranian Islamic Republic brought to Syria, to Gaza, to Lebanon, to Yemen. Look at the misery they have exported to the world. How much longer, Azadeh?
- [26:27]
A
Just hearing, you know, Moshe speak in such a passionate way about, you know, this is a choice. This is a moment. It can't just be another protest. Do you think, though, it was wrong of the crown prince to call on all those people to come out onto the streets, and he described it in one moment as a war, which then inflamed the situation where suddenly you've got these thousands of people killed on the streets, families, children. I spoke to someone today who said that there are body bags, small body bags in these morgues. And he was saying he believes that they were of children, that children were killed who were at the protests, that all of that was in vain. If it doesn't lead to anything.
- [27:14]
B
The question is that. I don't know, I can't speak for himself. But the thing is that the people are fed up with it. When people are taking on the street, that means that they know that they might not return. Might not return. Not because. But there is nothing to return to. What are they returning to? If you think about a youth in Iran right now, which I'm in contact with my clients, he what he did, he worked really hard to buy a car. Two weeks after that, he wanted to purchase that car. He couldn't afford that car anymore. So this is how inflation is. The youth right now have nothing to return to. People have nothing to go back to.
- [27:57]
A
Moshe Azadeh, we're really grateful that you've joined us here on the podcast. Thank you both for your time. Well, thanks very much for listening to this special episode of the World Podcast about the what's going on in Iran and how the diaspora feel about it. If you have any questions, send it to the usual place, theworldatsky.uk See you next time.