From Shah To Theocracy: An Iranian Activist’s Roadmap To Renewal - Dr Forough Amin

We speak with Forough Amin, founder of Iranian Women in New Zealand, about Iran’s contested past, the machinery of censorship, and why a renaissance is still possible. History, ideology, and free speech collide as we follow the path from the Shahs to the present regime and the fight for truth.

• Pahlavi-era modernisation and White Revolution reforms
• context for judging the Shah versus the theocracy
• scale of executions and repression under the Islamic Republic
• political Islam’s regional reach and alliances
• lived censorship: bans on music, chess, perfume, and gatherings
• resistance through culture, education, and private life
• media silence, propaganda, and algorithmic echo chambers
• free speech, platforming, and guarding against disinformation
• hope for a Middle Eastern renaissance led by Iranians

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If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast @ fsu.nz
If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz

Transcript

Meet Farouk And Her Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Farouk is a member of the Persian community here in New Zealand and is the founder of Iranian Women in New Zealand. Farouk, glad you uh could be here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Thank you. Good to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

So explain for us a little bit about this NGO and um your uh and what you do and and who you are.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Thank you so much. So Iranian Women in New Zealand is a is a charity organization founded in 2020. And our main mission is supporting the Iranian community in New Zealand, especially women and also their families. We do lots of community uh work, advocacy, education, art, and culture in normal days. And when it comes to the situation like the one we are in right now, we do a little bit of advocacy for the community. And also in my personal capacity, I'm a I'm uh I'm an activist. Uh you know, and I do lots of advocacy for the Iranian women and the Iranian community in general.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

So you're here today because there is a ferocious war happening now in Iran. The US and Israel is uh attacking the regime. Whether this will lead to regime change or or what, we don't quite know. There's all sorts of reports coming out. It's hard to know exactly what's happening. I hear now that the Kurds may get involved. I mean, that's another complication that you know many of our um supporters and and New Zealanders generally probably don't know about. Many wouldn't even know what a Kurd is, you know, and we can't blame them for that. Um, this is a distant land and a very complex land with lots of different um groups and ethnicities in it. Um but uh it is timely that we have a discussion with you because there's a lot of information out there um or misinformation out there about the Iranian regime and uh and uh what's best for Iran. There's a lot of people who seem to to think they know

Setting The Scene: War And Misinformation

SPEAKER_02 2:30

what's best for Iran. And you know, probably um I know it's a free speech union, but sometimes it pays to do that. So I think uh you're gonna be very informative in terms of like uh being able to take us back a little bit on how we got to this point. Some of the censorship that the uh the Iranian people have had to sort of suffer and what it's like being an activist in New Zealand. I think that's what really this interview is gonna be about. So maybe let's just start on a little bit of the background. How did we get to this place?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Thank you, thank you, Dan. Yeah, I think starting from history would be a good you know point. In early 20th century, Iran was a collapsing, you know, country. It was fragmented, the shop, the monarchs were very weak, foreign interference was huge. We lost big parts of uh territories to Russian, for example, in mid-19th century. So the parts that the countries like Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, they were all part of Iran. And we lost them to Russia in uh early 19th century, the Yugosan.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

So that's the Tsar. The Tsar was taking that land.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yes. So it was during during the Russians, so in some treaties, Turkman Chai and Golistan treaties, so one of the

Iran’s 20th-Century Upheavals

SPEAKER_01 3:55

two infamous treaties that Iranians signed because they defeated in wars with Russia. So, and that's how we lost these territories. Or on the other hand, we lost Afghanistan, that was part of the Persian Empire, you know, for thousands of years, to uh to Britain. So Britain and Russia was just intervening, you know, in Iran. And it continued actually, you know, during the First World War and the Second World War with very disastrous consequences for Iran. So when Reza Shah came to power, he was an illiterate person, you know. He I think he went to school until fifth grade, but he had such a strong will, you know, and desire to develop his country, to make Iran great, if you like. So he started rapid, you know, transformation of the country from centralizing the state, from uh a modern education.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

And when did he come into power? Sorry, Farouch?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

1921. He he became the king in 1921. He came to power, I think, like 1920 or so. He he became the prime minister, and then after that, he became the king. So the country was very weak. And what he did, he was in the army and he was a commander of the army. So he, with the help of some of the forces, they came to Tehran. So it was a it was a coup, in fact, what he did. But it was something that he felt like he needed to do that to save Iran, because the Shah of that time was a young boy of the, you know, the son of the previous Shah. And he couldn't rule the country actually. So he came to power, uh, and he, I think he ruled with an iron fist, you know. I think really people doubt it. But the outcome of what he did for Iran has been great, you know. Universities open, public education started, and many different institutions for preservation of culture, language, and art in Iran. You know, so many of these beautiful places for poets and for you know philosophers, Iranians, the old ones were built during his time. So it was a time of you know rebuilding national identity for Iranian. And you know, in terms of economy, in terms of you know, railroads and opening of factories, so rapid modernization in Iran started during Reza Shah. And then World War II came. Again, Iran was uh, you know, the land of Iran was uh in hands of Britain and also Russia, so some uh Britain from south and Russia from north. You know, Russia was our, you know. So at that time it was Soviet Union, it wasn't Russia anymore. Soviet Union was our northern you know neighbor, and then we had Britain coming from you know the south of the country. So they were using uh Iranian territory in order to find Germany. And at that time, uh the Shah, the Reza Shah, he actually wanted to stay neutral. But at the same time, he was leaning toward Germany. Not because he loved Hitler, but because the uh the history, the record for Soviet Union, for Russians and for British wasn't great in Iran. Iranians had all that, you know, bad memories from these two countries intervening. I just explained how we lost territories, you know, because of these two countries. That's why at that time Reza Shah was thinking Germany is a new power, and we haven't had that bad kind of history with them. So that was the reason. But when he was pressured by Britain and by the Soviet Union, he accepted to be completely neutral, but it was kind of late, and he forced him to step down. Where is that actually page in the history of Iran? If you read the history, he, you know, all he wanted was for his country to stay great and to progress. That's why he accepted to step down and he just asked his prime minister, uh, one of the greatest men in Iranian history. His name is Muhammad Ali Furudi. So he was a wise man, and actually I think he saved Iran several times, you know, during his time as a prime minister, and he was a philosopher as well. So, anyways, he had negotiations with uh Britain and with the Soviet Union, just uh encouraging them to accept that the Shah has stepped down, but his son became the next Shah. So Mohammed Reza Shah. They didn't like it actually. But I can say uh Furudi, he tricked them somehow, if you read the history. So at the time when forces, when British and Soviet forces were coming, moving to Tehran to capture the capital and doesn't allow Muhammad Reza Shah to become the king, he, without anybody knowing, took him, took the crown prince to the parliament and they did all the ceremony they needed, you know, to announce him as a king. And when the allied forces came to Tehran, they arrived, they see that oh, everything is done, and he's the king of the country, Muhammad Azhah. So they had to accept it. And it was the start of uh Muhammad Zasha, the last Shah of Iran, or the Shah that, you know, everybody

Reza Shah’s Modernisation Drive

SPEAKER_01 9:30

knows him. So he was very young. He was 21 year old, I think, when he came to power. And what he did was that he tried to continue what his father started. And you know, compared to his father, he was educated, you know, he knew the model board, he knew several languages. So he was well prepared for his position as a Shah. And he did, he made lots of different types of efforts, you know, to take Iran to the next level. And I think he was successful in many, in many ways. One of the biggest things that he did inside the country is called White Revolution. So it was a series of reforms that he decided to do, like land reforms, taking the land from like so-called feudals, and you know, dividing it among the farmers, for example. And then we had literacy corps, young people finishing their uh high school. They were going as corps to like remote areas in the country to educate uh people. So women's suffrage, giving the right to women, you know, to vote, and many, many kinds of, you know, this kind of social, cultural, and also economic reform. Actually, he was he was kind of socialist. That's interesting that he's always accused of being, you know, a tyrant on the side of the best, you know. But uh his ideas and the way he was trying to do reforms was a socialist, you know, very welfare, you know, oriented kind of reforms.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Do you know how my early experience of the Shah reading books about Hollywood? Oh and I would see him at very famous actors from the 1950s and 60s. He was at their parties.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

It was lots of like I love Danny Kay, who was an amazing Jewish performer, and he used to like entertaining and cooking for people. I remember this image of Danny Kay cooking Chinese food for the Shah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

In Hollywood. So he was he was friends with a lot of the the old Hollywood actors and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

You know, I think he was one of the first first level, you know, leaders of the world at his time, you know, in terms of you know his uh understanding and his familiarity with the world-level culture, you know, in terms of languages, he knew relationship that he did, you know, he had with many leaders of the world. So one of the I think rare cases, you know, in our at least modern history. So he had some mistakes, obviously, but I think what he did for the country, like his father, is far, you know, far beyond, you know, the mistakes that he made at the time. And you know, I always say that when we want to judge the history, we should put it in the context. We should consider the time of you know his rule, when he was in power, and what was happening around him, you know, in the Middle East and around the whole world. Usually one of the things when I get when I talk about the crown prince, you know, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, you know, and how Iranian people are supporting him, uh, many people, including journalists, asking me, What wasn't his father a tyrant? Wasn't he so cruel? How is that you want, you know, his son to be in power? And then, you know, I just answer this question with another question. I tell them, do you think in 50 years, or even let's say in 100 years, Iranian would go to the street and calling the name of Khamenei or his son? And they say, absolutely not. I say, okay, so if he was such a tyrant as you are saying, how is that we Iranians now calling his son's, you know, name? So I think much of the history that we have got is from has been written by Islamists or leftists, the two groups who were opposing him and the two groups who can't finally could topple you know him from power by the support from the West.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

I think to put this in context, because this is uh I've heard that a lot too, that like, oh, he was brutal. What people are basically saying is what's the difference? You know, but there's a big difference between uh someone like Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. He was a strong man, Hosni Mubarak, but he was putting down the Muslim Brotherhood. He he he was tasked with keeping uh a potentially very volatile situation, uh a lid on a very volatile situation. So when we speak about the Shah and what he was uh having to deal with, um there would have been repression of uh Marxist extreme and uh extreme Islamist factions, but we're not talking tens of thousands of people.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

No, no, no, at all. And even not Hosnibo Barak, you know, if I want to compare, I compare him to Andar Sadat. They were good friends, you know, their relationship is one of the rare ones, you know, in in the history, I think, when two leaders had such a close relationship.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

And Sadat was the uh uh a leader of of um Egypt uh around the late 70s?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yes, 70s, around the same the same time. And he was assassinated by by Islamists.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

By by the Muslim Brotherhood and actually made peace with Israel and orientated Egypt away from the Soviet Union to the US. That was Sadat that did that. Yeah. So very courageous man.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, he he signed the camp, David, and he was the first and I think the only Arab leader who has gone to the Israeli Knesset to give a speech. So he was an extraordinary man that who, you know, like many of great people,

World War II And Succession

SPEAKER_01 15:30

you know, people did not understand it at his time, even now. So, in terms of these, you know, accusations of Shah being such a brutal, you know, leader, if you just want to compare, you know, the number of people who were imprisoned, executed during his time, and you know, the ones who have been executed, killed during the time of the Islamic Republic, you cannot even compare, you know, the worst kind of stats that you get about the number of people being executed during Shah, it gives you 180 people. And we are talking around, you know, about the timing of around 40 years, between 100 to 180 political prisoners.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

With a population back then of like tens of millions of people.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Of course, of course. I think the population should be at least something around 40 million, not less than that. I'm not sure about the population of Iran at that time.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

But could have been 60 or 70, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

The number is just, you know, and then in Iran, each year, at least 1,000 people have been executed in the last 47 years.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

On average.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yes. On average, if we want to say, so something between 600 to 1000 or 1000, you know, 1,000 people have been executed. And if we just don't say 47 years, we say 40 years. So 40,000 executed. And it doesn't include the number of protesters last month. At least 40,000 were massacred in the streets of Iran last year. And it doesn't include the number of political prisoners, lefties. Majority of them were lefties in early years after the Islamic Republic came to power in 1981-82. 5,000 were killed, executed in the prisoners.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Well, there was a there was a big purge after the um war with Iraq, too, I believe. Mujahideen and different people were.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yes, yes, exactly. So this this regime has killed hundreds of thousands of people at different stages. They talk about you know Sabak, the intelligence uh you know, organization of the Shah. And there are lots of you know stories about that. But I think many of them, if you put them in perspective, is not even comparable, you know. And as I said, the history, unfortunately, has been written by uh enemies of Shah, by lefties, you know, just look at the universities, academia who are writing all the books, you know, even for us as Iranians, you know, just uh raised up under this regime. We either had access to the Islamist sources, the ones written by this regime, or the ones written by, you know, leftist academia. And for us, even takes years, you know, to do your personal independent study to understand what the reality is on the ground was. And just, you know, let me compare again in terms of where Iran was and where it is now. For the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Shah and his son, Mohammed Reza Shah, they they ruled around 50 years. And they just, as I said, they transformed Iran from a backwarded, collapsing, you know, country to such a big regional. And I can say even Iran was becoming a global power in the late 1970s. And then it took around another 50 years for this regime to see what they made, you know, to Iran. So that's a good way of looking, you know, how the situation was and how it is now.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah, well, I would call the current state a failed state.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Because when you think about a lot of people argue with me about this, but I think that any anti-democratic, not just not democratic, but anti-democratic state to me is a failed state. Because all the human capital isn't uh used the way it could be. Uh, it should be a world power, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Even apart from that, you know, in terms of economy, in terms of progress for the country, they've done nothing. Whatever they've done had just destroyed this country. We are losing thousands of people due to air pollution, you know, because of the heart attack due to air pollution, due to the car accidents on the roads, thousands of people, something around, I don't have the numbers now in my mind, but it's you know, like 10 times more than what we see in Germany, for example, roads, where there is a free, you know, there is no speed limit on their roads. So it's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

But the interesting thing about that, I was thinking about this the the other day. I I I did a post about it. Like when you think about what's happened in the current war, the one of the first things they did was just fire missiles on all the neighboring Arab countries. Now, many of those Gulf states had tolerated Iran.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

They weren't prepared to go that far with them. Yet what thanks did they get? They got so that is just absolutely ridiculous, a ridiculous strategy. But it sort of says that when a state is is

Mohammad Reza Shah And The White Revolution

SPEAKER_02 20:45

that ideological, I wonder when you progress in a state like that, you're probably progressing because of uh purity to the ideology rather than competence.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Which uh you know, we even see uh in with woke culture in in the West, like often it's people that are um obedient to the culture rather than competent that will um uh rise up. Now, I'm not in any way trying to compare the two, but anytime ideology gets its claws in, you're gonna see, you're gonna see an incompetent uh government, really.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Exactly. I think you know, when it comes to ideology, it it doesn't bring anything good to the world, to the to the humankind. Sometimes people are, you know, deluded thinking that no, we have some good ideologies, you know. And I was like that, you know, two years ago, you know. I I'm coming from, you know, I my journey has been fascinating, I think. You know, I started in in my early youth years, I was religious. I became religious. I'm coming from a family that my dad was a political prisoner, you know. No one in my family was religious. And then I went. The university and all I was like surrendered, you know, by all this, surrounded by all these religious friends, and I became a very religious person, you know, just you know, wearing hijab and becoming like that for like four or five years. And after that, I you know came out, I became who I was actually, and but still I had these leftist ideas in myself, you know, strong orientation towards justice and human rights and all this stuff, good things, you know, until around two, three years ago. And what happened with you know Palestine-Israel you know, war, it changed a lot in me. It made me to reflect more, you know, to reconsider my ideologies, you know. And I did lots of research, you know, studying the history from ancient times, you know, this the history of the region, coming to the you know, uh present time and you know, all the details in that. And it made me to, you know, come to this understanding that no ideology is really, you know, helping in any ways, you know, to us. It just makes us, you know, makes our understanding of the world black and white. And and that's what you know, ideology has done to us. Just come to the issue of Iran, you know. Uh the fact is that uh, for example, Westerners, they never really support us, you know, support us Iranians. And at that time, I was thinking maybe the reason is that they don't care about what's happened in other parts of the world, unless one part of it is, you know, Western in any form. So uh even during Woman Life Freedom 2022, you know, uprising in Iran, we didn't receive that much of solidarity from Western human rights activists, feminists, although somebody were calling it like the first, you know, feminist kind of revolution in the modern history, but nobody supported us. And at that time I was thinking the reason is Islamophobia. And we could hear it from many people because we were protesting hijab, compulsory hijab. Many people thought, okay, we are against you know the religion or we are insulting the other people's faith. And it was you know really shocking how they were turning our struggle and misery to make it about themselves. It wasn't about you know another religion or you know, other people, it was about us and our situation. And now with what's happening currently, you know, in the world, have so many people who were silent about the sufferings of Iranians. And I'm not talking about like years ago, I'm talking about two months ago in January. I can describe to you how we Iranians were feeling in Diaspora. So when we talk about at least 40,000 being killed, it means you know, you can rarely find anyone who doesn't know someone who has been killed, who has been injured or arrested. These streets were full of buddies. And we had internet, you know, blackout for two weeks. We didn't know anything about our families. And it was interesting to see nobody cares. You know, we were just waiting for our friends to reach out, you know, our neighbors, media. Nobody came to us. When I say nobody in terms of, for example, media and journalists, I literally mean it, you know. Nobody came to do some interview or asking us, you know, for a lifetime. And we thought, okay, they don't care about us. Let's let's accept it. That's you know our situation. We should, you know, do something about it. But in like last week, it started from last week, everybody is rushing to us. And we are thinking, but why? Where were you? You know, like around a month ago, why you were silent? And now, if you are talking, why we are not supporting us, why you are going to talk, you know, over us and against us. So, you know, in general, I think morality, selectivity of morality or uh loss of the morality compass is the main issue, the main question of our world, you know, today. It seems like, and it is because of ideology. So, how it's related to the topic of ideology. I think people only show sympathy and only speak about, you know, against some harms when it's you know aligns with their ideology. Otherwise, they just stay silent.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah, I mean, I try to make sense of this. Like, I don't know why a leftist would support an Islamist at all. It makes no sense to me. An Islamist, in my view, is someone on the hard right.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

But but it's not new. You know that it's not new. In 1979, the same thing happens. What brought this Islamic regime in power? What's the unholy marriage of leftists and Islamists? I think leftists have always been used by Islamists. And they never they never really seemed to understand it.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Do you think it's the promise of revolution? They are just so drunk on the idea of tipping everything over and starting again. And they think an Islamist can do that. You know, an Islamist is gonna just just absolutely throw everything off the chessboard. We're gonna get a clean slate, and with that clean slate, we can do all these fantastic things. I'm not a revolutionary,

Tyrant Or Reformer Debate

SPEAKER_02 27:30

I'm an evolutionary, you know. Like I I I believe in the and you know, free speech is a part of that. You make your arguments. Sometimes you don't win the argument straight away. But if you can keep making the argument, we progress. You know, society gets a chance to digest some of these ideas. Eventually, we may get there or not, you know, like in the marketplace of ideas. But the idea of just being able to tip everything off um that that chessboard and and start again to me is just it's it's messianic, and and it's only gonna end in in tragedy, and it only really has ended in tragedy.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Uh and I think it's not, it's not just this uh idea of revolution and how much they love it, it's mainly hatred. And I'm sorry to say that, but as an Iranian, and given these new circumstances, we in, I can tell you that they are driven by hatred and hatred of the West. And that's what makes them to go and get aligned with Islamists, because they both share this. When modernity arrived in the region, Islamists, you know, felt threatened and started their war against any aspect of modernization. And at the same time, leftists because of the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, you know, ideas. That, you know, part of that is the history. Nobody can deny the fact that there was a history of colonization and imperialist, you know, uh ideas and measures, you know, that were taken by the Western. So this hatred, this fight that they feel like they have to, you know, have it against the West is something that unites them together. As I said in 1979, if it wasn't because of the communists, the lefties coming together and helping Islamists, you know, they wouldn't be able to overthrow the regime. And at that time, we had Democrats in power in the US. We had Carter in power. He was, you know, on the leftist, you know, uh side of the spectrum. And he was, we can say, complicit, or he was, you know, he agreed to what was happening in Iran. And all the West, you know, they supported Khomeini to come to power. France gave the airplane to him, you know, to come and land, you know, in Iran. And Shah, again, going back to him, if he was such a you know dictator, he wouldn't leave the country and go into exile. He would stay and use his forces to kill people. The reason that army surrendered, you know, to the Islamic uh you know revolution was because the Shah left the country. And he left the country because he said, I don't want to build my throne, you know, in the blood of my people. I just wanted good things for my people. And what happened to him? He was no country gave refuge to him for around, I think it took a few months for him, until finally his friend Anvar Sadad, you know, greeted him to his country. UK and US and no other country wanted him to go even and have a refuge. While he was sick, he had cancer, you know. Shah was becoming more and more powerful, you know, especially with the oil prices and you know, his he was a stabilizing leader force in the region. He had he never had like you know diplomatic relationship with Israel, like the formal ones, but he had close relationship with Israel. He had close relationship with the Arab countries as well. So he was able to, you know, to stabilize the whole region. And because, as I said, we Iranians, like many other parts of the world, you know, in the East, we have bad memories, you know, from the time of Britain and you know, other European Western powers. So he was standing against them, you know, dictating what he needs to do. And, you know, you know, when you become too powerful, then you might seem, you know, dangerous, threatening to other countries. And it was how I think uh the US was thinking of Shah, especially during the time of Carter. And also I think they were thinking, they were undermining the threat from Islamists. And I think they are doing it right now as well. At that time, they were thinking, oh, these mullahs, they are not gonna be a threat to us. Just let them know what they want to do. And it seems that people are liking them as well. And many did, not because, you know, they like mullahs, because I think they had that luxury of a you know basic life to desire for better. And these mullahs were telling them we are gonna give you free power, free water, free buses, something like Mamdani is promising people in New York to give them. And people said, okay, why not? You know, if we can get better. And uh these religious people, you know, they had some credibility among you know people, because until then they never were in power really. They always were, you know, on the side. And when you are not in the game, you can never show your true, you know, self. So people were thinking we can trust them. They are the holy people, you know, they are representatives of the God until they came to power and show their true face. So I think maybe US were also fooled, you know, that you know, they are not going to be such a big uh threat for us. But I think the history showed, you know, they came to power and what they did, you know, to the whole region and the whole world.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Well, it's a very destructive ideology. Like I was reading up that like um like a lot of the Shia that I know um tend to be a bit more moderate people, but there, but this is a form of Shia that's developed in the in in the regime that is quite inspired by the Brotherhood in some Sunni um aspects. So it's not it's a little bit more complex than that.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Close ties, close ties. You know, at the time when during the Shah, for example, Khomeini and some of these Islamist uh militar uh military or you know army groups you know in Iran had close ties with Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni and they are Shia, but when it comes to fighting the West and all fighting their enemy, they are they are together. And uh what else I wanted to say about this. Um, you know, when it comes about the religion, the fact is that the majority of religious people are just normal people living their lives, you know. In our Iranian society, 90 million people, still many people are religious, and you know, it's just something personal about them. But when we talk about Islam is

Comparing Executions And Repression

SPEAKER_01 34:20

about political Islam, those people who want to use Islam as a political force to rule the society, and it is when it becomes really dangerous. And I think that's what we see, you know, around the world, those activists, those political people who want to use Islam as an identity, like identity politics, when it's based on religion, I think it's dangerous. It doesn't matter what type of you know religion it is. And what this regime in Iran they did, you know, they help many people around the world, you know, many Islamists to become politically active and trying to bring their Islamic rule to the society they are living. And that's where the threat is coming from.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Yeah, like Lebanon, which is, I mean, I really feel sorry for Lebanon because that's a country that could be quite progressive and in and forward-thinking, but Hezbollah being there has really been such an undermining.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

And also, you know, just just Hezbollah came, you know, to power, I think, in 1983. So after the regime, and actually they were inspired by the regime in Iraq. So what was happening during the war, Iraq-Iran war, is that you know many Iranians were sacrificing themselves for their country. And we didn't, you know, we were you didn't have a strong army at that time, you know, after like this eight years of war. So many people were blowing themselves on these bombs that were on the land in order to help the rest of the army to pass from there. So it became what was then uh, you know, because suicide kind of, you know, uh martyrdom, bombing or whatever. And then many people, you know, Hezbollah members were inspired by that and they tried to do it. And they were actually trained by the IRGC members. So the same thing with with uh Islamic jihad, the same thing with PLO. And what happened in Lebanon, I think it was a combination of Hezbollah and PLO, you know, how they started the civil war in in Lebanon, not just Lebanon, in Jordan. So I think the the harm coming from this Islamist, you know, has covered the whole region in Syria, in Iraq, in Jordan, you know, in Egypt, in all these places.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

I don't think a contemporary activist who say anti-Israel and pro-the regime right now uh would know that the PLO tried to um take over Jordan in 1971 or that that they invaded Lebanon.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

And they tried to take that they wouldn't.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Independently, with open eyes, without your ideology, you are not gonna get that. You know, otherwise you will find lots of excuses, you know, to explain any of this. I just uh I received a post, Instagram post, by a friend who was telling me, look at this person who's talking about you know, Iranians and the school girls being killed. And so one of these American activists, so-called activists around the world, who have, you know, now opened their mouth to support Iranians by you know using the blood of our people, especially these schoolgirls, you know, as a tool to fight their political rivalries. And it is so disgusting. Sorry, the language, but it is really shameless how we see these people, you know, are using the suffering of us in order to fight their own political battle. And that's what we saw in New Zealand Parliament just this week. I don't know if you listened to the leaders of Maori, Labor, and Green Party coming, giving the speeches, and again using the blood of school gears, Iranian school gears, to fight, you know, nationals and to fight ACT and the other, you know, rival parties. And I'm saying, you know, it's really shameless because the same parties like Labor, I was begging them in January that Iranians are being massacred in tens of thousands. Why are you silent? Why don't you post anything at this on social media? And there was no response from them. And then as soon as the US Israeli strike started, they rushed to issue statements and to talk about Iranian school gears. Where were you in the last few years, you know?

SPEAKER_02 38:47

You know, there there are people like Helen Clark, our former prime minister, who want to clearly I mean, when she was interviewed this week. And I think our media do do a terrible job with her. They're very intimidated by her. They don't push back on her enough. She wasn't talking about the I mean, she'd say to clear her throat, but yes, the regime is bad. But she she said we need to go back to the to the deal. We need to go back to the nuclear deal. On her mind is not the the Iranian people.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

No, that's all.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

On her mind is let's freeze this regime in place and create a deal that ensures they never get deposed.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

I think a lot of these people are being honest with us, and what they're wanting to do is create a counterweight to US and Israel in their minds.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yeah. Because, you know, if I hear such a statement or such a claim by someone on the right, you know, national government, I can understand it. You know, I can say they never claim to be on the side of human rights, as the ones on the left have claimed. Okay, so I say, okay, the only things they care about is about their geopolitics interests. But if you are on the left, if you have always claimed to be the voice of voiceless, how come that now sufferings of Iranian people don't bother you? And you just talk about the school girls who you think might be killed by US and Israel. We still don't know. And this regime, you know, just as a reminder, has a long record of using its own people. Just

Ideology, The Left, And 1979

SPEAKER_01 40:30

in 2019, they strike a Ukrainian flight and killed around 200 Iranians in one of these conflicts that they had with Israel. And in the recent, you know, uprising in January, they used hospitals, mosques, ambulances, schools for their security forces to fire guns and you know, to shot their own people. So the chances of this regime is responsible is very high. But, anyways, you know, our heart is bleeding for all Iranians, including these young children. And now you pretend that you love them more than us, you care about them more than us. Really, shame on you. You know, that's what that's the message, you know, from me and from my whole community to all these parties and people who go to the parliament and talk about Iran just now, because on one side of that is Israel and the US and also the rival party, national party. And you talk about the school girls in Iran. Didn't you hear about the other 40,000, including the schoolgirls and students who were killed by the regime? Why you didn't say even a word?

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Look, um, let's talk a little bit about um censorship in Iran under the Islamic Republic. So, what how restrictive is it? What is censorship like? I I did read a book a few years back, which I'd encourage people to find. It's a really good one. It's called Reading Lolita in Tehran.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yes. And the movie has come out as well, I think, last year. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

I didn't know that. I'm gonna look for that. So the book is about a uh professor, yes a female professor who was teaching English literature in in Tehran University, I guess. And she eventually couldn't really uh uh um discuss some of the books that were that were on the syllabus anymore. So she'd invite students home. Very dangerous, but she'd invite them home to talk about some books, and and you know, Nabukov's Lolita was one of them. Um uh Henry James and maybe Washington Square are one of those books. So every chapter is a different English book, but she finds a theme within the book that speaks about the oppression that her people are going through, and it's just a wonderful, very innovative, very affecting book. I think it's it's it's wonderful. So, in terms of censorship and living in a state like that, how extensive is it? What is it like?

SPEAKER_01 43:14

I think by now so many people should know about, you know, especially in the last four years, you know, after Woman Life Freedom, I think Iranian in diaspora has done a great, you know, job, you know, raising awareness about the situation of people in Iran. You know, one problem that doesn't let the world, you know, to completely understand the situation of Iranians is how defiant and resistant Iranians are. It's it's a good thing that you know we fight, we resist, but it just makes us uh look good to people. I mean, the world thing, oh, their situation is not bad. Just go look at them, look at the way that women are you know dressing, for example, or they are going to university. You know, so many people with you know university degrees in Iran. So the situation shouldn't be as bad as they are describing. They don't know that. It is us fighting and resisting. It doesn't mean that the situation is good. If it was gonna be run by the will of this regime, if they could do, you know, force people, we would be like Taliban now. The thing is that Iranians are a resistant people. And it doesn't start just today or 47 years ago. Again, look at the history of Iran. When Iran was conquested and when Iran was colonized by Muslim Arabs, you know, in the 7th century, they came and they got this country under their rule. And for around 200 years, uh we have this famous book called 200 Years of Silence. So we didn't even were allowed to speak our language. Iranians were not allowed to speak farsi, to write farsi. So during this brutal time, still Iranians could survive and could preserve their language. And after that, like two centuries after that, we got this famous book, Shah Nameh, or the story of kings. That's the most popular Iranian legend poetry. So we have been this nation. If you consider all these countries, all these people who have been conquested by Muslims around the 7th, 8th century, barely any of them speak their language. Look at Egypt. What happened to Egyptian, to the Coptic language, Coptic culture, religion, you know, Christian Coptics now are around 10% population. And if you ask Egyptian about their history, they just define themselves as Muslim Arabs. You know, their heritage that, you know, it's so famous in the world, it seems to be gone. Look at Iraq. It's always so sad, you know, for me, you know, when I look at Iraq, for example, you know it's the cradle of civilization. It was a time, you know, when Iraq also was part of the whole region. Mesopotamia was, you know, part of the Persian Kent territory for a long time. When Arab actually conquested Iran, the capital of Persia, the capital of Sassanid empire was in Tisfun. And Tisfun is a city very close to Baghdad. Today is Baghdad. So Iran's capital, Persia's capital was in Baghdad. So it was part of this big empire, growing, you know, facilitating, fascinating empire. But, anyways, if you ask Iraqis, do you remember anything about your Assyrian culture, you know, your ancient, you know, uh Aramic language? Nothing. They have become Muslim Arabs. They lost their language, they lost their culture. And the number of those who have survived, these minorities in Iraq, like Sa'ebin, like Assyrian communities, it's less than you know, a few thousand in people. So they they lost

Why The West Misread Islamists

SPEAKER_01 47:10

everything, you know. In Syria, the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

So that religious uh uh government is going to crush languages and completely demand conformity.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Yeah, I'm talking I'm talking about Muslim Arab caliphates, you know. For centuries they have been ruling the whole Middle East. They came to end by the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Empire was the last one, you know. They started and they changed the identity of these ancient people. We know Iraqis are not Arabs. Arab is a language and is a culture, it's not ethnicity, except Saudi Arabia, when they actually were from. Aramic were was the was the culture, the language of those in Iraq.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Aramaic, it's interesting that because I did some filming with because I work in film and TV, I did some filming with an Assyrian um group down in Wellington.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Yeah, and this was for their Easter, and I and I was like, you know, filming their service and everything, and the chanting was wonderful, it was beautiful. But but then I all these words would go ping, ping, ping, ping in my mind. And I was going, I know that word. Did I hear? You know, what was going on? And then so I went afterwards and I said, Are you why does that sound like Hebrew to me? And they were like, Oh, it's Aramaic. Yeah, so for King we'd say Melech, and they would say Melchah.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yeah, and Melech is the Arabic word, so we're very close in origins, and it's so, you know, for me, it's very sorrowful when I read the history of the region, of all these, you know, communities, all these people, and how they have been lost and they have been like assimilated as you know, Arab language and culture. As much as I like Arab language and culture, you know, I'm from southwest of Iran, and it's a place majority of people speak Arabic. And I love this language. I love, you know, Arabic, you know, singers and culture. So it's not about judging, you know, language or culture. It's just about how religious rule, how Islamic rule in the region has taken the identity of people, you know, away from them and how assimilated them. The same thing they tried in Iran. But look at us. We still speak farsi our language and we still celebrate no rules and all other, you know, Persian poetry and you know, cultural aspect of that. So it was to explain that we are resistant, and even with this regime, although they wanted, you know, to take everything from us, we haven't allowed them. We separated our public life from our private life.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

There's been a lot of the and the the regime would know that resistance is there and they they push only too far, only so far.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

No, they they even they crush our private life, you know. For example, if you are you are having a party inside you know your apartment, your house with your people, so if they realize that there is a party going there and people are dancing and singing, and if they are drinking, oh my God, it's gonna be an you know forbidden sin. They are gonna come, you know, and arrest all of you. And that's what they have been doing. But you know, over time, at first, for example, satellites TVs were banned in the country. Having the satellite dish was such a big you know crime in Iran. Even before that, playing chess, playing chess was forbidden. Can you imagine that?

SPEAKER_02 50:47

So why was okay, so why was chess forbidden? Because I'm I'm interested in the whole censorship aspect of that. Why would the what why would something like a game be?

SPEAKER_01 50:57

I think it's Khomeini, that was part of Khomeini's fatvas or rules that he put in place. And I think part of that goes to they were against any any uh manifestation of modernity, you know. Even they said when when clean water came, you know, like this uh kind of you know, having the water in your house, and people didn't need to go to this public kind of you know, bath that, you know, at that time people didn't have bath, you know, bathroom inside their house to take shower, they had to go to the public one. So I'm talking about 200 years ago. And when they started to have, you know, water, clean water inside their house, these ulama or these calurgists were saying that no, it's haram. This water, you should not use it, it's haram. So when this injection for different diseases came, you know, they were against it. When women suffraged during the Shah, when he gave women the right, you know, to vote and to become elected to parliament, they were against it. So any any, as I said, manifestation of modernity for them is forbidden. And it was the same, continued until today. So satellite dish was forbidden, you know, even these uh cassettes that you know you put music to play, it was forbidden, the voice of women is forbidden, even cycling, you know, even if women, you know, having a bicycle, running a bicycle is forbidden. So that's crazy. How many things? Perfume. The smell of perfume is forbidden. You know, I used to be a university lecturer in Iran for like 10, 11 years. So, and I remember every time these people, we call them herassat. I don't know what's the equal. So, like morality police for organizations, for universities, they had an office, you know, just to control money for all of us. And I remember if we were wearing like high heels or you know, perfume, they will ask us, you know, to go to their office. That, you know, is tempting temptating for men and you know it's forbidden. It's so it's just crazy. And in such a situation, very much like Taliban, you know. As I said, if it was for if Khomeini could do whatever he wanted, he didn't like women to study, he didn't like women to go to university, to, you know, to be in the public life. But uh, I think the modern time didn't allow them to do all that.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

And so there was a okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Iranian level of culture and education, you know, and identity didn't also allow them to be like that. And the

Political Islam’s Regional Footprint

SPEAKER_01 53:40

other difference, maybe the one that they have with Taliban, is that they are political, you know, they are following political Islam. And political Islam means go out and use whatever tools available to influence. Yeah, to influence, to expand your religion. That's why they have used some aspects of modernity, you know, and technology for achieving that goal.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

And the Taliban are not really salesmen, are they?

SPEAKER_01 54:08

They are like they are like uh Bahabis, you know, the ones in 17th, 18th century in Saudi Arabia, they are uh after purification of their religion and going back to what Islam was, you know, at the time of Prophet.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

But but there is an irony there because the Taliban are probably easier to deal with than a um than the regime, the Islamic Republic. Like like America could probably push the Taliban and get concessions easier than they would be able to against the Islamic Republic. So there's all sorts of different ironies, they're very particular, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 54:46

How this regime has been able to, you know, to find some legitimacy for itself at the international level. As I said, whenever they are criticized, they say, no, look at look at the number of Iranian women who who go to university and got university degrees, as if they are the ones, you know, they they put lots of obstacles in front of us not to do that, but it is us doing that.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

So I think they do hide behind a mask of modernity in a way, but it's not really but they're banning George Orwell and books like that, all that stuff. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

People can find them, but you know, even the singers, the Iranian singers who are, you know, in exile, and some of them are just legendary, you know, singers for our people. We have never been able to listen to their music in the public. You know, we do it in our gatherings, in our house, you know, and it doesn't matter if it's men or woman, that's that's you know, and it's just a song.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

So didn't I tell you that the the Iranian Justin Bieber in the 1960s was the chazan at my daughter's bet mitzvah? Oh he was a he was a singer, Jewish Iranian, and he obviously left, but he had CDs, he was on TV in the 1960s in Iran. He ended up singing at My Daughter's Bet Mitzvah, and he was like Pavarotti, it was just the most amazing thing. And he said to me, he said, Look, uh, a lot of your people there, probably uh as Kanazi, you know, Jews from Europe or whatever. I know all your tunes. I said, No, no, no, no, you gotta give us the the the Persian Nagun, we call it, you know, we have to hear that because no one would have heard that, yeah. And and he did that, and everyone, it was just the most stunning thing.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

You know, the problem for the world is that they they are many people are majority, they are ignorant. I mean, and it is not to blame them, it's just like uh why we expect them to know everything about Middle East, they don't know. But the problem is that they don't know, but they come to make a comment. That's the issue. If you don't know, so please don't speak over us, you know. What people do that. I mean, in terms of the Middle East and this beautiful diversity that we have, what has been suppressed, you know, Middle Eastern Jews, Middle Eastern Christians, you know, Middle Eastern Baha'is, Middle Eastern Austrians, nobody knows about that. You know, the world just sees us as Muslim Middle Eastern, as if there is no other, you know, culture and and religion. And people just when, you know, if you talk about Jews, for example, for people, Jews are European Jews. And when you, you know, it's it seems as if they even don't know that a huge number of Jews were living in Iraq, living in Iran, in Morocco.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Well, my children, their mother, that they've got Moroccan ancestry way back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

And they speak Arabic, you know, they they cook the local food, they sing the local music.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

So the life is really I cook Moroccan lamb meals and stuff all the time.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

And people don't know that. They just say Jews, but they are Western, they are white, so they are on that side. And you know, indigenous Eastern are Muslims. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:12

Just before we wrap up, um, if you've got time, I do want to talk about uh something that's a bit thorny, a bit difficult. And it's difficult for me. So I want to talk about it because I'm a free speech absolutist. I do believe in in total free speech in order for people like yourself uh uh to be able to express exactly who you are and what you need and all that kind of stuff, what your community needs. But when I go on X today, what I find quite fascinating is the uh the level of disinformation is very overwhelming.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Like there's a uh Islamic Republic spokesman called um uh Morendi.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:58

Now I know more than the average person. I don't know a whole lot. I could learn more and more, but I know that this man is a professional liar. He is he's paid, some people are paid to fix your car, he's paid to lie. Yes, and he lies and he lies and he lies. Everything he says would be a lie. If if he told you it was raining outside, it's gonna be sunny outside. That's who this man is. But a lot of people don't know the difference. And they debate him in good faith, thinking, oh, well, he's just got a different perspective to me. He doesn't have a different perspective, he's a liar. What do we do about that? Because the equivalent for me, he was on with Piers Morgan, and Piers Morgan did uh push him very hard to be fair. He said to him, Well, if you have free speech, criticize the regime right now. He said, Oh, what do you mean? I won't do it, and he wouldn't do it. So he he did so that was very good that he exposed him. But when I watched that, I thought if we were in World War II now, Piers Morgan would be speaking to Goebbels,

Resistance, Identity, And Survival

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

and Goebbels would be uh injecting misinformation into our population. How do we feel about that? You know, like I guess uh the free speech argument is we need to platform people like you. But the issue becomes and I think the media has a lot to answer for. Yes, they're not platforming people, uh they're sort of violating the equality of people by not platforming at least equally. So we get to hear from people like you. So how do you feel about that situation? Because this is a wartime scenario, really, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

It is. I was just talking to a friend in the morning and saying that I think we are at the next level of war, and it is a media war, you know. It's just I can't describe to you how we Iranians are feeling, especially activists in the community come together, you know, in hundreds, in different groups, you know, to do to raise, to raise awareness, to social media posts. And we see that people are attacking us from everywhere, as if, you know, it's it's not a political, you know, debate. It's about what we are fighting for, is, you know, our people, you know, the lives of innocent people is at risk. And then people we see how easily they change it into political kind of debates. And part of that is media coverage. When I was talking about January, the massacre in January, and we're receiving no sympathy, no, you know, solidarity, I blame it a lot on the media because, like, you know, regular people get their information from you know their TV, their radio. And if there is no report on that, how do we expect people? I did this interview with a journalist about what happened in January. And I was saying it was like crying in a bubble. As soon as I put my foot, you know, out of my house, the normal life was going on and nobody knew about our sufferings. And it's about all Iranians. And the other part is about, I think the other part is our fault. By our, I mean any person's fault if they are not getting information. It's because of algorithm, social media algorithm. If you only follow one specific ideology, if it is only leftist ideology, for example, you are not getting the other side of the story, you know, and that's how you know Instagram and you know, Facebook and other social media are working. But uh it is real difficult. We are still figuring out what we are supposed to do. When political leaders, party leaders, they are going and talk against us, when some human rights activists like Action Peace or Peace for Action, uh, they are or they were organizing protests against the war and in support of Iranians in Wellington without us knowing. And there is gonna be another one on March 11th here in Oakland. And they are doing things, you know, instead of us, you know, doing a stop.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

Speaking over you. And how there I get I I guess uh this has always been the way it is, though. Like the American Revolution was started with pamphlets, it was started with people uh printing and and handing them out. There was a obviously a uh uh no balance there in terms of what the King of England would allow to be said and what a revolutionary in America could potentially say. They had to break through, they had to convince people with pamphlets one at a time, so maybe it's not so different. And you know, I think that clip with Piers Morgan pushing back on um Mirandi is a good one. Like I think he's got his number, but I have seen him uh uh platform people like um that Egyptian comedi yeah, Cank, and he sort of makes a fool of himself. I'm not so worried about him, but but um I know him surgeon, yeah. Yeah, but Basim Basim Basim Yusuf from um Yusuf, yes, yeah, f from Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

He's a comedian at the moment, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Yeah, yeah. Not very funny to me. But but I was watching a uh Piers Morgan interview with him, and the guy was saying, you know, obviously there was a you can see the twinkle in the eye when people don't like Jews and they talk about Jews. And but but Piers Morgan just wasn't ready for a guy like that. He doesn't understand that, he can't see that. It's about education. Um, but I guess for minorities especially, you know, we have to take responsibility for the education.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

And the other thing, you know, at the same time, I I'm getting really worried when we receive emails, phone calls. After the interview I had with Brian, uh with Ryan Bridge uh about the situation in Iran, and I was talking about how much Iranians fear fear the regime, but less, you know, US and Israel, even Iranians have trust in Israeli people. And then I got phone calls that how much are you being paid by Israel, you know, or people, you know, sending me text messages accusing me of different things, or even we receive emails, you know, me and my friends, people emailing us with their university emails, you know, accusing us of lots of different things. So it's scary and it's alarming to us. But at the same time, I I know that there is a silent majority. I just it just reminded me of the one of the last, you know. Know the interviews by the Shah when he was in exile, when the journalists asked him, How do you feel about what your people did to you? And he was saying, you know, I know that the silent majority remained silent. And it was, you know, so painful to him to see that. And that's why people are calling his son's name now, because he was not, you know, hated by majority of people, but just people remained silent, you know. They were feeling like, oh, we don't know, let's see what's gonna happen. And now in prison day, I think majority of people understand the things, you know, but there are loud voices who are taking media and social media and socialists.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

I I think the other thing, too, to go

Life Under Censorship

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

back to what I said about evolution, like free speech doesn't necessarily work overnight. Yes. But we keep chipping away. And I think, you know, when we would hope I I can't be too optimistic, but we would hope that if you're on the side of right, we do get there in the end. Um uh that would be my hope. I mean, it's been a very long struggle for you and your people, but um uh I think there is there is change coming, and a lot of people are being exposed to.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

We are very hopeful, uh Dan. And as I started my talk today, it was about Renaissance. Renaissance started in the Middle East in the 19th century, it's similar to Europe, and it was interrupted by the 1979 revolution in Iran. It was interrupted not just for Iran, for the whole region, because after the change in Iran, the whole region became chaotic. And now what we Iranians are doing, hopefully we are getting rid of this regime, and we are in the final phase of that renaissance. Um, I see a very positive and promising future, not just for my country, for the whole region. This regime falls. All these extremist groups in the region are gonna be weakened or they are gonna fall. And people in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Iraq, in Syria, hopefully they are gonna, you know, have a different life. So I think the renaissance for the Middle East has arrived. And the world is gonna change hugely because all the plugs of these Islamists, these so-called, you know, leftists is gonna be exposed to the world very soon. So that's that's what I actually feel about, you know, in my heart, and I hope for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:27

Oh, well, I think my grandkids, I've said this before, some of my grandkids will probably live in Saudi Arabia before they live in England. You never know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Could happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

I think it's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:41

Oh, well, look, I you it's fantastic. Um that that you know, and that what what what you give to the community and and what you give to New Zealand, I think, w is worth um me comment commenting on too, because we need to hear from you. Um, we need to hear from you in this country, like uh everyone, um, for their own education, for their own betterment. Um, and so they know what's happening out in the world. And you know, they get shaken out of their um slumber when it comes to some of the freedoms that we often take for granted here.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

And I think there should be some people, you know, me and my friends, we are we are risking a lot, you know, for ourselves, you know, in our personal life, you know. You know, I'm I'm running a community organization, an NGO, and I always receive kind of advice that, you know, what you are, you know, working for is gonna impact your organization in the environment.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

I get that too.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Hey, shh, shh, shh, yeah, you know, but I think that for us, you know, raising awareness and you know, doing the work for our people and country is is much more important than our personal lives and you know how we are gonna be judged. You talk about, you know, if you don't align with an ideology, you don't get you know to progress in academia or in some you know environment like the one we have in New Zealand. And yeah, I think that's how it is, but hopefully it will change.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

Thank you for listening to Free to Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.