https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=DlPPu0OIvVs
Welcome everyone. I’m here with Alan Kion and some of you already know how important Alan is to me. He’s a former student of mine. He played a big role in Awakening from the Meeting Crisis. He came to me and proposed it. He filmed it. He recorded it. He edited it. He directed it. He put in the animations and the credit. Like it’s Alan, Alan, Alan. And so I know him both as a student. I know working with him. He was an important part of this project. And I vouch for Alan. And he reached out to me. And he reached out to me about something that I also care about, which is what’s happening in Iran right now. So take it away, Alan. Thank you. Obviously, thank you so much for giving me the platform. You know, being with you and working with you on Awakening from the Meeting Crisis, very meaningful to me. And I got in contact with you because, like I said, I’ve said before to you that I’m an apolitical person myself, but it’s not just about me being Persian and Iranian and seeing people in Iran die and get executed. But it’s also just everything that I stand for as well. Freedom of religion and everything, freedom of thought. And really, I guess it just isn’t sitting well with me. And I had to get in touch and I’m happy you gave me the platform. And to give some context, I think a lot of people know by now, but just to go over it, there’s the sparking event, which was the death of Mahsa Amini on the 16th of September earlier this year. And really, what that did was set off about 43 years worth of pain and suffering that a lot of the Persians and Iranians were experiencing in Iran, a lot that were left over from the ones outside of Iran. And in Iran, the movement started, people poured onto the streets and it was protests and it has led up to and ramped up to what I would call a full fledged revolution. Now, the great thing about it, I think, is that it’s led by women. So it’s entirely female led. Remarkable. I don’t think that’s been a thing before, but it’s led by the younger generation, younger than myself. And they’re just tired of living under one of the most brutal dictatorships ever. So the act of Mahsa Amini being taken in, tortured and eventually dying in a hospital because she was showing a couple strands of hair taken in by the so-called morality police, that wasn’t the be all end all, but that was sort of the spark that set everything into motion. And we are seeing what we’re seeing today. Yes, like you, I am for reasons that I articulated in Awakening from the Meeting Crisis and after I’m apolitical or meta-political. But I agree with you. This goes to a much more fundamental level than our current ideological, cultural civil warfare. This has to do with fundamental things about freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom to philosophize and. And just the proper treatment of women, just very basic terms. As you know, my partner is Persian, her family’s Persian, extended family, the diaspora, and also there’s people in Persia. And the way this regime is operating, I think it has gone way beyond the possibility of negotiation or. Reform, they had come out at the very beginning and offered to seriously and in a transparent manner, investigate the morality police and disband them or reform them or even seriously. But they did not. The first they denied. And then after when that failed, then they tried to blame her. And then and then and then they doubled down and then there’s been violent repression. Like, I think they I do. I think they they they’ve disclosed what they are and who they are by their actions, and I think they’ve made the possibility that they can remain in power just untenable. I think they have no legitimacy to speak in sort of political philosophy terms. And I think it’s important that the rest of the world, insofar as it cares about these things we’ve been talking about, does what it can to help further. And I agree with you, the revolution. I typically am suspicious of revolutions, but I think in this case, I do not see an alternative that is properly respecting of human dignity. Yeah, I heard it being referred to now as the human dignity. Yeah, I heard it being referred to not as a revolution at times, or people were reluctant to, you know, some guests on some podcasts that I’ve heard. They’ve said, no, it’s not a revolution. And the reason why that is a little bit ridiculous to me is because the pillars of ideology on which the Islamic Republic is based are very stiff. And they’re no longer up for malleability. They’re no longer up for reform and sitting down and having a one on one conversation with people and hearing people out. That’s never been the case. I can attest to that for my experience living there, but my experience living there is nowhere close to what women experience on a day to day there. But the people there are subject to just so many things. They’re subject to spiritual and very often physical rape. Yes, every single day. And that’s been the case by this, you know, fascist dictatorial regime for 43 years. The reason why my heart sort of aches so much is because especially seeing, having seen the images these past three months, I recognize my privilege at having been able to do so, but my heart goes out to people that want to the kids that want to their kids and their young adults, just like myself, you know, here in North America, I’ve been able to live out a life that I see fit to achieve that, you know, I want to go out and achieve my potential as I see fit, but I have that choice and a lot of that is what you discuss in all of your work. It’s just steeped in it is that you have the choice. You have the possibility to become who you want to be kids. There don’t people there don’t things like hugging, kissing, holding hands, dancing, showing your hair, of course, can kill you. You can you can disappear. So, yeah. Well, one of my tests is, would they kill Socrates? And of course, I have a very easy answer for that in this case. And so what can we do? What what? I know you’re not setting yourself up as any kind of authority. You’re just trying to connect people. Well, where can they go? What can they do? How can they make a difference? I want to start with just saying that there is a warning sign because I think we tend to make a lot of noise about these things and it sort of disappears, just kind of bubbles away and it’s gone after a few months. The remarkable thing about Iranians is that it hasn’t gone away for the past three months. I’ll be honest, I was expecting it to be suppressed after a couple of weeks with the brutality that the regime puts forth. It hasn’t happened. Every person that falls, there’s five, 10, 20 behind them that come to the streets and are willing. But my warning sign and you’ve set the pillars for this in awakening from the meeting crisis is about being aware of ideology. For me, and I’ve I’ve really seen and lived the fact that they are nothing but ideologues. And it’s like, well, what’s at stake? What’s at stake is the West is dealing with a brutal regime, right? The international community is dealing with a brutal regime, not at all unlike other tyrants that have had to be dealt with. And the current dictator who’s running the Islamic Republic, he’s not going to stop at anything. The Islamic Republic is going to expand its roots in terrorism around the world. They’re already funding Russia and Putin. They have direct roots in Venezuela, which is probably where they’re going to flee when the downfall occurs, not unlike Nazis going to Argentina. They constantly reiterate that they want to destroy Israel. They want to destroy America. Death to Israel and America are propaganda slogans that they use on state television and they mow down their own people. It’s not their people. You know, it’s Iranians. They mow down Iranians. But I don’t see these people as Iranians. I see them as a breed completely separate because it wouldn’t mow down their own people if they were Iranians. And one of the images that really sticks with me over the past two months just wrenched my heart. And I’m going to try not to get emotional as I speak about it. But it was a story of nine year old boy, Kian Pir-Falak. He has videos of him talking about wanting to be an engineer and an inventor. And he’s holding a handmade wooden boat. And it’s a viral video of him now that will kill you just listening to his innocent voice talking about it. He’s detailing his aspirations for the future. He’s an ardent researcher, voracious consumer of information and knowledge. He at that age already compared himself to other tech giants. They saw the future as malleable, pure potential, as adaptive, a road for him and others like him. Just sitting there in a car with his dad and he was shot at by the Islamic Republic forces. Just like that, dead. And he was by no means the only one. And I think recent estimates have that close to 70 kids have died by the time we’re recording this. I’m sure the true numbers are well above that. Just to give you an idea of what it is that drives me, because the past three months have been waking up to the shouting of mothers, the pain in the voice of fathers and just beating themselves over the head because for no reason the meaning to their lives was taken away from them. That’s really hard for me to take. So to answer your question, what is to be done? I think we’re operating within a Western sphere here. So first and foremost, it’s the Western media can actually start properly covering what’s happening in Iran. I know I’m putting out not a well-defined problem, as we would say. But just a few days ago, and this sparked me texting you, Majid Razza Rahnavat, 22 years old, was hanged from a crane in the middle of the city of Mashhad. Why? Propaganda. Pictures are up. I’m obviously not going to put the pictures up, but that’s the reality. They allowed his mother to come in and visit him, not telling her that he was going to be executed. She woke up to the calls about the fact that he was hanging from a crane. That’s the second execution in a few days in Iran. It’s not going to stop. And so the Western media can start to actually make some noise. I haven’t really seen coverage outside of op-eds here and there, those written by Persians as well. So they’re doing their best. But key sources like New York Times is not doing anything and it’s actually acting kind of like a mouthpiece, putting out a lot of crappy information, for lack of a better word. So the Iranians in the diaspora in the West, and I’m sure you’ve noticed as well, and the loved ones close to the Iranians in the diaspora feel really guilty and powerless. We don’t really know what to do. So we can make some noise to start actually covering what’s happening. What about higher ups? What can happen in the higher ups? What are the next steps to make sure this Islamic Republic topples? Well, Western countries can actually recall their ambassadors from Iran. Don’t house them there. Call them back. That’s ridiculous that they’re there at the moment. Is it all because of a nuclear deal that is to be struck? Well, I’ve just detailed that this deal isn’t going to be the final time you’ve heard of the Islamic Republic. They’re going to keep pushing. They’re not going away. They’re the gnat in the ear that never goes away. What else? Well, they should kick out Islamic Republic diplomats and officials. Right. Sure. These nominal sanctions that they’re putting onto the Islamic Republic, the Republic known figures is a movement, but I see it as inching forward. Expel diplomats, expel officials from Western countries, make a statement, isolate them. Next thing is identify and freeze assets that are held by Islamic Republic officials and their proxies. You and I are in Canada. Specifically in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The families of the high high ups in Islamic Republic freely go back and forth between the two countries and they own assets and they do their thing here. Just I think several months ago, one of them was at the gym in the north of Toronto, just working. He was one of the higher ups. Find, identify and freeze assets. What the government can do is place the Islamic Republic and associated organizations like the Basij militia on a list of terrorists. Right. Stop paying lip service. Stop paying lip service to the fact that you’re going to do it just to get election votes. Do it. It is a terrorist list. It should have happened a while ago. Do it and don’t and don’t and don’t threaten to prosecute them under immigration law. Threaten to prosecute them under the criminal code. That’s right. That’s right. What I would have said also, if this was a couple of days ago that we were recording, is remove the Islamic Republic off the UN Commission for the status of women. This actually happened yesterday. So we’ve moved forward a little bit. It’s a great win for the women of Iran. They should not have been there in the first place. That’s ridiculous. It is ridiculous, but I don’t think I need to sketch out just how ridiculous I think most of the viewers of this channel will know that that is absurd, that they were there in the first place. They’ve been ousted. That’s one movement forward towards destroying any sort of piecemeal reputation that this regime held in the eyes of others. I also just want to take a second here and just send a shout out to Hamid Ismailioun. His wife and daughter passed away in the Ukraine International Flight 752, which in early 2020 was shot down by the Islamic Republic. The flight actually had 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians. A lot of crossover with dual citizenships. Right away, I think that should have been enough to place the Islamic Republic on the terrorist list. That didn’t happen. What’s happened with Mr. Ismailioun is he’s become an activist. He set up all of these gatherings and events for the Iranians in the diaspora to go to. I think it’s really important that I just really wanted to say something. And, you know, I’m very grateful and happy that you’ve allowed me this platform. I’m glad you reached out. I want to do more. I went to the service for some people that were shot down in that airplane. And I have been, like I said, I’ve been going to some marches and, yeah, I just for me, this is the put aside if you’re on the left or the right. This is not what this is about. This is a regime that has to go for every good moral argument, I think, that can be made. And so I’m glad you did this, Alan. I’m glad you reached out. I’m happy to support this and I’m happy to give people the opportunity to learn and to do more about this. And let’s hope first that the women and the people in Iran are going to be happy. And I think that’s a great way to do that. Let’s hope first that the women and the people in Iran are going to be happy in the not too distant future. And at some point, it could be a reality that you and I are going to be sitting in Shiraz reading some poetry and having some wine together. I would love that. And I would love to go to Persepolis with my partner. I would love that. I would deeply, deeply love that. Of course. Yeah, my I hope that. I hope this is I don’t know how tragic this hope is, but I hope we can get this to occur with as little bloodshed as possible. But I fear you’re right. I think this regime is prepared to kill tens, hundreds of thousands of people before going as it is now inevitably has to go. As you said, there’s good information that they’re already preparing where they’re going to I think they they know that they’re in a really bad place because they have they have shot the last shards of legitimacy that they had. So, yeah, I hope that you and I can be drinking some Shiraz in Shiraz. That’s right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Alan.