A thoughtful critic argues that my essay commits a fundamental inversion by shifting moral scrutiny away from the conditions producing violence in Iran and toward diaspora Iranians who speak about that violence. The critique contends that diaspora members are not detached spectators but rather members of the same society with families and personal histories inside — read more

There is a peculiar species of political actor that emerges from every fractured nation—those who, having escaped the inferno, appoint themselves firefighters from across the ocean and prescribe gasoline as the cure. They populate the comment sections, the conference panels, the corridors of foreign capitals, advocating with remarkable enthusiasm for missiles to rain down on — read more

A VOICE FROM THE FIRE: What the Diaspora Doesn’t Want to Hear “They killed 168 children in a school. They hit the school twice. TWICE.” These aren’t statistics from a news ticker. These are the words of a man whose voice cracks between fury and grief, who paid seven million tomans—money he doesn’t have—for a — read more

I write this in English because the collapse of our shared morality is not a local tragedy; it is a human one. I am calling for a spotlight, not merely on the hypocrisy that surrounds me, but on something far more frgile: the survival of our humanity in an age of organized hate. For three — read more

Iran has infrastructure. Iran’s infrastructure is not the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure. It’s that simple. Even if the IRGC uses the bridges, hospitals, schools, and internet, this infrastructure still belongs to Iran. Even if we call the IRGC “occupiers” (strange, isn’t it? A label Israel has worn proudly for decades now gets slapped on the IRGC — read more

Think about this situation carefully—don’t run away. Be honest with yourself and with your conscience. This is not an easy test. It is not meant to be. The measure is simple and merciless: beyond our political divisions—whatever they may be—can we refuse to forget that we are human? Here is the test. Imagine you are — read more

The fracture between Iranians living under the Islamic Republic and those in the diaspora is not, at its core, a political disagreement. It is something much older, cruder, and far more difficult to resolve: a collision between two entirely different lived realities that have, over decades, produced two incompatible languages, two irreconcilable hierarchies of suffering, — read more