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Built from Scratch
Podcast On the Equation That Turns a Nation Into Acceptable Rubble Do we distinguish between Iran and the Islamic Republic? Are they one and the same? It sounds like a pedant’s quarrel, a hotspot for social media. It is not. And you may be surprised which side of it you find yourself on. Begin… — read more
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The Ordinary Apocalypse
Podcast On Crossing Borders, Hearing Bombs, and the Stubborn Normality of a Nation at War Based on a first-hand wartime account from Iran by Kazeroun (@mkazeroun) on X “The evidence for a nation’s endurance is not found in its monuments but in the behaviour of its people when the monuments are burning.” The Decision to… — read more
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War Unseen, War Unleashed
Podcast Photographer/Creator: Levi Meir Clancy / Source: Unsplash The loudest war drums in the diaspora are often beaten by people with no skin in the game at all. No mother in Tehran waiting through blackouts. No brother in Isfahan tracking sirens. No daughter in Shiraz sleeping under glass that could shatter at dawn. Yet they… — read more
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At the Threshold of Surrender
Podcast Image credit: Source: Unsplash On Disillusionment and the Refusal to Close the Door This piece is the product of my reflections on a voice message from a friend, a friend undergoing cancer treatment. But it captures something of what we are all going through—a particular species of exhaustion that transcends any single struggle, any… — read more
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The Elegy They Earned
PodcastOn the Destruction of Humanities in Iran — First by the Republic, Now by Those Who Claim to Oppose It One of the defining legacies of Ali Khamenei — the second supreme leader of the Islamic Republic — was his obsessive, decades-long campaign against the humanities and social sciences. Much of this is recorded in… — read more
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Civilisation and Its Arsonists
PodcastA Nawruz Reflection on War, Hypocrisy, and the Promise of Renewal Before I begin, allow me to share a simple thought—one expressed beautifully by the poet Pablo Neruda: you may cut all the flowers, but you cannot stop the spring from coming (“Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera”). In the… — read more
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While You Celebrate
PodcastA 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
