And No One Knows I'm Gone

[Warning: this is a very sad and upsetting post.]

Hamid said something that stuck with me: how come nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, has my point of view? Why does no one say the things that are in my head, while when I’m talking to you guys you seem to share these points of view?

I’ve been talking with a lot of friends about what’s going on in Iran, mostly one-on-one or in small groups. I am dumbfounded by how many different points of view exist in directions I would never be able to guess. For many of these people I know their backgrounds, their logic, their circumstances, and yet none of that would have made it possible for me to guess, or even now to justify, their points of view. I never felt the need to write my own point of view publicly since I was already talking with friends about it, getting feedback, course correcting or defending it as I see fit. But Hamid was right. The loudest groups have been so vocal that it reminds me of the stories I had heard of Sha’ban Bi-Mokh back in the day, coincidentally a supporter of Shah in those days. The voice of people who think like me is not heard anywhere, though from talking to people, I know many think this way. So here it is.

First and foremost, it is about the bias in “news”. Unfortunately, the internet blackout in Iran has resulted in a lot of news not making it to the outside, and many that do are not verifiable, so those who want to create a narrative and sell it have free rein. This has created sources such as Iran International that support Reza Pahlavi (almost any gathering with a sun and lion flag is amended with a sentence that people were supporting him) and are pushing for a narrative that the majority of Iranians are supporting him. The website positions itself not as a news agency but more of a centralized social media. They do not verify anything they publish (everything is a quotation from either some other news agency or some of their followers/audience), and they are very selective in what they choose to publish/show (every single “analyst” they’ve interviewed is either not an analyst and is one of their own employees without a background, or someone who has agreed to show the lion and sun flag in their background). They also encourage certain types of videos to be sent to them with people reciting sentences that support their narrative (e.g. initially they were encouraging viewers to finish their videos with thanking Netanyahu or Trump). In short, they don’t even pretend they are a news agency, and they don’t even pretend they are neutral in reporting. Unfortunately, the way people are used to getting all of their information from social media has resulted in them being comfortable with this type of interaction.

Second, I don’t think anything good comes out of the current situation. Since the 12-day war in June 2025 it was clear to me that Israel is looking for the next Palestine for the next 20 to 50 years and their goal is to turn Iran into that, a weak external enemy that is loud, every once in a while sends a few missiles, but doesn’t have anything of substance to be a real threat. This will be enough for the Israeli government to justify their internal policies having the excuse of Iran so that they can do what they want internally and internationally as they’ve been doing for the past 70 years. There is nothing positive that comes out of this for Iranian citizens, there is destruction, there is famine, there is unfathomable inflation, and there is even more isolation. There will be no regime change, and if there is, there will be something worse. Of course, I don’t have anything to support this prophecy but since the market of such predictions is hot, let me make my own. A lot of people would simply say “nothing is worse than this.” That is a very naive point of view, they haven’t studied history, they haven’t looked even at the neighbors of Iran for the past 30 years or so, they can’t see Lebanon and Palestine, they can’t see Yemen, they can’t see that there are precisely zero examples in history where some external force attacked a country and the citizens of that country had a good life in the next decade or so. When faced with examples of say Iraq, Lebanon, etc., these people say “oh, Iranians are different” and then add a few more sentences that don’t have any basis. These are simply very racist exclamations wrapped in a hopefulness facade. I’ve tried to collect some data for comparison here but it is in very early stages and not usable at the moment.

The problem is that every time I want to write about this my brain shuts down, as if I’m in danger, a feeling of not being safe. I don’t even feel safe writing what I have written above, and that might be partly the reason that voices like mine don’t exist. So, I’m going to leave it at this so that at least there is not a complete absence of this. And to add to that, since last June, I, like many others, have absolutely no clue what the best thing that should happen is, what I hope for, and what I wish for. Until then, I had ideas, but now I have none. I’ve encouraged anyone who can get out to get out, sooner or later. All I see is darkness and misery for decades to come.

title from a song by Tom Waits