The Project's Iran Uprising Recap

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shahin Gobody all the way from Paris, France. I appreciate
you taking the time to.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Call in no problem. I am glad I'm able to join.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yes, a nuclear engineer, member of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran. When the Ayatola Komani would die and
I watched on the news his body getting spilled out
into the street and the way the people treat him,
that's when I was able to wrap my head around others.
This guy was a monster. They couldn't wait for him

(00:29):
to no longer be in power.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
He was a monster. This regime has been monstrous. To
put a new perspective for your good listeners, in the
course of the last four decades, more than one hundred
and twenty thousand good Iranians, men and women as young
as thirteen years old and as old as seventy two
having executed simply for standing up for human rights and democracy,
and most of them, I would say more than ninety

(00:54):
percent of them belonged to the resistance movement called the
People's Mochahidin Organization of Iran also known as m K,
which is the biggest member of the National Council of Resistance,
which is a coalition. The NCRI is a coalition of
anti Shah anti Mulla democratic forces looking for a democratic,
secular republic in Iran. It's like the Parliament in Exile

(01:15):
of the Resistance. Its main headquarters is in Paris, but
it has offices all over the world, including Washington, London, elsewhere.
Interestingly enough, the President elect of the Resistance of Iran
is a woman. It's very revealing. It shows that how
diametrics are opposed the ringing people and the resistance are
to the Mullahs, because everyone knows that misogyny and treating

(01:35):
women as less than second class citizens is one of
the traits of the misogynists. The individuals rule Iran and
this Islamic extremist. Actually, the fact of the matter is
part of the one hundred and twenty thousand people who
sacrifice their lives to bring about democracy the engine rights
in Iran, tens of thousands of them are women. So
actually you see the women play very, very big role

(01:56):
in the resistance because they have much more to fight
for and strive for from their right to choose the
on attire, to be treated as for gender equality and
so on and so forth, as well as the other
rights that every Irene in men and women are deprived of.
But actually Madame Rajevi has introduced a ten point plan

(02:16):
for the future of Iran which called for suppression of
religion and government, for total gender equality, for total freedoms,
for a non nuclear Iran, and Iran which would be
in peace and tranquility with the rest of the world
and market economy. Basically a very very different Iran that
we have today.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Ali Safavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
the Baby Shah as a fifty eight year old, I
remember the Shah of Iran quite vividly, and if I'm
remembering correctly, was it not the Shah of Iran's his
Was it not the Baby Shah's father's passing? That was

(02:57):
kind of the beginning of the hostage crisis and that
whole year where the US and Iran were wildly at odds.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
If you recall this whole hostage crisis and the taking
of fifty four American diplomats for hostage for four hundred
and forty four days was participated by Romani, who obviously
a cleric, who stole the leadership of the Popular revolution

(03:28):
to ferment anti American sentiment, and of course a lot
of that existed in Iran because of what happened in
nineteen fifty three when a popularly elected government, the Nationalist
government of doctor Mosdek, was overthrown by a coup engineered

(03:49):
by MI six and the CIA, and of course the
Shah basically auctioned of the country to foreign powers, and
the Iranians were poor, they were suffering. While Iran sat
on the sea of oil, you had people living in
chanty towns. But of course, more important than that, the

(04:10):
shot secret police Savak was quite brutal in his treatment
of dissidence. There were reports of hundreds of people killed
on the torture by the Shah Savak, and the Shah
himself declared the one party system. He said, anybody who
doesn't want to be part of my party, they can

(04:30):
leave Iran. And so in that context, Harmiani exploited that
under current of opposition to foreign involvement in Iran to
consolidate his power. And so this whole episode, the unfortunate
episode of taking Americans hostage, basically was designed by hormone

(04:51):
to consolidate power and root out the democratic opposition. When
you talk about the son of the Shah now the
Iranian people have that memory. And yes, of course the
current regime has been brutal and has been a thousand
times worse than the previous regime. But Iranians are not
nostalgic about the past, and they don't want to one

(05:12):
party system, one man rule. They want a democratic form
of government like you have in uncited states or in
countries in Europe, where you know, they could have the
right to self dissemination and choose their own leaders. And
so I think the issue of the son of the
Shah now making rounds in some media and making some

(05:35):
noise after being silent for forty some years after he
left Iran at the age of seventeen, it really doesn't
wash much with those inside Iran, nor with the Runi diaspora,
because people, as you have, people have a very vivid
memory of how life was in Iran. I remember those days,
you know. I was a young eighteen year old when

(05:58):
I left Iran into the United States and studies that
UCLA and later in Michigan for my postgraduate work, and
we were all involved in the anti shop movement, and
we remember the excesses of the show and I don't
think there really people have forgotten those years. So that's
why you see, like in the latest round of uprising

(06:20):
in Iran in twenty twenty two, one of the most
prevalent chants by Iranians was down with the oppfessor, be
it the Shaw or the Leader reference to the current
leader Ali comedy. And of course, as you know, most
of those who took part in the protest in twenty
two and two were young people, people who were not

(06:40):
even born when the show was in power. But yet
the resentment and rejection of monarchy is very, very strong,
and they wanted democratic form of government, a republican form
of government where people's vote is the only criteria for
holding office and for public political legitimacy.