Making Sense - Sam Harris - #370 — Gender Apartheid and the Future of Iran

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is Sam Harris well I launched my own substack last week

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00:06:06.840 assistance okay the topic of today's podcast is gender apartheid bill maher actually did a great closing

00:06:17.080 essay on this topic last week it's really worth watching i recommend you go to youtube and search

00:06:23.480 for bill maher and gender apartheid and you'll find it and there he actually refers to my co-host today

00:06:29.320 yasmin muhammad and she's been on the podcast before yasmin is the founder and president of free

00:06:36.440 hearts free minds a non-profit charity that provides mental health support for free thinkers living in

00:06:42.200 muslim majority countries where the so-called crime of renouncing religion can be punished by death her

00:06:49.080 book which we discussed on this podcast is titled unveiled and it's a memoir that recalls her experience

00:06:55.800 growing up in a fundamentalist islamic home and her arranged marriage to a member of al-qaeda and in

00:07:02.440 it she sheds light on the religious trauma that so many women still experience today and are unable to

00:07:07.720 talk about the book has been widely translated and versions of it in arabic and farsi and urdu and

00:07:14.600 indonesian can be accessed for free courtesy of the richard dawkins foundation yasmin is also the host of

00:07:21.400 the yasmin muhammad podcast where i recently appeared and actually my experience in the q a

00:07:28.120 with her audience afterwards inspired me to do this episode of my podcast because so many of the iranian

00:07:35.640 dissidents on that call seem to have a quite positive attitude toward the prospect of an american

00:07:44.600 intervention in iran because they so desperately want a regime change anyway we cover that topic

00:07:52.120 and others with today's guest and she is masi alinejad masi is an iranian american journalist

00:07:59.240 and a campaigner for women's rights she's the author of the best-selling memoir the wind in my hair

00:08:05.000 and in 2023 time magazine named her one of its women of the year and she was elected president of the

00:08:11.080 world liberty congress masi is one of the most prominent and vocal figures challenging the islamic

00:08:16.200 republic of iran and in 2014 she launched the my stealthy freedom campaign this is a campaign for

00:08:23.720 women's rights in the muslim world and against compulsory veiling and it became the largest civil

00:08:29.560 disobedience movement in the history of the islamic republic today masi continues to write and host

00:08:35.240 tablet which is a satirical weekly show on the voice of america and she continues to campaign

00:08:41.160 to end gender apartheid in iran and afghanistan in particular and you can support her work over

00:08:47.160 at mystealthyfreedom.org in today's episode yasmin and i talked to masi about gender apartheid in iran

00:08:55.320 we discussed the iranian revolution the hypocrisy of western feminists the morality police and the

00:09:01.480 significance of the hijab her my stealthy freedom campaign the kidnapping and assassination plots

00:09:08.280 directed against her lack of action from the u.s government the effect of sanctions the cowardice

00:09:14.680 of western journalists the difference between the iranian population and the arab street the

00:09:20.280 unique perspective of persian jews islamism and immigration the infiltration of universities

00:09:26.840 and other topics there's no paywall on this one as i consider this another psa and now i bring you

00:09:35.400 yasmin muhammad and masi alinejad

00:09:38.200 i am here with masi alinejad and yasmin muhammad ladies thanks for joining me thank you so much for

00:09:51.000 having us i'm very excited this is the first time that i see yasmin in person and i'm very excited to

00:09:56.680 be with you sam i hadn't realized that i i've seen you in person so i've seen both of you in person

00:10:01.640 but i i knew you guys knew each other but i i was unaware that it was totally virtual so it's great

00:10:06.360 to get you together in real life weird that it's been totally virtual because we've i feel so close

00:10:10.760 like we we've known each other for so long and it just feels like it doesn't feel like we're meeting

00:10:15.160 for for the first time but it's nice to get our very first hug finally i needed this hug especially in

00:10:20.680 this beautiful day nice well i am three thousand miles away unfortunately but um i hug you both from

00:10:28.360 afar and um i want to talk about iran masi and um about the regime and about popular sentiment in iran

00:10:38.760 because um you know you know iran has been a very big deal for many decades but it's really been off

00:10:44.280 the radar of most americans certainly until fairly recently because for the first time iran directly

00:10:52.440 attacked israel in this ongoing war in gaza and um you know has been obviously funding proxies and

00:11:00.200 so it's been in a proxy war with both both with israel and and with the u.s for quite some time

00:11:05.400 but it's also been widely reported that unlike many other muslim societies that we might think about

00:11:12.520 there really is a significant gulf between the the religious radicalization of the regime and the

00:11:18.040 people and so i wanted to get someone on the podcast who could speak to that and to speak to

00:11:23.560 what how we should think about iran because we just we in the west and in america in particular seem

00:11:30.920 profoundly confused and and ineffectual i mean you know among many other issues i think we're witnessing just a

00:11:38.920 a total failure of deterrence with respect to iran i'll just list a few things that that we know iran

00:11:46.520 has been up to i mean in addition to the proxy wars uh you know the funding of of hezbollah and

00:11:51.960 and hamas and the houthis we have a habit on the part of iran of directly targeting uh foreign nationals

00:12:00.840 and dissidents in foreign countries and uh you have been one of those targets

00:12:05.080 truly yeah so i've been given second life so i'm celebrating my life every single day

00:12:11.240 but sam when you say that when you call it a proxy war i have to say that when islamic republic

00:12:17.400 directly attacked israel so no longer it's a proxy war yeah the islamic republic for years and years

00:12:23.160 we've been warning the u.s government and europeans that the islamic regime is a great sponsor of

00:12:30.600 terrorism and if you don't take strong actions against them they're going to come after you

00:12:36.360 you know i grew up in a very very tiny village and i remembered from my childhood that i was forced

00:12:43.560 as a school girl to shout death to israel death to america as loud as the tel aviv would shake you know

00:12:54.200 this is what we've been brainwashed in burning the flag of america burning the flag of israel

00:13:01.240 so this is the mindset of the islamic republic this these are the main pillars of the islamic

00:13:07.240 republic you know like death to america death to israel and women yeah but that that mindset doesn't

00:13:12.680 actually reach the iranian people i think that's the key here is that a lot of people hear that from

00:13:19.160 the islamic republic of iran they hear the chants and then they assume that that's what the people

00:13:24.040 believe and that's what the people feel but that that's not true exactly i remember that when i was

00:13:30.360 invited to go to school to give a talk a lot of school girls like young teenagers when they heard

00:13:37.560 about iran they were really like kind of scared like you know do you really hate america and i explained

00:13:44.040 to them about how i as a little girl was forced to cover myself in chanting death to america so i

00:13:52.040 actually told them you know in the map you might see one country iran but there is actually two one

00:14:01.160 is islamic republic the other one is iran so islamic republic took the whole nation hostage now you hear

00:14:07.880 from all the teenagers the school girls chanting death to islamic republic and they don't want to

00:14:13.960 actually be isolated or hate israel or america but yeah you're right people sometimes get confused and

00:14:21.080 conflicting iran with islamic republic no it's a huge gap talk to me about the the ratio here like how

00:14:27.720 many people do you think just in your opinion how many people do you think support the islamic regime

00:14:34.600 of iran of iranian people i don't think that i have to say this based on on my opinion the fact

00:14:42.600 is the election they say that okay maybe maybe 25 percent showed up to the election recent election

00:14:50.280 but we see empty stations we see that they don't actually have proper footages to show so they use

00:14:57.960 like you know fake footages from previous elections to actually show it off to the rest of the world that

00:15:03.640 we're still legitimate but that actually telling the rest of the world that this regime is in a

00:15:11.880 serious crisis even among their own supporters those who backed the islamic republic those who actually

00:15:17.720 like like like my own parents they were supporting the regime now they are the victim of the same

00:15:25.000 regime my own sister was on tv to denounce me publicly my own brother was the target of the islamic

00:15:30.360 republic he was in jail for two years just because of being my own brother so my family members they

00:15:37.160 see this is the regime that they supported there are many teachers workers you know now the working

00:15:43.160 class are not backing the islamic republic anymore they're backing teenagers who are getting killed for

00:15:50.040 the crime of simply showing their hair mazi give me a little bit more of your background i mean when

00:15:56.280 did you leave iran i know you were born just before the the fall of the shah so you don't really

00:16:01.560 remember iran before the islamic republic came into being but i mean many of us have seen footage of of

00:16:07.960 what it was like and it really i mean iran in the in the 60s and and 70s before the fall it looked like

00:16:15.800 san francisco practically i mean maybe it was san francisco plus secret police but it was it looked like a

00:16:21.320 i mean it's an unrecognizable society given what has since happened what's your sense of of what

00:16:28.600 public sentiment well i mean there was there was a ton of resentment toward the shah for understandable

00:16:34.200 reasons but just what was the level of religiosity among the the persian people at that point and when

00:16:42.680 khomeini came into power and created a proper theocracy just how popular was it at that point to be

00:16:51.240 honest i was only two years old yeah i don't remember anything yeah but as you said sam when i uh you

00:16:57.320 know look at the pictures of my own parents my mom my mom she was covering her hair clearly she was a

00:17:04.760 muslim woman but in a beautiful colorful traditional way but immediately when khomeini took over the whole

00:17:13.640 country her picture even her hijab has changed became absolutely black and then you just see

00:17:21.400 my mom's nose that's it yeah my beautiful mom was like very oppressed in the way that khomeini asked

00:17:29.240 everyone to cover themselves so but i have to say when i ask a lot of people that what was the reason

00:17:36.440 that you took part to overthrow the shah's regime many of you know that i was a reformist journalist

00:17:42.120 as well so many of the politicians the reformists actually told me that for the lack of uh political

00:17:48.840 freedom so we actually demanded greater freedom that's why we overthrew the regime so what happened

00:17:56.040 now honestly what happened now not only we didn't gain any political freedom we lost all the social

00:18:03.000 freedom that we already had you know people are suffering from poverty still people are suffering

00:18:11.560 i mean people like as i said my own parents they are still suffering so i strongly believe that the

00:18:20.120 islamic revolution became a revolution against women against minority that's why i always say to my

00:18:28.920 father who supported the revolution that this is my time now i'm gonna launch my own revolution

00:18:33.720 against your revolution yeah but coming from a tiny village traditional family it was not easy i had to

00:18:39.720 start my own revolution from my family's kitchen let's go back a little bit to that question that sam

00:18:45.160 was asking because i think it's really important you know the parallel of what's happening today

00:18:50.600 because the left-wing iranians the communists the socialists right they were all supporting well they

00:18:57.320 were allied with the islamic regime in the same way that you see a lot of the left allying with the

00:19:03.000 islamic regime and hamas and houthis and you know tell us a little bit of what happened there you say that

00:19:09.320 they were some of them still and that breaks my heart you know nowadays through social media internet you

00:19:19.320 see that how the young generation is suffering and you remember yourself when i launched my campaign against

00:19:25.320 compulsory a job who were the first group attacking me in the west the left yeah before the islamic

00:19:33.240 republic like uh attacking me i was under attack by the left outside iran telling me that this is

00:19:41.160 causing islamophobia and i think that's why it's important to identify that because when the left were

00:19:46.680 allied with the islamic regime in iran as soon as the regime took power tens of thousands of people were

00:19:54.120 killed from the left or imprisoned that's why i thought that's why i thought they changed they

00:19:59.640 have changed that's why i was expecting them to change their mindset and at least listen to the

00:20:04.600 young generation in iran for the i don't want to curse anyone here no but i want people to see

00:20:11.320 how they get treated when they ally themselves with they think you know the enemy of my enemy is my

00:20:17.480 friend they think they can ally themselves with some islamic theocracy and they think that they're gonna

00:20:22.600 get away from being friends in the end you know skipping off into the sunset together when in

00:20:28.360 actuality they're all going to be slaughtered right they're all going to be so what we see happening here

00:20:33.320 they're all going to be butchered and what we see happening here now in the west is almost like

00:20:38.600 it's such a parallel it's almost the exact same thing and the same useful idiots are making the same

00:20:43.560 mistakes when they're allying themselves with you know what we see very clearly with hamas which are

00:20:49.160 basically an iranian proxy you know group of terrorists so it is quite dangerous and people

00:20:55.720 need to be aware of the history of what can happen when you ally yourself with with terrorists and

00:21:00.840 butchers but first first they putting the lives of those who really living on their authoritarian

00:21:06.520 regimes like islamic republic in danger i believe that yes they are going to be the next target of the

00:21:13.080 same terrorist group like hamas hezbollah islamic republic but i don't i don't want to say that i

00:21:20.120 don't care but they are putting the lives of teenagers like nikah like sorry not only 16 year old

00:21:26.760 girls in danger i remember that um when uh you know i launched myself the freedom campaign their argument

00:21:34.840 was like massy you're causing islamophobia you're feeding trump's camp you're feeding

00:21:42.040 the fascist the right just remind people what is my stealthy freedom oh because the osmin is sitting

00:21:48.280 here i i i i thought that everyone now knows what my stealthy freedom you can you i want you to say

00:21:55.240 what is my stealthy freedom campaign yeah this is what we know how we know each other so my stealthy

00:21:59.960 freedom campaign started almost by accident massy just took a picture of herself without hijab on

00:22:05.800 under this beautiful actually was a cherry blossom tree and if you know massy you know she's got this

00:22:11.400 glorious mane of hair and she took the picture and she posted it and suddenly she was inundated with

00:22:20.120 pictures of iranian women bombarded by photos videos pictures of women walking unveiled showing their

00:22:29.400 face not like you know those who call themselves activists and dissidents covering their face

00:22:35.080 supporting hamas but my girls in iran my women in iran they were showing their face and saying no to

00:22:40.920 compulsory hijab which is a punishable crime so after you know me sharing their videos i got attacked

00:22:50.760 by the islamic republic and the left outside telling me that this is causing islamophobia you know they

00:22:57.880 were saying that hijab is part of the culture of iran and we should not ask the leaders of

00:23:04.040 democratic countries especially those high-ranking members female politicians of the west to interfere

00:23:10.360 in internal matter wow yeah and it was like it's even worse than that though because you also have

00:23:16.680 western activists and so-called feminists who imagine that the hijab is a symbol of female

00:23:23.880 empowerment it's removing the male gaze and you have people like linda sarsour you know being

00:23:30.920 inducted as one of the leaders of the women's march on washington right i mean i don't know linda

00:23:37.400 i've just appreciated her i know her let me be very honest with you i want to admit that

00:23:42.440 i was very excited about women's march yeah i was very very very happy to be part of women's march i

00:23:49.800 remember i was shouting my body my choice i put a head of scarf on a stick i was waving that in the

00:23:56.440 streets they're the opposite of that they put the scarf on their mascot on their on their posters but

00:24:02.520 i thought it's all about my body my choice so that's why i joined them and i remember that yasmin

00:24:08.200 sam i was calling my girls and women in iran i was saying can you believe this is the first time in my

00:24:14.200 life i'm in the street protesting but i'm not getting arrested nobody you know throw acid on my

00:24:19.880 face i'm not getting shot in you know getting killed them i was very excited then i asked them

00:24:27.320 to join me and the women of iran i asked linda sarsour i asked ilhan omar i wrote an article for

00:24:33.720 washington post for different media inviting them to join white wednesday's campaign to join my

00:24:38.760 selfish freedom campaign no they some of them blocked me some of them bullied me some of them

00:24:45.320 went after me to cancel me some of them called me the mouthpiece of trump and i was like i don't

00:24:51.160 really care who is in power in america i do what i care i don't want the terrorist regime to be in

00:24:56.200 power exactly has nothing to do with trump and it has nothing to do with american politics no yeah

00:25:01.320 and i was like this is hypocrisy i was with you saying my body my choice and recently oh my god

00:25:08.760 now all of them saying that now we stand with the people of iran you know why because when we are the

00:25:14.440 warriors they don't care but they want us to be victims and own our narrative and saying that you

00:25:22.120 know ilhan omar was like i'm stand with the people i said no you're not standing with us you're standing

00:25:27.160 in the wrong side of history by bullying iranian women so and i'm saying islamophobic and i was like wow

00:25:34.040 you're calling me islamophobic first of all phobia is an irrational fear my fear of islamic ideology

00:25:42.040 my fear of taliban my fear of islamic republic is rational absolutely and you should be stupid if

00:25:47.880 you don't have any fear of being raped or getting killed if you say that i'm not muslim anymore can

00:25:54.200 you help the audience understand this moral confusion because i have to admit that it it really is um

00:26:02.040 it's very difficult to sympathize with the psychology of someone who who can't see the

00:26:11.400 contradictions here i mean i just i don't understand it's like a failed and moral intelligence test or

00:26:16.120 something that many many millions of people are failing is it possible that many of these people

00:26:21.960 believe that the women of iran even even when they're hearing about the morality police you know

00:26:27.720 throwing people in prison and you know women getting tortured and killed and they still believe

00:26:33.720 that most women love to wear the veil and imagine that it's empowering for them in the same way that

00:26:41.400 it would be empowering for a girl at brandeis or barnard to just decide to culturally appropriate

00:26:47.480 this affectation just as you know a statement of her own empowerment what do you think explains the

00:26:53.640 fact that you have people who think they are feminists simply not caring about the obvious oppression of

00:27:00.440 women in iran and doing that not only averting their eyes from it but adopting the most salient symbol

00:27:09.000 of that oppression as meaning its opposite yeah to be honest i i don't think that we can call those

00:27:17.720 feminists if i mean when it comes to the women of iran they absolutely failed by actually empowering and

00:27:28.040 emboldened like empowering the oppressors to go after women for instance when i was actually doing

00:27:34.360 interview with the higher ranking members of revolution in regards in iran and the the clerics in iran and

00:27:41.720 i was telling that why you bitten up women in the street why morality police uh or in the streets

00:27:48.600 harassing women for not covering their hair they were telling me an audio interview you can listen

00:27:54.360 to their voices saying that who are you how dare you to challenge it is that make uh this is before

00:28:01.000 you left you were a journalist in iran before you left yeah and they were saying that they were saying

00:28:06.360 that when the high you know representative of eu wearing hijab respect respecting our culture who

00:28:13.960 are you how dare you to remove your hijab and they were actually when i left in iran i do this interview

00:28:19.400 again they were referring to katherine ashton to federico mcgrini because they go to my beautiful

00:28:25.080 country they wear a hijab and they call themselves feminists and when i challenge them they say that you

00:28:30.600 know what this is a culture and we have to wear it out of respect to your culture this is an insult to

00:28:36.120 a nation when they call a barbaric laws part of our culture and and when they wearing hijab so they

00:28:42.440 actually iranian regime using them to oppress us they use them as an example and they say look even

00:28:48.280 the european women wear the hijab and they recognize it as a form of empowerment so what's wrong with you

00:28:54.040 yeah and there is a video actually there are i still get goosebumps when i talk about that video

00:28:58.840 there are 11 morality police officers all of them women wearing black bullying one girl

00:29:06.120 saying the same using the same argument telling her that cover yourself right now and the girl said

00:29:11.720 that no i don't want to cover my hair they said this is a law you have to respect the law they say

00:29:16.920 she said that i don't want to respect the barbaric law slavery used to be legal i'm not going to respect

00:29:22.360 the law and they say that look even the female politicians from the west when they come to iran

00:29:28.840 they are not muslim but they respect the law of the land and i kept hearing this argument from you

00:29:33.880 you know a lot of western feminists saying that this is the law of the land you know all the

00:29:38.760 journalists you know leslie stall of 60 minutes and i mean they all you know uh there's a famous

00:29:44.280 story i don't i don't think i've seen video of it but um the italian journalist oriana felacci

00:29:50.520 yes yeah well she she she was wearing it and then she took it off in front of the ayatollah komeini and

00:29:56.680 said you know i'm getting rid of this medieval rag or whatever she said yeah she was the only one but

00:30:01.640 sam let's be very very clear here i'm not talking about a small piece of cloth i'm not you know

00:30:08.360 talking about hijab hijab is the symbol one of the most visible symbol of oppression it's the tool

00:30:15.560 it's the main pillar of a religious dictatorship it's the main pillar of gender apartheid regime

00:30:21.960 so when we talk about compulsory veiling that doesn't mean that if we get rid of like you know

00:30:27.400 compulsory a job or morality police then we are okay here it's the tip of the iceberg yeah it is

00:30:32.600 and that's why i want to actually use the opportunity to say that the the teenagers in

00:30:36.360 iran they're showing their middle fingers to the cameras there are there to identify unveiled women

00:30:42.440 and they say the same word no to compulsory hijab no to islamic republic so clearly hijab became a tool

00:30:49.960 in the hand of regime to control the whole society through women so these mullahs the clerics

00:30:55.240 they're writing their own ideology on our bodies and we use our bodies now to tell them go to hell

00:31:02.760 get away you know get lost do you have any sense of what is happening in the minds of these western

00:31:09.720 women that they can't understand this because we're talking about something very visible we're

00:31:14.440 choosing something that is should be very clear and understandable and they're still not getting it do

00:31:20.760 you think that they're truly not getting it or do you think that they are maybe being strategic and

00:31:26.680 just pretending that they don't get it so that they can you know i think all they care it's their

00:31:31.720 own political agenda so they don't know that if they are a true feminist or human rights lover

00:31:39.000 freedom lovers then they have to put freedom human dignity feminism at first they don't for them

00:31:47.880 political agenda is more important like for instance when jamal khashoggi was killed they were all

00:31:56.040 allowed to condemn saudi arabia there are many jamal khashoggi in iran why they were hesitating because they

00:32:04.120 care about their own ally right now right now i actually challenge some of the democrats you know

00:32:10.200 those who actually launched the campaign bring our girls back about the girls of buku haram

00:32:15.480 hmm so and i said that's where are you now why you're not campaigning for the girls of afghanistan

00:32:22.520 who are being kicked out from schools they are not even able to get an education they're not even

00:32:28.440 able to go and have their own job their own normal life so why you're not campaigning for them you know

00:32:34.760 why i hear then we are going to be seen as criticizing president biden so what for me that's why i keep

00:32:43.240 repeating that honestly i don't care whether biden is in power trump is in power obama is in power this

00:32:49.960 is a democratic country you have to be strong enough to challenge them and and and support your own

00:32:56.920 sisters in afghanistan in iran you don't want to do that because you care about your political agenda

00:33:02.600 it's really sad it breaks my heart we don't matter unless it's through the you know the narcissistic

00:33:10.280 naval gazing american lens and what matters to them and then the people that happen to be there

00:33:17.080 are the people that matter in that period of time you know but the rest of the people

00:33:22.280 if you're on the wrong side of the political spectrum as far as they're concerned then you

00:33:26.040 don't matter you know what when i was the target of assassination plot when the guy

00:33:31.800 got arrested arrested in front of my house by ak-47 i was like this is the moment that finally

00:33:39.160 all the female democrats all the female politicians here they will get united because i'm a woman

00:33:45.480 then this is the first time iranian regime hired someone to kill a woman on u.s just to summarize this

00:33:52.520 masa you you as i said at the top iran has this habit of targeting dissidents and activists in other

00:34:00.600 countries and they've actually successfully kidnapped people and brought them back to iran

00:34:04.920 for trial there was apparently a plot first a kidnapping plot against you and then a an

00:34:11.080 assassination plot against you and you were informed by the fbi about all this to take it

00:34:15.640 seriously um and so that's now what you're yeah exactly but what i'm being very honest with you

00:34:22.840 what uh breaks me it's not the islamic republic sending killers here because you expect that

00:34:29.000 transnational repression is in the dna of the islamic republic terrorizing killing torturing executing

00:34:36.040 people kidnapping people it's in the dna of the islamic republic so you expect them but what breaks

00:34:42.920 me what makes me frustrated is the reaction of those who are i had hope on them that they are going to

00:34:51.720 support me because they're women you know it's funny you say that because that's exactly how i felt

00:34:57.000 on october 7th yes i thought well this is going to be very clear now i mean we all saw shannie luke

00:35:03.160 in the truck and i thought well this is there's going to be no question and when it comes to rape

00:35:10.200 we are all together to condemn that no there is no question about this how could there be any other

00:35:14.840 side of this discussion you know why is it even a discussion why why why when it comes to women's march

00:35:22.040 i am with you but when it comes to raping jews to killing iranian women kicking women of afghanistan

00:35:28.600 you are not with us why can someone answer this simple question inexplicable and i'm telling you

00:35:35.880 none of none of the female congresswoman none of them condemned the assassination plot of me as well

00:35:44.200 none of the you know democrats none of the female so what what do you make of this again this comes

00:35:50.440 back to a total failure of deterrence against iran it really seems that so this you have iran targeting

00:35:58.280 people in america individually you have them funding proxies to attack both israel and america in various

00:36:07.800 contexts that you have them directly attacking israel last month uh you have them you know

00:36:14.200 threatening at any given month to produce a nuclear weapon what do you make of the fact that the u.s

00:36:21.160 seems more worried about a war with iran than iran does i mean it's just a complete breakdown of

00:36:29.800 deterrence yeah they keep saying that when i ask them to be firm to take a strong actions because lack of

00:36:36.840 action you know emboldened the regime to go after not only their own citizens to go after you know

00:36:43.720 people in the region they say that we are not at war with the islamic republic what do you expect us

00:36:50.040 to do and i was like hey but the islamic republic is at war with you with you with you know the united

00:36:57.160 state of america with your own allies with you know its own women so then you should act like a true

00:37:06.440 leader you have to take the leadership because america is i mean is or was beacon of hope for

00:37:15.000 millions of us i came here because i was like this is the land of you know liberty liberty first

00:37:22.120 amendment we can do a lot here but on u.s soil now i see salman rashti was the target of the

00:37:28.920 assassination plot because of the islamic republic because of the fatwa was issued by ali khamenei

00:37:34.760 so the lack of actions actually giving sending signals to the regime that hey you can do whatever

00:37:41.000 you want there is no punishment for you there is no punishment for you so for millions of iranians

00:37:47.880 now it's like they're very disappointed by the u.s government and i don't want to say that but they

00:37:55.320 they say that we sacrifice our life we get killed in the street we face rape but at the end of the day

00:38:02.760 they say this is the american government trying to save the islamic republic and some of them

00:38:08.760 actually makes jokes saying ayatollah biden well there was that six billion dollar deal right after

00:38:14.360 that actually people were like you know mocking making jokes and but they are frustrated because

00:38:20.280 they were like asking president obama during 2009 calling him on his name saying obama obama you either

00:38:28.920 with us or with them i'm not sure whether you know are you saying that a majority of iranians would

00:38:35.080 welcome an actual war with the united states i mean they would want the united states to try to intervene

00:38:43.320 and force a regime change in iran look i'm not asking the american government to intervene but they are

00:38:51.080 interfering in our own internal matter while the people of iran managed to shake the regime what does

00:38:57.880 handing out billions of dollars do here saving them protecting them iranian people in bloody november

00:39:06.840 they took to the street and they were about to be successful to overthrow this barbaric regime what

00:39:15.320 happened the government shut down the internet for three days and they killed 1500 innocent people

00:39:22.760 only in three days we didn't hear anything from the u.s government saying that you know okay now we're

00:39:30.520 gonna you know hug the people of iran by providing internet kicking out the dictators from u.s technology

00:39:36.520 actually allowing the dictators to using social media so the lack of action is something that emboldened the

00:39:44.600 islamic republic no i'm not asking the u.s government to bring change for us or to save iranian people

00:39:51.080 it's a it's a very very clear strategy is missing here the united states of america doesn't have one

00:39:58.200 strategy one clear iran strategy on the table that shows to the people of iran that if there are republican or

00:40:06.680 democrats we don't care we have one policy towards islamic republic so that actually hurts the cause

00:40:14.920 of bringing regime change in iran otherwise iranian people are brave enough powerful enough to bring

00:40:21.880 democracy within the country but this is 21st century unarmed people armless people cannot do it on their

00:40:28.760 own international community can provide supports technology support look poutine china madora

00:40:37.640 khamenei they are providing weapons for each other technology surveillance they're backing each other

00:40:45.000 helping each other at the united nations voting for each other so providing uh sharing information

00:40:52.360 how to oppress any uprising taking place in each authoritarian countries what we want

00:40:58.600 the same unity among democratic countries what is missing here now united states of america

00:41:04.280 cannot take the leadership to ask its own allies to put the revolutionary guards in the terrorist

00:41:10.200 organization yeah so these are some common actions which is missing here and empowering the islamic

00:41:16.440 republic to kill more people what about the the history of sanctions here what has been the effect

00:41:23.240 of sanctions and at least from the outside it appears to have done no good at all in terms of deterring

00:41:30.600 iran from their misbehavior you know sanction itself is not sufficient when they're not even applied to the

00:41:40.440 the oppressors for instance when abraham reisi was here in his delegation there were members of

00:41:46.520 revolutionary guards coming to the united states of america while they were designated as a terrorist

00:41:53.640 organization so what kind of impact this kind of sanction can do like and i i remember that i myself reach out to

00:42:03.240 jake sullivan the national secretary advisor of president biden and i informed him about this

00:42:08.840 and i had a meeting with prime minister root in netherland and i informed him that there are 52 companies in

00:42:18.680 netherland they know how to bypass sanctions in you know trading with the members of revolutionary guards

00:42:27.480 i warned president macron in france that sanction is not sufficient when the revolutionary guards

00:42:36.040 the higher ranking member of this terrorist organizations are really good at using poutine

00:42:42.600 madura china to evade sanction to bypass sanctions that's not enough what is missing here as i keep

00:42:52.760 saying that dictators are more united than democratic countries we don't see that for instance right now

00:43:01.240 the u.s citizen is in prison in iran british citizen swedish citizen german citizen french

00:43:07.240 citizens they are in iran being used like bargaining chip guess what all these democratic countries having

00:43:15.720 parallel negotiations with the terrorists with the hostage takers trying to find out how they can hand

00:43:21.080 out money to get their national citizens free this is not the way that hostage takers understand they

00:43:29.880 only understand one language language of pressure you should get united all of you the democratic countries

00:43:36.600 downplay your downgrade your diplomatic relation with the hostage takers this is how you can end

00:43:45.080 hostage taking diplomacy similar to what we did with south africa and the apartheid there exactly and

00:43:51.880 guess what president biden when he was young he was pro banning south africa because of apartheid

00:43:57.880 you tell me if if if a regime kill women for showing their hair is not a gender apartheid if a

00:44:05.240 regime that actually kick out half of the population from a stadium is not gender apartheid then how do you

00:44:12.840 call it a regime that do not even allow me to ride a bicycle to dance to sing singing solo is forbidden

00:44:19.640 for iranian women we cannot get a passport without getting permission from our own husband we cannot travel

00:44:25.880 abroad without getting permission from our male relative this is like handmaid's tale yeah you

00:44:32.600 know and the people of iran have been screaming really loudly very clearly making it very obvious that

00:44:38.760 they're wanting to that they want to see this entire regime dissolved and that they want to be free from

00:44:44.200 it but like you said they can't do it on their own they are not armed and they especially can't do it when

00:44:51.320 these other big powerful countries all around the world are actually negotiating with with the regime

00:44:56.120 of iran not only negotiating right now abraham raissi was killed in a helicopter crash yeah iranians

00:45:04.120 are dancing yeah iranians are showing their happiness yeah the family members of those who got killed

00:45:11.480 by the order of abraham raissi making videos of themselves dancing and guess what happened united

00:45:17.800 nations security council having one minute of silence yes the leaders of european it's like

00:45:23.800 with soleimani exactly calling gassem soleimani national hero oh my god i never forget the day

00:45:30.680 hearing some of my own heroes on different media calling gassem soleimani national hero of iranian

00:45:37.720 people and i was like he's a terrorist he's a terrorist not killed iranian people he killed syrian

00:45:45.320 children before isis you know even exists he went to syria to attack the you know those who were

00:45:53.480 trying to overthrow ashar assad's regime he killed the you know children in iraq so for for that i don't

00:46:01.960 want to say that the the western government actually uh collaborating with the terrorist regime but

00:46:08.280 why how do you call it how do you call it when now ibrahim raissi the killers the butcher of

00:46:15.000 tehran receiving sympathy from the leaders of democratic countries how do you call it yeah it

00:46:22.680 really is confusing because i it's just not obvious why we would have fallen into this particular trap

00:46:32.440 it's hard to see who is benefiting in in america certainly for us to have this ineffectual a policy

00:46:40.680 i mean the only way i can interpret it is that we're so we've got such war fatigue we've drawn

00:46:45.720 i mean basically we've drawn the lessons of vietnam all over again i mean are the longest war we ever

00:46:50.600 fought in afghanistan is widely acknowledged have been just an abject failure both materially and and

00:46:58.120 morally and so it was with iraq and this is so different this is what people don't get is the

00:47:05.000 people of afghanistan and the people of iraq are very different than the people of iraq yeah we had

00:47:10.920 the history i mean they can look at our history it's it's it's it's totally different you know this

00:47:16.200 is the narrative of um the lobbyists of the islamic republic i remember that whenever gossam soleimani

00:47:22.680 got killed there were many analysts were showing up on cnn different different media saying that

00:47:30.520 we should not helping those who are asking for regime change hasem soleimani javad zarif these

00:47:37.000 are like the reformists and heroes of the iranian people because they don't want to be other syria

00:47:42.520 they don't want to be other iraq and that's the narrative of the islamic lobbies outside iran but

00:47:49.480 guess what this is the islamic republic turning iran to another syria this is the murderous regime of

00:47:56.680 you know my beloved homeland turning the whole country like a chaos it would be like a prison

00:48:02.840 break and for me iranians are hostages right now the whole nations are hostage in the hand of a regime

00:48:10.440 which telling women in 21st century that you're second-class citizen telling them that we rape you

00:48:16.200 or you deserve to be raped if you simply showing your hair i keep saying that because i don't know

00:48:23.400 whether your audience really get that and that's what this raisi guy this president of iran that

00:48:28.920 was just that just died in the helicopter he was one of the people that i think it was it was his

00:48:35.000 policy that young girls when they end up going to prison that they be raped yes to make sure that

00:48:41.160 they're not virgins so that they don't go to heaven heaven yeah you know that's what we're dealing with

00:48:46.120 yeah i today is my happy day because uh braisi is dead but sometimes i really cry and i get frustrated

00:48:56.280 when i see that they shake their hands but they don't want to they don't want to be seen with me

00:49:00.920 with people like me like i was in germany meeting with uh the policy makers with ministers and member

00:49:09.160 members of parliament then i was very excited to meet with the foreign minister she's a feminist and her

00:49:15.320 team was like okay but in private because now we're trying to negotiate with islamic republic it

00:49:21.720 might change the mindset of the islamic republic not only that i'm not sure whether this is the right

00:49:26.840 place to say or not you know kristen ahampur is my hero when i was in iran she was my hero when my

00:49:34.440 sister was brought on tv to denounce me publicly it happened that i was with her in a party

00:49:40.360 persian a no ruse party when i saw her i screamed out of joy and i opened my arms to hug her and i was

00:49:48.280 very excited i said oh my god you're my hero i'm seeing you here and i started to explain to her what

00:49:54.440 happened to me my sister my family and i said can i have a picture with you and she said to me in front

00:50:00.760 of a lot of iranians that uh yeah let's get a picture but can you not publish the picture because i'm

00:50:06.600 gonna have an interview with abraham reisi so you're a little bit controversial so she you know

00:50:13.320 she'll be seen with him she'll sit with him she'll wear a hijab with him too i smiled i smiled among

00:50:19.400 iranians there were a lot of iranians and i said of course yeah yeah i understand i totally understand

00:50:23.240 but i lied because it broke my heart that because of getting an interview with abraham reisi you're a

00:50:29.640 powerful woman so i took the picture but i never published that i want one day to see her and i want

00:50:35.960 her to say that you can publish the photo i was wrong i want a lot of journalists and feminists

00:50:42.200 like her to understand that the killers of my country they understand only one language language

00:50:47.560 of power pressure and stand in solidarity with your sister don't call me radical i'm not radical

00:50:55.480 radical are those who are lashing women radical are those who are raping women i'm just saying that

00:51:00.920 my dream is to walk shoulder to shoulder with my mother in my beautiful country i just want to have

00:51:05.400 the same freedom that you take it for granted here in america so is that too much to ask well i want

00:51:12.040 to return to this gulf between the iranian population and and the regime and and i i want to i i can't

00:51:19.880 imagine we actually have opinion research that we could rely on here but i think it's important to

00:51:25.080 understand the degree to which the population of iran is different or is likely to be different than

00:51:32.680 you know the palestinians under hamas say right i mean it's it's quite fashionable to draw a bright

00:51:38.600 line between hamas and the palestinian people but you know every indication i've had over the last

00:51:43.640 40 years is that there is a fair amount of support for theocracy among palestinians it's not everybody

00:51:50.600 but it's also not nobody and it's you know if i had to guess i would think it's somewhere around 50

00:51:56.520 of palestinians are fairly in line with hamas's world view and you know if you look at support for

00:52:04.040 suicide bombing among palestinians it's always been very high around 70 and you're much higher than

00:52:10.280 other people in the region and however you want to discount that for you know what the political

00:52:15.000 emergency they have been suffering with with israel still it's obvious that there are a lot of theocrats

00:52:22.280 beyond the formal membership of hamas there have to be a lot of theocrats in iran for the regime to

00:52:29.320 have successfully kept the veil over the whole society since 1979 right i mean there are people

00:52:36.200 you know manning the republican guard there are people in the morality police what just what what is

00:52:41.720 your sense of how large the support would be for the end of theocracy in iran and how is i'm wondering

00:52:51.960 and now i'm speaking as someone who really is just purely ignorant of the details here i'm wondering

00:52:57.080 if there are any important differences between persian and arab culture that might be relevant here can

00:53:04.120 you both of you speak to that the difference between the iranian population and its support for theocracy

00:53:11.000 and any other population we have meddled in you know in afghanistan iraq among palestinians etc

00:53:18.120 i already passed a lot of red lines here i'll leave it to yasmin to answer this question but

00:53:26.200 to be honest um iranians iranians especially young generation they're very progressive now and uh

00:53:35.000 i have to say that in my country now the majority of the young generation they are against not only

00:53:41.160 islamic republic they are against islam because of you know the oppression that they have been facing

00:53:47.240 for years and years yeah absolutely i think it's important to remember people see now that you

00:53:52.840 know there's 57 muslim majority countries it's called the islamic republic of iran and they forget

00:53:57.720 that these people have all been colonized that these cultures these these nations these people have all

00:54:03.240 been colonized and indoctrinated and what's really unique about iranians is they have always remembered

00:54:12.920 their persian core they didn't lose it in the way that so many of us my family from egypt included you

00:54:20.120 know like my my people from egypt included you lose everything but you know egypt now calls itself the

00:54:26.760 arab republic of egypt what are you doing you're in north africa you have your own civilization you have

00:54:33.080 your own culture to be proud of but they have just become colonized and they now call themselves

00:54:38.200 arabs iranian people didn't do that you didn't lose your traditional your holidays you didn't lose

00:54:45.800 your yeah although it was a crime it was a crime to celebrate like you know the birthday of yeah to

00:54:51.560 going to it's funny that sometimes i hear in the west saying that you know like hijab or islam is your

00:54:59.880 culture i was like you are you educating me about my own culture while i'm seeing that iranian people

00:55:05.240 facing punishment by celebrating the persian culture rather than you know the islamic culture

00:55:12.520 your culture became criminalized yeah it became it is a crime still is a crime in iran you will face

00:55:19.000 punishment for celebrating our own culture so but yeah i mean i leave it to an arab woman to to actually

00:55:28.840 to say that because it's beautiful when i see someone at the end of the day recognize this because a lot of

00:55:34.840 western people here when i see them they don't recognize that they cattle group you know they

00:55:39.400 don't see the difference yeah yeah they think it's all the same they think iranians are arab pakistanis

00:55:45.080 are arab indonesians are arab they just think anybody who's muslim must be an arab so they they don't

00:55:50.760 really get that very important point that these are all people that have been colonized by arabs by arab

00:55:58.600 muslims so i think that's really i think that's i think that's the point here sam is that because

00:56:04.680 they are so deeply proud of their roots and they've never forgotten their roots and they've held on to

00:56:11.560 their roots that's why they can fight against the islamic regime of iran because they see this islamic

00:56:18.280 regime as their oppressor as their colonizer they really believe that as the enemy of the iranian

00:56:25.400 culture exactly yeah and that's why i i believe i don't see it that way no i i believe that the

00:56:32.360 islamic republic and islamic culture is the minority in iran and um but yeah as i said that

00:56:41.160 they have the power money you know everything to change the narrative in the west to downplay

00:56:49.240 the the young generation to downplay the iranian culture but i'm sure i'm sure you know

00:56:54.120 what will change this yeah i i must say that in speaking about jihadism to western audiences i'm

00:57:02.760 always amazed at the amount of confusion there is about it and how difficult people are to persuade

00:57:07.160 that that it's even a thing and you know even many many western jews are totally confused about

00:57:17.000 jihadism and are quite concerned uh not to be guilty of islamophobia yeah um but one population

00:57:24.200 that i find is not at all confused are persian jews i've never i've never met because they were the

00:57:30.920 first victim of the islamic republic i've never met a confused persian jew at this point um and they're

00:57:37.640 they're basically right next to ex-muslims as you know understanding what i'm talking about when i came

00:57:42.920 to america i mean to be honest the first allies that i found were the virgin jews why because they

00:57:52.920 have suffered from the beginning when the islamic republic took the whole nation hostage they were

00:57:59.000 the first minority group who have been facing executions and when you talk to them they really

00:58:09.720 know the pain and the struggle and um i'm so happy that uh i had them on my side and that's why maybe

00:58:18.600 when the islamic republic and hamas they had the coordinate coordinated attack against the

00:58:25.640 civilians from the beginning when i heard i was like this is the time now we the people of iran

00:58:31.400 should stand on their side to support them to be their voices and to be honest among all the countries

00:58:38.920 in the region iran was the only country that you didn't see even a moment of hesitation among

00:58:45.320 iranians to stand with their sisters to condemn the attack to condemn uh hamas to condemn the brutality

00:58:54.200 of forget the region even in the west oh yes yeah even in the west and i i remember that when i made a

00:59:00.680 statement about how women in the west didn't condemn it iranians didn't know that my people in iran were

00:59:11.000 telling me that who are you criticizing really like women didn't condemn the rape so because we always

00:59:17.240 say that can it be real how can you think that when it comes to rape even even in the jewish the

00:59:22.440 jewish controlled media and the jewish and jewish controlled hollywood failed to condemn the rape of

00:59:28.440 jewish can someone tell me why yeah because i really don't know i really don't know it's like

00:59:34.520 watching through the videos that they clearly wanted to show the rest of the world that this is who we

00:59:40.760 are we rape women we grab their naked bodies everywhere we film them we show them that we can

00:59:49.400 do whatever we want and then the west keep quiet it's the exact same reason why they keep quiet when

00:59:56.440 the iranian women are being raped and killed by the regime because it's the wrong oppressor right if

01:00:03.880 the oppressor is american if yeah that's different or israeli of course yeah but if your oppressor is

01:00:10.760 muslim even if it's a muslim terrorist then you are the wrong kind of victim and you won't get the

01:00:16.440 support so what jewish women went through recently with recognizing this and that the shock and the

01:00:22.520 horror that they felt i knew that pain you know i just wanted to embrace them because i know how you

01:00:30.120 feel to be lonely i feels to be so betrayed by people who you think you know who they think that

01:00:37.320 they're on the right side of history they think that they're feminist they think that they're good

01:00:40.920 people and then look how they treat us and and and let's not forget jews were always supporting their

01:00:49.800 sisters in america in iran you know everywhere and then i actually think that yeah you're right this

01:00:56.280 was a total betrayal to our sisters who faced rape but at the same time seeing no reactions from

01:01:04.360 well-known human rights organizations well-known you know activists actress in hollywood but that

01:01:11.720 actually empowered the islamic republic to say that okay now we don't need proxy war we can go directly

01:01:18.200 after israeli and um that's beyond sad because this is gonna actually put democracy in danger this is

01:01:26.200 gonna actually put the the mindset of the youth in the west in danger i don't think people in the west

01:01:32.920 really understand how empowered the terrorists are right now and all of their supporters i don't

01:01:38.600 think they get the morale boost i don't think they understand how much october 7th i mean after 9 11

01:01:47.240 people didn't have smartphones right people didn't have their gopro cameras yes you kind of heard

01:01:52.360 you know murmurs of oh people are celebrating in the islamic world over 9 11 but there wasn't really

01:01:57.640 evidence of that now you see it now you see it and the way that it's shared in the whatsapp groups

01:02:04.360 the jubilation and just really there's it's such a morale boost they feel on top of the world right now

01:02:12.120 and i don't think the west really recognizes kind of what they're up against at this point and that's

01:02:18.200 beyond sad because recently when i heard that how even islamic bin laden became a hero yeah through

01:02:25.960 uh tick tock in the young generation suddenly found a letter from islamic bin laden to america and i was

01:02:33.240 like this is dangerous because very soon they can actually find a letter from ali khamini to america and

01:02:41.800 then ali khamini is going to be another hero of the the youth in america why because of the division

01:02:49.080 here what are both of your thoughts on republican and democrats they put in the mindset of the youth

01:02:54.600 in danger yeah the youth are in agreeance they hate america too i think sam is calling us but we

01:03:00.440 are really you know enjoying our own conversation there's some latency here so yeah you got half of

01:03:05.160 what i just said but what are your thoughts on immigration because when i look at western europe

01:03:11.800 when i look at the the level of of islamism in london right and the degree to which the government

01:03:19.800 there and the police force there is quite visibly terrified to even acknowledge the scope of the

01:03:26.760 problem i mean they actually do it's pretty obvious that they don't have an answer to the problem

01:03:32.520 they they simply have too many islamists in england to have a ready answer for the problem

01:03:38.920 um which suggests a an immigration failure and and also just a failure to contain the spread of

01:03:46.440 dangerous ideas right or to successfully combat those ideas uh so as to discredit them right so

01:03:52.280 they have they've they just left the crazy mosques to be crazy for far too long they let and they they

01:03:57.720 left their borders open for far too long and now they they simply have the wrong people in their society

01:04:04.040 right they have committed islamists and even jihadists in their society and so now you have

01:04:09.640 parliament you know quite obviously you know bending its procedures so as to keep its mps safer than

01:04:17.960 they they perceive themselves to be because they're getting inundated with death threats if they don't vote

01:04:23.560 one way or the other i mean from again i'm not i don't live there but viewed from the outside it looks

01:04:29.000 totally intolerable so the question is how do we avoid that outcome in the states right i mean i think

01:04:36.840 all of our security concerns given our various jobs would be worse if we lived in paris or london and

01:04:44.360 i think we're happy that there's a difference between you know what's real on the ground in the us not to

01:04:49.800 say there aren't real dangers you know especially for someone like yourself masi but yes it's better

01:04:56.360 here and and you know i don't know where canada falls yasmin probably somewhere between the us and

01:05:02.680 and uh western europe but what how do you think about immigration and what should we do on that front

01:05:08.840 i mean you mentioned about the uk and the islamist extremists there but i was actually recently in canada

01:05:17.480 so i think yasmin knows the pain there are more than 700 members of revolutionary guards there

01:05:29.000 so they are not like you know illegal immigrants they've been welcomed without any background check

01:05:37.480 by the canadian government and that's a disaster that the high-ranking member of irgc

01:05:47.240 receiving visa by canadians and now living their luxury lives there the relative of the ayatollahs

01:05:55.080 the relative of the the killers some of the boss juchim she interrogators were seen in canada

01:06:03.880 so you see and in america the same story so i actually talked about this i provided a list i gave it to

01:06:12.840 two administrations saying that these are the former officials of the islamic republic

01:06:22.920 now actually teaching in different universities here at the united state of america the former

01:06:30.360 ambassador of the united nations for islamic republic who was covering up the massacre the executions

01:06:39.720 now teaching peace and security in in university here mahalati and another one is musavian who was part of

01:06:48.840 the team of the islamic republic for negotiation nuclear negotiation he was the one covering up all the

01:06:56.120 massacres and killings he is praising hamas he is supporting hamas now he's here you know do you

01:07:04.680 think that's just a an abject failure of the vetting process or i mean politically no they are the the the

01:07:13.480 us government the uk government canadian government are trying to be politically correct they are in

01:07:18.360 trying to be you know bring more people uh from this in the name of diversity and being politically

01:07:26.040 correct they're welcoming terrorists they are actually giving platform to terrorists to brainwash

01:07:31.960 the youth here in america musavian i really want to talk about him musavian is a terrorist you say he's at

01:07:39.480 a university yeah he's actually teaching at harvard university and now there is a group of iranians

01:07:47.560 demanding the u.s government to kick him out from university princeton university full of islamic

01:07:54.440 republic agency and that's beyond sad because these are the people who worked for the islamic republic

01:08:02.120 government and here promoting the islamic ideology but the family member let's let's very very sad

01:08:10.920 stories here you know nadar sultan the well-known symbol of uh iranian protesters during 2009 green

01:08:19.080 movement who got killed in front of the eyes of the free world because the video of her getting killed

01:08:25.160 went viral obama president obama talked about her nadar sultan's family applied for visa twice

01:08:33.320 canadian refused to give them visa but they gave visa to the chief of the police of tehran and he was

01:08:43.960 seen in a gym in canada standing next to an unveiled woman so as i said to you the killers of iranian people

01:08:51.960 700 of them received visa here we are let's not go far in america maasume abtikar was the spokesperson of

01:09:01.720 you know the group of students who took american diplomats hostage guess what now her own son living

01:09:09.080 here and she is welcomed on cnn she's a regular guest on cnn she is part of the government in iran and now

01:09:16.680 you're hearing new york times want to cancel me but they go after maasume abtikar and interview her

01:09:22.280 so this is the mindset of some of you know the uh the activist journalists the government here the

01:09:30.120 united state of america trying to be politically correct and they are not even aware of the danger

01:09:36.760 of that it is when it comes to terrorists do not be politically correct name them who they are

01:09:43.320 stop giving democratic titles to terrorists calling them president calling them you know scholars at

01:09:50.920 university calling them activist dissidents they are not they're normalizing what can we do about

01:09:57.400 this i mean it seems like there has to be some kind of response to this man on one level there

01:10:03.480 certainly needs to be some proper journalism done here it's exactly long-form journalism that just exposes

01:10:10.920 all of these people and all of the networks and all of the funding exactly i mean sam this is very

01:10:17.640 very simple thing there is no need for me and you to educate anyone there should be an investigative

01:10:24.440 reports about the family members the relatives and the members of irgc living here at the united

01:10:33.560 state of america taking the platforms going to universities educating the youth here in america

01:10:40.840 about the peace of islam and islamic ideology they should be you know there is an investigative

01:10:47.480 report about the relative of putin what is different khamini is the biggest ally of putin

01:10:54.520 khamini is the one providing drones for putin to kill innocent ukrainians the wagner group is in the

01:11:00.840 terrorist list revolutionary guards is in the terrorist list but what is different between the relative of

01:11:05.320 the wagner group and the members of revolutionary guards that's that's very dangerous believe me i'm

01:11:13.720 going to warn you that if you don't join us the women of iran to end this regime and trying to be

01:11:22.120 politically correct here in america you will face more of the terrorists here on u.s soil targeting the

01:11:29.960 u.s citizens and you actually mentioned about the kidnapping plot of me that happened three years

01:11:35.880 ago so what happened when the fba stopped the kidnapping plot then year after they sent killers

01:11:41.720 they hired killers and they send it in front of my house why lack of action yeah they got back

01:11:49.000 this time with killers i don't know what's gonna happen for me in the third attempt i don't want

01:11:54.040 president biden to do anything after i get killed by the islamic republic agents here i want them to

01:12:02.120 take actions before so if people wanted to support something some organization some effort what is

01:12:09.560 there to support that might influence this in some auspicious way there are a lot of different

01:12:15.320 organizations actually documenting about the crime against humanity that the islamic republic has been

01:12:22.040 committed for 40 years i actually want to specifically mention about a new campaign which we the people

01:12:29.320 of iran the women of iran alongside the women of afghanistan launched called united against gender

01:12:34.520 apartheid and i don't think this is difficult the islamic republic is a gender apartheid regime

01:12:40.680 all of those who supported banning africa during apartheid they have to join us to criminalize

01:12:47.400 gender apartheid and it's not difficult members of the states here at the united nations unfortunately

01:12:53.400 i don't have any hope united nations became a place to unite dictators but still we're calling on

01:13:00.280 different you know countries to join us to expand the definition of apartheid in all existent laws to

01:13:06.200 to include apartheid as well that will make our work a little bit easier to kick these barbaric

01:13:13.400 regimes and take them to international court to icc but you have the islamic regime lobbyists not only

01:13:20.200 in the un but you know in each one of our different governments right whether it's america uk canada

01:13:25.720 etc and they are pushing back against you and they have a lot of money they have a lot of political clout

01:13:32.520 yeah they you know so you know you are grassroots activists up against basically regime proxies all

01:13:41.640 over the west you know i was actually under attack by the same lobbyist saying that massey is being

01:13:49.800 paid by the u.s government i was like wow as a journalist my salary is like the same salaries the teachers

01:13:57.240 here in america receive you even blaming the victims my dream is to be a journalist in my own

01:14:04.440 homeland iran you should blame put the blame on them kicking me out from my country and elhan omar which

01:14:12.280 i want to again name her she shared the article saying that massey al-inejad is being paid by the

01:14:18.360 rios government i was like voice of america is a respectable platform and i worked with for them when

01:14:25.800 president obama was in power when president trump was in power and now when president biden is in

01:14:32.600 power it means that i'm using the platform to echo the voice of voiceless people why are you bullying

01:14:37.800 me i am not the enemy why you are fighting with me instead of fighting against the islamic republic

01:14:45.080 so yeah the lobby is trying to use the social media spread misinformation fake news against us when

01:14:52.360 you go to my social media you will see i'm on their attack every single day they send letters to

01:14:58.200 different organizations to cancel us so for us it's not easy to fight against them that's why i always say

01:15:06.680 that we should be united the way that islamic republic and their proxies and their lobbyists are united

01:15:12.200 against us we launched a campaign you remember about not we've been canceled like nadia morad the

01:15:19.240 the noble peace price yazidi woman was trying to go to canada to give a talk and they canceled her

01:15:24.200 talk why because yeah they the day when i was very happy because the guy got arrested with ak-47 in

01:15:32.680 front of my house some of the organizations immediately they canceled me for the name for

01:15:37.960 the safety of their own attendees their own employees i was like wow you interview ibrahim reisi but you

01:15:45.080 cancel me because i'm being the target of the killers you're raising the uh yazidi case is

01:15:52.840 kind of painfully ironic here because i just noticed that amal cluny the famous humanitarian

01:15:59.720 lawyer wife of george cluny who uh represented that i forgot the the the yazidi woman's name

01:16:05.000 who's nadia morad yeah morad yeah nadia and obviously that was quite heroic but she is

01:16:11.080 now the um one of the quarterbacks at the international criminal court of justice to

01:16:17.720 issue arrest warrants for um sinwar and netanyahu as though these were equivalent

01:16:25.640 so can i use the opportunity to call on her to join the women of iran i really want amal cluny to join

01:16:31.400 the women of iran to help us to take the islamic republic the gender apartheid regime who

01:16:37.640 actually rape women in prison who actually kill women for simply walking unveiled who blinded

01:16:44.920 women gas the school girls so she can help us to take the islamic republic to criminal international

01:16:52.200 criminal court i mean this is this is not me asking her this is nargis muhammadi the noble

01:16:58.520 peace prize winner within prison alongside more than 60 women in prison calling her and calling the

01:17:06.280 the western activists to help us to take the gender apartheid regime in iran to international

01:17:12.760 criminal court is that too much to ask well i think this phrase gender apartheid is quite

01:17:18.920 useful it's a very clever weaponization of the term and it's i hope it's effective because i mean obviously

01:17:27.480 no no it's not because i'm being bombarded now by some of the west who actually attacked our

01:17:32.840 uh anti-compulsory veiling campaign now saying that apartheid carries historical pain and it comes

01:17:40.920 with a baggage and don't use it no no but it is it's a term like slavery everyone knows they're against

01:17:47.000 it yeah you'd think and it's it's accurate it's not a misappropriation of the concept it's it's not

01:17:52.440 a distortion of the concept it's quite accurate but i i know i i'm not i'm not arguing that you

01:17:57.960 should be at all um embarrassed by using it this way i think it's very effective and and this whole

01:18:03.320 space is suffering from a a lack of of effective messaging i mean what's happened since october 7th

01:18:10.360 is just you know among other things you know one of the epiphanies is that it's just the messaging

01:18:16.840 matters and israel and its allies have been just fatally ineffective in messaging the moral

01:18:26.360 you know rightness of their uh war with hamas right i mean it's just the idea that a majority

01:18:33.720 of young people can't figure out who the bad guys were on october 7th it's just you know it attests to

01:18:40.280 many things but it attests to an absolute failure of effective messaging so i think it's you know i think

01:18:45.720 this is a very good way of framing it so mossy i want to support your work i know listeners will

01:18:52.200 want to support your work where can we do that what's the website they can go to my stealthy

01:18:57.800 freedom a website and um this is the website of my campaign against compulsory veiling but we actually

01:19:05.000 created a new initiative which is called united against gender apartheid so trying to gather the

01:19:11.640 testimonies from women who experienced torture rape and actually experienced the gender apartheid

01:19:18.920 regime in iran and afghanistan to get the islamic republic you know an international criminal court

01:19:25.720 so i'm looking at both websites now so it looks like the united against gender apartheid.org is a new

01:19:33.160 website and does not yet have a donate button but my stealthy freedom.org does so that looks like the

01:19:39.320 place to support you immediately well i hope people will support those organizations i will certainly do that

01:19:47.560 and i'm going to try to um engineer some proper journalism on this topic so um if you're a writer

01:19:55.800 out there who listening who's listening to this podcast uh if you have strong opinions about who

01:20:01.320 should do this journalism i will um i'll reach out to my contacts uh to get some fresh opinions on

01:20:07.240 that topic but i will be happy to fund this and um i will pay better than the atlantic and uh it would be

01:20:14.120 good to um just get this done because it's quite crazy that we're we're here and again we're we've

01:20:21.400 we seem to have built a machine uh for uh inducing hallucinations in in the next generation and it's um

01:20:28.680 it's not going to end well if we keep it up masi yasmin thank you so much for your time thank you

01:20:34.600 i hope one day i'm going to invite you to my beautiful country iran wouldn't that be nice yeah i would love

01:20:40.360 that thank you so much masi together we are stronger thank you i'm so happy i enjoyed the

01:20:46.360 conversation and thanks to yasmin for co-hosting this episode my pleasure sam always

01:21:02.360 you

Making Sense - Sam Harris - June 06, 2024

#370 — Gender Apartheid and the Future of Iran

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