I am not an economist. I am not a political analyst. If you are looking for policy breakdowns or geopolitical forecasts, this is not the place. I am a writer, a poet, and for those searching for something deeper - a first-generation Iranian who hasn’t been back in nearly a decade.

There is little I trust in politics. Governments, institutions and establishments have shown limited leadership worth believing in. Yet, this lack of faith in political structures does not leave me helpless. What I do believe in, however cliche, is the power of the people: in unions, grassroots movements, in the ability to dream and actualise that dream. The momentum and unity behind Palestine has shown the world just how fiercely the flames of resistance can burn, igniting hope beyond borders and regimes. Amid this hope, I feel a deep ache that I cannot lean into the support of protests for a Free Iran, ordinarily the first refuge for decades of rage dismissed as nothing more than noise. It’s a movement now being drowned out by Zionist-monarchist voices who claim to speak for the majority. But my community is not found in the sea of lions and blue stars. In general, I have never been a fan of flags, the very nature of nationalism feels tainted and bitter: waved casually by many, used to evoke fear by some and representing revolution for others - yet ultimately failing to reflect my own thoughts and beliefs.

What are my own thoughts and beliefs? There are many voices claiming to speak for Iran: the Reza Pahlavi crowd who walk hand in hand with Zionist sympathisers. The IRGC apologists dressed in their various outfits. Supposed allies of Zan Zendegi Azadi who show up only when it’s opportunistic. These groups are loud and polarising, but they are not mine. Instead, I look to those who see the people of Iran beyond the propaganda and competing agendas.

My stance has always been clearest to me when my feed glitches. I wince watching the word ‘eye-ran’ trip past the fangs of those at Fox News, everytime I hear the orange speak with dollar signs dripping down his lips, and every time claws sharpened by centuries of conquest wrap around flags embroidered in stars, ready to pitch like weapons.

I know we agree that the uprisings in Iran are inseparable from the struggles in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Congo and a list longer than I can see. Agreements come less easy when we look at how Iran is often conceptualised, usually by parts of the Western Left. Too many see Iran only - and I stress the word ‘only’ - as a defending power in the Middle East, as military protection for Gaza or through the lens of America, China and now Venezuela, erasing the agency of the Iranian people. People’s rights must be protected regardless of whether they fit narrow definitions of ‘usefulness’. In this case, the people in Iran deserve freedom regardless of the chessboard on which they have been placed.

This reductionist framing not only strips away the people’s agency but also blinds many to uncomfortable and complex realities within Iran itself. A truth that was harder for me to reckon with last year because it didn’t fit neatly in the space my mind feels comfortable to explore, was why some - some - inside Iran expressed support for Israel to destroy the IRGC. Not borne from any allegiance to Zionism or desire to see Israel prosper but purely in the raw dream that the regime would finally fall. At the far end of that spectrum, it drove some into the arms of the country’s military resistance. Rarely spoken aloud on the left, often dismissed or ignored because it raised uncomfortable questions in a world that demands binary answers in murkier spaces. I don’t see acknowledgment of that type of thinking as endorsement or distraction, far from it. Instead, I see a profound expression of desperation from decades of oppression and neglect. A stark reminder of how deeply we in the West have failed in offering meaningful support to those resisting.

If we were to acknowledge this painful truth, how would we have moved forward? How do we keep imperial powers at bay? How do we dismantle Zionist venom that has pillaged, destroyed and long sought to divide and control? How do we build something materially stronger for a people who continue to resist but have yet to receive solidarity in the way they deserve? I don’t have the answers. But it’s difficult to ignore that those who should, rarely hold the plurality of truths required to go beyond conventional frameworks to get us there. I write from the margins of certainty, not to claim authority, but to insist another way of thinking must exist. I know it must.

Dissent and empire

The rights of the Iranian people cannot be reduced to strategic value or political narratives, they are deserving of justice and liberation on their own terms. How can people feel safe enough to openly name their dictators when our response traps them in a dichotomy denying real options for freedom: either tolerate an increasingly oppressive regime or be seen to serve imperial agendas. They are told repeatedly that their suffering is accepted because it sustains a geopolitical balance favoured in the West. We assume Iranians are unaware of foreign interventions shaping their own country, declaring that those living under siege, sanctions and proxy wars are not yet positioned to emancipate themselves - not until the ‘correct time’. But I am compelled to ask: When is that time? After bombs fall? After a lifetime of sanctions? When a nation teeters on the brink of economic collapse? After false imprisonments and hangings? Because each of these moments have come and gone. Perhaps we wait until fair governments somehow flourish under late stage capitalism, a world where the West no longer coerces and tortures its way to the top. I don’t hold my breath. Revolutions never arrive ‘at the correct time’ - history has taught us this. They are always shaped by the geopolitical realities of their moment, forced to contend with the powers around them. They are struggles against tyranny, be it foreign or rooted within.

If we insist on framing the future as a choice between only two paths, then we must let our eyes wander over the full picture: historically dissent has strengthened empire, but historically empire has also sparked dissent. In this reasoning, these paths cannot be undone. It seems the recurring fault runs beneath the very ground we stand upon. Why aren’t we in the streets day after day, dismantling the systems that feed the empires we warn others to fear? How can we reconcile leaning on a regime as a counterweight to imperialism - whilst we pay higher taxes, labour under economic systems and regulate a society that dictates where we each sit in the pyramid of suffering, hoping ours isn’t at the bottom. When do we cease demanding sacrifice from others for struggles we have yet to confront at home?

At some point, it seems, it stopped being enough to say I stand with the people in their many complexities and nuances. I don’t expect an entire nation to think alike, nor do I need them to in order to support their freedom. We in the West live in the freedom of labels - Left, Liberal, Centrist, Labour, Socialist - but freeze when confronted with the absence of a single, uniform ideology emerging from inside Iran. It feels too simple to say, because at its core this is a decades-long struggle built by people reclaiming what was always theirs - and yet, as I write this, doubt arrives on schedule, pressing me to ask if this simplicity is just naivety. Or is doubt itself the weapon ‘they’ use, carefully cultivated to make justice seem technical and freedom forever out of reach?

The Shape of Hope

I watch AI videos that have seamlessly altered chants, searching between the bots and shadow bans for proof of its unwritten control. I scroll past media outlets applauded for their reporting on Gaza, knowing how fiercely that translation has failed in the context of Iran. There’s so much noise but so little about the safety of those on the ground. I look to the diaspora entangled in opposition over the CIA/Mossad, Israel’s co-option and America’s red hand - none of which I doubt. If the purpose was to exhaust, it has indeed exhausted.

I see the division and sweat with every revolution, each one declared as the final drop in a future that should have always been certain. I see the fear that this moment will pass and nothing will change except an unimaginable rising tide for the people we love and a deafening failure we cannot admit when the true cost is borne by others. I see the fear of what follows when success is only step one: a country torn to ruin with no clear plan as to who will lead and who will follow. Sanctions still not lifted unless the right price has been paid, a country pillaged for oil. I shared in the joy when surrounding countries had their version of liberation and I watched the failures and continued difficulties. Which suffering is worse is not for me to judge.

Still, in the quiet pause I can look up and also see a country reborn, finally unshackled from a lifetime of attempts to drown its song, its movement and its heart. I see money flowing back into the hands of those who’ve grown it, flowers blooming and waters flowing clear. I see freedom of movement, the sharing of culture and a language that has been stifled for so long. I see loved ones reunited and new ones held close. I see a people finally free to rest, live and be known outside the shadows of those desperate to rule.

Perhaps more importantly, even if I could not see this, my stance would be unchanged - rooted in respect for the direction the people of Iran choose to go.

So let me say what you’ve probably heard before, simply and plainly:

Hands off Iran. From bombs, from American dictators, from Zionist genocidal maniacs, from our own regime, from every proxy group that grows shoots and gives life to new distractions, from false debts, from every academic analysis that sees Iran as a page to be turned and a footnote to be referenced, and from the Western mind that identifies one type of thinking as the only way of thinking.

I am not an economist. I am not a political analyst. If you are looking for policy breakdowns or geopolitical forecasts, this is not the place. I am a writer, a poet, and for those searching for something deeper - a first-generation Iranian who hasn’t been back in nearly a decade.

Dissent and empire

The Shape of Hope

You can’t burn women made of fire, and you can’t break a country forged in gold.