@amin

Check in on your Iranian friends. My leadership ethos is to listen more than we speak and hold multiple nuances for our people. Ergo, I try to limit political talk on Farcaster. But given this is where my mind and state are currently at - I have a duty to speak up. My only request is that you ask, learn and listen as an ally. The conflict in Iran is complex. My closest attempt at a summary: The Iranian people have been bravely rising against their government - a theocracy they never voted for - since 1979. One that's deprived its people of sovereignty, basic human rights and our gorgeous, ancient culture. I won't speak for everyone in the diaspora, but my entire life has been at a junction of deeply complex feelings: - grief for a country we couldn't build lives in - shame for loving our ethnicity while our nationality calls it the axis of evil - cowardice for not being able to fight alongside our people - guilt for being safe while they put their lives on the line - a rollercoaster of anxiety when the internet is shut down - injustice knowing everything stems back to oil and money I could spend this post talking about Iran’s rich history, diagnose how foreign intervention got us here or recap every uprising from 1979 onward. But as we're in the thick of it, now's not the time to retro - it's time to act. So my ask to all non-Iranians is simple: ask, learn, listen. 1. Question news from both social and mainstream media With yet another internet shutdown limiting the release of vital information from the ground, media reports are rife with misinformation, opportunism and bias. Look for verified videos, reports etc. coming from Iranians on the frontlines. 2. Get comfortable with nuance, because this is complicated Supporting the Iranian people doesn't mean you're betraying other causes. This movement is NOT anti-religion - it's anti-dictatorial theocracy that hurts its own people. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. 3. Talk to your Iranian friends Iran helped invent the first charter of human rights, folks! Yet there's an incredibly slippery slope between what's happening in Iran now and what could happen to the rest of the world. We are screaming into an echo chamber with our own - please stand alongside us and join the conversation. Ask, learn, listen. Hold an open and safe space. Check in on your Iranian friends. * Pictured below - a photo my family took of Freedom Tower (Borje Azadi) in Tehran, 2014. Dreaming of the day I finally visit + forever reconciling with the knowledge I can't be on the frontlines with my brave brothers and sisters.

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