BBC Persian

On the street it happens at rallies, at counter protests, at sporting events like what we witnessed in the World Cup time and even outside courthouses even.

On the phone it happens on Telegram, Instagram and X and it gets amplified by the Persian language satellite TVs like BBC Persian and Iran International but Before I explain how words become basically violence, I want to talk about the emotion and the underneath of that, which I call the political depression, which I mentioned earlier.

By that, I don't mean it's not obviously a medical diagnosis.

I mean assured exhaustion that builds upon years after years of hope followed by disappointment over and over.

In Europe, some monarchist groups have moved close to far-right even.

In Sweden, for example, 11 out of the 12 politicians who signed a motion supporting Pallavi came from a far-right party.

So how does this spread across the border? Through the same slogans and symbols, the same satellite TV channels that they operate in Persian, Iran International and BBC Persian are the main advocators of this, and the same online influencers, the power of social media right now followers in many countries and the rallies that they hold in the same date across the world where we we talked about the the golden three cities that they were describing like la munich and toronto but here i guess i want to push back generally on the word like organized uh Our paper with Dr.

Rattel warns against assuming that there is a central command giving order.

And Iran has been, um, m- menacing of the UK for quite some time.

Uh, we have a coup- there are a couple of, um, exiled Iranian news organizations based in London, and we often have BBC Persian.

We also have BBC Persian based here, and it, a lot of their journalists are in touch with the security services because there are regular threats to their lives.

Yeah.

Um, back to Ukraine, we saw Chancellor Merz, a German chancellor, arrive into the Ukrainian capital, and at that moment, um, when the Russians surely knew he was arriving by, by train, um, they had a significant, uh, drone attack, um, you know, hit one of the major bridges.

According to UN figures, the fighting has displaced more than 180,000 people in a country that is already in the grip of a humanitarian crisis.

Shortly before we recorded this podcast, I got this update on the latest clashes from Kashya Jonaedi of BBC Persian.

It's a very big development when we consider the role the Houthis played in putting pressure on international oil markets in support of the war in Iran.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces say that they have managed to drive back Houthis from some of the strategically important territories that they had recently captured around, uh, the strategic waterway Bab el-Mandab, including Mocha.

And then we did this big global program where we recruited, including the pilot, 1,000 people in 100 countries to train.

And the countries most represented were Malaysia, New Zealand, UK, and Iran, 'cause a mate of mine runs the BBC Persian service and was able to recruit lots of people via Telegram.

And what we found, because I thought, "I'm not doing this scale without getting academics involved and setting up a control group," that people who practiced deep listening not only felt more connected and more understood, but they also started to re-examine their own attitudes, even as they discussed topics which they fiercely disagreed about, social class, social media, reparations for the descendants of slaves.

You know, they chose the topics around which they disagreed the most to have these conversations.

And it circulated widely on Telegram as well.

And it was also broadcast on BBC Persian television.

So people did, I mean, people also could watch it on satellite TV, you know, they didn't necessarily need a VPN to watch it.

And many of the songs that I write about in the article appear again in the documentary.

And all of them obfuscated the very main problem of imperialism here.

I remember in 2015, when for the first time in BBC Persian service, which I used to be invited a lot, as a talking anti-imperialist guest, my position wasn't that different from now.

But I mentioned Khamenei, and I said, Khamenei is a great architect of Iran's national security, whether we like him or not, whether he's a great leader or he's a dictator, but he has a vision and he has The amount of enmity which imposed on me was incredible.

Overnight, I became the most hated figure within Iranian diaspora and Iranian political community.

BBC Persian Service had to broadcast a special segment three days later saying that why we invited this man and why we haven't given airtime to people like him before.

They called me a pro-regime people.

And it's amazing because I used to go and I knew most of the anchors and correspondents personally, and they knew where I'm coming from.

Thank you, Ali.

And of course it's important because this coincides with collapse of Soviet Union, with coming of United States to the region and attacking Iraq.

occupying part of the Persian Gulf, setting up military bases here.

And so it makes sense because the world has changed and they want to make detente with the West.

This is led by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

to man your own borders, right? But it costs no money to have good relations with people beyond your borders so that no enemy can strike within those extended borders.

And that is the concept of strategic depth, to have relations, to forge relations and provide even material support, planning support, infrastructure support for communities in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iraq, You know, wherever you could.

Some people say, oh, they're, you know, it's Shia expansionism or Persian expansionism.

But no, that is the concept of strategic depth, is building, you know, very concrete relationships beyond your borders so that your enemy can never come to your border.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the three-hour meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York had been productive.

Kayasha Jornady of BBC Persian says Iranian state TV is reporting that the meeting took place on the insistence of the US.

And the Iranian foreign minister in the meeting has stressed that Iran's naval blockade should have been lifted and Iran's blocked assets abroad have to be released.

What's important here is that both sides have managed to find an opportunity to talk directly together.