Karaj

It rarely engaged ethnically minoritized, nationally minoritized regions like Azerbaijan, Balochistan, and Kurdistan at that time.

Then later, in 2017, 2019... uh, '18 protests, the geography of the movements, um, changed from the center towards economically marginalized cities and populations, so mostly at the margins of Tehran, in Karaj, in margins of the big cities, where the inflation was really highly felt by people.

Uh, mostly the youth rebelled against the inflation and the disappearance of a possible future for them.

What, uh, made this uprising different was that the gender issue and the ethnic national nature of the protests in Kurdistan made it more popular in the sense that it was women all over the country who were involved, and the question of national rights, political rights of national and ethnic minorities, uh, not only individual rights, but also collective rights, became the center of the tension that was posed to the, um, to the ruling elite in Tehran.

When it comes to nostalgic memories, I grew up in Sudan.

And I remember there was an apricot tree in my grandmother's house or villa, I should say, in Karaj.

And so it was this beautiful villa.

And I remember these two massive brown gates, a long driveway.