Reza Aslan: observation

Transcript context

…Are you optimistic about modern-day Iran? I’m optimistic about the current — I would only call it a revolution — that’s happening right now. You can’t really call it an uprising anymore or demonstrations anymore. What we’re seeing right now is a revolution, and I’m optimistic for a couple of reasons. One, because of who is leading it, because it’s women-led and it’s youth-led and it’s Gen Z. And this is a generation that, unlike the millennial generation in Iran, has no tolerance for the usual answers — “Go back home. You can wear jeans. Everything will be fine” — which is what the regime would say every time the youth rose up. This generation has had it. What I think is remarkable is the way in which these protests have managed to bring in all these other sectors of Iranian society. You’re seeing old people and young people, conservatives and progressives. You’re seeing women dressed head to toe in chador, the traditional, conservative Islamic dress, chanting slogans against the government, standing next to young women in jeans and t-shirts and who are unveiled. Now we’re seeing strikes being called. The oil industry is going under strike. The bazaar merchants are going under strike. This morning we saw protests break out in the city of Qom, which is the Vatican of Iran, the religious city of Iran. There were thousands of people on the streets, calling for an end to the regime. I don’t think we’ve seen anything quite like this since the revolution that I fled, and where it’ll go, it’s hard to say. But it’s hard to imagine that this isn’t going to lead to some profound and perhaps fundamental change in Iran. But most popular revolutions, on their own, fail. You need a subsegment of the elite to truly flip and take over and perform the final step. Do you see that in the cards for Iran?…

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