Hi Consumers,
Thank you for the outpouring of love, support, and solidarity you shared after last week’s newsletter. While my Substack is typically focused on joy, it tends to be the more solemn, vulnerable pieces that reach the most people. I’m grateful for all of you here. Much of this week has been spent waiting to see if my phone calls to Iran have a dial tone, waiting on a voice note from my Aunt in Tehran, waking up in the middle of the night and turning to the news to see what’s happened, feeling restless, waiting for an end to this senseless violence… lots of waiting with no clarity, or end in sight.
I feel disillusioned to see many people, even in my own community, think bombs and destruction can lead to liberation. I feel aghast at some collective amnesia around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as if those weren’t in our recent lifetimes and as if there aren’t many takeaways are relevant in this moment. I feel conflicted by my own desire to portray the beauty of Iran and the humanity of our people, and feeling like I’m auditioning for everyone’s empathy and compassion in the process. We shouldn’t have to be gracious or hospitable for people to care about us… but, decades of being vilified in the media and culture have primed us for this practice.
Today, I’m sharing just a few things on my mind as I navigate an unprecedented time:
This essay, and this Māori proverb, are sticking with me through all this:
He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.
This photo carousel of Isfahan (originally Iran’s capital!) left me breathless. There’s a figure of speech in Farsi: “Isfahan, nisf-e jahan,” which means if you’ve seen Isfahan, you’ve seen half of the world. There is so much history, architecture, and sheer beauty in this one Iranian city it’s as if you’ve covered much of the globe.
Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite authors (if you haven’t read Martyr, please do so we can discuss it) and his recent writing on Iran has been a salve. Here’s one of many resonant paragraphs in his latest for The Nation:
is a phenomenal Palestinian-American writer who coined the term ‘audition for your empathy’ linked out in the NYT Article above. She posted this yesterday and in 17 words succinctly described what’s been lingering in my mind.In these harrowing days of calculated overwhelm, our job is to resist consent manufacturing and calls to craven acquiescence. To think critically about language, hold media coverage accountable. To protest. To ask our families, our colleagues, our Republican neighbors to oppose further US involvement. The past is whatever we cannot change. This isn’t that. There is still time to move us away from a future that insists upon annihilating humanity to accommodate the annihilation of humans.
This carousel of photos come from homes across Tehran — their inhabitants getting one last photo before they evacuate, before they even know what they may or may not be coming back to.
A better world is possible.
Roya
My heart breaks for the Iranian people. They don’t deserve this violent attack on their sovereignty by the US. Many Americans oppose these stupid and senseless actions ordered by our nation’s extremely unpopular president.
the photos of homes prior to evacuation are so specifically devastating.
sending love, roya.