Soft Power Changes Iran Faster Than Bombs

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The Feudal Future.
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Feudal Future Podcast.
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I'm Marshall Taplansky.
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I'm Joel Cod.
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And today we're going to be talking about an interesting topic for us.
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We, as you know, we just finished a study, which is the second in our series of groups that have made an exceptional contribution to American society, American culture, the American economy, and it was all about Iranian Americans.
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And today we're going to be talking to Dr.
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Nargis Rakin, who is the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Cerritos College here in Southern California, and a member of the Iranian American community.
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We're going to talk about her experiences, her life as a transplanted Iranian into American society and get her take on it.
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Nargis, thank you so much for joining us.
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It's my pleasure.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Joel, you want to kick us off?
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One of the things as you know, we obviously uh have a lot of contact with with uh Iranian Americans is trying to understand what it's like to be a resident in a country that's at war with your home country.
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And how do people process that?
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Um I mean, you you must see it with students as well.
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Absolutely.
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Um there's a lot of mixed emotions, um, and especially for I think the first generation Iranian.
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So I was born in Iran and came here as a child.
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So I am an Iranian American and I love my country and I love my culture, and I also love America.
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I I majored in history and political science, and I teach history and political science in America to Americans.
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And so I am deeply invested um in both nations and I identify as both.
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And I my Iranian family will tell you that I have a deep accent when I speak Farsi.
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And of course, here in America, they'll say, Well, I hear a little accent.
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And I say, Well, that's my Bronx accent.
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It's from the Bronx, actually from someplace else.
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But and I didn't live in the Bronx, it's just what I say.
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Um, but you know, nobody knows what's going to happen in warfare.
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That's why it's chaotic, that's why it is what it is.
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Of course, everyone has an opinion of whether or not we should be there, we should not be there.
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It's just a lot of mixed emotions.
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And I am really happy to hear a ceasefire is ongoing.
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I'm happy to hear that they're gonna come to some resolution.
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I continually and personally fall back on the United States, it has 250 years of history.
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They have had wars that were unjust and wars that were just, and Congress makes the laws around limiting the executive power in spaces of war because as the commander-in-chief of an arsenal so large, you do need some sort of checks and balances.
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So I sort of find hope in that structure and that the cooler minds will prevail, and that the law of the land, because this is a land of laws, will prevail.
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That's well, let's hope.
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So I hope.
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Let's hope.
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Do you just out of curiosity, um, at Cerritos College, do you have a lot of Iranian American students?
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We have we have a small number.
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So we don't actually, as you know, the census and the data collection doesn't really collect on that information.
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And in large part, Iranians are grouped together with Arabs and other Middle Easterners and sort of patched together.
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Um, so they don't really uh control for that in their in their data collection.
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But I do hear Farsi being spoken on campus.
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Um, I have several faculty who are who are Iranian, Armenian Iranian, but nevertheless still Iranian.
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They call themselves Iranians.
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And uh and they have all sorts of Americanized names, so it's very difficult.
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So when I first meet them with their American name and they start speaking Farsi, I'm really sort of stunned because my name is very Iranian, and so people will know that either I speak Arabic or I speak Farsi.
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For sure, one of one of those two.
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Um, but there is a there is a you know enough of us around.
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Um, I since arriving here um have sort of made it a project to ensure that we recognize you know holidays.
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So e de nouruz, I send out sort of a mass email to my faculty wishing all of you a happy Persian New Year.
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If you're not Persian, it's okay.
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Here's some restaurants where you can go and celebrate, celebrate the new year.
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I also do send out A de Fitz and Ramadan uh observances.
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I also send out Rosh Hashanah and and I also send out uh Passover.
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So I'm trying to sort of be inclusive.
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Uh be ecumenical about it.
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Yeah, well, you know, of course, and for those of you who don't know, Southern California is the largest, has the largest population of Iranian Americans in the United States.
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About half of the uh people who call Iran, originally hail from Iran, settled in the Los Angeles area.
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And so you're you're not alone.
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But the the reason I'm asking the question is I'm wondering whether there is a what's the mood?
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Is there a sense of anxiety?
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Is it a topic that comes up?
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Is it something that you have to go out of your way to be able to uh help students get past uh you know, get past anxiety?
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Right.
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No, so it is you living you're living in this two worlds.
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So it is a diaspora where you're living in the two worlds, one in the US and one here with your family.
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And it is difficult to accept that sort of double life that you have to lead.
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I know that growing up, I definitely was an American the minute I stepped outside my doors, but the minute I stepped back in, oh yeah, the the hair, the makeup, the clothing, everything changed, and I had to click right back in to that gender norm that was expected of me, the cultural norm that was expected of me.
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Um, it's interesting that I have my own household, my own children, but we keep kosher halal.
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So we we we maintain all of those traditions, and of course, the Iranian traditions.
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My children love it because they get presents multiple times of year, not just at Christmas time.
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Um, and I married someone who wasn't raised Christian, um, but is an American from Georgia, and so there's deep, of course, traditions in the South.
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And it's very interesting, I want to tell you, that the city of Atlanta in the area of Roswell has a very large Iranian community, and you can actually drive down Roswell Avenue, and there are Iranian shops and with Iranian signs similar to Irvine.
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So um it we are a group that is affluent and educated and present and incredibly friendly.
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That is just our cultural norm.
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And so we are going into different areas and still maintaining our cultural heritage.
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So that's very important to me.
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Has that been a challenge?
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And I mean, one of the issues we're going to be looking at is how do you preserve the culture into uh next generation, particularly when the culture is, you know, not it's not a large number of people, and it's very different than the what passes for the mainstream culture in this country.
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It is it is very difficult because um this past year I my my mother passed away, and then a few years before that, my father, and so they were the they were the foundation of the culture, right?
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So when I wasn't sure, I would call my mother, definitely in the area of cooking something.
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How do I make this dish, Mom?
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I forgot something, you know, and she would she would remind me, or even the connection to Iran, to the family in Iran, has been through my through my parents.
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And so um, as the generations get older and we lose sort of that base, we have to, the new generation, right, have to maintain that cultural heritage.
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And maintaining it is very, very difficult because we don't have the Persian schools, we don't have a mosque or a masjid to go to.
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The kinship that's necessary that we saw the Jews do it, right?
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The Germans, the Italians, the Greeks, the Irish, right?
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They had these centers where they would go to and they would have that connectivity.
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We don't have that.
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It's fully established.
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Numbers were much bigger.
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Yeah, either way.
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Yeah, I would think that but that that's actually an interesting question.
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Of course, food, let's let's face it, food is the glue here, right?
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Food is the cultural glue.
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Um and the prevalence of availability of Iran of Persian food is pretty big where we are.
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Right.
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I'm glad to hear that if you're living in Atlanta, you know, that'll you got a place to go.
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But um the the we talk a lot about kind of the uh edginess, uh incivility of that it seems to be growing in America around identity politics and things like are you feeling kind of a backlash?
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Do you how do you how did the how does the community feel in terms of their nervousness of how they're being perceived by non non-uh uh Persians?
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So what I have seen here just in my role.
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So I'm in the humanities and social sciences, right?
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So this this division is filled with PhDs who come from the social sciences aspect, and of course, they're very connected and clicked into current events.
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And so they can't help it, right?
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They're the war is going on, it's on the news.
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So I'm the token.
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I'm the person they come to talk to about this, which is fine.
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And I well, and I welcome that discourse.
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But what I find very interesting is that people are torn, you know, between relief that a long repressive regime may be weakened, that perhaps the Western sort of notions of thought and process could sort of infiltrate a little bit.
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And then there's the deep concern for families, the safety of their families, and the Iranian people who are caught in the middle of all of this, you know, and it's just a lot of unknowns.
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War brings unknown.
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And so we don't know what's going to happen.
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And and war is never good.
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It's never a good solution.
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That's this is peace, is what we need to look.
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Dialogue, discourse, um, negotiation, mediation.
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That's what we need.
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However, but this is where we are right now.
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And I again fall back on the hope that Americans are incredibly smart, sophisticated people.
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They know where Iran is.
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There are Iranians in their communities.
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Everybody knows what a kebab is.
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It doesn't matter what you where you come from.
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Um, you definitely know what that is.
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And that sort of brings that calms the nerves and calms the notions that you know there's an enemy among us, because that's not at all the case.
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Um, and I think that for people who are caught in the middle of it, it's very, very difficult.
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In my own life, I find that food brings the people together, as you said.
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And I want to say something very interesting.
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Uh, two weeks ago, I went to a restaurant in Orange County that serves Persian food in the style of tacos.
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You know, well, this is uh this is a fusion, a new a new fusion opportunity.
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A fusion of tacos, which, if you know the history of tacos and how tacos came about, it really does come from the Middle Eastern culture of taking a piece of bread and putting some grain, some meat, and then folding it in half.
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This is a normal thing that happens in the Middle East, and it came by way of the conquistadors into Latin America.
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Because they had lived under Arab influence for the case.
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That's right.
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But we need to move people from kebabs to something to something to Fassanjan or to uh some other more sophisticated uh piece of uh Persian culture.
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But what one thing I I I've heard and and uh you know is there's a fear that out of this um situation that what will happen is maybe we'll get what we want on maybe we'll get what we want in terms of the uh uh the the nuclear material.
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But that the regime will stay there, and that you know, we were talking earlier that you know Trump is the face of Trump's biggest priority is money and it's not uh uh human rights.
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Um is there a sense that you know when when when the president said help is on the way?
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Well, help is on the way, but it it may not replace the regime.
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Is there is there a sense of a kind of betrayal that may be happening?
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So I think that those are two separate questions.
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So the first question has to do with the geopolitical aspect of Iran and the fact of the oil reserves that are there, and then the the Strait of Hormuz and all the ships that come and go through, and and it is through it you know in front of their territory.
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That's one question.
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Regime change is a whole different aspect.
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I think that there is a fantasy that what happened in 1979 can be reversed, but what happened in 1979 was really actually related to what happened to um uh in the 1950s, right?
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With with the the the original revolution that happened, which the CIA was involved.
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So that is part of the problem of the amnesia of history.
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This when the there was a prime minister who the uh US and and the UK thought was going too far to the left, and they brought back the the um the Pahlavi uh dynasty.
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Yeah, well, and I I think another alternative way of looking at it, which I personally subscribe to, is that we're this is economics at work for the past 100 years, right?
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That the minute Iran became an oil power, suddenly there was a tremendous interest in the in the West and being able to make sure that there was some degree of control over that, especially the Brits.
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Right.
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And so that was what create that's what put the Shah in power to begin with.
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The corruption of the Pahlavib uh dynasty or regime, however you want to call it, was something that was very distasteful to most uh Iranians, and that's what uh uh originally there was a very strong leftist movement within within uh Iran that created this revolution, and ultimately there was a alliance between the religious right and the and the radical left that overthrew the government and then ultimately overthrew the leftists.
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So that's the history.
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But it it's best viewed, I think, through an economic lens.
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And what you've got today is a very strong economic system that exists within Iran where the regime basically controls uh a tremendous part of the economy.
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And the difficult part uh of undoing that is that uh how do you actually do that?
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There's so many people that actually owe their livelihood to the regime that it's difficult to create a grassroots revolution against that.
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Although the though the regime is uh uh fairly unpopular, uh uh wouldn't you say?
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But I don't know, is that true?
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So it's unpopular to the oppressed, it's not unpopular to those who are economically connected to the regime.
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So you have to look at, and the problem is we get you know snapshot images of mullahs and of the majlis, and we see like people marching in the streets.
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That is not regular Iran, that is not the normal everyday aspect.
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It is sensationalized, of course, for the purpose of selling marketing in news agencies.
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So we have to look at it with with regards to like do the people who live there really want to change the theocracy that has been in place for over 40 years?
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Or do they want to maintain some sort of structure but have more individual freedoms, right?
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And freedoms in their expression, freedoms in their voting.
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Do they want to get rid of the executive group that runs the country, even though there's a president, even though there's a a majlis or an elected body?
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That I think is what they want.
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But unless you have blood in the streets, an actual revolution where people are dying, which isn't our people, right?
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It's not happening in uh in South Southern California, it's happening there.
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Um people are gonna be resistant to that sort of change.
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And when Trump says help is coming, what kind of help?
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What how what is it gonna look like?
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Right.
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Because soft power, as we know, is much more effective in getting regime change, it's much more effective in getting people to actually adopt Western ideas or Western uh ways of thinking um than hard power is.
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Yeah, and and I have a question about the depth of the theocracy here.
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So, and help me with this because uh you know, not coming out of it, and I uh it's it's hard for me to imagine, and you have experienced it much more on your end.
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So is the theocracy really focused around Islam, or is it really focused around using Islam as a way of controlling people?
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So Iran is an Islamic country.
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That is not that is always that has always been there.
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Um it's it's been an Islamic country, but at the same time, there's a large group of Armenians, Christians, a very large number of Jews that live there, Zoroastrians, of course, Assyrians, they're not gonna be able to do it or did live there.
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They don't live there now.
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There are Jews that are living there now.
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There are temples and synagogues that are open and functioning.
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But I think it's a fraction of what it was.
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Well, of course, yes.
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Well, but that's true because there was an exodus that occurred, absolutely true.
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But that they weren't they weren't demolished, they're still there, they're still functioning, and they're still available.
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The the point, though, about about the theocracy is that the theocracy is not just a government, it is a deeply layered system built to survive.
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And so it is a function of government, it is a function of religion.
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It goes all the way down to the elementary schools and the types of books that they publish for the students to learn.
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So that layered system is not going to be just you can't just flip a switch and have it happen.
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It doesn't, it doesn't happen like that.
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And then you also have to think about the outside actors.
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So where what are the countries or the nations, the nation states that don't want Iran to have a revolution?
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Russia, China, India, Pakistan, right?
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The other countries around them, Lebanon certainly, and Germany, France, they do regular trade with Iran and they like the trade that they have, they like the relations that they have, and they don't want that structure to be changed.
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But for the people of Iran who are not happy with the theocracy, the change has to happen in small increments in the freedoms that they get.
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So you see a sort of gradualist solution where you know some some sort of agreement is made on homo's or an agreement um uh on on the nuclear weapons and the regime changes only slowly um as a result of of you know having to I mean they obviously know that they're not popular with a large number of people.
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Um so you you're really uh in a sense, maybe that is where this all ends up do being, which is a gradual reform of this regime.
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Right.
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I think that the best case is that they stop shooting and and don't do not occupy the space, right?
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Because then you have other kinds of guerrilla warfare that happens.
00:20:46.559 --> 00:21:03.440
So what happens is that they they come to an agreement to open the Strait of Hormones, that there is some sort of agreement that that the flow of commerce continues, but at the same time, there is sort of an exchange, a cultural exchange of soft power that happens.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:11.920
Um, I do know that for many years, and even it was in your study that students were coming to America and and they were coming to educate here, get educated, and to go back.
00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:25.680
That cultural exchange, that soft power is very, very important in maintaining the notions of a republic of a democratic system, because the ambassadors you have just trained take that information back to the to the original native country.
00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:44.480
I think that if we could, as as if I was advising President Trump, my advice would be to stop the fighting and to figure out a method of opening a consulate in Iran, opening an embassy, having the exchanges, bringing people back to the table for that discourse.
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:49.039
That's how you're going to get the real change that needs to happen for the Iranian people.
00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.759
It isn't gonna happen at the end of a gun.
00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:53.680
It isn't gonna happen under this threat.
00:21:53.839 --> 00:21:55.759
Um, we see that in other places.
00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:59.759
I mean, I don't want to sound like a someone who's advocating for peace.
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:08.720
But peace is how you bring back to the peop bring bring back to the table in order to have the actual discourse for change to occur.
00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:12.079
And it has to be gradual and it has to be systematic.
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:14.000
And it has to be from within.
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:15.680
And I think that's your point, right?
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:37.920
And that if you can, if you can uh educate people in our model and expose them to a different model and show that they're they can be successful in their country by adopting a different economic model, a different social model, uh, then you have the you have the core ingredients of change.
00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:42.000
However, you have to recognize that that's going to take time.
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:45.200
That's not an overnight, that's not an overnight thing.
00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:46.319
It's not overnight.
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:52.240
I I do know that there are there are concerns about monetary exchanges, there's concerns about the internet.
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:57.359
Um, they don't have all of the um latest innovations or technologies that they need.
00:22:57.519 --> 00:23:04.240
They get plenty from the Chinese, but they would like to have, you know, other sources um for their supplies.
00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:07.519
So that is a way of soft power of infiltrating in.
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:22.799
I remember when I was studying Soviet history, that there was, and I forget the book that I read, because we read so much in history, I forget who it was, but there was a quote that said something like the Soviet Union came down, you know, collapsed because of the fax machine, right?
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:27.920
The fax machine changed the way, uh collapsed the entire Soviet system.
00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:29.359
It's the same way.
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:40.160
It's going to be these incremental little changes that happen that they see that sort of exchange, that cultural exchange, the monetary system being upgraded, the computer system, the communication.
00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:41.599
Like right now, there is no internet.
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:43.200
They've shut the internet down.
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:50.400
So opening that up to other sources, other ways of gaining internet changes the way people live.
00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:58.880
One of my favorite um things to do on Instagram is to watch Iranian women um in Iran.
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:03.119
And you can see it because they show the street that they live on and making Persian food.
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:11.279
And now they don't show their face and they don't show themselves at all because they're they're maintaining their um privacy.
00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:12.079
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.640
But their hands are there and they're speaking farsely and they're making this food, and it's all on Instagram.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.759
So for months now, I haven't seen anything, and it's very sad.
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:30.160
I would like to stay connected, but that's one of the examples of that cultural exchange that happens, that softbar that will actually bring some sort of solace and peace to the people of Iran.
00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:35.920
Well, I think, you know, as we try to wrap this up, I I think what I'm wondering about is this.
00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:39.519
I've been following very closely what's happening in Cuba.
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:45.680
Um you you have the big uh Cuban American community in South Florida in particular.
00:24:48.240 --> 00:25:08.559
If the recently I understand that the Cuban government is now allowing Cuban Americans to set up businesses, I can't see any other better way of undermining the regime than having a bunch of Cubans from South Florida operating in in in uh uh in Havana.
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:21.119
So I wonder do you think the Iranian Americans and uh other parts of the Iranian diaspora are ready to play that transformational role um that we may be seeing in Cuba.
00:25:21.279 --> 00:25:27.599
We certainly have seen it in the You mean are are Iranian Americans is there a group of Iranian Americans willing to move back to Iran?
00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:30.960
Or or invest or maybe have business.
00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:36.079
Um I mean I assume that the younger generations are not likely to move back.
00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:43.039
Um it's uh of course it's not as convenient as going from my Miami to Nevada, that's pretty close.
00:25:43.359 --> 00:25:47.440
But uh I'm thinking of what is the historic role of this diaspora?
00:25:47.519 --> 00:25:55.920
You know, I've written lots about diasporas, and you know, obviously the state of Israel was basically created by the diaspora.
00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:03.039
Um we we've seen the diaspora in in other cases playing major roles in Poland and other countries.
00:26:03.599 --> 00:26:14.240
Do you think the Iranian Americans are able or willing to play that role if we get this sort of gradualist um approach that you're talking about?
00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:17.440
I okay, so it's an interesting thing that you bring up Cuba.
00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:22.960
So so Havana and the Islamic Republic have had long relations since the Ayatollah took over.
00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:32.160
I mean, even Fidel Castro had gone to Tehran and and kind of in their state of isolation found camaraderie amongst each other, right?
00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:34.319
They found a partnership because of that isolation.
00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:40.160
And Iran is one of Cuba's closest allies in the world since the 79 revolution.
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:46.160
But the thing about the Cuba-Iran relationship is that essentially it's a partnership of convenience, right?
00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:52.240
Because they're both isolated states, they're both sort of targeted by the West, and they find camaraderie there.
00:26:52.480 --> 00:27:12.640
But with regards to Iranians going back to Iran and setting up space, I will tell you that one of my father's dreams was that at some point I could go and teach at the University of Tehran, and how wonderful it would be for me to go and teach American history in Iran, because we American history is taught all over the world in other countries.
00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:22.400
So for me to go and teach it there to Iranian students so that they that have that sort of original, you know, eyewitness sort of experience, right?
00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:24.000
Um, being taught to them.
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:36.480
And how it would kind of bridge that isolation, it would bridge that not knowing what's happened or whatever um propaganda you've been told, sort of now has been watered down, right?
00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:41.119
Has been there's some sort of um accountability, a realistic notion of it.
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:46.720
Um, what I do want to say though is that I don't know that the second or third generation of Iranians would go back.
00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:47.839
I think of my own children.
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:49.759
Like, would they go back and live there?
00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:50.559
I don't know.
00:27:50.799 --> 00:28:01.519
I do know that in the case of historically speaking, in the case of, for example, Italian Americans who lived who moved to America and then they went back to Italy, that there was a connection.
00:28:01.599 --> 00:28:04.160
They bought homes there, they would go back and forth.
00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:07.920
They would send the children back just for the language and the cultural exchange, right?
00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:10.000
So they would, so that was the connection.
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:13.680
And I see it, you know, often even with my Jewish friends.
00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:16.880
They have homes in Israel and they send their children back.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:19.279
They send them actually for the summer and then they come back.
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:27.279
I have a friend whose father bought her a brand new car just so that she would, if she agreed to learn Hebrew and spoke it at home, she could get a new car.
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:32.559
And so her annual trips were to go back to Tel Aviv just for this car that she would get.
00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:52.640
I would like to see that sort of um occurrence happen, but it wouldn't happen unless you have an American embassy open in Tehran with actual exchange, state at state levels levels of exchange that happen, and then also universities exchanging folks back and forth and sort of that openness to it.
00:28:52.799 --> 00:29:05.359
And whether or not the Islamic Republic is there, the ayatollahs are there or not, if they were open to the notion that they would have this kind of discourse and cultural and statewide exchange, it won't, it doesn't really matter the type of government.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:12.880
It's already layered in so deeply to remove that would lead you'd have to have bloodshed to remove that.
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:16.400
It won't be easy and it won't be quick, anything like that.
00:29:16.559 --> 00:29:20.400
You're going to hurt people's lives and their livelihoods, and that we don't want that.
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:30.079
But if we can have that soft power infiltration, then the party at the top, the people growing up under the new system will then demand the exchange.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:33.519
And maybe it'll be a fax machine or it'll be an AI machine or something.
00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:36.319
Well, and let's that we would call this normalization.
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:39.599
Let's hope that there is some form of normalization.
00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:49.039
I know just looking at the tea leaves as they're currently being played out, it seems as though there is some kind of desire for that.
00:29:49.279 --> 00:30:06.160
And to try to create um a regional peace, a regional normalization, where Iran's relationships with uh UAE, with Qatar, with uh Saudi Arabia um can also somehow get back to normal.
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:09.680
Uh, I think it's uh a pretty thorny problem to solve.
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:34.559
But I think that that I think what what you're offering to our audience is a possible way out uh of this sort of situation where you know it just there's constant warfare, and you know, maybe uh the uh damage that we've done is maybe gonna make the mulers at least think twice about uh keep trying to keep escalating because I don't think it will turn out too well for them.
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:42.559
Uh so I think you you have a very good humanistic view, which um we are happy to bring to our listeners.
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:42.799
Yeah.
00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:43.680
Well, and Dr.
00:30:43.759 --> 00:30:51.440
Nargis Rakin, thank you so much for your perspectives and for being a guest and uh on the Feudal Future podcast.
00:30:51.519 --> 00:31:03.440
And we look forward to continuing our collaboration as our research into Iranian Americans as an exceptional force culturally, economically, and socially uh continues.
00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:04.400
Thank you again.
00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:05.119
Thank you.
00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:10.079
And I commend both of you for bringing this subject forward and and looking into the Iranian people.
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:16.640
I think when you give it voice and you give it substance and context, then it be it becomes not an unknown.
00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:17.839
It becomes part of the norm.
00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:19.119
So thank you for doing that.
00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:20.240
Well, thank you.