When I first learned about Iran
like most people I was exposed exclusively to stuff like this:
But as I started to look closer, I started to see a much different
Iran then what the Islamic Republic regime represents.
The reaction in Iran to the news about a potential deal
is a good example of what I'm talking about. Immediately following the news
of this deal with the West,
people lined up to greet foreign ministers Zarif as he returned from
Switzerland.
They spent all night celebrating the potential lifting of sanctions and
closer ties with the West.
So what's going on here?
Is Iran this? Or is it this?
A while back I reached out to twenty five Iranians on Facebook.
These were people between the ages of 21 and 35 who lived all over the country.
I started following them and realizing that they were totally normal people.
They posted cat videos and took pictures of their food
and talked about clothes and sports and took plenty of selfies.
I never once saw a dogmatic the religious posts and I certainly never
saw anything anti-western
I started to realize that there is a big difference between what
I had studied about this regime
and what the people were actually like.
These were people who were born after the 1979 revolution.
They were not a part of the emotion and their zeal that brought about the
current Iran and all of its hostilities towards the West.
Instead they grew up in an environment of increase in seclusion from the world
on one hand while gaining huge access to the world through the internet on the other hand
So in today's Iran people are less likely to hate Americans.
In my effort to befriend Iranians on Facebook,
I don't have a single person reject my friend request.
In fact most have them sent me a message telling me how happy they were to
connect
and how they would love to talk more about our different cultures.
Politics wasn't a big part of this conversation.
So, no matter how easy it is to label Iran is this
pariah nation bent on hard-line religious fundamentalism,
remember that while they're definitely supporters that ideology,
there is a whole other side to this country that we rarely see.
Most Iranians are normal people living normal lives.
They want to connect, they want to feel safe, and
they want peace as much as you and I do. That's something I think we can afford
to talk about a little bit more.