Voices from the opposition to the the Iranian regime can be found here: https://old.reddit.com/r/NewIran/

Why are the posts there in English?

Because there's a significant Iranian diaspora, and many of the younger people don't speak/write Farsi but everybody speaks English to some degree?

> everybody speaks English to some degree

That's not even true in my European country, I'm pretty sure at most 50% of Iranians speak English (not even taking into account that to write comfortably you need B2 or better English proficiency).

Any kind of English-only media is automatically ignored by 90% of my countrymates, because most people prefer their native tongue.

What language is a better choice?

Farsi? To flip it around a bit, imagine a Russian majority telegram channel dedicated to the upcoming American civil war. What would you think about that? Well, how is an English majority subreddit any different?

Are you maybe accidentally White Knight-ing here?

eg getting upset on someone else's behalf, for something that doesn't actually bother them

I don't have any involvement or personal connections. It just looks weird? Honestly, I want it to be true, but I'm also old enough to remember the whole twitter revolution that was totally going to happen a decade ago but didn't. In that subreddit, what is the proportion of westerners to Iranians? I have no idea, but the one signal I have is that the posts are majority English. Which is depressing. It's like when there's a local election and reddit is a huge echo-chamber that's 100% convinced their chosen candidate will win, who subsequently gets crushed. Is this any different?

What language do you think South Asian diaspora communicate in?

The internet/computers were never designed for Farsi. And the situation was way worse for phones before smartphones. It’s only recently that efforts have been made to make it possible to communicate via Farsi, Arabic, or South Asian languages. But it’s still extremely hard.

Russia has a significant Russian only computer development program, so communicating over devices via Russian is more common. East Asian languages have spent a lot more time/energy finding ways to communicate via their own languages, and even there, the most popular text communication language is one which uses English characters. Also, English is spoken far less than in a country like Iran, which has a highly educated populace, that until very recently was very integrated with the English speaking world.

Communicating in English is absolutely obvious for such a diaspora.

Doesn't the list of cities with the most Iranians start 1) Tehran, 2) Los Angeles?

The real answer is likely because it's performative bs for an American audience.

This revolution is bringing various factions together - the perenial problem of divided opposition still benefits the regime however the trends are encouraging. The voices of the opposition are rather prominent, and in some cases (like Masih) somewhat a force of nature.

https://giwps.georgetown.edu/event/the-future-of-irans-democ...

"Eight of the Iranian democracy movement’s prominent diaspora leaders presented a united vision for Iran’s future for the first time since the 2022 uprisings began at a summit hosted by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS).

The diverse group — which included actresses Nazanin Boniadi and Golshifteh Farahani, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, activists Masih Alinejad and Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion; former soccer captain Ali Karimi, former crown prince Reza Pahlavi, and Kurdish leader Abdullah Mohtadi — plans to produce a joint charter by the end of February."

Can anyone recommend a political history of the Islamic Republic? How did a democratic movement wind up with a supreme leader?

Short story: The leader of the democratic revolution, a radical Muslim cleric, made himself the Supreme Leader for life, enshrined in the new constitution by referendum. Effectively, the people voted democratically to be subjected to another form of authoritarianism. See [0] for a short summary.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran#1979

High level summary:

The Shah tried to rapidly westernise Iran[1], and in doing so became deeply unpopular with Islamic Fundamentalists. His reforms also upset some of the Iranian 'elite' (whose land was redistributed), and his fig leaf democracy upset secularists who wanted more power.

The killing of around 400 protestors lead to a general uprising, with the 'elites', and secularists allaying with the fundamentalists to overthrow the Shah. The elites/secularists thought they would take over, but actually had the rug pulled out from under them and the fundamentalists taking over.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution

> elites/secularists thought they would take over, but actually had the rug pulled out from under them and the fundamentalists taking over

I’m curious about this. Not the short story. Is there a source you’d recommend?

I learned most of what I know by visiting Iran. I'm not sure what would be a good book to read about this period of history.

You start with a pure popular democracy that the people love .. aand then you piss of the USofA and UK by making independant decisions as a nation:

    In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh was appointed as the Prime Minister of Pahlavi Iran. After the nationalization of Iran's oil industry, he became enormously popular.

    He was deposed in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, an Anglo-American covert operation that marked the first time the United States had participated in an overthrow of a foreign government during the Cold War.

    . . .the U.S.- and UK-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh installed the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

leading to ~ 25 years of a US puppet government

    After the coup, the Shah became increasingly autocratic and sultanistic, and Iran entered a decades-long phase of controversially close relations with the United States and some other foreign governments. While the Shah increasingly modernized Iran and claimed to retain it as a fully secular state, arbitrary arrests and torture by his secret police, the SAVAK, were used for crushing all forms of political opposition.

which made the religuous fundementalist opposition popular enough to stage a coup and install a "supreme leader".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

It's a complex story.

https://tnimage.s3.hicloud.net.tw/photos/shares/AP/20190201/...

Also I am not sure "democratic movement" is at all correct. There was a revolution but the leading groups behind it were decidedly not democratic.

I was a newly minted teen in Tehran when this happened. Ostensibly the trigger event was an anonymous op-ed in a leading Tehran daily that strangely dragged the name of Khomeini back into center stage.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/forty-years-since...

At that time, Khomeini was in exile in Iraq under the watchful eyes of Sadam Hussein.

Two basic dynamics set the revolution into motion. Leftist and Islamist. The leftists were card carrying USSR affiliates Tudeh Party (The Masses), various student-cum-revolutionary Marxists, Marxists-Leninists, Maoists, etc. Prominently (because of their armed attacks on police stations, banks, etc. earlier in 70s) there was hard left secular Fadayein and "Islamic-Marxist" Mujahedin Khalgh (MKO, ..., they have a whole collection of acrynoms).

Mujahedin had a sort of spiritual guide in Ayatollah Taleghani. But for a good while after the overthrow of the regime, they went around mouthing "Imam Khomeini" until the said Imam decided he didn't need them anymore. But we digress. Taleghani was one of the reasons people were beguiled because he made very socialist/democratic pronouncements. He ended up dying "suddenly" a few months after revolution, when Khomeini was asserting his demi-god status. So "democratic"? Well, the communists are democratics in their sense of the word, kinda like CPC is democratic if you ask them. As for MKO, a brief review of their sordid history and that whole bizare show they have going on with their all female army and female leader (complete with Hijab) also should give you an idea regarding their "democratic" credentials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Taleghani

Among the Islamists, you had people like Chamran. A genius geek who went Islamist radical. He started what became Hizbollah (or Amal). [He said he worked at Bell Labs and JPL.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostafa_Chamran

The only group having any real claims to "democratic" leanings were the National Front. Their leadership made a foolish error and went to Paris to kiss the ring. Khomeini may have enjoyed humiliating them. A lone dissenter from National Front, Shapur Bakhtiar accepted to become PM before Shah left Iran. He was the lone sane voice asking pointed questions about the "holy man who lies" and refusing to kiss the ring.

Khomeini in the interim flew into Tehran on Air France (yes! French military pilots, and packed with press, spooks, and handlers) and got a frenzied reception, and immediately upon touch down pretty much told all the also-rans to basically go fuck themselves.

Bakhtiar at this point, still head of the last government of Pahlavi dynasty, was betrayed by some key members of the military leadership. They started direct negotiations with Khomeini, at the urging of an American General (who flew to Iran before Shah left). This is what is alleged by former regime officials and military (see Harvard's Iran Oral History Project) but denied by the said general. Regardless, the military declared itself "neutral".

Bakhtiar did escape to Paris but ended up getting butchered (literally) by IR regime goons sent after him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapour_Bakhtiar

MKO and Khomeini later go on to lock horns, including spectacular assassinations by MKO and massive execution sprees by the Ayatollah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadegh_Ghotbzadeh

Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who used to have a little Islamist revolutionary office right on Dupont Circle -- oh yes -- and who none other than Robert F. Kennedy intervened on his behalf to prevent his deporation -- visa issues -- is an interesting character and no doubt many quarters are happy he is quite dead. Now, Sadegh, unlike the guy from Green Book, didn't play the piano and was quite a ladies man, the very smooth and English speaking voice and face of Ayatollah in Paris and then later in Iran, so I am not exactly sure why RFK felt his personal intervention was necessary.

He was executed by Khomeini later on after admitting under torture to being a CIA agent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/12/13/g...

"Only the timely intervention of a New Jersey senator and then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy saved him from a quick deportation. as a communist to face charges of treason in Iran." [that's actually funny.]

Why is one of the top posts saying Ali Khamenei launched “gas attacks” on schools? Is this just activists being dramatic or do they really think this was orchestrated by the gov and/or a gas attack?

https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/11hwqnc/breaking_a...

WTF! What are they being poisoned with?

Some sort of chemical agent. The Iranian government has basically done nothing to figure it out.

Is it possible current iranian government is the author of such insane act?

Absolutely. This government has done heinous acts against its own people before, and has supported other governments doing the same (Syria).

The vagueness of the symptoms does sound a bit like other cases of psychogenic illness:

https://www.livescience.com/18310-schoolgirl-mass-hysteria-y...

Certainly girls in Iran have good reasons to feel stressed right now, and there are indeed people out there who mean them harm. Poison isn't the usual way that malice comes out, though.

Are you saying that you think all these girls, at 50-60 schools across the entire country, who are displaying these symptoms, all at the same time, are suffering from... hysteria?

O...kay.

Yes, things like this do actually happen. Across the country doesn't matter with worldwide news.

That's one option mentioned in the article itself.

"Are you saying that there's some widespread campaign to poison girls, with incidenbts in 50-60 schools so far?" Doesn't sound much saner.

If this is a psychological effect, then what a truly interesting defense mechanism. Because it is getting the parents pretty worked up.

I mean, it's happened before

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morangos_com_A%C3%A7%C3%BAcar_...

Possibly multiple times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_student_poisoning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness#In_sc...

If it can happen to adults CIA employees why not Iranian girls?

Psychosomatic illnesses spread very easily, through the same means other memetic changes spread.

Unfortunately many people mistakenly believe a psychosomatic illness isn't "real" - when professionals tell them "These people have a psychosomatic illness" what they hear is "These people are lying" which is not what was said, and so when the same professionals tell them, "You have a psychosomatic illness" they hear "You are lying" and they're angry - how dare these professionals accuse them of lying! They know it's real!

That honestly sounds way more plausible than Islamist hardliners poisoning 50-60 girls' schools without leaving any trace. Poisonings usually leave some biological marker and if it is people from the same group poisoning the schools it is odd that no one has been caught.

There is no such thing as "mass hysteria".

That "mystery illness" is an invention to explain away cases of unknown cause. An argument by ignorance essentially.

Observe how in this particular instance the spread of the disease does not conform to what would be expected if the cause was information.

The fact that 50-60 schools across the country have been affected by reports of poisoning makes it highly unlikely that there was a coordinated poisoning campaign. Such a campaign would require a significant amount of planning, resources, and coordination, and it is unlikely that a single group or individual could carry out such a campaign across multiple schools in different regions of the country. MPI is a very plausible explanation and fits the facts of this case much better than an unprecedented mass poisoning.

Except the state. The state can plan and carry this out.

There has been plenty of examples of mass illness not connected to anything tangible, like a detectable disease or infections. The famous study on “long Covid” gave multiple examples of large groups of people experiencing symptoms with vague connections to any physical condition like headaches, fatigue, sleeplessness, generic “pain”, etc. They cited multiple other incidents such as the “gulf war syndrome” and a few others I can’t remember off hand.

These are very similar to mass hysteria. But they are connected to very real things like subsets of the population experiencing trauma. War and covid was traumatic mentally for a lot of people and that can manifest as other physical symptoms. Whether everyone in the group has a direct connection to those things or get grouped through circumstance and general interest by doctors/scientists/media is a big differentiator.

(Not saying this poisoning case fits this but it’s always good to be suspicious).

People being unable to find a cause for something does not make that event a diagnosable illness.

Essentially, you are confabulating a cause where there is not enough evidence.

Yep just like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, both affects …certain types of personalies but also people with long histories of poor physical and mental health (which is trendy to get over-excused these days as being without any personal responsibility but there's still plenty of people with serious personal backgrounds where it's difficult to pass judgement). But ultimately the appearance of symptoms doesn’t make it an illness. Still a “syndrome” is better than “mass panic”.

This is outright propaganda.

There’s gas based chemical attacks happening and we have mx brains over here saying it’s mass hysteria.

> gas based chemical attacks happening

What is the evidence?

I’m seriously asking, because this whole things looks likely to be ignored if evidence is being suppressed.

There are a few telegram channels that report what's going on the street. They're effectively Iran's eye-witness news:

- https://t.me/VahidOnline (Even won an award) - https://t.me/mamlekate

Hundreds of people have reported that they have smelt vanilla-like smell, which is a classic smell in various chemical attack agents.

It's outright absurd to call this an event of mass hysteria, and I'm not really sure how anyone is even getting the evidence to call it that.

The person being quoted in that article literally worked for the Iranian government. They're not a trust worthy source, where it's looking more and more like this is happening with the blessing of the state (the scale, and lack of action by officials)

> are a few telegram channels that report what's going on the street

Someone needs to work to compile this into a credible report. (Rando Telegrams aren’t that.) Gas attacks raise questions, such as how adults in the vicinity weren’t impacted.

The linked article says mass hysteria is a possible cause, why is discussing it "outright propaganda?"

> Jamileh Kadivar, a prominent former reformist lawmaker at Tehran’s Ettelaat newspaper.

This person is not a trustworthy source of information. They've worked for the Iranian government.

They're also the source for it being a terrorist attack. Is discussing that outright propaganda?

As long as no direct cause is found, mass hysteria is a possibility. And while it's certainly possible there's a massive government cover-up, it's also possible there's nothing to cover-up.

Again, "mass hysteria" is no real phenomenon. Rather, it is a pseudo-scientific "explanation", bereft of logic and factual evidence.

People are confabulating a diagnosis here, based upon next to no information. Would you want them to be your physician?

We see easily verifiable cases of mass hysteria regularly. How many people do you think went to the hospital complaining of COVID-19 like symptoms and upon inspection no illness was found? The only difference between that and mass hysteria is there was an actual disease affecting others.

I wouldn't want somebody without a medical degree to be my doctor, but I'd have no strong objection to random people privately discussing what they thought my disease was based on an anonymous report of the symptoms.

No, these are explictly not "verifiable cases".

Hypochondria is a thing. Triggering many with hpochondria is possible. But they won't all be in one class of the same school.

If you have half of all girls in a class hospitalized, it's downright ridiculous to claim hypochondria as the cause.

I was saying that mass hysteria exists, not trying to prove this instance was mass hysteria.

That said, if a third of my class was already going to the hospital because they were "poisoned," I could very easily see myself getting overly worried about my own health to the extent where I would join them in the hospital. And I wouldn't consider myself a hypochondriac by any means.

Suspected?