Hooman Majd joins us to talk about his new book, The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran, documenting his family's year-long stay in Teheran in 2011. We also cover Iran's conflict of nationalism and religion, its nuclear issue, the possibility of becoming a modern state without liberal democracy, why Israel and Iran should be BFFs, whether there's a word in Farsi for 'sprezzatura', and more!
The Virtual Memories Show
Season 3, Episode 25 - The Land of the Big Sulk
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth, and you are listening to a weekly podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order. You can download past episodes of the show and view upcoming guests at our website, chimeraabscura.com/vm. You can also subscribe to the show through iTunes. We're on Twitter @VMSPod, Facebook@facebook.com/virtualmemorieshow and Tumblr at virtualmemoriespodcast.tumblr.com. The year of Too Much Travel only has a few trips left in it, and I'm trying to line up some guests to record with when I'm not working. Pickings are pretty slim for this month's trip to San Antonio, but I've got some pretty good prospects for a UK trip in December. I make updates about those on our Facebook page, so you oughta go check that out and give it a like. And this episode's guest is Human Majd, an Iranian-American journalist and writer who moved to Tehran for a year in 2011 when US-Iran relations were just about at their lowest point since the hostage crisis. Oh, and his American wife and their eight-month-old son accompanied him on this trip. He chronicles the whole experience in his new book, The Ministry of Guidance invites you to not stay, which comes out this week from double-day books. I found it to be a pretty illuminating book, actually. Like most Americans, I have a, well, a monolithic notion of Iran, this sort of dark country dominated by black-rope mullahs with no sense of personality or what the people are like, and Human's book really treats the day-to-day aspects of life in Tehran and elsewhere in the country, and all the peculiarities of the personalities of Iranians in general and in particular. And he just gets into how, well, how human the residents are. The book explores a culture and history of Iran at the same time that it's documenting this year that he spends there with his family and sort of talks about how that history shapes the nation today. And it contains some really harrowing stories about the brief uprising of the Green Revolution a few years ago. There's a fantastic section in it about a man who got swept up in it and basically wound up in a nightmare somewhere between the Dostoevsky and the Kafka-esque. I'm leaning to the Dostoevsky and on this, but I don't wanna make the book out like it's either wildly condemning Iran or whitewashing the regime, and I sort of hope our talk doesn't come off as any sort of pro-Iran propaganda or an anti-Israel statement or anything like that. But I was legitimately interested in learning about this country and its people and how they see us and how we can change the way that we see them. Human seems to say that Iran, with its cosmopolitan history, sort of has more in common with Israel than it does with the Arab nations. It's, like I say, a very interesting book. I really think you should check it out. Again, it's the Ministry of Guidance invites you to not stay, and it comes out this week from double day. Now, Human Majd was born in Tehran in 1957, but he spent most of his life abroad. His dad was a diplomat with a series of overseas postings and after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Human stayed in America for the most part. I'd tell you more about his history, but we go into that during the episode. And now, the virtual memories conversation with Human Majd. (upbeat music) - Human, thanks for coming on the show. - My pleasure. - The book is about the decision you and your wife made to move to Iran for a year, which turned out to be one of the worst years in Iran's modern history. - Bloody history, yes. - Bringing along your child who was eight months old at the time, can you tell us about the origins of the book and the origins of that decision to move back to Iran? - Yeah, I mean, it was a number, there were a number of reasons I wanted to do this, and having a child in my late, advanced years, unlike most of my peers. - Only 10 years older than me, by the way. - Oh, okay. - I mean, childless. But it kind of, that kind of drove me to wanna do it more than I had before. In the last few years, a number of years, I've been going back and forth to Tehran, and other cities in Iran, both for reporting, whether it was a story for Newsweek or whether it's a piece somewhere else. And my other two books, previous two books, but I'd always spent at most, you know, three, four weeks, four weeks at a time in Iran. And I felt that having been dislocated from the country of my birth since infancy, my own infancy, and I was actually the exact age my son was when we went to Iran, I was exact age as him when I left Iran back in the late 50s. I just felt like the only way I could be legitimately writing about Iran, and I kind of felt this was gonna be my last book. You know, I didn't really mean it to be a trilogy, but it sort of happened. My last book on specifically Iranian culture and society, I felt that it would be only fair if I actually subjected myself to the same environment that I'm writing about. In, you know, travel writers or writers in the early 20th century would go and spend months and months living somewhere when they would even in war, for example, before they would consider it okay to write about the place. And in my case is different because I am Iranian, I do know the culture, I never lived there properly, so I didn't know what it was like to live there. And certainly if I'd lived there under the shot, it would have been different than living under the Islamic Republic. It would have been different living 10 years ago as it is today, and so on and so forth. So I just felt like it was a really good opportunity at this stage in my life, having just had a kid to go and experience it fully and try to understand Iran and Iranian is better. And also to get a better sense of myself too, it's a little selfish as well. It's like, you know, I never had this chance, never really thought I could have this chance in the early years of the Islamic Revolution. And it was just something that I thought, well, it would also probably make a good, interesting book. I publisher agreed and-- - Did you essentially pitch the book before going? - Not really, a little bit, yeah, I love my editor at Double Day and we have a good relationship and it was always gonna be a possibility. And I thought that a memoir of that year, but going beyond being just a memoir, being kind of a study to some degree of what an Iranian in Iran means among the population, but also the politics as well, because that just doesn't get away from us and doesn't get away from people in Iran on their daily lives. Politics plays a bigger role there than it does, perhaps in Western societies. So, yeah, I mean, it just seemed like the opportune time, it was, you know, to do this. I didn't really want to commit to more than a year there for a number of reasons. One is like, you know, one has a family and one has to think about the family and the child and the spouse's work and so on and so forth. But that was the reason I decided to do it. - And within the book, you frame it, you depict your wife as being up for the-- - Yes. - Just in the adventure. How well did she adjust, do you think, over a long time? It seems as though she became a Iranian-American in a sense. - Yes, yes, yes. I think initially there was probably shock because it is such a different environment than what one expects. But in some ways, in a good way. In many ways, a bad way. In a good way in the sense that, you know, you have this idea of it's the third world, it's the Middle East, it's gonna be completely different and then you arrive there and it's like, well, the airport looks like any airport anywhere. It's a modern airport and, you know, the signs are in English, the planes are coming and going, people get coming and going. Yes, the women are wearing scarves and some of them are wearing chadores and hijabs and so forth. But then, overall, it feels somewhat European, you know, when you drive to the city and there's highways and there's billboards and there's advertising and there's traffic and there's people going about their business and it's not like the scary place, you know, with, you know, people with beards and women with chadore shouting death to America all the time. Occasionally, you'll drive by a big billboard with, you know, an American? Death to America on it. - The Great Satan on it or something like that. But generally speaking, it feels European, European shops, European style restaurants, you know, very, it doesn't feel like you're, you don't really see a lot of mosques, for example. You always expect this exotic east, this exotic Middle East and you hear the culture prayer five times a day and you don't, if you live in, at least if you live in Tehran and if you don't live next to a mosque. So you expect to see Mullah's walking down the street, Ayatollah's walking down the street, you just don't. I mean, it's not the way it is. So I think in that sense, it was kind of a relief. Oh yeah, there are shops that sell all kinds of stuff and, you know, but initially, there's a bit of a, you know, culture shock in that, you know, everybody speaking a different language and, you know, there's certain things you have to get adjusted to, the way people drive, the way people, you know. And stuff like that, but being from New York, I guess, being, you know, the way people drive is not as shocking as it would be to someone in suburban America. But yeah, that thing and just generally the attitude of the people, but it took a while, but yes, no, she came to appreciate it, I would say, and not appreciate some of the aspects of living in an Islamic Republic, the way the Iranians define Islamic, which means, you know, the dress code and behavior code and stuff like that. And you get a much less, at least you portray it as much less repressive in the day to day. Oh yeah, in the city-state. Yeah, I mean, you don't feel, if you're not doing anything that is involved in politics at all, whether you're writing or whether you're a politician or you're an activist or something like that, and day to day life, the repressive atmosphere, you notice it sometimes and you notice it with silly little things like, you know, checking the internet or stuff like that. You notice, well, yeah, you're living in a society where there isn't free speech in the way that we expect to have in the West or free information. And/or whether it's the morality police, and that was a particularly bad ear for the morality police, I mean, that has dissipated somewhat in Tehran since the election of President Rouhani. The very severe crackdown on women's dress, for example, and men's dress, too, in terms of, you know, the kind of clothes that a man can wear or the kind of hairstyles a man can have and all kinds of things. So you do feel that, there's no question about, but in general, I mean, waking up in the morning, going shopping for groceries, going shopping for even, you know, clothes or anything like that, going to the park with your kid, none of that feels getting on a bus, you know, you don't feel like, you know, you're living in a police state in that sense. And I think that was probably a relief for my wife, and I think she also appreciated, you know, some of the good things about Iran. And the way people are generous and the way people are very welcoming and warm. And I think that that's something that she had experienced with family but had not experienced with the population. - You can realize there was a national culture? - Yes, yes, yes, yeah. - And now being an American, of course, if she got on the bus alone by herself and sitting in the women's section in the back, I mean, you know, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, even with a scarf, you know, everybody wanted to know where she's from and what she's doing there and people asking her. And when she'd say, "America," people were shocked 'cause they do expect, "Yeah, why are you here?" They do expect there is an expat community in Iran. There are various Europeans who are either married to Iranians or diplomats who are working in Iran, but very, very few Americans. There are some, but not as many Americans. - What did you learn? What do you feel you got out of the year there? What fulfilled the picture of Iran or your Iranianness? - My Iranianness, because in a sense, I mean, it sounds like you were an Iranian-American without an Iranian identity. - Yes, yes, even though I considered myself pretty much Iranian all the time, all throughout my life, I considered myself 100% Iranian. Yes, the Iranian identity, I felt, was not fully formed, I guess. And I think you have to live there and breathe the air and exist in that environment. I learned that there's many things that I dislike about Iran and I dislike about Iranian culture and I dislike about Iranian politics and not just, I don't mean just the politics of the Islamic Republic. In general, the political environment in Iran, even under the Shah, which I dislike then as well. But I felt that there was both a disconnect and a connect. And it's hard to describe. I felt like, yes, they're my people. Yes, these are my people. And God, I hate them sometimes. And then other times it was, wow, they're my people and boy do I love them. So I mean, it's a connect and a disconnect. And I don't know how else to describe it. I was not able to resolve, for myself, my question of where home is. And I've had this for as long as I remember this idea of where's home. And you're growing up, going to American schools, more often than not in foreign countries than the American embassy kids attended schools. This idea of where's home is like everybody would say where home is somebody from California, somebody from Washington, somebody from Texas. And home for me, I would have to say to my friends, my peers as a child, well, I guess it's Iran, but it didn't feel like home because I didn't live there. I'd go there for summer vacations this day. My grandfather's house for a month or two. But it didn't really feel like home. There was no sense of home because we never owned it. My father never owned a house in Iran. He was a diplomat. He just never had a place that we could call home. And I think I discovered that basically it both is and isn't home. And everybody's, we should consider home where we live. Not somewhere that has some nostalgic kind of aspect for us. But I felt like Tehran is also my home in a strange way where all its faults and for all the things I hate about it. And that the people are my people even though, I mean, there's a little bit of self hatred as well. I mean, there's aspects of my own personality I don't particularly like. And I think that, not because it's Iranian necessarily, but I think that there, in terms of just, what did I discover? I discovered that a lot of the notions I had about Iran were probably, I wouldn't say that they were necessarily false, but I would say that they, I got a deeper understanding of Iranian's and Iranian culture. But I have to say that I do always maintain, at least to myself, that that was a particular time and Iran has gone through a particularly rough period in the last few years. And I was living in Tehran, not the rest of the country. And I do think there are differences in terms of behavior and the way people have become. And there are many references in the book to Iranian friends in Iran to saying how the Iranian characters change, it's not what it was. And I think that's nostalgia that is probably misplaced a little bit, I think it hasn't changed that much. And people say, oh, it's a lot more cutthroat. People are horrible now. Well, yeah, you live in a city of 14 million people. And before the revolution, it was less than 3 million in the same city when you live under hardship, whether it's sanctions, economic hardship, and so on and so forth, then political repression, all those things. People are going to be a little bit grumpier than they were. Certain elements are going to create a gap between themselves and everybody else. Exactly. So I'm not sure I buy that 100% that we were this wonderful Persian peoples under these kings, and then we're just as horrible. There's always a golden age. Yeah, there's always a golden age. Well, New Yorkers are like that, oh, gosh. And my time things were great. I mean, it's really weird that now people are saying, in my generation, we were saying, oh, New York in the '80s was great. And then in the '80s, god, this place is like, you know, it's a toilet. And then the parents of my people in my generation are saying, oh, you should have seen New York in the '40s and in the '30s, it was great. This just goes back and back. Always a golden era. One of the aspects you bring up about the national culture in the book is the question of Iranian history with authoritarianism and how it seems to be almost in the DNA that whatever the government is, it has to be this dictatorial authoritarian thing. Do you reach any conclusions over the years to either why that is or how that may be shared with other cultures or-- Well, I think if you've had a history of 2,500 year history of monarchy, which is by nature dictatorial, if it's not a constitutional monarchy, I mean, I think that there's-- I'm not sure if it's in the DNA. I think that it's in the DNA of a lot of Iranians now, democracies in the DNA of a lot of Iranians now. And it has been for the last 100 years. I mean, the first democratic movement in the Middle East was Iranian in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. But the experiments with democracy have tended to end in great disappointment. And often, when that happens, people revert to the idea of, well, maybe we do need a strong hand to put the House in order. I mean, look what's happening in Egypt. That's a perfect example. What's happened in Egypt doesn't mean that the democratic nature of the protests or the democratic longings of the people of Egypt have changed, even though those very same people are now supporting an incredibly undemocratic autocratic system. I think it's the disappointment with the time and again, the disappointment with what they believe has been a democratic change. And when it gets bad enough, when that change gets bad enough to the point where people are so frustrated and say, well, we need somebody really strong to come in and clean it all up. And then we'll go back to democracy again. But first, we need to just clear this up. And I think there's that sentiment in Iran, not among the most die-hard of the pro-democracy activists in Iran. But I think you see it. And then you see it in the Iranian expat community, too, interestingly enough, in the Iranians here who are very intolerant of the Islamic Republic and don't want to discuss the idea of gradual reform or gradual change. I mean, die-hard activists who say there has to be regime change. That's hardly very democratic. Regime change by force is hardly very democratic. And yet they live in a democracy in America or Europe. And they insist that that's what's required, is-- Which is easy to say when you're moving on democracy. Is there a sort of restoration idea that they have some sort of Shah-heroic figure that they would want to see restored in the case? Well, I don't think the vast majority of the Iranian people would want-- On thinking what are the expats? Oh, the expats have two-- Yeah, the expats have two-- I mean, they fall into a number of different categories here. And nobody seems to agree with each other. There are the pro-shop people, of course, and who believe in monarchy should be restored. And that's the only way to get Iran out of the mess it's in. And some of them were saying, well, it should be a constitutional monarch, but we need a strong-- We need a king-- Wipe the slate clean for-- Wipe the slate clean, and then there's the MEK, which is very organized. Very, very few supporters inside Iran, practically none inside Iran, and a handful of supporters outside Iran. And they want their president, Mariam Rajavi, who's in par-- living in Paris. And she's already been elected president by them. And they're saying, well, she's the president of Iran. So that's not particularly democratic either. And then there's a whole group of Iranian expats who just despise the Islamic Republic for what it is, despise what-- they hate what it's done to the country and to the culture, and want change, and think of it in some democratic terms, like some form of democracy should happen here on. But they also definitely want someone to come in, or a group of people to come in and wipe this light clean. Whether it's a-- or even if it's a revolution on the streets. Go, go, go, green, move, and overthrow your government. Well, that's a question that comes up. The tone of your book, anytime you touch on that subject, really seems to intimate that that's no longer conceptually possible, and the green movement can exist, but the notion of organizing and finding something outside of an Islamic democracy is no longer almost within the mentality of the-- Well, it's not within the mentality right now. And I don't think I implied that that could never happen, or that there couldn't be another explosion on the streets if people get so fed up. I mean, that was something that I think I mentioned in the book, a couple of times, that people have said, all it needs is a spark, all it needs is a spark for it to come back, and I think the Iranian authorities are very aware of that potential for a spark. And that's why you see 10,000 motorcyclists going up and down Valley Astra Avenue on a day when they think there might be protests, because they're figuring that one spark. It's overkill. Yeah, let's just kill that spark before it becomes a fire. So I think that-- I wouldn't say that it's not possible, but I would say that the most people don't want to see an out-and-out revolution. They don't want to see the chaos that comes with it. And particularly, I think, after the Arab Spring and seeing what has happened in those countries, and then Syria and the potential for civil war, I think people just want-- they want change. They want better life. And if it has to be Islamic-tinted, so be it for now. I mean, who knows whether 10 years from now the hijab will be mandatory for women? Right now it is. I don't know if it will be 10 years from now. And I think that if you talk to women activists in Iran, that's not high on their prior to this. They have other issues that they want to resolve within the Islamic Republic's constitution, which is the role of women in public life, and whether they can be judges, whether they can run for president, whether they should be women cabinet members, and so on and so forth, equal rights for women. And right now, not wearing a hijab is not considered one of the most important factors in society. And Iranian women, my cousins, and my wife, this was probably eye-opening, that the hijab didn't seem to bother them, whether they were religious or not religious, and I have some family who are very religious, and would wear it even under the Shah would wear a scarf. But for the ones who weren't religious, it just wasn't an issue. They're so accustomed to it. Is that a sense of resignation? I guess that's sort of part of my question, is there now an acceptance of things that essentially lay the groundwork for even if we have some sort of reformation? Is this still going to be an Islamic Republic, not a-- Yeah, I don't think people have-- I don't think people have-- inside Iran, people have a problem with the semantics of an Islamic Republic, how they define an Islamic Republic. They might have different opinions. The Islamic Republic of Iran is very different from, say, Qatar, for example, in terms of-- you can have a drink in Qatar and a handful of hotels. But apart from that, it's a much more Islamic country than Iran is even. So the idea of why Qatar is considered-- it's an ally of ours, and it's considered a pretty-- Al Jazeera is there, and it's a pretty open place. But anybody going to Qatar and then going to Tehran would tell you that there are two very different places in terms of the way the population lives. I don't mean in terms of the way expats live, or people staying in a five-star hotel live. But no, I think the idea that the Islamic Republic has to be banished, has to disappear, and there has to be a republic of Iran that is secular, is not something people dwell on in Iran. At least it's not my experience that they dwell on it. My experience is the majority of people who are politically active or want to be politically active or want to see a change in the socio-political system dwell more on civil liberties, dwell more on-- they don't dwell on the Islamic aspect of it. Whether they dwell on whether there should be a supreme leader who has the exact role that this supreme leader has, that's another question, because there are many people who could accept an Islamic republic and live comfortably and under an Islamic republic if their democratic choices were adhered to by the Constitution and the government, and if the supreme leader. And they might even accept the role of a supreme leader if he was more like a pope and not an executive. Someone who's banning candidates and deciding essentially. Or a person who can basically overrule everything. If he chooses to do so. And it's a complicated-- that's a very complicated question about the supreme leader's role, and what he can and can't do, or what he's willing to do or not do. He's not a traditional dictator. He's not Kim Jong-il. He's not-- he's not even Castro. He operates differently, and I think he has to-- there are a lot of different political factions in Iran that have a tremendous amount of power, and he has to balance what he does between all those factions. And in that respect, it seemed like a more complicated political situation than we get in the American media take. What's the most important thing you would want Americans to know about Iran? Well, I think the most important thing-- and I've tried to say this in the past year, particularly with whether it's in articles or whether it's in TV appearances-- the most important thing is that we have to remember, I think, as Americans, who are a very empathetic population, that there's some 80 million people in Iran and their human beings, and they have the same wants and desires as we do here. And there are different people. There are people that we're going to disagree with on an ideological basis, and there are people that we would be completely comfortable with on an ideological basis. But there is a population. They are suffering. They are suffering, particularly now they're suffering under sanctions that we have imposed on them without any regard to the population. The idea of the approach that the US government has taken to Iran in the last-- certainly in the last 10 years, let's talk about the most recent 10 years. And it's not that Iran is without fault, and it's not that the Iranian leadership has been without fault. But the people who have suffered are the ordinary people. If children can't get cancer treatment, it has to break the heart of an American, as it does break the heart of an Iranian. They're humans or humans. So when we talk about Iran, when we talk about nuclear energy, and that's what most Americans are focused on, we're talking about their support of Syria, or support of Hezbollah, or Hamas. We're talking about this ambiguous entity, Iran, and the Iranians who hate America, hate the-- not just America, but hate Americans. And they're this fist-pumping group of people who just want to destroy us. That's not accurate. And we should think about the population at large, because whether we're discussing the nuclear issue, whether we're discussing, as Obama and before him, Bush said, all options to the table, which mean war is on the table, potentially. And things like that. We should think about a population. We should think about the people. And I understand that I'm biased. I mean, I care about the Iranian people. I think I do. I don't want to say that that's the only thing I care about. But I do care about the country, the people, more than an average American. Nobody can care about every human being on the planet. It's not possible in our lives. You can't-- we can't care about starving refugees. We can't care about every single thing when we have our own issues and our own problems, our own family issues, our own jobs, joblessness here, all the problems we have at home. But when we have people casually talking about war or casually talking about the kinds of things that they do talk about when it comes to Iran, I just think that as Americans, as the people, we should just know a little bit more about the people. Or when we think about, even if you think about regime change, when you think about saving a people, I mean, we go into Iraq, for example, to get rid of their so-called weapons of mass destructures. They're not-- there are no weapons in my mind. Well, it was still a good job, because we've got rid of this horrible dictator, so that's good for the people. Well, did we ask the people? If it's good for them, do we ask the hundreds of thousands of people who died, the ones who were maimed, the ones who lost family members? If it was good for them, that Saddam went, I think it's good that Saddam's no longer there. I think most Americans would agree, and I think most Iraqis would agree. But do we know what the price-- whether the price was worth it for everyone? Well, I interviewed Fred Kaplan earlier this year. That was a big part of the conversation. It was simply that understanding-- or lack of understanding of the administration's part that-- well, of course, they're going to greet us with candy and-- And roses, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No power vacuum, nothing-- No, it's going to be easy. We're going to get rid of this dictator as a horrible person. I think it's just understanding a population, understanding a motivation. And in some cases, I think also what's important for Americans and what I've tried to do in all my books is have my readers understand what the motivations might be for Iranians. Why do some of the Iranians support the Islamic Republic? Why do even people who are very-- or support their nation, or their nation's aspirations? Why do they support the nuclear program? Why would Iranians support such a thing when it's actually caused them, as a population, hardship? And they still don't have a functioning nuclear power plant after all these years, after billions of their own dollars of their own money spent, and all those sanctions they've suffered, and so on and so forth. So it's good for Americans to understand where that comes from. Why do you think it's so important, the nuclear program? I think it's not unlike for a lot. First of all, the Iranian government's own propaganda or own explanation to its people has been very clever over the last 10 years about why they should have a nuclear program. This idea and the revolution happened so that Iran would be an independent nation once again. If not a great nation, when it was an empire, at least an independent nation that doesn't have to be allied to a greater power. That independence means being able to do what it wants to do within international law, within the boundaries of any treaties they've signed. And they've been very good in saying that this is not, to the population at large, that this is not about our nuclear program. It's about taking away our rights, taking away our independence in the same way that they want us to do with our oil when we nationalize it in 1953. And back then, when we wouldn't back down on nationalizing our oil, they instituted a coup and took away our democracy and reinstalled the Shah. So I think that's been very effective for the Iranian people. It's like, well, why, nobody's answered this question for them effectively. Why is it that Pakistan, India can have nuclear weapons, Israel can have nuclear weapons, but we're not even allowed to enrich uranium. Is our nation any worse than Pakistan, for example? And this is just on the nuclear energy front. Forget about weapons, because there are plenty of Iranians who believe that Iran has every right to have weapons if the other countries do. And if the United States does, who are they to dictate to us that we must not cannot? And I think it's part of the language of the West towards the Iranians that has ended up treating Iran, or at least from the perspective of someone sitting in Iran, who is a nationalist. And I'm not sure I'm a big believer in nationalism. But within the book, you seem to frame nationalism almost more important than religion. Well, I think it is. I think for the culture is more important than Islam in a sense. Oh, I think it is. I think it is, and I think there's been a recognition by the Ayatollahs and the clergy in Iran over time that that's the only way they're gonna keep the Iranian people satisfied with their system is if it's not about religion. I mean, Ayatollah Khomeini was very clear that he felt like religion trumps nationalism. Although there were moments where he said that in national interest, religion can be trumped by national interest. So even Khomeini understood and claimed that Iranian nationalism was important. But the nationalism is a strong, I mean, nationalism is the reason there was a coup against the Shah, I'm not a coup, sorry, a revolution against the Shah. That was the ultimate reason, was nationalism. It's like the independence is getting, it wasn't just Savak or just a politically repressive atmosphere. It was nationalism. The Shah was viewed as a puppet of the United States, installed by the United States and Great Britain, and a puppet of those greater powers. And they didn't wanna be a puppet anymore, the Iranian people. They tried not to be in 1953, a puppet of anyone. In fact, then, in the case of Mossad al-Pupid of the British, or, you know, it was hard for Iranian to understand why British petroleum was paying more in taxes to the UK Treasury than it was paying in royalties on Iranian oil to the Iranian government. - Which is one of the more illuminating, just short passages in the book where you point out that to the Iranians, the Great Britain is much more of an enemy to them, you know. - Yeah, psychologically. - The US? - Yes, absolutely, it is. Yeah, no, the US has been and continues to be viewed relatively favorably by the Iranian population. They're policies of the US government that are viewed very, very negatively. And the US presidents have been passed, been viewed very negatively in administrations. But in general, the concept of America and America as a benevolent power has been a pretty strong current in Iranian society. And I think continues to be in which is why it's kind of ironic that it's the one country that is the Great Satan, or has been the Great Satan for the last 34 years. Convenient, I guess, for the Iranian government too. But yeah, I think that, you know, I don't know if I answered your question or not, but I think, yeah, nationalism is a strong reason for the support that the nuclear program has in Iran. There's a number of reasons. There's pride in the idea that Iran, it's a homegrown, sure they got the centrifuge design from the Pakistanis originally, but now they have these P2 centrifuges. Scientific progress, Iran, these are big on science and technology, I mean, they fully recognize that the reason of the third world or the developing world is so far behind technology, so far behind in many ways from the West, Western Europe and the US is technology. Technology is where the Muslim world has failed in the last 100 years to keep up with the West. And so there's a great emphasis in Iran on science and technology. And so any technological advancement, any kind of scientific advancement, is viewed very favorably by the population at large. It doesn't matter whether it's under an Islamic Republic or under a Shah, they're gonna feel like this is Iran. At the end of the day, it's their country. And that's another thing that I discovered, I think, for myself, is when you live in Iran, yes, you're politically aware, yes, you may dislike the system of government, yes, you may not agree with even having an Islamic Republic and you may want a kingdom again or you may want a secular Republic, but you're living in Iran, it's Iran, it's the country, it's still the country. I would equate it to, I mean, it's probably not a good analogy, but for someone who, for a progressive who despised the Bush administration, just hated the idea of Dick Cheney sitting there and making decisions for us for eight years, it's still America, we still loved America. As Americans, we still loved America. We didn't like our government and we didn't like necessarily, didn't like many things right now. We hate our Congress, a lot of us do anyway. But it doesn't take away, we're living in America, it doesn't take away from the Americanness of life here and I think that aspect is, it doesn't matter that it's an Islamic Republic, you're not gonna take away no matter how repressive it is and no matter how religious it is, you're not gonna take away that Iranianness of life in Iran and that's something that's difficult, I think for one to understand, if you just go there as a journalist for a few weeks or whether you're Iranian American or whether you're just American or if you just, you know, visit to do a story. - Oh, it seemed that most of the past visits you've done would have revolved around government figures, nuclear people as opposed to just a day-to-day interaction like that. What did you miss most from America while you were in Iran? - Whiskey. - Yeah. - I remember that part where you're trying to find good bootleg alcohol. - No, I mean, that's not a flippant answer but I think, well, it is a flippant answer. I had full access to whiskey. Sometimes it's just nice to go out with friends and have a drink at a bar, you know? And I think that you missed that social life in Iran, revolves around going to people's homes, which is very nice and very pleasant and you have drinks and we have wine and we have great dinners and women don't wear a hijab when they enter the home of it, you know, someone who's not really just. And, but I think you, one tires of that and you forget that you tire of that, you forget that, you know, as great as that is, it is still nice to be able to go to the corner and just sit down with a group of people, sometimes strangers and have a beer at the bar. So I think that one does miss that and one notices that probably after a while rather than immediately, immediately you're going, wow, this is great, people are so generous, you go to their house, they're opening bottles of wine, they're opening whiskey, you're drinking, it's not a problem living in the Islamic land. And then after you live there for a while, I go, man, would it be nice to go to a bar? - Go around the corner. - One night. And, you know, I don't want to emphasize the alcohol thing 'cause, you know, that's not Iran, it's not the only country that's like that in terms of the, in terms of bars. But, but yeah, I think that, you know, just in general daily life, you miss that and you miss certain other things. TV is not an issue, you can, and movies are not an issue, you can get the-- - Get satellite. - Satellite, satellite and disc disc. And so you can have home entertainment like that and really there's not a hell of a lot. But I also miss America, wherever I am in the world, you know, if I lived in Paris for a year, there were things about New York that I would miss. - What do you miss since you left Iran from there? - I think both of us, my wife and I, we miss the food. (laughing) We miss the food and we miss, I guess we miss some of the kind of Persian, very Persian characteristics that one sees and people, generosity, openness, welcoming of strangers and the kind of just very, I guess that's, we both, and we talked about it, we both miss that there is a certain, and family, the way families treat each other in Iran is it's very visible to a foreigner and to someone who doesn't live there, how families are so tight and so united. Even if they have people within the family that disagree politically, it's just nice to see that kind of family life and the generosity of spirit, I would say, that sometimes you miss that, and when you live in, and that's not to say that that doesn't exist here, just so that we happen to live in a city where the pace is different, we don't have family around us. - You may not know your neighbors here in this apartment building. - Exactly, exactly. - This part I couldn't edit out if it's something that's sensitive. How did you get money over there? - Oh no, it's not sensitive at all. - It doesn't exactly get alluded to, and I wasn't sure if there was some sort of, we don't want to mention this. - No, no, we can mention it. It's legal as an Iranian, I'm a dual citizen, and actually my wife is now, too, by virtue of marrying me. She came on an Iranian passport to Iran, as did my son, so we, as dual citizens, we don't have to go through, if we're just going for a visit to Iran, we don't have to go through the same processes that an American citizen is going on, if he's asked in terms of the sanctions and money, so we can take money with us. I also have a lot of family there who could, who advanced me money. - I just wasn't sure in terms of transferring money. - You can't transfer money legally, there's no way you can-- - I thought maybe there was some issue with that. - No, no, you couldn't, I couldn't like call up my bank and say, "Could you please deposit $10,000 into this Iranian bank?" They'd be like, "Are you outta here?" "Well, thank you very much." (laughs) No, it can't do that, so either you have to take a tremendous amount of cash, or you have to rely on friends and family in Iran to advance either cash and then you pay them back later. - I just, I always wonder about those day-to-day exigensations. - Yeah, yeah, I had to open a bank account. I had to open a bank account, I mean, you know-- - That came up, I just wasn't sure about where-- - How did I open the bank account? - Moving things over and also, I think there's sanctions. - Oh, no, there's some big sanctions, yeah. - In terms of who could move over there, how much we can carry, but I just wasn't sure if you're walking with a big burlap sack with a dollar sign painted on them. You're here, take this, you know. - Under US law, if you take more than $10,000 out of the country, bring it into the country, you have to declare it, so I didn't take more than $10,000 out. - So, cheaper living than Brooklyn. - Yeah. - How does Iran, or Iran, sorry, I'm always gonna just pronounce it randomly American? - It's fine, plenty of people do. - How does it reach modernity? I mean, you talk about-- - Yeah. - That notion of trying to become a modern state, and it seems, again, the idea of educating women and it comes off the way you portray it as a much more cosmopolitan state, despite the fact that it's-- - And modern, yes. - It's been isolated. But the gap between antiquity and modernity is sort of the center of Western civilization. How does this non, not exactly Western civilization-- - Well, if you ask, it's a good question, because if you ask the more progressive and enlightened mullahs, they say that you're assuming that modernity is tied to secularism and liberal democracies. And they would argue that that's wrong, that it's not because of a liberal democracy that the West has become technologically modern and advanced. Although they would argue, they would concede that there are democratic principles that are required for people to advance. And you'll see it even in the statements of this new president, Iran, Rouhani, who has said if you wanna be a modern country, if you wanna be advanced, you have to have access to information. You have to have free access to information. And I think that is gonna change in Iran. And to a large degree, that information did exist, but once you start censoring the internet, once you start censoring people and not allowing them to read certain things, it becomes difficult to even read scientific journals. I mean, which is what the Iranians have tried to avoid in the last 10 years, is to not censor the exchange of science and information, but with sanctions, it's become almost impossible. So I think that is a goal for the Iranians. But like I said, the progressive mullahs would argue with you and say it's not, it doesn't have to be by definition a Western liberal democracy. We don't have to have MTV in order to be, although MTV is so passive, I'm dating myself, but we don't have to have-- - Former record executive, right? - Former record executive. You don't have to have your MTV in order to become a modern state. You can do without the MTV. You don't have to have pornography to become modern state. You could say that pornography and MTV are byproducts of a modern state. You could argue that, but I don't think they would agree that you have to have that. They say you can have an Islamic democracy. And again, that definition of that term is widely varies depending on who you're talking to. If you're talking to former President Khatami, his idea of Islamic democracy is very close to a liberal democracy of the West with a little bit of religion thrown in. If you talk about a Christian democracy to Christian evangelicals in the United States, that's-- - Because the founding fathers were all hardcore Christians. - Yes, you would find them very close to some of the progressive mullahs in Iran in terms of what they would want. Maybe not even the progressive, maybe even some of the conservative mullahs in terms of what they want. So, Christian values, as they are in America, for at least for some people, and for actually quite a lot of people, Christian values in wanting the state to have those Christian values, their state, their government advocate. It's the same kind of thing for the people who are somewhat religious in Iran, not someone who are very religious in Iran, and want the state to have Islamic values. Now, Islamic values, you could argue what those are. And, you know, Iran has traditionally ignored Sharia law. It doesn't chop off the hand of everybody who steals. It doesn't-- It's not quite as, it doesn't adhere quite in the same way to Sharia law, as the Saudis do, for example. But anyway, my point is that, you know, the question is a very good question. How do you achieve that? The answer is, I don't know. I don't know, because I don't know whether to believe the progressive clerics in Iran who say that it can be compatible, modernity and technological advancement, and science can be compatible with an Islamic veneer on a democracy, where there are some Islamic laws, there are some adherence to Islamic values, or whether to believe, you know, people who say that you have to have secularism in order for that you have to have a reformation and enlightenment in order for to progress into a modern state. The some of them will argue that the most advanced technologically and scientific states were Islamic, you know, 1,000 years ago, which is probably true. Pre-enlightenment, yes, yes, yes. It's just the acceleration curve once we hit that point. Exactly, yeah, yeah. At the risk of dating the episode, what's your take on the overtures made by President Rouhani recently and the idea of some flexibility in terms of Iran's nuclear program and trying to work? I think he represents, as he himself has said, the will of the people. I think he recognizes, he may not have been the ideal candidate for a lot of people, certainly not the initially, the green movement, people who were a little bit more radical, a lot more radical than he is, in terms of the changes they wanted to see. But I think there was a recognition, particularly after former President Khattami endorsed him in the last two days of the campaign, there was a recognition that he could be the man, not the man that you have to necessarily revere, not the man who's going to be a symbol for you, but he could be the man who could move you forward, move the Iranian people forward in terms of relations with the West, in terms of the economy, in terms of getting to what exactly what you just said, which is a modern state that interacts with the world, does business with the world, and lifts a lot of the restrictions on people's lives inside Iran, allows civil society to flourish. And I think he's been gradually delivering that. At least as far as the Iranian people are concerned, I mean the release of political prisoners every week, some very prominent political prisoners are being released who've been in jail for four years, and in some cases five years, since the green movement. And seeing that, and seeing that lifting of that security atmosphere, not completely, it hasn't been lifted completely, but seeing that is okay, we don't have to love this man. We don't have to be a symbol of our freedom from tyranny. But if he's the man, if he can be the vehicle who moves us forward, I think that at this point, the majority of Iranians are behind him in terms of trying to get this gradual change happening, and it's actually happening in some ways faster than people imagined. There's a couple of bigger questions on the civil society front, and that's the house imprisonment of Musavi and Karoubi, and there are still other political prisoners who have not yet been freed. But I think that if you look at him in the last two months, he's only been in power two months, and by the time my book comes out, it will have been three months. I think that people are generally satisfied with the way that it's gone. This is something that the Iranian people have wanted for a long time, and a lot of them believe that they voted for in 2009, and their votes were encountered. And that's not to say everybody, they're still a pretty large contingent of people who are very conservative, and don't trust reform, don't trust openness to the West, and it's a large group of people. It's not insignificant, which is one of the reasons why Iranians are very wary of revolution, and wary of drastic change, because when they look at Syria and they see the Assad forces still holding on, and fighting with pro-democracy people in Iran. They look around their own neighborhoods, and they see the apartment building they live in. They share a space with people who are on the other side of the political spectrum, and may not take something like that very quietly, and could end up in civil war, or extreme violence. But I think the election of President Rouhani has been something that has generally been viewed very, very favorably, and his steps have been viewed favorably. - Do you think there's a level of irrevocable change that can occur, or is there still a moment where the Supreme Leader is, you know, Twitter opens up, or something of that ilk, is that seen as something that can be, that you open a Pandora's box, in a sense? - Well, I think that there's a number of things. I mean, first of all, the system, the regime, if you wanna call it that, can be paranoid, and sometimes, rightfully so, when we're threatening it, or we're assassinating scientists, or, you know, on the streets of Tehran, or whatever, it can be, or we talk about, you know, all options on the table. It can be paranoid, it can be paranoid about regime change. And when it feels paranoid, and not secure, it tends to obviously clamp down much more severely. When it's less paranoid, and I think it's an imperiate right now, when it's not as paranoid, and feels somewhat secure, and if it sees the population as being, you know, comfortable with the choice of President, comfortable with what he's trying to do, generally supportive of him, they don't really feel there's a lot of danger. So I don't think, you know, whether Twitter comes, becomes open, and not filtered in Iran, or Facebook, or if there's more interaction, civil society opens up. I don't think there's a great fear. There is a fear among some elements in the Iranian system that that would lead to, that's a Pandora's box, that it would lead to regime change. But I think there's a general recognition that Iran cannot, among any intelligent Iranian, in government, or outside government in Iran. It was a recognition that this system, the way that it is right now, cannot endure forever. It has to undergo some change. It has to undergo some reforms. And whether those reforms are fast and drastic, or that they're slow and less drastic is another question. Obviously, someone like President Rouhani believes in some drastic changes. He's made it very clear in some of his interviews that he believes that, you know, the internet should not be filtered at all. And that's his belief, and whether he'll be able to accomplish that or not, I don't know. But any belief, some other changes should not be so drastic in terms of changes, such as complete change in the system, the structure of the Islamic Republic. He certainly doesn't believe it should be, it should be changed in the immediate future. And I don't think all the Iranians are focused on that. Iranians want a better life. I mean, everybody, going back to, you know, Iranians are just normal human beings, is like everybody thinks about themselves first. And we're all selfish, as human beings, we're a selfish animal. And we think about our jobs, our families, how to take care of them, how to make money, how to survive our health, all those things. And that's your primary concern when you wake up in the morning, whether you're in Iran, or whether you're in New York. The pocketbook, as I said, just Bill Clinton said, it's the economy. So that's the first thing that people are concerned about. The second thing is, you know, they're freedoms, and they're social life, and those are all secondary, but they are concerns. And especially when those concerns also affect your, economic well-being, also affect your family. - Well, it seems very much from your book that the personal and the political are just-- - Intertwining. - Completely and extricable. - Yes, yeah. - It's a life, the entire regime is political, in a sense that everybody's day-to-day lives are somehow tied into its well-being, going forward. - It reminds me, actually, of a line from The Leopard, the novel by Lapidusa, the nephew says to the prince, you know, if we want things to stay as they are, uncle, things will have to change, and that's-- - That's a very good, that's a very good quote. - Which, again, I figure there's sort of universality to-- - There is, yes. - These lives. - Yeah. - And I think what you just said is pretty much what I think the Supreme Leader has decided over the last few months. We need to-- - Yeah, if he wants it to stay the same. - Now, to get to the-- - I'm gonna have to change. - The giant problem, or the giant Jewish elephant in the room, does Iran's approach to Israel change? Does that, the existential threat that Israel portrays Iran having nuclear weapons-- - Yeah. - Seems to help guide the US need for sanctions, which is my bad way of saying that, you know, Israel's interests are guiding US approach to Iran. - Partially, yes. - Do you see that changing from an Iranian perspective, a different-- - I think-- - Reprochum on towards Israel. - It's a very good question. I think it's a very good question and an important question, because if you're a conspiracy theorist and you believe Israel basically runs the US government through APAC, or whether you believe that Israel just has an outsized influence on the US policies in the Middle East, particularly, because I don't think Israel particularly cares about our policy towards the Philippines, but they do care about anything in the region. And they do have a lot of-- Israel does have a lot of influence and does have a lobby, but I don't buy it that it's all about Israel. I think there are so unfortunate statements that happen by certain American officials that give the impression that it's all about Israel. When you have Samantha Power saying at her confirmation hearing that her primary job at the UN as ambassador to the United Nations is to just ensure the security of Israel, it makes you wonder whether the priorities of the US government are right. I would have thought that her number one priority would be the security of the United States, not the security of Israel, but that's neither here nor there. Obviously, that's something that was said to appease certain groups who were against her nomination as ambassador and her past as being someone who was critical of Israel. But no, I think that you've already seen a change in the Iranian attitude toward Israel. The mere fact that there are now Iranians in government calling it Israel and not calling it the Zionist entity or the illegal Zionist entity or the occupier or stuff like that, it was a word that you couldn't utter if you were an Iranian government official, the word Israel. So I think you're seeing some change already now. And Rouhani's may be mistranslated, who knows a comment about the Holocaust and the reprehensible crime and that's clear, and that's something that has always, I mean, you know, Ahmadinejad was an aberration, I believe. I'm not even convinced that he himself believes the Holocaust didn't happen. I think he's just a troublemaker who loved it. - Am I didn't judge me? - Yeah. I think he just wanted to say that because-- - Just tweak the Israelis. - And a provocative statement and, you know, it was something that was gonna get him headlines around the world and he was just an absolute media whore. And that guaranteed his, you know, that he would get into time and time again on that question and he would explain it and in the Arab world, he felt like wearing the third world and the Arab world and the developing world, he would be a hero. As he unfortunately still is to some people for having questioned, you know, this so-called Holocaust, you know, because, you know, in that world, there are no Holocaust studies, you know. There are no, people don't grow up, you know, with relatives or with friends who had relatives die in the Holocaust or perish in the Holocaust. So no, that was never something that the Iranian government as a whole embraced Holocaust denial. Ahmadinejad tried very hard with his conference, Holocaust denial, conference, you know, the questioning of Holocaust and silly things like Holocaust cartoons in Tehran, which was very embarrassing to not just the Iranian population at large, but also a good number of Iranian officials, some of whom were sidelined by his government because they were, they just couldn't possibly work for this, for his government. So I think that was an aberration. And I think that in terms of Israel, look, Iran is not going to be best friends forever, BFF, which is real, it's, although one could argue that it should, as two non-Arab countries in the region and a lot of commonality in terms of even culture, you'd think that they are natural allies. But they're not going to be. And Israel, I don't think, can abide by an adversary that is equally powerful militarily as they are economically, militarily, in every, in every other aspect that is opposed to Israel. The existence of Israel is not something that I've experienced Iranian officials in private have, you know, an absolutist position on. And Rouhani was clear, and he's taken the same position of Qatami did, and I believe with the full approval of the Supreme Leader, that on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, whatever the Palestinians decide, Iran is going to be okay with. Now, Israelis will argue, well, they, yeah, but then they also, the caveat is that all Palestinians should be able to vote, even the ones in the diaspora. So once you do that, then Israel's not going to-- - Yeah, the right of first return isn't-- - Then it's going to be, then Israel's not going to exist because there are more of them than there are of us. But that's something that is, I don't think it's that important. I don't think the Iranians really want to inject themselves too much into the Palestinian-Israeli issue. - Do you feel it's more an issue of trying to align themselves with the Arab street? - Well, I think to some degree it's that. I think it's also supporting the underdog against the imperialist Americans and Israelis. And, you know, it's initially in the early days of the revolution, it was like, well, Israel's Mossad trained the Shah's secret police. I mean, it's not something that you're going to forgive if you're a revolutionary that easily, particularly if you're a revolutionary, you spent time in jail in war and were tortured by the Savak. So the idea that, you know, the Israeli American Alliance has been negative for Iran was strong at the time of the revolution. The Palestinian cause as a Muslim cause against the usurper imperialist was a cause that Iran could very comfortably, I mean, one of the first dignitaries, foreign dignitaries to visit Tehran was Yasser Arafat. I mean, he just flew in, days after home, and he took over, it was like, I'm here, give me some money, let me open up a Palestinian embassy where the Israeli mission used to be. And they did, they let him open up, they didn't give him a lot of money, but they did let him open up an embassy there in the Palestinian embassy. So the idea, you know, it's a revolutionary idea. And the way that, you know, a lot of other revolutionary governments have sympathized or aligned themselves with the Palestinian cause, the Iranian government has as well. And they continue to do that. When it comes to religion, things have changed in the last 30 years, since those early days, when there really wasn't a big, there didn't seem to be a sectarian issue in Islam. At that point, there always was to some degree, but the Palestinians weren't making a big deal of their biggest supporters being the Shia, while they were Sunni Shia Iranians. And the Shia Iranians weren't making a big deal about the Palestinians being Sunni. Now in the last, since really the Iraq war, sectarian issues have blown up. And now with Syria, they've blown up. So Iranians are a little bit more wary of being openly supportive of a Sunni cause, which the Sunni Palestinians are making it a Sunni cause. Yes, right, if I was secular, they became more Muslim. - Yeah, near the end, he-- - In the end, he decided that the way he's gonna get the sympathy of the Muslims. - As Saddam, also, once the sanctions came down, it's, you know-- - Suddenly it's Islam, yeah. - Exactly, because you know what your population, if you know your population is religious and beliefs and then it was a smart of, I guess, smart of Yasser Arafat. Now Hamas is particularly religious and Islamic Jihad are particularly religious, but there are Sunnis. And with Hamas's alignment to the Muslim Brotherhood and alignment to the rebels in Syria as opposed to the Assad regime, well that equation has changed for Iran. And I don't think Iran feels, and this is me speaking for just my general impression, I don't get a sense that Iranians feel like they are, you know, brothers in arms against Israel at this point. I don't think they're looking to pick a fight with Israel. And I think that they, even if they had nuclear weapons, they are very unlikely to, I shouldn't say very unlikely. It's never possible to predict anything with certainty, but I've never heard anybody ever in private, in public, ever even imagine having a nuclear weapon that they would want to drop on Israel. It's just, it's something that doesn't-- - Do you think either the Sunni countries see Iran as more of a threat with nuclear weapons than Israel does? - I think that they, yes, I do think they do. I think the Israeli intelligence services are quite capable of understanding that the Iranians are not going to drop a nuclear weapon on them and according to all public reports, have made that very clear, former heads of Assad and so on. I think the Arab, the Arab Sunni states, are definitely in a rivalry with Shiite and non-Arab, Iran, in terms of regional power and regional hegemony and are very concerned about a military. First of all, militarily, Iran is never going to be technologically at the same stage as Saudi Arabia, for example, which gets the latest American fighters, the latest American weaponry. And Iran has to make deal with antiquated Russian or Chinese weaponry or indigenous weaponry that they manufacture, which could or could not work in an actual battle. - That's an Iranian-American palamine kind of warned me off of worrying too much. It's like, "Yo, the toilets don't flush well." There's really don't be too concerned about soliciting this. - I wouldn't be concerned too much about the conventional weapons. But Iran with a nuclear weapon changes the equation, yes. Or Iran with nuclear capability changes the capability to build a weapon, which the Arabs are not even, or the Arab states in the region are not even close to, or haven't even begun with enriched uranium and so on and so forth. Or even indigenous missile technology. I mean, the Arab states would have to buy ICBMs. They couldn't build them. Iran is trying to build them because, and they've gotten some of the technology for the North Koreans and so on. But anyway, there's been an advanced program for that kind of weaponry. - So yes, the Arabs, I think, are particularly concerned, not because they think Iran's gonna drop a nuclear weapon on Mecca because that would be self-defeating, but because they think that they could, you know, shove themselves around in the Middle East, yes. And that's something that they don't want to see. - Now, the other great weapon you bring up in the Iranian arsenal is the Big Silk, which comes up in the book on numerous occasions. Can you sort of talk us through what the Big Silk is and how it's worked on a personal level and a national level? - With Iran. Yeah, well, yeah, I get into it quite deeply into the book. I mean, the Big Silk that I talk about, it's a title of a chapter, is initially about President Ahmadinejad's. I mean, when we arrived in Tehran, literally within weeks, a week or so, he went into this great salt 'cause he couldn't get his way. The Supreme Leader overruled him on a matter, which was the intelligence, him trying to fire the intelligence minister. I think it's a detailed thing that I talk about in the book. But then it reminded me of this characteristic that we Iranians have, which is the sulk. And I refer to my own father sulking and trying to get his way. And it's something, it's sort of childlike, but it works. And it has worked in the past for Iranians, but it's a traditional thing. I mean, Musadek in 1953 sulked when he couldn't get his way. The Shah sulked. I mean, everybody in power sulks, and it happens in personal lives, too. You know, this idea of this big sulk. I think we view it as childish, but it's an effective political tool, as well as a social tool for Iranians. - And do you see the split between Iran's government and the U.S. as a-- - Oh, absolutely, I absolutely, I think that's part of it. Is that sulking of, you guys treated as badly? Now we're just gonna ignore you for the next 35 years. But I think the sulk is, it's time for the sulk to be over. I think that's what Iranians are talking about today. I mean, Iranian government officials are talking about today. Just today, it's the Friday prayer leader in Tehran was like saying things positive about the rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. Like the sulk is over. And then the second Friday prayer speaker who isn't a mullah was somebody allied to the Supreme Leader's office when people started chanting death to America. He said, "I didn't say that slogan, I didn't say it." - Really got to zone himself from that? - Yeah, just saying, I'm not saying that, let's drop this death to America thing, that's, you know. So I think yes, and I do refer to that in the book, the national characteristic for sulking, which I'm pretty good at myself. I think, and I recognize that in this trip that my own sulk's probably had a political in my, and one of the reasons I probably can't hold a job is maybe I sulk too much when I-- - He's gonna say that Americans just don't get it and you're a-- - I think Americans, the American character is to leave things behind very quickly and just move on. Like just move on, move on, move on. If we were gonna sulk, I mean, and that's true of any American, I mean, if I was African American, I'd still be sulking about slavery. And some do, fair enough, but generally speaking, no. - Yeah, it's not a general cultural thing, it's the sulk for 100 years. But believe me, if they were Iranian, they'd be sulking in a big way, still. - Do you wonder who you would have been if you'd been reared in Iran, if your family hadn't left? Or would they come back around the time of the revolution? Well, by the time of revolution-- - Yeah, well, it's a very good question and I have wondered that. I have wondered, you know, when I see my cousins in Iran and cousins who I love dearly and I feel close to, and I think, you know, but for the fact that my father was a diplomat and we were traveling around the world at a time when Iran didn't have a big foreign ministry, and so the handful of diplomats in had were all was kept in post. - Right, it's like, we can't afford to have you back in Tehran, and like just go to New York, go to San Francisco, go to London. If I had been, if my father hadn't been a diplomat, I would have been raised in Iran like they were, and I don't know what I, I don't know. I mean, when I was in college, I thought, I thought two things, I thought, I want to be a writer and I want to be an ambassador for my father, which were kind of like, at that time, we're actually not mutually exclusive because one of Iran's greatest writers of fiction was a diplomat, like my father. So, who continued being a diplomat? He didn't rise-- - What was his name? - Pizzichedad, the United Pizzichedad. - I won't be able to write that down at all, so you'll have to tell me about yours. But yeah, he, a great writer, wrote one of the great Iranian novels. Anyway, so I didn't think they were mutually exclusive, but I liked the idea of being a diplomat, and I did think about going back to Iran, I would have, what it would have meant, and this was right before the revolution, what it would have meant would be for me to go to Iran and learn how to read and write Farsi, and improve my Farsi to the point, my Persian language skills to the point where I could actually communicate properly in my own language, because my native language is English. But I had planned to do that, and continue in the diplomatic service, and I didn't imagine that there was gonna be a revolutionary time soon, which is-- - How they always happen? - Oh, they always happen. But I have thought about that, and the honest truth is, of course, one can't possibly know, but I imagine that I'd probably be doing something similar to what I do now. I don't think people's personalities and characters change just because of their environment. I think they might be culturally a little bit different, but I don't think their personality changes. If I wanted to be a writer in college, I probably would have wanted to be a writer in Iran, but I was also interested in music and film from a child-- - How did you come a journalist? - Which is taken as far as field, but-- - Far as field, no, no, it's a good question too, because I originally wanted to write, and I did try to write, I did actually write some stories and was published right out of college in anthologies and collections, short stories, and I realized that you cannot make a living at it, unless you want to drive a cab during the day and try to write it, and I, which is nothing wrong with it, but I fell into the music business by accident through friends and who were already in the music business schoolmates, and I enjoyed it tremendously, and I sort of left writing it alone for a number of years, and then came back to it when the music business died, and I thought, well, if I don't do it now, I'm not gonna ever do it, and then-- - How about when was that? - That was right around-- - I soon post Napster early 2000s. - Right around, yeah, right around then, right around then, yeah, just, yeah, post in the 21st century. And so I initially, I did a couple of short stories and had them published, and then thought, well, I still can't make a living from this, and then some friends in the media, and I was fortunate enough, having been in the music business for a long time, I had a lot of friends in the media in the print media, and so people suggested, well, you're Iranian, why don't you write about Iran, I never even occurred to me. - It's good to jump from one dying industry to another. - Yes. - That's a good one. - Yeah, exactly, so maybe I'll, I hope I don't see the death of this one. But so I started writing about Iran, and then I got some journalistic gigs doing articles, New York Observer, and then the New Yorker talk. I mean, here and there I got some small, and then I, my agent suggested I do a book, and I did a book with Double Day, and then just the rest of this history kept doing it, so it's nonfiction, mostly, but I'd still write fiction, and I, you know. - What do you read on the fiction side? - On the fiction side. I tend to read whatever anybody sends me. I like free books, but no, I mean, I go back to some, I do like to read things, I like to reread. - I've been in that boat lately, it's certainly in my 40s, that I'm going back and-- - Yeah, I definitely like to reread. I've just, I just went through some of the summers at mom's short stories, the collected works. But I like to read all kinds of fiction. Unfortunately, don't have as much time to read fiction as I would want. - Becoming a father in your advanced age. That's an advantage. - Advanced age, becoming a father, and still having books to deliver, and articles to write, and-- - You mentioned this being your potentially last Iran book, or at least forming a sort of trilogy of that. What lines are you interested in pursuing for future-- - I'd like to go back to what I really want to do, which is fiction. But, I mean, it's just so much more fun to make shit up. - I'm down. (laughs) - But, but, no, I enjoy non-fiction, tremendously, too, I do enjoy long-form non-fiction, whether it's an article, or whether it's a book. So I'm not discounting that. But I've been thinking about fiction. I just don't know if the public, or my readership, people who might, whether they'll pick this one up, or they pick the old ones up, and have enjoyed them, or not enjoyed them, whether they just, I mean, how many times is whom I'm gonna write about Iran? I mean, it's just-- - Anyone like that, though. - Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. I just don't see what I could do. That would be, I mean, sure, I could write a book about, I just think it would be a boring book, and other people will have written it by the time I write it, about the political process, about, I mean, all these changes that are potentially happening between the US and Iran, I mean, that, if I hadn't written this book, maybe that would have been a book to write. This change, this reform that's happening, if it happens, or if there's a war, if the air talks fall apart, and Iran goes to be a more repressive state than it is, all of that is interesting and fascinating, but I think people will be writing about that. And does it require another book? Does it require me to go to Iran, and go through all the things I have to go through again? - Have you gone back since you-- - Yes. - Okay, did you have an easy-ish time? 'Cause you mentioned in the book, having some difficulties-- - Yes, I've had difficulties. No, I've been back twice since I wrote this book. - Did they know you were writing it? - They did not. - Okay. At the time they did not, I'd know I was writing it. I guess now they do know I've written it because it's on Amazon, and then they're pretty good-- - If they can get to Amazon. - Yeah, well, the intelligence services can't. Their internet's not filtered. - And it's broadband. No, the last two times I've had some problems at the airport, and some issues, but both times I went with NBC News 'cause I work with them, and I was just there a couple of weeks ago with Anne Currie of NBC News who was interviewing the president, and we had some minor problems, but they were fixed. Those problems were fixed by the new administration. Had there not been a new administration, I would have had far greater problems. - And final question? - Is there a far C word for sperretzatura? It's your renown for being a very understated, fashionable man. I wasn't sure if that's something that comes through through-- - Thank you, I don't know if there is a far C word for that. - Casually fashionable. - Casually, yeah, I think there's more derogatory words for that than there are complimentary words. There's a word jigul, which means dandy, I guess, in a way, but dandy's not quite derogatory as jigul. Jigul is very derogatory. - Generally, I have a split between dandy and fomp. - Fomp, yeah. - That may be-- - Yeah, so jigul, I'd hate to think of myself as jigul, but I'm sure there are people who consider me that. - Oh, I'm the same way in my office, just because I don't dress as though I just broke out of prison. - Right, right, I was noticing it was a very nice jacket. - Oh, thank you. - You've gots. - I started going with an unstructured style, and I did, well, dressing this morning, said they're thinking, "Ah, geez, I don't wanna either try "to look like I'm showing him up, "or show him a complete slob, I'm kinda torn." - No, it's not, no, it's the casual look is what today-- - It's my casual Friday, so I'm just wearing denim. - Very nice. - On the strength of that, Human Majj, thank you so much for coming on "The Virtual Memory Show." - My pleasure. (upbeat music) - And that was Human Majjj. His new book is "The Ministry of Guidance," invites you to not stay. Go get it from your favorite bookstore. I haven't read his other books, the Ayatollah begs to differ and be Ayatollah's democracy, but I bet they're pretty good too. And you can find out more about Human at his site, humanmajd.com. Now I can finally reveal how it's spelled H-O-O-M-A-N-M-A-J-D.com. And Human also has a style blog, which is how I first came across him. And that's thehouseofmajd.com. I have to admit, for all the great moments I've had doing interviews in the past two years, I really think one of the high points was when Human complimented me and my jacket. When you check out thehouseofmajd.com, you'll sort of get an idea of what his sartorial style is. So I was pretty thrilled with that praise. That will be back next week on the Virtual Memories Show with an interview with Virginia Postrell, who did not compliment me on my clothing, but we still had a fine conversation. She is the author of the new book, The Power of Glamour. Now meanwhile, why don't you go to iTunes and leave a review of the show or visit chimeraobskira.com/vm and make a little donation to help cover my travel costs and my web hosting. All these New York City jaunts are starting to cost me a bit. But until then, I am Gil Roth and you are awesome. Keep it that way. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]