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There is something about the cold that strips away all illusion. It was winter 2017 when I crossed the border from Turkey to Greece and landed in Thessaloniki. Fourteen of us, huddled together, braving the ice-cold night. Some had been pushed back before—tortured, jailed, and sent back again. No one stayed long in any one place. “We were arrested here last time,” they would say, moving us along like shadows in the night. More than ten hours of walking through freezing rain, numb from the cold but unable to stop. That night felt like it would never end. Cold has…
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The room was tense. It was the second day of the interview, and Brigadier General Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the man who had once controlled Iran’s vast military supply chain, sat across from journalist Abdollah Abdi. He had already spoken candidly about many things, but this question—this one shifted the air in the room. The moment the words left Abdi’s mouth, the tension became palpable. The general’s bodyguard or his assistant—Abdi wasn’t sure which—jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. It was a warning. A silent signal that he had crossed a line. But Rafiqdoust answered anyway. “We used the commission…
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The War on Women: Beyond the Hijab of Erasure
In the pages of ancient manuscripts, beneath the delicate strokes of ink and gold, there is an instrument that appears again and again. Held in the hands of scholars, navigators, and mathematicians, it gleams in the soft candlelight of medieval scriptoria. The astrolabe—an intricate map of the heavens, a device…
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The Curse of Oil, the Weight of History
The article “Iran in the Context of the Middle East – A Concise Analysis of the Situation” (published in Persian) by Mohammadreza Nikfar presents a sweeping historical and political analysis of the Middle East, tracing the region’s cultural layers, its historical aspirations, and its present-day struggles. The author argues that…
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The Trial That Could Change Iran’s Future
Iran’s modern history is a story of unbroken state repression. From the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the theocratic rule of the Islamic Republic, prisons have remained instruments of control, torture has been routine, and dissent has been met with bullets and gallows. The names and slogans have changed,…
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The Structural Roots of Resent Protests in Iran
Over the past week, for several consecutive nights, the city of Dehdasht in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province has witnessed widespread protests against recurring power outages, economic hardships, and government repression. These protests were met with a harsh crackdown by security forces and police. Regime-affiliated sources attempted to portray the protests…
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Nostalgia vs. History: Why the Iranian Revolution Was No Accident
Khosrow Sadeghi Boroujeni’s article critically dismantles revisionist narratives that seek to erase the realities of Iran’s pre-revolutionary era while blaming the 1979 revolutionaries for the rise of the Islamic regime. He challenges both monarchist nostalgia and reformist pragmatism, exposing how these perspectives manipulate historical memory to serve political agendas. Boroujeni…
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Iran’s Condition: God, Money, Guns, and Fascist Rule
Georges Bataille’s theory of fascism provides a unique framework for understanding the psychological and structural dynamics of authoritarian regimes. His analysis, rooted in the tension between homogeneity and heterogeneity, explores how societies maintain control through hierarchical structures and sacred symbols of authority. Fascism, as Bataille describes it, thrives on a…
