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

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Why are the posts there in English?
- meepmorp 4y ago
  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?
  - msm_ 4y ago
    > 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.
    - cafard 4y ago
      Doesn't the list of cities with the most Iranians start 1) Tehran, 2) Los Angeles?
    - lallysingh 4y ago
      What language is a better choice?
      - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
        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?
        rhaway84773 4y ago
        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.
        justinclift 4y ago
        Are you maybe accidentally White Knight-ing here? eg getting upset on someone else's behalf, for something that doesn't actually bother them
        MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
        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?
- yucky 4y ago
  The real answer is likely because it's performative bs for an American audience.
eternalban 4y ago
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-democracy-movement-event/ 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."
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Can anyone recommend a political history of the Islamic Republic? How did a democratic movement wind up with a supreme leader?
  - layer8 4y ago
    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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran#1979
  - Khaine 4y ago
    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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution
dmix 4y ago
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? I haven’t read much into it but “suspected poisoning”in the OP article brings to mind tampered food, deploying military style chemical weapons in schools is a whole different ball game. https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/11hwqnc/breaking_ali_khamenei_has_launched_another_round/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/11hwqnc/breaking_a...

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

Why are the posts there in English?

meepmorp 4y ago
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?
- msm_ 4y ago
  > 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.
  - cafard 4y ago
    Doesn't the list of cities with the most Iranians start 1) Tehran, 2) Los Angeles?
  - lallysingh 4y ago
    What language is a better choice?
    - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
      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?
      - rhaway84773 4y ago
        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.
      - justinclift 4y ago
        Are you maybe accidentally White Knight-ing here? eg getting upset on someone else's behalf, for something that doesn't actually bother them
        MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
        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?
yucky 4y ago
The real answer is likely because it's performative bs for an American audience.

eternalban 4y ago

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-democracy-movement-event/ 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."

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
Can anyone recommend a political history of the Islamic Republic? How did a democratic movement wind up with a supreme leader?
- layer8 4y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran#1979
- Khaine 4y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution

dmix 4y ago

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? I haven’t read much into it but “suspected poisoning”in the OP article brings to mind tampered food, deploying military style chemical weapons in schools is a whole different ball game. https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/11hwqnc/breaking_ali_khamenei_has_launched_another_round/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/11hwqnc/breaking_a...