YouSaid · the spoken record

Abbas Amanat

lines on the record: 188
first: 2022-11-02
most recent: 2022-11-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Very different government, very different cultures, but all of them, in a sense, were coming out of regimes that became progressively powerful. without having any kind of a legal system that would protect the individual vis-a-vis the state. So the idea of law and the constitution according to which there should be a certain protection or certain civil society became very common”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, sure. In 1906, there was a period, actually, as you might know, the first decade or so of the 20th century witnessed numerous what referred to as constitutional revolutions, including Russia in 1905, the first revolution, including the Chinese Revolution in 19 Constitutional Revolution in 1910, the Young Text Revolution in 1908, and the Iranian Revolution in 1906.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And therefore, basically leaving no space or no political space open for any kind of a give and take, any kind of a conversation or participation. 70s, 70s, particularly in the 70s.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In 1979, there was a revolution that eventually came to be known as the Islamic Revolution, and even up to this day, many of the observers or those who have strong views would not like to refer to it as an Islamic revolution or even a revolution. Because the nature of it in the earlier stages of it started really probably around 1977, it took two years. Was much more all embracing. It was not Islamic in a particular fashion or at all, in a sense. It started with a kind of a very liberal democrat. Which required, which demanded mostly by people who were the veterans of the older generations of Iranian liberal nationalists that were left out in the Pahlavi period, is a period of the Shah. Became increasingly authoritarian. Increasingly suppressive.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they are very distinctly the youth that has a different view of the world. And it does not want to compromise. Whether they would be able to succeed or not remains to be seen, whether this regime is going to suppress it, maybe. But it actually Brought to surface many of aspects of the weaknesses of this regime in power.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is urbanization, there is modern economy. On the other hand, you see this superimposed ideological, doctrinal aspect that has driven the regime over all these years. And they cannot get rid of it. They cannot, in this respect, they cannot modernize themselves. They think that they are already perfect in ideological sense this is the best solution for the world, not only for Iran, but for the Muslim world and for the world as a whole. We are anti-imperialist. We have managed to survive either under sanctions. This is all part of their rhetoric. But of course, at a huge expense, the huge expense for their own population. And the point that you have raised is the fact that we now witness There is a Not only a generation gap between the youth and their parents, There is a break, in a sense, from the older generations.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's more like, I don't know whether you have ever visited Turkey, for instance. In certain respects, even more advanced than Turkey, but it's closer to that rather than if you travel, I don't want to bring particular names in North Africa Parts of the Middle East or other parts of the Islamic world. It's much, much different. So, in this respect, you would see certain contrast or paradoxes here on the certain respect, there's the growth.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“See that their discourse changes. They no longer seem to be referring to women as second classes. So that's very important. That's precisely that point That when you have this younger generation, no matter how privileged they are, and many of them are privileged. And there The regime has created its own privileged class that are not necessarily Directly paid by the regime, but they benefit from contractors, certain professions that benefit from what the state provides for them. And Iran is the past 40 years, you can see Iran has developed in terms of material culture, remarkably. You don't have good communication, has roads all over the place. It's not like a”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that is the point. I think the evolutionary guys may be an extreme, but many of the people who depend on this. For their support Now the younger generation Telling their parents, you were wrong. You don't provide for us, this society, this state does not provide what we want So there is a dissent within the family, it seems to me. I hope it's not a wishful thinking. You know, there is a kind of a joke going around. You see this turbid guy is the clergy bearded and traditional clerical appearance. When you see them talking about women, There are very, of course, politically correct. They are very looking down towards women. As I said, they have to be inside, they have to be protected, they have not to be seen, and so forth. But if they have a young person, a young daughter in their family,”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can find them probably in Myanmar is the same phenomenon. And if you look around, you can find quite a number of them. And the revolutionary guards is equivalent of that. This is a powerful establishment force, which militarily is powerful, industrially is powerful. Since the start of the revolution, they have been given projects. So we want to build dams, which they did a major disaster, environmental disaster. They built 100 and something dams all across the country. This is the revolutionary regard who does it. So they have all kinds of tantacles all around the country controlling various things.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But, you know, they developed their own military industry. I mean, those drones that you see now, Putin's regime are throwing on Ukrainians, poor Ukrainians, those are all built by the revolutionary guards, by the military industry under the control after revolutionary guards. And like similar regimes in the Middle East at least, These are military industrial complexes. You can find them in Egypt, of course, which is a very powerful, very traditionally, has been in power and still is in power. You find him in Pakistan, which is extremely powerful. And they can change the prime ministers as they did in the case of the last one.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the revolutionary guards, and the job was to try to make sure that the regime stays in power. And of course, over the course of 40 years, they became more powerful, more organized, better funded, better trained, well, at least we think they're better trained, but we don't know because the level of incompetence perhaps can be seen through the rank and file as well.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, from day one, when the revolution succeeded, the regime in power, the Islamic regime in power, was vulnerable to all kinds of forces of opposition within Iran itself.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it uses it for its own purposes in order to make it more powerful, in order to make it more repressive than what it is the regime today. So it feeds a small, or I wouldn't say, but a fair number of its own supporters. I mean, the revolutionary guard in Iran is probably about 350,000 or something like that. It's a very big force. And this is not the regular army, the revolutionary guards are independent from the army.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The people that come to these demonstrations that start beating up these young people and they are not in security police uniforms, but they are just regular clothes. And these people, yes, they still support and they still benefit because they get jobs, they get privileges. And these are very important for a state that basically monopolizes most of the resources. Even during the sanction, let alone before the sanction, the oil revenue of Iran, which is the major source of the state government, was the monopoly of the state. It was monopoly of the state during the Pahala Vera from the start, basically. So, what does that mean? That means that the regime in power no longer is particularly accountable to the majority population because it extracts wealth from underground.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes. It's all for that matter. I suppose Soviet Union, if you were a member of the party and your children would have received a special kind of treatment yourself. This sense of us versus them. For a while worked. Because the younger people coming from the countryside to the cities, certain sector of them would have found protection and support from the government. They wanted to belong to something and the mosques and the morning associations in the neighborhoods and so forth would have given them there is actually a term for it. It's called Basiji. Those have been recruited by the state. And this is the youth kind of vigilante, if you like, that you can see them also in this demonstrations. Sometimes thugs, they're called the civil cloth.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“meaning that they consider as a brutal regime. Is prepared to kill children in the streets and does a lot of things wrong. Of course it tries to take care of its own power base. There's a very strong sense of if you start here. There's a very strong sense in this regime that there are people that is theirs and there are others which are not theirs. There's a word for it, even in person. They call it one of us.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I know. I would agree with you in the sense that probably, like everywhere else in the world, this is generational thing. Every generation thinks differently about the younger generation, no doubt. And in Iran is the same. But there is another factor here is involved. Those that we would consider as traditional. No longer seem to have their loyalties to this regime.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The fear, yeah, and you see, of course, this government do have a support base. I mean, it would be totally wrong to think that the Islamic Republic has not created its own power base. It does. But it's probably if there is no way, there are no statistics that we can, well, I'm not aware of any statistics that can give you numbers, what's the percentage of support for the regime in Iran. But quite frankly, I don't think it's more than probably 10% of the population.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which in Iranian culture, as I presume in most cultures in the world, there is a certain sanctity that you don't attack women. But they do. And this is an Islamic regime that supposedly have to have a certain sense of concern and protection.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything is on with you. Everybody has a camera. And everybody sends to major news outlets outside Iran. And they immediately showed every night, if you look at BBC Persian or Iran International or a few, I think there's six of them actually, all over in England. They are in Deutsche Weller in Germany, which has a particular interest in the Iranian. BBC World Service and so forth in London. And Voice of America personally here in this country. There is another one, Radio Faddo, which is also funded by the American government. Also fully covers all of these events. So there is no way that these people can, that Iraq can miss what's going on in the streets of these demonstrations. And the scenes of beach. of women.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, very much so. And it's probably part and parcel of this regime from day one. the number of prisons that they have according to perhaps an exaggerated version they said that about 12 000 or so arrested that are in jails today since past six weeks they were 230 or 40 people were killed including children under 18 they are They beat up women in the street which is extremely actually disturbing when you see these scenes of so there's a lot”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Models of this special armor trucks for moving to the demonstrations and arresting people, throwing them into this. And then behind that water cannons. And I was looking at that and say, okay, this is Tehran probably. They have this. But then you look at the smallest cities, they still have the same thing. So all over the country, one thing that they had managed to produce extensively, irrespective of the fact that whether they are effective or not, but you see them everywhere. So it shows that how afraid this regime is.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two passengers, one in front riding, one in the back, fully equipped with the baton, with paint guns, with pallet guns, and with bullets. So they are very fully equipped and they're terrifying. They go through the demonstrations that hit and beat people. and then the arrests And then you see behind the first line of these right police, you would see all this latest”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it is. An incompetence across the board. I mean, despite all of this massive government administration, whatever you would call it, all these various components of it, there is a sense of inefficiency and incompetence that is associated with in every action that you see, even in their suppression of this street movement. But in answer to that question, you would see that this riot police, very it's quite obvious that they were trained for the purpose. So their appearance, everything, these are not just regular army forces or soldiers or conscripts. They are professional forces. And they come not only on foot number, but they come on motorbikes. So you would see Any of these demonstrations, there are 10, 12, 15, 20 motorbikes.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everywhere The extent that they could be ignored. I think, but if they could not be ignored It's actually quite remarkable that this is very embarrassing to them. But somehow they think that this propaganda machine of them is working.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes. Actually, during the demonstrations three weeks ago, as I said, they had people in Sydney, Australia, New Zealand, Tokyo, all over the world.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yes, it was actually quite remarkable to see that from the first or the second day of the protest, you see out in the streets this riot police. Which comes out in large numbers. Fully geared up Their appearance rather terrifying, like any other riot police, probably more than any other riot police. They stand in the streets when the students are demonstrating. Even in smaller number. Because before I go to that, I should point this point, this out to you as well, that these demonstrations are not... Large ones in one place. You don't see 100,000 people in one place. But you see in every neighborhood a couple of thousand of kids Demonstrating.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They spend enormous amount of funds that is available to them, at least before the sanctions. But even during the sanctions, they still have enough funds to do so. And in order to remain in power, and they are extremely ruthless in that regard, this is not a nice Islamic fatherly regime. This is a regime that I would see easily in it. clear signs of fascism. Clear sense of the state control and pay any price to stay in power.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The problem is that they say we have it all, you know, we have our parliament, we have our constitution, we have our elections, which has all been, of course, fake. But they claim they have all of that. But the problem for them is that they Try to superimpose a certain ideology. Like all other ideological autocracies or autarchies as in this case that tend to dominate All these institution buildings that they have, they constantly claim we have this, we have that. Of course, it's a generational thing. The upper echelons of this regime Are mostly older people turbaned, they are the clergy. That are afraid of the fact that they may lose their control over their host system, that it is sophisticated, huge system of government. And they rely on certain tools of control. and other institutions that are loyal to the state.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sense of trying to come to some compromise and gradually move toward change rather than a collapse of this. Regime and replacement with what?”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I share your aspiration, but I'm fearing that I hope it's not a wishful thinking. Certainly, that's what they want. Certainly, that's what they want to create. But a historian always tells you from where they start to where they finish, there is going to be a huge kind of a change. And in this particular case, I wouldn't be, I would very much hope that it's not going to be a revolution like 1979, Islamic revolution. And I have my hopes in that. For one thing, this is a revolution that doesn't have a leader. And it seems that they're comfortable with that. At least so far, because we are the sixth week of this movement. And I hope it's not going to be actually a revolution, as I pointed out before. I hope it's going to be more of a...”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Unfortunately. And because they don't see a future for themselves in the country, either you have to be part of this regime. Or if you hate them and you don't like the way of their life, you look up outside. I was having drivers to drive me around the country in the cities around Tehran. And the guy was a young, extremely well-educated, well-dressed, and we would have looked at him, we could have found him in any street in any country in the Western world. And his major concern, knowing that I'm from outside. Major concern is, well, tell me which would be a better place for me to go. What's wrong with the place that you're in right now? You are in your own country, you speak your own language, this is no good. I have to have a better future. This has no future for me.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, you would be surprised to see what percentage of the Iranian youth, at least in big cities, are fascinated with learning language. And for a reason, because they think that's the way to get access either on social media or eventually leave Iran.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stuck in my mind. Now, in recently, in 2004, I was traveling to the same area, not to the same city, but to the same area. And I was amazed to see how the youth As soon as they would know that you're coming from somewhere else. Opening conversation with you, talking about the latest movies. Was produced in the West, and it's not only Hollywood. Of course, there's a huge amount of fascination with Hollywood, and Western cinema. Cinema is a major thing. Filmmaking is a major thing. So, this kid in the city of Ahar were asking me, we're having lunch and asking me, okay, then, what do you think about this? Not producer, this director or that actor.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I went to a bazaar in the city of Hui. Which is in the northwestern Iran on the border with what is today the Republic of Turkey. And I went to the bazaar and I was interested in the kind of leather work that they produced. So I tried to buy some stuff and I was surprised to see that how few people knew Persher. So they could not communicate in Persian with you. Either they have to ask somebody from some other store to come and translate for you. This is 1968.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They would have that kind of a continuity over a course of time. And that's not without a reason, because there was this sense of a center versus periphery that had found some, there's a huge amount of tension, but there is also a sense of belonging to something. And state is very much at the center of it. I mean, that's why the concept of a state matters for the creation, for the shaping of this culture. What happened is therefore you can see that today in answer to your point about traveling blindfolded. Is that You would be surprised to see how much. People share. In terms of, I just give you one anecdote. In 1960, Eight, I believe, must have been. I traveled to Azerbaijan. I used to travel and actually photograph.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Continued, that was basically invented. Created that you would have this sense of it. In the case of an old nature, which has been on the map of the world for 3000 years, 2500 years, this is not an exaggeration. I am not a nationalist per se. But if you look Persia and the map of the world in ancient times, it's still there as it is today. Very few countries in the world are like that.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. Exactly. But the United States of America, in a sense, you can say that it was a very successful, well, it remains to be seen how successful.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they all basically are becoming part of whether they like it, whether they like the regime in power or not. They have a sense of belonging to a culture and an identity with the center. And of course, the idea of a center versus periphery in Iran is very old. It goes back to ancient times because even the name of the country was the guarded domains of Iran. This is the official name of Mammal Lechemah. This is not just one entity, but it's a collection of entities.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“National culture of great strength, in a sense, I would say. I ended my book, the book on Iran, Iran, and Modern History, basically saying that despite everything else that has created so much trouble for today's Iran, there is a sense of a cultural identity that is very strong. I can say with some confidence that despite this regional identities that are still there and they're great and they should be celebrated, today if you go to Kurdistan or if you go to Sistan, they all can speak Persian. They all have an education in Persian.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and because of the great number of invasions that Iran witnessed over more than two and a half millennia, of course there are all kinds of cultures were introduced into Iran. Ethnicities were introduced to Iran, mostly coming from the northeast of Iran, from the lowlands of Central Asia and beyond and continued into Iran proper. But now what has happened, that's what my point that I wanted to make, a century of modernity or modernization has produced”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're the same basically. Actually, if you would have looked as a fascinating picture, if you have looked at the, let's say, even 19th century, early 20th century linguistic map of Iran would have been amazed in the number of dialects and the number of languages that has survived. This is an ancient country. It's an ancient land. And it's a lot of mountains all around it. Or big deserts. So there's a sense of isolation. So you would say here and there, you see a different community that picks differently.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the answer to your lovely question, which I think I hope it would have happened to me, is that yes, you would see different cultures But different food, most important accents. Different languages. Since they have dialects, there's Baluch is a different language altogether. But so far that matter, Kurdish, which is closer to Persian because they are Indo-European languages. But Turkish Azeri-Turkish, which is probably closer to the Turkish of Turkey Republic of Turkey, or to the Republic of Azerbaijan in the north.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have the Kurds, a large portion of the Kurds are Sunnis. They have Shiz as well. And they have the indigenous religion of their own anule, what's called Al-Hak, which is the religion of indigenous to Kurdistan. There are Turkiamans in the northeast of Iran who are also Sunnis. There are other communities in Khorasan region, in the peripheries of Afghanistan. There are also Sunnis. And you have some Arab population, Arab-speaking population in the Khuzestan province, in the southwest of Iran, which is also or across the Persian Gulf.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Iran and Iraq and possibly now Lebanon are the three countries who barely Iraq and Lebanon have barely majority population whereas Iran is a large Shi population due to its history of conversion to Shi'iz and that by itself is another story but in the sense that the way that historically it evolved the center became Morshi The peripheries remained Sudni. So you have communities of the Baluch in the south”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Community and in English, when it was anglicized, it becomes Shiite. So if you say Shiite in today, Perfectly acceptable. And of course, I myself, in my writings, always switch between one and the other. One of my books is always Shiite. The other book is always Shiite. And that hasn't been settled. But the she population is the smaller compared to the Sunni population in the world.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That means a party means those that belong to a party of Ali, which goes back to the early Islamic history of 7th century.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Majority of the population of the Muslim world are Sunnis. These are mainstream, if you like, to call them. Actually, stona means that kind of a ministry.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the Sistone province is a Baluch ethnicity, of Baluchi ethnicity. Baluchi is a particular ethnic group in southern Iran, which is Sunni rather than Shi.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source