Hi, this is Reza Sanjide and welcome back to Philosophy of Life. First, I want thanks to everybody who joined me for part one and for those who returning to part two. These two episodes, part one and part two, are about Qasem, one of my oldest and closest friends, one of those who shaped my thought. Our journey began with the politic, almost by accident, in the middle of the Iranian revolution, the moment that won the most significant turning points in Iranian history and culture. In the last episode, I gave a brief history of the revolution. I touched on figures like Doctor, Ali Shariati, whose ideas laid the foundation for the first stage of the movement and how his recorded speeches were passed hand-to-hand in the bazaar. I didn't go into every detail. If I had, we could spend hours on each event. My focus was, and still is, the story of Qasim. But I also know you can't understand what happened to him without understanding the world we were living in. There were other moments I didn't mention, like the death of Ayatollah Talagani, which I believe was one of the most crucial turning points of that era. These events shaped the movement, even if they weren't visible to everyone at the time. Part 2 begins at a difficult point in the story. By now, Qasem is no longer free. He is in prison. I had only a few moments with him after his arrest. Once, I tried to visit him at Evin, but only parents were allowed. Even brothers were often turned away. Going there as a friend was dangerous. It could mark you as part of the same political group. It was reckless and maybe even foolish. His mother once told me his hands had been broken. She didn't know why. On another occasion, I spoke with his father about the possibility of paying for his release. It would have cost$50,000, an enormous sum at the time. We didn't have it, and his father refused, believing he would be released eventually. This episode will pick up from there. These are my memories of those days, the fleeting moments of hope, and the realities of the Iran-Iraq war that were unfolding in the background. By the end of my services, I would learn the most devastating news of all. that Ghassem had been killed inside the prison. This is where our story continues. I entered in the military on the 15th of Horda 1361, June 5, 1982. A week later, my letter arrived, and within another two or three weeks, I had to report to duty. The Iraq and Iran war was still raging, and the country was pushing new recruits through their system as quickly as possible. What was once four months of basic training had been cut to three, a faster pace from civilian life to front line. My training took place in Tehran. One of the six major military training center was in Tehran back then. They called

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which two of them was near Tehran. I was assigned to Serfshish in the north of the city, which means I could sometimes visit home. Thought during those three months, I think I only managed to be at home once or twice. Training begin with general instruction, how to shoot, how to march, how to prepare, and based on performance and scores, we were assigned different units. At that time, there were two main military forces, Artish, or regular military, and Sapa, a new force established after the revolution. Sapa was still relatively small, while Artish was much larger, made up of several divisions, Zerahid, the armor and tank units, Hawaii, which was the Air Force, Daya'i, which was the Navy, and it was also the Rangers, which was the Zulfaqar unit, the special forces. I was assigned to Zirahi in Ghazvin, the armor division, but my time in Ghazvin lasted only three days before we were sent to south, to Ahvaz, in Ghuzestan. From there, we were moved by military trucks to a place called Kushk between Ahvaz and Abadan. We never really saw Kazvin again, even though we were supposed to be part of an armored unit. In reality, we barely had any tanks or armored vehicles. We had trained with G3 rifles, but in Kushk, they handed us Kalashnikovs, the AK-47s. Our unit, Gorohan 3, Platoon 3, was meant to be attached to the last line of defense around Abadan. But when we arrived, we discovered it had already been destroyed. Everyone was gone. Some had been killed, others were in hospitals, and the rest were missing. There was no one left, so they rebuilt the platoon from scratch. We were the first 30 soldiers added, all new. a new sodvan or lieutenant, a new ostovar or staff sergeant, and three gorubans or sergeants led us. Later, I myself became a sarjuke, which is like a private first class or corporal. This was the beginning of my path into the war. The war changed me. In the revolution, I had been afraid. Afraid of the future. Afraid of the unknown. But in the military, the fear disappeared. When bombs fall directly on you, death becomes part of daily life. Once you accept that you can be gone at any moment, fear has no power anymore. That was my first transformation, losing fear. We learned how to survive in the field, building sangha bunker made from deep holes in the ground covered with the heavy railway beams, we call the traverses, And they were crawling with scorpions, spiders, snacks. Those sangares became our homes. The official military service term was 18 months. But during wartime, six more months were added. I served 24 months in total. We moved from place to place. Abadan, Susangit, Bustan, and North Khuzestan near Desvu. I remember... the Walfash operation, the Walfash 1 freed Khorramshah, but later the two, Walfash 2, Walfash 3, Walfash 4, Walfash 5, and even 6, went nowhere. We weren't trying to take Iraqi's land. We only want to free Iran. But when the fighting crossed the border, the motivation faded. The Iraqis defend the land with the same determination We had ours. That war stilled, and people died in between. The Basij were thrown into those operations, often in mass assaults. I can still see them rushing forward, many never returning. At the front, we leave a boothole circle, 12 hours on post and 12 hours in the Sangher. Soldiers usually get 10 days off every month. Return to Tehran felt unreal. Life there was normal. People went about their day as if there is no war exist. I had just left from battlefield of full of death. And the cities no one seems to notice. I felt alienated. Like I no longer belong. The war was shaping me. But I never stopped thinking about Gossam. I wanted to believe that after everything he would be released. But that hope ended when I learned he had been executed in prison after the Mujahideen attacked the Iranian embassy in Sweden. I still remember the dream I had of him. In it, he arrived at the front in a car with seven or eight others, all chained together. He came to me, looked me in the eye and said goodbye. That was the last time I saw him, even in a dream. The military shaped one part of my life, but the story of Gossam, my closest friend, was always running alongside it, even if behind walls I could never see through. The war was brutal, but what was happening to him was something I could only imagine and fear. I wasn't the same person when I came back. All my hope was gone. All my dreams had disappeared. I was a completely different person. Someone who no longer had fear, but who no longer had a goal either. I was lost. You may say, what does all this have to do with Gossam? This is a story about him, not me. and I didn't go into detail about my time in the military, which itself would take many episodes to tell. But for the sake of this story, it was important for me to explain how I came to this conclusion, that the lives of people like Gossam were cut short, and now we have the responsibility to continue their journey. I thought about Gossam all the time, what happened to him personally, felt unbearably unfair, and it tormented me. I wanted to defend my country, but at the same time, I didn't want to fight for the very government that had killed my best friend. Inside me, two forces battled constantly. Was I fighting for Gossam, or was I fighting for Iran? That was my greatest conflict. I felt myself split in two, never knowing which side was right. We were young, We wanted to do something good for Iran. I remember that Ghassem was one of the rare people in our neighborhood who truly cared about everyone, families, fathers, mothers. He cared about their struggles, about their future, about the hardships they carried quietly. He once said that somehow we had to help them, and he did what he could. Ghassem himself had come from Iraq. He spoke Arabic fluently. went to school there, and later came to Iran, where he also spoke Farsi and understood our culture deeply. He carried within him both worlds, and because of that he felt our pain in a unique way. He knew the weight of poverty, of lost opportunity, of people who wanted more but had no way to reach it. He tried to speak up for them, to build a society that could hold everyone, and after he was gone, I felt that we had lost more than just a friend. We had lost hope itself. He had embodied something larger, a vision of a future that included all of us. And now, that vision was gone. I felt horrible, as though the ground had given way beneath me. Meanwhile, my father, who was blind, needed my support. I had always worked with him, helping in his business, but the war and the government's policies destroyed it. He was pushed out, like so many others. My sisters, who were earning money at the time, urged him to retire and stay home, but he refused. He kept working, even as everything around him collapsed. Still, he gave me 50,000 tomans, with the exchange rate then. It was worth nearly$10,000. I also saved money during my military service. I hadn't spent anything during my military time. So this became my savings, my investment in a future I wasn't sure I had. I tried to open a small business, a fruit store, but it failed. I sold my truck, sold everything else, and began to think seriously about leaving Iran. There were no jobs. Tehran's industries had collapsed. The economy was in ruins. There was no money, and without money, there was no hope. The universities had reopened after the revolution, but the competition was overwhelming. Three or four years had passed since I left school. Younger students, sharper and fresher, filled the lines for the concours exam, and even then, only about one-third would succeed. My chance were almost none. There were no private schools, no danishkadeh, no alternate paths. There were only a handful of public universities with very few seats. I realized I had almost no chance to continue my education in Iran, but I hoped that if I left the country, maybe to Europe, maybe somewhere else, I could study again, start fresh. By then, the war, the collapsing economy, and the government's grip had drained me of any hope of staying. Too many forces were pushing me out, and the pull of possibility beyond Iran grew stronger every day. That's when I knew I had to leave. I was an angry person most of the time, even though I tried to build my life in Germany for 12 years, and later in the United States for another 30. On the surface, it looked like I was moving forward, but inside, hope had long since died, or at least that's how it felt. The loss of that hope pushed me into a place I never wanted to be, alienated, detached. Never belonging. I didn't feel German. I didn't feel American. I felt like I was reinforcing a role I never wanted to play. Deep inside, I still wanted to serve Iran and the Iranian people. But history had unfolded exactly as we had fared. I lost so many people, friends who fought against the government, who were killed, disappeared, or broken. Their fate tied me to them. Because they had died unfairly, I felt their injustice became mine too. That connection turned into anger, and that anger turned into estrangement. I didn't want to return to Iran. I didn't even want to attach myself to it anymore. Yet, at the same time, I couldn't let go. I kept reading, kept searching, trying to understand what had really happened. That became my obsession. to piece together the missing chapters of my life. Over the years, my views shifted back and forth. For a time, I became extremely pro-capitalist. Then I swung in the opposite direction, leaning strongly left. Then I came back again, trying to find balance. But through all of it, one thing never changed. I never lost my religion. Even when I leaned furthest left, I still held on to my faith. I spent years studying the thinkers who shaped Iran after the revolution. Among them, Abdul Karim Soroush stood out. He was one of the most influential figures in Iranian culture and politics, even beyond the revolution itself. I read his works, listened to his tapes, and later followed his programs when he fled to the United States and began broadcasting from California. Another voice that shaped me was Dr. Mohit. I had been listening to him since 2002 when Iranian satellite channels first appeared. Later, he was banned and silenced on most Persian outlets, surviving only with a limited weekend slot. Still, I valued his ideas. He made mistakes, yes, but he also introduced me to new ways of thinking. Through his recommendations, I discovered Monthly Review and many other books and journals that broadened my perspective. You may ask what all of this has to do with Gossam. This is a story about him, not me. And I didn't even go into my military service, which would itself require many episodes. But I left that out because for the sake of this story, what mattered was the connection to Gossam himself. and people like him whose lives were cut short, leaving us with the responsibility to continue their journey. I kept reading, kept questioning, kept circling back. And slowly, after all these years, I reached a point of clarity. For the past seven or eight years, I've held a conviction different from the one I carried when I first left Iran. Back then, I left in anger, confusion, and loss. Now, with the knowledge I've gathered, I want to return, at least in memory if not in body, to explain my error, to tell what happened as I saw it, and to reflect on the confusion I carried for so long. That is where my third chapter begins. So, to find out what really happened, we have to go back a little further. In my view, the shock grew too powerful and too arrogant. At first, he leaned on the United States. After all, it was the U.S. That restored him after the coup against Mossadegh. But over the time, he began to act like he has done it all by himself. And after Ghabam died, he really didn't have any advisor to tell him what to do. He stopped following what Washington or the Israeli lobby wanted. with the same precision as before. There was geopolitical plan on the table. Push Iran to weaken Iraq, whose Baathist government was hostile to Israel. Instead, the Shah signed a non-aggression agreement with Iraq, the Algiers' understanding. And to me, that was his biggest mistake in the eyes of those powers. They never forgave him for it. At the same time, everyone believed knew the Shah was ill and that his son was too young to inherit real control. The fear in the West, as I read it later, was that a post-Shah Iran might drift left toward independence and a different kind of democracy. So an alternative path took shape. Through people like Ebrahim Yazdi, whom many of us believed had American ties, the Khomeini channel was cultivated. I'm not claiming to possess the classified files. I'm telling you how it looked from where I stood and from what I learned later. A counterplan to the revolution, designed to keep ultimate control while avoiding another Mossadegh. It felt like a replay of the Afghan script, building religious networks and schools across the border to check leftist or nationalist forces. We didn't know that then. We were young. We didn't have the history books open in front of us, and the newspapers were writing a different story. Looking back, Shah Purbaqiyah may have been Iranian's best chance for soft landing. Free election in a year or two, press Vietnam, and end of SAVAK. But it was too little too late. The system has already cracked. The Shah left. Mohandas Mazargan took office. The critical power encircled his cabinet. Khomeini himself, at first, seems to prefer Qom to rule as Barja, a religious reference point. Then the circle around him, Beheshti Rafsanjani and the other, pulled him back to Tehran to build a structure where he stood above the prime minister. Propaganda filled the gaps. I remember a front page. with a sea of Air Force men saluting Khomeini, the famous Homa Faran image. At the time, people around me argued it was staged or altered. Whether that debate was fair or not, it felt like the photos and headlines were accelerating a pre-written story and smothering Bakhtiar's last reforms before they could breathe. Meanwhile, two realities ran in parallel. On the surface, Tehran condemned Israel. In the shadows, intermediaries reached out to buy weapons once the war began. America aided Iraq. Israel facilitated arms to Iran. We were trapped in that contradiction, and the trap snapped shut. Another wound was self-inflicted. The Mujahideen's turn to arms struggle, bombings, assassinations, later even crossing over from Iraq, was, in my eyes, a catastrophic mistake. Any state, just or unjust, heads back when attacked with guns. Their actions handed the regime a perfect pretext to crush all opposition, including people who never picked up a weapon. Much of the broader left didn't take up arms, but often wouldn't condemn those who did. In the end, ordinary people paid the price. If we, the opposition, had kept to a different battlefield, I believe the story might have changed. The real fight should have been for knowledge and organization at the neighborhood level. Teach, connect, solve real problems, let people see with their own eyes. Our ration book system is the example I always return to. We created it so every family could get eggs, rice, flour, bread, a fair share in a time of scarcity. Other neighborhoods copied it. Later, the mosque committees confiscated our booklets and issued their own. Did it matter whose stamp was on the cover? Not to me. The point was to fix the problem. That's the politics I still believe in. There was more manipulation in those early months, rumors, and planted stories. Then came the war. While Iraq fought Iran, Israel struck Iraq's nuclear program. From where I sit now, it looks like the chessboard was set. Exhaust both sides, contain the region, and keep leverage over whoever limped out of the fire. Yet something unexpected grew under all that pressure. Sanctions and isolation forced Iranians to build for themselves. Music, cinema, industry, defense... Slowly, an infrastructure appeared. Later, through Qasem Soleimani, Iran built regional networks of resistance across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, teaching others how to survive asymmetric wars. You can hate it, you can praise it, but you can't deny it changed the country's sense of independence. All of this is how I now make sense of that era, the Shah's missteps. Outer missteps, four in hand pushing from the edges, and a nation that learned painfully to stand up inside a storm. If Gossam were alive, I think he would have reached many of the same conclusions, probably sooner than me. He was sharper. I imagine him telling me, as always, to go back to the neighborhood, to the problem you can actually solve, and start there. And that's still where I stand today, not aligned with everything the government does, but very much aligned with the idea that a people must be able to defend themselves and that the surest path to real change is to keep teaching, keep organizing, and keep solving the real everyday problems right in front of us. Dr. Saroosh was once asked if, looking back, he would still have voted for a new regime or if he would have stayed with the Shah's system. His answer was definitive. Yes, he would still choose a new regime. He admitted that many mistakes were made, but he believed there were also many good things that happened after the Shah and that the Shah's rule was marked by stagnation and corruption. I do not fully agree with Dr. Soroush. My own heart leans more toward that could have been under Shaupur Bakhtiar. I wish it has been him guiding the country, not the revolution, not Khomeini with his circle. But that didn't happen. It's long gone. More than 40 years passed. And we have to accept the reality of what has been already taking place. We must digest what was done, the good and the bad, and we must honor the many good people who died, like Qasim, and many others I knew who were just as sharp, just as good, maybe even better. But this is the past, already written. Their lives, their goals, and their achievements should light our path to succeed. So what does it remain? The solution today is not to repeat the mistake we made in 1357 or 1979. Revolution. Each time we thought revolution was the path to democracy, swoop away the government, swoop away all the institutions, and something better would grow, we were mistaken. That lesson must stay with us. I have listened to Taliq-e Shafaa-e Iran, the Iranian oral history, a podcast by Dr. Habib Lajavardi, With a long interview of those who served the Shah government and those who stood outside it, even people like Masood Rajavi, what emerged is complicated. Many good people served in the Shah government, in the military, in defense, in banking, in industry, people who work hard to build Iran, even with the constraint. Here, I must thank Dr. Lajavadi for the phenomenal job he did to preserve this history for Iranian people. Every Iranian should listen to this, learn from historical events. Not all of them were corrupt or cruel. Some made the best decisions they could for the country, and their work deserves to be remembered. The same is true now. There are good people in this government too. People trying to move in the right direction, to serve rather than exploit. Our responsibility, especially those of us who live through mistakes, is to accept them openly. We were wrong in many decisions. We must admit it. We must learn to fix what is fixable. And when it is not, then we must at least keep studying, keep reading, keep teaching. so that knowledge clears the way for those who come after, even I was wrong many times. In 2009, during the Mousavi movement, I thought perhaps this was a chance for change. But I began to see that so much of the opposition direction was coming from Washington, D.C., not from the needs of the Iranian people. When I spoke out about this even to Dr. Mohit, He accused me of siding with Khamenei, which was never true. I was simply telling them what I saw, corruption within the opposition itself. That was another painful lesson. So today, Iran is again at a turning point. The opposition must decide, will it follow the son of the Shah? Is that really serious? Or will it follow the real Iranian people who want technology, investment, growth, and dignity? Because the truth is, When we came together during the revolution, we did build something. Society, culture, networks of care. That is what can be built again, but only if we avoid all mistakes, stand together, and choose a path rooted in Iran itself, not dictated from outside. One of the reasons I began this podcast was to explore this message in the language of the philosophy of life. That was my purpose from the start. I first tried back in 2017, but it was difficult. Each episode takes hours upon hours of work, time that is hard to find when you already work long hours. And I still do. But I felt this was necessary. This podcast is my way of bringing out a message that I'm certain Asim, if he were alive, would have carried forward himself. It is his message and the message of people like him. What you are listening to now, what you are reflecting on, is in truth what revolution was meant to be about. Not only politics, not only struggle, but the shaping of how we live and what we believe life should mean. Thank you for listening. Until next time, be thoughtful, be aware. and never forgot the history is not only written in the book. It's lived, often quietly, long before it's ever told.

Thank you for watching!