Iran, Humanity, and the Stories We Inherit | Bobak Kalhor

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to. And now love. Bobak Kalhor is an acclaimed filmmaker whose work blends cinematic craft with deep historical inquiry. He directed A Dying King The Shah of Iran, A documentary exploring the final year of Mohammad Reza Shah of Iran, which has been praised for its intimate access, narrative clarity and visual storytelling. I can attest. Thank you for being here. It's good to be here with you again. You mean so much to us.

You're the producer of this podcast and now love, and you've done so many fabulous things on your own prior to committing yourself to this. On top of all those things. This podcast means a lot to me. I've learned a lot from the tenants that you're teaching Doctor Bales theories and his insight. It's helped me individually. I mean, I do a lot, you know, I do a lot of different projects. My team works on different ideas, different stories, but this one has a special place to my heart. And how do you know that? Or what have you discovered about yourself?

Those are both big questions. What have I discovered about myself? I guess I'm trying to discover who I am, who I was meant to be before. Before the imprints, before the mommy's meal. Who that creature was supposed to be. Before the anxieties, fears, troubles of the world were kind of the put upon you as a child. As you're growing up and trying to go back to that original essence of who you are as a person. Yes, that's a bit of work. It's pretty challenging. But when you start to go down that path and start to make some headway, it's you only want to open more doors to it.

So our premise here is that we all will benefit individually and as communities, if we can get back to our authentic selves. And that is who we are, unencumbered by the trauma that we carry generationally, the trauma we were given in utero, the trauma from our childhood, and on and on and on. So many of us, most of us, I'd say, are so busy supporting that trauma that we can't find a moment or space in our internal universe to even think about such things. And the idea of letting go of what we're comfortable with is also scary. If you let go of what you know, even though you're not quite sure it's working so well, what else do you have that's risky?

Risky? So I think you've been studying Doctor Bale's work and you've been working with us for years now. So I'm so happy to hear that you're benefiting from that and does somewhat about some of what I just said, hold true for you and that you're lessening the load of the trauma and able to operate from a place that you feel is more authentically you. I know it's a a life journey. My experience, first of all with Doctor Bell just listening to him tell his story. I know I had a short time with him and he was his final years, but I think it was very impactful for me.

He connected with me individually as a person, not not me as a producer or somebody. You're filming this for him or shooting this podcast from. But he connected with me and it just stuck with me. He did. He did a dream for me. He he interpreted a dream that just it blew my mind away. Not because all the people were so insightful in what he said, but he taught me that there's something inside you giving you messages. You're unconscious. And after that moment, you remember it was. It was. I wanted to continue. But then Covid hit and then he was almost a hundred years old and he passed away.

And leaving this, this whole idea behind was tough because it's almost I had a little taste. I had one dream that was interpreted and then it went away. But for our audience, we were attempting to make a podcast with Doctor Bale present, but it was very difficult to do as intact as his thought processes were. As intact as his heart was, it was hard for him to hear, hard for him to see, hard for him to speak loud enough. And so we weren't completely successful. But that didn't mean the message was not important. It felt like a personal a defeat for me that I had him on hours and hours speaking, and he was sharp as a tack.

I don't think he ever lost any of his cognitive abilities, but his voice was just it was talking like this and he had no energy. We're working on bringing some of those recordings, some of his his talks back to life with of AI generated voice working with you on that. But we of let it go, just stuck with me in my where I wanted access to my unconscious. I wanted help with There's only a few people that work on this. Warren Wiener is the mentee of Doctor Bell, and she's continuing the work. And there's a handful of other doctors around. I've been lucky have access to doctor, Alan Wiener, He worked with Doctor Bell for many years, understanding myself has taught me how to understand better the world around me.

And as much as everything I've done in life is about understanding things, about learning, about history, about politics, about the What this experience has taught me to learn about myself. Everything we do is outwards in life building businesses, construction homes, whatever. I've learned is the best place to go for peace and tranquility is go And when you go inward, you have to be comfortable with yourself to go inward, which is being kind to yourself. Which is the essence of everything you talk about here. You know, we throw around this word, it's I always call it hokey or cliche love, it's becoming more widely accepted.

I think it is. I mean, when people hear, I know, love, I know, and I know we do this because we want to go to the root of what we are. But it's hard for them to understand this. Love is it's love of yourself. It's it's love of then you can love other things around you. I think that's what it's helped me. This whole project has helped me is looking at things from a point of compassion. Things that even ask you are things that you don't like when you look at it, when you look at it from above, from a point of view of compassion and understanding it makes it easier.

It makes it seem like there is a future. There is a possibility of solving these great problems with, well, I think love is at the crux of making humanity healthy again, which means no more war, no more starvation. And that too sounds sort of. Yeah, yeah, sure. But it's the only way we're ever going to get anywhere is to understand love. We're human. We're human. now that you're walking that path, it's certainly about getting in tune with who you are and finding out who you are authentically. Which then kind of opens the door to what love really is.

And then that love allows us connect, to connect with other people, people close to us, people in our communities, far ranging. It's this sort of ripple effect. How has that changed your view of what is going on in the world, or what is going on around you? You're a historian. You can look back at history and see what happened and understand from that knowledge what's happening now and possibly what's happening in the future. If you can't really correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't really make too much of a difference moving forward if you don't understand where you came from.

I mean, that applies to everything. But my work, my personal work is with Iran, the history of Iran. I came here as a seven year old kid at the time of the revolution, and spent my whole life trying to understand what happened there. Can you just share with us what was that like for you coming here at seven with your family? Well, we came with my mother, and my brother and sister were already in college here. So we came to escape the revolution. And did you understand that you were I didn't understand, I didn't understand what I was like. I remember the demonstrations in Iran, and we of scared. we left I didn't understand what Khomeini was, what the Shah was about, what Americans position was.

I just remember we come here and they took the hostages. And at that time everybody was like, this tension right now between Iran and us at that time, they had taken our embassy personnel hostage and everybody in the streets was calling a terrorist bombing run, as, like a little kid coming to this country and you're scaping something that everybody kind of blames you for being that. Yes. So I didn't really understand any of the dynamics of what happened. so, were you bullied because you were Iranian I was beat up a couple of times, you know, for being here on in.

And it was tough to say here from Iran at that time. It was you know, there weren't a lot of Iranians here in 1977, 78. It was a relative to now. So people didn't really understand what Iran is, what Iranians are. They still don't. But it was just less understanding back then. So it was difficult. But, a lot of minorities have issues coming here in this country. We I learned to assimilate adapt and go forward and maybe make a home in this country, and it becomes your identity. Well, isn't that what this country is supposed to be all about? But you're still.

You have to know your roots. Sure. I consider myself American, but American of Iranian ancestry. So when you try to understand the relationship between us and Iran, it becomes really difficult because there's a lot of politics, there's a lot of dogma, there's a lot of opinions. There's a lot of for this or against this. There's a lot making somebody into a hero or a villain. And this is not only the way Americans literally right. This is how Iranians have looked at ourselves. Because, the history that I'm I'm looking into and I'm working on this this story is the last 125 years, Iran since 19, from 1900 to 2026.

What transpired? I try to look at this period when you go down that rabbit hole and knowing every year and every little time line of what happened, it makes you look at today and say, hey, look, this is nothing new. Sanctions on Iran is not new. Attacking Iran is not new. The Gulf War is not near the Strait of Hormuz is not. You know, Islam in Iran is not new monarchy and Iran is not the left and liberal thought and all that in Iran is not new. The why are we approaching it as is? We're going into a no man's land where nobody understands what's going on.

So for me, that was a personal endeavor to try to understand all these different parts of this little puzzle that put it together. mean, you know, so much about this, this history and what's happening in Iran now in terms of the people living there, the people that are from there, which is fabulous, and that, I think is a gift to the rest of us, were at war with Iran. And I think we all deserve to understand a little bit more what happens in Iran in terms of the population and the differences between the communities, and a little bit about the history and why it is, as you say, that none of this should be a surprise, and what we are going to see in the future will then likely not be a surprise unless we start to figure out how to change things in a different way. and I think here we're.

Los Angeles has the largest community of Iranians in the United States. Yes, yes we do Los Angeles. there as many different communities here as there are in Iran, I mean, probably not as many. There is. The expat community is it's the large community here in Southern California, in California, in America, in Europe and Canada, all throughout the world. There's a lot of a lot of Iranians that have left from the revolution onwards. But the diversity you're talking about within the Iranian community, that's just the essence of as I mentioned, Iran is not a homogeneous community What does it mean to be Iranians? in northwestern, part Azerbaijan, we have Azeri, Turkic speaking people that are linked very closely with the Azerbaijani people across the border.

As you come down that border, the western border, it's Kurdish area, Kermanshah, you have a lot of Kurds which have close contacts right across the border with Iraq. they go and come like, you know, they have cousins living across in the southern part of Iran, the Arab tribes, of course, there's linkages to the Gulf Arabs, various countries on the eastern part, you have system Balochistan, which is very they're very close with Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have the same language, the same ethnicity going across and up in the northeast. It's Turkmenistan.

They have we have a lot of Turkmen tribes in the center. We have lower tribes. laws that we have in Gillan, we have a whole different ethnicity of people and with different languages, different dialects, sometimes different religions. So Iran is not very much a homogeneous, country such as some of the Arab countries are, you know, you know, they're Saudi Arabs. You can know what they are. But that's why the concept of Iran is a little bit more complicated to explain. And I think it's an interesting study, because through the course of time, these diverse groups have held together often to keep Iran, Iran.

Sometimes when I talk about this fragility of Iran, that there's a possibility of breakup. People think I'm promoting that breakup disintegration of Iran or a conflict between these tribes. during the constitutional revolution. Iran almost broke up before Reza Khan came and became Reza Shah. Iran had five breakaway provinces again in World War Two. After the allies invaded Russia, invaded Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, and created breakaway republics. The number one resolution of the UN was for Russia to get out of Iran. That was almost disintegration of Iran again.

Fast forward to 1978. During the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq invaded Iran and it was almost broken up. During World War One, the Sykes-Picot agreement. They broke up the whole Middle East, the the Palestine, Israel, the Levant, Syria, Iraq. But Iran was left home. So there's something there that that's beyond words, that somehow all these different ethnicities, they believe in something because it's been their history for a long time. you look at the constitutional revolution which happened in Iran in 1905. Iran had a constitutional revolution people came together, the guilds came together, and they demanded freedoms from the king, because at that time, the king had total control over the economy and everything, and taking money out of the country and not giving much during this constitutional period, people wanted certain you know, Iran was being ruled by the Russians had the northern part of the British had the southern part of They had their own purposes there.

They had the Russians had Baku. And there all they discovered all there. And the British had discovered in the So Iran all of a sudden became a very important piece of property for the world. Whereas before, people at least we were never colonized. Sometimes it's better to be colonized and to be a no man's land protecting Indian colonies the British, which was this, this chaos and disorder was used to prevent the Europeans and Russians for attacking their colonies. So Iranians have gone through tough periods before. In World War One, we lost a quarter to half of our population to hunger, to famine, to cholera, to war, to hoarding, and no one even kept track of we go forward.

In World War Two, we were invaded by the Russians, the British and the Americans, the allies to create a transport corridor from the Persian Gulf, for for the war between Russia and Hitler. We've lost a million. 2 million people were invaded. So people have suffered a lot. And part of what the work I do with Doctor Bell is to learn to look at this history with compassion, to not look at it a black and white. This guy was evil. This guy was good. This guy. Just look at it. What the people have gone through. And for me, that that's the main, main part of my work.

Of course, I have my own politics. I've always had my politics. I want certain things that I want. What are they? Let me tell you, it's not important. All right? It's not important what we all want. Individually, I've learned that. I've learned that as much research as I've done. My personal opinion doesn't matter. The work I'm trying to do is, first of all, understand this rainbow of opinions that consists of Iran. And I think in my lifetimes work, if I can get this done, is create a conversation between these various groups because we've never had it, we've never the left argue amongst itself of what they want.

We've never had monarchists and Islamists, and the left and the liberals debate things. always been a zero sum game of eliminating the other side. So it's at one point in time one faction is more successful than another. It's never there's one entity that survives better than the others. When you look at the history of Iran, it's been Islam has played a big role in there. So recently, in the last century, century and a quarter, we've modern democratic of liberal thought come into the process. it's been a winner takes all what's ideal Iranian citizen for the past couple of hundred years?

It's someone who who just accepts everything as told of follows the king. And whoever's against this your enemy. But there's a lot of that. there's so many different opinions in Iran right now. You see what happened in Iran before the war that started is thousands of people went on the streets and they got killed. What do those people want? What were they looking for? Is it the same thing? No. They all wanted to express their opinions. They all wanted freedoms. They wanted political, religious for women, for minorities. you can't paint this all with one brush.

But what I hope to do is be able to reflect all these different opinions. And if we are to survive, unless we're going to have all or dictatorships, we have to learn to love each other, to communicate with each other, to accept each other. And I'm not saying this in a hokey way that all come together. Why would we come together? Because there's a prize at the end of it. Iran is a wealthy, powerful country with all the oil or mineral and wealth and the most important geopolitical position in the world. If Iran becomes a player in the world community, you don't need all those Nord Stream pipes You can Persian Gulf oil straight through Iran to Europe, to Turkey.

So there's a lot of advantages that the why these people can come together, even if it's not love. There's a lot tangible interests. that's kind of what I hope to do with all my work creating information and about, our history, how the Shah died, how the revolutions happened. It's not taking one side or another. And I know takes off a lot of my viewers and some of the fans of why aren't you a monarchist? Why aren't you this? Why aren't you that? Why aren't you left this? Why aren't you supporting the Islamic Republic? I said that's that's irrelevant.

Right now, we're in a very difficult time for Iran. And to come up with something new is what we need. there's some kind of a really clear history that you can point to in Iran that really exemplifies this struggle that we have of sort of not getting along and it's my way or the highway. And speaking of that, I mean, when someone is so invested, it's my way or death to you, how do you how do you come to terms? when I look at Iran as 90 million people that and I don't I don't think we it's a big country. It is it's a huge country. And you can't look at it on the map and get perspective because the maps are distorted.

So how do these 90 million people, you try to look who it is, what they want, it's like having 90 million artists with one canvas to paint them. how do you bring this painting together? You have 90 million artists who think, no, I want to paint it this way. No, I want to paint it this way. Of course, some of them are united. You have groups that are Islamic. You have groups that are monarchists. You have groups that are leftist. But how do you how do you bring this painting together? How do you bring these artists so they can paint on the same canvas?

It's always like, no, I get to pay. You guys go off. been like that with monarchy. It's been like that with the Islamic Republic. it's the answer to our survival in the future. Of course, this happens everywhere in America. Look, look at the Republicans and Democrats. Look at Europe. What's going on? Look at the rest of the world. There's always this divisiveness. But as ugly as it is in the United States, the fight is we still have democracy, a republic that is standing. And you have one side come in. As much as it's polarized, it's still there. some kind of resemblance.

But Iranians have, you know, right now we have nothing. And there's all the opposition's, from the monarchists to the leftist to the what, what you have, they still haven't come together. They're still giving their opinion without. What about the other side? What about the side that disagrees with me? What am I going to do with them if I'm going to come and rule this country, what am I going to do with them? Are they just going to sweep them under the rug? That's kind of what we're dealing with right now. And it's really tough because I see, you know, I have friends that are on all different political factions, and they call me.

And you see what that guy did? You see what the more I just did, my Marcus friend call me. You see what those guys did at the left, what they did to our shores and all that. I still, you know, I always I always tell them I'm like, you know what? I'm tired of hearing this. What I want to hear is give me your opinion on how we can bring these people together. Sure. I don't like that group, but what am I going to do? I might to kill them. Am I going to destroy them? How am I going to live with them? How are we going to coexist with them? And I see all this opposition going on in the in the US, in Los Angeles, between the Iranian political groups.

And if we can't get along here under the Constitution and the Bill of rights the freedoms that we have here, how will this translate to, a better, future for Iran? It worries me. I hope some of these groups learned this divisiveness led to what's going on in Iran right now, because there's no substitution, there's there's no viable opposition. Everybody in Iran looks What are you guys doing outside of the country? All you're doing is going at each other's throats. what are some viable things that can actually happen to make change? Better understanding, better education, but tangibly right now.

It's really difficult because Iran it's in a war. It's been attacked. It's been decimated. I know there's a lull, but this this is not over by far. This continues, what the West fails to understand about Iran is that when Iranians can argue amongst themselves, they can fight amongst themselves, but when they get attacked by outside force, they come together, they forget their differences. They forget that I don't like this government. I don't like this It happened during the Iran-Iraq Khomeini was not very popular at the beginning because he brutally repressed the leftist that helped him come to power, and the Iran-Iraq War was was the solidified for this regime for for ten years they fought this war and there was no dissent allowed.

It was treason. And that's kind of what's happening right now. So it's really hard to think of, opposition or change in regime or change your government when there's a war going you look Shahzad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah's son, the crown prince, he's a very major player in all this. again, if there's a future in Iran. all these groups have to be there. Iran is supported well in Iran. we don't have numbers or research. But let me tell you whether you for him or not. Monarchy has been a pivotal part of Iran's governments forever. So there's certain people in Iran that want monarchy.

And even Mr. Pallavi says, I want a constitutional monarchy. I think he's a very important person in bringing all these various groups together. Sure, he has a big following. He has a big following here. He has a big following in Iran. His father and grandfather, as controversial as their everybody knows, they modernized Iran. They did a lot of great things for They brought us out of this illiteracy and darkness into into a more modern country. whatever happens, he's got a place in there, but he's having little difficulty with the opposition's because he hasn't been able to become central gravitational force where everybody comes around.

Part of it is, he talks about a constitutional monarchy. But you need to understand what is a constitutional monarchy. It's a monarch and a constitution. What's the relationship of the monarch to the Constitution? And, you know, the work I've done for the past 125 years, which was the jars and Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah. And you look at the people's conflict with them. It was the constitutional conflict where I think five questions that Mr. Pallavi answers will clear up a lot of these things. It's as a monarch, what's my relationship constitutionally with hiring and firing ministers?

Prime ministers? Am I going to be hiring and firing Majlis, which is our Senate at will? Am I going to be hiring and firing judges like my father and grandfather did? Am I going to be the sole person in charge of the military like my father and grandfather were? Where am I going to be in charge of all the economy like my father and grandfather were? So I think him defining this put a lot of people at ease about what kind of a monarchy, but I think he's going to be an important part. The left is going to be an important part of the future liberalism, democracy, Western values, participative government, a constitution.

Imagine as a these are not traditional Iranian monarchist viewpoints, which is part of the Iranian conversation. Since the constitutional revolution, they've been part of our conversation. They have a big part in this, and I'm not a very religious person in any religion per se. whether you agree with them or not, Islam has a big part to play in the future of Iran because there's a lot of devout Muslim in Iran, Shia muslims. How are you going to how are you going to balance all this? I think he, as the central force and the main opposition, I think he could do a lot for this.

Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to bring in other groups other than his own supporters yet. But, there's bigger things happening in Iran right now that I think that's a little early. But talking about the opposition, I think that's kind of the picture a little bit. How do you think he would answer those five questions? He's a very eloquent speaker. And, you know, I've covered the history of his family and his father and his mother and his grandfather, and he's been through a lot. Again, looking at these things, I try to look at him with compassion to everybody thinks, you know, Prince King, and they all have their opinions of him.

But I've seen him grow since a young boy and a revolution. He was the crown prince. And then the kingdom falls apart and he goes into exile. And through the years, what does he with stood? His brother died. His sister died. He's been under attack. He's been under criticism, and he survived. I mean, he has some love. He has something that's driving him. think he's he's he represents a very important part for But I also think that he should better answer these questions. He has kind of referenced them here or he says whatever my people want. But, you know, looking at the history, I think there's enough history and there's enough facts for him to look from there and read it and say, look, with the jars the previous dynasty with with Reza Shah, with my grandfather, with Mohammad Reza Shah.

What was this conflict? How can I solve it? They all had problems. They weren't able to solve this problem and create a lasting legacy. How can I solve it? Am I going to do the same thing? I mean, it's kind of repeating the same pattern. your documentary is, is fabulous. We can learn so much from it and even on Instagram, if you don't mind me saying it's I love how you're sort of systematically taking us through the last century. You know, it's really interesting to kind of listen step by step to what was going on. And I imagine will end up understanding a little bit more about where we are today in terms of Iran.

Well, that documentary was is a part of the story. It was a medical story of how the Shah died, because for me, it was a big surprise. I was running a radio station. I did an interview with this really great gentleman. His name was Doctor Leon Morgenstern. He was the chief of surgery at Cedars-Sinai from 1975 to 2000, and he was the top spleen specialist in the world. He wrote an article called The Shah Spleen about how the Shah died. And I read that article and I'm like, I got to talk to this guy. So I did an interview with him. He was in his 90s and he was on the board of Cedars, and I did an interview with him when I came away.

I'm like, God, this is this is amazing. How did the shore die? So I have I was I'm in LA so I know a lot of Marcus, some people close to him. I've talked to all the know that people knew how he died, even his closest aides as chief of staff, his foreign minister, always. They didn't know how he had cancer. So I went down that rabbit hole. And Doctor Morgenstern being advanced age. At one point, he got tired of me. He was very kind. But he said, young man, this is your history, this is your people. I've taken this as far as I can. So he put me in touch with all these doctors, the Mexican doctors, Panamanian doctors, the American doctors, the Iranian doctors.

So I went down another rabbit hole trying to figure that out, but discovering how the Shah died. I discovered so many other things about the 1953 revolution, about the constitutional revolution, about Reza Shah. What 1978 1979, the revolution that took the Shah out? I mean, there's a lot of exposé information that I have that is not in that documentary. Hopefully some someday we get some of that stuff out. But I think right now the main concentration for me is trying to figure out how we can bring cohesion to this diaspora, to this group of people with different opinions.

What is our common ground? How do we find a common ground? I think the main common ground is the humanity understanding that, hey, you know, I'm Iranian, just like that person is Iranian. I have no right to exclude them from this. How do I get along? We've never had to get along. There's always been a choice of destroying the other side, whereas now we have to get along. And that speaks to the world again. It does. We have to get along You know, this whole thing with Iran, it's not just about Iran. There's a lot of bigger ramifications to this.

It's changing the world order that was built after World War two, World Order for energy, the world order for maritime travel, for all its upending everything. It's upending a lot of relationships. It's changing US's relationship with Europe and England, which England has been the dominant force in World war and With energy markets in London, the Brant crude, Lloyd's of London has been insuring maritime travel. They've been basically controlling the Persian Gulf. this is a whole different change. It changes the relationship of the Gulf with China. we're changing our relationships with China or Russia, Europe.

So this is a big, big And it's not just about Iran. war baby with Iran, but there's a lot of other targets. beginning to want to understand a little bit about Iran instead of what's happening outside of Iran is really helpful. for years I've been talking about Iran. And one of the things I've always said is we're about to go to war with a country that we understand very little about, and now we are at war with the country that we understand very little about. And that, to me is is scary. It's almost like winging it. It's interesting that we got to this place where we are willing to wing it, and nothing in war and politics is for certain.

Nothing is concrete but understanding. Your adversary, your foe, or even your friends is very important. And I find very little understanding about Iran. I'm sorry to say the political realm here, the academic realm has resigned itself to ancient history and not getting involved in politics. So characters that are involved right now with very strong opinions that are here, are very strong opinions based on little facts that have to do with Iran. Yes, can see this pattern in Iran where there's an uprising. We you know, we want more of those freedoms that you mentioned religious rights, economic rights, women's rights, etc., and there's a fight for that.

And then there's tension, there's death, there's more. And people then have a different sort of desperation. Just, just give me back a safe place. I just want food on the table. I want to be able to walk out my front door without being fearful. So just put something in place that makes me feel safe and I'll think about the consequences later. I mean, I think that's sort of oftentimes just human nature as a way of protecting yourself in an immediate way. You have to you've got to put food on the table. You've got to get rid of the illness that that's hurting you.

Whatever it may be. Is is that a pattern? It's I had to tell this story in the historical term. So I'll start with five revolutions that we've had in Iran in the last 125 years, five complete revolutions. And why they 1905 was a constitutional revolution. people didn't want to overthrow the king. They just wanted freedoms. They wanted control over their government, of the laws of the economy. And why didn't they want to overthrow the King? Because they knew nothing other than the monarchy. Democracy was a foreign idea to Iran. A constitution was a foreign idea.

A lot of people thought it came from Freemasons in Europe and intellectuals. They just wanted a they just who would give them some freedom. They had a king, though. That was basically the king was either stooges of the Russians or the British. They lived in in France. They spent most of the government's budget on their trips where the Iranians were starving. So they wanted basic, basic freedoms of participative government, of having some kind of a say in their future. So it was it was a start of this whole thing, and they created a constitution.

In the end, that movement was put down by the Russians. After a few years, they decided World War One was coming. We've had enough of this. And the whole reason that this constitutional movement came out, because the Russians and British had divided Iran into spheres of influence, and the British wanted to of detract from Russian power a little So that's why they created this. You know, the revolution happened in the north of Iran, most of it. Fast forward to after World War one, 1921. the previous regime because they were overthrown, because during the World War one, Iran had no military, no government.

It was a complete breakdown of the system. Millions of people died. The Ottomans, the Russians, the British. They were fighting on Iran's soil. We had no military. We had no roads. You couldn't get from one place to another without banditry. So Iran was a failed state. And it was it was such a disaster that when Reza Shah, which was a Cossack officer, Reza came from, which was a British military outpost, and he basically came and created a revolution with a guy named Dean Tabatabai, which was a British agent who became prime minister. The people knew what was happening, but they just wanted freedom.

They wanted life. They wanted a country. They wanted an identity. They didn't want death and poverty starvation. in 1942, when they forced to abdicate, the British and the Russians, we had a period of ten years which was constitutional. It was Mossad, the National Front. But during that period there was so much chaos, there was so much disturbances. Iran was sanctioned. We had assassinations. We like no demonstrations in the street, were they? Then we had another coup in 1953, CIA, MI6, which was supported by the military and a lot of people in the government.

And I was to create peace and stability again, to what you're talking about, just create order That brought Mohammad Reza Shah to power, 1953 to 1978, 1978, the same thing again, where the Shah got sick and the opposition movements came out because Carter gave them a green light and Khomeini and demonstrations and people dying. People wanted to just order. So when Khomeini came and said, we want a Islamic government, Islamic republic, and he put a referendum, he got 99% vote. That wasn't the people deciding what form of government they want. He had a referendum, Islamic republic or monarchy, and they didn't define Islamic republic.

So we keep getting into this thing, trying to get dig ourselves out of a bit and chaos and devastation, and we keep falling into a deeper pit. So this time we are. But maybe talking about these issues will help people understand that as bad as things are, we shouldn't look at everything as a force majeure try to adapt like a fatalistic point of view to this, and try to keep our principles and hopes of something better rather than just something to save us. But it's hard to say that to people who've had tens of thousands of their own citizens killed by their own government.

Yeah, followed by foreign war that killed a lot thousands of their citizens. How do you tell people like that to practice patients and virtue and wisdom, or look at your history. They'll grab any rope to get out. It's like being in quicksand. And Generationally, that's a big mind shift to think it's not just my community. I need to listen to those coming from another point of view, from another part of my country, from another part of the world. I have to listen. But when the mindset is just protection of what you know, it's hard to break through that shell.

Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, the Iranians do understand everything that we're discussing in their history. But again, like you said, when you're put into a situation where you're near death, you're near starvation. I mean, look at you right now. There's a hard to find food in Iran. It's hard to find gas. It's hard to live in Iran. I mean, how how we from outside supposed to tell them about democracy and republicanism and participative government and constitutional monarchy? Bills want to feed my children, just just want to live. I just want to live.

And unfortunately, every change of government we've had in the last 125 years was at this point, we were always choosing our future government from the weakest point that we have. That's variation. And again, it's not taking anything away from those kings or those governments. They came in and they were trying to fix the situation the best they could. The Reza Shah took the country out of abyss of poverty. The country had five different breakaway parts. He united it, he forced it together. He brought it under one Unfortunately, that hard hand needed to be accompanied by a soft hand.

The soft hand was never there, which is also a practicality of running a country like Iran. what I'm saying is really hard participation, because there's a lot of foreign influence. Look at it right now. The Chinese, the Russians, the British, the Americans, the Gulf Arabs, they all have their eyes and their tentacles all over Iran. It's been like that. It's always been like that. Our people have been under that strangulation, which is why we go against each other. You know, we've always been used to go against each other. when I studied World War One and I always wondered, how could he run in so many Iranians die and nobody kept track.

There's no numbers in World War two. How could we lose a million, 2 million people and nobody's talking about it. And then I look at 2026 and we don't know how many people are killed by the government and putting down this rebellion. We don't know how many people have died. All of a sudden, Iranian life has no value anymore. We're not even counting them. They're not counting them. So all of a sudden, they see that's how those things happened. It's in these tough situations where people forget about humanity. Yeah, that's when we need to keep our humanity toget about humanity and to not know how many people are dying So you want me to talk about politics?

What does my politics matter here? It doesn't. Yeah. It's the cry of a people that has to be heard. It's the plight of these people that has to be told to themselves and the world. So we understand why. What do they want? What is it that Iranians want? Again, it's not 90 million people wanting one thing, but what are the things that they want? And how do those things get addressed? And who wants what? For what reason? Yeah. And how do you hear what they are saying to you and and feel it? Well, how do you get them into one room to express your wants?

We've never been able to get into one conversation and say, I want this, I want this. It's always the Shah called it the black and the Red plague. The black was Islamist, the red was communist. They need it as that. Without understanding. What did these people want? When you treat something as becomes your enemy. It becomes destructive to you. again, it's such a huge task. But if we can all as individuals, start to really appreciate the fact that our voice needs to be heard, and even more, the voice of everyone else needs to be heard. We need to take it in.

We need to take it. And we're so busy defending black or white. Yeah. Them against us. And I guess, you know, it worked in the past. But I think as human beings living on this planet, we're all part of this thin bio layer covering a piece of rock with a nuclear fusion in the middle. We're spinning in space around another ball, which is a nuclear fusion to and on this ball through its life. Whatever your belief system is, 5000 years to billions of years, there's been many different species of creatures that have lived and died. Some of them are still around because they had a sustainable evolutionary strategy.

As human beings living on this planet, we haven't been here that long and our evolutionary strategy is not working. We've made a lot of advancements in technology in war making, but we haven't made enough advancements in our humanity and our unconscious. Whereas I'm sorry to say it, I fear that unless there's some kind of a change, we won't make it out of this century. I mean, look at it. Look at the countries that have nuclear weapons. North Korea, China, Pakistan, India, Israel, France, I mean, all these countries with nuclear weapons. And are we going towards a peaceful state?

We're still acting cavemen throwing stones at each other. And we have to realize that unless we stop looking at ourselves in terms of religion or language or country or borders, and we realize we're all inhabitants of this rock, we're all part of this thin bio layer, by the way, our species is destroying this thin bilayer and is destroying a lot of the other, all the other life that's on this planet. So we have bigger things to think about than to just think about AI is going to save us in the future, technology is going to save us. No, I think our humanity is going to save us, I think so, I think love is our biggest tool.

Sorry I went down that bill. No, I like that. That's a that's a great picture to create for all of us. We're already living on this thin layer. It's already fragile as it is. And we're not cognizant of protecting that which starts with love. I mean, that is our biggest tool as humanity. to get a little spiritual, we live this life without thinking about that, without thinking about what our life is, and we think as if we're forever. But when you start thinking about what life is, I mean, what is our energy source? when the body dies, when that 14 gram of energy leaves your body, for some reason, these atoms can't hold together anymore.

Decompose, you decay, and you go, so what is it? What is our existence? What is that energy source? What is our soul? We spend our whole lives building outwards, building businesses, edifices, buildings, corporations, technology, computers. Well, we can't take any of that with us. And the only thing we can take is what we build internally. And we go very little internally to try to build ourselves. And the only thing that you take away is the love. If you build it internally, it's the only thing that you will take with you out of this world. And it's the biggest thing that's worthy of giving to others.

I think the way to get Iranian people united is to show them the prize. You could be one of the richest people in the world. You will have education, roads, insurance, social security, free Wi-Fi, hospitals, you name it. You have a better future, but you have to come together. That's the short answer in the long run, not only for Iran, where any community, the way to build stability, to build a better country, to build peace, is to treat the women better. You can go to any ChatGPT, any Gemini and say, what's the correlation between how a country treats its women and the level of violence and stability in a country?

Look at the top 220 and the bottom 20, the top 20, the Scandinavian, some of the Europeans, they treat their women with with equality. They have more peace, more prosperity, less violence. You look at the countries that don't treat some of the African countries, Middle Eastern countries, and you look at those countries where they oppress their women and you have violence, you have massacres, you have you have genocide. And I'm learning this from doctor Bill. it's not just the fact that you bring a woman, everything is going to be okay hunky dory.

It's the fact that if a society is mature enough to have a woman lead, that means there's equity in that country. That means there's equality. There's a chance when you create women equally, a lot of other minorities benefit from that. So I think in the long run, that's the future for any country, particularly in Iran, create a better situation for the women. But in the short run, we got to come together about the prize. Yes, yes. And to the importance of women. None of us are here without a woman. Women bear children. And do we not want the best experience for the next generation and the next generation?

We have to put those women. at the top of everything we respect. it's a new phenomenon. When we talk about women in the past, sure, they haven't been treated right. They haven't had had a seat at the table. But you look at 100 years ago. Out of every three child births. One of them, the woman, would die. The average lifespan for a woman was 3540. It was not physiologically, physically possible to put women at the center of your society, to run the government, to run the tribe to. But since then, women are, thank God they're living longer. They're not dying at childbirth.

They're taking their seat at the table next men with equality. this whole thing that we talk about with Doctor Bell, this whole understanding of myself is to understand my mother is to understand that My mother was my meal. when the sperm and the egg meet, the husband's job is gone. You form inside that mother, you're basically eating her from the placenta from the biblical court. You're absorbing her energy. You're absorbing her happiness, her sadness and anxiety, her calmness. You. Basically her. She's you. You're a product of that. And then afterwards you come to this life for a year and a half, two years.

You're still eating the mother. The mother is the meal. So that meal that you absorb is you. And how could you equate that? I mean, that was the whole thing with doctor Bill. He was saying that Void and Jung were inaccurate in putting all the emphasis on the male was it's the mother that's forming when you start looking at it and when you start thinking about your own imprints your own shortcomings and your own fears, and you take it to the root, you realize a lot of it is from You said that all so well, thank you very much. I had good coaching.

And thank you so much for sharing what, you know, really valuable. And we can have more discussions about Iran. I do think it's fascinating. And there's so much for us to learn about the world from the experiences there. Thank you for doing what you're doing, Cynthia. Oh, I can't think of doing anything else that I find more important. It's a beautiful voyage were on together. It is. Thank you. Is there anything you want to add? the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation has put us in a situation thanks to a lot of great people supporting it. When we're talking with this audience that you're talking to.

We're talking with these people that are helping the destitute. We're talking with organizations that are helping the bottom, bottom level of society. And when we started this, at first we didn't know where everything was going. But when we got into this field and going from one organization that's helping people out of jail to helping homeless women, to helping children, to giving medication to the people that can't when talking to all these people, I realize if there wasn't a platform like this, they wouldn't be able to speak anywhere because there's no benefit promoting There's no benefit in bringing these people dealing with the homeless.

What are you going to get out of it? There's no benefit in people that are dealing with sexual abuse victims. What is your benefit? But somehow with this organization, we've had a chance to go to all these beautiful places. I've talked to these amazing people, and because Arnold does not have a call to action, only call to action is follow us and support us. I think it's beautiful that we're spending this energy this time, this money, these resources to promote these organizations, whereas they usually don't have the resources to do it themselves and nobody else will.

So I think it's a cool thing that we're doing with this project. I do too. Thank you for saying so. And it's been so often that we're giving exposure to organizations that most of us don't even know exist, and they're working so hard, so tirelessly. what we as this larger community know about them is just that's big. And it's so invigorating to just discover that so much good work is being done and that it's going unnoticed, unnoticed largely is started with Doctor Bell and the good that he did that he continued with you and doing this project, and then your supporters and the people behind that are supporting this project. were at a very beautiful place doing really special work, Well, we're grateful to be able to bring exposure to all of these people who are doing good things and coming from loving places.

And we're hoping to that the lessons we can learn individually from just looking at what these other people are doing and how. How warming it is to them, to their soul to be able to give back that, that by hearing these experiences, we can start to feel something inside ourselves or we say, hey, yeah, I get it. There is some amount of love that I need to be attending to in my community. There is some amount of love that's required for humanity to be successful again. It's our biggest tool. And thank you so much. Please follow, rate and share the podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it.

This is. And now love. Listen to your dreams and live from your heart.