baraye

a note on war and building a better world

for at least the past decade, i have been

anti war,
anti death penalty,
anti violence,
and anti incarceration (but a lot of you are not ready to have that conversation)

not only do i believe retributive punishment fails morally, the evidence shows that it fails practically too.

societies that focus primarily on punishment tend to produce more violence, not less.

the approaches that actually reduce harm are rehabilitation, restoration, healing, and social stability. there’s plenty of great research on this, and i encourage you to do your own.

now - i BEEN KNEWWW this is not a popular stance

i got a preview of that when i posted that i wouldn’t celebrate if trump was assassinated a while back, and y’all decided i was insane for that.

to be clear, i wouldn’t MOURN either.. but my argument was that something awful happens to our own minds when we glorify violence.

also i refuse to be an eye for an eye girl because i believe the goal shouldn’t be revenge - the goal should be fewer victims tomorrow.

this belief has actually shaped the way i see the world for a long time and shapes a great deal of my identity.

so it has been difficult - genuinely difficult - for me, as an iranian, to hear iranians i deeply love and respect cheer for war, let alone express joy or relief when bombs are dropped on their homeland, or to even express, of all things, adoration for donald trump 🥴

and while i disagree with them, i understand them.
i do not feel angry with them.
i do not feel the need to lecture them.
i certainly do not feel that they are my enemy.

because the reality is that when people live under systems that brutalize them long enough - when every peaceful pathway to change is blocked, when protest is punished, when dissent disappears people, when generations grow up without political agency - desperation begins to change what feels morally imaginable.

violence starts to look less like a tragedy and more like the only door that hasn’t been welded shut.

that doesn’t mean it’s the right door.

but i understand why people start reaching for it.

baraye

in 2022, iranian songwriter shervin hajipour released a song called “baraye” - which translates to “because of” in farsi. he stitched together tweets from iranians explaining why they were protesting in the streets after the death of mahsa amini:

because of the fear of dancing in the streets
the fear of kissing in public
because of the shame of living in poverty
because of the broken economy
because the polluted air
because of the innocent stray dogs
because of the imprisoned experts
because of the non-stop tears
because of the girls who wished they were born somewhere else
because of women, life, freedom

the song became the anthem of the woman, life, freedom movement and won a grammy for best song written for social change.

listen to it, and you might understand the context in which so many iranians are operating. not abstract political disagreement, but a bone-deep exhaustion. a grief that has been accumulating across generations.

i made my own version this week because making music helps me process difficult times, sharing it here with you here. went a bit darker on the production in the second half:

i hope it helps contextualize that when people celebrate bombs, it is rarely because they love violence. it is because they have run out of hope.

and that, to me, is the real tragedy

the fact that human beings have been pushed into a corner where violence starts to feel like the only language power understands.

my heart breaks knowing that we - and by we i mean all of us, the human race - have created a world where oppressive systems can brutalize people to the point that war begins to feel like liberation.

not as a metaphor and not as hyperbole but as a lived, rational conclusion drawn by intelligent, loving people who have tried every other option and watched every other option fail.

research on political violence consistently shows that it emerges not from ideology alone, but from blocked alternatives.

this is not an argument for violence. it is an argument for taking seriously why violence keeps happening despite the fact that almost no one, at the start of their life, wants it.

the question we have to sit with

if we truly want fewer wars, fewer dictators, fewer cycles of violence, fewer loss of life - we have to build systems where people never reach that level of desperation in the first place.

what kind of world are we building if violence is the only language oppressed people believe will be heard?

and what responsibility do we all have to build something better than that?

i don’t think these are rhetorical questions. i think they are the most urgent practical ones we face.

dictatorships and authoritarian governments don’t appear out of nowhere because a group of people woke up one day and decided to be evil. they are built slowly inside systems made up of people like you and me that reward oppression and punish accountability.

and eliminating the fucked up leaders does not eliminate the systems that legitimized them in the first place. nazi germany collapsed, but white supremacy did not disappear. it still runs rampant in the united states and across the world and results in real violence, every day.

systems don’t sustain themselves. people sustain them.

which means the work of dismantling oppression doesn’t only happen “out there.” it also requires us to notice the smaller ways power, cruelty, and indifference show up in ourselves and in the fucked up systems we participate in every day.

some suggestions:

1. when someone you love says something you disagree with, try to understand before you respond. before correcting someone, ask what they’ve lived through that brought them to that position. you don’t have to agree. you just have to be curious first.

2. notice when you want punishment instead of resolution. in your own conflicts - with a partner, a coworker, a stranger online - catch the moment you want the other person to suffer rather than for the situation to improve. that impulse is worth examining. it shows up everywhere, not just in geopolitics.

3. when someone is in pain, don’t debate them. if a friend is grieving or raging, your first job isn’t to fact-check them or offer perspective. sit with them.

4. resist the urge to publicly shame people who are wrong. online especially. humiliation rarely changes minds. it mostly hardens them. if you actually want someone to think differently, private conversation has a much better track record than public callout.

5. practice repair instead of avoidance. most people, when a relationship ruptures, either escalate or disappear. try a third option: go back, name what happened, and ask what would make it better.

6. don’t punch down. notice when you have power in a situation - as a manager, a customer, a landlord, a parent - and choose not to weaponize it. the person serving you is not beneath you. the person who made a mistake is not your opportunity to feel superior.

7. pay people fairly and on time. if you hire someone - a cleaner, a babysitter, a contractor, a freelancer - pay them what their labor is worth and don’t make them chase you for it. economic dignity is not abstract. it happens or doesn’t happen in transactions between individuals.

8. believe people when they tell you about their own experience. especially people whose lives look different from yours. especially about discrimination, pain, or systems that don’t work for them. you not having seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

9. refuse to participate in dehumanizing language. even casually. even as a joke. the language that makes cruelty possible always starts somewhere small - in a group chat, at a dinner table, in an offhand comment. you’re allowed to say “i don’t think that’s funny” or just quietly not laugh.

10. extend to strangers the patience you’d want on your worst day. the person who was rude to you at the checkout line is carrying something you can’t see. you don’t have to be a saint about it. but you can choose not to escalate. GIVE PEOPLE GRACE.

anyway.

those are just some thoughts.

feel free to share yours below.

sending love to everyone navigating heavy emotions right now.

i genuinely believe a better world is possible.

but it’s going to require all of us to build it.

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if you’re looking for ways to support iranians right now, here are a few places doing meaningful work:

• Center for Human Rights in Iran – documents abuses and advocates for political prisoners and civil liberties in Iran.
• United for Iran – builds technology and advocacy tools to support civil society and digital freedom in Iran.
• Abdorrahman Boroumand Center – tracks human rights violations and preserves the stories of victims of repression in Iran.

if you’re iranian and know of additional organizations that should be included here, please share them in the comments so others can find them <3