From Equator:
I must begin with a condition rather than a confession: my safety, anonymity and physical survival come first. In Iran, where words can still wound the body, this text is written cautiously, stripped of names and coordinates – anything that could invite harm. What follows is not testimony in the juridical sense, nor reportage. It is a personal record: fragile, partial, and deliberately inward. This is not about who I am in an administrative sense, but about where I stand.
I am a young man in Tehran. I come from an upper-middle-class family, one that has long been politically aware and historically engaged. Politics, literature and debate were not abstractions when I was growing up; they were part of the household atmosphere. I studied literature and political science, and over the years I’ve worked in and around writing, translation and what might loosely be called intellectual labour.
At the same time, I’ve been wary of becoming a detached, insulated intellectual – someone who speaks about society without being inside of it. I’ve made a conscious effort to stay in contact with everyday life: with the bazaar, ordinary economic anxieties, people whose political language is not theoretical but practical, immediate and raw.
More here.
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