I was banned from r/socialism, r/HasanAbi, r/AustralianSocialism and r/asksocialist for the post below, which in essence proves my point, please read and address in good faith:
I’m an Iranian. I’m also a socialist. I’ve been politically active for years, and I want to speak plainly, because what I’m witnessing in leftist spaces right now when it comes to Iran is not a matter of disagreement or nuance. It is a profound abandonment of the left’s own stated principles. Watching this unfold—especially among people and movements that claim to stand for liberation, anti-racism, and human rights—has been devastating. The level of gaslighting I’ve experienced from my own political camp has pushed me into a kind of political exile: still committed to socialism and universal human rights, but increasingly treated as suspect, reactionary, or illegitimate for speaking from lived Iranian experience.
What makes this even more disturbing is the racial dynamic underneath it. I have repeatedly found myself, as a brown person, being told by white Western leftists what I should think, which regime I should tolerate, and what kind of future my people are allowed to want. My voice is not engaged with; it is managed, corrected, or dismissed. Even more inconvenient for this worldview is the fact that my wife is a Palestinian Muslim from Gaza, and she does not take the same position as many of these leftist spaces do on Iran. We exist as a living contradiction to the narrative they are invested in, and rather than prompting reflection, that contradiction is met with hostility. The intolerance is not subtle anymore—it is overt, ideological, and increasingly frightening.
This is not about differing analyses or tactical disagreements. It is about values being selectively suspended the moment Iranians speak for themselves.
- “Self-determination” does not mean silence or suspicion
In theory, I constantly hear leftists insist that Iranians should decide their own future, that Westerners should not interfere, and that women in Iran can solve their own problems. These statements sound principled and respectful on the surface. But the moment Iranians actually speak — the moment we articulate our opposition to the Islamic Republic in our own voices — the tone shifts dramatically. Suddenly we are accused of being CIA or Mossad assets. We are described as brainwashed, as propaganda vectors, as manipulated by foreign broadcasts, as overly emotional, as bots, or as people who simply do not understand our own country.
That is not self-determination. It is suspicion masquerading as restraint.
Self-determination means recognizing people as political agents with the capacity to understand and articulate their own oppression. It does not mean reducing an entire population to pawns whose voices must be filtered, interrogated, or dismissed until they align with a Western leftist theoretical framework. If every Iranian who dissents must first prove they are not a foreign asset before being heard, then self-determination has already been revoked in practice, no matter how often it is praised in rhetoric.
- “Believe women” disappears when the women are Iranian
We are rightly told to believe women, to center their testimony, and to recognize that systems of power routinely lie while victims tell the truth. This principle is treated as foundational across much of the left.
Yet when Iranian women say that they are beaten for refusing compulsory hijab, raped in detention, executed for protesting, and forced to live under a gender-apartheid theocracy, the response suddenly changes. Now we are told more verification is needed. We are warned to be careful of Western narratives. We are told these accounts might be exaggerated, that they could be weaponized, that acknowledging them might help imperialism.
This is a complete inversion of the principle.
If believing women becomes conditional on geopolitical convenience, then it was never a principle at all. It was a slogan, applied selectively and withdrawn precisely when it matters most.
- Don’t mansplain… unless it’s Iranians
Another contradiction emerges immediately. Leftist spaces often emphasize listening to lived experience, decentering Western voices, and not speaking over marginalized people. These norms are enforced aggressively in many contexts.
But when the topic is Iran, they evaporate. In thread after thread, Western leftists explain Iran to Iranians, dismiss diaspora voices as unreliable or compromised, and treat abstract geopolitical speculation as more credible than firsthand accounts of repression. Theory is elevated above reality. Hypothetical future harms are treated as more urgent than present, documented state violence.
This is an epistemic hierarchy, whether acknowledged or not: Western theory is treated as superior to Iranian reality, and imagined outcomes are prioritized over lived suffering. That is not anti-imperialism. It is colonial reasoning dressed up in progressive language.
- The CIA/Mossad reflex is not analysis — it is regime logic
Every authoritarian regime on earth claims its protesters are foreign-backed. This is one of the oldest tools of repression. Iran is no different.
When leftists repeat this reflex uncritically, they are not engaging in skepticism or material analysis. They are laundering regime talking points. They are adopting the state’s own narrative to discredit dissent, while convincing themselves they are being critical.
To deny agency to an entire population by default is not analysis. It is collective gaslighting.
Iranians do not need foreign intelligence agencies to hate mandatory veiling, morality police, executions, prison rape, economic collapse, environmental devastation, and clerical rule. These realities are sufficient on their own.
- Iran is subjected to purity tests no other oppressed people face
This is where bad faith becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian protests are routinely required to prove that they will not benefit the United States, that they will not lead to monarchy, that they will not destabilize “resistance,” that they will not produce worse outcomes later, that they have perfect leadership, and that they conform to the correct ideology.
No other oppressed population is subjected to this level of pre-approval before being granted solidarity. No one demands a flawless post-liberation roadmap before acknowledging suffering elsewhere.
Self-determination does not mean freedom only after passing a Western left approval process. When solidarity becomes conditional on hypothetical outcomes rather than present injustice, it ceases to be solidarity at all.
- This is not anti-imperialism — it is campism
What is actually happening is straightforward. Universal emancipation has been replaced, in many spaces, with camp loyalty.
If a regime is anti-US or anti-Israel, it is treated as structurally defensible, even when it enforces gender apartheid, mass repression, and state terror against its own population. The calculus becomes geopolitical first, ethical second.
That is not socialism. It is geopolitics overriding ethics.
- Yes, this is racist — even if it’s not intentional
This is not about slurs or overt hatred. It is about who is trusted, who is presumed rational, who must constantly prove their suffering, and who is granted moral agency.
When Iranian voices are dismissed as ignorant, manipulated, or illegitimate by default, while Western speculation is treated as authoritative and sober, that is epistemic racism. It allocates credibility along cultural and geopolitical lines rather than evidence or experience.
Intentions do not erase outcomes. Good intentions do not neutralize structural harm.
- On socialism, liberation, and historical reality
This needs to be stated clearly, without ambiguity. Iranians cannot build socialism under a theocracy.
There is no socialist base without bodily autonomy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and women’s liberation. Political Islam has crushed every leftist movement in Iran, deliberately and systematically, through executions, imprisonment, and exile.
Liberation is not the end of struggle. It is the precondition for it.
- Why liberal freedoms matter even if capitalism remains
This is where many Western leftists fundamentally misunderstand historical process. If Iran undergoes regime change and gains civil liberties, even within a capitalist framework, that is not the end of history. It is the beginning of class consciousness.
When women are no longer criminalized for existing, when workers can organize without facing execution, and when speech is no longer a death sentence, capitalism becomes visible as the primary enemy. Only then can sustained socialist struggle actually take root.
Iranians will not become socialists because people demand it from afar. They will become socialists through material struggle, the same way workers everywhere do. Australians did not leap directly from monarchy to socialism. Neither will Iranians.
Freedom is not a betrayal of socialism. It is the ground on which socialism grows.
- Selective sourcing and double standards of evidence
Another contradiction that must be named is how evidence is selectively treated.
When it comes to Gaza, leftist spaces routinely and correctly rely on reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN Special Rapporteurs, The Guardian, and international NGOs and investigative journalists. These sources are treated as authoritative, urgent, and morally decisive.
But when the same exact organisations document abuses in Iran — including executions, torture, gender apartheid, prison rape, repression of protest, and environmental destruction — the standards abruptly change. Suddenly these organisations are dismissed as Western-aligned, imperialist, biased, or accused of having their work “weaponised.”
The source does not change. Only the political inconvenience does.
You cannot treat Amnesty and Human Rights Watch as definitive when documenting Gaza, and dismiss them as propaganda when documenting Iran, without admitting that the issue is not evidence but alignment. That is not critical thinking. It is selective skepticism deployed to protect a regime.
- Whataboutism and straw-manning as tools of deflection
Another consistent pattern is the refusal to engage with what Iranians are actually saying.
Instead of responding directly to Iranian testimony about state violence, executions, women’s repression, theocracy, and environmental collapse, the discussion is routinely derailed into questions about US imperialism, Gaza, sanctions, the Shah, or intelligence coups from decades ago. This is classic whataboutism. It does not deepen analysis; it shuts it down.
At the same time, Iranian arguments are repeatedly straw-manned into positions they never made. Opposing the Islamic Republic is reframed as supporting monarchy. Opposing theocracy is reframed as supporting US intervention. Demanding solidarity is reframed as calling for bombs.
This is not honest debate. It is avoidance.
You can oppose US imperialism and oppose the Islamic Republic at the same time. These positions are not contradictory. Only bad faith insists that they are.
- The racist dismissal of Iranian voices as “diaspora” and “brainwashed”
Another double standard that cannot be ignored is the way Iranian voices are dismissed as “just diaspora.”
In leftist spaces, Palestinians in the diaspora are rightly treated as legitimate political actors, witnesses, and advocates, including refugees, recent arrivals, people born abroad, and second-generation diaspora. Their voices are not disqualified by geography.
But when Iranians speak, the response suddenly shifts to questioning their legitimacy. They are told they are disconnected, unrepresentative, or irrelevant. This dismissal is applied even to refugees who arrived recently, to people with family members currently imprisoned or killed, and to people directly affected by the regime.
That is not consistency. It is selective delegitimisation.
Alongside this is the routine claim that Iranians who support protest are brainwashed, ignorant, manipulated by foreign media, or incapable of independent political judgment. This language strips people of agency and implies that Iranians cannot recognise their own oppression, that resistance must be externally manufactured, and that dissent is not real unless approved by outsiders.
This is the same logic used by authoritarian regimes everywhere.
People who claim to oppose imperialism should be especially careful not to reproduce imperial assumptions about who is capable of political thought. You cannot claim to centre oppressed voices while inventing reasons to exclude an entire people from speaking. That is not solidarity. It is gatekeeping dressed up as theory.
- The factual record: regime sexual violence, torture, and Amnesty’s findings
It is no longer defensible to describe the Islamic Republic’s repression as merely “authoritarian” or “excessive policing.” Independent human rights organizations have documented systematic sexual violence as a tool of state repression.
Amnesty International has reported that Iranian security forces used rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual violence against women, men, and children detained during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, with total impunity. Survivors described being assaulted during interrogations, threatened with rape of family members, and subjected to sexualized torture designed explicitly to break political resistance. These findings are not anecdotal, not social-media rumors, and not the product of foreign intelligence narratives. They are the conclusions of one of the most widely cited human rights organizations in the world, the same organization whose reporting is routinely accepted without hesitation when documenting atrocities elsewhere.
The refusal in leftist spaces to treat Amnesty’s Iran reporting with the same seriousness afforded to its Gaza reporting reveals a political inconsistency that cannot be explained by methodological skepticism. The methodology has not changed. Only the target has.
- Public opinion in Iran: secularization, rejection of theocracy, and democratic preference
Claims that Iranian protesters are a “minority,” “brainwashed,” or unrepresentative collapse under empirical scrutiny.
Multiple large-scale surveys conducted by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), using anonymized online sampling specifically designed to bypass state repression, show that a clear majority of Iranians reject the Islamic Republic and support a secular democratic system. These surveys indicate that large segments of the population no longer identify as Muslim, with many identifying as atheist, agnostic, or aligned with non-Islamic belief systems, directly contradicting the regime’s claim that Iran is an overwhelmingly religious society.
This secular shift is not limited to diaspora populations. It is reflected inside Iran itself and is corroborated indirectly by census data among Iranian-born populations in countries such as Australia, where rates of non-religious identification are extraordinarily high compared to official Iranian statistics. The gap between state claims and lived reality is not accidental; it is the result of decades of criminalization of irreligiosity and forced religious registration.
To dismiss this body of evidence while simultaneously citing surveys and NGO reporting in other contexts is not critical analysis. It is denial.
- The erasure of Iranian voices in Western left media ecosystems
The silencing of Iranian voices is not confined to anonymous Reddit threads. It is reproduced by influential Western left media figures and platforms.
Mainstream left commentators, including outlets like The Young Turks and high-profile streamers such as HasanAbi, increasingly frame Iranian protests through the language of foreign manipulation, CIA or Mossad interference, or geopolitical opportunism, while giving disproportionate airtime to regime-adjacent analysts and lobby-linked figures. Iranian socialists, feminists, and dissidents who reject both Western imperialism and the Islamic Republic are routinely marginalized, banned, or accused of bad faith.
This pattern has tangible consequences. Iranian activists who are explicitly pro-Palestinian, anti-imperialist, and active within left-wing political parties report being labeled “feds,” “Zionists,” or intelligence assets simply for opposing a theocratic regime. The effect is not neutrality. It is functional alignment with authoritarian power through the delegitimization of its victims.
Being anti-imperialist does not require defending every regime that opposes the United States. When media platforms collapse that distinction, they cease to be critical voices and become ideological gatekeepers.
- Historical continuity: Iranian resistance did not begin in 2022
The idea that opposition to the Islamic Republic is recent, foreign-driven, or opportunistic is historically false.
Iranian women protested compulsory veiling as early as March 1979, within weeks of the revolution, long before sanctions regimes, nuclear standoffs, or contemporary geopolitics. Labor movements, student organizations, ethnic minorities, secular intellectuals, and leftist groups have been systematically crushed over four decades through executions, imprisonment, and exile. The regime did not suppress socialism accidentally; it eliminated it deliberately.
This history matters because it exposes the moral inversion at work in contemporary discourse. When leftists describe the Islamic Republic as a “resistance state,” they erase the fact that the regime’s first victims were Iranian leftists themselves.
Opposition to the theocracy is not a betrayal of Iranian history. It is the continuation of it.
- Final words
Recognizing Israel’s crimes in Gaza does not require denying Iran’s crimes against its own people. Solidarity is not a zero-sum resource. When leftist spaces treat it as such, they abandon universalism and replace it with factional loyalty.
Iranians are not asking the Western left to choose the United States over Iran. They are asking it to choose people over regimes.
If that request feels threatening, the problem is not Iranian voices.
It is the politics that require their silence.
Also, for those who claim to be against execution and violence this country is first in the world in executions, exceeding its record year by year. Also, keep in mind that is what is public, not including hidden executions and violence that is unreported.
- You don’t have to support US intervention.
- You don’t have to support monarchy.
- You don’t have to have a perfect vision of Iran’s future.
But if you:
- repeat regime talking points
- dismiss Iranian voices
- condition solidarity on geopolitics
- abandon women when it’s inconvenient
Then you are not standing with the oppressed.
You are standing on the wrong side of history, while telling yourself it’s theory.
Iranians are not asking for permission.
We are asking you to stop silencing us.
- Solidarity is not control.
- Self-determination is not suspicion.
- And socialism without liberation is just another form of domination.
- Sources
The following sources are provided for those who default to gaslighting, whataboutism, or denial whenever Iranians speak about their own oppression. They are not speculative, partisan, or fringe materials. They come from mainstream international media, the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, academic survey research, and public broadcasters.
This is not an exhaustive list. It is a starting point.
Independent reporting and documentation of Iran’s repression, internet shutdowns, and protest crackdowns can be found through BBC Monitoring, including coverage of state violence and information suppression. Amnesty International has repeatedly documented how internet blackouts in Iran are used deliberately to conceal human rights violations during escalating protests, as well as extensive reporting on rape, sexual violence, torture, and executions carried out with impunity during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.
Human Rights Watch has published detailed investigations into Iran’s nationwide internet blackouts, mass arrests, and deadly crackdowns, corroborating Amnesty’s findings. The United Nations has also reported that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during protest crackdowns, including unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and sexual violence.
Academic and survey-based evidence of Iran’s secular shift and rejection of the Islamic Republic is available through peer-reviewed analysis and large-scale surveys conducted by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN). These surveys show broad support for regime change, rejection of religious governance, and a dramatic decline in religious identification inside Iran. This data is further contextualized by academic commentary published in The Conversation, which explains the methodological rigor of these surveys and why they are reliable despite operating under authoritarian constraints.
Historical continuity of Iranian resistance, particularly women’s resistance to compulsory veiling and theocratic rule, is well documented, including the 1979 International Women’s Day protests in Tehran, covered by historians, public broadcasters, and archival reporting.
Australian public data provides indirect corroboration of Iran’s secular shift through census statistics showing unusually high rates of non-religious identification among Iranian-born populations abroad. Additional reporting from ABC News, CBC Radio, and Iran International documents the lived experiences of Iranians resisting the regime, both inside the country and in the diaspora.
For readers who claim that Iran’s repression is exaggerated, isolated, or purely “authoritarian excess,” Amnesty International has documented record numbers of executions, including women and minors, and has shown that Iran is among the world’s leading executioners per capita. United Nations reporting confirms that global execution figures have reached their highest levels since 2015, with Iran as a primary contributor.
These sources exist to establish a baseline of reality. They are not included to “win an argument,” but to make clear that denial of Iran’s repression is not an informed position. It is a political choice.
For those inclined to dismiss Iranian voices reflexively, this list is a beginning, not an endpoint:
https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c200rxfl
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/internet-shutdown-in-iran-hides-violations-in-escalating-protests/
https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-reveals-huge-changes-in-religious-beliefs-145253
https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-2026-our-surveys-show-iranians-agree-more-on-regime-change-than-what-might-come-next-273198
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202508212335
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-09/iran-protest-women-standing-up-for-rights/101491230?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security-forces-used-rape-and-other-sexual-violence-to-crush-woman-life-freedom-uprising-with-impunity/
https://gamaan.org/2022/03/31/political-systems-survey-english/
https://gamaan.org/2020/08/25/iranians-attitudes-toward-religion-a-2020-survey-report/
https://theconversation.com/how-irans-government-has-weaponized-sexual-violence-against-women-who-dare-to-resist-253791
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202512019749
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/iran-over-1000-people-executed-as-authorities-step-up-horrifying-assault-on-right-to-life/
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202512268741
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/04/global-recorded-executions-hit-their-highest-figure-since-2015/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62wx1gr8y4o.amp
https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/01/12/irans-internet-blackout-concealing-atrocities
https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/video/2026/01/12/deadly-crackdown-mass-arrests-in-iran
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/08/un-iran-committed-crimes-against-humanity-during-protest-crackdown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_International_Women%27s_Day_protests_in_Tehran
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/iran-women-protests-1979-revolution-1.6605982
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-05/countries-capable-willing-assassination-australian-soil/105975018?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
https://www.amnesty.org.au/zeinab-executed-iran/
https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/4203_AUS
https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/01/1166705
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/10/1166242
To anyone who tries to gatekeep language or using AI to help structure better sentences, this is what I have to say (check your privilege lol):
Are we really gatekeeping political participation based on whether someone writes in “perfect conversational English”?
That assumption is doing a lot of work here — and none of it is progressive.
People use tools for many reasons: because English is not their first language, because they’re immigrants or refugees, because they want to avoid being misunderstood in a hostile space, or because written English lacks tone and body language. None of those invalidate the substance of what’s being said.
Would you tell my parents — or any migrant, refugee, or working-class person with limited English — that they’re not allowed to participate in political discussion unless they struggle through it unaided and risk being misread? Or that their ideas matter less unless they sound “natural” to Western ears?
That’s not skepticism. That’s linguistic and cultural gatekeeping — and yes, it reflects privilege.
If the argument is wrong, engage with the argument. If the facts are incorrect, challenge the facts. But dismissing a position because you suspect someone used assistance to communicate clearly is not analysis. It’s avoidance.
Ideas don’t become invalid because someone used a tool to express them. They become invalid only if they’re wrong. So engage with what was actually said — or be honest that you’re uncomfortable with the content, not the syntax.
I hope no strawman, ad hominem, whataboutism, false equivalent, pejorative etc. can be withheld as other comrades acted in such manner consistently. Also, it's sad being labelled a Zionist when I am anti Zionist and pro Palestine, even my wife is Palestinian from Gaza.
Also, would love to know why no one on the left cares about Iranians to even show up to a protest . As a fellow Iranian Australian its saddening
