Three friends and I spent a traumatic evening last week at a lecture that claimed to offer a deep understanding of Iran’s history and contemporary reality.

At the beginning of the session, the university lecturer who was the guest speaker referred to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi – the leading opposition figure to the Islamic Republic and the most respected political figure among Iranians today – as the “Clown Prince”. We remained silent despite what struck us as an unprofessional and insulting remark from someone presenting herself as an academic.

Later in the lecture, she announced that she was about to discuss some of the achievements of the Islamic Republic. Surprised, and somewhat instinctively, I responded, “Wow, go on.”

That brief comment was enough for the evening to descend into chaos. A woman stood up and began singing in Māori. Two men unfurled a Palestinian flag and held it directly in front of us. As Iranians who had spent most of our lives in Iran, we tried to explain – albeit in raised voices, as the air was filled with singing – that we had a different perspective. We reminded the audience that any discussion of the Islamic Republic’s achievements must also acknowledge the tens of thousands of innocent lives destroyed through executions, imprisonment, repression, and political violence over the past four decades; that it was appalling to hear praise for the achievements of a regime that, only a few months earlier, had massacred more than 40,000 protesters.

Rather than being given an opportunity to speak, we were threatened with the police. We left the venue shaken, upset, and in tears.

The evening could have unfolded differently. There could have been disagreement, debate, and genuine dialogue. Instead, it became an exercise in silencing voices that did not conform to the narrative being presented.

This bitter incident make me to reflect on what it means to be Iranian, on the different privileges and burdens carried by those who stayed and those who left, and on what each of us gains and losses through those experiences.
I would also like to address a few words directly to the speaker, in the hope that some of her audience may read them.

We have much in common. We were probably born around the same time, in the early 1980s, and we have both built careers as academics in the social sciences. You have enjoyed the opportunities and freedoms of life and education in the free world since the age of five. I have not.

But I possess a privilege that cannot be acquired through education, activism, or academic expertise: deep, lived, and ongoing ties to Iran. I spent most of my life there.

Our family histories appear to share some similarities. Both families were politically active, and both suffered persecution. You spoke about your uncle’s imprisonment and the hardships endured by your family. My father was in prison under threat of execution when I was born and remained there for the first three years of my life. My uncle was executed in 1980.

The difference between us is that your family had the opportunity to leave Iran and find refuge in Europe, while mine did not. You may say that your family was forced into exile, and that may well be true. Yet it is important to recognise that having the option to leave is itself a form of privilege; one that many families, including mine, either did not have or could not exercise.

Paradoxically, remaining in Iran gave me the greatest privilege of my life: the privilege of living and growing up in my homeland.

When you spend most of your life in the country of your birth, being Iranian becomes more than one aspect of your identity. It becomes the essence of who you are. Iran is not merely an inherited memory, a political cause, or a cultural attachment. It is your lived reality.

Both paths, leaving and staying, come with advantages and losses. My daughter, who was born and is growing up in New Zealand, enjoys freedoms and opportunities that I never had. Yet she will never experience the privilege of living in her ancestral homeland or of having the authentic experience of Iranian-ness as a daily, lived experience in the way I did.

There is nothing inherently wrong with either circumstance. Those who leave gain certain opportunities and lose others. Those who stay or who never have the opportunity to leave experience a different set of gains and losses.

But the differences between these experiences are real, and they matter.

Someone who has spent most of their life abroad, benefiting from the freedoms and opportunities of a democratic society, cannot ethically or empirically claim greater authority over understanding Iran than those whose lives have been shaped by direct and continuous experience of the country. Political opinions are open to everyone. Lived experience, however, is not interchangeable.

That distinction is particularly important when speaking with certainty about the realities of contemporary Iran, the aspirations of its people, and the consequences of political change.

My experiences of attending school, studying at university, working, being arrested, getting married, and getting divorced in Iran – all within the structures of the Islamic Republic – place me in a privileged position when discussing the country. “Privilege” may seem an odd word to use for life under an authoritarian theocracy, but in this context it means something simple: direct, lived experience.

That is why it is deeply insulting to be talked over by someone who has not earned that experience by paying the price of living through the realities of Iran.

The same principle applies to me and to others in the diaspora. We have had opportunities to study, work, and build better lives in New Zealand, Europe, North America, and elsewhere. As a result, we do not get to speak over the ninety million people who continue to live in Iran whether because they cannot leave or because they have chosen to stay.

I think of a respected university lecturer who resigned after the Woman, Life, Freedom movement because he could no longer tolerate serving a corrupt system. Like many of us, he had the qualifications and opportunities to leave Iran and pursue an academic career abroad. Instead, he chose to remain in his homeland. Today, he is summoned to court simply for writing honestly and refusing to live according to the regime’s principles of corruption and hypocrisy.

Ethically, I cannot place my preferences above his. Empirically, his experiences of contemporary Iran carry greater weight than mine.

It is in this context that I was surprised to see someone who left Iran at the age of five presenting herself as an authoritative and authentic Iranian voice while advocating for a brutal system that has taken lives of tens of thousands. Leaving Iran as a young child does not disqualify anyone from having opinions about Iran, nor should it. Every member of the Iranian diaspora has the right to speak, participate, and advocate.

However, what this does mean is that humility is required. Lived experience matters. The voices of those who continue to live with the consequences of political decisions should carry particular weight in discussions about Iran’s future.

Respect for the lived experiences of those who have endured hardship and oppression is deeply embedded in Māori values, including the principle of tangata mātau ā-wheako – the recognition of knowledge gained through lived experience.

If that principle deserves respect in New Zealand, it deserves respect for the people of Iran as well.