Young Iranian man says he’s willing to die for democracy
President Donald Trump acknowledged to reporters Tuesday that the worst case scenario is that “somebody takes over, who’s as bad as the previous person.” Trump told NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake on Thursday that he has a list of preferences he wants for the next Iranian leader — though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas, rejected the possibility of U.S. taking part in the succession process.
The man who spoke with NBC News said that he fears reprisal for sharing his story — especially after the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters that killed more Iranian people over a couple days in January than the war so far, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
“I want to just live a happy life, good life, be prosperous. But this ideological — how to say — dictators, terrorists have ruined so many generations in Iran,” he said. “They have killed so many people.”
Life in once-bustling Tehran is grimmer now, though residents for the most part have food, water and electricity — even if it’s touch and go. The Iranian government has put the country under an internet blackout, making all communication with the world outside harder, if not impossible. The Iranian man’s account to NBC News from the war zone presents one of the first, fullest looks at what people there are experiencing.
“I know for a fact that so many people love this country. You have [a] tremendous amount of patriots inside, outside. We are a proud nation,” he said. “We are culturally rich. We care about art. We care about living, laughing, dancing, listening to music, everything that any human needs to just create meaning in their life, but they have made us just suppress those feelings.”
The Iranian man said he is not afraid of death — if it comes to that — as part of an armed uprising.
“I’m about 30 years old, OK? I have experienced this regime. I have lost money … I have seen people suffering,” he said. “For me, it’s like I don’t care anymore that much about my life, as long as it’s meaningful. And this is one of the ways that — like now I’m talking to you — this is one of the ways that I can make it meaningful.”
