The Ben Mulroney Show - How To Talk To Your Problem Childiranians Take To The Streets

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

GUEST:   Tania Khazaal CEO & Director Tania Khazaal | Family Estrangement & Emotional Healing Expert GUEST:  Andrew Fox / British Army veteran and a prominent expert and commentator specializing in the Middle East GUEST: Ali Siadatan /  Expat Iranian If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Well, the toe tapping aside, the guy gets it dead right. This is the Ben Mulroney show. All Cal conversation, no cancellation. We made it to Friday. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's Friday the 9th of January 2025. And I want to welcome to the show, my intrepid producer, Mike Droulet. Thank you. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. Like, we made it. We made it. Right before this, I actually shot this week's episode of the West Block as well. It's going to be another great one.

That's why you saw me wearing a suit, which I don't offer. I know. I was like, where's this? Where's the sweatsuit? I dressed down again. And Amy Siegel, is she around? There. She says, hi, Amy Siegel. Nice to see you as well. And we got Santiago joining us together today on the on the high hats, I guess. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Ben. Before we jump into everything, I decided I want to put some good good stuff out in the in the ether in the universe i want to give a shout out to my barista no no donnie so i i go i go to the starbucks by my house and this guy is so full of joy and he

i get there at like 630 or 7 in the morning and he knows exactly what i want he's always charming and funny and nice and he's just putting good stuff out in the world so i want to say i want to say congratulations and thank you to to donnie from the starbucks at young and st clair I think that's important. Here in Toronto, obviously we've got listeners all over the country. And that's my guy,

and I hope you have your own Donnie in your life, because he's a wonderful guy. All right, we're doing something a little different. We're going to jump right into a conversation here today. And look, I think how a parent parents has a lot to do

with how they were parented. And I've got my own particular views, and I've got the stuff that works, and I sit there and I shake my head. And I think, why isn't what worked on me working on my kids. And I don't know why. I don't have any answers to it.

But by and large, I'm really lucky with my kids. Really, really lucky with my kids. We are open conversation. There's a lot of love in my house. There's a lot of when there's something going wrong, we talk about it. Sometimes I scream. But by and large, I think I think I'm doing things well. I'm sure I can do things better.

But every one of us wonders. You know, we all wonder. am I doing it right? And in a lot of cases, people know they're doing it wrong, but they don't know how to fix and course correct. And so we're joined now by Tanya Kizal. She's the CEO and director of Tanya Kizal, family estrangement and emotional healing.

Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks so much for being here. So tell me about your work. How'd you get into it? So I originally got into it by, I was in the health space for a very long time and I started to realize the emotional component of people's health

that was being such a factor. And then I had such a passion for, reconnecting people because I was estranged from my mom. My husband was estranged from his mom. There's such a pattern there. And I realized how much that has everything to do with how healthy and happy we're feeling, our communication, everything. And so when I was in the health space,

I felt like, okay, it's a saturated market now. But why isn't anyone talking about this topic that's so important? It's like a silent epidemic. And so I said, you know what? I love to talk about it. I may as well. And it seemed like it was so many families, like one and four families. that are dealing with it.

It's so interesting and funny that you bring that up because just yesterday I was talking to the CEO of one of the companies I work with and he dropped it on me that he that he's been estranged from his father for decades. And so two things came out of that conversation. One, that also meant that the grandfather, his father, has no relationship with his grandkids. And two, the one thing I said to him is I said, yeah, I have to assume that in a situation like yours, you're faced with a fork in the road.

where you can either parent as your father did or go in the opposite direction. And he said, my priority, my entire life has to be to make sure I have a positive relationship with my kids because I never want that to happen. What happened with me and my dad, I never want to happen to me and my kids. So what kinds of people come to see you? Well, I want to add something to that story. It's really interesting is as much as we're always going to parent differently than our parents said, we're growing up in different worlds, different generations, different

tools. But it's very touchy subject because the child could still learn that love is disposable. So even if you did everything right, when the outside society tends to have its grip on a child, it could start to think that, well, why isn't he talking to his dad? Even if it's not the same reason, that's something that I could maybe consider in the future, especially when there's outside influence, an in-law, right, disposes everything. So honestly, the primary people that come to me are, it's such a variety. It's either an in-law that had an influence. right? They went off to college and started to have that influence. They have different political views, which is insane when you see that, oh, my mother, you know, my parents voted for

this, so I think that they're dangerous to me. So I cut them off because they're a danger to me based on their political views. Right. That's my, that's an interesting one these days. It comes up, so there's all kinds of situations, but it's about the language. Where is that language being learned that my sense of belonging belongs outside of my own family and I can cut them off for my own inner wounds that I'm not dealing with. So I have to project it onto the person that I know could have hurt me. It seems to me that any type of person could come see you. And someone who presents as having, like two people who present as having the same issue,

it wouldn't take you very long to realize how different their issues actually are, right? Being estranged from a parent, being estranged from a parent. But the reasons for which might be completely different. So how do you go about unpacking their issues so that you can, because you can't solve a problem unless you identify the problem. Right. How do you identify the problem? Well,

what's interesting is you initially asked how I got into this work. What I've started to notice is a lot of, we're in a decade of conscious parenting, consciousness, we're aware, we're trying to be healthier. And there's a lot of working through our inner child. But when you think about any kind of inner child, what is it's always, well, the parent at this,

they didn't meet my emotional needs. They didn't do anything like that. So the foundation is always almost the same. Yeah. Now, obviously I want to make it very clear because it comes up often as abuse is the exception to what I'm talking about, safety comes first.

But oftentimes it comes down to there was some kind of an emotional need of mind that was not met. And as I grew up into adulthood, I didn't know how to process it. I didn't know how to communicate it through it. By the way, communication is like the foundational thing. So you said you have great communication with your kids. It's so foundational. And because of that, an ability to have those conversations and expressing yourself,

that suppression of expression turns into heavy emotions. Yeah. that protecting my peace feels easier from a distance because I don't know how to not be triggered by being in the situation itself. I saw someone on social media a couple of days ago. I would have put it in that, I would have like remembered it, but it just popped up now. I mean, that's how conversation with me goes. Like you'll say something else.

Oh, I remember seeing this thing from a while ago. But this woman was sort of criticizing people of a younger generation for how critical they are of their parents. And she said something like, you know, you're criticizing somebody who, did their best, who didn't, who didn't know what they were doing when they were doing it, they're learning on the fly, and you're ascribing ill motivation for somebody who is just trying to do right by you. So, okay, so, but, I mean, I just, the more I think about it, how many layers you have to

peel through, it seems like a really daunting task that you've given yourself. It feels almost like an impossible mountain to climb. I wouldn't say so. To be honest with it, I think if it's something comes naturally to you, it's your ability to kind of go through it. For me, it's really trying to have that polarized conversation of having each other understand each other. You bring them together? I don't bring them together, but a lot of my concept, and I think why it lands so differently than anyone else and why it grabs attention is I speak to the parent from a place where most people are, if you look on social

media and everywhere, it's all about the victim mindset. And it loves the victim mindset. So what's happening is you've got kids who've cut off their parents who've now built entire businesses around this identity. They formed our identity around it. So what I do is because I was the, which by the way, I see it a lot in millennials and the younger generation and myself being a millennial who cut off my mom in the name of healing and protecting my peace, I started to see, okay, if I can help the parent understand the child's perspective and the child to be able to show a different level of compassion for the parent, I could bridge the gap. And that's essentially what it is. It's being able to share, okay, this is what you're doing wrong and this is what you need to

understand from your child and bring them together. But it's fairly simple when you're understand the foundational piece of it. Well, yeah, I want to talk about your process a little bit when we come back. I also want to ask you if people of a certain generation are misusing the expression trauma. 100%. I love that you brought that up. Yeah. I mean, go ahead.

No, we're going to talk about that when we come back. But I also, something popped up today and we realized you're the perfect person to talk about this about what's going on in the Beckham family. Oh, yeah. I mean, Brooklyn Beckham has cut off his parents and he brought lawyers into it. And so we're going to delve into that later because people like saying celebrities, they're just like us. Well, look, they're dealing with something that a lot of people have to deal with as well. I love that we're having this conversation.

So more with Tanya Kizal when we come back. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. Paying for tax tools, our team doesn't even use. Is now really the right time to make the change? Why are we paying for tax tools? Our team doesn't even use. Is our tax research tool actually doing this?

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We're projecting a positive outlook for her new One Plus Den. Invest in what you're really invested in. With custom goals on Scotia Smart Investor, Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show, and we are continuing our conversation with Tanya Kizal. She's the CEO and director of Tanya Kizal, family estrangement, an emotional healing expert. We were talking before the break about sort of the overuse of the notion and the expression trauma. Right.

I'm sure you hear that a lot. And when I said it, I could see it on your face that you've heard it from a lot of people. What's going on? Well, I think it's directly aligned with the growing culture of therapy, right? Where else did they learn that word? Therapy, everyone has trauma. You're trying to work through their past trauma. Does everybody have trauma?

I mean, in the actual, no, I think everybody has childhood hardships. I don't think everyone had trauma. And the reason why I don't like the word so much is because people who endured real trauma, it minimizes them to such an extent that, you know, everyone can label anything trauma. Then it's validated by society or by a therapist or whatever you call it. Look, I went to a school I hated. And it was a school that beat me down emotionally, made me full. feel like I could never rise to the challenge.

The teachers, I did not like it. I don't like it. And I was upset with my parents that they sent me there. And my mom would always say, had you not done that, you would not have become the person, X, Y, Z. If I were born today, having done that, or if I was a teenager today, I would, I would be labeling that trauma. What you did to me was traumatic.

Right. And I think that's what's just, it was a thing. But what happens is when you use your trauma, you stay in a victim mindset. You say something bad happened to me. So this is the reason why I'm stuck and I'm dealing with these emotions. There's no path to repair. So it's very dangerous grounds to kind of paint that hardship that you went through as trauma versus it was an experience that was not ideal. But it's not actually traumatic.

And you're also, again, you're ascribing something to your parents that isn't real. Like what you experienced was real, but you've given it a label that is unhelpful. And it's forcing, it's creating a bigger problem that has to be unpacked. Right. And the reason why that happened is without going too much into history, Carl Rogers introduced person-centered therapy in 1970s, which was kind of like feelings as facts, and that's what we're seeing now.

Oh, yeah. Is like feelings. That's his fault? Well, his intention wasn't that, but when you think about the 80s and 90s and you think about the Oprah's, the Oprah's, the doctor feels, everyone who kind of really came in with the boundaries, triggers, trauma, protecting my peace. Everything

became about empowerment. And my truth. And that empowerment actually turned into my inability to process my emotion, so just cut off whatever is uncomfortable. If the notion of my truth were a person, I would drown that person. Like, I would drown it, even if it was cute. I would drown it. There's nothing powerful about it.

That's the thing, it allows you to stay in the victim mindset. And then there lacks emotional resilience and emotional strength in society that we're seeing today because of these terms that are labeled and painted so easily. When you are working towards two people reconciling, how long does that typically take? there are some parents that I have seen in one message, and there's some people that it takes months and years. Really? One message sometimes because it's like the child, a perfect example is,

and you might know this is where the parent tries to justify their decision to share their perspective. But oftentimes what happens is the child completely shuts down because the child's like, I don't want you to justify, I just want you to hear me and understand what I'm feeling. And parents are like, I didn't even realize. Just that simple realization, you're right,

I'm always justifying because I feel bad to think that it failed with you. when I'm trying to explain to you my perspective so that you can understand my perspective, meanwhile the child doesn't want to hear it. The child just wants to feel like, okay, you're acknowledging my pain. So a lot of times just that simple one and a message and then the next steps from there, people reconcile fairly quickly. We see messages all the time from people saying six years, five years, ten years, they're coming for Christmas.

We just had dinner together. Estrangement is sort of what you're trying to fix. But is putting your parents in a time out every now and then, okay? I think there's a, like, if you're like, you know what, my, my, my, my, my parent is getting on my last nerve. I need to just disconnect for. Yeah. It's okay to have a breather. That's like in any relationship, a marriage or anything, but it doesn't mean lifetime, that's a life sentence.

Yeah. Right. And that's where it becomes the estrangement is becoming a life sentence versus I could take a step back. But the real big things I tell people is how can you get yourself to such a point that you're no longer triggered, triggered, activated by these people. That is true emotional resilience. That is true peace. At the core. And yeah, well, what you're saying actually sounds an awful lot like, like in, in, in, in, in Christianity,

the idea of, of, of, of, forgiving the person who, who hurt you, right? I'm not doing it for you. Like, forgiving a, you know, we see it in movies all the time. You know, when they, when the mom forgives the murderer of her child, it's, they're not, not doing it for the murderer. They're doing it so that they can have peace. Right. It seems like there's an element of that.

How can, how can, how can, how can you let go. of these things that you think that by taking a break from your family, by marginalizing them and putting them over there, that you've somehow given yourself peace. But the fact that you can't be in the same room with them means you're holding, you're holding on to that pain. I always say exactly. I say it's not protecting your peace. You're protecting your pain. Yeah. Yeah. That's really what it is. Right. So when it comes to this dynamic, oftentimes we're painting that person because they endured the pain on us. And you mentioned forgiveness, but the number one thing that I always say, it's the lack of compassion.

It's the compassion and say, what were their circumstances, what were their upbringing, what is their story? Because when you have that level of compassion, you're like, okay, so I could see how they did a even better job than their parents ever did with them. And I should be happy with that because to them, it's fantastic. That's how we were paired with my mom. She was 16 kids. She was the 15th youngest.

Her dad died when she was three. Of course, she was neglected unintentionally. Yeah. I was reading your website, but I was like, when I saw the header, who this work is not for, I was like, oh, this could be good. My work is not for anyone looking for validation without self-reflection, anyone seeking language to pressure, corner, or control their child,

anyone unwilling to acknowledge complexity and relational breakdown, anyone looking to bypass compassion, accountability, or truth. And then you say, I think it's important, I do not support harm or abuse ever. But when I read that, I was like, oh, I'm, this is, this is the, this woman speaks a language that I can appreciate, right?

Thank you. I suspect that if you have people coming in, at some point they ask themselves, oh shoot, what did I get myself in for? There's parents that are like, well, why do I have to do the work? Why do I have to do this? To which you say? Well, oftentimes I say, well, someone has to lead. Sometimes it's a child.

Sometimes it's the parent and that's okay. But it's getting yourself out of the victim mentality. Well, I shouldn't have to do the work. Okay, but it's okay to lead. If you're strong and powerful and grounded enough, it's okay to lead to take accountability, even if it's not 100% your fault. Accountability doesn't mean it's all your fault. it means that I have a role in this, right?

Before we let you go, I want to talk about something that's big news today. And it's what's going on with the Beckham family. Like the whole world watched when the son Brooklyn married Nicola Peltz, who comes from a very wealthy New York family. And then pretty quickly after that, their relationship and in a public way started disintegrating. Today the news was that Brooklyn, through his own lawyers, sent like a cease-sist or something to the parents, to his parents, saying stop contacting me, stop posting on my social media, leave me alone.

And I mean, that- So this is touchy grounds because I see this often. I see, I get so many celebrities that reach out to me with similar situations. And I often say that he's not the one leading the estrangement. He's surviving in it. It is a perfect example on how often I cannot tell you, Ben, how often I see the daughter-in-law come in and create that power. It's called a power shift estrangement. Yeah.

where it's like, I want that control. And now the child has turned against the family and he's kind of surviving in it. So he's stuck between the battle of, I got to keep my loyalty in this situation or my parents. This is my future family. My loyalty stands here. Interesting. So listen, we'll take it out of this specific because I don't want to put you in a position of having to give advice to the beckoms. But in that paradigm, as you just called the social, what you call it?

Power shift estrangedment? What's your advice? What has been your advice in the past to a group of things? I always recommend very simple low touch messages like every like three to four weeks. I was like, I'm thinking about you. I love you. Hope you're doing well. But there's no fighting the other side.

And if that's happening, then it's almost like always taking another side. So your job is not to fight the other person. The person that could be feeding this estrangement. That is not your role. Your role is to be so steady and grounded while you're still having touch points because eventually you're going to outlast that that power shift. You're going to outlast that anger or that manipulation. That's exactly.

At the moment you feed into it, the moment you feed into it, you're already failing and losing at it. Yeah, because that other person has sort of programmed the son or the daughter. And it's validating. Exactly. That's that behavior. And that's giving him more ammunition to say, see, this is why I need the distance. Oh, wow.

Your business must be booming. It's doing pretty well. What's the most, we only have less than a minute left, but what's the most satisfying part of your job? Honestly, I probably could say just receiving the testimonials of my people. Yeah. I cry whenever, any single time I get those messages. My daughter called.

They're coming. My son. I'm going to the wedding. She acted like everything was normal. We hugged. Those put tears in my eyes because for me, it's so important to protect the family unit. Tanya, if somebody's listening right now and they've heard something that resonates with them, how can they find you? Tanya Cazel.com all across social media.

Tanya Cazel is how you find me. And that's written K-H-A-A-A-L. Tanya, thank you so much. Honestly, I wish we'd had an hour, so hopefully you'll come back. Of course. Thank you. All right. Don't go anywhere after 47 years.

of oppressive rule by an Islamic fascist government, could the people of Iran finally be winning the fight for their freedom? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. The world has been focused on Venezuela and Greenland and how America is reacting to X, Y, and Z. Obviously, the flashpoint of Minnesota and the death of the woman in her car has got us all talking,

and that's taking up a lot of headline space. But if we can do one thing today and highlight the struggles of the people of Iran who are trying to cast off the yoke of Islamo-fascism that they've been living under since 1979 with the Islamic Revolution, then we will have done our jobs today. The people are speaking with their feet and their voices

and they are raising up against, rising up against the tyranny that they have been living under for so many years. Could this be an actual revolution to liberate the people? Well, we're talking with Andrew Fox. He's a British Army veteran, prominent expert and commentators specializing in the Middle East. Andrew, welcome to the show. Thanks, Ben.

Great to be here. Yeah, great to have you back. You know, the world's press has been otherwise occupied, but more and more they cannot deny what is happening there. What are you seeing and how would you label what you're seeing right now? Well, we're seeing some widespread protests across the country. You know, we're looking at 472 just in the last week alone in various towns, villages. as cities across Iran. The internet's just been cut there,

so the information from the ground has dried out, and it's really difficult to work out actually what's going on. But we do know that the Iranian armed forces on the ground of open fire on protesters, and we've seen a number of deaths. You know, the actual amount is, again, very hard to verify, but there's certainly that enormous amount of uprest and protest going on in the streets right now.

And what sparked this? Because we've seen a few things before. A past couple of years, at least two, you know, two, I don't know what to call them, but they were two uprisings that petered out. And this one seems to be longer lasting, more enduring. And what would take this series of planned and massive protests into the realm of revolution? Well, the biggest protests were in late 2022 after the death of Masa Amini in Iranian custody. she was a girl who was arrested and died and it was murdered by the regime for not wearing her headscarf.

And we're only at about, you know, in terms of the scale of the protest, as far as we know, we're only at about half the level that we saw then. And as you say, that petered out in 2023. Where we are now is about the level we were in May 2025 when there were another round of protests. These ones seem to have been sparked by water shortages, energy shortages across the country. People are suffering and they're letting the regime know that they've had enough. And when it comes to the position of the regime, the difference this time potentially

is that they're a lot weaker than they were during those previous two protests. Obviously, they were battered by Israel during the 12 days war last year. The leader, Chaminé, is much older and seems to be less assertive and authoritative than perhaps once he was. And when it comes to whether the regime's going to collapse or not,

it's far too soon, I think, to make that call. But what we're looking at is really three, there's three factors that lead to regime collapse. The first one is mass protests, and we're certainly seeing that social dimension. We're not, however, seeing the other two. The first of which is military defections or the military laying down their arms or changing sides. We haven't seen that yet in any great number.

And then the third one is what we call the psychological dimension, which is some sort of major shock, be that the lead of fleeing, be that, you know, a palace being seized by the protesters. Again, we haven't reached that level of threshold yet. Well, and the fact that there's this galvanizing figure in the exiled crown prince who is calling upon the people of Iran to mobilize in the streets every night at 8 p.m. And they seem to be listening to him. And they're chanting for the return of the Shah, which I've been told doesn't necessarily mean a return to that government that a lot of people believe was the flashpoint that led to the Iranian revolution in the first place. but is is having a singular leader even an exiled one important to revolution? Very much so. And part of the reason previous protests have petered out is that there's been no unifying

figures to fall in behind. You know, Iran is a very ethnically mixed country. Each of the different sort of groups have their own kind of agenda and interests. And of course, as you say, they remember the previous Shah's regime, which was very far from pleasant. You know, he had his own secret police, lots of torture and prisons there as well. So the fact that even some opposition groups are now starting to fall in behind Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the Shah, is significant.

And again, it all depends on whether the Iranian regime can put this down through violence and force, and eventually they'll peter out, or whether instead what we'll see is that they grow in number now with a figure to rally behind. And then we might see those latter to psychological and military changes that I spoke about moments ago. I'm speaking with Andrew Fox. He's a British Army veteran and a prominent expert on the Middle East. And we're talking about the possible changing face of Iran given these, I think we're on day 12 or 13 of these protests that are increasingly making it look like change could be on the horizon. Now, obviously, we've seen, and we're hearing stories that can't necessarily

be validated, as you said before, because of the lack of communication with the people on the ground, but we're hearing stories that the regime is pushing back, arresting people, killing people in the streets for disobeying the orders. Donald Trump has been pretty clear. He said, if you start killing protesters, you're going to have even more problems. What do you think is going to happen? It feels like we've got an emboldened president who's getting his way in Venezuela. We know that Iran is a disrupt. in the region and has been scuttling the possibility of peace for years in that area. What do you think, what do you think, what role do you think the Americans could play

without, I don't know, well, he's even said he doesn't want to, he doesn't care about international law. He just said that about Greenland. So what do you think, what do you think he could do here? Well, you know, one thing Trump has done to his credit is follow through on his threats and his promises. You know, prior to the 12-day war, he suggested that if Iran didn't come to the nuclear table, then he would take military action. And of course, he did. You know, it wasn't quite as successful as he claimed, but, you know, he certainly made a decisive impact on that. And I think what they'll be weighing up in Washington is the balance here, because it is a balancing act,

because what comes next after the Iranian regime is not guaranteed to be any better. Yeah. You know, there's a few options on the table here. The country could fragment into civil war, you could have a sort of, as we've seen in Venezuela, a continuity member of the regime just taking over with a figurehead change and really nothing much else making a difference. So there's, you know, there's also the chance that, you know, they've rebuilt their rocket stocks since the 12th day war. They might just open fire if the regime looks like it's going to fall and they could strike targets all over the Middle East as a sort of final kind of last hurrah as the regime goes

out of the door. So there's lots of, you know, there's lots of potential negative options on the table here. So it'll be a very carefully calibrated response from Washington, I suspect. But Mr. Trump has made a promise. He's got a habit of following through on these things. And so that will be factoring into their planning. I think, you know, we talked about how one of the things that has been lacking here is one of these flashpoints, visual flashpoints of either leaders fleeing or the seizing of a prominent building that means a lot to the regime,

something symbolic like that. But could it also be a negative flashpoint? Like a video that comes out one day of the Iran. in military, just opening fire on a crowd and killing as many people as they possibly can. Could that be the thing? Yeah, potentially. I mean, if we look at how many protesters have been killed since 2022, we're looking at nearly 700, you know, that they're not shy on opening fire on crowds.

But it's also not in numbers that are particularly significant when you look at other very oppressive regimes around the world. You know, these aren't rookie numbers, but then, you know, this is not anything on a scale that might stand out against other similar authoritarian regimes. The Iranians do have a very impressive internal security mechanism. They have the Basij militia, and of course they have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard who are the spear of the regime. They have the city's lockdown.

They do make it incredibly difficult for large masses of crowds to gather in any huge numbers. So it's just going to depend. And as you say, we saw with the Aminie riots, that it took a spark and that doubled the size of the protest. You know, if something like that happens, then it is entirely possible, especially with, as I said, the regime being more weak now than they have been in many years. Andrew Fox always love speaking with you.

I always feel like I've learned something. I thank you very much for your time today. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. Well, when we come back, we're going to speak with an Iranian-Canadian to understand better how his country has evolved and changed and whether he's optimistic for that nation's future. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Maloney show.

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Welcome back. And before the break, we're speaking with Andrew Fox, who's an expert on the Middle East, getting his sense of the temperature in Iran, looking at it from, you know, 30,000 feet. And now we want to take you to street level. We want to bring this story to the human level. And look, we are a country of immigrants. Every one of us has a kind of, almost every one of us has a country. Our families, we have a familial history and remembrance of. You know, my family came from Ireland. and that country is close to my heart. My mom came from Yugoslavia, a country that no longer exists, and I've never visited, but I definitely feel a sense of belonging there. And so imagine having left the country of your birth, remembering it, watching what's happened, watching what's happened from here, and then witnessing what is happening today on the streets of Tehran

and indeed all over that country. Please welcome to the show that very person, Ali Siedatan. Ali, please tell me how to pronounce your name again. That's perfect, Ben. Thank you very much. Well, thank you so much. So you left in 1984. Why did you and your family leave?

And how old were you? I was a teenager. We left because of the revolution and the war, but mainly because of the advent of bureaucracy. We just decided we didn't want to live under Sharia law, and we had had a taste of freedom. But between 1997 and 2018, I went back over 24 times to visit my dad because my parents were divorced, and that allowed me to see the arch of the evolution of the country. Oh, and that's a lot of times that going back, were you ever apprehensive getting on a plane or landing there?

Having spent time in Canada, what was it like going back time after time? Did it feel like you were increasingly going to a place that just didn't feel like you could connect with it? I was, over time, I did realize that, you know, we had changed. All of us who had grown up in the West. We were kind of like a Creole type of, you know, version of Iranians. We were from there, but we had, you know, culture, nature and nurture, they say. The nature that had formed us had been different. So I could see that there was a difference.

But, of course, you know, being away just for a decade or two is not a long time when you have deep roots and you have large families and you have generations of culture that's being transmitted to you through the family. As far as apprehension is concerned, I was always a very careful. careful about my social media. So I kept my social media always clean of politics relating to the Slam Republic. Because you were worried that they would inspect it and they would monitor it? Yes. Yes.

I was worried that if they saw me outside and make note of me and they say, hey, you know, next time this guy comes, he's now on this list, stop at the airport, you know. So that was the only thing I was apprehensive about. And what was your dad's life like there? My dad lived, you know, a good life. He was a businessman and he dwelt for himself. But going from here, what I noticed was that people were living in like golden cages, beautiful homes, great family get-togethers, and you just drove from one place to the other.

But it was the street life, the public life, that fell under Sharia law. And that's, you know, and there was not a lot to do other than, let's say, food, movies, theater, dance, entertainment, all of these things were subdued. Yeah, I have no doubt. I tell you one story. Please. My dad's wife one day, you know, she said, you know, let's go to the store with cassette tapes. And she said, they're selling Western music.

I was like, really? And we went in, and then there was Beatles. And I said, oh, I got to introduce you the Beatles. You could listen to the Beatles. So she said, great, we bought a Beatles tape. We brought it in the car and we're driving and waiting for the words to come on. I'm like, where are the lyrics? And she said, oh, no, there's no lyrics, just a song.

Just the music. Just, I mean, my goodness. So having gone back and taken the temperature of that place 20 times between 1997 and 2018, what are some bullet point observations in terms of either evolution or devolution of that country? Absolutely. So the main largest evolution, which is something that the rest of the world, hasn't yet understood or found out. There's no books, no documentaries. It's the fact that the Iranian people at large have left Islam. That is the most important evolution that has

happened. What do you mean? The majority of Iranians no longer consider themselves to be Muslims. Really? Yes. That's a shocker. Well, what happened is that you have to understand that when Islam came 1300 years ago, there was a very well-developed civilization in Iran. Of course. That civilization continued to push through, and there were cycles of Persianification that's called by historians, meaning that Iranians reclaiming Persian identity. That went into hyperdrive in the past 47 years, and the target became the religion itself,

and there's a whole story behind it, but basically the country was plunged into a soul-searching and spiritual search because religion was mandated by the state. And once people looked deeper into it and the diaspora, the four million people had left the country and came into contact with other forms of thought, broadcasting that back in, it generated, sparked a socio-spiritual transformation that is now going to change the Middle East. But that is the rift between the people and the government. The people do not adhere to the ideology.

of the supreme leader, Velayete of Farie. As it says in Article 5 of the Constitution, he's the representative of the Mati, and people don't believe in that. They don't believe in what he stands for. And so that's, I would say, the basis of the revolution that we're experiencing right now

and what brings everybody together is secularism. The goal is to overthrow theocracy and establish secular government. What do you feel about the role being played by the exiled Shah's son, Reza Palavi right now as a galvanizing figure. It's very interesting. Last, his base is growing exponentially from the monarchist base that have always held him

the year and high. Yesterday, he gave El Camann for the first time in 47 years to the people. He said, go out at 8 p.m. last night and tonight. Yeah. And they did. The clouds are exploding. And then what they did is they killed a bunch of kids. And then they turn the internet off.

They turn it on the next day so that people share these videos in order to scare people from coming out. Then they went on national television and said, don't send your kids out because we'll kill more of them. And it's on you. And the crowds are larger tonight. I was just watching the videos before our conversation, larger tonight than last night. And the fact that he spoke a command and people actually obeyed it, immediately positioned him as the leader of this revolution. That is a new thing. So his base has grown far beyond the monarchists that have held him dear.

He has become the symbol of the other. No one trusts anybody from within the system. And he has also become the symbol of 2,500 years pretty much close to that of Iranian monarchy, meaning culturally, transgenerationally, the monarchy is one of the symbols and pillars of Iranian power that unites the whole country. He represents that and acceptable other. far, his base is expanding the shore of the answer is he's playing a very important role suddenly. Ali, my last question for you, and this will take us to the end of our conversation, but I hope it's not the last time we speak, is, you know, what do you think it's going to take?

What is it going to take to take what a lot of experts are saying? These are uprisings. But what's it going to take for this to be a revolution, true revolution, and a successful one at that? Four elements, in my opinion. One was that it has to have a leader, and it now has. That happened this weekend as we speak. That's a new turning point and it has a flag. People are actually using the old flag. Second, organization. I'm hoping that, for instance, the Crown Prince, you know, who has an extensive network, that there's organization that's going to turn what is just, you know, revolts and rebellion and Cryson Street into something that's more coordinated.

three, defections from within the regime at high level that join the people, and four, support from the outside, from Israel and from the United States. Israel has very important intelligence operations set up in there. Yes, that's right. And there's the United States' global aspirations isolate China and fill the void that's left by the withdrawal of Russia is welcome as the Western Block is pushing in to Lebanon, Syria, and removing the remnants of the sheer crescent that Israel destroyed, Israel's political victory has changed the, Israel's military victory has changed the political calculus of the great powers. And so the bombing of the nuclear facilities and the threats of the president of the United States

that do not harm the people, the hope is that this will translate into actual action. And these are the four elements. Al-Aedat-an, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I wish you the very best, and I'm right next to you on this, shoulder-to-should with you and the people of Iran. Thank you so much. Ben, thank you.

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