Студенты Джорджтаунского университета призывают изучать Иран через призму культуры и голосов его народа

Iran is often easier to talk about as a government than as a country. Our conversations tend to begin with the Supreme Leader, the Revolutionary Guard, nuclear negotiations, sanctions and war, institutions and policies that tell us something about the Islamic Republic, but far less about its people. That distinction matters especially now, nearly seven months after U.S. strikes started a war with Iran, and the nation finds itself once again at the center of questions about war, power and what comes next. For Georgetown University students, many of whom will leave the Hilltop for careers in diplomacy, law, intelligence, academia and journalism, the way we learn to understand Iran matters. We may one day write about it, negotiate with it or help shape policies toward it. Iran therefore offers us a larger lesson: understanding a country requires asking not only who holds power, but whose voices disappear when power becomes the sole narrative. When we debate Iran as Georgetown students, we do so through a distinctly American paradigm. But that is not all that exists. In Shiite history, for instance, the idea of “occultation” emerged more than a thousand years ago when the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, retained his authority even though he disappeared from public view. I am not suggesting the Islamic Republic copied this religious doctrine into a political blueprint. Rather, occultation offers a possible lens into a tradition where invisibility and authority are not necessarily opposites. In the United States, where presidents address nations after tragedy and during uncertainty, we expect other nations to follow that example. Iran complicates that expectation. Competing centers of religious, military and political authority comprise its government, producing noise that makes power difficult to locate. But another kind of invisibility should concern us even more. The Islamic Republic is not only a system without a single identifiable face, but in much American discourse, a place without faces at all. The images commonly associated with Iran are predictable: nuclear sites, centrifuges, ballistic missiles, sanctions, clerics and the Revolutionary Guards. Far less visible are Tehran’s engineers, Shiraz’s physicians, Kurdish teachers, Baluchi fishermen, Isfahan’s artists, musicians, shopkeepers and students. That absence matters at Georgetown. We sit in classrooms discussing sanctions, nuclear weapons, military capabilities and regime stability. Those questions matter, but if we graduate knowing how many centrifuges Iran possesses without learning about the people living under the policies we debate, our education is incomplete. Georgetown students must take active steps to listen to the voices that don’t normally reach us. We can begin without becoming Iran specialists. Watch Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” or Majid Majidi’s “Children of Heaven.” Read Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” or the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad. Listen to Googoosh, then to a contemporary voice like Shervin Hajipour. Study Persian with Professor Sayeh Salour or take a course exploring Shiite thought with Professor Jonathan Brown. Follow the Jalinous Iranian Studies Lecture Series on campus, or events like Rumi Night in Washington, D.C., where Persian poetry, music and art become another way of encountering the region. Attend conversations with Iranian changemakers visiting Georgetown, such as former prisoner Siamak Namazi. Seek out Iranian voices when writing about sanctions or nuclear negotiations rather than relying solely on policy analysis. These are small acts, but that is precisely the point. Engagement with another country does not have to begin with a policy memo. A film can complicate an assumption. A poem can look deeper than sanctions statistics. A language class can expose ideas that do not translate perfectly into English. A conversation can transform the abstract phrase “the Iranian people” into individual human beings with different experiences. None of this means romanticizing Iran or ignoring the actions of its government; it means refusing to conflate a government with an entire country. The Islamic Republic is difficult to read. That should make us more curious, not more certain. At a university that prepares so many students to shape how the United States understands the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to seek out the people behind the policies we study by reading their words, listening to their voices and learning how they understand their own country. As Georgetown students, we should learn to search for the people missing from the policies we study. In trying to find the face of Iran’s government, we cannot afford to lose sight of the faces of Iran. Noor Afshar is a senior in the School of Foreign Service.