1 00:00:05,460 --> 00:00:14,070 Welcome to you all and thank you very much for joining us for this Friday seminar of the Middle East Centre at Saletan, this college, Oxford. 2 00:00:14,070 --> 00:00:22,680 Our subject today is war on bodies, moral immunity, the psychic politics of the covid-19 pandemic in Iran. 3 00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:28,290 And I'm going to introduce our speakers or our main speaker and our correspondent in just a moment. 4 00:00:28,290 --> 00:00:32,970 Yeeda, who is our main speaker, will speak for about 20 minutes, perhaps a little bit more. 5 00:00:32,970 --> 00:00:41,970 Mahmoudiyah will then respond for about 10 minutes. And then I will give you their chance to come back on any of the points that Marzia raises. 6 00:00:41,970 --> 00:00:50,010 And then we should still have about 15, 20 minutes for questions from the audience before finishing the session promptly at six. 7 00:00:50,010 --> 00:00:56,970 So it's now my great pleasure to to welcome to this Friday Middle East Centre Seminar, 8 00:00:56,970 --> 00:01:05,190 or Behrooz on al-Qaida is a physician, a medical anthropologist and an anthropologist of science and technology. 9 00:01:05,190 --> 00:01:09,900 And I would also call her a historian, although she hasn't put that in her bio. 10 00:01:09,900 --> 00:01:18,060 She's the author of Prozac Diaries, Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran, which was published in 2016. 11 00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:26,220 She currently works at SOAS in London and previously held positions at King's College, also in London and at the University of Texas. 12 00:01:26,220 --> 00:01:31,890 Her PhD was in history and the anthropology of science and technology from MIT. 13 00:01:31,890 --> 00:01:40,620 And she's also the founder of the Beyond Trauma Initiative, which I recommend you all to look up and visit. 14 00:01:40,620 --> 00:01:44,340 And she's a bilingual author and poet in both Persian and English. 15 00:01:44,340 --> 00:01:54,210 So Workday is our speaker this evening and our respondent is Musyoka Olby, who's welcome lecturer in medical humanities at the University of Exeter. 16 00:01:54,210 --> 00:02:00,630 He's worked extensively on illegal drugs and addiction in West Asia and the global south. 17 00:02:00,630 --> 00:02:10,750 And that was also the subject of his first book, Drugs, Politics Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was published in 2019. 18 00:02:10,750 --> 00:02:20,750 Is codenamed project called Living Addiction in States of Disruption, Malaysia has worked previously at Southwest and Oxford and also the equal. 19 00:02:20,750 --> 00:02:29,800 This attitude and it seems school in Paris and Malaysia obtained his defeat in politics from Oxford University. 20 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:37,450 So I think that's enough by way of a brief introduction. I'm not going to ask all please to speak to us. 21 00:02:37,450 --> 00:02:42,580 Thank you. What do you do now? Hello and good evening. 22 00:02:42,580 --> 00:02:50,050 Everyone is at the end of a long working Friday, so I really appreciate people joining us, especially in the UK. 23 00:02:50,050 --> 00:02:58,690 And I thank you for it for this invitation. It's such an honour to it's lovely to be back in Oxford always, even even if virtually. 24 00:02:58,690 --> 00:03:10,210 And it's also a great pleasure to be in conversation with Muzzi again and discuss this topic today as we emerge from Global Lockdown's. 25 00:03:10,210 --> 00:03:18,220 It's really easy to forget the life of the then epidemic of the coronavirus in Iran in early 2020, 26 00:03:18,220 --> 00:03:22,390 when he became the main epicentre of the outbreak outside of China. 27 00:03:22,390 --> 00:03:27,880 And this was before the pandemic was announced on March 11. 28 00:03:27,880 --> 00:03:39,160 So I refer to this as an epidemic by up until March 11, because this has clinical implications in the timeline I present and I want it today. 29 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:49,270 I want to just in the interest of time, I just want to want to I want to give you a very brief overview of an ongoing project that I'm working on. 30 00:03:49,270 --> 00:03:59,260 And I am really here for feedback. So please be patient with with the unfinished nature of the analysis. 31 00:03:59,260 --> 00:04:07,900 And Iran's pandemic response has been discussed widely by scholars, including Malaysia. 32 00:04:07,900 --> 00:04:12,250 And what I want to add here is, is a different angle, 33 00:04:12,250 --> 00:04:18,010 sort of a small additional angle about what the pandemic reveals in terms of 34 00:04:18,010 --> 00:04:24,010 the psycho political life of an illness and hence a society and also immunity. 35 00:04:24,010 --> 00:04:33,550 And the key argument is that in Iran, the pandemic arrived in individual and social bodies that were already immunocompromised. 36 00:04:33,550 --> 00:04:40,240 And the reason why I'm working on this framework of immune deficiency and immunity and the 37 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:45,790 immune system in terms of the political and social body in relation to the political body, 38 00:04:45,790 --> 00:04:56,380 is that I'll explain why this analytical framework is is helpful in understanding Iranian society in particular at this particular juncture. 39 00:04:56,380 --> 00:05:03,400 And I've followed the outbreak both as a medical and social construction for over a year now. 40 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:09,940 And I the premise here is an epidemic or a pandemic is a biological and a political entity. 41 00:05:09,940 --> 00:05:15,610 And its emergence, its manifestation and its governance are intertwined with complex cultural and 42 00:05:15,610 --> 00:05:22,810 historical context and and also political agendas as well as biological realities. 43 00:05:22,810 --> 00:05:29,410 And so on topic is very much interested in the psychological life of the pandemic, 44 00:05:29,410 --> 00:05:38,230 not just in terms of the toll it's taken globally on people, but also in terms of how it's shaped psychologically and politically. 45 00:05:38,230 --> 00:05:45,430 So here I want to put a magnifying glass on the period between January 2020 and March 2020. 46 00:05:45,430 --> 00:05:53,290 And there is a reason why I'm doing this. The format of this book I'm working on is it starts in a in a diary form. 47 00:05:53,290 --> 00:06:02,460 So I kind of provide a timeline with detailed, detailed updates from the grounds from the hospitals in Tehran and in major cities. 48 00:06:02,460 --> 00:06:07,990 And but there's no time for me to go over all of that right now here. 49 00:06:07,990 --> 00:06:18,100 So let's go back to February 2020. The most significant defining feature of the coronavirus pandemic in Iran or the epidemic then, 50 00:06:18,100 --> 00:06:24,010 has been the politicisation of the outbreak and also the securites securitisation of information about it. 51 00:06:24,010 --> 00:06:28,930 And it's been a trend all along, even now in relation to vaccines. 52 00:06:28,930 --> 00:06:36,010 This week we just we encountered another instance of securitisation of information and 53 00:06:36,010 --> 00:06:43,030 aband about publishing information at the import and export of so import of access. 54 00:06:43,030 --> 00:06:49,540 So the first wave of the emergence of infection in the holy city of Qom in early February was 55 00:06:49,540 --> 00:06:55,270 kept secret for weeks and there was a systematic cover up that's most of you know about. 56 00:06:55,270 --> 00:07:03,370 And these weeks were crucial as a golden window, as we say in epidemiology, for preventing the spread of the virus and limiting fatalities. 57 00:07:03,370 --> 00:07:10,650 And later in February, when the outbreak was no longer a secret, still none of the standard public health measures to contain the. 58 00:07:10,650 --> 00:07:20,100 Including social distancing and all of these things that have now become normal and routine were prohibited, and there are reasons for that. 59 00:07:20,100 --> 00:07:25,620 And this resulted in the spread of the illness outside of Gombe and the creation of several new epicentres, 60 00:07:25,620 --> 00:07:31,260 first in Gilan and as I know, et cetera, et cetera, and then also into the region. 61 00:07:31,260 --> 00:07:38,910 And and in the one of the assumptions that people make is a lot of this cover up at historically, 62 00:07:38,910 --> 00:07:48,390 these kinds of cover ups have been associated with ideologies. We have Muzzi here individual who knows that the cover up in relation to HIV AIDS, 63 00:07:48,390 --> 00:07:53,970 for example, in the 1980s and 90s was to some extent ideologically driven. 64 00:07:53,970 --> 00:08:04,230 And here the the reasons for the cover up are very conspicuously political and economic and the political 65 00:08:04,230 --> 00:08:11,370 and economic agendas or interests that were in conflict with public health policy in February. 66 00:08:11,370 --> 00:08:19,770 And I'm emphasising this very particular window of time had to do with, to some extent, 67 00:08:19,770 --> 00:08:26,610 with the strategic significance of the city of Qom as a seat of the seat of the Shia religious 68 00:08:26,610 --> 00:08:33,270 establishment and political and financial and and political and economic power players. 69 00:08:33,270 --> 00:08:37,770 And also, there was a lot of I don't want to go into the details because we don't have time. 70 00:08:37,770 --> 00:08:45,900 But there is something about the the traffic in and out of school because of the pilgrims the city of Qom receives, 71 00:08:45,900 --> 00:08:52,890 both domestically and from foreign affairs and some 2.5 million each year. 72 00:08:52,890 --> 00:09:01,230 And also the connexions with China in terms of clerical students as well as workers, 73 00:09:01,230 --> 00:09:07,080 as well as the infrastructure projects that China has been going on, including a solar plant. 74 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:13,020 So all of these things have been discussed and I can go into them in the Q&A if anyone is interested. 75 00:09:13,020 --> 00:09:17,940 So Cuomo is not an unlikely epicentre in in a sense. 76 00:09:17,940 --> 00:09:27,900 And the other factor that was very important was that an election was coming up on February 21st in 2020. 77 00:09:27,900 --> 00:09:35,170 And so a major impediment in in the way of information, 78 00:09:35,170 --> 00:09:38,970 circulation of information was that there was a very direct decree from the supreme 79 00:09:38,970 --> 00:09:43,620 leader that information about businesses should not be circulated until next week, 80 00:09:43,620 --> 00:09:50,400 until the election. So most of this was extremely sensitive information at the time. 81 00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:55,140 At this point, a year over a year later, it's public information. 82 00:09:55,140 --> 00:09:59,130 Everyone knows about these these timelines in Iran. 83 00:09:59,130 --> 00:10:06,900 And public health experts and political experts, including members of the parliament and medical, the medical establishment, 84 00:10:06,900 --> 00:10:15,090 were urging the government to intervene with quarantine measures, et cetera, et cetera, not unlike what happened here and in other countries. 85 00:10:15,090 --> 00:10:22,830 Later, they were encouraging the government to stop flights from and to China, closed the shrines. 86 00:10:22,830 --> 00:10:30,270 And at this point, shrines in Karbala and Najaf were already closed, but not in Iran. 87 00:10:30,270 --> 00:10:36,870 And also the mobilisation of reliable data by the media was was sort of suppressed. 88 00:10:36,870 --> 00:10:44,730 Iran has a 24/7 health TV channel, health focussed TV channel called Szeptycki Salamat. 89 00:10:44,730 --> 00:10:53,310 And until late March, there wasn't a single word on this channel about it. 90 00:10:53,310 --> 00:11:01,710 So that's that in itself is telling now. So this clash, internal clash was ongoing. 91 00:11:01,710 --> 00:11:07,050 So experts and factions of the government were encouraging one thing. 92 00:11:07,050 --> 00:11:15,150 Actions were different. And and so similar things happen to calls for closing schools, universities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 93 00:11:15,150 --> 00:11:22,140 And at this point, most of my reliable data was coming from the ICU within hospitals in Iran. 94 00:11:22,140 --> 00:11:28,410 My former classmates, my colleagues, my friends were on the front line, so to speak, so to speak. 95 00:11:28,410 --> 00:11:30,480 And also in social media, 96 00:11:30,480 --> 00:11:43,240 medical professionals were were basically the main medium through which this information could travel on March three, by March 3rd. 97 00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:53,430 So the epidemic was stopped at this by March that the epidemic was not at different points as a conspiracy theory by the establishment, 98 00:11:53,430 --> 00:11:58,290 as a and as an American conspiracy theory, as a transient issue. 99 00:11:58,290 --> 00:12:00,120 And there were backlash. 100 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:09,880 There was backlash created in hospitals because high fatality rates were already, again, public knowledge in places like Yilan. 101 00:12:09,880 --> 00:12:21,070 It was the second epicentre outside of coal mine early March the next days, but really sad news about doctors and nurses and health workers dying. 102 00:12:21,070 --> 00:12:29,080 And a lot of my colleagues were very adamant to emphasise that this these deaths were preventable and they were not inevitable. 103 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:37,030 Actually, this is quite personal for me because I have had classmates in amongst them. 104 00:12:37,030 --> 00:12:45,490 And I know personally doctors at this point, many of the medical professionals know someone personally who has unfortunately passed. 105 00:12:45,490 --> 00:12:51,370 And the point they were trying to make was that this was not because of a shortage of keep. 106 00:12:51,370 --> 00:12:55,660 It was because we didn't know this disease existed in February. 107 00:12:55,660 --> 00:13:01,620 So people were intubating patients without a mask. And so this is something that's now palpable. 108 00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:06,640 It's it's an open wound and I think it needs to be discussed. 109 00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:14,290 I'll get back to this then. In March, schools and universities shut down, sort of basically ramped up. 110 00:13:14,290 --> 00:13:18,070 Efforts started. So there was a delay. 111 00:13:18,070 --> 00:13:21,260 But the efforts when they started, they were very impressive. 112 00:13:21,260 --> 00:13:32,500 So there was now a covert task force in the country, covid words, media campaigns, educational campaigns via television and the Internet. 113 00:13:32,500 --> 00:13:41,830 Health care workers were now called the defenders of of health and matters of health and not to 114 00:13:41,830 --> 00:13:50,390 the legacy of the Iran-Iraq war in terms of the and also the defendants of the shrine in Syria. 115 00:13:50,390 --> 00:13:59,470 So that all of this vocabulary and a new discourse of defence and martyrdom emerged mass mobilisation of the military, 116 00:13:59,470 --> 00:14:09,520 the Revolutionary Guard and NGOs, etc. And a lot of this, again, has been outlined by others and very aptly analysed by people, including Muzzi. 117 00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:19,900 So I'll just move on from this. Uh, by mid-March, all of these measures were in place. 118 00:14:19,900 --> 00:14:26,600 And then there was there was a promotion of the stay at home messages and self isolation campaigns. 119 00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:31,450 And it's something akin to test Untraced started. 120 00:14:31,450 --> 00:14:38,140 And then, of course, on April eight, many people had to go back to work. There was a phased lifting of of the lockdown. 121 00:14:38,140 --> 00:14:48,850 And again, similar to other places that the question was whether we should say the economy or or, you know, people. 122 00:14:48,850 --> 00:15:01,330 And and bear in mind that this is a this is a time where the economy is extremely studied and in the back of the US sanctions. 123 00:15:01,330 --> 00:15:15,980 And and so at this point, even when there were measures in place, data was still securitised and also information, there was two things. 124 00:15:15,980 --> 00:15:18,970 There was one, the securitisation of information. 125 00:15:18,970 --> 00:15:30,290 People were still being arrested for tweeting or for or for spreading information about covid and also asymmetric access to testing kits. 126 00:15:30,290 --> 00:15:37,120 So just like now and how we are relating to vaccines, if you remember back in a year ago, 127 00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:42,640 it was all about test kits and PPE and you had government officials and their families 128 00:15:42,640 --> 00:15:47,210 being tested and then front line workers and ICE users running out of tests. 129 00:15:47,210 --> 00:15:54,190 And we were seeing a similar pattern now with vaccines. Unfortunately, with the black market, then corruption and lack of transparency. 130 00:15:54,190 --> 00:16:00,100 We are now hearing really concerning reports about vaccines, which I'll get to later. 131 00:16:00,100 --> 00:16:03,630 Um, so. 132 00:16:03,630 --> 00:16:18,620 One of the you know, by mid-March, of course, covid has reached Canada, Europe, the United States, and on March 11, we have a pandemic on our hands. 133 00:16:18,620 --> 00:16:23,720 And lockdowns across Europe begin as the frenzy of the pandemic response in the US, 134 00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:31,900 and so a lot of this global condition is now creating a very helpful comparative perspective. 135 00:16:31,900 --> 00:16:38,980 It's the impressive plans that are implemented for screening calls, contact tracing, 136 00:16:38,980 --> 00:16:45,040 also people's compliance, but it at the beginning, they very much adhere to the rules. 137 00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:47,870 And then, of course, there were issues of travel during holidays, 138 00:16:47,870 --> 00:16:54,790 very similar things to what we saw during Christmas here, for example, was happening last year. 139 00:16:54,790 --> 00:17:02,690 And the medical community's heroic efforts were also hard not to recognise. 140 00:17:02,690 --> 00:17:14,480 The. A lot of issues we're starting to talk to create controversies on social media, for example, at this point. 141 00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:18,770 There were there were a lot of uncoordinated efforts. 142 00:17:18,770 --> 00:17:28,040 The Revolutionary Guard was televising Manitas, disinfecting streets and trees and cars with with portable cannons, 143 00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,840 parading on motorbikes and shouting slogans that really defeat government all the 144 00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:40,010 way to Iran's decision to reject the unselfconscious Pontius Pilate and in fact, 145 00:17:40,010 --> 00:17:52,010 actually sending back the help that an MSF team that was supposed to create a temporary ward in Isfahan. 146 00:17:52,010 --> 00:18:00,620 So there was a lot of unaccounted for decisions that had, of course, implications for citizens and high death tolls. 147 00:18:00,620 --> 00:18:09,350 The first major peak happened in April, and this was followed by a second wave in June, a third in September. 148 00:18:09,350 --> 00:18:14,030 At this point, my medical colleagues were saying the word peak doesn't mean anything. 149 00:18:14,030 --> 00:18:21,470 Always it's a plot. It's it's just when it's repeating so many times, they're not waves anymore. 150 00:18:21,470 --> 00:18:26,960 And then in October, November, there was a high fatality episode. In two thousand twenty one, 151 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:36,750 the supreme leader banned the import of vaccines provided by Corvex on the basis of them being from the United States and European countries. 152 00:18:36,750 --> 00:18:43,670 The manufactured manufacture and promises were made about the manufacturing of the Iranian vaccine. 153 00:18:43,670 --> 00:18:55,910 Right now, 15 trials are under way in Iran on the Iranian and creating a vaccine manufacturing vaccine. 154 00:18:55,910 --> 00:19:00,530 At this point, as we speak, Iran is slowly emerging from the fourth peak. 155 00:19:00,530 --> 00:19:07,940 Why the politicisation of now vaccination has resulted in high rates of death. 156 00:19:07,940 --> 00:19:13,520 Vaccination is now underway primarily with Sputnik and probably the Chinese and Russian. 157 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:18,620 And recently, AstraZeneca talks with AstraZeneca provided by Kovács. 158 00:19:18,620 --> 00:19:27,200 But efforts are lagging behind me and not unlike many other countries in the region. 159 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:31,490 And, of course, at this point is the spirit of solidarity has worn off. 160 00:19:31,490 --> 00:19:40,640 And so the psychology of this April and last April are extremely different, is similar to how we are experiencing it here in other countries. 161 00:19:40,640 --> 00:19:48,740 So. In the conversations and I'll start in April now to to go back to the actual 162 00:19:48,740 --> 00:19:54,770 question and a lot of my conversations with medical clinics in hospitals in Iran, 163 00:19:54,770 --> 00:20:04,490 I keep finding us discussing this question, which was this Why is Iran showing different demographics of death? 164 00:20:04,490 --> 00:20:09,650 We know that it was targeting vulnerable groups, older populations in Iran. 165 00:20:09,650 --> 00:20:14,840 The number of young people in high schools was already drawing attention. 166 00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:23,300 And, you know, the the the Medicon, me immediately things if you're stressed, your immune system is compromised. 167 00:20:23,300 --> 00:20:29,420 We know that stress makes you weaker. And so, of course, I have to hold back and not think medically. 168 00:20:29,420 --> 00:20:34,580 But in those moments, these are the conversations that were happening between us and also in my own mind, 169 00:20:34,580 --> 00:20:47,920 which is why I have chosen the format of this like journaling and creating a chronological timeline for the first half of the project. 170 00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:53,920 I think a lot of the speculation is coming from and this is about ethnographic data. 171 00:20:53,920 --> 00:21:03,760 This is not about what we like to think. A lot of speculations from from people on the ground is summed up in sentences like this. 172 00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:12,200 What has the thirteen ninety eight, which is 12, 19, basically being let's stress. 173 00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:17,810 This is another colleague told me this is a list that loads of us imposed on the body. 174 00:21:17,810 --> 00:21:19,400 What do you expect? 175 00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:33,420 And I also heard myself in finally several of conversations with, again, people on the ground dealing with patients who were saying. 176 00:21:33,420 --> 00:21:42,690 It's very hard to separate deaths caused by covid from deaths caused by infrastructure and political issues. 177 00:21:42,690 --> 00:21:48,490 If you die of Corbetts, it doesn't mean you've you've you've been killed by the virus. 178 00:21:48,490 --> 00:21:53,070 That was the bottom line of their actual situated knowledge and experience. 179 00:21:53,070 --> 00:22:02,760 And what does that mean? A lot of references to the 1980s at this point started to surface the terms, the Iran-Iraq war, the terms, 180 00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:11,430 trauma, grief and also military metaphors started to emerge in in public discourse, in the media. 181 00:22:11,430 --> 00:22:20,650 And, you know, here in the U.K. in spring 2020, there was a lot of parallels made with the metaphors of the World War, 182 00:22:20,650 --> 00:22:27,750 the Second World War and the spirit of solidarity. And it was mobilised after the lockdown that started in March 23. 183 00:22:27,750 --> 00:22:31,110 But the war metaphor in Iran is different. 184 00:22:31,110 --> 00:22:43,710 It's manifold, it's layered, and it's actually replying to ones that are still open and are still being in for lack of a better metaphor. 185 00:22:43,710 --> 00:22:51,720 They're still bleeding. And this public anxiety around in this was something that I've always been very interested in. 186 00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:56,040 And the dysphoria, which is not only the outcome of the epidemic, 187 00:22:56,040 --> 00:23:05,430 but also an underlying sense of what psychologists call learnt helplessness and internalised perception of powerlessness, 188 00:23:05,430 --> 00:23:13,830 uncertainty, mistrust, anxiety and a sense that ordinary people's lives don't matter. 189 00:23:13,830 --> 00:23:19,020 Basically, these are these perceptions matter whether we agree with them or not. 190 00:23:19,020 --> 00:23:26,310 They matter because they shape the lived experience of an illness and of a bit of an epidemic, another pandemic. 191 00:23:26,310 --> 00:23:34,350 And the collective nervous system was overstretched at this point because this year that third in the Iranian calendar, 192 00:23:34,350 --> 00:23:40,080 thirteen ninety eight has been dubbed the as horrible as in Iran. 193 00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:45,570 It started with national natural disasters. The Iranians call it a dark year. 194 00:23:45,570 --> 00:23:49,470 And it was the year that carried a lot of tragedies and losses akin to war torn, 195 00:23:49,470 --> 00:24:00,480 the war torn decade of the nineteen eighty eighties floods and earthquakes aside, there were two new American sanctions. 196 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:02,640 The economy was in downfall. 197 00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:12,150 Then an estimated three hundred to fifteen hundred people were killed and some 7000 people were arrested during the protests of the month of November. 198 00:24:12,150 --> 00:24:18,720 In that same year, during which time the government shut down the Internet for a whole week. 199 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:24,720 And so Iran was in a blackout. The cry on social media, the cry, can you hear us? 200 00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:29,790 Became the Iranian equivalent of I can't breathe in the movement. 201 00:24:29,790 --> 00:24:39,330 And in January, after the assassination of us and so many Iranians spent a long week dreading the spectre of a war with the US, that almost happened. 202 00:24:39,330 --> 00:24:45,180 And then that was shortly before they found that they had been lied to about the shooting. 203 00:24:45,180 --> 00:24:51,870 And now it's become apparently clear that this was an intentional shooting of the Ukrainian airline passenger 204 00:24:51,870 --> 00:24:58,620 flights by the Revolutionary Guard that killed one hundred seventy six innocent people this morning. 205 00:24:58,620 --> 00:25:05,670 And processes of and processing these perpetual losses has been a luxury that Iranians haven't had to. 206 00:25:05,670 --> 00:25:09,120 The general perception is one thing on top of another. 207 00:25:09,120 --> 00:25:13,050 We haven't had time to catch our breath, that kind of that kind of feeling. 208 00:25:13,050 --> 00:25:18,840 Do you have to imagine that mentality and also understand that public trust being at its lowest? 209 00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:23,250 We're looking at two parallel crises at this point in relation to the pandemic. 210 00:25:23,250 --> 00:25:28,140 One was a crisis of credibility and legitimacy because people don't trust data that's 211 00:25:28,140 --> 00:25:34,740 coming from the establishment and in general that this divide has always existed. 212 00:25:34,740 --> 00:25:40,120 But now it's shocking and also a crisis of expertise, which I, I, 213 00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:47,100 I talk about it in my book, actually, as a long term legacy of the Cultural Revolution. 214 00:25:47,100 --> 00:25:54,390 At this point, we are dealing with a generation of policymakers who are the basically what their 215 00:25:54,390 --> 00:26:01,860 cultural revolution aimed for policymakers that are not necessarily experts, 216 00:26:01,860 --> 00:26:08,940 but they are committed and even and at this point, of course, the commitment also is also on the question, 217 00:26:08,940 --> 00:26:12,540 given the neoliberal directions that the establishment has gone towards. 218 00:26:12,540 --> 00:26:17,670 And so at this point, I know this is the question. 219 00:26:17,670 --> 00:26:24,480 The actual question is why what this context tells us and why it's different. 220 00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:29,580 And this specific context is not just a post war or structure context. 221 00:26:29,580 --> 00:26:38,340 It's a wartime peacetime symbiosis of ongoing. Cohabitations with sensations of death and war and this interrogation. 222 00:26:38,340 --> 00:26:51,600 So I work on this notion of a social and collective immunity and I refer to notions in medical technology such as local biologies and also, 223 00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:59,370 I mean, these flexible bodies. The idea that immunity is a not something that's in the individual body, 224 00:26:59,370 --> 00:27:04,500 but it's actually dependent on what's happening to the social body and to the political body. 225 00:27:04,500 --> 00:27:10,920 And the intersection of these two bodies is where the specific psychoanalytical 226 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:18,300 processes and forces with which the pandemic gangs and local life come to surface. 227 00:27:18,300 --> 00:27:28,350 The two features. So in this what I'm calling it, the immunity, the immunity by a politics of this space. 228 00:27:28,350 --> 00:27:35,010 And this is, again, in reference to notions that we have. In fact, quality is shaped by two key things. 229 00:27:35,010 --> 00:27:39,360 One is the normalisation of death and decay. 230 00:27:39,360 --> 00:27:45,000 And this could be death or perception of death or metaphorical death and also war. 231 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:55,770 And in times of war, I finish by this focus on war because for a social and political body that is ostracised, excluded or stripped of its resources, 232 00:27:55,770 --> 00:28:07,380 for a social body that is in a state of helplessness and a military response, responses that are needed to keep a body immune are not available. 233 00:28:07,380 --> 00:28:14,340 And so covid has both exasperated and uncovered social inequalities that happen everywhere. 234 00:28:14,340 --> 00:28:22,080 But if biological immunities interdependent on the lived experience of the social body and the political body, 235 00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:30,960 that has implications for social immunity. And it's not a coincidence that those hit hardest by poverty in Iran are the poor, 236 00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:34,320 the marginalised and the politically oppressed and the social groups whose 237 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:40,740 protests were also heavily cracked down as it's in the juxtaposition of these, 238 00:28:40,740 --> 00:28:45,840 these and the individual life of the illness and the social life of illness. 239 00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:46,050 I mean, 240 00:28:46,050 --> 00:28:54,960 one of the things that's what you might find interesting is that the word immunity in Farsi and the word security because you have the same rules. 241 00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,680 I mean, in fact in Arabic, emeny and amnesiacs. 242 00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:11,040 And these two discourses have become so intertwined that a lot of them are are justified in the context of securitisation and security. 243 00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:15,640 Let me finish by saying that. 244 00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:23,080 You know, I can go, you know, in the in the second section, we can talk a little bit about this notion of living that gradual death every day, 245 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:31,690 death that people talk about, especially in the realm of every day and what that means for the social body and the political body. 246 00:29:31,690 --> 00:29:35,950 This social immunity is a prerequisite for biological immunity. 247 00:29:35,950 --> 00:29:42,970 So if that infrastructure is not in place, the actual body is also not functioning. 248 00:29:42,970 --> 00:29:53,340 So. In terms of the metaphor of the war, also there is you know, we are all familiar with the metaphor of the war in relation to the immune system. 249 00:29:53,340 --> 00:29:59,400 But in this in this space, we are also looking at covid itself as war. 250 00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:05,670 We are looking at the legacy of the war because this is a respiratory illness that's targeting actually veterans, 251 00:30:05,670 --> 00:30:16,350 chemical veterans want as part of the vulnerable groups, there's the presence of the war, a war as an economic war in the everyday life of citizens. 252 00:30:16,350 --> 00:30:20,120 There is the threat of war and securitisation of life. 253 00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:28,590 You know, this idea of there's always a war impending and the lived experience of the war and the discourse of war so that a language, 254 00:30:28,590 --> 00:30:33,580 an imagined imaginary of of the pandemic are very much you know, 255 00:30:33,580 --> 00:30:43,020 there's a lot of images and pictures and snapshots I can show you on how these metaphors are mobilised. 256 00:30:43,020 --> 00:30:45,120 And then, of course, there's a war on health. 257 00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:56,820 And I'm just going to finish in two minutes, one minute more on health, on education and on training, which has implications here. 258 00:30:56,820 --> 00:31:05,520 Yeah, so let's let's go to Malaysia and then, you know, if if there is time, I'll say something about this immunity by politics. 259 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:13,410 That's great. I would love to listen to you more, but I'm very conscious that we have to find out and we want to get onto the Q&A. 260 00:31:13,410 --> 00:31:18,990 So without more ado, I'm going to ask Marziano, please, to respond. 261 00:31:18,990 --> 00:31:28,710 And thank you. OK, yeah. It's great pleasure to be back as a Middle East centre, actually, for the first time and very good to talk to to al Qaeda. 262 00:31:28,710 --> 00:31:35,940 It's our second conversation on covid a few years after our first conversation. 263 00:31:35,940 --> 00:31:39,870 So there's a lot to discuss and how our ideas probably have changed. 264 00:31:39,870 --> 00:31:50,010 I'll start from actually a very interesting etymological connexion that you revealed to us the connexion between emeny and. 265 00:31:50,010 --> 00:31:55,800 Yeah, so immunity and security. And I would suggest that there is another one that connects these two, 266 00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:07,140 which is to believe Aminov know and believe is a key point in India in discussing 267 00:32:07,140 --> 00:32:14,070 and thinking about and also relating to the epidemic to health in general, 268 00:32:14,070 --> 00:32:26,340 actually, because of course, health is an epidemiological manifestation in this case of a virus, but it is also framed into an epistemological crisis. 269 00:32:26,340 --> 00:32:30,540 And this epistemological crisis in Iran is probably more evident than elsewhere. 270 00:32:30,540 --> 00:32:41,440 But it is evident all across the world from, you know, those who deny the virus in the US or Italy or elsewhere or those who. 271 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:48,610 I argue that only following science would save us, even though we don't come to define what is science at this point. 272 00:32:48,610 --> 00:32:53,350 So I'll try to discuss a bit very briefly, of course, because I don't have much time, 273 00:32:53,350 --> 00:33:01,240 these epistemological crises that in which Iranians and the Iranian state, of course, find itself. 274 00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:08,860 And then over the last more or less, 14, 16 months now. 275 00:33:08,860 --> 00:33:14,320 This epistemological crisis is, from what I've gathered in my work, 276 00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:19,960 has been mostly if al-Qaeda has worked with physicians and people at the very frontline hospitals. 277 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,990 My collaboration has been mostly with social workers, 278 00:33:22,990 --> 00:33:37,180 people who work mostly outside the hospital setting either in prevention or in post treatment facilities and and with marginal populations, 279 00:33:37,180 --> 00:33:45,940 not all the categories that al-Qaeda mentioned, but many of the marginal categories that have been heavily affected by the epidemic. 280 00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:56,860 Well, the epistemological crisis that covid has created in Iran is one that I identify as connected very much to fear. 281 00:33:56,860 --> 00:34:01,360 And it's a fear that it manifests itself on several levels. 282 00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:12,370 Let's start from the states and the states cover up that you very clearly mention in detail. 283 00:34:12,370 --> 00:34:20,860 It was one which I believe was very much framed in fear. It's a fear that, of course, confuses sort of the mind. 284 00:34:20,860 --> 00:34:23,690 And you think that actually the virus actually didn't exist. 285 00:34:23,690 --> 00:34:36,490 So you deny it because of the fear of either being accused of in the context of March last year of wanting to stop the election electoral process. 286 00:34:36,490 --> 00:34:45,610 So if you put ourselves in a hypothetical situation in which the Iranian state stops the elections and sort of put everyone in lockdown measures, 287 00:34:45,610 --> 00:34:50,870 that would have been a sort of an outburst. And the short of accusations of saying, oh, 288 00:34:50,870 --> 00:34:58,750 you want to stop the electoral process because of your fear of people's reaction or this is another authoritarian reaction. 289 00:34:58,750 --> 00:35:05,320 And so, of course, in the long term, the Iranians, they would have come out as a successful model. 290 00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:12,250 And this actually this fear in governance highlights one of the shortcomings in governance. 291 00:35:12,250 --> 00:35:21,670 They ran the state over the last many decades now, I would say, which is the short termism in the responses to the crisis. 292 00:35:21,670 --> 00:35:28,120 That was the case, as often mentioned in the 90s with HIV. 293 00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:36,490 It took a long time before acknowledging it once they acknowledge that the response was more effective than many other countries. 294 00:35:36,490 --> 00:35:45,400 And we will see what the covid will produce long term responses that are more effective than other countries. 295 00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:49,780 From what I noticed, working with social workers in Iran, 296 00:35:49,780 --> 00:35:56,200 sort of collaborating at this stage in these situations is that there is a sort of important framework 297 00:35:56,200 --> 00:36:03,790 of solidarity and mutual aid that is emerging and has emerged in part over the last 15 months, 298 00:36:03,790 --> 00:36:06,370 which sees margins of the state. 299 00:36:06,370 --> 00:36:13,540 So official official of the state institutions engaging in sort of grassroots participation with people and also private 300 00:36:13,540 --> 00:36:23,530 citizens and groups that have been able to provide services and and help that would have been otherwise very difficult. 301 00:36:23,530 --> 00:36:30,400 And this is not simply a manifestation that kind of substitutes the states in a new liberal fashion. 302 00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:40,450 In my view, it's probably the antidote to the social and sort of fear that this organisation creates. 303 00:36:40,450 --> 00:36:47,500 And this connects to it another effect of fear, which is the rise of right wing politics in general. 304 00:36:47,500 --> 00:36:49,660 If you look at the globe, for instance, 305 00:36:49,660 --> 00:36:59,740 countries where the right wing parties have been in power have had the highest number of cases and the sort of more serious impact in the pandemic. 306 00:36:59,740 --> 00:37:11,760 Trump also enabled Modi and I would say, unfortunately, even when our own Boris Johnson well, because fear and the lack of knowledge, 307 00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:25,030 the epistemological crisis produces reactions that are often very concerned with short term management, but lack the sort of commitment. 308 00:37:25,030 --> 00:37:33,280 To organising society in a different way and struggles around health, our struggles are future political setbacks. 309 00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:39,640 Also another issue that I don't think I have much time so well. 310 00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:46,060 I covered two very minor impacts of fear, but I leave it to the to the to the audience. 311 00:37:46,060 --> 00:37:51,550 It was great. Marzio, thank you very much. But the eloquence of our speakers is eating into our time. 312 00:37:51,550 --> 00:37:57,190 And we have we have audience members who are here and we have some questions already. 313 00:37:57,190 --> 00:38:05,410 So I'm just going to ask just if she wants to pick up on anything you said very briefly in just two or three minutes, please do so. 314 00:38:05,410 --> 00:38:09,650 And then I'm going to open the floor to the to to the questions that I'm collecting them. 315 00:38:09,650 --> 00:38:15,040 And please do keep putting your questions in the Q&A box. I'm sure we'll have time for a few more of that now. 316 00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:22,510 Thank you for today. Thank you. Was it this was you know, this is exactly what I want a conversation. 317 00:38:22,510 --> 00:38:27,650 And, you know, because this this idea is still in the making and it's shape being shaped. 318 00:38:27,650 --> 00:38:33,160 The short termism that you talked about is precisely related to that crisis of 319 00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:39,430 legitimacy and the anxieties that comes with it and and the crisis of expertise. 320 00:38:39,430 --> 00:38:45,100 So it's a combination of those two crises, which I mean, that we have excellent doctors. 321 00:38:45,100 --> 00:38:49,750 I'm not talking about lack of expertise. I'm talking about policy and expertise. 322 00:38:49,750 --> 00:38:55,840 And the state of exception here is also important because it's in the intersection of an interaction 323 00:38:55,840 --> 00:39:00,220 of existing states of exceptions that have just sort of toppled over on top of each other, 324 00:39:00,220 --> 00:39:06,580 that the new form of what I'm trying to think about immunity is fabricated, not just political, 325 00:39:06,580 --> 00:39:12,160 but also moral and psychological, because you the fear angle is very telling. 326 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:20,470 This is about a psychological and moral construction is going to unleash those forms of lethal immunodeficiency, 327 00:39:20,470 --> 00:39:26,920 if you will, that predates covid and are shaped by the intersection of various crises. 328 00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:38,650 I just want to say one thing in relation to how I see this sort of immunity landscape and by politics working in a sense that it in in a way, 329 00:39:38,650 --> 00:39:48,730 it it masks many covid deaths because we have also this instance of not trusting which deaths were caused by covid, 330 00:39:48,730 --> 00:39:52,650 but at the same time it biologists and naturalise. 331 00:39:52,650 --> 00:39:57,370 There's a lot of deaths that are in fact depths of despair with or people have called it 332 00:39:57,370 --> 00:40:04,210 that's of decay and disintegration at the same time it's in it depoliticise as these deaths, 333 00:40:04,210 --> 00:40:14,980 but in some ways also politicises this form of moral immunodeficiency that the structural body of the society, the social body is suffering from. 334 00:40:14,980 --> 00:40:20,950 And I think this is a the establishment can use this so strategically as it suits them. 335 00:40:20,950 --> 00:40:26,990 And the other thing it does is that it also reveals these immuno political fantasies of the state. 336 00:40:26,990 --> 00:40:34,340 So this idea that there is also something about fantasies I'm working on in terms of how, 337 00:40:34,340 --> 00:40:40,330 you know, security versus immunity and money versus emeny and aspirations and fantasies. 338 00:40:40,330 --> 00:40:43,660 And of course, these discourses are mobilised as they think. 339 00:40:43,660 --> 00:40:51,300 And I think when we look at the question like this, questions like moral causal questions become very redundant. 340 00:40:51,300 --> 00:40:57,040 And and we also deal with a lot of monocles questions in relations between Iran. 341 00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:09,430 And I think the question of how these forces intersect and interact to compromise both biological and psychological and moral immunity is 342 00:41:09,430 --> 00:41:17,500 something that requires an engagement with what you were talking about and an engagement with historical context and political context. 343 00:41:17,500 --> 00:41:26,740 Thank you. Thank you very much. So I'm going to forgo the usual chair's privilege of asking the first question in the interest of time. 344 00:41:26,740 --> 00:41:31,360 But I'm going to go to our first question is from the Ascott here. 345 00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:39,610 And he asks, Can you elaborate on the air carrier Mahoneys flights to China and its significance and impact on the spread of the virus? 346 00:41:39,610 --> 00:41:44,770 But I'd like to broaden the question a little bit and ask you perhaps to reflect 347 00:41:44,770 --> 00:41:50,500 a little bit on how in Iran China is viewed in relation to covid we've seen in 348 00:41:50,500 --> 00:41:58,720 many parts of the world that the pandemic has led to instances of racism or very 349 00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:04,810 negative perceptions of China or the East Asian individuals and communities. 350 00:42:04,810 --> 00:42:12,430 But this, of course, is at a time when the Iranian government strategically has been wanting to align more with China. 351 00:42:12,430 --> 00:42:15,660 So so there's something of a potential paradox there. 352 00:42:15,660 --> 00:42:23,260 And I wonder whether you could speak to those points, of course, in relation to specifically to the airline. 353 00:42:23,260 --> 00:42:30,360 It's important. I think the question is raised because of this reference to the fact that in the end of January, 354 00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:38,760 the the Iranian government, the government actually confirmed that flights by the airline will stop. 355 00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:47,290 Will this continue? And then it emerged a month and a half later that the fifty five flights had actually operated throughout February and March. 356 00:42:47,290 --> 00:42:50,940 And so there was, again, another instance of deceit and cover up. 357 00:42:50,940 --> 00:42:57,630 And with China, I mean, perceptions on the ground about China, of course, 358 00:42:57,630 --> 00:43:06,150 very one of the important things is to understand that China has become a lifeline, in part because of the American sanctions. 359 00:43:06,150 --> 00:43:20,040 And so in a way, it's a very important strategic ally economically, but also geopolitically and so in in in terms of their perceptions about China. 360 00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:29,250 And if I want to speak very anthropologically here in terms of the way these relations are imagined by the public, a lot of, 361 00:43:29,250 --> 00:43:41,290 you know, the awareness of the for example, this this rumour or or statement that was going around about the seven hundred clerical, 362 00:43:41,290 --> 00:43:47,640 Chinese, Chinese clerical students in Guam who were travelling at the time of the Chinese New Year to Guam that 363 00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:54,330 was responsible for a businessman who was flying from Isfahan to China back and forth what this was. 364 00:43:54,330 --> 00:44:01,940 So there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that goes around. Also, the missionary activities aren't very important. 365 00:44:01,940 --> 00:44:11,490 Again, there is there was a lot of traffic between China and school in February because it coincided with the Chinese New Year as well. 366 00:44:11,490 --> 00:44:18,660 Thank you. I think you wanted to address just very quickly and I think what you just mentioned is very interesting 367 00:44:18,660 --> 00:44:24,600 because it brings out the question of the epidemic on a geopolitical level that not only works, 368 00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:30,180 of course, between states, but actually in the perception of everyday life of old people, 369 00:44:30,180 --> 00:44:36,600 like a couple of vignettes from from talking to people is that many are refusing 370 00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:42,930 immunisation for now what is perceived the British by the British vaccine. 371 00:44:42,930 --> 00:44:46,650 So AstraZeneca is being refused by many. 372 00:44:46,650 --> 00:44:49,980 And instead they see, of course, the Russian Sputnik five. 373 00:44:49,980 --> 00:44:59,430 And now increasingly the Chinese vaccine is a particularly the same goes with the pills being distributed in little villages. 374 00:44:59,430 --> 00:45:08,580 And I've heard of these which are capable of curing. The symptoms of covid amongst people and people trust them because now it's Cheney, 375 00:45:08,580 --> 00:45:14,490 you know, contrary to what they would think they made in China label would mean generally. 376 00:45:14,490 --> 00:45:22,800 So things are also changing with regard to that. Very quickly, I mean, I could thank you both. 377 00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:29,070 A second question is, in fact, two questions. And it's coming from covid Mousavi. 378 00:45:29,070 --> 00:45:35,190 And he asks first a methodological question. He says, did you do this research while physically in Iran? 379 00:45:35,190 --> 00:45:42,300 And I guess actually both of you might respond to that. But I'll read the second part of the question. 380 00:45:42,300 --> 00:45:48,990 He says, if so, what was the impact of the publication of the health minister's letter confirming dispatch of 381 00:45:48,990 --> 00:46:00,150 the five of the vaccines to the supreme leader's household a week after the Security Council, 382 00:46:00,150 --> 00:46:05,670 I guess, had officially banned the US and the UK vaccines in Iran? 383 00:46:05,670 --> 00:46:09,990 So that really is, I think, speaking directly to these questions about mismanagement, 384 00:46:09,990 --> 00:46:24,300 inequality and perception of the way that privilege gets you access to scarce resources in a situation like the one Iran has found itself in all. 385 00:46:24,300 --> 00:46:28,130 Please. Yeah. So I wasn't physically in Iran. 386 00:46:28,130 --> 00:46:35,310 I was actually not as an impossible issue for me, but, uh. 387 00:46:35,310 --> 00:46:41,370 I think this is why I emphasise on this quest for legitimacy in place of expertise, 388 00:46:41,370 --> 00:46:49,290 because this pandemic response has been part deceit, part dysfunction, part incompetence, US sanctions, whatever. 389 00:46:49,290 --> 00:46:53,250 That's not the point is a lot of these patterns are being repeated. 390 00:46:53,250 --> 00:46:58,260 Everything we're seeing now with the vaccines we saw with test kits MPP a year ago 391 00:46:58,260 --> 00:47:04,960 that officials had access to tests when ICE use didn't appear with the vaccine. 392 00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:13,980 Yes, the supreme leader banned the import import of vaccines and that had implications that actually people on the ground. 393 00:47:13,980 --> 00:47:19,680 Again, I keep referring to people on the ground because it doesn't matter what we think sitting here. 394 00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:25,680 What matters is perception on the ground is that these are death slash murders. 395 00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:32,220 These deaths were preventable. These deaths were. And so a lot of health workers, again, in this fourth peak died. 396 00:47:32,220 --> 00:47:38,490 And so that's you know, people see that as a direct result of the lack of access, the vaccine management. 397 00:47:38,490 --> 00:47:42,810 Then again, for vaccines to work, you don't need just a vaccine. 398 00:47:42,810 --> 00:47:48,680 You also need the chain of distribution that needs months of prior work. 399 00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:55,110 So when countries were fighting to secure contracts with Pfizer, Iran was dealing with this back. 400 00:47:55,110 --> 00:48:04,800 Right. And so right now, you have anecdotes of yes, of course, officials have all been vaccinated before, ordinary people. 401 00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:11,910 Yes. Vaccines are being sold at whatever price. But we don't have that infrastructure for the freezers. 402 00:48:11,910 --> 00:48:18,780 And so there are all these questions and all these like black holes where and this lack of information, 403 00:48:18,780 --> 00:48:24,180 this lack of transparency directly affects vaccine compliance. 404 00:48:24,180 --> 00:48:31,440 So people have hesitations because this is the Russian vaccine and the Russian and Chinese vaccine haven't been approved by the FDA. 405 00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:33,720 So that's another angle here. 406 00:48:33,720 --> 00:48:45,570 The resistance to AstraZeneca is also Mozi because of the global issues with clotting and that that became a very highly debated in Iran. 407 00:48:45,570 --> 00:48:48,930 And people were really scared, you might say. 408 00:48:48,930 --> 00:48:53,190 I don't know if I answered the question about the supreme leader, I wouldn't comment on that. 409 00:48:53,190 --> 00:48:59,970 I'd be able to. Marzio, do you want to come in on that one or shall we go to the next question? 410 00:48:59,970 --> 00:49:04,180 I will I to respond. I didn't do research in Iran, of course. 411 00:49:04,180 --> 00:49:09,210 No one, I think, can do research legally, at least at the moment. 412 00:49:09,210 --> 00:49:17,260 But I relied on a network of collaborators and collaborators which are social workers and have been on the front line. 413 00:49:17,260 --> 00:49:22,660 And so, yes. And also, you know, distant interviewing or talking on the phone. 414 00:49:22,660 --> 00:49:26,580 Thank you. So Naheed on has a question. 415 00:49:26,580 --> 00:49:30,990 So she she writes, thank you for your insights on social media. 416 00:49:30,990 --> 00:49:35,970 We have seen people comment on how the social sphere has become more permissive as a result of the life, 417 00:49:35,970 --> 00:49:41,100 death, urgencies of the pandemic that led other matters to pale in comparison. 418 00:49:41,100 --> 00:49:45,570 I wonder whether the speakers believe that there will be some permanent political, social, 419 00:49:45,570 --> 00:49:50,850 structural changes in governance that will flow from the conditions of the pandemic. 420 00:49:50,850 --> 00:49:57,220 Hello, John. It's good to hear from you and. 421 00:49:57,220 --> 00:50:03,700 Of course, there will be implications in governance and governance as as be pointed out, 422 00:50:03,700 --> 00:50:10,690 the anxieties within the realm of governance have already been transformed throughout this past year. 423 00:50:10,690 --> 00:50:15,210 And I think the social response and public perception of that has also changed. 424 00:50:15,210 --> 00:50:21,610 So definitely there will be implications long term in terms of how these perceptions have changed. 425 00:50:21,610 --> 00:50:26,230 And I'm not sure if I follow the question in terms of the social space having become more permissive, 426 00:50:26,230 --> 00:50:33,040 permissive in relation to what you mean certain social liberties or afraid. 427 00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:37,600 This is this is the downside of having the questions done in the Q&A box, because we can't. 428 00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:49,070 And I hate to have to also remember that we are we are also waiting for another election in. 429 00:50:49,070 --> 00:50:56,930 And the question of vaccines, I mean, not unlike here and not unlike in Israel, and in February, 430 00:50:56,930 --> 00:51:01,940 that was the case in Israel, in the U.K., that was the case for the elections in May. 431 00:51:01,940 --> 00:51:05,000 The question of vaccines and the election are also very intertwined. 432 00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:11,570 There is this is a very particular election and presidential election because the public trust is at its lowest. 433 00:51:11,570 --> 00:51:17,300 There is the very active campaigns of boycotting elections going on in a way that weren't 434 00:51:17,300 --> 00:51:22,640 before from inside Iran and from the families of the people who were killed in these protests. 435 00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:27,860 And so there are now grassroots campaigns so that those kinds of challenges to 436 00:51:27,860 --> 00:51:33,540 governance are in a way I wouldn't say they are the result of the pandemic. 437 00:51:33,540 --> 00:51:39,540 I think the pandemic is also uncovering a lot of what was already brewing. 438 00:51:39,540 --> 00:51:48,570 And do you want to add to that? No, not really, because it's hard I mean, I can say that well, maybe I can add something that in the social sphere, 439 00:51:48,570 --> 00:51:56,280 I mean, it's hard to think of a more permissive social sphere under limited lock down regime. 440 00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,400 It means that a lot of people couldn't actually go out much. 441 00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:05,340 So much of life has been quite restrained to home, especially for middle class, upper class people, 442 00:52:05,340 --> 00:52:11,970 whereas a lower class people, I'm more sort of graphically in touch with the rural communities, 443 00:52:11,970 --> 00:52:19,350 completely different setting people go on with their lives, but close in the environment of the village and the surrounding villages. 444 00:52:19,350 --> 00:52:23,850 So DeSoto European Rural Connexion is a bit restrained. 445 00:52:23,850 --> 00:52:28,740 That's the comment I can say as well, like sort of southern Tehran and things like that. 446 00:52:28,740 --> 00:52:34,220 I haven't really been able to to to to know much. 447 00:52:34,220 --> 00:52:41,720 Thank you. We're getting close to the end of our time, we've got certainly time for one more question we might manage to squeeze into. 448 00:52:41,720 --> 00:52:48,680 So I have a question for me. Apologies for don't pronounce the name correctly Yasser Peracha. 449 00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:58,460 And the question is, if there is time, can Dr. Belarusan perhaps elaborate a bit more on everyday death and decay in the Iranian context? 450 00:52:58,460 --> 00:53:04,110 So a little tiny question in there eye. 451 00:53:04,110 --> 00:53:13,940 Well, I will promise to discuss this with the author is a wonderful one of my wonderful graduate students at a given that we have three minutes. 452 00:53:13,940 --> 00:53:17,750 Do you really want me to go into this? It's it's a really big question. 453 00:53:17,750 --> 00:53:28,280 And it's, you know, but I'm glad it brought up because in a way is the running theme in this book project, which is the shaping of this. 454 00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:37,790 This collective immune system has been dependent on that and the knowledge, a tacit knowledge of things disintegrating. 455 00:53:37,790 --> 00:53:44,540 I mean, examples in the graphic examples of that are you're in the hospital, you've recovered from covid. 456 00:53:44,540 --> 00:53:54,800 And these are tragic stories that I'm constantly receiving. You'll recover from covid 27 year old woman. 457 00:53:54,800 --> 00:54:02,300 And then you die because the hospital's oxygen supply suddenly collapses. 458 00:54:02,300 --> 00:54:12,470 So this awareness amongst people that a lot is discovered that is this a death of the and integration 459 00:54:12,470 --> 00:54:18,890 in the infrastructure in the way that the way public health policies have been working in that. 460 00:54:18,890 --> 00:54:26,240 And also juxtapose that with the wonderful work that health workers then are doing with empty hats. 461 00:54:26,240 --> 00:54:32,540 And so. So I think that it's a very big question. You know, I think we will have to discuss this at another point. 462 00:54:32,540 --> 00:54:37,040 We have literally two minutes left. OK, I'm going to take the last question. 463 00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:42,470 So I didn't take the first one. And I know that both of you have been in touch with many professionals. 464 00:54:42,470 --> 00:54:47,780 I mean, health professionals and social worker professionals. 465 00:54:47,780 --> 00:54:53,330 I'll be very interested to know whether you think that there is any significant difference in the sort of experience 466 00:54:53,330 --> 00:55:01,520 and perception of the pandemic of the groups that you've been in touch with compared to the wider public do. 467 00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:07,420 Do you see some big divide there, depending on profession and expertise working? 468 00:55:07,420 --> 00:55:11,360 Perhaps first you mean with health care, health profession? 469 00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:18,770 Well, the the situation with health professionals as elsewhere is, of course, different from the general public, 470 00:55:18,770 --> 00:55:22,730 partly because of the viral load that they're exposed to, they've been exposed to. 471 00:55:22,730 --> 00:55:26,660 And that we know that that biologically speaking, they are at a higher risk. 472 00:55:26,660 --> 00:55:35,270 But what's what's significant now is that they the fatigue and the emotional fatigue, again, 473 00:55:35,270 --> 00:55:41,240 not unlike other places, but there's an additional layer in Iran, which is, for example, 474 00:55:41,240 --> 00:55:46,760 Iran has a shortage of nursing staff and more and more nurses are now quitting because 475 00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:51,860 they're just they just can't in and a lot of private hospitals are even abusing nurses. 476 00:55:51,860 --> 00:55:57,260 So what that means in terms of the you know, I just let me just refer to this. 477 00:55:57,260 --> 00:56:01,520 I just did a project on the impact of sanctions on medical education. 478 00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:04,430 And a lot of these medical doctors are in training. 479 00:56:04,430 --> 00:56:16,370 Tell you that even if I go around things like access to the latest, whatever software, um, psychologically and morally demoralised, 480 00:56:16,370 --> 00:56:20,960 I mean, so that I think in that sense, if you put the experience of 14 months of a pandemic, 481 00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:30,350 15 months of a pandemic, plus demoralisation, plus thinking that your life as a people have referred to health workers lives as 482 00:56:30,350 --> 00:56:35,270 human shields because they were basically expended in the early that period of time. 483 00:56:35,270 --> 00:56:40,420 I talked about they were they were used and extended and no one is accountable for it now. 484 00:56:40,420 --> 00:56:44,060 So these these warnings are open. And at the same time, 485 00:56:44,060 --> 00:56:54,240 there is this public appreciation for the work of health workers that has increased and that that has then healed another one that was open before, 486 00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:58,240 which was the distrust between public and health workers. It's a bit complicated. 487 00:56:58,240 --> 00:57:02,550 So there's a lot of back and forth that very helpful. And I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it. 488 00:57:02,550 --> 00:57:10,190 You're going to have to write to Maziar for his answer to that question. I won't bother him myself outside the context of this meeting. 489 00:57:10,190 --> 00:57:13,670 So it remains for me just to thank again very much all day. 490 00:57:13,670 --> 00:57:18,110 And Maziar, we're all applauding loudly, though. You cannot hear us. 491 00:57:18,110 --> 00:57:22,550 And I'd also like to thank our audience for joining us on this Friday afternoon. 492 00:57:22,550 --> 00:57:26,660 Thank you all very much for being here. Thank you so much for having us. 493 00:57:26,660 --> 00:57:42,321 Thank you. Thank you. Your pleasure. Thank you. Was it.