This lady, Narges Bajoghli, is full of herself. She has turned a book-selling event into promoting herself as an expert in resolving a “complex” issue called, the “Islamic Republic of Iran.” A task that, according to her, in the past four decades, politicians, scholars and think tanks of all sorts have failed to achieve. And as she herself tells you, this has become possible only because she was allowed to spend time with two different generations of “ba—-seeji” filmmakers who had trusted her enough to let her attend their meetings. 


“Ba—-seejis,” IRGC members and Iranian politicians, she claims, are indeed human beings whom, unfortunately, have been misunderstood because “we” haven’t tried to understand them from their perspective as who they really are and why they do what they do. And, as a social anthropologist, she is equipped with a research methodology that will help her get to the bottom of the problem.


Things were going well for the eloquent Iranian-American political scientist turned social scientist turned social anthropologist,  and she was enjoying her book-selling event up until the Q and A part when at 1:12:00 someone asked her a serious question about the level of support for the regime in Tehran. It was interesting to see how she was at a loss for words. It took her about twenty to thirty seconds to begin talking, again. She did not provide a satisfactory answer, at all. She limited herself to talking about “ba—-sijis.” Probably, she forgot that she had earlier mentioned something about support for the regime. At minute 40:00 of the video clip, she says:

“The Islamic Republic has a good number of supporters within its borders. Not a large number. But a number that insures their stability. At least, for now. And we have to contend with that, if the system does change.”