“Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” posted President Donald Trump on June 16, 2025. Just like that — in five blunt words. For those of us from Tehran, my hometown, the message was shocking in its coldness and detachment. It came after days of relentless Israeli bombardment across Tehran and other cities, ostensibly aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities — even while International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi and Trump’s own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had confirmed there was “no proof” Iran was building a nuclear bomb.
When the dust settles, Iranians will undoubtedly question the wisdom behind the regime’s nuclear ambitions and “anti-imperialist” rhetoric — especially the staggering costs they’ve imposed on the country’s people and resources. But right now, the deeper outrage lies in the impunity that Trump’s words granted Israel’s war machine to violate Iran’s sovereignty, victimize civilians and dismantle the country’s infrastructure without constraint.
“Evacuate immediately? Where?” asked a friend in Tehran. “Do they even know where Tehran is? Have they ever wandered its streets or grand bazaar to feel its vibrant life?” Tehran isn’t just a dot on a map. It’s homes, hospitals and offices. It’s schools, markets, weddings and funerals. Tehran is a city of around 10 million people, pulsing with interaction, energy and the tempo of life. Just take the subway and step off at any station and you’ll encounter signs of people wanting to live: a patch of grass where families picnic, a cafe buzzing with young women and men, barefoot children playing with a plastic ball in sheer delight, or my old neighborhood, Ekhtiarieh, where retired men gather on park benches, browsing newspapers.
Tehran bears marks of fatigue from the decades spent building itself into what it is today. Once, in the late 18th century, a modest enclave in the shadow of the pleasant Alborz Mountains, it has grown into a sprawling metropolis, its streets choked with over 4 million vehicles and air pollution that ranks it alongside Dakar or Karachi in terms of livability. Yet Tehran is no ordinary city — it is charged with extraordinary politics and a spirit of resistance, shaped by a constant tension between what looks like a deep-rooted tradition and a wild modernity.
In the Western imagination, Tehran is often reduced to cliches: lofty minarets, echoing calls to prayer, bearded clerics and women shrouded in black — a city of mud-brick homes and narrow alleyways filled with large extended families. This is the Tehran of the 1991 movie “Not Without My Daughter.” But far from such Orientalist fantasies, the real Tehran is a modern megacity governed by a repressive religious-military regime that has long tried — and largely failed — to remake its cultural and spatial fabric.
Despite decades of authoritarian rule, secular resilience endures. Widening socioeconomic inequality and political exclusion have turned the city’s main squares and hidden backstreets into sites of ongoing struggle. Unlike the French Revolution in Paris or the Russian Revolution in Moscow, the Islamic Revolution has not succeeded in reshaping Tehran to match its ideological vision. Today, Tehran bears more resemblance to Madrid or Mexico City than to Jeddah or Cairo.
Tehran exhibits a sharply defined class hierarchy, one that is expressed not only in economic, social and cultural terms, but also in its spatial organization. The city’s topography — rising from south to north — mirrors its class divisions. At the northernmost edge, nestled in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, lie the city’s most affluent neighborhoods: Darrous, Tajrish, Zafaraniyeh and Farmanieh. At the highest point sits the former royal palace of Niavaran, now a museum — a lingering symbol of aristocratic power. Moving down the slope into the center of the city, a broad belt stretches from east to west, home to the once-solid, now increasingly strained middle classes: state employees, professionals and small-business owners. Further south, in the city’s lowest-lying districts, live the traditional working poor — descendants of rural migrants and members of the urban laboring classes. Many among the newly poor have been pushed into the nearby satellite towns. Here, geography and inequality converge, shaping not only how people live but how they experience the city itself.
The dividing line between Tehran’s affluent north and its poorer south is drawn, both literally and symbolically, along Revolution Street (“Khiaban-e Enqilab”), the epicenter of the nation’s political geography. Often described as a sociological “green line,” this street is home to the campus of the University of Tehran, a book market and the super busy Line 4 of the capital’s subway system. It serves as a vital artery linking diverse social groups to key institutions and to the circulation of knowledge, culture and news. It was here that the first sparks of the 1979 revolution ignited through student protests, before sweeping across the city and the nation within two years. And it was here again, decades later, that the silent march of 2 million people during the 2009 Green Movement — one of the largest demonstrations in history — symbolized Iranians’ enduring battle for democracy. Nowhere else have I encountered such a dense concentration of intellectual and cultural energy as in and around this university campus, with its hundreds of bookstores, street-side book vendors and cafes full of people discussing culture and politics. Revolution Street pulses with the life of a city thinking, questioning and resisting.
More than four decades after the Islamic Revolution, Tehran remains a troubled city — wounded, yet defiant. The structural and architectural traces of the shah’s era still endure, layered now with the imprint of postrevolutionary ideology, waves of redevelopment and the unmistakable marks of globalization. Yet, perhaps more profoundly, Tehran has been transformed from below: shaped by rapid population growth, waves of immigration, apartment buildings instead of single houses and, more recently, the rise of a digital economy.
Today, some 700 green public parks, large and small, offer ordinary families a chance to experience outdoor leisure and social interaction in a city where the extended family has all but vanished and the average household size has dwindled to just 2.99 — among the lowest globally. Meanwhile, the spread of high-rises and megamalls has eroded the city’s traditional “mahallehs,” close-knit neighborhoods anchored by street-corner gatherings. In their place, megamalls now serve as semiprivate zones where young people can express their youthfulness and experience a measure of freedom under more relaxed surveillance. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of the network economy and startup culture has given rise to thriving digital enterprises and a new class of urban elites. Their presence is most visible in a growing cafe and restaurant scene that rivals those of Paris or Manhattan, offering not just consumption but spaces of aspirational modernity.
Israel’s unrelenting bombings have shaken the city, upended its balance and killed hundreds of civilians, including more than two dozen children, such as 7-month-old Zahra Amiri, 7-year-old Mahya Nikzad and 8-year-old gymnast Tara Hajmiri. Those who have survived carry deep psychological scars. I know what it means to live through war — I experienced it as a young man in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq conflict of 1980-88: the constant fear of death, sleepless nights, gathering in basements, hoping to stay alive. This month, my nephew’s 6-year-old son lived with that same fear, screaming at the sound of every explosion.
So, what is the moral point of drawing attention to this trauma and death in Iran, when the same Israeli military machine has claimed the lives of more than 17,000 children in Gaza, as it starves countless others? The point is this: Every innocent life matters — regardless of where it’s lost.
Many of Tehran’s residents sought refuge in nearby towns and villages or in the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran along the Caspian Sea, leaving behind their homes, jobs and everyday routines. But most stayed. Not only because they could not afford to leave, but because they felt a responsibility to protect their city. Tehranis are sometimes criticized for being individualistic or self-centered, a judgment often rooted in the breakdown of traditional social glues like religious faith or trust in government. And yet, time and again, they’ve defied these assumptions. During national crises — the Iran-Iraq War, devastating earthquakes, the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising — they’ve shown extraordinary solidarity and selflessness. During the two-week war with Israel, stories of resilience, mutual care and quiet heroism abounded once again.
One baker, just 20 minutes after learning that his brother had been killed in an Israeli strike, returned to work. “I won’t stop baking bread for the people,” he said. At another bakery, 10 customers stood in line. The first asked for 15 pieces, the second for 10, the third for five. But the baker announced he had only 25. “I don’t want any — give them to others,” said the first. “Me neither, give mine away,” said the second. “I’ll just take one,” said the third. Eventually, everyone walked away with a few pieces. The baker cried and hugged them all.
A woman posted on social media that she refused to leave Tehran — but offered to help the elderly and sick, to bring groceries or simply call to check in. Many joined her. When someone posted a plea for medicine, dozens responded. A car mechanic rode his motorbike across the city, helping stranded drivers on their way to safety. And a restaurant in Shahryar — my old rural district outside Tehran — announced it would serve free meals to a thousand people every night for as long as the war continued.
Of course, there are always those who seize the moment for personal gain — raising prices, demanding higher rents — but this was rare. What truly stood out was the overwhelming spirit of care, resilience and quiet determination to carry on. This is something that Rebecca Solnit captures well in her book “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster.” A friend in Tehran told me about a music school where a 13-year-old girl was practicing piano when a bomb exploded nearby, shaking the building and causing her hands to tremble, striking the wrong keys. Her teacher smiled gently and said, “Don’t worry, dear. Keep playing. We must live.”
These everyday stories of solidarity, grassroots initiatives and quiet resilience have deep significance — not just for the present, but for the future of our national community. They embody what in Spanish is called “horizontalidad”: the spontaneous, bottom-up forms of organization, action and imagination that emerge during moments of rupture — whether war, revolution or state failure. In such times, people come together through necessity and shared humanity, responding to urgent needs when the state is absent, overwhelmed or even complicit in the crisis. Here, solidarity is not only an emotional expression of care; it becomes a strategy to build alternative power at the base of society through cooperation, trust and collective bonds.
For these reasons, I believe that Tehran, and by extension Iran, will endure and ultimately overcome not only this brutal war but also the despotic regime that governs it. Since 1979, Iranians have persistently resisted the regime’s totalitarian impulses, reshaping their society through everyday acts of defiance and building their own modes of life. They have crafted alternative narratives, practices and social norms that defy the state’s ideological agenda. Today, Iran is one of the most secular and pro-democracy societies in the Middle East. Women have spearheaded this strategy, notably challenging the regime’s misogynistic policies, such as the compulsory hijab, despite continuous surveillance. This strategy of quiet encroachment, bolstered by organized movements and civil society associations among women, workers, students, ethnic minorities and citizen-activists, has the potential to spark nationwide mobilizations, exemplified by the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022.
Israeli leaders and American advocates of regime change hoped that Israel’s attack would inspire Iranians to overthrow their rulers. But this expectation was misguided — not because Iranians wholeheartedly support their government (they largely don’t) but because, first, many felt their country was violated by a foreign aggressor and, second, few would risk their lives in rebellion, during a war, without a clear vision and credible alternative.
In fact, wars often lead to the suppression of protests. The nationwide strike of Iran’s truck drivers over the high cost of fuel and spare parts ended after 10 days once the Israeli offensive began. And a sweeping crackdown on dissent has been underway since the war broke out. According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, at least 700 people in cities across the country have been arrested for alleged collaboration with Israel, and six individuals have been hanged on espionage charges.
But in the aftermath of the war — with hard-liners weakened and public outrage intensifying — the conditions for popular movements may begin to mature, paving the way to build a broad coalition and push for a genuine transition to a secular democratic order.
Iranians do not want Israel, the U.S. or any other foreign power coming to “liberate” them. They’ve watched this play out in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and they know how it ends. How can they place their trust in a “liberating” force whose commander has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court? The people of my hometown have now witnessed firsthand what that kind of “liberation” truly brings: loss of life, psychological trauma, displacement and the destruction of their economic infrastructure. No nation can be genuinely freed through the war of a war criminal. Iranians will configure their own emancipation.
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