UFC lightweight Beneil Dariush, who was born and raised in Iran as a Christian, sat down with the Overdogs podcast and gave his take on how Americans who call their country racist might want to look beyond their own borders before passing judgment.
The conversation started when the hosts asked Dariush what Americans might not fully understand about life in countries like Iran, given the ongoing tensions involving the United States, Iran, and Israel.
Dariush opened by explaining the cultural divide within Iran itself, noting that the country is far from a single, uniform place.
“If you go to Tehran, it’s really liberal. Like, you know, they’re trying so hard to become westernized and kind of have that kind of style of life. But if you go to different places, they’re a lot more conservative and religiously more conservative.”
He also pointed to the internal disagreement over just how much Western influence Iranians actually want. “They don’t want what they see in Western culture. Especially when you look at the movies, when you look at the whole LGBT, specifically with the trans thing, like they don’t want that stuff.”
On the question of ethnic diversity inside Iran and how that connects to racism, Dariush was direct. “There’s a lot of different cultures. You have the Kurds, you have the Turks, you have Arabs like I think in the south. You have so many different ethnicities and they don’t, like if you think America’s racist, bro, you go to Iran, you’ll understand like racism. I would say you go to any other country in Asia and you’ll understand it.”
He added that the underlying issue across many of these cultures is a deep resistance to being told what to do. “They don’t want to be forced into something.” And when the gaps between groups come down to core values, the consequences can be severe. “They can agree on like 10 things, but if you get the 11th thing wrong, they’ll go to war over it.”
When the host pressed on what kind of Iran the people actually want if and when the government changes, Dariush said he was “cautiously optimistic” but not naive. “Every regime change so far has been a failure and it’s been a tremendous failure.” He said whoever takes power next would need to respect the full range of people across the country. “Don’t have a cookie cutter approach with it.”
As for his hopes, Dariush said he wants a leader who can balance freedom with standards. “You can give freedom but at the same time be a standard of how you should act.”
