TEHRAN - The concept of the nation is still an unfamiliar one, more lost among books than found. I step outside to search for it on the streets. I have never seen Tehran this calm and humble, resting quietly beneath the silent embrace of Mount Damavand. In my small car, I head from the west toward central Tehran.

 On the highways and alleys, here and there, I see a few people standing and chatting; a young man, as if summoned by a call from the elderly man across from him, has stepped outside in his underwear, standing in the shadow of a large mural of martyr Mustafa Chamran, engaging in conversation; it’s a beautiful scene. Tranquility under the shade of security. I think of taking a photo, but it seems as if a hand gently pulls my phone down, curbing my journalistic curiosity.

I remember that some cafés had announced earlier that they would be hosting gatherings in these days, offering music, film, and conversation. I change my route toward "Café Tarikh" (History Café); a place owned by a well-known figure in Iranian media and politics, who has transformed his café into a museum of contemporary history due to his passion for recording oral history. As I walk in, I wait for Hossein Dehbashi to pass by so I can see him, and as always, I stare at the pictures and newspaper clippings on the wall. It feels like the first time every time. There’s no more space on the walls; I wonder if he ever anticipated how much of modern history would remain, leaving some space for today’s headlines and photos? For Netanyahu, who attacked Tehran with several terrorist operations in the middle of negotiations? For Grossi, who every day blindly turns a blind eye to his duties at the International Atomic Energy Agency? For the smile of that wounded little girl who stares at the camera in the arms of a nurse at the hospital?

I notice a table where a family of five, with two daughters and a son, are sitting around. The café is so crowded! As we approach the time for the screening of Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" on the café's rooftop, it seems to get even busier.

Dehbashi appears. Along with several other men, he pulls out apricots, cherries, and red plums from a car and brings them inside. Then, Dehbashi invites me, and we sit at one of the tables next to a young man. A young woman, holding a melodica, joins us, and as we greet each other, she tunes her instrument. I ask, "Is it always this crowded here?" She replies, "These nights are even busier! People love music and gatherings. I've brought all my instruments here," she says, pointing to the santur behind us.

Without further introduction, Dehbashi explains the fresh fruits on the table: "These were bought by the driver from the orchard and gifted to our guests at the café." I say, "It feels like a religious gathering!" Dehbashi understands why I think this atmosphere, in a café as a Western context, feels unfamiliar. He nods in agreement with a smile and clarifies, "For our generation, there’s no difference between a café, a religious gathering, and a trench. They’re all trenches." We agree that, at least for a Western audience, it's hard to understand the context of a religious gathering and the transfer of its meaning to a modern Western platform, or recognize and respect its significance for Iranians.

"Do those who help out at your café, especially the younger ones with different looks, have the same perception?" The young man adjusts his glasses up and down and asks. "It’s often claimed that younger generations have no ideals in agreement or opposition with any path or goal. But I have an example that clears things up. You always look at the sky during the day, but you don’t see any stars, so you don’t believe in them. Naturally, people don’t want to see the night because it’s scary. But if, for some reason, the night comes to society, that’s when the stars’ brightness becomes visible because they show themselves in darkness and hardship. The essence of nations and generations can be recognized in hardships, and now that difficult times have arrived, we should expect the stars," Dehbashi answers.

The café’s change in décor and the rearranging of chairs to accommodate more people distracts me until the buzzword "politics" pulls the conversation back. Dehbashi continues, "Political disagreements still exist, but people, regardless of their viewpoints, feel at home and define their existence in meaningful connection with the existence of this home. In fact, what happened wasn’t the revelation of the evil nature of the Israelis in this situation, as this issue had already become apparent during the Gaza events and even earlier. Instead, maybe it was the exposure of our own weakness in utilizing the potential of this good and capable nation."

"But perhaps Iranian identity is a concept higher than the nation-state dichotomy, revealing itself now. It’s not something anyone can control. The government shouldn’t obstruct its manifestation; our sincerity and loyalty to human ethics in war is just that," the young man with glasses calmly opposes. I ask, "Does being Iranian have a moral criterion?"
"We have a historical example. General Oveyssi, who committed massacres on June 15 and September 17, had no problem killing or suppressing people. In the years after the revolution, he quickly started gathering forces and was involved in most of the coups we had, leaving his trace in them. But when Saddam attacked Iran, Oveyssi didn’t cooperate with him. On the other hand, we have someone like Bakhtiar, a man of books, a Westerner, and an intellectual, who, when Saddam attacked Iran, didn’t hesitate for a moment to cooperate with him. What drives Oveyssi’s mindset is simple and uncomplicated. It’s just a concept called 'homeland.' Others, however, have read so much that they only use their instrumental reason to weigh their actions and outcomes," Dehbashi elaborates.

"However, reducing the moral criterion to patriotism is as ineffective as reducing humanity to nationalism when analyzing the actions of people, especially our people," Dehbashi adds to clarify for the young man: "This is true for our people and for common people around the world. Our people believe that killing children is a sin, a vile act. To understand this, Kant and Descartes were not needed. Therefore, anyone who commits such acts has no emotional, moral, or psychological support in Iranian society. Quite the opposite, no society is as philosophical in its meaning of death as Germany, nor as involved in music consumption. Their mechanical reason has grown so much. That’s why even now, German society doesn’t have guilt over World War II, but instead nostalgia for the Holocaust!"

The calligraphy on the wall reminds me of a verse from the Quran: "We inspired the soul with its wickedness and its piety." Moral judgment doesn’t have philosophical complexity. To be a good person, logically, there’s no need for academic education. Moral reason, unlike philosophical reason, takes immediate and clear positions. Dehbashi says, "Complicated people start reasoning in hard times. But a person who just bought fruit from an orchard for the café isn’t that complicated. He might even struggle to keep up in a conversation. If you ask him the last book he read, he might not even remember.

The retired old man who, when he found out we didn’t charge for tea here, withdrew 10 million tomans from his account, even though it was a lot of money for him, isn’t complicated. He’s just very generous. It’s like the story where Hatam Tai asked someone if they had ever seen anyone more generous than him. The person replied, ‘The man who sacrificed a sheep for me!’ Hatam asked, ‘How so? I’ve sacrificed much more!’ He replied, ‘Because that man only had one sheep!’ A billionaire giving 500 million tomans isn’t as generous as a retired employee giving half his monthly salary to a café during wartime." The newspaper clippings on the wall, from the 1960s, shock my mind. It’s as if, during the time Iran was deeply engaged in rejecting the concept of terrorism, even for legitimate purposes according to the societal norms of the time, the Zionists were systematically practicing terrorism and establishing the state of terror.

I ask, "If the Zionists hadn’t used terrorist methods and fought us face to face, could Israel really have destroyed our commanders and scientists?" The young man smiles, takes off his glasses, and says, "Iran's commitment to avoiding terrorist methods is just like its commitment to not producing nuclear weapons!" Dehbashi turns his gaze away from him and continues, "Our mental constructs in Iran emphasize valor and ethics in fighting. We grew up with the story of Hani ibn Urwah and Muslim's refusal to kill Obaidullah in his home, with Rustam asking for time from Sohrab for a fair fight, with the tales of Pouriya Vali and champion Takhti; but Western reason is much more modern, Machiavellian, and instrumental. Our people fundamentally consider such behaviors wrong. But the other side, regardless of whether they have the ability or not, bases their moral foundation on principles that approve of such behavior. Even when they haven’t entered a war, are negotiating, but suddenly stab you in the back... I don’t think our politicians would ever do such a thing. In any case, they wouldn’t have the intellectual or moral backing for it in Iranian society. But they do it, and they openly say it because, in terms of moral reason, such actions are defensible."

"Do you think it's a normal experience that, during war, people bring fruit from their own pockets to a café? Can the West understand that? " I ask.

I don’t know how things are over there, but I believe we need psychological and emotional shelters. Wars end, and people are killed or wounded; wounds heal, but damaged psyches remain. We have to live on after all this, and I’d rather have a people who are less psychologically scarred. That’s who we’ve been, after all. A sense of well-being should matter to society. When polarizations are intensifying, we say we don’t recognize polarization as legitimate.

What’s the most frequent keyword you hear these days?

The question “What will happen?”

Well, what really will happen?

To me, it’s clear that we will become more compatriots. We’ll become more Iran. Weber has a concept about what makes people a nation. Some point more to race, some to a common language or geography—but all of them carry challenges. It seems that those who share experiences feel more like compatriots. We didn’t know what would come at the end of the eight-year war with Iraq. In some ways, perhaps, the outcome wasn’t great—but we did become more like compatriots. If you go to the remotest corners of villages and towns in the country, you’ll find in the most respected part of the local cemetery a spot where the Iranian flag wasn’t placed by the government, but by the people themselves—because the children of that region went to give their lives for a far-off part of their homeland. That shared experience has connected those two places. So after all this, regardless of how badly our infrastructure is damaged, whether there’s nuclear energy or not, whether the aggressor lost or not—the one thing that can be said with certainty in response to the question 'What will happen?' is that we will definitely become more of a nation."