INTERVIEW — Aug 8, 14:20
Interviewee: 33 years old, female, main language English, speaking in English, lives in Germany, dual Australian/Iranian nationality.
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Interviewer: Okay, perfect. So, first question — when you hear the word cult, what comes to your mind?
Interviewee: Oh, okay, yeah — not good. You need more words?
Interviewer: Um, yeah — well, like, maybe think of an example, or an image, or, like, what it means, kind of thing — whatever you picture.
Interviewee: Huh, okay. So, I'd picture something American, okay — brainwashing, suppressive, abusive. Um, yeah, usually white dudes. Yeah — like, white American dudes.
Interviewer: Any particular example?
Interviewee: Oh, I — yeah, I don't have any names, or — yeah, I don't remember any names.
Interviewer: That's okay. So, these attributes that you describe — for example, the white dudes — like, why would you associate it with white people?
Interviewee: I guess because I've seen documentaries, or media, and it was usually in those instances that I did see it — it was those kinds of people.
Interviewer: Okay, so — and then, yeah, interesting — so that's all the things that you've seen just from media. And so, these things that you saw in documentaries — like, why do you think they characterize them as cults?
Interviewee: I guess there's a definition of cult, and hopefully they're assessed based on some definition, but I guess a cult is anything that becomes too extreme in an ideology, and kind of just messes with the people themselves. They don't necessarily outwardly, like, do things — they just manipulate and control the people within the cult, and they just make their own little society. And, yeah, that's my understanding of cult.
Interviewer: Okay. And, like, given these things — there's still no examples that come to your mind when you think about it?
Interviewee: Yeah, I don't have any names. And, like, yeah, I kind of just think, "okay, I don't want that information in my brain anymore." Yeah, so I guess I also see that often — in examples I've seen but don't remember the names of — religion, or some sort of spirituality, was used and then, like, exaggerated. Yeah, so I was curious, thinking about it myself, like — if someone is considered to be a Zionist, is it because they have the core belief that they want to annihilate the people of Palestine, and everyone else that they deem is putting them at risk? Then, why couldn't that also be considered a cult — because they are also raised and brainwashed from a young age, given this narrative, so their reality is completely different — which is kind of similar to what happens in cults, where children are raised with a completely different reality.