RESILIENCE BY DEFAULT – HUMANITY INTENSIFIED
The last couple of weeks I have been thrown into a research project, as fascinating as it has been troubling. The focus? Political hostages in Iran. I’ve been speaking with people like Nizar Zakka, Jason Rezaian, and Anoosheh Ashoori all of whom were detained in Iran and later released as well as friends and family of those who were detained, such as Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and Noemie Kohler, sister of French national Cecile Kohler, who is still detained today since 2022, along with her partner Jacques Paris.
The research hit fever pitch this week with news of the bombing of Evin Prison, the notorious facility where many political prisoners are held. Until recently, I had little idea this world even existed. A pattern quickly emerged: many detainees are tourists, often dual nationals, arrested on the last day of their trip. The charges? Usually espionage. The trial? Sometimes closed, sometimes not. The sentence? Typically ten years. The reality is surreal.
I’ve been documenting not only the stories of those arrested, but also how and why they were eventually released. Was it diplomatic pressure? Public campaigns? Legal wrangling? All of the above?
Speaking directly with former detainees has been a part of the project that has affected me deeply. For the past few years I’ve written extensively about resilience, and I’m close to finishing a book on the subject. Every single one of these individuals endured unimaginable situations: physical and psychological torture, prolonged solitary confinement, constant interrogation, and systemic violations of their human rights.
One detainee described how, after months of isolation, they began looking forward to daily interrogations because it was the only human contact they had. It was a chilling echo of Stockholm Syndrome.
What struck me most, though, was what happens after release. Many of these individuals emerged traumatized, broken, forever changed, and still found a way to support others. Anoosheh Ashoori tried to take his own life three times. His family still attends therapy. Richard Ratcliffe went on a hunger strike outside the UK Foreign Office to force action for his wife’s release. And Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, who spent 544 days in Evin, has since become a powerful advocate against hostage diplomacy.
Despite everything they’ve endured, the response to my project has been overwhelming in its kindness. These are busy people; many are being pulled in multiple directions because of recent events in Iran and yet they’ve given me their time, shared contacts, sent documents, and opened doors. Not one person has turned me away. And none of them could have been more helpful.
Jason told me, “It’s about passing it on.” Richard connected me with others. Even the sister of Cecile Kohler, Noemie, found time to talk to me despite living her own ongoing nightmare, and offered legal insights. Every single one of them said the same thing: they don’t want anyone else to go through what they did.
And here lies the most profound irony. These are people who have come face-to-face with cruelty, abandonment, and despair who’ve been broken down, dehumanized, and used as pawns in geopolitical games. If anyone had the right to be bitter, it would be them.
And yet, there’s no bitterness. Only compassion. Only this fierce, unwavering desire to help others, to protect others, to make meaning out of what was almost meaningless suffering.
There’s something both haunting and beautiful about that. It flips the expected narrative. These are not hardened people. They’re softened made more generous, more human, and more humble by the very things that should have crushed them.
Their kindness is not naïve. It’s not weak. It’s forged in fire. And it makes the rest of us — those who complain about petty inconveniences or hold grudges over small slights — look at ourselves differently.
They’ve come through hell and brought back grace. And that, more than anything, makes me believe in the resilience of the human spirit.
These people were not only failed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a country that uses innocent people as pawns in a bitter political chess game, but they were also failed for the most part by their governments. Especially the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which has a tendency to emphasize quiet diplomacy and behind-the-scenes engagement, often discouraging families from public campaigning.
In the words of Ashoori’s wife, the FCDO offered “a lot of words but little practical action.” Their strategy was to tell families not to make a fuss, to prioritize reputation management over genuine assistance, and to instruct families, according to Richard Ratcliffe, “not to make a song and dance of it.”
And yet, going public and applying pressure has repeatedly proven to be a powerful tool — often the turning point in securing a detainee’s safety or release.
This brings me to resilience, not as a motivational buzzword, but as lived experience. This isn’t about “bouncing back.” How could you? You don’t go back to who you were. You bounce forward. You carry the scars, but you carry wisdom too. You become someone new, not by choice, but by necessity.
And that, I’ve come to realize, is resilience by default. It’s not performance. It’s not measurement. It’s survival. It’s humanity, intensified.
And somehow, in all this darkness, that’s what shines brightest.
