'I Don't Hate the Americans': Latest Lego Video Promotes Empathy Between People of US and Iran

The creative team behind many of the viral sensations featuring Lego characters and storytelling critical of the war launched by US-Israeli forces against Iran two months ago posted a new video on Saturday that seeks to forge solidarity between everyday Iranians and Americans suffering from the conflict and who desperately want to see the fighting brought to an end.

"The Iranian AI Lego team has another video out," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a DC think tank focused on US foreign policy. "The music, lyrics, and imagery are all designed to appeal to disillusioned Americans."

With the video—featuring dramatic scenes from daily life in both Iran and the United States under the shadow of war—the makers behind it, said Parsi, "are doubling down on building bridges between Americans and Iranians while depicting the US government and 'system' as the real enemy."

Touching on themes of shared empathy between peoples and a political system in the US that insulates the people in power like US President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress from the will of the voters, the chorus of the song states, "Same sun rising, but we're living in hell; While the leaders are ringing the funeral bell."

'Love for the people, but the system must cease," the chorus continues, "From Tehran to DC, we're screaming for peace."

The lack of peace, the music video argues, is not a reflection of what the American people want, but comes from the leaders of the country motivated by profits, wealth, and geopolitical power.

Your politicians are puppets, strings pulled by their greed,
Selling weapons to anyone, ignoring the need.
They sit in ivory towers completely out of touch,
Making billions on bombs while the world suffers so much.
They point fingers at us; call us the axis of bad
While they fund the worst violence that the world ever had.

While the imagery shows Iranians suffering in food lines and terrified by US and Israeli bombs being dropped on cities, the message from the Iranian production team behind the video is that the people of Iran do no not blame the people of America for the bad behavior of their government.

It's not you, America. It's the ones who lead you.
Listen to my heart...

I don't hate the Americans who are living in fear,
To the working class people trying to make ends meet
To the students protesting, marching out on the street,
We are one and the same, just trying to survive,
Just trying to keep our cultures and our families alive.

I see you standing for justice, fighting the system of hate.
It's your corrupt politicians that are sealing our fate.
I say love to the citizens from coast to coast,
You're victims of the same machine that hurts us the most.

So I wrote this track to try to bridge the divide,
To lay down the weapons, to swallow the pride.
We don't need another missile, no more tactical strikes.
We need conversations on what the future looks like.

My purpose is peace. Let the hostility cease.
Let the eagles and lions finally sit at the feast
From the Persian Gulf straight to the American Shore.
Let our generation be the one that finishes war.
Put the guns in the dirt. Let the healing begin
Because if we keep shooting, then nobody will win.

The "peace" the song concludes, is not for the benefit of "the leaders" waging the war, but for "the innocent souls" harmed by war and the "next in line" in future generations.

The new video on Saturday builds on a previous video from earlier in the week that represented a pivot away from simply ridiculing Trump and slamming the Israelis for their aggression by focusing more on trying to reach the American people who oppose the war and are also being harmed by it.

The earlier video released Thursday, noted Drop Site News, invokes "the 1953 CIA-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh," and "references the human cost of sanctions," and "draws a parallel between Iranian and American working people"—all to break through possible barriers of understanding between civilians in the US and those living under the scourge of war in Iran.

"They want us to hate, they want a wall made of glass," the songs says. "But we’re both just the victims of a ruling class.”