Reza Baraheni - September 1, 2003
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| Dr. Reza Baraheni |
A Section from the Article on SAVAK Documents, the Execution of Jazani and Others
The former Shah eliminated all opportunities for cultural plurality with the massacres in Tabriz, Zanjan, Ardabil, Mahabad, and the cities of Kurdistan. In fact, the fundamental principle of democracy in Iran, namely education in the mother tongue, was transformed into learning Persian, the language of one-third of the people of Iran.
After the introduction of the primary means of modernity to Iran, which consisted of the new school and new education, no intelligent person in the country should have succumbed to the most ignorant slogans claiming that Persian is the official language of the country. This is because three-quarters of the people of Iran never experienced education, as education in the language of the master is of no use to any serf who wishes to shed the shackles of serfdom.
Writing an article about a specific period of oppression in the country, from my perspective, which has never, at any stage, sought to enter the political arena and does not seek to do so now, does not mean that when I witness oppression in a later period, I will turn a blind eye to it. On the contrary, I believe that the period of oppression under the Islamic Republic, particularly during three periods—1981 and 1982, 1987, and the year when the chain murders began, which have continued to this day—has been darker and worse than any period under the Pahlavi regime. However, I also view this oppression as stemming from the previous oppression.
The Pahlavi rulers turned the constitutional monarchy into a plaything of their own illegitimate desires. They suppressed non-Persian languages and cultures in Iran. The former Shah eliminated all opportunities for cultural plurality with the massacres in Tabriz, Zanjan, Ardabil, Mahabad, and the cities of Kurdistan. In reality, the fundamental principle of democracy in Iran—education in the mother tongue during the age of education—was turned into the learning of Persian, the language of one-third of the people of Iran. I refer to the era of education, and my intention is that before the constitutional revolution, only two groups received an education: the court and its affiliates, and the clergy in their specific domains. Thus, a country that, due to its inherent cultural and linguistic plurality, should have relied on mother tongues during the new educational era—maintaining the relationship between mother and child through the language in line with the emotional essence of that language—was, under the Pahlavi era, separated from its essence; that is, language, as a phenomenon related to women and mothers, was transformed into the imposition of patriarchal central authority, meaning the imposition of Persian by the Pahlavi government throughout Iran, affecting two-thirds of the population. The result was the separation of the language of education from the language of the majority of the people and the disconnection of intellectual thought from the people.
Because the educated intelligentsia were Persian-speaking, it meant they were illiterate in their mother tongue, which was a language other than Persian. In contrast, the Persian clergy spoke Persian with Persians, the Turkic clergy spoke Turkish with Turks, the Kurdish clergy spoke Kurdish with Kurds, and the Turkmen clergy spoke Turkmen with Turkmen, the Arab clergy spoke Arabic with Arabs, and so forth. The severing of the relationship between an intellectual and their own people was inherently based on a linguistic and cultural policy grounded in racism. They believed that the country would remain stable through the dominance of the Persian language throughout Iran, while Pahlavi racism, by keeping the country's intellectuals illiterate in their mother tongues in non-Persian-speaking areas, opened the doors for the clergy in these regions on one side and created animosity between non-Persian peoples and Persians on the other. It engendered a strange form of racism among Persian and Persianized intellectuals, which can be seen in the malignant, backward, and fascist examples of individuals like Dr. Jalal Matini and his associates, who continually raise the flag of the official status derived from the backwardness of the Pahlavis, even after the disgraceful fall of both. No one ever asks them why the Pahlavis, namely Mohammad Reza and Reza, know nothing of their mother tongue, why they did not learn, and why they do not learn. Is learning one’s mother tongue important, and the languages of one’s own country, or is learning, for instance, French or English more significant?
In the essence of these relationships lay a lack of connection. Severing the link between intellectuals and the people not only harmed the people but also proved detrimental to the Pahlavis themselves. The clergy established connections with the people through their severed languages, while intellectuals, due to their education in the officially sanctioned language, did not enlighten the people of their own regions. Consequently, although all intellectuals, whether Persian, Turk, Kurd, Arab, Baloch, or Turkmen, opposed the monarchy, it was ultimately those who had ties to the illiterate segments of society—namely, the clergy—who overthrew the monarchy, which the intellectuals had also worked hard to bring down. Furthermore, they prevented intellectuals from having a role in the governance of society and quickly marginalized even those half-intellectuals they accepted, such as Bazargan and his associates.
The question arises: was the unveiling more important, or granting women the right to choose and be chosen more significant, or was it teaching and educating in the mother tongue and raising the flag of women's dignity from the very beginning? Could one sever the mother tongue and only forcibly remove the veil? Shouldn’t one become literate in their mother tongue and, in doing so, not only remove that veil but also numerous other veils from their head and from society? And, thirty years later, was learning the mother tongue more important, or the right to vote and be elected to two advisory councils? The truth is that the women who were elected did not bring any benefit to the mothers and daughters whose children were still supposed to be educated in the Pahlavi's official language, continually alienating them from the emotional bond of their mother tongue, and merely exacerbated the massive structure of alienation towards women and mothers.
Due to the nature of their work, the clergy performed their tasks in the language of the people, thereby at a time when the Pahlavis were hacking away at the roots of thinking in Iran and rendering modern thought through education in the mother tongue impossible, they severed the connection between the intellectuals and the people from whom they had arisen, speaking, writing, and reading everything in Persian—because the people did not understand what they were saying. The clergy placed themselves at the helm of affairs, freeing themselves from the monarchy as well as from the intellectuals. Due to the racism and backwardness of the Pahlavi regime and the alienation of two-thirds of the population from their mothers and mother tongue, the country was plunged into a strange regression that cannot be found in any country today. It was not only the Pahlavi monarchy that killed intellectuals; the clergy whitewashed the Pahlavi monarchy in terms of its intellectual purges. Particularly since these same intellectuals, under the impression that a revolution would bring freedom of thought and expression, had revealed their sentiments before and during the revolution, and SAVAK files were also under the control of the Shah’s secret police. As soon as an opportunity arose, the clergy turned against the intellectuals, leading to arrests and crackdowns that continue to this day. During the first Pahlavi, through his lumpens, during the second Pahlavi, through his lumpens, and in the Islamic Republic, through Islamic lumpens. All three wreaked havoc on the lives of intellectuals of the time, who knew they had to connect with the people but did not understand that they had to do so in the language of those people. Reza Pahlavi had blinded the source right from the start by officially recognizing Persian as the language of all the people of Iran, and with this blindness, he had actually prepared the ground for the clergy to cultivate and sow, until, after seventy years, they finally placed the constitutionalism of the Pahlavis in place of the legitimate rule.
Abroad, too, there is a conflict; observe the most qualified debaters who, when drafting a constitution, first state that the official language of the country is Persian, and then claim that all ethnic groups in Iran are equal. They inscribe this in the name of modernity, failing to understand that if they show this text to a foreigner and present the linguistic and ethnic composition of the United Nations regarding Iran alongside it, and say that they want to promote modernity in Iran through this constitution or these laws, with a minor edit, any average high school student in Canada would dismiss these constitutions. A person who has experienced democracy would immediately understand that most constitutions drafted by these very intellectuals aim only at the disintegration of Iran. Otherwise, understanding the composition and writing a constitution reflecting this composition is a very simple matter. It only requires liberation from the savagery of prejudice, from the fascism and Aryan chauvinism of Reza and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the destitution and regression of a twisted ethnic nationalism that wishes to turn the country into a charitable institution for other ethnicities. Such a thing can only be achieved through careful consideration of the ethnic structures of people living in a geographical-historical area, ensuring that no one ethnicity should be regarded as the slave or servant of another.
After the introduction of the primary means of modernity to Iran, which consisted of the new school and new education, no one among the educated of the country should have succumbed to the most ignorant slogans declaring that Persian is the official language of the country, as three-quarters of the people of Iran never had the scent of education. This is because education in the language of the masters is of no use to any serf who wishes to rid themselves of being a serf. For this reason, restoring dignity to those who sacrificed their lives for the rights of the oppressed nationalities in Iran is vital for anyone striving for freedom and equality in Iran.
I have no doubt that if the late Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh had a broader understanding of democracy, and at the same time he declared the nationalization of oil, he also revived the main constitutional issue, namely the subject of provincial and local councils, and drew inspiration from the expansive and noble spirit of another late figure, Seyyed Jafar Pishevari, who was betrayed by Qavam and Stalin in Baku, dismembered and buried in a leprosy hospital, he would have shaped a multi-tiered democracy based on the diversity of the ethnic groups and nationalities of Iran. I unequivocally state that no group of five or six thousand lumpens, the brothers of Rashidian, Kermit Roosevelt, and General Zahedi, nurtured in Hitler’s Nazism, could have brought about the downfall of his government. When those who seek democracy within the framework of a country like Iran should pay attention to whether they desire this democracy for this country, or if they wish to create a uniform and homogenous country composed of a single nationality, language, and culture. If we accept that Iran is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country, then those enamored with democracy can collaborate together. Because if they remain isolated, in 1945 Qazi Mohammad will be hanged, Pishevari will go into exile, and his protector will turn out to be his mortal enemy, while Mossadegh will end up in a similar state. Worse still is the condition of the people who, in that same 24-hour period, are ruled by a puppet named Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who keeps the nation silent and imprisoned, boasting of his own grandeur until, as General Rabiei says in the Islamic court, General "Heiser" comes to take him by the ear like a dog and expel him from Iran. In that same court, when asked by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Khalatbari who was in contact with the CIA, they hear: "It's classified." This means that no one even knows where they have lived until the last moment, where they are dying, and still believes it’s all just a game. Truly, who has governed my childhood, my youth, my middle age, and my present exile! One wants to raise their fists and hit their own head until the last glimmer of light bursts from their eyes, at least to witness this immense darkness in absolute blindness.
Link to the original text in Farsi: https://www.asre-nou.net/1382/shahrivar/10/m-barahani.html