Ethnicity, Identity, and the Development of Nationalism in Iran

6. Nejde Hagobian

209 6 Nejde Hagobian a s h e sl owl y sh o ok h is h ea d, Dr. Hossein Banai looked both amused and slightly perturbed.1 The previous evening he had warned the Persian scoutmasters to be on alert during the night to defend against the classic ritual attack that occurred at boy scout jamborees, but they had obviously disregarded his warning. As a result, their outer clothing had been purloined in the early morning hours of August 26, 1954, and hoisted to the top of the flagpole. Thus, when Dr. Banai sounded the morning reveille , almost all of the Persian scoutmasters were stuck in their tents while the Armenian Iranian scouts of Ararat who had perpetrated the requisite deed quickly and quietly lined up in front of the flagpole pretending not to notice the garments gently swaying in the breeze over their heads. Putting on the best poker face he could under the circumstances, the twentyyear -old scoutmaster of the Ararat group, Nejde Hagobian, ordered one of his Armenian scouts, in Armenian, to untie the line and lower the load to the ground. Banai, the head of the Iranian scouting organization under the Iranian Ministry of Physical Education, then ordered one of the few Persian scoutmasters to emerge from his tent fully clothed to quickly distribute the items to their rightful owners. All joking aside, the shah was due to arrive in two hours to review this first Iranian boy scout jamboree since 1940, and everyone—especially Banai and Hagobian—wanted to make a good impression. Dr. Banai wanted to demonstrate to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi his effectiveness in reviving the Pishahangi-ye Iran (Scouting of Iran, alternatively known as Sazman-e Pishahangi, the Organization of Scouting ), which had been disbanded because of pressure from the ulama and 210 | Experiences with Iranian Nationalism conservative Majles members following the exile of Reza Shah in 1941 and had not been reorganized until spring of 1954.2 Nejde Hagobian, in contrast , was seeking to show the shah—honorary president of all Iranian scouting groups—that the Armenian Iranian scouts were the nation’s best-organized and disciplined scouting troops and to imply that the scoutmasters of the Pishahangi-ye Iran were being schooled by Ararat in scouting activities and rituals. Certainly the salaried Persian scoutmasters learned something about the nasty side of scout rituals that morning, but the prank did not mar the overwhelmingly positive spirit of cooperation and healthy competition that otherwise marked the scouting event. Hagobian was relieved that Banai took the “underwear ritual” in stride and glad that he had had the foresight to issue specific instructions that Banai’s tent be left alone in the roundup. When the shah, dressed in full military regalia, arrived with his entourage of military officers, ministers, and a group of reporters and photographers, Banai and Hagobian greeted him with smart salutes before showing him around the encampment.3 To Dr. Banai, walking 57. The shah arrives at the joint scouting jamboree encampment at Manzarieh, August 26, 1954. Left to right: George Patgorney, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Dr. Banai, Nejde Hagobian. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of Nejde Hagobian. Nejde Hagobian | 211 beside the shah and answering his questions were routine, for he was a member of the government who regularly interacted with the shah. For Hagobian, who was quite a bit younger than Banai, an ordinary citizen, and a religious minority as well, it was exhilarating to walk beside the country’s leader and describe to him aspects of the Ararat scouts’ organization , activities, and skills. Although he had briefly met the shah once before at a reception for scouts and had marched before him several times at parades, Hagobian had never before had the opportunity to interact with anyone from the government, let alone the nation’s king, for such an extensive period of time. So he was proud to be able to show off the well-organized Ararat scouting encampment and the various wilderness survival projects the scouts had been working on during the event and glad that he could explain everything in excellent Persian. Although at age twenty Nejde Hagobian was still in the process of learning what it meant to be a member of a minority group in Iran, he was acutely aware that it was important for the Ararat scouts to look their best, for they represented not just a neighborhood or...