Exiled Memories: Stories of Iranian Diaspora

Yahya (pseud.)

Yahya Yahya (pseud.), who left Iran in 1985, is an academician I met while he was completing his Ph.D. in the United States. The year he entered Mashhad University was the year that Ali Shariati was fired from his teaching position there. A great admirer of Shariati and a devout opponent to the Shah, Yahya was a young man in his mid-thirties, a believer in the revolution when it started, and even when he first came here. Yahya’s class and cultural background made him particularly susceptible to the call of the revolution. I interviewed him in 1992. I did not split the first part of this interview into the category “There” because I wanted to preserve the nexus of class, family, and religion that produced some of the most fervent believers in the Islamic Revolution. I don’t want my name used in any of this. Let me tell you what happened to me. I was born into a lower-middle-class family in which my mother was very religious. My father was a lower-class worker for the government. We always rented and never owned a house. I was twelve when my father was given a subsidized flat by the government. My grandfather had his own business, and his three sons and their new families lived together. But when my father clashed with his father, preferring a white-collar job over his father’s business, we left my grandfather’s care. My father and uncles had no education—only elementary school. My father’s first salary was three hundred tomans (then about $45) a month. Very difficult. Until I was twelve years old, economic conditions in our family were hard. We lived in a two-room apartment. Five of us had one room and my parents the other. My parents lost many infant children. I can’t remember how many. But many died. Five survived. When my father got government housing and a raise, he could save money and buy a used car. My father, though religious, didn’t practice religion— no daily prayers or fasting. My mother, to whom I was very attached, was religious. I saw my father as a harsh dictator. Too much pressure on me as the oldest son. His harshness on me and my mother made us very close. I started 182 revolution: narrating upheaval to say my prayers when I was very small. So we were all thrilled when the revolution happened because we were all for Khomeini—all except my father, who was for the Shah. It was hard on the family to be so divided. I supported my education with jobs in various hourly positions around town. In Iran, if our grades were high, we needed to pay no tuition. So my jobs were for paying for extras like buying books. My father was proud of my education—I was the only member of our entire extended family to be admitted into the university. When the revolution happened I was in Shiraz and a student at Mashhad University, so I saw what happened and I recall it as a great time. Mashhad University was where Ali Shariati taught and where he was fired because of pressure from savak. But his memory was still alive. I remember that Jalal Matini was dean of the college of literature. He published a journal called Iran Shenasi [Iranian Studies]. The older students who had attended Shariati’s lectures had many stories about him. They told of how the entire college would attend any lecture he gave, that students would not attend any other class if they knew he was speaking, that people sat on the floor and outside the window to hear him speak. He taught sociology. My first contact with revolutionary ideas was through Shariati. I’m giving you this background because when Khomeini finally came with his message of revolution, it was familiar and welcome. I got my ideas of Islam as a liberating force from Shariati’s books rather than from Khomeini’s lectures. I thought that both Islams were the same— Shariati’s and Khomeini’s. I and my friends thought that this was a progressive and revolutionary Islam that we should support and help. The revolution came in with this unbelievable atmosphere of freedom—all kinds of books published, no restrictions on any ideology, and no censorship. I remember finding Marx’s Das Kapital and other books that had been banned like those by Golsorkhy [an...