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Living
Through Change in Iran
Ayda is now living in Glendale California and is now spitefully remembering her years in Iran. Now she is free and does not have to follow the Islamic way, as she must have in Iran in the 1970’s. During the time that Ayda was living in Iran she lived through a major change in the government and who led the country. Now she is enjoying life in Glendale with all of her family, which also moved to the United States because of the repressive Iranian government.
I lived in Iran from when I was
born until I left the country in 1987. I moved out of Iran, mostly because the
government was changing very much, and it was hard to live a good life there.
When the Shah left and Khomeini came, the country was very different. The leader
changed from the Shah because, some people in the country were not happy with
the Shah and some people wanted to have a new leader that was Islamic. Also for
all of the laws to follow the Islamic way, and so everything changed when the
leaders changed. There were many new laws in the country that were not good,
like the laws for the women. We had to wear scarves, to cover our heads and
sometimes faces. Men and women could not be seen outside holding hands and
hugging, and if they were seen outside then the police would make sure that the
people were taught a lesson. Everyone had to follow these laws or they would be
in trouble with the police.
The police in Iran protected the
people and made sure that people followed the laws when the Shah was in power,
but when the leader left the police started to abuse people with their power.
They arrested people whenever they wanted, for no reason. They would do this to
people that weren’t Islamic, or to people that they didn’t like. If the
person was Islamic they would have a very different consequence for the same
crime than a Christian person or any other religion. Sometimes the police
arrested an Islamic person and found out that the person was Islamic they might
even let them go, but if they were Christian they might be taken to jail.
Religion was a big factor in the way people were treated in the country.
People-most of the time-did not have a fair trial, because the police did what
they wanted, if they wanted to kill someone on the street they did and if they
wanted to take them to court they did. The police controlled everything and they
did what they wanted when they wanted. The punishments for crimes were all of
the time dealt by the judge and the sentences were final. Sometimes if police
wanted to, they could send you to jail from the street and so this is where
there was no fair trail for the people. The trial system in Iran was almost like
the United States, there were jury members and you could hire a lawyer and the
case had to be of importance. When I say this I mean that if a police caught a
woman not covering her hair, she could not take her case to court, the police
would always be right in that matter.
This had to do with the leader
being changed from the beginning. The new leader was not voted upon at all he
came into power suddenly. Some people that were mostly Islamic started rioting
about the old leader-The Shah- and one day in the news said that the shah was
not in power and a new leader was, Khomeini. The Islamic people had tried to
push this man into power and finally they had succeeded. So, the new leader of
Iran was not voted upon. There was voting, but they did not really matter. One
big rule was that no woman could vote, also that males had to be over twenty-one
years of age. But other than that people could vote. Most of the time the votes
did not mean anything and so leaders were chosen unfairly. The women did have
many rights in Iran, when the Shah was in power, but when the new leader came in
to power the rights of women were basically taken away. Women could not be seen
outside without their scarves on their heads. They could not show their hair. At
first they just had to wear scarves to cover their hair, now most women just
cover their whole bodies in black. Another thing that changed was that a woman
could not be seen outside with any man except her husband or father.
At first it was that no woman
could be seen holding hands or hugging another man, but then it changed. When
the new leader came into power he showed himself as a good guy, but when he was
in full control he started to change things to the way of Islam. Basically when
he changed all the laws to the Islamic way the rights of women disappeared. Many
women were caught and for not reason beaten on the streets in front of everyone.
These laws affected me and other women because it limited our lives to very
small tasks. Because of these laws men had most of all the power in the country,
actually all of it. The rights for the men were also very different than before,
when the Shah was in power. Now men could not go out in public with out being
questioned. If they were Islamic most probably nothing happened to them, but if
they were Christian or any other religion they would be stopped for no reason
and beaten or taken to jail. If they were with a woman then they would be
stopped and the police would ask who the woman was and you had to show a
document to show that you are related, sometimes the police were nice and let
them go, but if they were in a bad mood, they wouldn’t listen to anything and
take them to jail.
Again, when the leaders changed everything changed. When the Shah was in power all religions lead a good life, they were free and lived almost like a democracy. The Shah helped the people of Iran in any way that he could, people had health benefits and students could get scholarships to universities around the world and people lived normal lives. When the Shah was replaced with the new leader Khomeini, everyone lost many rights, but the Islamic people had more rights than the rest of the people living in Iran. People’s freedoms changed also. One example of this was the newspapers.
There were not many newspapers,
but there were some. The newspapers were informative and the articles could have
been about anything. They had the freedom of press until Khomeini came into
power and then the newspapers suddenly started to be in favor of the new leader.
So Iran lost its freedom of the press as soon as he came into power.chool)
Almost nobody had a television in their homes, but some people did like our family. We had only three channels, one of the channels was the news channel and showed all of the recent affairs and the events could be about anything. The television channels had the free press rights throughout the history of Iran. The other two channels showed movies and shows from the United States, which is also another sort of freedom and the third channel showed Iranian shows. One of the many freedoms in Iran was that they could show many different tapes of shows to show how what was happening in other countries like the United States. One example of this is the boxing between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier; this was shown all over Iran. This was brought over from the United States so this shows one of the freedoms that Iran had. But when the new leader came, no shows from other countries were allowed. One of the things that did not change was the schooling.
Most children went to private
schools, either Armenian or Persian. The Armenian schools that we went to were
very good. They taught everything, like math, history, art, geography, science,
and many languages, like English, Arabic, Persian and more advanced Armenian.
The schools were like the schools here. Almost everyone could afford to send
their children to private school, some private schools were better than others
and so they were more expensive, but the cheaper ones were easy to go to. Almost
all schools didn’t have transportation and either our parents had to drive us
to school or we would have to walk. Since there weren’t many of the better
schools, the distance from our homes to the schools was sometimes very far,
almost four or five miles away. That was very far for young children to walk by
themselves or with friends. There were many Universities in Iran, with and
without the Shah. Like here if someone was a good student they could go to the
schools for free with a scholarship. If there was a student that was very good
the shah would send them to England or Germany to earn their degree. This
changed when the new leader took over. There were still many Universities, but
students would not be sent around the world to earn their degrees, they would
have to stay in Iran or move out. The level of education in Iran was very good,
before and after the change of leaders in the country.
Interview By: Savada Panosian