At the age of 84 Louise
Nalbandian is still a firecracker full of energy. She resides in a quiet house
in La Crescenta. Born and raised in Tavris, Iran she spent her childhood years,
practicing and perfecting the sport of basketball. She was then later moved to
Tehran where she continued her education to become a schoolteacher. At the age
of forty, she achieved a very high status; she was now the vice-principal of
Ario, a famous Persian school. She now spends her days reading the daily
newspaper, Armenian books, and enjoys spending time with her grandchildren.
During the time of the Shah the
country was in a very good condition, this is because the Kings objective was to
bring as much as European habits, education and items into Iran as much as
possible. The King brought the highest quality material from Europe’s greatest
factories and because the people had a great deal of money with them, they would
easily purchase these objects that the king had tried so hard to get. The
Persian factories went out of business because only the European goods were
being sold. He would also send many youngsters into other European countries to
so they can bring back important information. But because the Islamic people did
not understand his point of view they did not accept him as The King hoped.
The people of Iran also had the
freedom to follow their religion and there were no consequences. Iran’s state
religion was Islam. But that didn’t mean
that it was Islamic for everyone. The
Christians, Hebrews and Zoroastrians all had their own religion and religious
freedoms as well. The king gave so much freedom that there were many Christian
schools that would teach Christianity, and to my knowledge, the other religions
had the same.
Like Russia’s KGB and United
States’ CIA, The King had a similar group named Savak. Savak was everywhere,
at schools, at factories, at the cinemas, even in the people. They would catch
anyone that would say something against the King, and they would immediately
jail them. In the Persian jails captives were tortured to the highest degree.
They would also follow and bother their families as well!
I remember a man that I knew
personally. He was captured by Savak because of making a rude remark toward the
king, they captured him and they tore off all of his fingernails and toenails
and instead of releasing him, they killed him. They called his family and told
them to bring his clothes. The family happily thought that he is being freed,
when they went to receive him they realized that he has been killed and they are
handing him over in his coffin.
The King had trusted Savak with a lot of his power, and he was not told how much the people hate Savak. The king would say, “Why should you go to Europe? Ill bring Europe to you.” But he would not understand that the fanatic Islamic people did not like the idea of Europe coming, that is because Savak did not tell the King what the people think. And that was the reason that they would make little meetings that they would discuss what to do with the king, and in one of these meetings the idea of bringing Khomeni to high level began.
The main assemblies started when
the young students came out onto the streets to revolt. And Savak, would put a
lot of pressure on the scholars, they couldn’t take it anymore, so, the
revolts started. I think that those were very bad moves. I was with the king,
and with his ideas, that if Iran had the same education level as Europe, it
would be great, and would be a much better place.
Life during the Revolution was horrible. Because a large group of people had already joined the anti-king cause, Production stopped. When you went outside the house it was a big question if you’re going to make it back in one piece or not. The street fights and assemblies had greatly increased. And people would stand in line for hours just to get a little oil to warm themselves up. You would have to stand in a separate line for each thing you wanted to buy. One line for bread, one line for water, one line for meat. I have stood in those lines a couple of times before.
The streets and the people
always had a picture of Khomeini. All the house windows must have a picture of
Khomeini, so that passerby’s could see it. Even cars must have a picture. They
would pull you over and force you to have a picture of him. Everyone had his
picture I HAD it too, and if anyone would dare do anything to get rid of the
picture they would get rid of him. Khomeini was not really educated in any way,
because he was religious, the people liked him, and gave him all the power he
wanted, and basically turned him into a saint. The King being in a bad position,
could give one order to kill Khomeini, but being the warm-blooded man he is, he
just sent him to another country. But soon Khomeini’s followers brought him
back, and treated him better than they ever treated the king.
The revolution was lead by only
one group, the religious group, the ones who were obeying Khomeini’s word and
treating him like a saint.
The police were the king’s
solders, they would stop any anti-shah assemblies. But this strong grip over the
revolts did not stay like this for long. Because all of the military had joined
Khomeini’s cause, so there were no police left. To stop the horrible
conditions a militia team, a temporary police force was made to protect the
people from the constant fights. They would approve of anti-shah assemblies,
therefore the king was forced to leave his country. There many street fights
when the military was still on the Kings side, after the military joined
Khomeini the fights stopped but the revolts were more than ever.
The king when he was leaving
Iran, both because of his blood cancer, and because the people didn’t want him
anymore, all the country’s did not let him in. only Anvarsadat, Egypt’s
President let him in. He was buried in Egypt.
Khomeini not only did he become a president, not only a king, but a saint! He tricked the people to give him what he wanted. And they would not question his authority, because he was a saint, whatever he says must be right! No one would question him because he got rid of all the great thinkers, and they were replaced with power-hungry people like himself. And now to this day, my beautiful country is still being run by corrupt power-hungry people. From the Christian point of view, it is not very enjoyable that the country is being taken toward the Islamic religion. During our time, there was not that big of a difference from being Christian and being Islamic because there was unity, and freedom of religion, we had churches, and we had Christian schools. In my opinion, I think that the revolution was a horrible thing. During the revolution, we were between all those fanatic Islamic people, and living for us was very difficult.
Interviewed By Emin Bassavand