STORY

On the contrary!

Most of the student activists who became political prisoners under the Shah were among the top grade and honours students of Sharif (Ariamehr), Poly Technic and U of Tehran!

Excellent Read

Thanks Shazde Jaan for highlighting the plight of the Iranian students, which amazingly never changes.

Mirza jaan, me found the digital version!

It's still a great story.

Your short story and Golshiri's not so short story are both fictional but point to what some might call a social pathology: Intolerance.

نمازخانهُ
كوچك من (مجموعهُ نه داستان
كوتاه: 
"هر دو روي يك سكه"،

Thank you again MM

That was a good information.

Souri

There were several Khomeini tapes that were smuggled into Iran.  These cassette tapes were duplicated and distributed around to beat the Shah's censorship of press and radio....  They were motivational/directional speeches analogous to "the 50 lies under the apple tree" that have been discussed on IC (//iranian.com/main/blog/david-et-41).  These tapes became illegal to possess after the takeover of the IRI since they turned out to be lies. 

Thanks MM

Can you tell us what those imported tapes were? What was it about? I don't know nothing about that.

Souri

I was with the students, going to meetings on setting democratic ideas and asking for freedom for the political prisoners.  However, I turned against them once I saw Islamic rhetoric and I was asked to listen to the imported tapes.  Thanks to my dad, I knew better.  That is why it was the best of times as well as the worst for me.

Sorry about mercurochrome incident

MM, same thing here

I can't deny it. I don't like Shazdeh, but that story was very nice. As you said:

I liked the story, though.  It brought back some good and some unpleasant memories.

I have been on on the same side as Bahram. They poured Mercur-Chrom ? over my head and stole all my stuff in my room at the dorm.

But, now that I look at it, this was nothing compared to what the students in Iran are enduring these days.

Fictional! Then, how come I remember you?

Unfortunately, Alzheimer has set in, and I cannot remember if you were on the table or off the table!

I liked the story, though.  It brought back some good and some unpleasant memories.

Thanks friends, but pls remember that my stories are fictional.

Dear GR: lol ... I think that the ending cracked Bahram's head too.

Ghasem jan: thanks for reminding us of that work by Hoshang Golshiri.

Oon Yaro dear: I wasn't served any of that Eggs and Pepsi dish, but am told that torture was quite regular, though much less than now under the IRI.

Anahid dear: studying was at best considered a "side activity".

Faramarz jan: yes, you are very right to draw those parallels with the students abroad. Sad thing is that many of the lefties and islamists who went back to Iran to join the revolution, never came back alive.

Thank you! Reminiscence of the by-gone era!

Contrary to the commonly held beliefs, I never observed any improper abuse of the students by the hands of the security forces or SAVAK! And, I was one of the practicing nurses in the Tehran University Health Center from 1965 to 1975. Maybe a bit of body bruises caused by altercation with the police but nothing serious!

I did however see many other things that seemed odd for that society at that time. For example, a lot of religious students would stop by to be checked out and get medications for sexually transmitted diseases and things of that sort. I had established a very close and trusting relationships with those kids to the point of them confiding in and confessing to me on their visits to the combat zone or engaging in male types of acts...! But, never for the severe abuse by the authorities!

...

Faramarz jan, funny part is that to a large extent you're correct. The overall, dominant political culture was a top-down, undemocratic, sectarian one, always seeking the interests' of the sect before the movement. That's why we have such a fragmented opposition. The best thing that happened to this 'opposition' was Ahmadinejad, and his stupid mistakes! Sort of like, George Bush for American comedians; that's a free be, it doesn't count. 

Mash Ghasem

I hope that you did not misunderstand me. It was not meant as an over-generalization but rather to describe the attitude of many political students at the time who not only believed that they knew what was good for everyone, but also wanted everyone to come under their leadership and behave a certain way; just like a cult.

We were not raised to follow orders, so we didn't!

...

دانشجویان سیاسی عقده ای

Thank you Shazde for a nostalgic look at the college life of the pre-revolutionary Iran.

The same type of things but to a lesser extent, as you know, was happening on the university campuses of the West. There were many of us who wanted to stick to our studies and the college life, but the do-gooder Marxists and the Confederation types did not want to allow that. At a minimum they wanted to lecture us or argue endlessly. But we had the numbers so they left us alone. Many of them went to Iran after Khomeini came and in a matter of a year or two, they were back home, in the great US of A!

I give a lot of credit to people like Abbas Milani who came clean on his beliefs then and now.

Good story Shazde

Thanks for writing about dilemma of students who actually wanted to study.

Thank you Shazdeh, for this beautiful story!

Did you participate in the debate team?

This is what I have always wondered! What would happen if all those trouble maker (Chapi + Islamist) students had put their head down, studied and worked hard sort of like the rest of you guys who wanted to become great doctors, scientists, etc....?

Would the security forces be less violent and more peaceful and as a result a more relaxed and democratic environment would be created, and so forth and so on....!

I guess not because it's a generational thing!

BTW, Shazdeh, what was the extent of the truth to Battoom, and hard eggs, etc.?

Thanks!

کجاشو دیدی؟

Dear Shazde:

Enjoyed the story. Brilliant depiction of the situation in those days! The ending cracked me up. Good for Bahram. Some of the activists could be a real pain in the neck.