CHAPTER THREE
EDUCATIONAL STRATEGY SELECTION
Mechanisms and Processes in Streams and Episodes I now turn to specific episodes of interaction to highlight mechanisms and processes that form groups’ educational strategies. Contentious politics literature emphasizes the role of political opportunity structure, framing, and resources in shaping processes by looking at contentious interactions. I suggest that including an agent-centric approach focusing on the role of a group’s composition and characteristics, networks, and relations with the regime further explains the nuances and selection of particular strategies and their deployment. The relational aspects of political opportunity, framing processes, and resource mobilization inherently comprise considerations of composition/characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations. The features of the three groups dynamically interact as the driving force, within the broader interplay of opportunity structures, framing, and resources. Each set affects the other, as illustrated in Figure 18. In the context of education, I have created a model to illustrate this dynamic, which I call the educational opportunity dynamic. This holistic consideration will provide more coherent explanations for why certain mechanisms and processes, and thus educational strategies, are selected and employed in meeting educational goals.
Figure 18. Educational opportunity dynamic model.
As Tilly and Tarrow (2007) explain, “The distinction between mechanisms and processes … depends on our level of observation…Whether a causal cluster counts as a mechanism or a process depends on our scale of observation” (p. 214). In my analysis, I identify what level of observation is being made at each logical juncture. I look to available data to determine which observation scale of the mechanisms and processes is available and best informs my study. Generally, I undertake mid-scale observations for processes. However, in some cases, I highlight observations of small-scale processes by illustrating micro-scale mechanisms. Conversely, in some areas where information is wanting, I draw on large-scale processes to determine strategies, and extrapolate mid-scale mechanisms. I single out processes and mechanisms that significantly contribute to strategy formation, and analyze how group composition, networks, and state-group relations affect the selection of those strategies.
The unit of analysis is the stream or episode of contention. Episodes of contention and actuation are replete with interactions (i.e., performances) that highlight mechanisms and processes. By looking at bounded interactions among subject groups, regimes, and other important actors, explaining similarities and divergences between group strategies becomes manageable, and in many cases shows why groups adopt certain strategies at a later period. Sometimes in-group interactions determine strategy selection more than interactions with the regime.
Jews Under the Pahlavi Monarchy A discussion of the Iranian Jewish community and their educational strategy selection must begin by addressing Jewish education initiatives in the decades leading up to the Pahlavi era. Most, if not all, subsequent educational strategies were shaped significantly by the events and interactions during the pioneering decades associated with the development of modern, Jewish-run schools and school initiatives in the community. The introduction of modern, Jewish-run schools significantly influenced major developments in the community’s composition and characteristics, networks, and relations with the government. This, in turn, led to the adoption of specific strategies affecting their educational opportunities and pursuits in the decades to follow. I examine mostly large-scale but also mid-scale processes in order to identify the formation and selection of Iranian Jewish educational strategies. To this end, I focus primarily on three specific initiatives: the formation and development of Alliance Israelite Universelle schools (representing nationwide foreign-based initiatives), the Ozar Hatorah (representing a hybrid initiative), and the Ettefaugh School (representing local-based initiatives).
During the Qajar period, Jewish education was primarily religious in orientation, taking the form of maktabs, which were attended only by boys. Advanced education entailed becoming an apprentice in some vocation. In 1889, the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU), a French-based organization, established the first modern, Jewish-run school in Iran, with others following suit in subsequent years. Jews in Iran witnessed the socioeconomic advances made by the Jewish community in Baghdad (Iraq) and associated it with the positive impact of AIU schools there. Jewish leaders in Tehran wrote a letter to the head of the AIU in France and asked for assistance in starting the modern school. In turn, the organization’s founder worked out an arrangement with Nasr al-Din Shah (1831–1896) for schools to be established in Iran (Netzer, 1985). The opportunity structure was opened by the end of the 19th century, giving the Jewish community the possibility to start schools. Muzaffar al-Din Shah (1853–1907) had been drawing on European experts to help modernize various aspects of the state, and so the importation of a French schooling model was welcomed (Nikbakht, 2002). The schools were established through a process of new coordination (produced by a combination of brokerage and diffusion). The Alliance representatives consulted with local leaders and prominent community members before proceeding with plans to establish schools. Although AIU representatives collaborated in mobilizing moral and financial resources for the schools, local leaders were excluded from the structural and curriculum decision-making process (Cohen, 1986). Thus, only a quasi-coalition was formed, which excluded Iranian Jewish leaders from becoming wholly involved in the education process. Like Christian missionary schools, all administrators of Alliance schools were non-Iranian, until after the first cadre of graduates received formal education in France (Eshaghian, 1998; Malino, 2005).
Beyond its primary purpose of increasing social and economic mobility, I argue that the drive of the Iranian Jewish community to start and participate in modern schools was sustained by a combination of several other motives: first, the AIU presence provided protection and relief for Iranian Jews who faced fierce persecution and disparity in Muslim-dominated countries (Cohen, 1986). As part of the recruitment and relief strategy targeting the poorer population, clothing and food were provided for school children (Cohen, 1986). Second, Iranian Jews initially welcomed the initiative of European Jews who sought to offer Middle Eastern Jews secular knowledge and skills, as well as liberal mores, so as to facilitate their integration into non-Jewish society more easily (AIU, n.d.; Nikbakht, 2002). Third, Jewish-run schools provided an alternative to religious minority-run schools (which sometimes led to conversion or weakened ties with the community), or to government-run and Muslim schools which were inaccessible at the time (Netzer, 1985). Thus, group characteristics, particularly ideological orientation and the desire to advance their socioeconomic status was a primary driving force.
Leaders and members of the Iranian Jewish community never pursued modern schooling prior to seeing the Iraqi Jewish community thrive, nor did they consider it a religious obligation. It was the AIU organization that introduced the Iranian Jewish community to a new culture of education, brokered and diffused through its French representatives and eventually its Iranian Jewish graduates. Community leaders framed educational pursuit as a means of increasing social mobility and economic opportunities, but also to protect the Jewish community from conversion (Nikbakht, 2002). Through new network ties among Iranian, Iraqi, and European Jews the initiatives came to fruition. However, the culture shock presented by the pervasive Eurocentric and secularist orientation of the schools, with little and sometimes no emphasis on Jewish education, posed a challenge for Iranian Jewish community leaders, parents, and community members (Cohen, 1986). Thus, a boundary shift and activation was in the making—one that marked secular versus religious Jewish identity, and national versus transnational aspects of the religious community. This boundary shift would become an impetus for creating locally based Iranian Jewish schools, and decades later for soliciting help from Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States and Israel to reassert Jewish religious identity. However, their relationship remained cooperative (see AIU correspondence and reports, cited in Cohen, 1986).
From this embryonic cooperative relationship the Iranian and French Jewish communities were able to mobilize resources in forming the first set of schools in areas like Tehran, Isfahan, Hamadan, and Shiraz. Many of the Jewish maktab schools were intentionally dissolved so that students and previous Jewish religious scholars (khakham) could be incorporated into the modern schools (Cohen, 1986). Administrators and teachers were brought in from France, and schools were built with funds collected from the local congregation and contributions from AIU for the initiative. It is also important to note that among the various initiatives within the Jewish community, many individuals sent their children to other minority schools run by Christian missionaries and Baha’is (Arasteh, 1962; Rostam-Kolayi, 2008). As mentioned earlier, one of the supporting reasons for starting Jewish-run schools was to provide an alternative to these other schools. Thus, the ideological orientation of communal preservation factored into decisions to pursue education.
Several mechanisms were employed to carry forward the processes involved in importing the French modeled modern schools and their operation, including brokerage, diffusion, boundary activation and formation, certification, and emulation. These mechanisms combined and configured common processes that are usually present in the start-up of a school, including: mobilization, collective action, selective coalition formation, and new coordination. In addition, in the case of the Iranian Jewish community, five other processes were present, namely scale-shift, identity shift, assimilation, institutionalization, and framing.
The contribution of the organizational structure of AIU to the development of Iranian Jewish educational strategies should not be underestimated. It was their long-practiced systematic procedures for forming and operating schools that allowed for their relatively rapid diffusion and expansion throughout Iran. The general cooperation of Iranian Jewish community members with AIU representatives signaled the readiness for and the subsequent acceleration of coordination and collective action. Perhaps more than the Baha’i- and Christian-run schools, AIU schools emulated a foreign school model with very little adaptation to local culture and practices. This was a continued point of contention and struggle between the French and Iranian Jewish participants in the development and management of schools. The recognition of Jews in the Iranian Constitution started a process of institutionalization of the Iranian Jewish community into the government (see Chapter 5). The institutionalization of the Jewish community allowed organization leaders to provide education services to its community, and to include in-group particulars in the educational institutions, with protection from local and regional government—implicitly highlighting the role of the regime in facilitating the processes of starting and running the Jewish-run schools. These processes continued into the Pahlavi era. In fact, adjusting to the practice of assimilation became a hallmark of Jewish-run school for decades to come and into the period of the Islamic Republic.
Streams and Episodes Reza Shah’s launch of a modernization agenda, in addition to amicable state relations with the French, provided an open opportunity structure for Jewish-run schools. By the time the Shah came to power, eleven AIU schools[1] and three locally based Iranian Jewish-run schools were established in the country (American Jewish Committee Archives, 1930). In the context of Iranian Jewish educational strategy development, there are three major streams of contention and actuation for this period that I refer to as: (a) internal contention, (b) regime implementation of new policies, and (c) external configurations.
Internal contention. Three major challenges emerged with the introduction of AIU schools, issues related to: culture and language adaptation, religiosity and religious education, and ethnic disunity. These issues led to general contention within the community, and had a significant bearing on the selection process of subsequent strategies. Local schools arose partly in response to the AIU and other religious minority schools (Cohen, 1986; Nikbakht, 2002).
AIU was not only modeled after French schools, but the curriculum, structure, and content of subjects of most schools were almost entirely French-oriented (even celebrations revolving around events and prominent individuals associated with European Jewry). The language of instruction was solely French, with Persian and Hebrew sometimes used as an elective second language (Netzer, 1985). The provision of free clothing, hygiene, behavior and edict instruction, helped the general conditions for participants and bolstered the reputation of Iranian Jews in the general community, for which the community members were grateful. Thus, assimilation was framed as a necessity to improve living conditions (Cohen, 1986; AIU, n.d.).
However, many parents and leaders voiced concern for the lack of sensitivity and appreciation for the Iranian Jewish heritage. The primary challenges posed by French instruction in the first decades of the schools can be identified by limited learning retention, degraded or mediocre language acquisition, and illiteracy in Persian and Hebrew (to which only a few hours were devoted in a week). Hebrew was relegated to religious instruction, and Persian was completely absent at first.[2] This led to a series of confrontations between community leaders and members and the French AIU representatives. For example, in communities like Shiraz, Sanandaj, and Isfahan where the community spoke a Judeo-Persian dialect, the frustration reached such heights that parents withdrew their children because they were frustrated with the inadequate levels of learning (Cohen, 1986). Local Iranian Jewish community members were calling for more language and religious education. In some regions, there were adaptations, but in others there were none. AIU schools that adjusted—by increasing hours of instruction in Persian and taking cultural issues into consideration—were able to retain the support of the local community; in other areas, where no changes were made, learning was weak and degraded, attendance decreased, and some schools even closed (Cohen, 1986). However, many felt that the compromises did not outweigh the advantages that came with AIU modern schools (Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November 2009).
Lack of cultural consideration of the local community on the part of AIU representatives led to additional concerns about the lack of religious orientation in schools. This fueled existing contention. AIU schools were primarily secular, despite the supposed inclusion of Hebrew and Bible study (Schwarzfuchs and Malino, 2006). School administrators committed only marginal hours (if any) to the study of the Torah and Jewish subjects (Malino, 2005; Cohen, 1986). In the absence of religious schools, parents and community leaders voiced concern about the lack of attention given to religious studies. Several prominent AIU administrators and teachers did not see the usefulness of teaching Hebrew to Iranian Jews, and saw a greater need for their social and cultural education to integrate into non-Jewish society (Cohen, 1986). I argue that this led to boundary activation. Iranian Jews became acutely aware of their distinct Iranian Jewish heritage, as compared to the secular brand of Judaism practiced by some AIU representatives. The linguistic, cultural, and religious issues were among the motives for establishing locally based Iranian Jewish schools such the Koresh Schools in Rasht and Tehran.
Replete in Alliance reports and representative letters are sentiments that may be characterized as culturally prejudiced, with overtones bordering on racism. Even a cursory perusal of 23 different letters and reports reveals that many Alliance representatives attached derogatory labels to Iranian Jews. This, however, was more prevalent in some areas than in others, like Kermansah, Hamadan, Yazd, and Tehran (see statements cited in Cohen, 1986). In those areas where the attitude was blatantly prejudiced, tensions usually led to school closure or change in administration (see Table D1 for examples of responses to Alliance establishment).[3] Figure D1 illustrates the general sequence and outcomes of strategies adopted as a result of the interaction between AIU administrators and Iranian Jewish community members.
By and large, the AIU schools were welcomed, and are remembered in most contemporary Iranian Jewish histories as having given an important impetus for the socioeconomic advancement and improvement of living conditions during the Pahlavi era (Eshaghian, 1998, 2007; Netzer, 1985; Nikbakht, 2002; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 17 February 2009; Schwarzfuchs and Malino, 2006). Since it was difficult for AIU to mobilize enough teachers to settle in Iran, the administration sent talented and willing graduates to France to receive education and return as staff—a process I call external accreditation (Malino, 2005). It was not enough to undertake local training, but the external validation that training in France provided supported the assimilation goals of the AIU.
Government education expansion and policy implementation. As they did on other religious minority schools, three important government policies during the Reza Shah period had a profound impact on Jewish-run schools. These included the 1928 curricular requirements, the 1932 and 1936 government restrictions on foreign school enrolments and eventual takeover by the government, and the 1939 takeover and closure of all non-Iranian elementary and secondary schools. The first policy perhaps had the most serious effect on the Jewish schools. The latter two had almost no effect on the schools themselves, but significantly changed the educational landscape in Iran and thus the educational strategies of Iranian Jews.
The 1928 policy required Iranian Jewish-run schools, as well as all other nonstate schools, to incorporate fundamental changes, including the use of Persian as the language of instruction, the addition of several other courses on Iranian history, geography, and the study of Islam (thus de-emphasizing Western history; Sadiq, 1931). Most AIU schools made the transition to the new policies slowly, but showed little or no open resistance (not making even appeals to the government). The Iranian Jewish community had learned the strategy of assimilation, and applied it selectively. This included secretly teaching preferred subjects and language of instruction, but disguising with false class schedules on bulletin boards in case administrators visited (Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 17 February 2010). Thus, the AIU and other Iranian Jewish schools employed the strategy of selective assimilation, which entails the adoption of select elements of the broader system to benefit the group and avoid a negative reaction.
In 1932 and 1936, when the government first issued orders forbidding foreign schools from enrolling Iranian students and then taking over all non-Iranian primary schools, AIU schools were not included. This is especially peculiar, since the schools were under the French AIU, while other foreign missionary schools were taken over (such as those run by the Anglicans and Presbyterians). In my investigation, I find several likely explanations: first, the schools were co-registered or fully registered to the local Iranian Jewish community, which might have protected them from foreign status. Second, because of the good relations between the AIU and Iranian Jewish community and the government, the schools were framed as a local initiative and catered to Iranian students who studied according to government standards. Furthermore, as Soli Shahvar (personal communication, 24 February 2010) suggests, “France was never seen as a threat in the Iranian psyche, and were definitely not seen with the same eyes as Britain, Russia/Soviet Union or the USA.” Not only did the state-group relations provide favorable conditions for the Jewish-run schools, but the secular orientation of the AIU schools could have warded off concerns about any emphasis on religious and cultural loyalties. Finally, the Iranian educational system was based on the French lycée model, thus making the AIU schools look compatible.
Similarly, in 1939, when all foreign schools were taken over, the Jewish-run schools once again escaped co-optation by the government. This required them to further draw on the strategy of selective assimilation of the Iranian curriculum at all levels of education. This is further supported by the fact that other local Iranian Jewish schools were also not taken over during the 1939 reconfiguration of Ministry of Education policies. These contention-free episodes with the government illustrate the openness of the political opportunity structure for the Jewish community in Iran, and their ability to use framing and organizational network ties to keep schools afloat (Cohen, 1986; Netzer 1985). Despite the sustainability of Jewish-run schools, the expansion, increasing quality, and receptivity of government-run schools attracted many Iranian Jews. In additional to other significant factors, this led to reconfiguration of strategies and innovations during the second epoch of the Pahlavi period.
External configuration and innovation. With the abdication of the Shah in 1941, the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah maintained an open political opportunity structure for Iranian Jewish schools and offered them educational opportunities. After decades of experience with modern schooling, the Iranian Jewish community had gradually adopted an education-oriented outlook, considered as part and parcel of the path toward social mobility and economic prosperity, which created a significant change in their composition and characteristics. This was an idea that was framed and emulated throughout the Iranian Jewish communities in Iran. With the coalescing of an educated class, Iranian Jews were being hired by the government and foreign companies. In other words, the composition and characteristics of the community had changed from an insular, isolated and generally uneducated group, to that of an outward looking, integrative, and educated community. A new generation of educated parents continued to send their children to modern schools. As one source relates, educational strategies may have changed in detail, but it was dominated by a drive toward professions which would allow Iranian Jews to relocate quickly and avoid the risk or danger of damage to shops and property (Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June, 2009).
With the diffusion of Zionism by Western-educated Iranian Jews and the eventual formation of Israel, Iranian Jewish community leaders began to establish network ties with British, American, and Israeli Jewish communities and organizations (Rahimiyan, 2008a). One noticeable shift in educational strategy was associated with the reasserted Jewish identity. With only partial success in persuading AIU schools to increase religious education, Iranian Jews connected with foreign Jewish leaders who showed an interest in the religiosity and circumstances facing Mizrahi Jews[4]—either through personal contact or through correspondence (Ozar Hatorah, n.d.). This new connection enabled some Iranian Jewish leaders to solicit help in focusing on the religious education of Iranian Jews. It is important to note that the Iranian Jewish community never made moves that would fall out of alignment with the Pahlavi regime—it maintained good standing even during sporadic outbreaks of anti-Semitism.
The most prominent manifestation of international brokerage and diffusion of new educational efforts took place in 1947, with the establishment of the first Ozar Hatorah School in Iran. The Ozar Hatorah was an organization established by a partnership of Isaac Shalam (a Syrian Jew who had immigrated to the United State), Joseph Shamah and Ezra Teubal (in Jerusalem) in 1945, to provide education to Mizrahi Jews. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a relief and welfare organization, had sent Rabbi Isaac Lew to Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East to evaluate the conditions of the Jewish communities (Ozar Hatorah, n.d.; Kadosh, 2007). During his travels in Iran, he reported witnessing weak religiosity and poor social conditions among the Iranian Jewish community, and brokered a connection between local Iranian Jews, the JDC, and the Ozar Hatorah network to establish and diffuse religion and secular schools in Iran (Kadosh 2007; Ozar Hatorah, n.d.; Ozar Hatorah, 2007). These schools not only provided rich education in Judaic subjects, but also included secular subjects, and free meals and clothing for Iranian Jewish children. The international network of the Iranian Jewish community grew from having principal ties with Iraqi and French Jews, to including American, Israeli, Russian, and British Jews as well. Within the first 30 years after establishing its first school, there were a total of 41 schools and programs for Iranian Jewish boys and girls throughout Iran[5] (not at the same time; American Jewish Yearbook, 1976; Ozar Hatorah, n.d.; “Ozar Hatorah,” 2007). These schools were smaller as compared to other mid-scale and larger public and community-run schools with enrolments in the hundreds. By the 1950s, having learned from the mistake of alienating local Jews, Alliance representatives connected with the new Ozar Hatorah schools to handle the Jewish subjects and Hebrew language instruction in their schools (Netzer 1985; Nikbakht, 2002). The strong Jewish leadership, which had been educated in secular, French-language, Jewish-run schools, was now steering the Iranian Jewish community toward a middle ground. I argue that it was as a result of resources through networks that this integration of secular and Jewish studies was possible.
After the creation of Israel in 1948, The Joint Distribution Committee mobilized a campaign to populate Israel, by supporting the immigration of European as well as Mizrahi Jews (Kadosh, 2007). This opened opportunities for lower-class Jews to find opportunities outside Iran. The increased attention of foreign Jewish communities towards Middle Eastern Jewry expanded a pool of resources that had not been accessible until this period. The amicable relations between Israel and Iran bore on state-group relations; and transnational community networks ties were strengthened. Two tracks of educational strategies moved forward from 1950 to 1979. The first track included the continued creation and maintenance of Jewish-run schools, which included substantial religious education as a component. The second involved the rapid rate of integration of Jewish children into government schools, as a result of the open opportunity structure for Iranians who supported the modernization of the state.
In 1947, with the aid of an affluent and prominent Iraqi-Iranian Jewish donor, Meyer Abdu’llah, local congregation community funds, and support from other community members in Baghdad, the Iraqi Jewish Committee founded the Ettefaugh School in Tehran (Daghighian, 1998). This local school was not only structured after modern schools, but it included a strong Persian program, in addition to religious activities adequate to satisfy the community (Darshi, 1997). The network tie between the Iraqi-Iranian Jewish community and the Iraqi Jewish community in Baghdad was retained through family and organizational connections, and was the means through which the educational initiative was founded. The student body was primarily made up of Iranian-Iraqi Jews living in Tehran,[6] although by the 1970s, 20 percent of the 2,000 students consisted of Muslims, Baha’is, Christians, and Zoroastrians (Nikbakht and Hojat-Panah, 1999).
Social assimilation was a central strategy of the broader Iranian Jewish community. Thus, the school’s structure and policies shifted according to prospective changes in group-regime and international relations. For example, when tensions arose between the Anglo-American interests and Prime Minister Mossadeq’s administration in the 1950s, the school administrators made a bold shift to the Iranian curriculum (abandoning the British model), cautious of backlash from the government (Nikbakht and Hojat-Panah, 1999; Beroukhim, 1997). Emphasizing association with different network affiliates to keep good favor with the regime would become a strategy employed even later during the regime of the Islamic Republic. The change in the curriculum caused some setbacks internally, but with the appointment of Beroukhim as principle and his recruitment of teachers from the well-reputed Albourz College, the school got back on track (Beroukhim, 1997; Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November 2009). Funding for subsequent management of the school was provided almost entirely by the congregation, and the principals of the school were under the supervision of the Iraqi-Iranian Jewish Committee.
While schools such as the AIU, Ettefaugh and others existed until the Revolution in 1979—and into the Islamic Republic—by the 1950s, the number of Jewish schools and the enrollment declined. First, the increasing number of government-run schools facilitated religious minority children, as they did Muslims and others, emphasizing an Iranian identity. Second, many Jews had left smaller cities for urban areas like Tehran and Shiraz, where there was greater opportunity, rendering schools in other areas unsustainable. For example, organizations in cities such as Kashan, Borujerd, Sanandaj, Urumieh, and Yazd disintegrated, and so did many of their Jewish schools (Yashayaei, 2003). Figure D2 illustrates the rise and decline of Jewish-run schools over the course of the Pahlavi era.
The predominant Iranian Jewish education strategies during the last two decades of the Pahlavi era focused on integration into the expanded public school system and migration to seek educational opportunity wherever available. Government schools were not only multiplying in those cities where the majority of Jews were living, but the quality of government schools was also increasing. Iranian Jews were accepted in schools, and despite random and sporadic harassment by some students and teachers, the period was characterized by high levels of tolerance and facilitation. Additionally, with a pervasive and successful nationalization process, Iranian Jews saw themselves as having two noncontradictory identities: one Iranian, the other Jewish (Faryar Nikbakht, person communication, 2 November 2009). By emphasizing their secular Iranian identity in the public sphere, they were able to enjoy greater access to educational, economic, and social mobility than if they emphasized their Jewish identity (anonymous Jewish leader, personal communication, 23 March 2009; Farahani, 2005). Thus, the characteristic of Jews shifted and was less polarized than in earlier periods. In like manner, higher education was also sought to build on the community’s acculturated Western-style education. For decades Iranian Jews participated in both the AIU and government study abroad programs, returning home to build up the community’s educated class.
Summary. Over the course of several decades of modern schooling, the composition and characteristics of the Iranian Jewish community changed. The growing number and strength of international ties also influenced the types of strategies available to the community. Finally, not only the institutionalization of Jews as a recognized group, but also their good standing with the government throughout both epochs facilitated various shifts, and allowed for growth, development, and integration. Additionally, there was an increase in network ties, and consequently in resources and framing processes available to Iranian Jewish community leaders and educators. I explain this by the open flow within the educational opportunity dynamic during the Pahlavi period for Iranian Jews.
Christians under the Pahlavi Monarchs In examining the case of Christian communities in Iran during the Pahlavi era, I observe two levels of processes. Where possible I analyze mid-scale processes to identify strategies and explanations for their selection, but also consider large-scale educational processes when information is sparse. An analysis of how modern schooling was initially introduced, developed, and accessed by the Christian communities in Iran[7] will provide an understanding of those processes which shaped educational strategy selection during the Pahlavi period.
The case of the Iranian Christian communities is unique because modern schooling was originally initiated by foreign missionaries and not by the local communities; it was Christian missionaries who first introduced the idea of modern schooling to Iran. Moreover, because there are multiple denominations among the local and foreign missionary Christian groups, there are often parallel and overlapping processes at play. During the first epoch of the Pahlavi era, the educational strategies of these local Christian communities were tied to the missionaries’ initiatives, and thus the discussion of strategy selection involves looking at the initiatives of both missionaries and the local community. I focus analysis on the Presbyterian and Anglican education missionary work and Apostolic Armenian Christian initiatives in the context of Iranian Christian strategies in education.
The first semblance of modern schooling in Iran was introduced by American Presbyterians in 1837, followed by the French Lazarists in 1839 (Hadidi, 2001) and the Anglican Church Missionary Society in 1876 (Richards, 1933). In addition to foreign education initiatives, the Iranian-Armenian Apostolic prelacy established schools beginning in 1843 (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987), followed by Assyrians and Chaldeans some time later.[8] The foundations of most of these schools lasted into the Pahlavi era, and some continued into the Islamic Republic period.
The Presbyterian and Anglican missions set out to revitalize the Christian communities in Iran, proselytizing and converting other Christian sects and non-Christians, and providing health and education services to local Christians, Muslims, and other Iranian minorities.[9] The missionary schools attracted local Christians, primarily because of the additional services accompanying the schools (free food, cleaning, and skill building in crafts). Iranian ethnic Christian communities, particularly the Armenians, established schools in response to missionary efforts (Berberian, 2000). Apostolic Church leaders and community members were concerned that the missionary-run schools would diminish Armenian cultural and religious identity, and lead to increased conversion to Protestantism and Anglicanism (Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). After much debate, the Apostolic Armenian community established special schools for Armenian girls, by framing them as a means of educating Armenian women in their roles as wives, mothers, and the first teachers of the future generation of community members (Berberian, 2009). I suggest that considering the firm reaction to missionaries, as well as later contention with the regimes, Armenian Church leaders positioned education in all respects within the context of its potential to preserve cultural and religious values first, and secondarily to provide secular knowledge and skills.
Missionary schools received resources primarily from the countries in which their missions were based, but also from tuition and local fundraisers. In addition to the services provided by missionaries, Armenians received resources through network ties to Armenia (specifically the Apostolic Church and community organizations), as well as from the local Armenian-Iranian congregation. The American and British schools recruited teachers from their own countries, and often employed locals to assist in language instruction and translation. After several cohorts of Iranian student graduated, missionary school-administrators trained local Christian converts to teach classes as well (Allen, 1918; Arasteh, 1962). Armenian-Iranian schools drew from administrators and teachers trained in Armenia to establish the first schools, and subsequently trained Armenian-Iranians to teach as well (Howard, 1931; Richards, 1933). A strong coalition formed among members of the local and transnational Apostolic Church over time, as the focus on cultural preservation intensified. While the Armenian community had practiced isolation for centuries, new boundaries were forming, separating them even from other Christian denominations. Missionary schools did not collaborate with local leaders of the Christian community, but rather made direct ties with prominent community members and government officials to establish schools (Richards, 1933). This was due, in part, to resistance by local ethnic Christian leaders (Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). While drawing on human and material resources from transnational networks, the local Armenian religious leadership and its appointed committees managed their own Armenian-Iranian schooling initiatives. New schools were emulated and spread by missionaries (Zirinsky, 1993b), but also through educators directed by Apostolic Church community organizers for Armenian-Iranians schools (Berberian, 2000).
Unlike the Baha’i and Jewish education initiatives, coalitions were not formed between ethnic Christian Church leaders and Western co-religionists. However, the presence of Anglican and Presbyterians in Iran, and their conversion efforts, galvanized existing identity boundaries for Armenians and Assyrians. Sectarian division prevailed. This led to coalition formation within each ethnic community and their transnational networks. Thus, I suggest that community characteristics and composition played perhaps the most significant role in educative initiatives started by Christians in Iran. It is important to note that while there was a clear divide between missionaries and ethnic leaders, local Christian communities still participated in missionary schools.
At various junctures, processes played out differently in the education initiatives of missionaries and local Christian groups. Armenian-Iranian community leaders and members co-opted a new role as authorized providers of educational services for their community, appointing education committees to act on their behalf. Missionaries believed they were acting in the interest of Iranians, particularly Christian communities, by providing moral and secular schooling in order to revitalize their communities.[10] Network ties existed between all groups, despite existing competition among them. In the early days of missionary schools, most pupils were Armenian and Assyrians, and thus these communities drew from the resources being channeled to British and American missions from their respective home communities. In response, Armenian Christian leaders developed new types of coalitions with their transnational community members in establishing schools and educational opportunity for community members, thus strengthening ties that were underdeveloped before the rivalry between the two Christian groups (i.e., missionaries and local community leadership). In other words, missionaries and local Christian leadership tended to compete for Christian students. It is important to mention that Apostolic Armenian-run schools recruited only Armenian students. This was an intrinsic element of their isolationist strategy which developed in reaction to the conversion efforts of missionaries.
Other processes continued to shape education strategies. Ethno-religious community leaders signaled to in-group community members the need for action to meet educational demands, and thus called for coordinated and collective action, as well as polarization between alien Christian denominations and culturally religious tradition. Missionaries framed schooling as a moral and social service, with added benefits. Local ethnic Christian community leaders framed the need for schooling in similar terms, but with the overriding goal of preserving cultural and religious integrity. In the process of schooling, identities either became polarized and reaffirmed (i.e., Apostolic Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans) or shifted through conversion, with Armenians, Assyrians, and Iranians changing sectarian affiliation. Globalization processes were present through the importation of foreign education models into Iran. Missionaries mobilized resources from host countries (government and religious-affiliated organizations), which included the recruitment of administrators and teachers, collection of funds for associated costs, and external certification by Western states. Armenians drew resources from transnational networks but also from their local congregations (Papazian, 1987). These multiple processes shaped and shifted for decades throughout the Pahlavi era.
During the first epoch of the Pahlavi era, Christians in Iran had access to four different portals to modern schooling: missionary-run schools, locally based ethnic Christian schools, government schools, and non-Christian religious minority-run schools. Missionary schools as well as local Armenian schools successively increased enrollments during the initial years of Reza Shah’s rule (Zirinsky, 1993b). Initially Reza Shah welcomed Western missionary schools, which seemed to be equipping young Iranians with modern skills and orientation, moving them away from the traditional maktab-style education which had been prevalent in past centuries. In fact, many government officials and societal elite sent their children to Christian-run schools (Zirinsky, 1993a; Rostam-Kolayi, 2008).
The education initiatives were generally framed by local community and missionary leaders in four ways: (a) modern schooling would improve the moral conduct and religiosity of children; (b) modern schooling would provide practical skills to children that could be used in work and society (enhancing quality of life); (c) modern schooling was in alignment with the regime’s agenda and would provide the know-how and mores required to increase socioeconomic status in Iran; and, in the case of ethno-religious Christian-run schools, (d) modern schooling would provide a space for community children to acquire a solid cultural foundation and keep children safe from proselytizing foreign Christian sects (Berberian, 2000; Hoare, 1937; Richard, 1933; Zirinsky, 1993a). Table D2 shows some of the main locations of the various schools available to all Christians in Iran during the Pahlavi era. Calculations for the number of schools are inconsistent in primary sources, with the result that total counts sometimes do not distinguish between a one-room classroom and a full-fledged modern school.
While forbidden from directly teaching the Bible to Muslim students as a means of conversion, missionaries framed the use of the Bible as a means of moral education and other classes as a means of training a skilled generation (Doolittle, 1983). Venues for schools expanded to accommodate merging one-room schools, necessitated by increased student enrolment and new trained teachers and administrators (Richards, 1933). Unlike the AIU schools, the Presbyterians and Anglicans set out to teach classes in the language of the students, adopting a cultural adaptation approach to schooling (Arasteh, 1962; Richards, 1933). However, because of lack of capacity, educators would often resort to using English as the main language of instruction (Rostam-Kolayi, 2008).
Streams and Episodes In observing educational efforts, I analyze three mid-scale streams during the regime of Reza Shah, and one large-scale stream during the second epoch of the Pahlavi era. The regime’s education policies during the first epoch had a detrimental impact on the cultural dimensions of Christian educational opportunities. Likewise, the regime’s nationalization campaign eventually inhibited foreign missionary education efforts, especially because of their ties to Western powers. Nonetheless, the initial contentious interaction that shaped educational strategies for Christians in Iran was born out of the competition between Apostolic Armenian, as well as Assyrian and Chaldean leadership, and the missionary efforts from America and Europe. Thus, the first stream of contention involved inter-denominational strife. Both ethnic and missionary Christians would experience a confrontation with the aggressive educational campaign of the Pahlavi regime. While encountering the same imposed government policies, missionary and ethnic Christian schools dealt with regime contention in different ways. At times, there is an overlap of contentious interactions among missionaries, ethnic Christians, and the regime. The segregation of these streams can be partly explained by several processes, including the reinforced activation of ethnic and identity boundaries, the lack of coalition formation between ethnic and missionary Christian education efforts, and competition between the two.
The first stream that shaped Christian educational strategies in Iran goes back to the contentious interaction between Armenian-Iranian leadership and missionary Christians. The perennial tension that existed between the Apostolic Christian community and missionaries in Iran has been noted in several sources (Bartlett, 1894; Berberian, 2000, 2009; Bournoutian, 1994). It is important to mention two features of this contention: first, the competition for students was focused primarily on the cultural and ideological orientation of schools; second, the rivalry was instigated by the Apostolic Church (Arasteh, 1962; Berberian, 2009). In Yazd, Tehran, and Isfahan, Armenian Church leaders appealed to the government and local Shi’i clerics, in personal communications, to put a stop to Western missionary activity targeting the local community (Arasteh, 1962; Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). Armenian-Iranian community leaders simultaneously solicited aid from the Apostolic Church in Armenia to start modern schools in Iran. The appeals to the government were only partially effective, as the government responded only by passing restrictive regulations on proselytizing and teaching non-Christian children (Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). Apostolic Armenian schools fostered community development and vitality in those regions where schools were established (Berberian, 2009; Howard, 1931; Richards, 1933). While the contention between the groups did limit missionary activity among Muslims, the rivalry between the groups led the Apostolic Church to becoming innovative and education-oriented. The boundary activation, coalition efforts within and outside the country among Armenians, and diffusion of anti-missionary rhetoric likely boosted mobilization efforts to increase enrolments and expansion. To reiterate, the use of frames to emphasize cultural preservation and boundary activation was a key educational strategy. Although information is scant on particulars in the general contention, the drive to preserve culture only became more intense with the passage of time, and subsequently affected how strategies that were chosen played out when confronted with new contention with the regime.
Government intervention. In 1927 and 1928, the Ministry of Education issued a circular to all nonstate modern schools outlining the new policies set by the Ministry of Education (Rostam-Kolayi, 2008; Sadiq, 1931). The new education policies were aligned with other educational campaign efforts of the Pahlavi regime (see Chapter 4). The new regulations stipulated that foreign schools were to use official syllabi produced by the Ministry of Education for all classes up to the 4th grade—including the implementation of a nationalized government textbook—that Persian be used as the language of instruction, and that Iranian geography and history be included along with other subjects based on the French lycée system, a program in Arabic and Persian literature at the upper grade levels, and a standardized matriculation exam at the end of secondary education (Matthee, 1993; Menashri, 1992; Sadiq, 1931). Moreover, Christian schools were required to teach the history of Islam and Islamic law, and were forbidden to teach Christian subjects to Muslim students. State holidays were also to be observed, which meant restructuring the academic year calendar (Doolittle, 1983).
There were three general responses to the government policies: wholesale acceptance; acceptance and appeal to modify aspects of the policies; failure to comply (by resistance or lack of capacity). Depending on the reaction to government policies, several strategies remained available. The government had restricted the opportunity structure and triggered new boundaries in group-regime relations which had a directly bearing on group mobilization and collective action. Among schools which accepted the regulations, there were some which implemented the reforms, but made sufficient changes enough to appease Ministry of Education inspectors. Others attempted to genuinely align schooling procedures with those standards to avoid closure (Doolittle, 1983; Richards, 1933). Anglican and some Armenian schools adopted this strategy. Presbyterians adopted the strategy of selective adaptation, adopting the policies while simultaneously appealing to officials on the local and national level to make modifications. Many of the ethnic Christian schools (run by local community leaders or by missionaries) closed down, either in resistance to the new policies, or because they lacked the capacity to comply with the new requirements, or because the government offered incentives for pupils to leave those schools and attend state-run schools (Gillespie, 1928; Howard, 1931; McComb, 1928; Richards, 1933).
Anglican—and presumably some Armenian-run schools in the southern half of Iran—adopted the policies, but many were reluctant to implement the regulations. They adjusted to the situation by adding the required courses, omitting those that were banned, and finding ways to supplement subjects and content which were already included in the core curriculum of the schools—such as moral and cultural education (Richards, 1933). This latter strategy was particular evident in Isfahan and Yazd in the Anglican-run schools (Richard, 1933). I identify three processes in the acceptance response, including integration, selective assimilation, and institutionalization.
The Presbyterian schools adapted to the policies after reluctantly accepting the regulations and making appeals. For example, in the course of their communication with the Prime Minister, Samuel Jordan and Arthur Boyce, educational administrators in Tehran, were able to negotiate with the government and broker a deal whereby Christian-run schools did not have to teach subjects related to Islam, and were allowed to continue using the Bible for moral instruction if they sold the schools in northwestern Iran which were targeting ethnic groups (Zirinsky, 1993a). The head of the Nurbakhsh School and Sage College in Tehran, Jane Doolittle (1983) relates that while the school went through some structural and curricular changes, the administrators and teachers were able to sustain the objective of moral education. Adaptation moved beyond mere acceptance, and progressed to additional processes, including contention (letters of appeal), re-framing objectives of missionary education from religious motivation to secular service—in other words, a boundary shift—and coordinated and collective action in securing particular rights for select schools. The composition and networks of American- and British- run school administrators gave the missionaries an advantage that was beyond the reach of the isolated Armenian and Assyrian communities.
In areas such as Tehran and Uremia, some Armenian, Assyrian, and other smaller missionary schools outside of the large cities resisted the policies, and continued to use their own preferred language of instruction and subject matters (i.e., particularly religious and cultural; Amurian & Kasheff, 1987; Berberian, 2000). The resistance was shaped by processes including coordinated action, boundary activation, framing, escalation, polarization, and collective action. In Tabriz, Azerbaijan, and Uremia, the failure to change policies was likely the result of insufficient human resources to teach in Persian, since the language of instruction was solely Armenian (Arasteh, 1962). Certain other circumstances resulted in compliance failure, including demobilization, downward scale-shift, and broader institutionalization (i.e., subject to following imposed standards to keep other special rights). In both cases of resistance and default noncompliance, it is likely that the previous strategy of framing Armenian schools as a means of cultural preservation would have influenced decisions to resist or close schools, if the alternative would compromise the fundamental integrity of Armenian Christian culture and ideology. (Berberian, 2000; Grettie Holliday, 1917, cited in Zirinsky, 1993b; Howard, 1933).
Government control. The association of missionary schools with imperial powers was a significant impetus for contention that arose between the regime and Christian-run schools. Most Christian-run schools, whether local or missionary, complied with government regulations as a strategy to remain open, but pushed to retain unique features, such as bible study and closure on the Sunday Sabbath (Doolittle, 1983; Zirinsky, 1993a). However, in 1932, the government issued new regulations forbidding foreign- run primary schools from enrolling Iranian students (Richards, 1933, Zirinsky, 1993b). Furthermore, remaining schools had to change foreign names to reflect Iranian ones. Although local ethnic Christian groups made great efforts to avoid confrontation with their Muslim counterparts, the missionary efforts of European and American Christians stirred the hostility of local Muslim clergy and inhabitants in various regions, particularly in the southern half of Iran (Richards, 1933). In several incidents prior to these government policies, schools were attacked or even temporarily shut down because of the rising opposition (Ferrin, 1929, cited in Rostam-Kolayi, 2008; Gillespie, 1928; McComb, 1928). In order to maintain ownership and management of their other schools after the 1932 edict, I argue that missionaries conceded by relinquishing control of primary schools that consisted of Muslim majority students, and in some cases acquiesced to forced closure (Richards, 1933; Zirinsky, 1993a). This reflects how past escalation of school attacks and closures influenced the choice of less confrontational or perhaps more tactful strategies in addressing the changes demanded by the government’s education policies. To reiterate, the goal of the missionary schools was to provide Iranians with moral and religious education, and to increase the influence of Christian values on students; ethnic schools taught religious values but education was tied to the primary objective of cultural (ethnic) preservation.
This second episode also represents the predominant view among Pahlavi officials, that missionary schools were a block to progress and a reminder of old empire relations with the West. The Court Minister Taymurtash condemned missionary activity as “undesirable religious propaganda” and conveyed to Charles Hart, the U.S. Diplomatic Chief of Mission to Iran, that Iran, “We must get rid of missionaries.” (Charles Hart, 1931 cited in Zirinksy, 1993b, p 349). The Iranian government set out to expand its influence through education to lessen foreign schooling (Arasteh, 1962). There were generally two responses on the part of the Christian community: first, schools would be closed with no follow-up action. Students who had attended these schools enrolled in government run schools, other religious minority schools, or none at all—adopting the strategy of integration. Second, although missionary-run schools demobilized, private classes were coordinated in some areas that included religious and secular subjects—a parallel schooling effort that focused primarily on moral education (Doolittle, 1983; Fisher, 1940). The new policy affected all Christian schools, with the significant exception of those that were co-run by Iranians administrators. For example, in Shiraz, the Anglican girls’ school remained open because the principle was considered an Iranian national (Richards, 1933). Several upper-grade schools (three for boys and four for girls) and a pair of colleges remained open under the leadership of the Presbyterian mission (Board of Foreign Missionaries, 1939). The Anglican schools in the southern part of Iran also complied, and closed schools in Isfahan, Kerman, and Yazd (Howard, 1931; Richards, 1933). While some of these schools tried, through the use of diplomatic ties, to remain open despite the policy, the government succeeded in persuading the Armenian and Assyrian Christians in particular to send children to government schools, dealing a significant blow to Christian-run schools (Richards, 1933; Zirinsky, 1993b).
Government domination. In 1936, marking the third episode, the government aggressively pushed to take over non-Iranian schools. By the mid-1930s, the regime had committed significant resources to its education campaign (Menashri, 1992; see Chapter 4). In due course, missionary and foreign schools were again pressured to change the curriculum substantially, by significantly lessening secondary language instruction, forcing the inclusion of Islamic subjects, and omitting Christian-oriented content altogether. The government began taking over missionary and ethnic Christian schools between 1936 and 1940, by forcing them to sell them the schools (Zirinsky, 1993b). From one perspective, the regime was facilitating a process of demobilization of Christian education efforts in order to merge diverse populations into the systematized government Iranian national schools. For example, many teachers who taught at those missionary schools which were being shut down, went on to teach at government schools; similarly students from these schools enrolled in government schools (Arasteh, 1962).
The Armenian Christian community took the brunt of the nationalized education initiatives. By order of the Shah, all non-Iranian primary and many secondary schools were shut down, including nearly all Armenian schools in Azerbaijan and Tabriz (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987). The isolationist drive of the Armenian-Iranian Christian community—an ideological and cultural characteristic that was noticeably activated when missionary schools began their work in the community—polarized them from the Shah’s monolithic image of the Iranian citizen. Another factor that weakened the efforts of the missionary educators was the partial withdrawal of U.S. State Department certification of their efforts, believing that missionaries were “persistently remaining in a place where they are emphatically not wanted” (1932, cited in Zirinsky 1993b, p. 350).
In 1939, the government ordered all existing schools to come under the control and management of the state. By 1941, despite many appeals, nearly all Christian foreign and ethnic schools were taken over by the Ministry of Education (Board of Foreign Missions, 1940; Dodds, 1940). Many of the missionary faculty members were replaced by Iranian administrators and teachers (Doolittle, 1983; Irvine, 2008; Zirinsky, 1993a). Students were channeled into government run schools, and few attended the Jewish Alliance Universelle Israelite schools that had remained opened. The vacuum left by the closure of ethnic Christian schools was partially filled by religious classes held at churches. However, this situation changed during the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah, when ethnic Christian-run schools and foreign (non–missionary oriented) schools reopened (Irvine, 2008). Figure D3 represents the sequential outcome of interaction involving Christian school choices in response to government policies from 1928–1939.
Muhammad Reza and a stream of actuation. There are some identifiable large-scale educational processes during the reign of Muhammad Reza with regard to Armenian-Iranian schools. During his regime, the heavy-handed restrictions on foreign schools were lifted. Beginning in 1943, many Armenian schools that had been closed were now reopened or reorganized into larger schools, sponsored by individuals or the community (Sanasarian, 1995). Most of these were under the leadership of the local and regional Apostolic Armenian prelacies, who appointed education boards of directors. However, missionary schools lost their momentum and identity (Doolittle, 1983; Irvine, 2008). By the early 1950s, it was the government-run schools which provided modern schooling for most minority groups (Arasteh, 1962; Menashri, 1992). Many missionary educational institutions, such as Alborz College, Nurbakhsh, and Iranzamin, transferred ownership to either the government or private parties, retaining the high standard and prestigious reputation that they had obtained during the missionary years (Armajani, 1985; Doolittle, 1983; Irvine, 2006; Zirinsky, 2009). In the 1960s, the Anglican and Presbyterian missionary organizations handed over leadership of the Christian community to the modest-numbered Iranian evangelical community (Arasteh, 1962). Thus several prominent processes may be identified, including integration, upward scale shift of Armenian schools through expansion, collective action and coalition re-formation to run schools, boundary re-activation, and institutionalization. All schools complied with standardized regulations of the Ministry of Education. Armenian schools that were established continued to multiply, and included emphasis on Armenian language, history, and culture (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987).
Despite the absence of foreign missionary activity during the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah, the government tolerated local Christian educational pursuits. Armenian and other ethnic Christian schools were allowed to reopen, on condition that Persian would be the principal language of instruction, with Armenian and Syriac to be used for religious studies and secondary language education (8–10 hours a week; Amurian & Kasheff, 1987). During the 1960s and 1970s, Armenians began experiencing facilitation by the government in the form of approval to expand schools, churches, and libraries, access to government and military positions, permission to create and maintain cultural centers and organizations, and tolerance of increasing the hours allotted to Armenian language in classes (Bournoutian, 1994).
This process of educational expansion within the limits of the community reinforced the distinct boundary of Armenian-Iranian identity, while allowing for integration into the public sector as Iranian citizens. According to Bournoutian (1994), nearly four dozen schools and libraries were established during the entire period of Pahlavi rule. Many others selected the strategy of integration, particularly those in urban areas. By the end of the Pahlavi era, nearly all Armenian children attended Armenian schools (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987). Like the Jewish and Baha’i communities, the education opportunity structure for participating in state-run schools was open—primarily as a result of improved regime-group relations. Networks with transnational community members in Armenia and the United States continued to provide resources and the facilitated the cohesion of group characteristics and composition. Framing culture and religion as inseparable helped to sustain the isolationist orientation. While contention was a process that formed missionary educational strategies in the first epoch of the Pahlavi era, it was not noticeable during the rule of Muhammad Reza Shah, because bids to open and expand schools were tolerated by the government.
Summary. In reviewing the range of Christian communities’ educational strategies during the Pahlavi era, I explain several prominent strategies, particularly unique ones such as isolation among ethnic groups and competition between denominations. As discussed above, contextual factors such as group composition and characteristic of different Christian groups (i.e., denominations), their networks, and finally their dynamically changing relation with the regime influenced the ways in which strategies were implemented but also, more importantly, which strategies were available to them.
Baha’is under the Pahlavi Monarchy I observe two scales of processes for Iranian Baha’is during the Pahlavi era. For the epoch of Reza Shah, I draw on small-scale processes and mechanisms, and highlight micro-scale interactions for support. For the epoch of Muhammad Reza, I look at mid-scale processes and mechanisms to reflect the general increase in educational opportunities for the Baha’i community and their subsequent strategies. To set the stage, it is important to consider how educational opportunities and strategies developed prior to the Pahlavi period. A brief look at the educational developmental processes during this period highlights subsequent choices made by the Iranian Baha’i community.
Social conditions were extremely harsh for Baha’is during the Qajar period until 1895–1900 (Tavakoli-Targhi, 2008). As a result, most Baha’i communities initiated small classes in homes and small local centers, using private tutors where possible. For general studies, they sent their children to larger cities. The first modern Baha’i school was established 1898–1899 in Tehran, ushering in a wave of other modern Baha’i-run schools throughout Iran (Sabet, 1997). There were three reasons for this pursuit of modern schools, which included secular and religious education: the education of children was a religious obligation (Abdu’l-Baha trans. in Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1976); the education of girls in particular was of primary importance to Baha’is (Abdu’l-Baha trans. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1986); and other schools were unavailable or inaccessible, potentially dangerous, or had limited capacity during this period.
By the end of the 19th century, despite continued hostility toward Baha’is by some Shi’i clergy and adherents, the regime under Muzaffar al-Din Shah provided the political opportunity structure for Baha’is which enabled them to register individual Baha’is in schools, but did not extend the privilege to the community as a recognized group (Shahvar, 2009). Abdu’l-Baha, the community’s leader at the time, laid out the basic mandate for starting modern schools, and framed the need for secular and religious education as a binding imperative (trans. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1976). In addition to resources mobilized by Baha’i communities in Iran, Abdu’l-Baha solicited the support of members of the American Baha’i community in contributing to these education efforts.[11] American travelers also partnered with Iranian Baha’i educators in developing modern standards and curriculum. Local Baha’i communities and individual Baha’is extended support (including teacher salaries, materials, and venues) when families were unable to cover associated costs. Over time, Baha’i maktab khaneh (small, private religious class) and smaller schools were ready to scale up into full-fledged modern schools.
Several identifiable mechanisms went into the process of mobilizing and collectively acting to meet educational needs, including: framing, brokerage, diffusion, boundary shift, and certification. Abdu’l-Baha rallied the Baha’i community in adopting the ideological importance of education, by framing it as a religious duty and as a contribution toward their social well-being. The modern school model was diffused throughout the Iranian Baha’i community by educators from America and other Iranian Baha’i scholars, who had previous experience, and who were able to network with other educators (in and out of Iran)(Armstrong-Ingram, 1986; Clock 1919, 1920; Hakim, 1919; Moody, 1921). Initially, it was Abdu’l-Baha, from his home in Haifa, who brokered the connection between American Baha’is and Iranian Baha’is, and shifted the boundary of their identity from being simply an Iranian Baha’i community to being part of a transnational religious community. Subsequently, American travelers and educators joined Iranian Baha’i leaders and organizers in diffusing the methods and practices for modern schools to places that had no standing initiative. Notably, Christian missionaries had introduced modern schooling decades earlier, so the idea was not entirely new (Perkins, 1843). The combination of brokerage and diffusion facilitated the process of coordinating plans to start schools. Baha’i organizational leaders marshaled material and human resources from local congregations and American Baha’i donors in establishing schools, buying equipment, training teachers, and providing supplies. Abdu’l-Baha certified the efforts of the Baha’i community in establishing modern schools (trans. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1976), which received positive endorsement by some American and European government agencies (Shahvar, 2009).
In an effort to meet the educational demands of Iranian Baha’is, these various mechanisms combined to form a number of different processes, including (a) mobilization, (b) collective action, (c) coalition formation, (d) new coordination , (e) scale-shift, and (f) globalization. These processes revolved around establishing schools, but later included advocacy for and defense of rights for Baha’is in Iran. The transnational network established between the Iranian and American Baha’i community under the centralized leadership of Abdu’l-Baha was nascent, but provided a significant means for educational initiatives, which also established a nexus around which strengthening the ties between the two communities was made possible. Abdu’l-Baha gave ideological instructions by framing modern education and establishment of schools as an unequivocal necessity and priority for spiritual and social advancement. He also endorsed the idea of selectively adopting models from other countries where great progress had already been made (Abdu’l-Baha, 1875/1990). The members of the community, accustomed to novelty and encouraged to investigate new ideas, contributed enthusiastically to the new schools. As resources were gradually collected from local congregations, individual donors, and American contributors, the schools grew from private religious classes to modern schools open to the public (Shahvar, 2009). These processes would dictate the general mode of operation for educational initiatives and strategy selection in the subsequent first epoch of the Pahlavi era, and even in later periods.
The rise of Reza Shah initially signaled the prospect of more favorable conditions for Baha’is, especially since many of the Shah’s new goals resonated in form with the progressive elements of the Baha’i Faith (Effendi, 1929/1974). However, the Shah did not extend recognition to Baha’is, and thus the old tactic of registering schools in individual names continued (Shahvar, 2009). Prior to Reza Shah, there were 26 to 34 Baha’i schools. During the Pahlavi era the number rose to 47–50 (Shahvar, 2009, pp. 147–174). The schools not only scaled up from maktabs to full-fledged modern schools, but the educational campaign escalated through the increased participation of Baha’is and non-Baha’is in the schools, and through recruitment efforts which were generally supported by the general move in society toward modern schooling (Banani, 1961).
Not all Baha’i-run schools were of the same size and quality, nor did they function under the same regulations, or have the same level of resources. Divergence was significantly affected by the composition and characteristics of the local communities (Momen, 2008). Schools were held in houses, sections of existing buildings, small halls, multi-room buildings, and even on large campuses. By and large, the majority of schools met government standards, and many exceeded them, including subjects and services that would only be seen years later in other modern state-run schools (Banani, 1961). Conditional on capacity, the curriculum also varied among schools.[12] Another important feature of Baha’i-run schools was their enrollment of non-Baha’i children (Baha’i International Community, 2005a). Baha’i community members took extreme precautions, including tolerating slander and sporadic harassment, to avoid the risk of having schools closed down (Sabet, 1997; Clock, 1916). By 1928 most Baha’i-run schools emphasized their secular characteristics while maintaining moral education as a component of the school (Shahvar, 2009). Baha’i-run schools adopted the secular education as the public image of the school. This was due in part of a process I call selective assimilation, that is, an attempt to assimilate some elements of the majority in society, to benefit the group or program in some way while maintaining distinction. In cases where schools were attacked or temporarily shut down, a recurrent tactic was employed: letters of appeal were sent to local, regional, and central government agencies (Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, No. 75, 90, and 95, 1934–1935; Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vols. 2–5, 1928–1936). This became standard practice by Baha’is, developed over many years of persecution in Iran, and one which continued to be emulated as network ties with its transnational Baha’i communities increased (see US NSA 16 July 1926 letter to the Shah on behalf of Iranian Baha’is in Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 2, 1928).
Streams and Episodes In the wake of Reza Shah’s state formation enterprise. On the intermediate level, three events characterize episodic encounters. The first took place in 1928, when the Ministry of Education issued a series of new policies affecting all nongovernment schools (Sadiq, 1931). The second was in 1932, when all foreign primary schools were forbidden to enroll Iranian students (Menashri, 1992). Finally, in 1934, the government ordered all Baha’i-run schools to be shut down for failing to comply with a specific edict of the Shah (Moayyad, 1991). These episodes reflect the government’s efforts to facilitate schools and communities into the state system, tolerate nominal diversity, and repress practices and features that were deemed to be not aligned with the regime’s agenda. The era of Muhammad Reza reflects a stream of actuation through large-scale processes.
In 1928, some of the regulations directly affecting Baha’i-run schools included mandatory requirements to use Persian as the language of instruction, teach classes on Islam, Iranian geography, and history, and omit minority-religious subjects. This first encounter was passed with relatively no contention, because most Baha’i-run schools were either already using Persian as the language of instruction or it was used in conjunction with English. Baha’i schools met the demands found in the regulations without the necessity for resistance. Moreover, the composition and networks of the Baha’i community provided the human, organizational, and material resources required to follow through with the particulars associated with the new regulations (Shahvar, 2009).
The second episode occurred in 1932, when the government forbade non-Iranian primary schools to enroll Iranian students (Rostam-Kolayi, 2008). Since nearly all Baha’i-run schools were either owned or operated by Iranian nationals, or at the least co-directed by Iranians, this latter policy did not have a noticeable effect. Baha’is had registered these schools under the names of local Iranian Baha’is, precisely because the community itself was not recognized (Shahvar, 2009). From one perspective, not being institutionalized as a community benefited the Baha’i-run schools in this situation, in contrast to those run by Christian missionaries, foreigners, and ethnic minorities in Iran.
The third episode, which I will discuss in greater detail, took place in 1934, and led to the ultimate closure of all Baha’i-run schools in the country. Until this time, there had been several attempts by local and provincial government agents to take over Baha’i schools, but given the legal structure, there had been no substantial grounds to do so (Moayyad, 1991). The primary objective of the government was to expand its own education system, and lessen the influence of foreign and non-Iranian schools (Matthee, 1992).
However, in the winter of 1934 the Minister of Education, Ali-Asghar Hikmat, on behalf of the Shah, delivered orders to close two eminent Tarbiyat Schools in Tehran and many others (Moayyad, 1991; see NSA Iran, 1936, for list of closed schools). The charge was based on the schools’ violation of the Ministry of Education regulation requiring schools to remain open throughout the year except for government approved holidays. Two days before the order, Baha’i school administrators cancelled classes in observation of a Baha’i holy day—something they had been doing for decades. Additional instructions followed, requiring the closure of other Baha’i schools that had cancelled classes that day (NSA Iran, 1936).
While the severity of the response was shocking to many, there were several Baha’i leaders and organizers who had already expected some form of reaction. According to the British Ambassador in Tehran, H.M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, Baha’is had been rebuked a year earlier for closing on the occasion of a Baha’i holy day (Shahvar, 2009). A few months later in the summer of 1934, the Minister of Education allegedly threatened the Board of Directors, indicating that Reza Shah had given an order to shut down the school if it should close when other schools remained open (see Moayyad, 1991, pp. 330–331 for statement). Christians and Jews were permitted to cancel school on their religious holidays, as well as on the Sabbath (Saturday for Jews and Sunday for Christians; Cohen, 1986; Rostam-Kolayi, 2008), but since Baha’is were not a recognized religious minority, they were not afforded minority status rights. Two years earlier, the fact that they were not institutionalized as a recognized religious minority, had helped the Baha’is to avoid the cooptation of primary schools. However, in this episode, it worked against them, as they were held to standards applied to general public schools. The threat issued by the government could be considered a heavy-handed attempt to force the integration of Baha’is schools into the national system, since they were not an institutionalized religious group. From another perspective, the threat was an act of repression, raising the risk level that the group would mobilize and act collectively to run their schools. In either case, it was a contentious claim.
The Ministry of Education had given two explicit warnings to Baha’i school organizers prior to the closure. Ali-Akbar Furutan, the principle of the Tarbiyat School, appealed to the newly formed National Spiritual Assembly of Iran (Shahriyari, 2006). The NSA sent a cable to Shoghi Effendi, the international leader of the Baha’i community (who had succeeded Abdu’l-Bahá ) for guidance. In preparation for a delayed response, the NSA decided that all Baha’i-run schools would remain open on the holy day if Shoghi Effendi’s instructions did not arrive in time (Shahvar, 2009). This was a difficult decision, particularly because the observance of Baha’i holy days is obligatory, requiring suspension of all work including school (Baha’u’llah, 1992; Shoghi Effendi, 1976). However, the possibility of not shutting down the schools, thereby technically compromising the ideological integrity of the community (i.e., Baha’i religious law), may, I suggest, have been seen by the National Spiritual Assembly as a viable strategy to keep the schools operating. Shortly before the coming holy day, a clear and direct response arrived from the Baha’i World Center to keep the schools closed on the holy day (Shoghi Effendi, 1936, trans. in Shahriyari, 2006).
It was a bold claim and a strategic move to publicly identify the distinct Baha’i affiliation of those schools (Iranian NSA, 1936). In other words, it was a process of boundary activation, or the increase in salience of an “us-them” relationship. By calling for the closure of Iranian Baha’i schools on the holy day, Shoghi Effendi was inherently making a bid for a share in equal minority recognition for Baha’is (see Effendi 1935/1970, p. 52). In compliance with these instructions, the Tarbiyat schools, along with most Baha’i-run schools throughout the country, suspended classes in observance of the holy day (Moayyad, 1991; Shahvar, 2009). The same mechanism of diffusion was now implemented to suspend the schools on Baha’i holy days. The organizational structure of the Baha’i community, consisting of a hierarchical model, made possible the systematic and uniform implementation of uncompromising policies in Baha’i-run schools throughout the country. After another warning from Hikmat, Furutan responded by emphasizing the importance of suspending school and work on Baha’i holy days, the outright ownership and operation of the schools by Baha’is, and the uncompromising nature of the decision (see Shariyari, 2006, p. 32 for the official response). In retrospect, the mechanisms involved in suspending schools on the holy day, despite the warnings, resulted in a counter-strategy of contention. Thus, the framing of the ideological importance of Baha’i law over even the Baha’i imperative of education is paramount in considering the future strategies adopted by Baha’i community leaders and members as a whole for decades to follow, including during the regime of the Islamic Republic.
In turn, after the orders to close down the Tarbiyat schools for boys and for girls in Tehran, almost all Baha’i schools were shut down within the course of the year (Ali Asghar Hikmat, 1934, trans. in Moayyad, 1991; NSA Iran, 1936; see Figure D4 for facsimile of official notification). Some schools faced harsher treatment, while a few schools even encountered sympathy on the part of police officers who were obliged to follow orders (Shahvar, 2009).
There were very few schools that either reopened after the closure, or were never shut down. Some schools in the rural areas were left untouched, or, when closed, reopened. As Shahvar (2009) suggests that, unlike the larger cities, there were fewer, or no, schools in smaller towns and villages (like Sisan and Arabkhayl). This may have prompted the government to tolerate, or more precisely, to ignore the Baha’i schools in smaller centers, despite the Shah’s disapproval of inconsistencies and disobedience. Some schools remained open temporarily for several months after the incident, because they did not cancel classes on the holy day. Since the NSA had decided to keep schools open on the holy day, unless otherwise instructed by Shoghi Effendi, it is quite possible that the change in plans was not received in time to be implemented in these areas. This speculation is supported by subsequent episodes in which the mandate to suspend classes on holy days was observed by those same schools—leading to their eventual closure by local officials (Shahvar, 2009). Finally, in some smaller areas, such as Bihnamir, the schools were presented as a maktab-khaneh (religious school), and thus were able to remain open. Initiating a “parallel school,” or an unofficial school not registered with the government, and framed as a religious school, would become a prominent strategy for years to come (Iran NSA, 1936).
Following the closure of schools, Baha’i leaders and education administrators made great efforts to appeal local, regional, and central government agencies to allow schools to reopen and operate again with recognized status (Iran NSA, 1936; Momen, 2008). Even Americans in Iran solicited support from the US government, other organizations, and the American Baha’i community (Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, 1935, No. 90, 1935, No. 93). Many Baha’i families, and some non-Baha’is who had sent their children to Baha’i-run schools, delayed registering them in other schools out of concern for the dangers associated with sending their children to non-Baha’i schools and the possible impact of the schools on the children (Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, 1935, No. 90).
To change the restricted educational opportunity structure, Baha’is again returned to the strategy of written appeals and engaging in transnational campaigning. Such letters of appeal were sent on the local, national, and international level to various government officials and political elites (Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 6–7, 1934–1938). After a decade, the government had become accustomed to the performance of appeals, and had reacted to some of them by rectifying transgressions or preventing a negative situation (Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 6, 1938). But this time was different. Knowing the strategy of the Baha’is, the Shah ordered telegraph posts to refuse Baha’is permission to send cables, and government officials at various levels were instructed not to accept appeals and letters from Baha’is (Shahvar, 2009). Additionally, due to growing protests from Baha’is abroad and foreign diplomats in Iran, Baqir Kazimi, the government’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued a circular to all Iranian diplomats around the world to provide a counter argument to Baha’i advocacy against the government closure of schools by non-Iranian Baha’is to their respective governments (trans. in Shahvar, 2009; pp. 112–113; also see Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 6, for details on appeals). In this way, the strategy of contained contention by Baha’is was thwarted. A little over a year later, conditions relaxed somewhat for Bahá’ís, but most schools did not reopen (Shoghi Effendi, as cited in Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, No. 93, 1935). The political opportunity structure radically changed, and the inter-workings of networking and group composition affected the Baha’i decisions to go in one direction knowing the potential outcome.
There are three distinct follow-up strategies that Baha’is adopted after closure of the schools. First, students and teachers integrated into state-run schools or religious minority schools. Second, students who had enrolled in schools, but who had faced harassment left and continued to study privately, or stopped altogether (Iran NSA, 1936). Third, after the closure of schools, the Baha’i community started new, unofficial parallel schools, sometimes framing them as small, informal religious schools, which began to flourish throughout Iran with the coordination of the NSA and LSAs (Shahvar, 2009). In other words, three processes emerged, often overlapping: integrated study, isolated study, parallel study. As processes, they can be identified as integration, defection, and innovation. Figure D5 shows the developmental adaptation of strategies.
The downward scale shift, manifested as decentralized classroom schools, was a practice to which the Baha’is were accustomed during the Qajar period, when conditions were even more unfavorable. The Baha’is readily adapted to the situation by unofficially facilitating many of the same schools in parallel format, in private homes and smaller centers under the leadership of the Local Spiritual Assemblies and the management of volunteer educators who had worked at the Baha’i-run schools. For example, according to an account by Abu’l-Qasim Faizi, upon entering Najafabad, where schools had been recently shutdown, “Within two weeks [after the closure], twenty schools and akhlaq [religious] classes were set up in the homes of the Baha’is, and began operating like a very efficient factory.” (trans. in Shahvar, 2009, p. 135). I argue that there were four reasons for this result: first, individual and collective community belief in education as an uncompromising imperative, by which they felt compelled to seek educational opportunity even in the face of known risks; the mechanisms of framing, mobilization, and new coordination were primarily the driving force for this, supported by the deployment of developed resources despite an unfavorable opportunity structure. Second, a systemic network of organizations (Local Spiritual Assemblies) coordinated by the National Spiritual Assembly under the leadership and guidance of a central authority (i.e., Shoghi Effendi in Haifa). The community’s leadership employed framing as a means of marshalling local and transnational resources, while American and Iranian Baha’i educators brokered the adapted parallel models in different sites and diffused methodologies. Third, a body of trained administrators and teachers, a developed curriculum, and a community ready to volunteer in order to continue parallel schooling. This was the result of effective mobilization, new coordination, collective action, and the increase of globalized connections within the transnational and national Baha’i community. Fourth, a large number of community members were experienced with old modes of mobilizing and collectively acting under restrictive conditions, supported by the mobilization of cultural, spiritual, and organizational resources, and the ability to frame the situation as an opportunity and a challenge, as opposed to a failed outcome.
Unquestionably, the geographic spread and population size of the Baha’i community aided in mobilizing resources to run the schools, and later maintain the parallel schools. The networks between the American and Iranian Baha’i communities were strengthened through the collaboration on education initiatives and the advocacy work done on behalf of the Iranian Baha’is by the American National Spiritual Assembly and other American Baha’i organizations and adherents; transnational ties also played a significant role in their resource mobilization. Had the Baha’is been recognized as a religious minority, perhaps special privileges similar to those extended to the Jewish and Christian schools would have allowed Baha’i schools to cancel classes on holy days, while meeting other regulations of the Ministry. The adaptive strategy of scaling down to parallel smaller schools run as religious classes, as well as integrating into the general secular public school system illustrates the impact of the ideological importance place on modern education—despite the perceived risks associated with attending such schools.
Muhammad Reza Shah and a stream of actuation. Over the decades from 1928 to 1941, the impact of schooling on the Baha’i community’s characteristics was profound (see Chapter 5). A new generation of educated and education-oriented Baha’is helped to establish an different view of the Baha’is in the eyes of the general public, which now saw them as being modern, educated and progressive (Abrahamian, 2008; Banani, 1962; Keddie, 1981). The government may have exercised repressive measures to limit the development of the religious aspects of the community, but it continued to facilitate their involvement in various arenas of the public sector as Iranian citizens (Sanasarian, 2000). In the years following the abdication of Reza Shah, the Baha’is integrated further into the state educational institutions, shifting certain aspects of identity boundaries and integrating themselves into the broader Iranian identity that was formed, while simultaneously engaging in their own private religious classes (Baha’i Publishing Trust, The Baha’i World, Vols. 8–17, 1954–1979). In other words, the opportunity structure allowed for a selective pluralist identity, so long as that identity was subordinated to the national one (Kashani-Sabet, 1999).
There is no detailed account of the educational facilitation process of the Baha’is during the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah (1941–1979), but there are important markers in the stream of educational actuation. While the educational initiatives of both Shahs had limited results (see Chapter 4) and benefited only a small segment of the population, the general change in the educational opportunities coupled with the orientation of community positively affected many Baha’is. In terms of large-scale processes shaping educational strategies of the Baha’is, these included:
1. Integration—participation in government run primary, elementary, and secondary schools; enrolment of large numbers of students in institutions of higher education and permitting them to study abroad;
2. Framing—the pursuit of education further emphasized by Baha’i leadership as religious imperative, service, worth tolerating hardship and harassment;
3. Mobilization and renewed coordination—continued increase in religious and moral education classes in homes and Baha’i centers; youth organizations and conferences throughout the country to supplement secular education;
4. Tolerance—sustained low-level harassment by teachers, other students, and clerics, but pursued educational opportunities;
5. Contention—use of an array of mechanisms to seek redress for discrimination and occasionally severe harassment in public schools, through LSAs and NSAs, including assistance from transnational communities.
Summary. Of the mechanisms and processes which were evident during the entire Pahlavi era, several prominent educational strategies become identifiable, all of which were shaped by the holistic dynamic of factors found in the education opportunity model. While Baha’is were not institutionalized, individual community members registered schools in their own name while mobilizing community research, collectively acting to meet educational needs. Contained contention, particularly international and international appeals, was a hallmark strategy in pushing for educational rights. When contention became transgressive, the government shutdown Baha’i run schools, but continued to facilitate them into the state system as students and teachers. Baha’is also responded by relying on old strategies of parallel education, and diffused a hybrid version of secular and religious schooling.
Comparative Review of Religious Minorities in the Pahlavi Period For the entire Pahlavi period, similar processes were at play in the development, selection, and deployment of educational strategies for all three groups. Sometimes educational strategies were formed and selected independent of government policies, but never without consideration of the consequences. However, other strategies were specifically designed and adopted because of existing government policies and practices affecting the religious minority groups. The processes and educational strategies chosen often differed based on the combination of their group features. Examining strategies through the lens of mechanisms and processes allows us to explain how similar and different strategies emerged. In this section I focus on the most prominent educational strategies employed during the Pahlavi era, and compare the similarities and variations for the groups.
It is important to note that there were definite periods during which policies of the regime were imposed on all three religious minorities, affecting their respective educational opportunities and developments. These coincided primarily with the development and implementation of state educational policies. Figure 19 illustrates a brief timeline when major impositions took place and where opportunities noticeably opened.
1927/1928 – Government Curricular Policies
1932– non-Iranian not allowed registering Iranian students
1934 – Baha'i run schools closed; school name changes
1936 – Many Christian ethnic schools closed down
1939/1940 – non-Iranian primary and secondary schools co-opted by government
1943-1978 – minority schools given increasing freedom
1960s– integration and migration causes decrease in Jewish run schools
Figure 19. Prominent government education policies affecting religious minority educational opportunities during the Pahlavi period.
As a result of various factors, including group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations, sometimes all three groups shared the same types of strategies, partially shared strategies, or relied on group-specific and unique strategies. Below, I compare how the various levels of shared and unique strategies were manifested in diverse forms.
Shared Strategies Model importation: Assimilation and adaptation. All three groups initiated modern schooling education by importing at least some aspect—if not identical replicas—of models from outside Iran. The Iranian Jewish community’s connection with the French Alliance Israelite Universelle Foundation (AIU) resulted in the importation and emulation of French-model schools for the purpose of assimilation into a secularized Western-oriented system. Later, however, the Jewish community’s desire for more religiosity and culturally relevant education led to the coordinated collaboration with the Ozar Hatorah, among other international Jewish organizations, in mobilizing and providing religious education. Unlike the AIU representatives’ emphasis on assimilation, the Christian missionaries made concerted efforts to adapt modern schools to include both missionary objectives and local cultural sensibilities. It was Christian missionaries who introduced Iran to modern schooling in the first place, as brokers, and through independent organizational mobilization and collective action. Ethnic Christians, in reaction to the missionaries, imported models from Armenia and the Caucasus region. This was a response that emerged from processes of competition and contention. Somewhere between the Jewish collaboration and the adaptive Christian missionary education initiatives, Baha’is were mandated by their religious leadership to start modern schools integrating the arts, sciences, and religious education. Their international religious leader also brokered the connection between Iranian and American Baha'i educators to import models similar to those used in the United States.
Innovation. Innovation of schools, their startup and customization, was the result of several factors. For the Jewish community, innovation took place when local Jews were dissatisfied with the AIU emphasis on French and European culture and secularization. For Christian ethnic groups, the innovation of community based schools—as opposed to missionary schools—resulted because ethnic Christian leaders saw missionary conversion efforts as a threat, and desired cultural preservation. This was spurred by processes of boundary activation and polarization in the community along sectarian and national ties. Baha’is created a hybrid of the Western model and Iranian Baha'i moral education in their schools, but their real innovation lay in the establishment of parallel classes when general schools were shut down.
Selective assimilation. When restrictive and demanding regulations were imposed on all three groups, selective assimilation was employed to avoid government repression on the one hand, and to solicit government facilitation on the other. AIU and other Jewish-run schools readily changed aspects of school structure and curriculum to meet state regulations. They were able to assimilate those aspects of schooling that cosmetically satisfied the regime’s requirements; however, because the state schools were based on similar French models, the structure needed little reorganization. Most Christian missionary schools aligned themselves with regime regulations to avoid restrictions by the government, and the threat of having the schools closed down. They did this by reducing foreign language instruction and removing significant elements of religious education. Furthermore, they relied on externalization, support from their host government representatives in the country to negotiate with the regime. Schools that failed to comply were closed, including many of the ethnic schools which did not have the capacity to meet government demands or resisted by remaining unchanged. Baha’is also modified their school models to meet government regulations at every turn because they were a nonrecognized minority and had to comply with the state’s requirements. Similar to Christians, they maintained elements that they felt were critical to their objectives by adopting the bare minimum requirements.
Expansion. All three groups were able to expand their schools through the use of increased resources, more open opportunity structures, and more complex network ties with their transnational communities and other organizations. The AIU representatives diffused school models and later used graduates of AIU schools as future staff. The Ozar Hatorah organization sent more instructors, as well as trained others inside Iran, to increase the number of schools and programs. Similarly, Christian missionary schools emulated American and European school models, recruited students from all religious minorities and Muslims, drawing on local teachers and administrators who had graduated and become educated. Armenians also benefited from networks with their own transnational community to increase ethnic schools. Although missionary schools ceased to operate by the end of the Reza Shah period, there was a noticeable increase in Armenian schools during the Muhammad Reza Shah period, because they were given the opportunity to create isolated schools. Like the Jews and Christians who faced relative education facilitation in the early Reza Shah period, Baha’is scaled up schools throughout Iran, and emulated other Baha'i run schools in bigger cities.
Institutionalization. The Jewish and Christian communities were recognized and represented in the governments of both Pahlavi regimes. This provided their educational initiatives with special features and exclusive rights. Baha'i schools were not recognized, and thus Baha'i run schools had to be registered with the state in the name of individuals, rather than the community. By institutionalizing—or in the case of Bahá'ís , semi-institutionalizing by registering with the government—all three groups were protecting schools from perceived and actual threats from severe government repression and more noticeably parallel authority repression and attacks. While institutionalization benefited Jews throughout the entire Pahlavi era, it had a detrimental effect on some missionary and ethnic Christian schools which either tried to sustain distinctive features or could not comply with government policies. Baha’is benefited from not being formally institutionalized when foreign groups during the Reza Shah period faced regulations targeting non-Iranian schools for closure. However, the fact that they were not recognized with special features worked against them when their uncompromising religious standard conflicted with state regulations imposed on all Iranian-based schools.
Contention. While contention is a process, it overlapped and constituted a special type of educational strategy, characterized by appeals and negotiation with the government, internal community and denominational strife, and international advocacy. Contention between local Iranian Jewish community members and AIU representatives shaped specific features of some schools. Contention with the government remained minimal for the Jewish community under the Pahlavi government, as they relied on assimilation and integration as main strategies. Christian missionaries and ethnic minorities faced sectarian contention, polarized by cultural and ideological divides. Boundary activation was initiated by local ethnic Christian leaders, not by missionaries who attempted to adapt to cultural mores of Christians in Iran. The government saw missionaries as symbols of old imperial presence in Iran, but nonetheless engaged in contentious interaction through appeals and negotiations through missionary host government representatives in Iran. Although ethnic Christians faced clashes with the government on grounds of national identity, there was no real record of attempts to use contentious modalities in the area of education, other than passive resistance to changes occurring during the first part of the Pahlavi era.
Competition. There was noticeable and active competition between missionaries and locally-based Christians for students and staff. This was sparked by the Armenian community religious leaders, and sustained through contentious interaction. While the Jewish and Baha’i schools did not engage in competition with the same intensity that existed among the various sects which divided the Christian community, they implicitly responded to the existing minority schools that opened to their population. All three competed passively with the emerging government-run schools which recruited minority teachers and administrators, as well as students to build their capacity.
Partially Shared Strategies Integration. By and large, while the establishment of their own schools was the primary means of accessing education, members of the Jewish community sought to integrate into the larger Iranian society, and when educational opportunity dynamics facilitated such integration, many participated in the government-run schools and universities. The disintegration of some Jewish schools towards the end of the Pahlavi era was primarily the result of this preference for integration strategy over isolation. Bahá'ís, like Jews, also benefited from open opportunities to integrate into the public system. While they maintained parallel religious schools after the initial closure of all Bahá'í -run schools during the reign of Reza Shah, community leaders and members relied on integration as the primary educational strategy during the second epoch of the Pahlavi era. Because they actively pursued educational opportunities and integration, both Jews and Baha’is saw significant social mobility during the Pahlavi era. Some ethnic Christians also integrated into the public education system once government-run schools fostered integration, and as a result of diminished missionary schools after their closure at the end of the Reza Shah era. However, because they emphasized and framed cultural preservation as a primary goal, only a marginal number of Christians actively chose integration even when opportunities were open to them. As will be discussed below, Christians leaned toward the strategy of isolation.
Paralleling. Parallel schooling, or running educational programs and initiatives outside the system of government monitored education, became important to Christians and Baha’is, particularly when their schools were shut down. Parallel schools were organized by respective community leaders and organizations, drawing on existing curriculum and human resources developed over the previous decades. Such parallel schools were facilitated in religious centers and privately owned property and venues. The Jewish community did not rely on parallel schooling, but did initiate Ozar Hatorah programs to supplement secular education, including the addition of religious classes to AIU schools run by Ozar Hatorah.
Adaptation. Baha'i and Christian foreigners brokered the diffusion of Western models of modern schooling which were then adapted in consideration of local religious and linguistic customs. The AIU schools did not engage in adaptation until extreme pressure from the local community over decades, since the French emphasized assimilation over adaptation. French AIU adaptation included partnering with Ozar Hatorah to offer supplementary religious classes and Hebrew language classes, but also incorporated the features required by the state-regulated curriculum for education.
Toleration. Jews and Baha’is who registered in public schools in pursuit of integration tolerated the minor harassment they experienced in those schools. Baha'i community leaders and members appealed against harsher treatment, while continuing to avail themselves of the education opportunities offered in non-Baha'i schools. In case of violations, they made continued use of international networks to pressure the government when human rights were at stake. The Jewish community did not necessarily engage in appeals, but did look to other schooling opportunities when harsher treatment was perceived as detrimental.
Group-Specific Strategies
External accreditation. Alliance Israelite Universelle schools sent graduates to France for higher education and training to become teachers and administrators. Unlike the Christians and Baha’is who trained staff locally, Jewish AIU representatives felt that proper training to meet assimilation and qualitative objectives would best be served by sending them to France, thus gaining legitimization through external accreditation. Many Jewish community members accepted this course of action, in the hope of successfully increasing socioeconomic status in Iran. This assimilationist external accreditation strategy lessened when local schools were established, but reliance on external certification remained an important process in their educational strategy deployment.
Isolation. Armenian schools catered strictly to the Armenian population to preserve culture and religious characteristics of the community. They relied on networks to diffuse methods and models that were customized to meet the agenda of insular communal life; thus, schooling was framed as a necessity for maintaining distinction. Boundary activation became the principal means of sustaining this isolationist strategy throughout the Pahlavi era, one which was preferred during both repressive and facilitative periods of the regime.
Religious Minorities in Comparative Context of Group Features Although the religious minorities pushed to provide educational opportunities through modern schooling prior to the Pahlavi dynasty, their educational strategies would subsequently influence those pursued during this period. Importing models from abroad, adapting or attempting to assimilate students into the new models was at the heart of the strategy. Government opportunity structures were gradually opening for minorities during the secular rule of Reza Shah, and were highly tolerated and facilitated during the regime of his son.
Composition and characteristics. The composition and characteristics of groups, in particular their orientation, gave an indication of their initial goals, but also reflected the standards and attitudes concerning the strategies considered acceptable and accessible. For example, ethnic Christians benefited from secular aspects of modern schools, but leaders framed their importance in terms of cultural and religious preservation. Jewish Iranians were initially attracted to schools because of the promise they presented in improving socioeconomic conditions, as well as better relations with the non-Jewish majority. Baha’is pursued secular education, in addition to religious studies, based on canonical instruction and because education was framed as both a religious obligation and a social service.
Educational attainment changed the very characteristics of these communities. Ethnic Christians exercised more isolation and enhanced cohesion through communal schooling. Iranian Jews not only improved socioeconomic status, but were also devoted to education, with high numbers of university graduates, academics, and professionals by the end of the Pahlavi era. Baha’is emerged from their formerly ostracized and stigmatized status to being counted among Iran’s growing middle and upper class. The pre-existing religious structures and institutions among all groups invariably facilitated the process of mobilization and collective action to meet educational needs.
Generally, the characteristic of the groups in other social areas permeated educational strategies as well. Jews continued to use assimilation and adaptation as a means of coping with restrictive conditions. Christian ethnic communities used isolation as a means of preservation, and Baha’is remained uncompromising in areas of religious principle and framed struggles and losses in terms of service and sacrifice.
Networks. Networks played a vital role as well. In fact, without strong network ties, I argue that groups could not have expanded educational initiatives. Jews and Baha’is benefited significantly from non-Iranian transnational ties with their religious affiliates in other countries. Coalitions formed between leaders of local Iranian communities with their colleagues and affiliate organizations abroad tapped into an array of resources which would otherwise not have been accessible to them. Christian communities in Iran, while divided along denominational ties, and thus not making full use of their potential network ties across sectarian lines, relied on transnational ethnic ties. Assyrians and Chaldeans in general did not use such ties, as they were weak to begin with. Armenians drew on transnational ethnic ties, but primarily used networks built into their hierarchical religious structure. Similarly, Baha’is used their hierarchical structure, but their centralized leadership and subsequent institutions were not based on common ethnicity.
Diffusion of methods and strategies from one country to another through these network ties led to success in implementing strategies. Cultural diversity was noticeably divisive in the case of Christians and Jews. However, where adaptation ensued, coalitions were more effective in ensuring school success. Additionally, the indirect ties that affected religious minorities in Iran gave a significant impetus for protecting the rights of some groups and providing further services. For example, Iranian Jews were able to expand networks beyond the AIU organization to other more religiously-oriented institutions and initiatives such as the Jewish Distribution Committee, Ozar Hatorah, and Zionist organizations. Likewise, Iranian Baha’is were able to draw on connections with sister communities in America and Britain, coordinated through the Baha’i International Community (BIC), and their cordial relations with their respective governments in pressing for the rights of the Baha’is in Iran.
Regime-group relations. While it may be intuitive to conclude that institutionalization through recognition and representation were advantageous to Christians and Jews, partial institutionalization worked against Baha'is. It is important to note that, in some cases, institutionalization caused groups to compromise educational goals. Using parallel schools outside of the institutionalization processes helped all three communities to supplement secular schooling with religious education. The relationship of each particular regime with other states also affected group-state relations. Missionary schools were partially closed down because of their association with Western powers, from which the Pahlavi government was trying to distance itself. Ultimately, educational opportunities were available during the regime of Muhammad Reza. However, this openness contributed to the waning of Jewish-run schools, and decreased the drive of the Baha’is to pursue community-run schools. Students in both these groups increasingly integrated into the government system. Armenian Christians, on the other hand, took advantage of the tolerance afforded by the regime, and multiplied the number of schools, maintaining their isolation.
Jewish Community in the Islamic Republic Period The close association of the Shah with Israel and the United States, which had afforded the Iranian Jewish community an open opportunity structure, as well as networks with ample resources, became a liability as revolutionary rhetoric heated up at the end of the 1970s. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the very foundations of the Iranian Jewish community was transformed in the course of a few short years.
Observing processes for the Jewish community during the Islamic Republic period is difficult, primarily because of the rapid decline of its population (from 70,000–80,000 in 1978, to 40,000 in 1984, to 10,000 in 2006; Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Census, 2006; Rahimiyan, 2008a; Yegar, 1993). Notwithstanding the small sample and limited population of Iranian Jews seeking educational opportunities in Iran during the latter epochs of the Islamic Republic, I have been able to identify fragmented mid-level processes, as well as several micro-level processes involving individual cases. Most of my interview participants inside and outside Iran agree that some of these particular cases are representative of common experiences of many Iranian Jews. Both the schools and the Jewish students faced significant challenges as a result of the government’s education policies in public schools, as well as structural and curricular reform. I again argue that past strategies—changes in group composition, characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations—shape successive ones. Finally, to understand the educational strategies of the Iranian Jewish community during the Islamic Republic era, it is imperative to consider other social and economic processes which overlap with them.
Streams and Episodes The Iranian Jewish exodus. Many Iranian Jews left the country during the upheavals of 1978 and 1979, many of whom planned to return after the political situation stabilized. However, after the regime executed Habib Elqanayan (an affluent and prominent member of the Jewish community) and several other members of the community, the rate of emigration accelerated (Sarshar, 2009; Yegar, 1993; see Chapter 5). In April 1980, the community’s spiritual leader, Chief Rabbi Yedidiya Shofet, left for Europe and advised other community members to flee (Sanasarian, 2000). Most of those who left in these first years were among the most affluent and educated—among the community’s leaders (Economist, 17 February 1979; Economist, 14 June 1980; O’Driscoll, 1988). While Jewish enrolment in community-run schools had declined in the 1960s (with increased immigration into urban areas and to Israel in particular, as well as enrolment in government-run schools), this latest wave of emigration severely affected Jewish schools.
Although most observers have described this rise in emigration as an outcome, I argue that it constitutes the exit strategy. By exit I mean the conscious and deliberate decision to leave the country with the intention of pursuing opportunities in the destination country (e.g., education, employment, social freedom, refuge); this also includes motives based on perceived unfavorable conditions limiting one’s opportunities. Iranian Jews had used exit as a strategy during less tumultuous times, but it is likely that the exodus beginning in 1978 was initially motivated by fear (i.e., threats to safety and survival, risk of losing wealth, etc.; O’Driscoll, 1988). Indeed, alarming signs of danger facing Iranian Jews included Islamist revolutionaries’ antagonism toward the Shah’s regime, as well as the virulent anti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse.
Between 1978 and 1979, travel was relatively unrestricted, but leaving the country required resources and networks for travel and relocation. Many of the educated first wave of emigrants coordinated with friends and family to relocate, and brought much of their wealth with them, while leaving some behind in Iran (Economist, 17 February 1979; anonymous Jewish leader, personal Interviews, 23 March 2009). Some Iranian Jewish parents sent their children ahead. Some 1,200 children were sent to Israeli boarding schools, and another 3,000 to Jewish schools in France and Switzerland (Economist, 17 February 1979, p. 75). Thus, those who may have wanted to leave but had insufficient funds were unable to pursue this strategy. The socioeconomic status of most middle class Iranian Jews gave them mobility, while networks in the United States and Israel made exit an optimal strategy. Likewise, the rise in persecution was not framed as something one should endure or bear for a greater purpose, making flight a logical choice.
Between 1980 and 1988 travel was hindered by the government, particularly for Iranian Jews and other targeted groups. Many Iranian Jews were forbidden to leave the country and often harassed through coercion (Anderson, 7 May 1979; Economist, 7 February 1987; O’Driscoll, 1988). Exiting was an even more costly strategy, because of the ban on travel that carried severe consequences if one was caught trying to leave Iran illegally.[13] American, European, and Israeli Jews extended help to those who wished to leave, the latter through the Jewish Agency for Israel, (Aryeh Dulzin cited in Anderson, 13 May 1979; Jewish Agency, 2009)—the Israeli government remained generally silent about Jews in the Islamic Republic. Likewise, the U.S.-based Hebrew Immigration Assistance Society (HIAS) also aided over 6,000 Iranian Jews to leave Iran between 1979 and 1988 (HIAS, 2009; O’Driscoll, 1988). The high concentration of Iranian Jewish immigrants in Southern California, led to the formation by a coalition of diaspora community leaders of the Iranian-American Jewish Federation (IAJF), to help settle Iranian Jewish immigrants find homes, jobs, and education, and assist other community members wishing to leave Iran (Iranian-American Jewish Federation, 2009; anonymous member on IAJF Board of Directors, personal communication, 8 June 2009). The IAJF (n.d.) collaborated with the American Joint Distribution community and the HIAS in providing aid to Iranian Jewish refugees. Thus, old and new networks, as well as their coordinated and mobilized resources, played a significant part in executing this exit strategy.
In the 1990s, Iranian Jewish emigration declined significantly. But reliable statistical data, reaffirmed by several Iranian Jewish informants, indicates that exit continues to be a strategy in the context of a looming threat (Iranian Statistical Centre, Iranian Census, 2006; anonymous Jewish leader, 23 March 2009; see Stahl, 26 December 2007; Voice of America, 25 December 2007 for examples) and for the primary purpose of educational opportunity ( Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November 2009; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June 2009). One Iranian Jewish family therapist, who immigrated to the United States in 2001, stated that the principal limitation facing the Iranian Jewish community is not persecution, but rather the lack of educational and other opportunity, acknowledging that as her own reason for leaving Iran (Shirin Taleh, as cited in Greenberger, 2006).
Several processes combined to make exit a strategy as well as an outcome: polarization, framing, mobilization, coordination, collective action, coalition formation, and internationalization. While the Iranian Jewish community had shared close ties with the Pahlavi government, the Islamic Republic’s anti-Israeli stance, and initial persecution of many Jews, created a rift that polarized many Iranian Jews and hardliner Islamists, increasing ideological distance between them. Leaving was framed as a logical strategy by community leaders. The interaction and planned coordination of the different organizations mentioned above in support of Iranian Jews fleeing the country internationalized the exit strategy.
The Islamic Republic’s emphasis on religious identity stimulated a boundary activation across various groups, which resulted in many Iranian Jews shifting, favoring similarity with the international Jewish community over the Islamic Republic’s vision of the Iranian citizen. This did not negate their association with an Iranian identity, but a new distinction was being made (Fariyar Nikbakht, personal communication, 15 May 2009; Karmel Melamed, personal communication, 3 March, 2009; Nahid Pirnazar, personal communication, 21 October, 2009; Orly Rahimiyan, 30 September, 2009; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June 2009). By breaking from the remaining community that had aligned its support with the new regime and denounced other network ties to Israel and the United States, the immigrant Iranian Jewish community defected from educational efforts to sustain Jewish schools.
School Reform and Reorganization While details about processes of educational strategy for those who remained are scant, existing information provides enough analytical leverage and includes episodes related to adjustments and reactions to government-imposed policies regarding not only Jewish-run schools, but also the educational opportunity structure for Iranian Jews attending government-run schools. Despite the guarantee of representation and recognition in the redrafted Constitution (Articles 13 and 28) members of the Jewish community faced various levels of repression. Some members of the Iranian Jewish community, particularly the community’s representative to Parliament and the leaders of the Tehran Jewish Council, have suggested that Iranian Jews enjoy equal, if not more, rights and freedoms than they had during the Pahlavi period (Harrison, 22 September 2006; Islamic Republic News Agency, 16 January 2010; Tehran Council of Jews, 2009; Yashayaei, 2003). Others suggest that Jews enjoy limited freedom and that vigilance and tolerance of sporadic harassment is imperative (anonymous Jew in Iran, personal communication, 5 April 2009; Farahani, 2005; Karmel Melamed, personal communication, 3 March, 2009; Orly Rahimiyan, 30 September, 2009). At the local level, tolerance by government agents, school administrators and teachers, and the public varied (Sanasarian, 2000). In other words, the situation is complex, reflecting various degrees of regime facilitation, toleration, and repression. In turn, local Iranian Jews employ tolerance to cope with repressive policies and engage in assimilation to access opportunities.
Higher education. As part of the Cultural Revolution’s purging process targeting higher education and positions of influence, most Iranian Jewish university instructors were fired, often accused of being Zionists or having Zionist ties (Economist, 14 June 1980; Keyhan, 27 August 1979; Yegar, 1993).[14] The screening process put in place for admitting university students during the first decade of the Islamic Republic was particularly biased against Jews, Bahá’ís , and political dissidents (Torbat, 2002). During the application process, government agents conducted background checks, and those affiliated with unfavorable groups and ideologies would be screened out or monitored closely (Habibi, 1989; Torbat, 2002). Until 2004, all applicants had to indicate their religious affiliation. These additional barriers made accessing university even more challenging for Iranian Jews. According to one account, a Jewish professional, now working in Shiraz, had completed his undergraduate degree with exceptional academic performance. Upon applying to graduate school, he was declined admission, despite having ranked higher than many others who were admitted (anonymous in Iran, personal communication, 10 February 2010). He attributes the inequitable screening to having been targeted as a Jew. Networks are not useful in accessing higher education, and there are few collaborative efforts to meet educational needs in the public sector. After the Revolution, the Jewish community officially severed its ties with transnational communities. Many who do not leave the country, and are not admitted into public universities, enroll in private universities. In general, some Jews practice selective assimilation by dissimulating in public, and continue to practice Jewish communal life in private (anonymous in Iran, personal communications, 5 December and 4 April; Farahani, 2005).
Jewish-run schools and adaptation. Jewish-run schools and education opportunities changed drastically during the Islamic Republic. Immediately before the Revolution, there were about 20 Jewish-run schools. According to Haroun Yashayaei (2003), chair of the Tehran Jewish Committee, the number of schools dwindled to four after the establishment of the Islamic Republic and the imposition of new policies. In the first several years after the Revolution, most Jewish-run schools were temporarily shutdown, and required to meet new government regulations affecting school structure and curriculum. Many others were permanently closed or taken over by the government due to the shortfall of students and teachers caused by the Iranian Jewish exodus. The Jewish community complied without resistance. Most structural and curricular changes were implemented between 1981 and 1984 (Sanasarian, 2000). Ministry of Education regulations required that schools incorporate the new state curriculum, classes be segregated by gender and dress codes applied; that schools not be located on the same grounds as synagogues; that Persian be the sole language of instruction (including during religious classes); and that Islam become mandatory as a subject, in addition to Jewish studies (Sanasarian, 2000). The government issued special textbooks to be used as the religious curriculum for Jewish subjects (Mehran, 2007; Paivandi, 2009).
In most schools, government-vetted Muslim principals were appointed to replace Jews. Similarly, Muslim instructors have replaced many Jewish teachers (Yashayaei, 2003). From 2000 to the present, the Ettefaugh School (which remained open) has been run entirely by Muslim administrators and teachers, with the exception of the religious instructor (Darshi, 1998; interview with School Principle of Ettefaugh in Farahani, 2005), not only because of government-imposed policy, but because emigration had brought about a shortage of teaching staff certified by the regime. The Islamic regime required Jewish schools to remain open on their Sabbath and on Jewish holy days, despite canonical law prescribing suspension of work and school on those days. Compliance by the Jewish community with this particular regulation is a significant shift away from previous characteristics of the community during the Pahlavi era.
According to the Tehran Jewish Council (2009), out of the 3,000 Jewish students attending schools in Iran, half are enrolled in Jewish schools, while the other half participates in state-run schools. Jewish schools are funded by the various existing Jewish institutions in Iran (Yashayaei, 2003). Additional resources and funding also come from the Ministry of Religion (which oversees all religious schools) and the Ministry of Education (Yegar, 1993). I was informed that generally very few resources come to the Iranian Jewish community from the Iranian Jewish diaspora (anonymous AIJF board member, 8 June 2009; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June 2009). The Iranian Jewish community thus runs the schools on internal resources, and does not use networks, because their networks with the international community have all but disappeared, and they have become isolated.
In response to the flurry of reorienting policies, the Tehran Jewish Council agreed to all terms outlined in the regulations, avoiding any other confrontation with the regime. The old strategy of assimilation used during various periods since the Qajar period was once again invoked. The exodus caused a major shift in the composition and characteristics of the Iranian Jewish community, which in turn influenced the strategies that were acceptable and accessible to community leaders. With a significantly smaller pool of resources, abruptly severed network ties, and a constricted opportunity structure under the Islamic Republic, conceding to government policies was the primary coping mechanism. Unlike the Pahlavi era, when community members were disinclined to compromise Jewish laws, such as observation of holy days and Sabbath (Cohen, 1986), the recomposed community under the Islamic Republic evidently saw it as a means of survival (Fariyar Nikbakht, personal communication, 16 May, 2009). According to some of my interviewees, most Iranian Jews living outside Iran sympathize with the compromise of leaving schools open on holy days. “It’s not that we want to keep schools open,” one source in Iran informed me, “it’s that we have no choice in the matter if we want to keep our schools” (anonymous Jew in Iran, personal communication, 5 December 2009).
Several processes led to the circumstances and conditions facing Jewish-run schools, as well as their continued maintenance. Previous strategies and a reconfiguration of opportunity structure, resources, and networks available to Iranian Jewish community members influenced the formation and selection of strategies. Demobilization had the most noticeable impact on the schools. When Iranian Jews left Iran—among them teachers, administrators, community leaders, and students—schools were left with inadequate human, organizational, and material resources. Ultimately, most of these schools closed, leading to the downward scale shift of remaining Jewish schools. Consequently, the community complied with the new regulations in order to preserve the remaining schools.
The Iranian Jewish community mobilized and coordinated new efforts around a re-envisioned objective: preservation. Despite having an elected representative in the Majles, very little resistance was voiced (Sanasarian, 2000). The Iranian Jewish community became more dependent on the regime than ever before; thus, concessions were an intrinsic element in maintaining good relations with the regime and operating Jewish schools. Beyond institutionalization, an identity shift took place within the country whereby Iranian Jews reasserted their Iranian identity first, affirmed primary loyalties to the regime, and conceived their Jewish allegiance within that context.
Community leaders framed compromise as a necessity to preserve the community rather than considering it a deterioration of its integrity. Due to centuries of persecution, practices of dissimulation, cosmetic conversion, and suspension of certain Jewish laws was a common strategy of survival (Fariyar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November, 2009; Harrison, 2006; Nahid Pirnazar, personal communication, 21 October 2009; Orly Rahimiyan, personal communication, 30 September, 2009; Sharq, 1998).
The Tehran Jewish Committee also agreed to accept Muslim principals, not only because they were pressured to do so, but because community leaders thought that the Muslim principal could secure greater benefits for the schools through networks with other Muslim officials (Maron Yashayai, cited in Haftvan, 2006). Thus internal networks became more important in the absence of external networks in mobilizing resources and engaging in contained contention. The reconfiguration and ideological reorientation of the renewed Jewish leadership, aligning itself with the Islamic regime, constituted a new group of actors who mobilized and collectively acted on behalf of the remaining Iranian Jewish community. These processes illustrate the dynamic between the Islamic Republic regime and the Iranian Jewish community. Despite the lower quality of community schools as compared to public schools (Yashayaei, 2003), Jewish students were attracted because they experienced less pressure and peer harassment at Jewish schools; (anonymous high school girl who left public school to attend Ettefaugh, in Farahani, 2005; anonymous Jew in Iran, personal communication, 5 April 2009). Thus Jewish schools helped maintain a semblance of community cohesion.
State-run schools. Iranian Jews also accessed educational opportunities during the Islamic Republic period by attending public schools with mostly Muslim students, despite a perpetual sense of “otherness,” biased textbook content, derogatory rhetoric and treatment by teachers and other students, [15] and even when religion classes consisted solely of Islamic studies, with only historical reference to religious minorities (Mehran, 2007; Paivandi, 2008). Some students simply remain silent in order not to draw attention to themselves (anonymous in Iran, personal communication, 5 April 2009). Others tolerate slander and occasional harassment, but continue on with their studies. It should be noted that not all students and teachers alienate religious minorities, but it is evident that this remains a serious issue. Those attending public schools participated in Friday religious classes at synagogues, and thus paralleled their secular education.
Two local episodes illustrate well the nuanced environment facing Iranian Jewish school children and youth. In Shiraz, a Jewish professional who faced discrimination as a university student himself years ago, believes— based on his own hardship in university and graduate school in Iran—that there are currently limited opportunities for his daughters. Thus, he plans on moving to America once his daughters enter high school, in the hope of providing them with greater educational opportunity and social freedom (10 February, 2010). In an interview conducted by Ramin Farahani (2005), an Iranian Jewish high school girl tells of her humiliation when her religious class teacher told the class not to touch her because it had been raining, and that touching a wet Jew would make them impure. She admits this was not the first time she had been vilified for being Jewish. The girl’s family allowed her to withdraw from the public school, and sent her to the Ettefaugh Jewish school instead, despite its lower quality. This girl also stated that her family was seriously considering leaving Iran for her sake. Some of my interviewees recalled occasions when teachers in public school religious classes ridiculed Jewish students, but stated that at other times they were not harassed (anonymous in Iran, personal communications, 13 August, 2008, 3 October 2008, 18– 23 December 2009).
The processes described above illustrate the educational strategy of integration, including tolerance (of harassment), assimilation (of the mainstream cultural values or by practicing silence), and quasi-paralleling (supplementation of religious classes on Fridays). As mentioned before, there is little organized effort on part of the community to accommodate Jewish students who attend public schools.
Summary. Over the course of 30 years under the Islamic Republic, as a result of diminished resources in the wake of the exodus, Jewish educational strategies were reduced to attending the limited number of compromised Jewish schools, integrating into public schools, or exiting Iran for educational opportunity. Strategies of the past played a significant role in determining all three for a number of reasons: first, because more Jewish schools might have remained open and accessible to Jewish children and youth if their number had not declined so drastically during and after the Revolution. Second, resources previously available through network ties had shrunk, the results of the mass exit limited choices to community leaders and members. Third, members compromised standards and accepted government policies with no noticeable contention, tolerating continued, albeit occasional, harassment and bigotry in public schools. Fourth, Iranian Jews who had themselves experienced hardship or perceived greater educational opportunities outside Iran left the country.
Iranian Christians in the Islamic Republic By the time of the Revolution in 1979, there were at least 26 Armenian schools in Tehran alone with seven elementary and five secondary schools under a Board of Trustees appointed by the Apostolic Armenian prelacy, as well as another 14 private Armenian schools in the city (Amurian & Kasheef, 1987). Unlike the increased integration of Baha’is and Jews into the state system during the Pahlavi era, most Armenian students attended their own community run schools, creating an insular community. The failure of the Assyrian and Chaldean schools to expand may be explained by their lack of resources and relatively stagnant population growth, leaving them with only two schools for each community. Evangelical protestant Christians had largely integrated into government-run schools, enrolled in the ethnic Christian schools, or attended other religious minority schools.
The government of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had tolerated Armenian schools’ increasing use of Armenian language to teach history, literature, and religious subjects (Amurian and Kasheef, 1987). This provided abundant opportunities to develop a distinctive Armenian-Iranian identity and foster community cohesion. Historically, the Armenian language has been part and parcel of the religious identity of Apostolic Armenian Christians (Atiya, 1968; Manukian, as cited in Iran Times, 15 April 1983). I believe that this is the fundamental reason why maintaining its use was a critical issue during the Reza Pahlavi era, when schools were faced with the choice of either switching to Persian or shutting down. With the rise of the Islamic Republic, language once again became a paramount issue escalating into contentious interaction between the regime of the Islamic Republic and Armenian Church leaders.
Streams and Episodes Despite the paucity of available sources pertaining to educational opportunity for Christians during the Islamic Republic, I observe mid-scale processes which took place during the early years following the Revolution, and large-scale processes characterizing the last two decades. I focus primarily on the Armenian community, address generalities associated with the Assyrian and Chaldean communities.
As discussed in Chapter 5, in addition to the Armenians, there was a combined total of some 30,000 Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other Christian denominations at the outset of the Islamic Republic. After the Revolution, Armenian Christians emigrated in far fewer numbers than Jews but more than Baha’is, with nearly 50 percent leaving the country over the first two decades after the Revolution (see Chapter 5 for demographical statistics). Since they experienced much less difficulty than either the Baha’is or Jews in leaving the country, exit was a strategy more viable for that community. As mentioned earlier, some of the Christian communities in Iran had been associated with the imperial and foreign presence in Iran (Abrahamian, 1988). However, the isolationism practiced by ethnic Christians was initially perceived as a minimal threat to the new regime’s agenda for an Islamized nation (Sanasarian, 1995). This isolationist strategy was particularly manifest in the Armenian community’s educational goals (Iran Times, 15 April 1983). The relationship between the new regime and ethnic Christians was very likely smoothed over because Armenian leaders publicly renounced association with Western powers on the one hand, and paid allegiance to the Republic and its goals on the other (Islamic Republic News Agency, 19 September 1983; 1 February 1984; 9 July 1982).
As Sanasarian (1995) explains, the first few of years following the establishment of the Islamic Republic passed with little or no change to Christian communal life. However, between 1981 and 1983, tension between the regime and the Christian communities surfaced in several episodes of contention around educational issues. Two interrelated episodes stand out: the first entails group responses to government-imposed education regulations, which affected all recognized religious minority schools; the second concerned language and testing issues in Apostolic Armenian schools, ending with the closure of several schools.
Reformation and reorientation. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the government institutionalized Armenian and Assyrian Christians in the renewed Constitution by extending official recognition and giving them representation in Parliament. Recognized minorities were given special rights, which included the privilege of maintaining separate religious schools, permission to teach the language of their respective communities, and engage in state-approved ceremonies and other special functions (Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Constitution, Article 13 and 26). At the same time, beginning in 1981, many restrictions were imposed on minority schools, including name changes, gender segregation, curriculum reform, replacement of principals and teachers, new dress codes, and guidelines affecting religious and language instruction (Sanasarian, 2000).
All ethnic Christian schools were affected, but their reactions varied, due, in part, to group composition and characteristics, networks (both inside and outside Iran), and perceived relationship with the new regime. For example, while the Armenian representatives to the Majles lodged complaints regarding some of the education policies, Assyrians and Chaldeans ultimately acquiesced to government pressure, and gave up on appeals to maintain the number of hours dedicated to native-language instruction (Sanasarian, 2000). Moreover, as a result of a waning population, Assyrian schools were forced to take in Muslim students, while replacing principals and teachers with state-approved Muslim staff. Conversely, the Armenian political representatives and religious leaders in the northern half of Iran voice adamant objection in Parliament to unfavorable policies, via the media, and in direct one-on-one meetings with leading members of the Islamic Republic. Despite the imposed restrictions, Christian representatives and some other Christian religious leaders felt confident in protesting regime decisions without incurring a repressive response (Islamic Republic News Agency, 19 September 1983).
By and large, Christian communities offered little resistance to most regulations, such as segregating gender classes, dividing schools from churches, applying dress codes, or adopting the general curriculum of the Ministry of Education (Islamic Republic News Agency, 7 July 1982). Nevertheless, compliance did not mean that the transition was easy or advantageous to the community (anonymous Armenian-Iranian Christian in Iran, personal communication, 19 December 2009; Eliz Sanasarian, personal communication, 14 April, 2009). In 1983, the Ministry of Education ordered all religious minority schools to be headed by Muslim administrators (Haftvan, 2006). In 2003, this requirement changed in a revised clause allowing religious minorities to run schools, as long as they professed allegiance to the Constitution (Haftvan, 2006). But since 2005, even with the slight relaxation of the requirement, out of a total 50 religious minority schools, only three in Tehran and two in Urmieh have principals who are Christian (Haftvan, 2006). According to George Vartan, the Armenian representative to the Majles, this has contributed to the deterioration of Armenian culture in the community (cited in Haftvan, 2006). Indeed, language, religious instruction, and the replacement of principals surfaced as central issues of contention between Armenian schools and the government.
Three responses followed restrictions and impositions: rejection; adaptation; and assimilation (see Figure D6). Some schools rejected unfavorable impositions framing them as transgressions of their constitutional rights. This latter group of schools continued using their own religious textbooks and Armenian language for instruction. This resistance was fueled by community characteristics of isolationism which were tolerated by the previous regime. Other schools either adapted by adjusting to minimum Ministry requirements, or assimilated by abandoning native language instruction altogether (Sanasarian, 1995; anonymous Armenian-Iranian Christian in Iran, personal communication, 19 December, 2009). The latter two strategies were approved and facilitated by the government (Islamic Republic News Agency, 6 July 1982). Weakness in networks and lack of resources contributed to these concessions. In 1982, however, the Ministry of Education sternly rebuked those schools which failed to implement the policy, explicitly ordering Armenian schools to a) conduct religious instruction in Persian, and to reduce the hours reserved for instruction in Armenian and related subjects. Thus, Armenian history and culture should generally be “taken out of the curriculum…” (Iran Times, 15 April 1983, p. 17).
Within three years after the establishment of the Revolution, processes embedded in group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime relations shaped the immediate strategies of the various groups. Institutionalization of schools was mandatory. Thus, all religious schools were considered by the government as state schools with special privileges. Based on the acceptability of aggressive institutionalization, community leaders framed the situation differently and responses varied. For example, Assyrian and Chaldeans initially voiced reservation over the policies, but ultimately submitted to government pressure by assimilating because of concerns about other issues (such as the schools being completely closed down; Sanasarian, 2000). Assyrian and Chaldean schools had been forced to accept Muslim students because they had low enrollments in their schools. The educational strategy of community isolation led to demobilization because resources were inadequate to maintain school cohesion. By having to include Muslim students, replace principals and teachers, and include Islamic curriculum during religious studies, these latter schools also experienced a boundary shift, breaking down the insularity of the community. However, concessions served as a process of collection action to preserve a semblance of community schools, despite having to compromise fundamental features. Some Armenian schools adjusted, and adopted the bare minimum requirements, scaling down old self-determined curriculum in exchange for maintaining the steady mobilization of community and state resources, and keeping schools open.
Notwithstanding continuous compromise brought on by institutionalization, there were many Armenian schools, particularly in northern Iran that rejected some of the policies through contained contentious claims, using the Constitution as backing, appealing through political representative and religious leaders. These bold claims stem from the community’s composition and characteristic. The Apostolic Armenian community had the largest number of followers among the recognized religious minorities, perhaps justifying the need to show significant representation in the country. Secondly, by being institutionalized, channels for contained contention were appropriately followed—unlike Bahá’ís, whose access to such channels of communication was blocked. Armenian Apostolic church leaders also used their internal networks with Muslim clergy to broker support wherever possible (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). Such links between local religious leaders with local Muslim clergy and government agents had developed over decades to maintain the insular nature of the Armenian community (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987). While for decades prior to the Revolution, the Apostolic Church had sought to preserve their community by soliciting the help of government and Muslim parallel authorities to combat foreign missionaries (Berberian, 2000), they now used the same networks to ensure that they were not seen as a threat and safeguard the uniqueness of their community. Armenian leaders framed the preservation of Armenian language and use of their own religious textbooks as fundamental to their religiosity.
Contested boundaries. Representative leaders of the Armenian Apostolic community aggressively resisted the regime’s demands. This may have been motivated by their perceived relationship with the regime, the level at which they were affect by new regulations, and ultimately what they believed to be at stake. The new government decrees became an issue around which the Armenian community mobilized (Sanasarian, 1995, 2000). Artak Manukian, primate of the Tehran Armenian Diocese, vehemently opposed the new religious curriculum as “interference in our [Armenian] religious teaching,” and argued that “these officials cannot and are not authorized to prepare a textbook for our faith and put it into use” (Iran Times, 15 April 1983, p. 17). The Armenian-Iranian leadership framed the imposition as a government strategy to “kill off the Armenian school system and use of the Armenian language” (Iran Times, 15 April 1983, p.17). Manukian appealed to the Deputy Minister of Education, Haddad Adel, explaining that Armenian language and religious instruction were inseparable (Iran Times, 15 April 1983). Not only did select community leaders reject the imposed policies, but Manukian made several other counter demands: (a) only Armenians should attend community schools; (b) religious feasts be observed in schools; and warned that (c) unless Armenian custom and culture prevailed in schools, the community would be destroyed (Iran Times, 15 April 1983)
The religious leaders and Majles representative may have been outspoken, but it was within the bounds of contained contention. However, the situation escalated into transgressive contention as each side raised the stakes. This is illustrated by one episode between Armenians and the Ministry of Education in 1982–1983, when the Minister of Education, Ali-Akbar Parvaresh, requested that school administrators submit final exam questions for religious studies in both Armenian and Persian (Iran Times, 2 September, 1983). Armenian educators assumed that Persian translation was requested for vetting purposes, but on the day of the examination, Muslim government proctors distributed the Persian version of the test in Armenian schools.
Students responded by refusing to take the exam, and turned in blank tests (Iran Times, 8 June 2004); others were bewildered and incapable of completing the test (Iran Times, 2 September 1983). Manukian complained that “this issue is critical for us; why is the religious subject that is taught in Armenian—as is our right to do so—tested in Persian?” (Iran Times, 2 September 1983, p. 14). He argued that it was unreasonable to think that students who received instruction in one language could be expected to be tested on the same subject in another language. By inciting contention, the community and its leaders were making a bid for expansive rights to remain isolated from the government’s educational agenda.
While the government had tolerated the uncooperative behavior of Armenian school administrators and teachers in the past, this blatant disregard for repeated demands of the Ministry of Education provoked further intolerance, particularly in the face of the momentum for cultural hegemony fueled by the 1981 Cultural Revolution. The Speaker of the House, Hashemi Rafsanjani, lashed out at the audacity of Armenians in refusing to follow instructions (Iran Times, 22 June 1984). Students who had refused to take the examination were failed (Iran Times, 2 September 1983). In Tehran, the district school superintended followed orders to close down those schools in which students and teachers refused to comply (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). More than 12 schools were shut down, including some of the more prominent ones, such as Sahagian, Alik, Rostam, Nor Ani, and St. Mary’s (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). Manukian was meeting with Ayatollah Montazeri on the very day the schools faced closure (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). In response to Montazeri’s statements of sympathy and support, Manukian responded in frustration, lamented the restrictions on classes, and dismissal of teachers and principals; he also expressed great anxiety that all Armenian schools would also be shutdown (Iran Times, 6 July 1984, p. 1).
After government retaliation for disobedience to Ministry orders, the Armenians retreated, and agreed that language instruction would be reduced to as little as two hours a week, and that the state-issued religious textbook would replace their own curriculum (Sanasarian, 1995). Unable to marshal the clout necessary to change government policy, the community complied in order to keep other schools open. This led to increased migration. Whereas during the Pahlavi era, little resistance was used upon closure of schools, and the community preserved its good standing with the government, in the current situation, the Christian community tested the opportunity structure to its limits and adjusted accordingly, without using international networks.
Sanasarian (2000) explains that in the southern part of Iran (Isfahan) and in peripheral areas (Rasht and Tabriz), Armenians did not face as much rigidity as those living in Tehran and explains that this may be attributed to the dynamics of local relations and networks between Muslim clergy and local Armenian Church leaders. For example, while Armenian language was taught in Tehran schools for only two hours, in Isfahan six to eight hours were allocated. I suggest that this difference may stem from the variation in the local communities’ relations and network ties with local authorities, as well as the characteristic of the groups, the Armenian community representative in the south being less vocal in general than those in the north (Sanasarian, 2000).
Several important processes went into shaping the educational strategy of Armenian-Iranian Christians, including contention, mobilization, collective action, self-representation, new coordination, escalation, polarization, boundary activation, scale-shift, isolation, and framing. By audaciously resisting unfavorable government policies through transgressive contention, and appealing rights in Parliament through contained contention, the community’s leadership was attempting to maintain isolated schools to meet community goals of insularity. Leaders in the north acted collectively to present the case for the uniqueness of the Armenian community, suggesting that language was integral to religious integrity. They framed resistance to imposed changes as a constitutional right when addressing government agents, and as a religious imperative when coordinating efforts within the community. They pressed forward with goals of a distinct Armenian school by refusing to take exams or lessening hours of instruction, through writing letters to high ranking clergy, and voicing protest in parliament.
Other significant processes were at work. Mobilization of efforts to reject some changes and accept others enabled leaders to push the line. However, community leaders engaged in transgressive contention, overstepping the limits of government tolerance, thus provoking an unexpectedly repressive and demobilizing response: the closure of over a dozen schools. The movement by religious and political community leaders to keep the desirable features that had existed under the previous regime coalesced in a renewed attribution of self-representation, in a display by a coalition of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (see Tilly and Tarrow, 2004). Institutionalization may have hampered continuation of transgressive contention and pursuit of original educational strategies (such as the pursuit of more language, cultural, and religious content) because community leaders did not want to lose the rights and standing guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Conversely, institutionalization aided community leaders in voicing protest against restrictive policies through legal means.
As with the Jewish community, Iranian Christians downplayed their historic relationship with Western and Soviet powers, by emphasizing renewed ties and identity shift toward the Islamic Republic’s image of the Iranian citizen. Boundary and identity affirmation played a significant role in ensuring that the educational strategies of ethnic Christians would be carried out, by re-polarizing the community as distinct from other Christian communities, from transnational network ties, and from the new regime. Nearly all these processes were brokered through the Parliamentary representatives and the religious leaders. Some leaders were naturally more active than others, and enjoyed varying relations with local and national government, as well as with other Muslim authorities. Manukian’s public sentiments reverberated throughout the Tehran Armenian community, providing a vision and response to emulate: that commitment to the Armenian language was not simply a linguistic issue but a religious one, and its preservation imperative.
Adaptation and alignment. By the 1990s, the situation for recognized Christians relaxed. In 1995, the number of hours allowed for Armenian language use increased from four–five hours to six–eight in Tehran’s Armenian schools, as in other areas (Sanasarian, 2000). However, parents and teachers continued to complain that this was insufficient for their children to adequately learn the language (Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 2008). The response was to tolerate and accept boundaries. Several Armenian-Iranians living outside Iran recall positively having attended the Armenian-run schools (anonymous graduates of Alishan Armenian school, group forum postings, 20 June 2009–23 February 2010).The Islamic Republic’s amicable relationship with the newly formed independent Armenian state (est. 1992) has also provided a more open opportunity structure. According to George Vartan, the community’s representative to the Majles, in 2008 about 15,000 Iranians of Armenian descent were studying in Armenian universities (Trend News, 20 October 2009). Another factor that has made the opportunity structure for ethnic Christians less stressful than it was in the early years of the Republic, is the isolationist nature of those communities, with nearly all Armenian-Iranians attending community-run schools (Sanasarian, 2000). There continue to be large numbers of Iranian Armenians who leave the country to pursue higher education and economic opportunity, most of them settling in the United States (principally California), Armenia itself, and to a lesser extent Europe (Eliz Sanasarian, personal communication, 14 April 2009). Notwithstanding a generally tolerant situation, there have been individual reports of discriminatory experiences in university admissions process (anonymous in Iran, personal communications, 12 December, 2009; 10 February 2010).
In the last two decades, large-scale processes at work toward fulfilling educational strategies include mobilization, new coordination, collective action, isolation, integration, institutionalization, scale shift, and internationalization, strategies previously employed by the community. While official network ties to transnational communities in America and Europe weakened, families still maintain strong connections, and use these ties when members seek to leave the country (anonymous Armenian Iranian, personal communication, 4 November 2009). The strong ties between the Armenian-Iranian community and Armenia have reinforced efforts to keep a distinct insular cultural community by affirming identity boundaries. Ethnic communities, such as the Armenians have been able to sustain their characteristics through the employment of cultural isolationism, and during the Islamic Republic period, their relations with the regime have remained more favorable than those of any other religious minority in Iran (United States Commission on Religious Freedom, 2008).
Summary. For the Christian communities under the Islamic Republic, contained contention was used to press for more privileges and rights within the bounds of the Constitution. When group contention became transgressive, the situation escalated, resulting in government repression—resonant with the response of the Pahlavi government toward Baha’is who engaged in transgressive contention. Recognized Christian groups adapted by aligning with government policies while attempting to maintain a relatively isolated community. Over the entire course of the Islamic Republic to date, Christians made compromises to educational features while continuing to pursue an isolationist strategy which reflects how community leaders framed educational goals. Network ties to Western powers and transnational communities in those countries were severed to maintain good relations with the regime. Noticeably, the positive state-state relations between Iran and Armenia allowed for sustained network ties with transnational communities there. It is interesting to note that like the Jewish community, exit was the initiative and perhaps most impactful strategy on the community features after the Revolution.
Baha’is in the Islamic Republic of Iran Although Baha’is never attempted to reopen their own schools during the regime of Muhammad Reza, they had ample opportunity to integrate into government-run schools and universities. This led to a noticeable rise in their socioeconomic status, and subsequently their relation with both the public and the government—despite never being officially recognized as a religious group in the country. During this period, the Baha’i community not only expanded in size and developed its organizational institutions, but also strengthened its ties with its transnational community. Despite sporadic episodes of repression by some radical Muslim organizations and some government agents, the last 20 years of the Pahlavi period were generally characterized by government toleration and facilitation.
With the 1979 Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Baha’is experienced a drastic change in their relation with the government, as well as the composition and characteristics of their community. Unlike the Christians and Jews, Baha’is were never institutionalized within the Islamic Republic. Many high-ranking regime leaders declared Baha’is to be incompatible with the Islamic Republic (Hojjat’ul-Islam Jannati, cited in Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006). In general, the regime restricted the opportunity structure for Baha’is by targeting various aspects of the community which affected their educational opportunity dynamics and thus their strategies (Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006). In 1983, Baha’i administrative and charitable organizations were officially outlawed by the Attorney-General, Seyyed Hussein Musavi-Tabrizi (Keyhan, 21 September 1983).
In the atmosphere of the heightened anti-Baha’i rhetoric that was characteristic of some vocal Islamist revolutionaries, a number of Baha’is fled the country. Despite travel restrictions placed on Baha’is (like those imposed on Iranian Jews), especially between 1979 and 1984, 4,398 Baha’is immigrated to the United States alone (US NSA, 2009). Others traveled to Canada (3,000 according to Douglas Martin, personal communication, 31 March 2010), Europe, Australia, India, and other locations where they had network or family connections or where national Baha’i communities were able to provide services. As for the Jewish community, the social conditions facing the Iranian Baha’i community during this time has had a serious impact which has changed the composition and characteristic, networks, and regime relations of the Baha’i community and their educational strategies and opportunities over the three decades under the Islamic Republic.
Streams and Episodes I look at mid-scale and small-scale processes within two distinct streams for this period. The first stream, and its episodes, includes the general educational challenges and opportunities for Baha’i children attending primary and secondary level government schools during this period, in the context of the regime’s educational policies and practices, and some consequential educational strategies that emerged out of that evolving situation. The second stream entails the denial of access to Bahá’í students to higher education and their response by creating a parallel university, the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). To this end, I have selected representative episodes that reflect general trends of educational strategy selection.
Schooling in the Islamic Republics: Challenges and opportunities. The newly appointed Minister of Education, Muhammad Ali Rafai, a former leading organizer of the Hojjatiyah (an anti-Baha’i organization) in Qazvin, issued an edict that called for the purge of Baha’is from the education system, and held Baha’i teachers responsible for repayment of their salaries to the government (Figure D7 shows a facsimile). Rafai (1981) emphasized the regime’s uncompromising stance on Baha’is in public schools, stating that the Ministry of Education “will not tolerate followers of the Baha’i sect in its educational unit, so as not to defile and destroy the minds and thoughts of innocent students.”
Administrators and teachers identified as Baha’i were dismissed throughout Iran, including university instructors (Baha’i International Community, 2005). Regime repression peaked during the first epoch of the Islamic Republic; government agents dismissed Baha’is from schools and government jobs, along with other more severe treatment (Bordewich, 1987; Jamuri Eslami, 30 June 1980; Washington Post, 24 January 1980). The government used repression as a means to facilitate ideological congruence by purging incompatible elements out of its system or coercing assimilation of various groups to conform to the regime’s vision of the state (requiring Baha’is to recant; Associated Press, 30 July 1983; Bigelow, 1992; Kazemzadeh, 2000).
The Ministry of Education also targeted school children. In 1981, the Ministry of Education distributed an official form to Iranian schools, requiring students to identify their affiliation with the Baha’i religion, their family’s affiliations, the number of years they considered themselves Baha’is, and their willingness to recant their faith (Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Education, 1981; Figure D8 shows a facsimile). Prior to enrolling in the upcoming academic year, if students did not identify themselves with one of the recognized religious groups in Iran (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or Zoroastrian), they faced general harassment and occasionally expulsion (Baha’i International Community, 1982). Furthermore, in that same year, the Ministry of Education formalized the prohibition against Baha’is in private and public universities, issuing several letters of expulsion over subsequent years and prohibiting nonrecognized religious minorities from sending funds to students studying abroad (Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006; Kayhan, 4 August 1981, p. 4).
Those who identified themselves as Baha’i faced serious consequences. Over the course of the first three years, Baha’i school children were sporadically subjected to coercion, abuse, and expulsion from schools. Expulsion and suspension from school was not systematic, and occurred erratically in different parts of Iran. However, the numbers remained high; approximately 25,000 Baha’i children were expelled by 1983 (Southwest Newswire, 10 February 1984). Baha’i religious classes were also targeted. In Shiraz, several young women (among them teenagers), who were volunteer Baha’i religious class teachers, were sentenced to death and hanged by official order from the local government agents on charges of Baha’i propaganda (Roohizadegan, 1994; Washington Times).
Several responses followed. Some Baha’is left Iran via carefully chosen routes, such as those used by Iranian Jews escaping the country. Some parents and community leaders made direct appeals to school principals, local administrators, and even complained to regional government offices; however, most complaints were ineffective (Baha’i International Community, 1982; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006). Baha’is had abandoned parallel secular education decades earlier because government schools provided sufficient venue and generally open access to educational opportunities; thus it was an out-of-practice strategy. However, parallel religious studies classes and programs had successively improved (Baha’i World Centre, The Baha’i World, Vols. 14–17). Parallel schooling, unlike during the previous regime, posed the danger of government retaliation because of Baha’i activities were officially prohibited.
The Universal House of Justice and other Baha’i national and local leadership organizations framed the persecution of Baha’is in two ways. First, to non-Baha’i governmental and nongovernmental organizations they characterized the Islamic regime’s treatment of Baha’is as a transgression of fundamental human rights (see Ghanea, 2002; Baha’i International Community, 2005b); this is a process Tarrow (2005) calls externalization, whereby local claims are extended and transformed from indigenous rights to universal human rights. Simultaneously, they provided ample moral support by framing the fortitude and perseverance of those who were bearing persecution as a service to and sacrifice for the Baha’i community (Universal House of Justice, multiple letters dating 1983–1992). Both of these were frames used in past episodes during the Pahlavi era when government agents and parallel authorities (Islamic clergy and anti-Baha’i organizations) harassed and attacked Baha’is. Thus, the Iranian Baha’i community’s transnational network was activated to work toward changing educational opportunity structure, and thus coalesced into an educational strategy (i.e., advocacy for educational rights).
Virtually all Baha’is, children and parents included, identified themselves as Baha’is upon inquisition, even in the face of possible dire consequences. One reason for this response was because dissimulation (an act of dishonesty) has always been prohibited in the Baha’i Faith, and was reiterated by the Universe of Justice and other National Assemblies (Universal House Justice, 1985, 1985a; National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, 1985). This is reminiscent of the uncompromising stance taken decades earlier during the Pahlavi era, in suspending Baha’i-run schools on Baha’i holy days because the religious injunction required them to be closed. The Iranian Baha’i community found itself with few options, especially because appealing to the government[16]—which did not recognize them—proved to be useless, while it was not willing to make what it perceived as unacceptable concessions. Consequently, community leaders and members turned to the Baha’i World Centre for guidance.
Building on decades of experience, the Baha’i International Community was mandated by the Universal House of Justice to launch a comprehensive campaign using media outlets, government ties, and other organizational affiliations in shedding light on the situation facing the Iranian Baha’i community, and soliciting help in pressuring the Iranian government to alter its course of action—including education-related issues (Kazemzadeh, 2000; Baha’i International Community, 6 June 2006). The BIC worked closely with National Spiritual Assemblies and other non-Baha’i institutions and organizations from around the world, including United Nations agencies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Federation of Human Rights (Sara Vader, personal communication, 7 December 2009). Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) “boomerang effect” model succinctly illustrates how group transnational networks and international organizations are used in restrictive conditions. The interests of the Iranian Baha’is were pursued through the channels of the Baha’i International Community, to bring external pressure on the Islamic Republic, after the Baha’i community itself was unable to ameliorate the situation via internal means. According to several sources, advocacy seemed to lessen the regime’s tendency to use violent behavior, but spurred the regime to use more discreet repressive measures (Ghanea, 2002; Bigelow, 1992; Baha’i International Community, 2005b; Kit Bigelow, personal communication, 2 October 2009; Diane Ala’i, personal communication, 18 November 2009).
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Baha’i children were once again integrated in public schools with relatively little resistance, and only isolated instances of suspension and expulsion. The government’s tolerance reflects its shifted focus with the leadership of a new pragmatist at the helm of government during the second epoch, and the rise of the reform movement during the third epoch of the Islamic republic. The shift from violent performances was partially an effort to facilitate assimilation. This was made evident in a confidential document issued by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCCR) in February 1991, outlining the general government strategy on how to address Baha’is living in Iran (Golpaygani, Islamic Republic of Iran, SCCR, 1991; see Figures D9 and D10 for facsimile and translation). Education was one of the central strategies in dealing with “the Baha’i question.” On closer examination, the memorandum presents a mix of repression, tolerance, and facilitation. For example, the SCCR recommends that Baha’is be “enrolled in schools provided they have not identified themselves as Baha’is.” However the policy also suggests that even if they are implicitly identified, “preferably, they should be enrolled in schools which have a strong and imposing religious ideology.” Thus, forced assimilation is was the ultimate goal.
Notwithstanding the revised government posture, Baha’is continued to either integrate into the education system or exit the country. Because conditions for leaving became less stringent during the second and third epoch of this period (ca. 1989–2004), many Baha’is continued to leave Iran. The strain of restricted opportunities in Iran affected community morale and cohesion (Baha’i International Community, 2005b; Sanasarian, 2000). In turn, community members took initiative and organized discreet classes on Baha’i studies in homes (anonymous BIHE and Baha’i religious class teachers in Iran, personal communication, 10–24 December 2009). Thus, paralleling became an additional strategy in addition to integration. The characteristics of the community had changed as a result of attrition among community leaders and the educated class; the use of parallel schooling was used to continue preserve community cohesion and identity. It is interesting to note that several Iran Baha’is both inside and outside the country informed me that although the heightened repression may have hampered facilitation of activity, it reinforced Baha’i identity. While seemingly counterintuitive, I argue that the effects of polarization (an “us-them” amplification) sparked by the regime emboldened boundaries and contributed to community cohesion.
While general social conditions for Baha’i individuals improved during the second and third epochs, as compared to the first, with the rise of the new conservatives in 2005, Baha’is again experienced difficulties in the schools. For example, in a survey of incidents involving insults, mistreatment, and even physical violence by school authorities against Baha’i students over a 30-day period (mid-January to mid-February) in 2007, nearly 150 cases were identified in 10 different cities (One Country, 2007). Other instances involving Baha’i students also reflect the general rise of intolerance, and the application of abrasive and clandestine methods to assimilate young Baha’is (see Baha’i International Community in US NSA, 2008, for summary report on attacks against Baha’i school children in Iran 2007–2008). I argue that the lack of favorable regime-group relations, and closed political opportunity structures, increased the importance of group networks and characteristics to compensate in forming educational strategies.
Looking back at the interactions concerning education between the Islamic Republic and the Baha’i community, several processes stand out: contention, coalition formation, collective action, escalation, framing, identity shift (or reaffirmation), internationalization, mobilization and demobilization, polarization, scale shift, and self-representation. The regime imposed high stakes claims on the educational (and other) interests of Baha’is, and as a result of failed cooperative attempts to appeal to the government, the Baha’i International Community and other national Baha’i communities collectively acted on behalf of Iranian Baha’is primarily through human rights advocacy to governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Information was diffused by Iranian Baha’i leaders to the BIC, which in turn diffused methods of advocacy to National Spiritual Assemblies around the world, who coordinated national and local campaigns in their respective countries. Baha’is who remained in Iran formed ad hoc coalitions to meet their needs, which included providing private religious classes for Baha’is, but also moral support and community cohesion by framing the fortitude of the community members as a service and sacrifice for “the Cause.”
Thus, the situation was escalating both within the regime and within the Baha’i community. The regime raised the cost of mobilization by threatening expulsion from school and banning students from higher education, in order to dissuade Baha’is from maintaining their loyalty to their community. In turn, Baha’is by and large rejected the threats, by disbanding their entire organizational structure after it was outlawed (maintaining contained contention), and while tolerating educational discrimination, sought representation and advocacy from transnational networks. This, in turn, not only polarized the two groups, but simulated boundary activation for Baha’i identity. The nationwide demobilization of the Iranian Baha’i community’s organizational structure and infrastructure (i.e., centers, property, holy sites, and service facilities), as well as the emigration of large numbers of educated and affluent community members was a significant blow to the Baha’i community’s composition and characteristics.
The Universal House of Justice continued to reinforce the morale of Iranian Baha’is by framing their ability to withstand repression as heroism and a courageous fulfillment of their loyalty and service to their faith. Inside Iran, framing the restrictive and inequitable educational policies as part and parcel of a greater sacrifice was genuinely accepted by community members. This practice has been an effective strategy for many years. The increased interaction between national and international Baha’i institutions with other organizations constituted a new level of internationalization and in some ways a transnational social movement on behalf of the Iranian Baha’is. By extending frames that presented the plight of Baha’i as a universal violation of human rights, the Baha’i community was able to garner the support of human rights organizations and democratic governments.
The adaptive innovation of a parallel higher education institute. Although the Islamic regime tolerated the return of Baha’is into the public school system, it refused their participation in higher education. This was part of the regime’s broader Cultural Revolution launched by Khomeini, which set out to purge and purify universities from what the regime perceived as anti-Islamic elements. The Baha’is turned to innovation to counter the effects of the ban.
Three episodes within this stream illustrate higher educational strategy selection and deployment processes. The first episode (encapsulating events across time) highlights the ongoing denial of entry into public universities by the Islamic Republic. The second episode is one of actuation, whereby the Baha’i community mobilized and put into motion the making of a parallel university. The third episode involves a government crackdown and raid on the university after it had been well established (representative of similar encounters between the regime and the parallel university).
Denial. Among the exclusionary policies which were initially imposed on Baha’is, denial of higher education was a central regime strategy to repress the community. To take the university entrance exam (konkur), students had to identify themselves as belonging to one of the four recognized religions in the Islamic Republic. Students who left the question blank, or wrote in Baha’i, were automatically disqualified. In the February 1991 memorandum, the policy required that Baha’is “should be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Baha’is...” (Golpaygani, 1991). For the first two decades, the only educational strategy to access universities was exiting the country; the network ties of the Iranian Baha’is with their transnational communities and families who had left earlier made this a possibility. This situation changed in 1987 with the establishment of the Baha’i parallel institute for higher education, the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE)..
Innovative adaptation. In 1987, a group of university professors, most of whom were fired from their posts after the Revolution, came together to develop an institute for higher learning, later entitled the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2009). With an open ban on public Baha’i activity, the advanced education classes were held discreetly in homes and shops privately owned by Baha’is, and relied heavily on distance learning modalities. Initially, the goals were modest, offering classes on subjects reflecting the expertise of instructors and interest of students (Baha’i International Community, 2005b; Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). Because degrees issued by BIHE were unofficial (i.e., not from an accredited university), participation in the programs was framed with reference to the Baha’i concept of advanced education as a service and religious imperative. Within several years, the number and diversity of classes grew to form quasi-departments divided according to disciplines and departments, such as civil engineering, business administration, computer software engineering, biology, sociology, and educational psychology. Despite being unaccredited and unrecognized by the state, the demand for entering the new university was exceptionally high (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, n.d.; 250 enrolled in 1987 and 1200 in 2008). I argue that not being institutionalized, and thus having little to lose in terms of legal rights, provided the impetus to take the additional risk of establishing the Institute and enrolling in its courses. In other words, institutionalization of the Jewish and Christian education initiatives, while providing them with some opportunities, caused them to make certain fundamental concessions, with the risk of losing what they had already acquired. Baha’is on the other hand, were denied government institutionalization, which actually propelled Baha’is to create a space to meet their needs in the ways that suited them.
Through the ad hoc Baha’i national and local committees, information was disseminated throughout various Baha’i communities, including lists of prerequisites, admission testing dates and sites, and protocols for study, supervision, examinations, etc. Between 1987 and 1999, most of the classes were administered in Tehran, where students would attend for a period of time, and then return to their homes to complete work (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 21 October 2009). When it became known that the postal service was interfering with the distribution and reception of materials, innovative means were devised whereby various appointed individuals would hand deliver curriculum and material packets.
As a result of community demands for access to the only means of higher education in the country, not only were more subjects and new fields included in BIHE, but also administrators reached out to trusted non-Baha’i associates working at public universities in Iran (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; anonymous Baha’is in Iran, personal communications, 10–24 December 2009). Over time, facilities were rented or purchased by the Baha’i community to host special classes that required laboratories and workstations, such as dentistry, chemistry, computer science, and architecture (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; Baha’i International Community, 2005a). However, BIHE continues to use primarily homes and private shops owned by local Baha’is as classrooms (anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 12 December 2009). To help accommodate the large influx of enrollments, many BIHE graduates volunteer as teaching assistants and lecturers.
With the advent and proliferation of the Internet, BIHE experience significant transformation and expansion. At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, the maintenance of records, and most course work was transferred online (administered by Baha’is in Canada). While most members of the governing board for the Institute remained in Iran, it also had affiliate board members in Canada and the United States (anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 12 December 2009). Moving courses online also facilitated an increase in the number of instructors able to teach classes and widened the range and scope of new courses. BIHE administrators and other Baha’i leaders outside Iran solicited the aid of academics and professionals to join what is called the Affiliated Global Faculty (AGF; Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). The number of Iran-based and international faculty grew from 273 members in 2006 (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006) to approximately 350 in 2009 (anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 12 December 2009). The transnational network of the Baha’is reached down to the individual level, with Baha’i volunteers in countries around the world joining the AGF.
Since the late 1990s, an increasing number of BIHE graduates have successfully been able to receive recognition by universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, India and other parts of the world, and thus continue to graduate education (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). This was the result of highly coordinated and collaborative efforts between BIHE administrators, students, and transnational Baha’i community members in these countries (Baha’i International Community, 2005a). BIHE also sponsors scholarships for high performing graduates to receive graduate degrees abroad and then to return to join the Iran-based faculty of BIHE for a set number of years (anonymous BIHE administrator, personal communication, 13 December 2009).
Some salient processes that went into the strategy of innovation and adaptation of the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education include: actor constitution, coalition formation, mobilization, collective and coordinated action, framing, globalization and internationalization, and scale shift. Professors and professionals fired from previous positions regrouped and constituted a new sub-group of educators within the Baha’i community, forming coalitions with the Baha’i ad hoc committees, as well as reaching out to other academics and organizations inside and outside Iran. This new coalition of Baha’i leaders and educators mobilized the community’s resources and drew on networks to create a parallel institute for higher education. Procedures for accessing the private university were diffused through letters between the Institute and the community through the brokerage of the ad hoc local committees. By engaging in high levels of organization, a team of administrators, instructors, staff, and students coordinated students and class schedules, and collectively acted to facilitate access to higher education. The mobilization efforts gradually evolved and expanded in both scope and range to include more students, instructors, courses, and diversity. The ability to use homes, shops, and rented facilitates was gained earlier from the community’s experience during both the Qajar and early Pahlavi dynasty. The high level of internal networks within the Iranian Baha’i community, following a quasi-hierarchical structure in tandem with decentralized committees created functional channels of communication, resource allocation, and strategy deployment.
The pursuit of education was again framed as an imperative, but also now as a service to the Baha’i Faith itself. This consequently boosted the morale not only of students but also of the Iranian Baha’i community at large. Drawing on international networks, and building a pool of hundreds of affiliated global faculty members from around the world through Internet communication illustrates of the increasingly successful processes of globalization. When, beginning in the mid-1990s several students were admitted into recognized universities abroad, procedures were diffused among peer groups and BIHE administrators to other students. Non-Iranian universities who accepted BIHE students into their graduate programs unofficially certified BIHE and their educational enterprise. The collaboration of BIHE, other Baha’i organizations and academics, and non-Baha’i institutions in arranging transferable credit from BIHE to other universities also highlights the process of internationalization. Since 1987, the parallel university experienced a significant upward scale shift, with an increase in almost every feature, including faculty, courses, students, subjects and degrees. With all these developments, it is not surprising that in 1998, the expansion of the school, however tolerated it may been at various points, drew unfavorable attention on an unprecedented scale.
The raids of 1998. By 1998, the Institute offered the Bachelor degree in ten subject areas, each requiring 200 distinct courses each term in each of five departments (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). Although in the initial years of the school, the identities of professors were concealed from students, by mid-1990s, BIHE operated even more openly and established several laboratories and testing facilities around Tehran (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; Baha’i International Community, 2005a). The expansion attracted the attention of the government. In September and October of 1998, government agents launched a surprising and sweeping raid of nearly 500 homes, rented venues, and shops associated with the university, confiscated over US$100,000-worth of equipment and essential documents, and arrested 36 faculty members and administers (anonymous BIHE administrative staff, personal communication, 10 December 2009; Baha’i International Community, 2005a). While the BIHE had experienced raids prior to this incident, they had been relatively mild and seemingly uncoordinated (anonymous BIHE administrative staff member, personal communication, 10 December 2009). The faculty members who were arrested and interrogated were eventually released, and were undeterred by their jailors to sign pledges to stop their activities.
The Baha’i International Community responded with a surge of public statements addressed to various international and national, governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Moreover, other Baha’i national communities were encouraged to become involved, including the solicitation of non-Baha’i academics and organizations (see United States Baha’i Website, http://iran.bahai.us/support-bahai-students/, for outline of advocacy instructions). The Universal House of Justice and Iranian Baha’i leaders continued to encourage students and educationalist involved in the Institute to continue their work over the next several years (Baha’i International Community, 2005a; also see a letter written by the Universal House of Justice addressing Iranian Baha’i students, 9 September 2007). With the aid of the Iranian Baha’i community, through individual donations from within and outside of Iran, the Baha’is were able to recuperate from the substantial losses.
Despite the alarming raid, participation in BIHE did not lessen, but rather continued to grow during the following years (Baha’i International Community, 2005b). Several instructors interviewed expressed their surprise that, despite the government’s vigilance in keeping Baha’is out of public universities, the regime tolerated or neglected the existence of BIHE (however selective it may have been). Nonetheless, government tolerance or neglect of the Institute must also be considered in its ability to remain open. In the face of the ongoing harassment, I suggest that without this narrow window in the opportunity structure, however restrictive it may be, no coordination, resources, or framing adequately explains the expansion of the Institute over the past 10 years.
As Figure D11 shows, contrary to what one might have expected, instead of showing a downward scale shift, the BIHE experienced an increase in its activity, resources (human, material, and cultural), and faculty (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). Baha’is avoided confrontation inside Iran, and continued to operate the Institute quietly. The high flow of traffic occurring in the Iranian Baha’i network sustained most innovations and adaptations, including the increase of new forms of resources that were not present before (i.e., technological). As a general reaction to heightened repression in 2007–2008, particularly with the dissolution of the Yaran and increased raids of homes, the Institute scaled down its physical facilities (personal observation, 23 December 2009; anonymous BIHE chemistry instructor, personal communication, 23 December 2009).
Repressive facilitation. In 2003, however, the regime gave all appearances of opening a new opportunity structure for Iranian Baha’is to pursuit public higher education. The requirement to identify religious affiliation was removed from the entrance examination forms (Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, n.d.). In response to this seeming new opportunity, nearly 1,000 Baha’i high school graduates signed up and took the university entrance exam the following year (Baha’i International Community, 2005b). All students had to take a test on subjects related to one of the four recognized religions as part of the exam. Most Baha’i students chose to write about Islam, since it was taught in public schools and was thus most familiar to them. But upon receiving their entrance exam results, the Baha’i students were identified as Muslims (Baha’i International Community, 2005a; anonymous Baha’is in Iran, personal communications, 10–24 December 2009).
Several bold responses followed from among the 800 Baha’i students who passed the examination. The Iranian Baha’i community wrote a letter of appeal to President Khatami about the rights of Iranian Baha’is in the Islamic Republic (Baha’i Community of Iran, 15 November 2004). Part of the letter addressed what they called “the duplicity” of the government’s actions to sabotage Baha’i efforts to access higher education, and asked the government to provide the right of higher education to Baha’i youth who were Iranian citizens (Baha’i Community of Iran, 2004). There was no response.
The students who had applied actively tried to rectify the error on the forms, by writing to the Educational Measurement and Evaluation Organization, stating that they had been incorrectly identified. Officials responded by saying that because Baha’is are not recognized the information would not be changed (Baha’i International Community, 2005a; Affolter, 2007). Only 10 of the 800 who had passed the exam were acknowledged as having been admitted into university. All 10 rejected admission in protest and solidarity with their peers. From the perspective of the Baha’i community, this had clearly been a strategy on the part of the regime not only to demoralize Baha’i youth and encourage emigration, but also to keep human rights monitors at bay by showing that the regime had accommodated the Baha’is by giving them a chance to enroll—and then refusing to actually admit them to study (Baha’i International Community, 2005a). I suggest that the regime may have also used this strategy to encourage Baha’is to enter the state system by means of an implicit assimilation, avoiding the exercise of violent coercion.
In this situation, Baha’is continued to take the entrance exam and attempted to gain admission into public universities (Diane Ala’i, personal communication, 18 November 2009). However, time and again, Baha’is were identified as Muslims, and appeals to local and national offices ensued (Affolter, 2007). In some cases, a small fraction of Baha’i students are admitted (nearly 200), but at some point soon after they begin their studies, they are expelled (see Batebi, 2008, and Baha’i International Community, 3 October 2008 for examples).
Since 2006, several government documents have surfaced indicating the explicit pervasiveness of the policy to exclude Baha’i students (one of which refers directly to the February 1991 memorandum). For example, in 2006, in a letter directed to 81 Iranian universities, Asghar Zarei, the director general of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, issued instructions to expel all those who were identified as Baha’is (see Figure D12 for facsimile). Similarly, in November 2006 and March 2007, the government and university officials issued circulars to various branches of Payam-e-Noor University, Iranian’s largest public university (distance learning), requiring university administrators to block enrolment and continue expulsion of identified Baha’is (see Baha’i International Community, 27 August 2007 for facsimile and translation of documents). Students still attempt to attend public universities because employers and graduate schools around the world recognize Iranian university diplomas. In the clear expectation of expulsion, most Baha’i students simultaneously apply to the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education. Transnational community activism and advocacy on behalf of the Iranian Baha’i community continues. Without a means to access education, Baha’i youth continue to rely on the parallel university or study abroad as their primary strategy for accessing higher education (anonymous Baha’is in Iran, personal communications, 10–24 December 2009). In retrospect, the community’s ideological commitment to refuse to deny or even neglect stating their religious identity has a direct bearing on their access to public universities. These latest documents show that even transnational advocacy has not necessarily improved the prospect of changing the government’s policy of denying higher education to the Baha’is of Iran, but, rather, has led them to devise more innovative means of marginalizing active and vocal members of the community.
Summary. Baha’is who were blocked from educational opportunities in the first several years of the Islamic regime turned to advocacy and exit as the primary strategies to advance pursuit of educational opportunities. For the entire period of the Islamic Republic, Baha’is drew on several prominent strategies. Most of these were strategies employed during the Pahlavi era, although they assumed different forms. Variation in the regime-group relations—shifts in repression, toleration, and facilitation—had an impact on those processes that differed from past experience. I argue that in the absence of ties with the government, which marginalized the community and blocked access to higher education, led to innovative adaptation and bolder initiatives than both the Jewish and Christian community who had been given limited educational rights. It was also their centralized and transnational organizational configuration that supported continued mobilization and collective action to meet educational needs, despite increased waves of repression.
Comparative Review of Religious Minorities Under the Islamic Republic The radical transformation of the regime after the Islamic Revolution, recasting religious identity as a political identity within a theocratic state, entailed a series of reconfiguring relational dynamics, and ultimately group features, including characteristics and composition, networks, and regime-group relations. Not surprisingly, from the foregoing comparative examination of educational strategies during the Pahlavi era, some educational strategies were selected based on preference, others on those limited to a group because of the shifts in group features, and, finally, as a reaction to new government policies and practices. With a disparate and fragmented body of information to analyze, the mechanism-process approach made possible critical explanations of both similarities and differences in the educational strategies selected under the regime of the Islamic Republic. Similarly, a comparison shows more closely how group features bore on strategies, but, more interesting, how strategies shaped the very fabric of the features of the three communities.
As was done for the Pahlavi era, Figure 20 illustrates a relative timeline of major periods during which the government exercised heightened repression and closed educational opportunity structures, as well as periods when tolerance or neglect dominated regime behavior toward specific groups. Fluctuations in increased repression or imposition of specific educational policies reflect the regime’s efforts to meet state their own educational agenda and political goals.
1978–1979 — tolerance of mass exodus of religious minorities
1981–1985 — Height of Cultural Revolution and regime repression
1989–1996 — Period of pragmatism and relative neglect
1997 — Massive raid of Baha'i university
2004 — No longer required to label religious identity on university entrance exam
2005 — religious and political individuals not congruent are targeted
2005–2009 — Resurgence of government and mob harassment of targeted groups
Figure 20. Prominent government educational policies affecting religious minority educational opportunities during the Islamic Republic period.
As in earlier periods, the three groups sometimes shared the same types of strategies, partially shared strategies, or relied on group-specific and unique strategies. However, it is evident that during the Islamic Republic there was greater divergence of strategies; this can be explained by the drastic reconfiguration of group features. Below, I compare the development of prominent strategies by Jews, Christians, and Baha’is. It is especially important to note that past strategies re-emerged as the recurring course of actions chosen by groups, unless and until group features were changed, causing a rupture in regularly adopted educational strategies.
Shared Strategies Exit. Perhaps the strategy which had the greatest impact on both subsequent strategies and features of all three religious minority groups in the first decade of the Islamic republic was that of exit. Initially, many of those with financial means, higher education, and political clout fled the country in the first few years during and after the Revolution. Since the Revolution, the majority of both Christian and Jewish communities have emigrated in pursuit of educational and other opportunities elsewhere. Baha’is left Iran (some continue to leave) with refugee status, using network ties in communities throughout the world. While those who left were able to access education in the countries to which they immigrated, those who remained faced new challenges.
Tolerant Integration. Those who remained also integrated into the reformed educational system. Unlike the previous regime the Baha'i and Jewish community members who entered schools did so by tolerating general harassment and the discriminatory government curriculum. Nearly all Armenians remain isolated in Armenian Christian schools; those who do attend government public schools similarly tolerate minor harassment and discrimination. Assyrian and Chaldeans select integration in the form of conceding to government requirements to take in non-Christian students, in order to keep schools open. Those who do not tolerate these conditions usually receive harsher treatment and even expulsion. Baha’is appeal to school administrators occasionally, and Jews do sparingly as well; however, this is usually done without significant change in the situation. Tolerance on the part of Jews and Christians, without major appeal, is explained by the desire to maintain good relations with the state as a recognized religious community.
Partially Shared Strategies
Selective Assimilation. Both Jewish and Christian schools make concessions to government school regulations to keep schools open. This includes reduced language and religious instruction, use of government-issued religious textbooks, and forfeiting the Sabbath and recognition of some holy days by keeping schools open. Other concessions include gender-segregated schools, specific uniforms, and other compromises that do not reflect the goals of the religious community.
Institutionalization. Like under the previous regime, Jews and Christians are recognized by the government as legitimate religious communities, and are accorded a representative in the Parliament. Among the special rights of recognized religious minorities under the Islamic Republic is permission to run community schools with special features. Baha’is are not recognized or represented, and thus are forced to integrate into the state system, leave the country, or not participate in education at all.
Contention. In the first several years of the Islamic Republic, Armenian Christians were particularly vocal in resisting government policies which placed limitations on the isolationist goals and educational practices of the community. This was primarily carried out through contained contention, and was tolerated by the regime. However, when the community crossed the line, and engaged in transgressive contention, by protesting government-issued exams, the government closed schools, whereupon the community responded by backing off. Thus contention was reduced to contained contention. As a result of not being institutionalized, and being denied educational opportunities of various sorts during different periods, Baha’is engaged in contention through appeal and international advocacy on their behalf to the international community. It should be noted that the Jewish community did not engage in contention to meet educational needs, and fell back on assimilation and integration.
Group Specific Strategies
Assimilation. There are cases where members of the Jewish community assimilate into the general community, practicing dissimulation of religious affiliation in public, practicing their faith in private or in communal settings. This is done in hopes of avoiding harassment and discrimination in public.
Isolation. By the end of the Pahlavi period, Christians were extremely isolated in their schooling, and relied on continuing isolationism to meet the goals of cultural and religious preservation. While Muslim principals and many Muslim teachers manage most Armenian schools, the student body consists primarily, if not exclusively, of ethnic Armenians. Assyrian and Chaldean schools failed to maintain this desired isolation because of their small numbers; thus, their schools had to take in Muslim students. To this end, some members of these two groups attempt to attend Armenian schools.
Paralleling. Due to regime restrictions of cultural and religious education in community schools overseen by the government, Jewish and Christian community organizations maintain quasi-parallel religious classes for young people. These classes are held primarily in synagogues and churches, and are approved by the government. Similarly, the Baha’is hold private religious classes in homes and on private property, but because they are prohibited from conducting such classes publicly, they are constrained to be highly discreet. Perhaps the most noticeable case of paralleling as a strategy is the Baha'i community’s establishment and maintenance of a private parallel institute for higher education for nearly 3,000 Baha'i students, who are otherwise banned from public universities.
Innovation. Baha’i intellectuals and community members formed an ad hoc coalition to establish the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education. Through community resources and support, faculty members are able to mobilize and coordinate a series of classes, fields of study, and award degrees (not recognized by the state) to Baha'i students who are banned from higher education in Iran. They also draw on networks around the world, under the leadership and guidance of the Baha'i World Centre, to provide a broad global faculty of scholars to supervise classes by distance education.
Religious Minorities in Comparative Context of Group Features As seen during the Pahlavi period, group features had a significant bearing on the way in which mechanisms and processes combined to coalesce broad educational strategies. The variations in features and shifts that took place suddenly or over a longer period of time had a noticeable impact on other group features, and subsequently on the types of strategy that were (a) available and (b) acceptable to groups. In retrospect, while past strategies invariable influenced the selection of future ones, they were subject to the types of ties, resources, opportunities, and frames that were available and in play as are result of reconfigured group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations.
Composition and Characteristics The strategy of exit had perhaps the most significant impact on the Jewish and Christian communities, and to a lesser but still significant degree on the Baha'i community. With the vacuum of leaders, affluent and educated community members, who fled the country, in pursuit of educational and other opportunities and protection from perceived repression, those who remained faced new challenges with fewer resources on which to draw. For example, the Assyrian and Chaldeans were unable to mobilize resources required to protect schools from imposed integration. Most evident were the concessions made by the Iranian Jewish community by keeping schools open on the Sabbath, violating a fundamental tenet of Judaism, and by accepting compromises to the curriculum and staffing of the schools. The Armenian Christian schools attempted to show greater resistance initially, perhaps as a result of stronger leadership and larger numbers; however, after a repressive backlash on the part of the regime, they, too, made similar compromises. Baha’is, who were not only ostracized but whose organizations were banned from operation, reconfigured to form ad hoc committees to run community affairs and sought innovative means to adapt to the heightened repression of the regime. Their centralized leadership in Haifa helped to provide guidance in the pursuit of forming and selecting educational strategies. The characteristics of the Jewish community changed it grew smaller in number, consisting primarily of middle and lower class, and with leadership who outwardly aligned themselves with the regime, simultaneously denouncing association with previous transnational ties in Israel, the United States, and Western Europe. Armenian Christians also emphasized their support of the regime by disavowing association with Western and Russian powers.
Networks Composition and characteristics did drastically change, but so did the configuration of transnational and local networks. Because the Jewish and Christian leadership cut official ties with Israel and the United States—the countries providing their greatest support and network ties—they effectively cut the flow of material, human, organizational, and moral resources that came from them. I argue that this severing of ties to keep good relations with the regime made their network tie to the Iranian government more important in meeting educational needs. In contrast, Baha’is, who were excluded and marginalized by the government, relied even more heavily on network ties with its transnational community, and these indirect ties were used to fuel the advocacy campaign which countered the discriminatory state educational policies and practices, and provided support for other educational strategies. It is important that while human rights organizations, and several national and supranational government organizations have increased their discourse about human rights violations against all religious minorities in Iran, many Jewish and Christian community leaders, however difficult their situation may be, disassociate themselves from these groups and their claims, and realign themselves with the regime. I suggest that this is primarily the result of their consideration of relations and standing with the regime.
Regime-Group Relations When the Islamic Republic was established, I argue that religious identities became political, and thus a matter directly related to the state. In the first years of after the revolution, particularly between 1980 and 1984, there was heightened pressure on political and religious minorities. The government used coercion and force to facilitate support and alignment of these disparate groups. The Jewish and Christian community schools were faced with the need to make major changes, as a result of the regime’s intolerance of particular standards. The Jewish and Christian communities had been institutionalized into the new state system through official recognition and representation in the Majles, giving them the right to run community schools, albeit with some restrictions. Although they were able to engage in moderate contained contention to meet needs, transgressing the bounds threatened loss of other rights. I contend that this led both the Jewish and Christian communities to adopt a highly tolerant attitude toward government-imposed policies, and thus resulted in many concessions and compromises to keep group schools open. The most repressed of the three groups, the Baha’is, who continue to face high levels of educational discrimination and are still banned from higher education, had nothing to lose legally, since they were already excluded from the Constitution, were deemed a “misguided sect,” and were even targeted with sanctioned repression. The various levels of repression and neglect facing Baha’is by the Islamic regime led Baha'i community leaders and members to make innovative adaptations to meet educational needs. Thus, the fact that they were completely marginalized enabled the Baha’is to take greater risks than either Jews or Christians in meeting educational goals.
Conclusion In this chapter, I have identified educational strategies for each religious minority group, using historical narrative and the mechanism-process approach to explain how strategies were formed and selected by Jewish, Christian, and Baha’i communities in modern Iran. Through a cross-regime multi-case analysis, I have established that variations in group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime relations affect educational strategy formation and selection. While the literature on contentious politics looks at mechanism and process to explain phenomenon, I took these considerations a level further by looking at my proposed causal factors, which explain the nuances of the educational strategies that emerge.
Just as the deployment of strategies and their effect change a group’s composition and characteristics, networks, and regime relations, so the adopted strategies, in turn, affect the selection of subsequent strategies and change each group features. In other words, two cycles of interacting forces are simultaneously in motion, or what I call a bi-cycle effect, showing how the inter-relational dynamic of features and strategies serve as both conditional and causal forces in educational strategy formation and selection (see Figure 21 for illustration). Several prominent findings emerge from this analysis, the highlights of which may be helpful in reviewing how these three features influenced strategy selection, and how strategies in turn affected the three group features.
Figure 21. Bi-cycle effect: Relational dynamics of features and strategies.
The bi-cycle effect is an essential consideration of how one group’s education strategies emerge, continue, change, and vary from those of other groups. Where features are similar, strategies are also similar, with nuanced differences. However, when major shifts occur, there is a noticeable change in strategies accessible and acceptable to the groups. Strategies also affect subsequent ones, because they reflect the new configuration of the group features at play. For example, when the exodus of Iranian Jews took place during and shortly after the Islamic Republic, the composition and characteristics of the community drastically changed, thus limiting the set of strategies available—even if undesirable—such as the concession to keep schools open on the Sabbath. Because the leadership had been affected by the decline in educators and the reduced number of children attending schools, further compromises were made to keep schools open in order to preserve some semblance of community cohesion. This, in turn, became a common theme in subsequent strategies, such as acceptance of the heavily biased government-imposed curricula and the imposition of government-approved Muslim principals to run schools. This is only one example of how the bi-cycle effect model explains strategy selection better than other more simplified methods or descriptive analyses addressing the issues of religious minorities and education in Iran.
Composition and Characteristics Groups relied heavily on pre-existing organizations to broker and diffuse educational strategies, which ranged from integration into public schools to innovation of community run schools. I argue that the characteristics of the groups, particularly ideological orientation, determined the attitudes of community leaders and members in identifying what the educational goals were and which features were important. For example, seeing the advances made in the socioeconomic status of Iraqi Jews, the Jewish community became interested in modern schooling. This became the primary motive and driving force for most Iranian Jewish educational strategies. Once status had been assured, religious identity and cultural preservation gained importance. Christian groups in Iran were divided in their purpose for establishing schools and in their educational strategies: missionaries wanted moral and social education, while ethnic groups sought community preservation and development. Baha’is pursued educational opportunities by founding their own modern schools and integrating into public ones because education was mandated as an imperative by the head of the community.
Using my propositions within the mechanism-processes analysis, I explain that ideological orientation and framing by leaders influenced what strategies were acceptable and desirable, and which were unfavorable. For example, a selective assimilation strategy adopted by the Jewish community had its limits when religious education was compromised during the Pahlavi era, but was nevertheless tolerated. The exodus of tens of thousands of Jews during and after the Revolution, through a strategy I define as exit, significantly demobilized schooling efforts of the Iranian Jewish community, while fundamental compromise with Jewish law led to changes in the characteristic of the community. Baha’is were unwilling to compromise religious principles, and strategies were chosen within those constraints
At times ethnic and cultural divisions between transnational group members interfered with coalition formation and collective action, as in the case of Christian missionaries and Apostolic Christian leaders, or in the initial clash between French and Iranian Jews. These diversity issues ultimately influenced characteristics of the group, and, as I suggest, ultimately refined decisions made in meeting educational needs through boundary activation and polarization. When the Baha’i community faced severe setbacks after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, it continued to draw moral and organizational support from its central leadership in the Baha’i World Centre. Thus, I argue that the capacity of organizational structures, including transnational networks, determined the resources available to the three groups to employ educational strategies, and had a bearing on each group’s composition.
Networks Networks, I contend, played a significant role in the types of strategies available to the religious minority groups for a number of reasons. For Baha’is and Jews, the increase in network ties during the Pahlavi era provided them with resources and influenced regime-group dynamics. Christians in Iran benefited from the missionaries’ introduction of modern schools, but ethnic Christian leaders in northern Iran in particular separated themselves along cultural and denomination divides. Apostolic Armenian-Iranians strengthened ties with transnational same-denomination/same-ethnicity networks outside Iran—remaining a purposefully insular group. Networks were extremely important for Baha’is, and became the primary means of pursuing educational strategies, through advocacy and innovation. Coalitions built within Iran among Baha’is were fostered by the leadership of the Baha’i World Centre, which orchestrated external network ties around the world to provide resources, most noticeably in the form of advocacy. Iranian Jews severed almost all external network ties during the Islamic Republic era, becoming an isolated community with reduced resources to execute educational strategies.
I argue that it is precisely the weakness or strength of network ties that supports the ongoing activities of religious minorities in repressive settings. If networks are lacking or weak, then regime-group relations become central in shaping educational strategies. On the contrary, when regime-group relations are weak or strained, networks become an important factor in determining educational strategies.
Regime-Group Relations Although political opportunity structure offered openings and/or imposed restrictions on how strategies were executed, I explain that, this, in and of itself, did not ultimately determine the formation of strategies. Rather, it affected the type of strategies that were chosen. For example, while Jewish schools experienced high levels of tolerance during the Pahlavi era, they nonetheless experienced a decline because integration into the state system was being facilitated by the government. Conversely, Baha'is, who were excluded from recognition and representation, were able to create and run a parallel university despite a ban on attending public higher education.
Thus, I am convinced by the foregoing analysis that the manner in which a group responded to regime actions had significant bearing on strategies. The reason why Baha’is were successful in establishing the Institute for Higher Education during the Islamic Republic was because the group refused to acquiesce to government demands of recantation and denial of religious affiliation. When regime-group relations made it impossible—despite the use of international advocacy networks—to change unfavorable education policies, the government neglected to crack down harder on their efforts. Conversely, both Christian and Jewish schools made compromises to fundamental features of their schools to keep them open, but were included in public schools and universities.
Although it is clearly erroneous to conclude that institutionalization results in fewer opportunities, I argue that institutionalization has limits. Furthermore, I suggest that institutionalization can hamper some initiatives, and noninstitutionalization may lead to greater risk-taking and innovation in meeting educational needs—at least in the cases of minority religious groups in Iran.
The particular cases discussed here serve as examples of how group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations influence educational strategy selection. By analyzing events as processes and mechanisms, I have carried out an analysis that shows when and how similarities and variations took place. I assert that analyzing how strategies are selected also explains why those strategies were selected and deployed. Thus, I maintain the argument that conditional and causal elements overlap, and that outcomes themselves are also conditions and causes for strategy selection is critical in understanding how religious minority groups in Iran select educational strategies under restrictive conditions.
[1] AIU schools were established in Tehran (1898), Hamadan (1900), Isfahan (1901), Shiraz (1903), Sanandaj (1903), Kermanshah (1904), Bijar (1906), Nehavand (1906), Tuyserkan (1906), Kashan (1911), and Golpaygan (1914). Some of these schools closed down shortly after opening, and in some cities like Tehran, more than one school was opened.
[2] Alliance students were forbidden to speak Persian even in the schoolyard.
[3] Tables and Figures for this chapter are found in Appendix D.
[4] Mizrahi: from the east; that is, Jews descended from Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus.
[5] The count of 41 is cited in several places, and seems reasonable, considering that the organization had a presence in 31 localities throughout Iran (Ozar Hatorah, n.d.).
[6] According to Moshi Dellal, there were about 6,000 Iranian-Iraqi Jews by the middle of the 1970s, with the majority living in Tehran (cited in Dallalfar, 2002).
[7] To clarify, I use the term Iranian Christians to signify all locally based Christians living in Iran, including the Iranian-Armenians, Iranian-Assyrians, Iranian-Chaldeans, as well as subsequent Iranian converts.
[8] There is no record for when the Assyrian and Chaldean schools were established, but it is likely that they were begun in the late 19th century.
[9] For first-hand accounts of missionary goals and activity see Smith and Dwight (1834), Perkins (1843), Rice (1916), Wood (1922), Cash (1929), Howard (1931), Richards (1933), and Doolittle (1983). Also see United Presbyterian Church in the United States, Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations, Secretaries’ files: Iran Mission 1944–1973 Record Group 161, Iran Mission 1881–1968 Record Group 91, located in the Presbyterian Historical Society: The Archives of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
[10] In 1895, Anglicans and Presbyterians entered into a mutual understanding which delineated activities in northern Iran to be administered by American missionaries, with the work in the south to remain under the auspice of the British (Zirinsky, 1993b).
[11] One notable example is the formation of the Persian American Educational Society, collaboratively formed in the United States by American Baha’is and Iranian Baha’is residing in the United States. Their activities and reports served as a portal to the general American Baha’i community (see Star of the West, Vols. 1 -6). This relationship is highlighted in correspondence between Iranians and Americans in Iran and those in the United States; see Oral Platt Papers (Box 1) Ahmad Sorab Papers (Box 2, 4, 6); Hannan-Knobloch Family Papers, Box (19, 20, 22, 30) located in the United States Baha’i National Archives.
[12] See Momen (2008), Sabet (1997), and Shahvar (2009) for curricular subjects.
[13] Two open land routes taken by Iranian Jews who sought refuge went through Turkey and Pakistan. In 1988, for about US$6,900 (five million rials) an individual could be smuggled through mountain passes or suspended beneath livestock; for about US$1,200–US$1,650 an individual could be taken to Pakistan by a local Baluch tribesmen accustomed to less guarded routes (O’Driscoll, 1988).
[14] According to Hojjat al-Islam Abbas Mahfuzi (Montazeri’s representative at Tehran University), by 1983, only 6,000 members of the 1978 academic staff were still teaching in universities (cited in Menashri, 1992, p. 319).
[15] According to an Iranian Jewish leader who immigrated to Israel after the Revolution, Jewish school children in Tehran were forced to wear yellow uniforms to make them easily identifiable and some Jewish students were forced to attend Muslim schools (Associated Press, 23 July 1982).
[16] In addition to local and regional appeals, the Iranian NSA’s (1983) open letter called for the guarantee of particular rights for Baha’is, three of the 13 points directly related to educational opportunities of Baha’i children and youth.
Figure 18. Educational opportunity dynamic model.
As Tilly and Tarrow (2007) explain, “The distinction between mechanisms and processes … depends on our level of observation…Whether a causal cluster counts as a mechanism or a process depends on our scale of observation” (p. 214). In my analysis, I identify what level of observation is being made at each logical juncture. I look to available data to determine which observation scale of the mechanisms and processes is available and best informs my study. Generally, I undertake mid-scale observations for processes. However, in some cases, I highlight observations of small-scale processes by illustrating micro-scale mechanisms. Conversely, in some areas where information is wanting, I draw on large-scale processes to determine strategies, and extrapolate mid-scale mechanisms. I single out processes and mechanisms that significantly contribute to strategy formation, and analyze how group composition, networks, and state-group relations affect the selection of those strategies.
The unit of analysis is the stream or episode of contention. Episodes of contention and actuation are replete with interactions (i.e., performances) that highlight mechanisms and processes. By looking at bounded interactions among subject groups, regimes, and other important actors, explaining similarities and divergences between group strategies becomes manageable, and in many cases shows why groups adopt certain strategies at a later period. Sometimes in-group interactions determine strategy selection more than interactions with the regime.
Jews Under the Pahlavi Monarchy A discussion of the Iranian Jewish community and their educational strategy selection must begin by addressing Jewish education initiatives in the decades leading up to the Pahlavi era. Most, if not all, subsequent educational strategies were shaped significantly by the events and interactions during the pioneering decades associated with the development of modern, Jewish-run schools and school initiatives in the community. The introduction of modern, Jewish-run schools significantly influenced major developments in the community’s composition and characteristics, networks, and relations with the government. This, in turn, led to the adoption of specific strategies affecting their educational opportunities and pursuits in the decades to follow. I examine mostly large-scale but also mid-scale processes in order to identify the formation and selection of Iranian Jewish educational strategies. To this end, I focus primarily on three specific initiatives: the formation and development of Alliance Israelite Universelle schools (representing nationwide foreign-based initiatives), the Ozar Hatorah (representing a hybrid initiative), and the Ettefaugh School (representing local-based initiatives).
During the Qajar period, Jewish education was primarily religious in orientation, taking the form of maktabs, which were attended only by boys. Advanced education entailed becoming an apprentice in some vocation. In 1889, the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU), a French-based organization, established the first modern, Jewish-run school in Iran, with others following suit in subsequent years. Jews in Iran witnessed the socioeconomic advances made by the Jewish community in Baghdad (Iraq) and associated it with the positive impact of AIU schools there. Jewish leaders in Tehran wrote a letter to the head of the AIU in France and asked for assistance in starting the modern school. In turn, the organization’s founder worked out an arrangement with Nasr al-Din Shah (1831–1896) for schools to be established in Iran (Netzer, 1985). The opportunity structure was opened by the end of the 19th century, giving the Jewish community the possibility to start schools. Muzaffar al-Din Shah (1853–1907) had been drawing on European experts to help modernize various aspects of the state, and so the importation of a French schooling model was welcomed (Nikbakht, 2002). The schools were established through a process of new coordination (produced by a combination of brokerage and diffusion). The Alliance representatives consulted with local leaders and prominent community members before proceeding with plans to establish schools. Although AIU representatives collaborated in mobilizing moral and financial resources for the schools, local leaders were excluded from the structural and curriculum decision-making process (Cohen, 1986). Thus, only a quasi-coalition was formed, which excluded Iranian Jewish leaders from becoming wholly involved in the education process. Like Christian missionary schools, all administrators of Alliance schools were non-Iranian, until after the first cadre of graduates received formal education in France (Eshaghian, 1998; Malino, 2005).
Beyond its primary purpose of increasing social and economic mobility, I argue that the drive of the Iranian Jewish community to start and participate in modern schools was sustained by a combination of several other motives: first, the AIU presence provided protection and relief for Iranian Jews who faced fierce persecution and disparity in Muslim-dominated countries (Cohen, 1986). As part of the recruitment and relief strategy targeting the poorer population, clothing and food were provided for school children (Cohen, 1986). Second, Iranian Jews initially welcomed the initiative of European Jews who sought to offer Middle Eastern Jews secular knowledge and skills, as well as liberal mores, so as to facilitate their integration into non-Jewish society more easily (AIU, n.d.; Nikbakht, 2002). Third, Jewish-run schools provided an alternative to religious minority-run schools (which sometimes led to conversion or weakened ties with the community), or to government-run and Muslim schools which were inaccessible at the time (Netzer, 1985). Thus, group characteristics, particularly ideological orientation and the desire to advance their socioeconomic status was a primary driving force.
Leaders and members of the Iranian Jewish community never pursued modern schooling prior to seeing the Iraqi Jewish community thrive, nor did they consider it a religious obligation. It was the AIU organization that introduced the Iranian Jewish community to a new culture of education, brokered and diffused through its French representatives and eventually its Iranian Jewish graduates. Community leaders framed educational pursuit as a means of increasing social mobility and economic opportunities, but also to protect the Jewish community from conversion (Nikbakht, 2002). Through new network ties among Iranian, Iraqi, and European Jews the initiatives came to fruition. However, the culture shock presented by the pervasive Eurocentric and secularist orientation of the schools, with little and sometimes no emphasis on Jewish education, posed a challenge for Iranian Jewish community leaders, parents, and community members (Cohen, 1986). Thus, a boundary shift and activation was in the making—one that marked secular versus religious Jewish identity, and national versus transnational aspects of the religious community. This boundary shift would become an impetus for creating locally based Iranian Jewish schools, and decades later for soliciting help from Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States and Israel to reassert Jewish religious identity. However, their relationship remained cooperative (see AIU correspondence and reports, cited in Cohen, 1986).
From this embryonic cooperative relationship the Iranian and French Jewish communities were able to mobilize resources in forming the first set of schools in areas like Tehran, Isfahan, Hamadan, and Shiraz. Many of the Jewish maktab schools were intentionally dissolved so that students and previous Jewish religious scholars (khakham) could be incorporated into the modern schools (Cohen, 1986). Administrators and teachers were brought in from France, and schools were built with funds collected from the local congregation and contributions from AIU for the initiative. It is also important to note that among the various initiatives within the Jewish community, many individuals sent their children to other minority schools run by Christian missionaries and Baha’is (Arasteh, 1962; Rostam-Kolayi, 2008). As mentioned earlier, one of the supporting reasons for starting Jewish-run schools was to provide an alternative to these other schools. Thus, the ideological orientation of communal preservation factored into decisions to pursue education.
Several mechanisms were employed to carry forward the processes involved in importing the French modeled modern schools and their operation, including brokerage, diffusion, boundary activation and formation, certification, and emulation. These mechanisms combined and configured common processes that are usually present in the start-up of a school, including: mobilization, collective action, selective coalition formation, and new coordination. In addition, in the case of the Iranian Jewish community, five other processes were present, namely scale-shift, identity shift, assimilation, institutionalization, and framing.
The contribution of the organizational structure of AIU to the development of Iranian Jewish educational strategies should not be underestimated. It was their long-practiced systematic procedures for forming and operating schools that allowed for their relatively rapid diffusion and expansion throughout Iran. The general cooperation of Iranian Jewish community members with AIU representatives signaled the readiness for and the subsequent acceleration of coordination and collective action. Perhaps more than the Baha’i- and Christian-run schools, AIU schools emulated a foreign school model with very little adaptation to local culture and practices. This was a continued point of contention and struggle between the French and Iranian Jewish participants in the development and management of schools. The recognition of Jews in the Iranian Constitution started a process of institutionalization of the Iranian Jewish community into the government (see Chapter 5). The institutionalization of the Jewish community allowed organization leaders to provide education services to its community, and to include in-group particulars in the educational institutions, with protection from local and regional government—implicitly highlighting the role of the regime in facilitating the processes of starting and running the Jewish-run schools. These processes continued into the Pahlavi era. In fact, adjusting to the practice of assimilation became a hallmark of Jewish-run school for decades to come and into the period of the Islamic Republic.
Streams and Episodes Reza Shah’s launch of a modernization agenda, in addition to amicable state relations with the French, provided an open opportunity structure for Jewish-run schools. By the time the Shah came to power, eleven AIU schools[1] and three locally based Iranian Jewish-run schools were established in the country (American Jewish Committee Archives, 1930). In the context of Iranian Jewish educational strategy development, there are three major streams of contention and actuation for this period that I refer to as: (a) internal contention, (b) regime implementation of new policies, and (c) external configurations.
Internal contention. Three major challenges emerged with the introduction of AIU schools, issues related to: culture and language adaptation, religiosity and religious education, and ethnic disunity. These issues led to general contention within the community, and had a significant bearing on the selection process of subsequent strategies. Local schools arose partly in response to the AIU and other religious minority schools (Cohen, 1986; Nikbakht, 2002).
AIU was not only modeled after French schools, but the curriculum, structure, and content of subjects of most schools were almost entirely French-oriented (even celebrations revolving around events and prominent individuals associated with European Jewry). The language of instruction was solely French, with Persian and Hebrew sometimes used as an elective second language (Netzer, 1985). The provision of free clothing, hygiene, behavior and edict instruction, helped the general conditions for participants and bolstered the reputation of Iranian Jews in the general community, for which the community members were grateful. Thus, assimilation was framed as a necessity to improve living conditions (Cohen, 1986; AIU, n.d.).
However, many parents and leaders voiced concern for the lack of sensitivity and appreciation for the Iranian Jewish heritage. The primary challenges posed by French instruction in the first decades of the schools can be identified by limited learning retention, degraded or mediocre language acquisition, and illiteracy in Persian and Hebrew (to which only a few hours were devoted in a week). Hebrew was relegated to religious instruction, and Persian was completely absent at first.[2] This led to a series of confrontations between community leaders and members and the French AIU representatives. For example, in communities like Shiraz, Sanandaj, and Isfahan where the community spoke a Judeo-Persian dialect, the frustration reached such heights that parents withdrew their children because they were frustrated with the inadequate levels of learning (Cohen, 1986). Local Iranian Jewish community members were calling for more language and religious education. In some regions, there were adaptations, but in others there were none. AIU schools that adjusted—by increasing hours of instruction in Persian and taking cultural issues into consideration—were able to retain the support of the local community; in other areas, where no changes were made, learning was weak and degraded, attendance decreased, and some schools even closed (Cohen, 1986). However, many felt that the compromises did not outweigh the advantages that came with AIU modern schools (Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November 2009).
Lack of cultural consideration of the local community on the part of AIU representatives led to additional concerns about the lack of religious orientation in schools. This fueled existing contention. AIU schools were primarily secular, despite the supposed inclusion of Hebrew and Bible study (Schwarzfuchs and Malino, 2006). School administrators committed only marginal hours (if any) to the study of the Torah and Jewish subjects (Malino, 2005; Cohen, 1986). In the absence of religious schools, parents and community leaders voiced concern about the lack of attention given to religious studies. Several prominent AIU administrators and teachers did not see the usefulness of teaching Hebrew to Iranian Jews, and saw a greater need for their social and cultural education to integrate into non-Jewish society (Cohen, 1986). I argue that this led to boundary activation. Iranian Jews became acutely aware of their distinct Iranian Jewish heritage, as compared to the secular brand of Judaism practiced by some AIU representatives. The linguistic, cultural, and religious issues were among the motives for establishing locally based Iranian Jewish schools such the Koresh Schools in Rasht and Tehran.
Replete in Alliance reports and representative letters are sentiments that may be characterized as culturally prejudiced, with overtones bordering on racism. Even a cursory perusal of 23 different letters and reports reveals that many Alliance representatives attached derogatory labels to Iranian Jews. This, however, was more prevalent in some areas than in others, like Kermansah, Hamadan, Yazd, and Tehran (see statements cited in Cohen, 1986). In those areas where the attitude was blatantly prejudiced, tensions usually led to school closure or change in administration (see Table D1 for examples of responses to Alliance establishment).[3] Figure D1 illustrates the general sequence and outcomes of strategies adopted as a result of the interaction between AIU administrators and Iranian Jewish community members.
By and large, the AIU schools were welcomed, and are remembered in most contemporary Iranian Jewish histories as having given an important impetus for the socioeconomic advancement and improvement of living conditions during the Pahlavi era (Eshaghian, 1998, 2007; Netzer, 1985; Nikbakht, 2002; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 17 February 2009; Schwarzfuchs and Malino, 2006). Since it was difficult for AIU to mobilize enough teachers to settle in Iran, the administration sent talented and willing graduates to France to receive education and return as staff—a process I call external accreditation (Malino, 2005). It was not enough to undertake local training, but the external validation that training in France provided supported the assimilation goals of the AIU.
Government education expansion and policy implementation. As they did on other religious minority schools, three important government policies during the Reza Shah period had a profound impact on Jewish-run schools. These included the 1928 curricular requirements, the 1932 and 1936 government restrictions on foreign school enrolments and eventual takeover by the government, and the 1939 takeover and closure of all non-Iranian elementary and secondary schools. The first policy perhaps had the most serious effect on the Jewish schools. The latter two had almost no effect on the schools themselves, but significantly changed the educational landscape in Iran and thus the educational strategies of Iranian Jews.
The 1928 policy required Iranian Jewish-run schools, as well as all other nonstate schools, to incorporate fundamental changes, including the use of Persian as the language of instruction, the addition of several other courses on Iranian history, geography, and the study of Islam (thus de-emphasizing Western history; Sadiq, 1931). Most AIU schools made the transition to the new policies slowly, but showed little or no open resistance (not making even appeals to the government). The Iranian Jewish community had learned the strategy of assimilation, and applied it selectively. This included secretly teaching preferred subjects and language of instruction, but disguising with false class schedules on bulletin boards in case administrators visited (Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 17 February 2010). Thus, the AIU and other Iranian Jewish schools employed the strategy of selective assimilation, which entails the adoption of select elements of the broader system to benefit the group and avoid a negative reaction.
In 1932 and 1936, when the government first issued orders forbidding foreign schools from enrolling Iranian students and then taking over all non-Iranian primary schools, AIU schools were not included. This is especially peculiar, since the schools were under the French AIU, while other foreign missionary schools were taken over (such as those run by the Anglicans and Presbyterians). In my investigation, I find several likely explanations: first, the schools were co-registered or fully registered to the local Iranian Jewish community, which might have protected them from foreign status. Second, because of the good relations between the AIU and Iranian Jewish community and the government, the schools were framed as a local initiative and catered to Iranian students who studied according to government standards. Furthermore, as Soli Shahvar (personal communication, 24 February 2010) suggests, “France was never seen as a threat in the Iranian psyche, and were definitely not seen with the same eyes as Britain, Russia/Soviet Union or the USA.” Not only did the state-group relations provide favorable conditions for the Jewish-run schools, but the secular orientation of the AIU schools could have warded off concerns about any emphasis on religious and cultural loyalties. Finally, the Iranian educational system was based on the French lycée model, thus making the AIU schools look compatible.
Similarly, in 1939, when all foreign schools were taken over, the Jewish-run schools once again escaped co-optation by the government. This required them to further draw on the strategy of selective assimilation of the Iranian curriculum at all levels of education. This is further supported by the fact that other local Iranian Jewish schools were also not taken over during the 1939 reconfiguration of Ministry of Education policies. These contention-free episodes with the government illustrate the openness of the political opportunity structure for the Jewish community in Iran, and their ability to use framing and organizational network ties to keep schools afloat (Cohen, 1986; Netzer 1985). Despite the sustainability of Jewish-run schools, the expansion, increasing quality, and receptivity of government-run schools attracted many Iranian Jews. In additional to other significant factors, this led to reconfiguration of strategies and innovations during the second epoch of the Pahlavi period.
External configuration and innovation. With the abdication of the Shah in 1941, the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah maintained an open political opportunity structure for Iranian Jewish schools and offered them educational opportunities. After decades of experience with modern schooling, the Iranian Jewish community had gradually adopted an education-oriented outlook, considered as part and parcel of the path toward social mobility and economic prosperity, which created a significant change in their composition and characteristics. This was an idea that was framed and emulated throughout the Iranian Jewish communities in Iran. With the coalescing of an educated class, Iranian Jews were being hired by the government and foreign companies. In other words, the composition and characteristics of the community had changed from an insular, isolated and generally uneducated group, to that of an outward looking, integrative, and educated community. A new generation of educated parents continued to send their children to modern schools. As one source relates, educational strategies may have changed in detail, but it was dominated by a drive toward professions which would allow Iranian Jews to relocate quickly and avoid the risk or danger of damage to shops and property (Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June, 2009).
With the diffusion of Zionism by Western-educated Iranian Jews and the eventual formation of Israel, Iranian Jewish community leaders began to establish network ties with British, American, and Israeli Jewish communities and organizations (Rahimiyan, 2008a). One noticeable shift in educational strategy was associated with the reasserted Jewish identity. With only partial success in persuading AIU schools to increase religious education, Iranian Jews connected with foreign Jewish leaders who showed an interest in the religiosity and circumstances facing Mizrahi Jews[4]—either through personal contact or through correspondence (Ozar Hatorah, n.d.). This new connection enabled some Iranian Jewish leaders to solicit help in focusing on the religious education of Iranian Jews. It is important to note that the Iranian Jewish community never made moves that would fall out of alignment with the Pahlavi regime—it maintained good standing even during sporadic outbreaks of anti-Semitism.
The most prominent manifestation of international brokerage and diffusion of new educational efforts took place in 1947, with the establishment of the first Ozar Hatorah School in Iran. The Ozar Hatorah was an organization established by a partnership of Isaac Shalam (a Syrian Jew who had immigrated to the United State), Joseph Shamah and Ezra Teubal (in Jerusalem) in 1945, to provide education to Mizrahi Jews. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a relief and welfare organization, had sent Rabbi Isaac Lew to Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East to evaluate the conditions of the Jewish communities (Ozar Hatorah, n.d.; Kadosh, 2007). During his travels in Iran, he reported witnessing weak religiosity and poor social conditions among the Iranian Jewish community, and brokered a connection between local Iranian Jews, the JDC, and the Ozar Hatorah network to establish and diffuse religion and secular schools in Iran (Kadosh 2007; Ozar Hatorah, n.d.; Ozar Hatorah, 2007). These schools not only provided rich education in Judaic subjects, but also included secular subjects, and free meals and clothing for Iranian Jewish children. The international network of the Iranian Jewish community grew from having principal ties with Iraqi and French Jews, to including American, Israeli, Russian, and British Jews as well. Within the first 30 years after establishing its first school, there were a total of 41 schools and programs for Iranian Jewish boys and girls throughout Iran[5] (not at the same time; American Jewish Yearbook, 1976; Ozar Hatorah, n.d.; “Ozar Hatorah,” 2007). These schools were smaller as compared to other mid-scale and larger public and community-run schools with enrolments in the hundreds. By the 1950s, having learned from the mistake of alienating local Jews, Alliance representatives connected with the new Ozar Hatorah schools to handle the Jewish subjects and Hebrew language instruction in their schools (Netzer 1985; Nikbakht, 2002). The strong Jewish leadership, which had been educated in secular, French-language, Jewish-run schools, was now steering the Iranian Jewish community toward a middle ground. I argue that it was as a result of resources through networks that this integration of secular and Jewish studies was possible.
After the creation of Israel in 1948, The Joint Distribution Committee mobilized a campaign to populate Israel, by supporting the immigration of European as well as Mizrahi Jews (Kadosh, 2007). This opened opportunities for lower-class Jews to find opportunities outside Iran. The increased attention of foreign Jewish communities towards Middle Eastern Jewry expanded a pool of resources that had not been accessible until this period. The amicable relations between Israel and Iran bore on state-group relations; and transnational community networks ties were strengthened. Two tracks of educational strategies moved forward from 1950 to 1979. The first track included the continued creation and maintenance of Jewish-run schools, which included substantial religious education as a component. The second involved the rapid rate of integration of Jewish children into government schools, as a result of the open opportunity structure for Iranians who supported the modernization of the state.
In 1947, with the aid of an affluent and prominent Iraqi-Iranian Jewish donor, Meyer Abdu’llah, local congregation community funds, and support from other community members in Baghdad, the Iraqi Jewish Committee founded the Ettefaugh School in Tehran (Daghighian, 1998). This local school was not only structured after modern schools, but it included a strong Persian program, in addition to religious activities adequate to satisfy the community (Darshi, 1997). The network tie between the Iraqi-Iranian Jewish community and the Iraqi Jewish community in Baghdad was retained through family and organizational connections, and was the means through which the educational initiative was founded. The student body was primarily made up of Iranian-Iraqi Jews living in Tehran,[6] although by the 1970s, 20 percent of the 2,000 students consisted of Muslims, Baha’is, Christians, and Zoroastrians (Nikbakht and Hojat-Panah, 1999).
Social assimilation was a central strategy of the broader Iranian Jewish community. Thus, the school’s structure and policies shifted according to prospective changes in group-regime and international relations. For example, when tensions arose between the Anglo-American interests and Prime Minister Mossadeq’s administration in the 1950s, the school administrators made a bold shift to the Iranian curriculum (abandoning the British model), cautious of backlash from the government (Nikbakht and Hojat-Panah, 1999; Beroukhim, 1997). Emphasizing association with different network affiliates to keep good favor with the regime would become a strategy employed even later during the regime of the Islamic Republic. The change in the curriculum caused some setbacks internally, but with the appointment of Beroukhim as principle and his recruitment of teachers from the well-reputed Albourz College, the school got back on track (Beroukhim, 1997; Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November 2009). Funding for subsequent management of the school was provided almost entirely by the congregation, and the principals of the school were under the supervision of the Iraqi-Iranian Jewish Committee.
While schools such as the AIU, Ettefaugh and others existed until the Revolution in 1979—and into the Islamic Republic—by the 1950s, the number of Jewish schools and the enrollment declined. First, the increasing number of government-run schools facilitated religious minority children, as they did Muslims and others, emphasizing an Iranian identity. Second, many Jews had left smaller cities for urban areas like Tehran and Shiraz, where there was greater opportunity, rendering schools in other areas unsustainable. For example, organizations in cities such as Kashan, Borujerd, Sanandaj, Urumieh, and Yazd disintegrated, and so did many of their Jewish schools (Yashayaei, 2003). Figure D2 illustrates the rise and decline of Jewish-run schools over the course of the Pahlavi era.
The predominant Iranian Jewish education strategies during the last two decades of the Pahlavi era focused on integration into the expanded public school system and migration to seek educational opportunity wherever available. Government schools were not only multiplying in those cities where the majority of Jews were living, but the quality of government schools was also increasing. Iranian Jews were accepted in schools, and despite random and sporadic harassment by some students and teachers, the period was characterized by high levels of tolerance and facilitation. Additionally, with a pervasive and successful nationalization process, Iranian Jews saw themselves as having two noncontradictory identities: one Iranian, the other Jewish (Faryar Nikbakht, person communication, 2 November 2009). By emphasizing their secular Iranian identity in the public sphere, they were able to enjoy greater access to educational, economic, and social mobility than if they emphasized their Jewish identity (anonymous Jewish leader, personal communication, 23 March 2009; Farahani, 2005). Thus, the characteristic of Jews shifted and was less polarized than in earlier periods. In like manner, higher education was also sought to build on the community’s acculturated Western-style education. For decades Iranian Jews participated in both the AIU and government study abroad programs, returning home to build up the community’s educated class.
Summary. Over the course of several decades of modern schooling, the composition and characteristics of the Iranian Jewish community changed. The growing number and strength of international ties also influenced the types of strategies available to the community. Finally, not only the institutionalization of Jews as a recognized group, but also their good standing with the government throughout both epochs facilitated various shifts, and allowed for growth, development, and integration. Additionally, there was an increase in network ties, and consequently in resources and framing processes available to Iranian Jewish community leaders and educators. I explain this by the open flow within the educational opportunity dynamic during the Pahlavi period for Iranian Jews.
Christians under the Pahlavi Monarchs In examining the case of Christian communities in Iran during the Pahlavi era, I observe two levels of processes. Where possible I analyze mid-scale processes to identify strategies and explanations for their selection, but also consider large-scale educational processes when information is sparse. An analysis of how modern schooling was initially introduced, developed, and accessed by the Christian communities in Iran[7] will provide an understanding of those processes which shaped educational strategy selection during the Pahlavi period.
The case of the Iranian Christian communities is unique because modern schooling was originally initiated by foreign missionaries and not by the local communities; it was Christian missionaries who first introduced the idea of modern schooling to Iran. Moreover, because there are multiple denominations among the local and foreign missionary Christian groups, there are often parallel and overlapping processes at play. During the first epoch of the Pahlavi era, the educational strategies of these local Christian communities were tied to the missionaries’ initiatives, and thus the discussion of strategy selection involves looking at the initiatives of both missionaries and the local community. I focus analysis on the Presbyterian and Anglican education missionary work and Apostolic Armenian Christian initiatives in the context of Iranian Christian strategies in education.
The first semblance of modern schooling in Iran was introduced by American Presbyterians in 1837, followed by the French Lazarists in 1839 (Hadidi, 2001) and the Anglican Church Missionary Society in 1876 (Richards, 1933). In addition to foreign education initiatives, the Iranian-Armenian Apostolic prelacy established schools beginning in 1843 (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987), followed by Assyrians and Chaldeans some time later.[8] The foundations of most of these schools lasted into the Pahlavi era, and some continued into the Islamic Republic period.
The Presbyterian and Anglican missions set out to revitalize the Christian communities in Iran, proselytizing and converting other Christian sects and non-Christians, and providing health and education services to local Christians, Muslims, and other Iranian minorities.[9] The missionary schools attracted local Christians, primarily because of the additional services accompanying the schools (free food, cleaning, and skill building in crafts). Iranian ethnic Christian communities, particularly the Armenians, established schools in response to missionary efforts (Berberian, 2000). Apostolic Church leaders and community members were concerned that the missionary-run schools would diminish Armenian cultural and religious identity, and lead to increased conversion to Protestantism and Anglicanism (Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). After much debate, the Apostolic Armenian community established special schools for Armenian girls, by framing them as a means of educating Armenian women in their roles as wives, mothers, and the first teachers of the future generation of community members (Berberian, 2009). I suggest that considering the firm reaction to missionaries, as well as later contention with the regimes, Armenian Church leaders positioned education in all respects within the context of its potential to preserve cultural and religious values first, and secondarily to provide secular knowledge and skills.
Missionary schools received resources primarily from the countries in which their missions were based, but also from tuition and local fundraisers. In addition to the services provided by missionaries, Armenians received resources through network ties to Armenia (specifically the Apostolic Church and community organizations), as well as from the local Armenian-Iranian congregation. The American and British schools recruited teachers from their own countries, and often employed locals to assist in language instruction and translation. After several cohorts of Iranian student graduated, missionary school-administrators trained local Christian converts to teach classes as well (Allen, 1918; Arasteh, 1962). Armenian-Iranian schools drew from administrators and teachers trained in Armenia to establish the first schools, and subsequently trained Armenian-Iranians to teach as well (Howard, 1931; Richards, 1933). A strong coalition formed among members of the local and transnational Apostolic Church over time, as the focus on cultural preservation intensified. While the Armenian community had practiced isolation for centuries, new boundaries were forming, separating them even from other Christian denominations. Missionary schools did not collaborate with local leaders of the Christian community, but rather made direct ties with prominent community members and government officials to establish schools (Richards, 1933). This was due, in part, to resistance by local ethnic Christian leaders (Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). While drawing on human and material resources from transnational networks, the local Armenian religious leadership and its appointed committees managed their own Armenian-Iranian schooling initiatives. New schools were emulated and spread by missionaries (Zirinsky, 1993b), but also through educators directed by Apostolic Church community organizers for Armenian-Iranians schools (Berberian, 2000).
Unlike the Baha’i and Jewish education initiatives, coalitions were not formed between ethnic Christian Church leaders and Western co-religionists. However, the presence of Anglican and Presbyterians in Iran, and their conversion efforts, galvanized existing identity boundaries for Armenians and Assyrians. Sectarian division prevailed. This led to coalition formation within each ethnic community and their transnational networks. Thus, I suggest that community characteristics and composition played perhaps the most significant role in educative initiatives started by Christians in Iran. It is important to note that while there was a clear divide between missionaries and ethnic leaders, local Christian communities still participated in missionary schools.
At various junctures, processes played out differently in the education initiatives of missionaries and local Christian groups. Armenian-Iranian community leaders and members co-opted a new role as authorized providers of educational services for their community, appointing education committees to act on their behalf. Missionaries believed they were acting in the interest of Iranians, particularly Christian communities, by providing moral and secular schooling in order to revitalize their communities.[10] Network ties existed between all groups, despite existing competition among them. In the early days of missionary schools, most pupils were Armenian and Assyrians, and thus these communities drew from the resources being channeled to British and American missions from their respective home communities. In response, Armenian Christian leaders developed new types of coalitions with their transnational community members in establishing schools and educational opportunity for community members, thus strengthening ties that were underdeveloped before the rivalry between the two Christian groups (i.e., missionaries and local community leadership). In other words, missionaries and local Christian leadership tended to compete for Christian students. It is important to mention that Apostolic Armenian-run schools recruited only Armenian students. This was an intrinsic element of their isolationist strategy which developed in reaction to the conversion efforts of missionaries.
Other processes continued to shape education strategies. Ethno-religious community leaders signaled to in-group community members the need for action to meet educational demands, and thus called for coordinated and collective action, as well as polarization between alien Christian denominations and culturally religious tradition. Missionaries framed schooling as a moral and social service, with added benefits. Local ethnic Christian community leaders framed the need for schooling in similar terms, but with the overriding goal of preserving cultural and religious integrity. In the process of schooling, identities either became polarized and reaffirmed (i.e., Apostolic Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans) or shifted through conversion, with Armenians, Assyrians, and Iranians changing sectarian affiliation. Globalization processes were present through the importation of foreign education models into Iran. Missionaries mobilized resources from host countries (government and religious-affiliated organizations), which included the recruitment of administrators and teachers, collection of funds for associated costs, and external certification by Western states. Armenians drew resources from transnational networks but also from their local congregations (Papazian, 1987). These multiple processes shaped and shifted for decades throughout the Pahlavi era.
During the first epoch of the Pahlavi era, Christians in Iran had access to four different portals to modern schooling: missionary-run schools, locally based ethnic Christian schools, government schools, and non-Christian religious minority-run schools. Missionary schools as well as local Armenian schools successively increased enrollments during the initial years of Reza Shah’s rule (Zirinsky, 1993b). Initially Reza Shah welcomed Western missionary schools, which seemed to be equipping young Iranians with modern skills and orientation, moving them away from the traditional maktab-style education which had been prevalent in past centuries. In fact, many government officials and societal elite sent their children to Christian-run schools (Zirinsky, 1993a; Rostam-Kolayi, 2008).
The education initiatives were generally framed by local community and missionary leaders in four ways: (a) modern schooling would improve the moral conduct and religiosity of children; (b) modern schooling would provide practical skills to children that could be used in work and society (enhancing quality of life); (c) modern schooling was in alignment with the regime’s agenda and would provide the know-how and mores required to increase socioeconomic status in Iran; and, in the case of ethno-religious Christian-run schools, (d) modern schooling would provide a space for community children to acquire a solid cultural foundation and keep children safe from proselytizing foreign Christian sects (Berberian, 2000; Hoare, 1937; Richard, 1933; Zirinsky, 1993a). Table D2 shows some of the main locations of the various schools available to all Christians in Iran during the Pahlavi era. Calculations for the number of schools are inconsistent in primary sources, with the result that total counts sometimes do not distinguish between a one-room classroom and a full-fledged modern school.
While forbidden from directly teaching the Bible to Muslim students as a means of conversion, missionaries framed the use of the Bible as a means of moral education and other classes as a means of training a skilled generation (Doolittle, 1983). Venues for schools expanded to accommodate merging one-room schools, necessitated by increased student enrolment and new trained teachers and administrators (Richards, 1933). Unlike the AIU schools, the Presbyterians and Anglicans set out to teach classes in the language of the students, adopting a cultural adaptation approach to schooling (Arasteh, 1962; Richards, 1933). However, because of lack of capacity, educators would often resort to using English as the main language of instruction (Rostam-Kolayi, 2008).
Streams and Episodes In observing educational efforts, I analyze three mid-scale streams during the regime of Reza Shah, and one large-scale stream during the second epoch of the Pahlavi era. The regime’s education policies during the first epoch had a detrimental impact on the cultural dimensions of Christian educational opportunities. Likewise, the regime’s nationalization campaign eventually inhibited foreign missionary education efforts, especially because of their ties to Western powers. Nonetheless, the initial contentious interaction that shaped educational strategies for Christians in Iran was born out of the competition between Apostolic Armenian, as well as Assyrian and Chaldean leadership, and the missionary efforts from America and Europe. Thus, the first stream of contention involved inter-denominational strife. Both ethnic and missionary Christians would experience a confrontation with the aggressive educational campaign of the Pahlavi regime. While encountering the same imposed government policies, missionary and ethnic Christian schools dealt with regime contention in different ways. At times, there is an overlap of contentious interactions among missionaries, ethnic Christians, and the regime. The segregation of these streams can be partly explained by several processes, including the reinforced activation of ethnic and identity boundaries, the lack of coalition formation between ethnic and missionary Christian education efforts, and competition between the two.
The first stream that shaped Christian educational strategies in Iran goes back to the contentious interaction between Armenian-Iranian leadership and missionary Christians. The perennial tension that existed between the Apostolic Christian community and missionaries in Iran has been noted in several sources (Bartlett, 1894; Berberian, 2000, 2009; Bournoutian, 1994). It is important to mention two features of this contention: first, the competition for students was focused primarily on the cultural and ideological orientation of schools; second, the rivalry was instigated by the Apostolic Church (Arasteh, 1962; Berberian, 2009). In Yazd, Tehran, and Isfahan, Armenian Church leaders appealed to the government and local Shi’i clerics, in personal communications, to put a stop to Western missionary activity targeting the local community (Arasteh, 1962; Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). Armenian-Iranian community leaders simultaneously solicited aid from the Apostolic Church in Armenia to start modern schools in Iran. The appeals to the government were only partially effective, as the government responded only by passing restrictive regulations on proselytizing and teaching non-Christian children (Board of Foreign Missions, 1936). Apostolic Armenian schools fostered community development and vitality in those regions where schools were established (Berberian, 2009; Howard, 1931; Richards, 1933). While the contention between the groups did limit missionary activity among Muslims, the rivalry between the groups led the Apostolic Church to becoming innovative and education-oriented. The boundary activation, coalition efforts within and outside the country among Armenians, and diffusion of anti-missionary rhetoric likely boosted mobilization efforts to increase enrolments and expansion. To reiterate, the use of frames to emphasize cultural preservation and boundary activation was a key educational strategy. Although information is scant on particulars in the general contention, the drive to preserve culture only became more intense with the passage of time, and subsequently affected how strategies that were chosen played out when confronted with new contention with the regime.
Government intervention. In 1927 and 1928, the Ministry of Education issued a circular to all nonstate modern schools outlining the new policies set by the Ministry of Education (Rostam-Kolayi, 2008; Sadiq, 1931). The new education policies were aligned with other educational campaign efforts of the Pahlavi regime (see Chapter 4). The new regulations stipulated that foreign schools were to use official syllabi produced by the Ministry of Education for all classes up to the 4th grade—including the implementation of a nationalized government textbook—that Persian be used as the language of instruction, and that Iranian geography and history be included along with other subjects based on the French lycée system, a program in Arabic and Persian literature at the upper grade levels, and a standardized matriculation exam at the end of secondary education (Matthee, 1993; Menashri, 1992; Sadiq, 1931). Moreover, Christian schools were required to teach the history of Islam and Islamic law, and were forbidden to teach Christian subjects to Muslim students. State holidays were also to be observed, which meant restructuring the academic year calendar (Doolittle, 1983).
There were three general responses to the government policies: wholesale acceptance; acceptance and appeal to modify aspects of the policies; failure to comply (by resistance or lack of capacity). Depending on the reaction to government policies, several strategies remained available. The government had restricted the opportunity structure and triggered new boundaries in group-regime relations which had a directly bearing on group mobilization and collective action. Among schools which accepted the regulations, there were some which implemented the reforms, but made sufficient changes enough to appease Ministry of Education inspectors. Others attempted to genuinely align schooling procedures with those standards to avoid closure (Doolittle, 1983; Richards, 1933). Anglican and some Armenian schools adopted this strategy. Presbyterians adopted the strategy of selective adaptation, adopting the policies while simultaneously appealing to officials on the local and national level to make modifications. Many of the ethnic Christian schools (run by local community leaders or by missionaries) closed down, either in resistance to the new policies, or because they lacked the capacity to comply with the new requirements, or because the government offered incentives for pupils to leave those schools and attend state-run schools (Gillespie, 1928; Howard, 1931; McComb, 1928; Richards, 1933).
Anglican—and presumably some Armenian-run schools in the southern half of Iran—adopted the policies, but many were reluctant to implement the regulations. They adjusted to the situation by adding the required courses, omitting those that were banned, and finding ways to supplement subjects and content which were already included in the core curriculum of the schools—such as moral and cultural education (Richards, 1933). This latter strategy was particular evident in Isfahan and Yazd in the Anglican-run schools (Richard, 1933). I identify three processes in the acceptance response, including integration, selective assimilation, and institutionalization.
The Presbyterian schools adapted to the policies after reluctantly accepting the regulations and making appeals. For example, in the course of their communication with the Prime Minister, Samuel Jordan and Arthur Boyce, educational administrators in Tehran, were able to negotiate with the government and broker a deal whereby Christian-run schools did not have to teach subjects related to Islam, and were allowed to continue using the Bible for moral instruction if they sold the schools in northwestern Iran which were targeting ethnic groups (Zirinsky, 1993a). The head of the Nurbakhsh School and Sage College in Tehran, Jane Doolittle (1983) relates that while the school went through some structural and curricular changes, the administrators and teachers were able to sustain the objective of moral education. Adaptation moved beyond mere acceptance, and progressed to additional processes, including contention (letters of appeal), re-framing objectives of missionary education from religious motivation to secular service—in other words, a boundary shift—and coordinated and collective action in securing particular rights for select schools. The composition and networks of American- and British- run school administrators gave the missionaries an advantage that was beyond the reach of the isolated Armenian and Assyrian communities.
In areas such as Tehran and Uremia, some Armenian, Assyrian, and other smaller missionary schools outside of the large cities resisted the policies, and continued to use their own preferred language of instruction and subject matters (i.e., particularly religious and cultural; Amurian & Kasheff, 1987; Berberian, 2000). The resistance was shaped by processes including coordinated action, boundary activation, framing, escalation, polarization, and collective action. In Tabriz, Azerbaijan, and Uremia, the failure to change policies was likely the result of insufficient human resources to teach in Persian, since the language of instruction was solely Armenian (Arasteh, 1962). Certain other circumstances resulted in compliance failure, including demobilization, downward scale-shift, and broader institutionalization (i.e., subject to following imposed standards to keep other special rights). In both cases of resistance and default noncompliance, it is likely that the previous strategy of framing Armenian schools as a means of cultural preservation would have influenced decisions to resist or close schools, if the alternative would compromise the fundamental integrity of Armenian Christian culture and ideology. (Berberian, 2000; Grettie Holliday, 1917, cited in Zirinsky, 1993b; Howard, 1933).
Government control. The association of missionary schools with imperial powers was a significant impetus for contention that arose between the regime and Christian-run schools. Most Christian-run schools, whether local or missionary, complied with government regulations as a strategy to remain open, but pushed to retain unique features, such as bible study and closure on the Sunday Sabbath (Doolittle, 1983; Zirinsky, 1993a). However, in 1932, the government issued new regulations forbidding foreign- run primary schools from enrolling Iranian students (Richards, 1933, Zirinsky, 1993b). Furthermore, remaining schools had to change foreign names to reflect Iranian ones. Although local ethnic Christian groups made great efforts to avoid confrontation with their Muslim counterparts, the missionary efforts of European and American Christians stirred the hostility of local Muslim clergy and inhabitants in various regions, particularly in the southern half of Iran (Richards, 1933). In several incidents prior to these government policies, schools were attacked or even temporarily shut down because of the rising opposition (Ferrin, 1929, cited in Rostam-Kolayi, 2008; Gillespie, 1928; McComb, 1928). In order to maintain ownership and management of their other schools after the 1932 edict, I argue that missionaries conceded by relinquishing control of primary schools that consisted of Muslim majority students, and in some cases acquiesced to forced closure (Richards, 1933; Zirinsky, 1993a). This reflects how past escalation of school attacks and closures influenced the choice of less confrontational or perhaps more tactful strategies in addressing the changes demanded by the government’s education policies. To reiterate, the goal of the missionary schools was to provide Iranians with moral and religious education, and to increase the influence of Christian values on students; ethnic schools taught religious values but education was tied to the primary objective of cultural (ethnic) preservation.
This second episode also represents the predominant view among Pahlavi officials, that missionary schools were a block to progress and a reminder of old empire relations with the West. The Court Minister Taymurtash condemned missionary activity as “undesirable religious propaganda” and conveyed to Charles Hart, the U.S. Diplomatic Chief of Mission to Iran, that Iran, “We must get rid of missionaries.” (Charles Hart, 1931 cited in Zirinksy, 1993b, p 349). The Iranian government set out to expand its influence through education to lessen foreign schooling (Arasteh, 1962). There were generally two responses on the part of the Christian community: first, schools would be closed with no follow-up action. Students who had attended these schools enrolled in government run schools, other religious minority schools, or none at all—adopting the strategy of integration. Second, although missionary-run schools demobilized, private classes were coordinated in some areas that included religious and secular subjects—a parallel schooling effort that focused primarily on moral education (Doolittle, 1983; Fisher, 1940). The new policy affected all Christian schools, with the significant exception of those that were co-run by Iranians administrators. For example, in Shiraz, the Anglican girls’ school remained open because the principle was considered an Iranian national (Richards, 1933). Several upper-grade schools (three for boys and four for girls) and a pair of colleges remained open under the leadership of the Presbyterian mission (Board of Foreign Missionaries, 1939). The Anglican schools in the southern part of Iran also complied, and closed schools in Isfahan, Kerman, and Yazd (Howard, 1931; Richards, 1933). While some of these schools tried, through the use of diplomatic ties, to remain open despite the policy, the government succeeded in persuading the Armenian and Assyrian Christians in particular to send children to government schools, dealing a significant blow to Christian-run schools (Richards, 1933; Zirinsky, 1993b).
Government domination. In 1936, marking the third episode, the government aggressively pushed to take over non-Iranian schools. By the mid-1930s, the regime had committed significant resources to its education campaign (Menashri, 1992; see Chapter 4). In due course, missionary and foreign schools were again pressured to change the curriculum substantially, by significantly lessening secondary language instruction, forcing the inclusion of Islamic subjects, and omitting Christian-oriented content altogether. The government began taking over missionary and ethnic Christian schools between 1936 and 1940, by forcing them to sell them the schools (Zirinsky, 1993b). From one perspective, the regime was facilitating a process of demobilization of Christian education efforts in order to merge diverse populations into the systematized government Iranian national schools. For example, many teachers who taught at those missionary schools which were being shut down, went on to teach at government schools; similarly students from these schools enrolled in government schools (Arasteh, 1962).
The Armenian Christian community took the brunt of the nationalized education initiatives. By order of the Shah, all non-Iranian primary and many secondary schools were shut down, including nearly all Armenian schools in Azerbaijan and Tabriz (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987). The isolationist drive of the Armenian-Iranian Christian community—an ideological and cultural characteristic that was noticeably activated when missionary schools began their work in the community—polarized them from the Shah’s monolithic image of the Iranian citizen. Another factor that weakened the efforts of the missionary educators was the partial withdrawal of U.S. State Department certification of their efforts, believing that missionaries were “persistently remaining in a place where they are emphatically not wanted” (1932, cited in Zirinsky 1993b, p. 350).
In 1939, the government ordered all existing schools to come under the control and management of the state. By 1941, despite many appeals, nearly all Christian foreign and ethnic schools were taken over by the Ministry of Education (Board of Foreign Missions, 1940; Dodds, 1940). Many of the missionary faculty members were replaced by Iranian administrators and teachers (Doolittle, 1983; Irvine, 2008; Zirinsky, 1993a). Students were channeled into government run schools, and few attended the Jewish Alliance Universelle Israelite schools that had remained opened. The vacuum left by the closure of ethnic Christian schools was partially filled by religious classes held at churches. However, this situation changed during the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah, when ethnic Christian-run schools and foreign (non–missionary oriented) schools reopened (Irvine, 2008). Figure D3 represents the sequential outcome of interaction involving Christian school choices in response to government policies from 1928–1939.
Muhammad Reza and a stream of actuation. There are some identifiable large-scale educational processes during the reign of Muhammad Reza with regard to Armenian-Iranian schools. During his regime, the heavy-handed restrictions on foreign schools were lifted. Beginning in 1943, many Armenian schools that had been closed were now reopened or reorganized into larger schools, sponsored by individuals or the community (Sanasarian, 1995). Most of these were under the leadership of the local and regional Apostolic Armenian prelacies, who appointed education boards of directors. However, missionary schools lost their momentum and identity (Doolittle, 1983; Irvine, 2008). By the early 1950s, it was the government-run schools which provided modern schooling for most minority groups (Arasteh, 1962; Menashri, 1992). Many missionary educational institutions, such as Alborz College, Nurbakhsh, and Iranzamin, transferred ownership to either the government or private parties, retaining the high standard and prestigious reputation that they had obtained during the missionary years (Armajani, 1985; Doolittle, 1983; Irvine, 2006; Zirinsky, 2009). In the 1960s, the Anglican and Presbyterian missionary organizations handed over leadership of the Christian community to the modest-numbered Iranian evangelical community (Arasteh, 1962). Thus several prominent processes may be identified, including integration, upward scale shift of Armenian schools through expansion, collective action and coalition re-formation to run schools, boundary re-activation, and institutionalization. All schools complied with standardized regulations of the Ministry of Education. Armenian schools that were established continued to multiply, and included emphasis on Armenian language, history, and culture (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987).
Despite the absence of foreign missionary activity during the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah, the government tolerated local Christian educational pursuits. Armenian and other ethnic Christian schools were allowed to reopen, on condition that Persian would be the principal language of instruction, with Armenian and Syriac to be used for religious studies and secondary language education (8–10 hours a week; Amurian & Kasheff, 1987). During the 1960s and 1970s, Armenians began experiencing facilitation by the government in the form of approval to expand schools, churches, and libraries, access to government and military positions, permission to create and maintain cultural centers and organizations, and tolerance of increasing the hours allotted to Armenian language in classes (Bournoutian, 1994).
This process of educational expansion within the limits of the community reinforced the distinct boundary of Armenian-Iranian identity, while allowing for integration into the public sector as Iranian citizens. According to Bournoutian (1994), nearly four dozen schools and libraries were established during the entire period of Pahlavi rule. Many others selected the strategy of integration, particularly those in urban areas. By the end of the Pahlavi era, nearly all Armenian children attended Armenian schools (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987). Like the Jewish and Baha’i communities, the education opportunity structure for participating in state-run schools was open—primarily as a result of improved regime-group relations. Networks with transnational community members in Armenia and the United States continued to provide resources and the facilitated the cohesion of group characteristics and composition. Framing culture and religion as inseparable helped to sustain the isolationist orientation. While contention was a process that formed missionary educational strategies in the first epoch of the Pahlavi era, it was not noticeable during the rule of Muhammad Reza Shah, because bids to open and expand schools were tolerated by the government.
Summary. In reviewing the range of Christian communities’ educational strategies during the Pahlavi era, I explain several prominent strategies, particularly unique ones such as isolation among ethnic groups and competition between denominations. As discussed above, contextual factors such as group composition and characteristic of different Christian groups (i.e., denominations), their networks, and finally their dynamically changing relation with the regime influenced the ways in which strategies were implemented but also, more importantly, which strategies were available to them.
Baha’is under the Pahlavi Monarchy I observe two scales of processes for Iranian Baha’is during the Pahlavi era. For the epoch of Reza Shah, I draw on small-scale processes and mechanisms, and highlight micro-scale interactions for support. For the epoch of Muhammad Reza, I look at mid-scale processes and mechanisms to reflect the general increase in educational opportunities for the Baha’i community and their subsequent strategies. To set the stage, it is important to consider how educational opportunities and strategies developed prior to the Pahlavi period. A brief look at the educational developmental processes during this period highlights subsequent choices made by the Iranian Baha’i community.
Social conditions were extremely harsh for Baha’is during the Qajar period until 1895–1900 (Tavakoli-Targhi, 2008). As a result, most Baha’i communities initiated small classes in homes and small local centers, using private tutors where possible. For general studies, they sent their children to larger cities. The first modern Baha’i school was established 1898–1899 in Tehran, ushering in a wave of other modern Baha’i-run schools throughout Iran (Sabet, 1997). There were three reasons for this pursuit of modern schools, which included secular and religious education: the education of children was a religious obligation (Abdu’l-Baha trans. in Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1976); the education of girls in particular was of primary importance to Baha’is (Abdu’l-Baha trans. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1986); and other schools were unavailable or inaccessible, potentially dangerous, or had limited capacity during this period.
By the end of the 19th century, despite continued hostility toward Baha’is by some Shi’i clergy and adherents, the regime under Muzaffar al-Din Shah provided the political opportunity structure for Baha’is which enabled them to register individual Baha’is in schools, but did not extend the privilege to the community as a recognized group (Shahvar, 2009). Abdu’l-Baha, the community’s leader at the time, laid out the basic mandate for starting modern schools, and framed the need for secular and religious education as a binding imperative (trans. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1976). In addition to resources mobilized by Baha’i communities in Iran, Abdu’l-Baha solicited the support of members of the American Baha’i community in contributing to these education efforts.[11] American travelers also partnered with Iranian Baha’i educators in developing modern standards and curriculum. Local Baha’i communities and individual Baha’is extended support (including teacher salaries, materials, and venues) when families were unable to cover associated costs. Over time, Baha’i maktab khaneh (small, private religious class) and smaller schools were ready to scale up into full-fledged modern schools.
Several identifiable mechanisms went into the process of mobilizing and collectively acting to meet educational needs, including: framing, brokerage, diffusion, boundary shift, and certification. Abdu’l-Baha rallied the Baha’i community in adopting the ideological importance of education, by framing it as a religious duty and as a contribution toward their social well-being. The modern school model was diffused throughout the Iranian Baha’i community by educators from America and other Iranian Baha’i scholars, who had previous experience, and who were able to network with other educators (in and out of Iran)(Armstrong-Ingram, 1986; Clock 1919, 1920; Hakim, 1919; Moody, 1921). Initially, it was Abdu’l-Baha, from his home in Haifa, who brokered the connection between American Baha’is and Iranian Baha’is, and shifted the boundary of their identity from being simply an Iranian Baha’i community to being part of a transnational religious community. Subsequently, American travelers and educators joined Iranian Baha’i leaders and organizers in diffusing the methods and practices for modern schools to places that had no standing initiative. Notably, Christian missionaries had introduced modern schooling decades earlier, so the idea was not entirely new (Perkins, 1843). The combination of brokerage and diffusion facilitated the process of coordinating plans to start schools. Baha’i organizational leaders marshaled material and human resources from local congregations and American Baha’i donors in establishing schools, buying equipment, training teachers, and providing supplies. Abdu’l-Baha certified the efforts of the Baha’i community in establishing modern schools (trans. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1976), which received positive endorsement by some American and European government agencies (Shahvar, 2009).
In an effort to meet the educational demands of Iranian Baha’is, these various mechanisms combined to form a number of different processes, including (a) mobilization, (b) collective action, (c) coalition formation, (d) new coordination , (e) scale-shift, and (f) globalization. These processes revolved around establishing schools, but later included advocacy for and defense of rights for Baha’is in Iran. The transnational network established between the Iranian and American Baha’i community under the centralized leadership of Abdu’l-Baha was nascent, but provided a significant means for educational initiatives, which also established a nexus around which strengthening the ties between the two communities was made possible. Abdu’l-Baha gave ideological instructions by framing modern education and establishment of schools as an unequivocal necessity and priority for spiritual and social advancement. He also endorsed the idea of selectively adopting models from other countries where great progress had already been made (Abdu’l-Baha, 1875/1990). The members of the community, accustomed to novelty and encouraged to investigate new ideas, contributed enthusiastically to the new schools. As resources were gradually collected from local congregations, individual donors, and American contributors, the schools grew from private religious classes to modern schools open to the public (Shahvar, 2009). These processes would dictate the general mode of operation for educational initiatives and strategy selection in the subsequent first epoch of the Pahlavi era, and even in later periods.
The rise of Reza Shah initially signaled the prospect of more favorable conditions for Baha’is, especially since many of the Shah’s new goals resonated in form with the progressive elements of the Baha’i Faith (Effendi, 1929/1974). However, the Shah did not extend recognition to Baha’is, and thus the old tactic of registering schools in individual names continued (Shahvar, 2009). Prior to Reza Shah, there were 26 to 34 Baha’i schools. During the Pahlavi era the number rose to 47–50 (Shahvar, 2009, pp. 147–174). The schools not only scaled up from maktabs to full-fledged modern schools, but the educational campaign escalated through the increased participation of Baha’is and non-Baha’is in the schools, and through recruitment efforts which were generally supported by the general move in society toward modern schooling (Banani, 1961).
Not all Baha’i-run schools were of the same size and quality, nor did they function under the same regulations, or have the same level of resources. Divergence was significantly affected by the composition and characteristics of the local communities (Momen, 2008). Schools were held in houses, sections of existing buildings, small halls, multi-room buildings, and even on large campuses. By and large, the majority of schools met government standards, and many exceeded them, including subjects and services that would only be seen years later in other modern state-run schools (Banani, 1961). Conditional on capacity, the curriculum also varied among schools.[12] Another important feature of Baha’i-run schools was their enrollment of non-Baha’i children (Baha’i International Community, 2005a). Baha’i community members took extreme precautions, including tolerating slander and sporadic harassment, to avoid the risk of having schools closed down (Sabet, 1997; Clock, 1916). By 1928 most Baha’i-run schools emphasized their secular characteristics while maintaining moral education as a component of the school (Shahvar, 2009). Baha’i-run schools adopted the secular education as the public image of the school. This was due in part of a process I call selective assimilation, that is, an attempt to assimilate some elements of the majority in society, to benefit the group or program in some way while maintaining distinction. In cases where schools were attacked or temporarily shut down, a recurrent tactic was employed: letters of appeal were sent to local, regional, and central government agencies (Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, No. 75, 90, and 95, 1934–1935; Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vols. 2–5, 1928–1936). This became standard practice by Baha’is, developed over many years of persecution in Iran, and one which continued to be emulated as network ties with its transnational Baha’i communities increased (see US NSA 16 July 1926 letter to the Shah on behalf of Iranian Baha’is in Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 2, 1928).
Streams and Episodes In the wake of Reza Shah’s state formation enterprise. On the intermediate level, three events characterize episodic encounters. The first took place in 1928, when the Ministry of Education issued a series of new policies affecting all nongovernment schools (Sadiq, 1931). The second was in 1932, when all foreign primary schools were forbidden to enroll Iranian students (Menashri, 1992). Finally, in 1934, the government ordered all Baha’i-run schools to be shut down for failing to comply with a specific edict of the Shah (Moayyad, 1991). These episodes reflect the government’s efforts to facilitate schools and communities into the state system, tolerate nominal diversity, and repress practices and features that were deemed to be not aligned with the regime’s agenda. The era of Muhammad Reza reflects a stream of actuation through large-scale processes.
In 1928, some of the regulations directly affecting Baha’i-run schools included mandatory requirements to use Persian as the language of instruction, teach classes on Islam, Iranian geography, and history, and omit minority-religious subjects. This first encounter was passed with relatively no contention, because most Baha’i-run schools were either already using Persian as the language of instruction or it was used in conjunction with English. Baha’i schools met the demands found in the regulations without the necessity for resistance. Moreover, the composition and networks of the Baha’i community provided the human, organizational, and material resources required to follow through with the particulars associated with the new regulations (Shahvar, 2009).
The second episode occurred in 1932, when the government forbade non-Iranian primary schools to enroll Iranian students (Rostam-Kolayi, 2008). Since nearly all Baha’i-run schools were either owned or operated by Iranian nationals, or at the least co-directed by Iranians, this latter policy did not have a noticeable effect. Baha’is had registered these schools under the names of local Iranian Baha’is, precisely because the community itself was not recognized (Shahvar, 2009). From one perspective, not being institutionalized as a community benefited the Baha’i-run schools in this situation, in contrast to those run by Christian missionaries, foreigners, and ethnic minorities in Iran.
The third episode, which I will discuss in greater detail, took place in 1934, and led to the ultimate closure of all Baha’i-run schools in the country. Until this time, there had been several attempts by local and provincial government agents to take over Baha’i schools, but given the legal structure, there had been no substantial grounds to do so (Moayyad, 1991). The primary objective of the government was to expand its own education system, and lessen the influence of foreign and non-Iranian schools (Matthee, 1992).
However, in the winter of 1934 the Minister of Education, Ali-Asghar Hikmat, on behalf of the Shah, delivered orders to close two eminent Tarbiyat Schools in Tehran and many others (Moayyad, 1991; see NSA Iran, 1936, for list of closed schools). The charge was based on the schools’ violation of the Ministry of Education regulation requiring schools to remain open throughout the year except for government approved holidays. Two days before the order, Baha’i school administrators cancelled classes in observation of a Baha’i holy day—something they had been doing for decades. Additional instructions followed, requiring the closure of other Baha’i schools that had cancelled classes that day (NSA Iran, 1936).
While the severity of the response was shocking to many, there were several Baha’i leaders and organizers who had already expected some form of reaction. According to the British Ambassador in Tehran, H.M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, Baha’is had been rebuked a year earlier for closing on the occasion of a Baha’i holy day (Shahvar, 2009). A few months later in the summer of 1934, the Minister of Education allegedly threatened the Board of Directors, indicating that Reza Shah had given an order to shut down the school if it should close when other schools remained open (see Moayyad, 1991, pp. 330–331 for statement). Christians and Jews were permitted to cancel school on their religious holidays, as well as on the Sabbath (Saturday for Jews and Sunday for Christians; Cohen, 1986; Rostam-Kolayi, 2008), but since Baha’is were not a recognized religious minority, they were not afforded minority status rights. Two years earlier, the fact that they were not institutionalized as a recognized religious minority, had helped the Baha’is to avoid the cooptation of primary schools. However, in this episode, it worked against them, as they were held to standards applied to general public schools. The threat issued by the government could be considered a heavy-handed attempt to force the integration of Baha’is schools into the national system, since they were not an institutionalized religious group. From another perspective, the threat was an act of repression, raising the risk level that the group would mobilize and act collectively to run their schools. In either case, it was a contentious claim.
The Ministry of Education had given two explicit warnings to Baha’i school organizers prior to the closure. Ali-Akbar Furutan, the principle of the Tarbiyat School, appealed to the newly formed National Spiritual Assembly of Iran (Shahriyari, 2006). The NSA sent a cable to Shoghi Effendi, the international leader of the Baha’i community (who had succeeded Abdu’l-Bahá ) for guidance. In preparation for a delayed response, the NSA decided that all Baha’i-run schools would remain open on the holy day if Shoghi Effendi’s instructions did not arrive in time (Shahvar, 2009). This was a difficult decision, particularly because the observance of Baha’i holy days is obligatory, requiring suspension of all work including school (Baha’u’llah, 1992; Shoghi Effendi, 1976). However, the possibility of not shutting down the schools, thereby technically compromising the ideological integrity of the community (i.e., Baha’i religious law), may, I suggest, have been seen by the National Spiritual Assembly as a viable strategy to keep the schools operating. Shortly before the coming holy day, a clear and direct response arrived from the Baha’i World Center to keep the schools closed on the holy day (Shoghi Effendi, 1936, trans. in Shahriyari, 2006).
It was a bold claim and a strategic move to publicly identify the distinct Baha’i affiliation of those schools (Iranian NSA, 1936). In other words, it was a process of boundary activation, or the increase in salience of an “us-them” relationship. By calling for the closure of Iranian Baha’i schools on the holy day, Shoghi Effendi was inherently making a bid for a share in equal minority recognition for Baha’is (see Effendi 1935/1970, p. 52). In compliance with these instructions, the Tarbiyat schools, along with most Baha’i-run schools throughout the country, suspended classes in observance of the holy day (Moayyad, 1991; Shahvar, 2009). The same mechanism of diffusion was now implemented to suspend the schools on Baha’i holy days. The organizational structure of the Baha’i community, consisting of a hierarchical model, made possible the systematic and uniform implementation of uncompromising policies in Baha’i-run schools throughout the country. After another warning from Hikmat, Furutan responded by emphasizing the importance of suspending school and work on Baha’i holy days, the outright ownership and operation of the schools by Baha’is, and the uncompromising nature of the decision (see Shariyari, 2006, p. 32 for the official response). In retrospect, the mechanisms involved in suspending schools on the holy day, despite the warnings, resulted in a counter-strategy of contention. Thus, the framing of the ideological importance of Baha’i law over even the Baha’i imperative of education is paramount in considering the future strategies adopted by Baha’i community leaders and members as a whole for decades to follow, including during the regime of the Islamic Republic.
In turn, after the orders to close down the Tarbiyat schools for boys and for girls in Tehran, almost all Baha’i schools were shut down within the course of the year (Ali Asghar Hikmat, 1934, trans. in Moayyad, 1991; NSA Iran, 1936; see Figure D4 for facsimile of official notification). Some schools faced harsher treatment, while a few schools even encountered sympathy on the part of police officers who were obliged to follow orders (Shahvar, 2009).
There were very few schools that either reopened after the closure, or were never shut down. Some schools in the rural areas were left untouched, or, when closed, reopened. As Shahvar (2009) suggests that, unlike the larger cities, there were fewer, or no, schools in smaller towns and villages (like Sisan and Arabkhayl). This may have prompted the government to tolerate, or more precisely, to ignore the Baha’i schools in smaller centers, despite the Shah’s disapproval of inconsistencies and disobedience. Some schools remained open temporarily for several months after the incident, because they did not cancel classes on the holy day. Since the NSA had decided to keep schools open on the holy day, unless otherwise instructed by Shoghi Effendi, it is quite possible that the change in plans was not received in time to be implemented in these areas. This speculation is supported by subsequent episodes in which the mandate to suspend classes on holy days was observed by those same schools—leading to their eventual closure by local officials (Shahvar, 2009). Finally, in some smaller areas, such as Bihnamir, the schools were presented as a maktab-khaneh (religious school), and thus were able to remain open. Initiating a “parallel school,” or an unofficial school not registered with the government, and framed as a religious school, would become a prominent strategy for years to come (Iran NSA, 1936).
Following the closure of schools, Baha’i leaders and education administrators made great efforts to appeal local, regional, and central government agencies to allow schools to reopen and operate again with recognized status (Iran NSA, 1936; Momen, 2008). Even Americans in Iran solicited support from the US government, other organizations, and the American Baha’i community (Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, 1935, No. 90, 1935, No. 93). Many Baha’i families, and some non-Baha’is who had sent their children to Baha’i-run schools, delayed registering them in other schools out of concern for the dangers associated with sending their children to non-Baha’i schools and the possible impact of the schools on the children (Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, 1935, No. 90).
To change the restricted educational opportunity structure, Baha’is again returned to the strategy of written appeals and engaging in transnational campaigning. Such letters of appeal were sent on the local, national, and international level to various government officials and political elites (Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 6–7, 1934–1938). After a decade, the government had become accustomed to the performance of appeals, and had reacted to some of them by rectifying transgressions or preventing a negative situation (Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 6, 1938). But this time was different. Knowing the strategy of the Baha’is, the Shah ordered telegraph posts to refuse Baha’is permission to send cables, and government officials at various levels were instructed not to accept appeals and letters from Baha’is (Shahvar, 2009). Additionally, due to growing protests from Baha’is abroad and foreign diplomats in Iran, Baqir Kazimi, the government’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued a circular to all Iranian diplomats around the world to provide a counter argument to Baha’i advocacy against the government closure of schools by non-Iranian Baha’is to their respective governments (trans. in Shahvar, 2009; pp. 112–113; also see Baha’i Publishing Committee, The Baha’i World, Vol. 6, for details on appeals). In this way, the strategy of contained contention by Baha’is was thwarted. A little over a year later, conditions relaxed somewhat for Bahá’ís, but most schools did not reopen (Shoghi Effendi, as cited in Baha’i Publishing Trust, Baha’i News, No. 93, 1935). The political opportunity structure radically changed, and the inter-workings of networking and group composition affected the Baha’i decisions to go in one direction knowing the potential outcome.
There are three distinct follow-up strategies that Baha’is adopted after closure of the schools. First, students and teachers integrated into state-run schools or religious minority schools. Second, students who had enrolled in schools, but who had faced harassment left and continued to study privately, or stopped altogether (Iran NSA, 1936). Third, after the closure of schools, the Baha’i community started new, unofficial parallel schools, sometimes framing them as small, informal religious schools, which began to flourish throughout Iran with the coordination of the NSA and LSAs (Shahvar, 2009). In other words, three processes emerged, often overlapping: integrated study, isolated study, parallel study. As processes, they can be identified as integration, defection, and innovation. Figure D5 shows the developmental adaptation of strategies.
The downward scale shift, manifested as decentralized classroom schools, was a practice to which the Baha’is were accustomed during the Qajar period, when conditions were even more unfavorable. The Baha’is readily adapted to the situation by unofficially facilitating many of the same schools in parallel format, in private homes and smaller centers under the leadership of the Local Spiritual Assemblies and the management of volunteer educators who had worked at the Baha’i-run schools. For example, according to an account by Abu’l-Qasim Faizi, upon entering Najafabad, where schools had been recently shutdown, “Within two weeks [after the closure], twenty schools and akhlaq [religious] classes were set up in the homes of the Baha’is, and began operating like a very efficient factory.” (trans. in Shahvar, 2009, p. 135). I argue that there were four reasons for this result: first, individual and collective community belief in education as an uncompromising imperative, by which they felt compelled to seek educational opportunity even in the face of known risks; the mechanisms of framing, mobilization, and new coordination were primarily the driving force for this, supported by the deployment of developed resources despite an unfavorable opportunity structure. Second, a systemic network of organizations (Local Spiritual Assemblies) coordinated by the National Spiritual Assembly under the leadership and guidance of a central authority (i.e., Shoghi Effendi in Haifa). The community’s leadership employed framing as a means of marshalling local and transnational resources, while American and Iranian Baha’i educators brokered the adapted parallel models in different sites and diffused methodologies. Third, a body of trained administrators and teachers, a developed curriculum, and a community ready to volunteer in order to continue parallel schooling. This was the result of effective mobilization, new coordination, collective action, and the increase of globalized connections within the transnational and national Baha’i community. Fourth, a large number of community members were experienced with old modes of mobilizing and collectively acting under restrictive conditions, supported by the mobilization of cultural, spiritual, and organizational resources, and the ability to frame the situation as an opportunity and a challenge, as opposed to a failed outcome.
Unquestionably, the geographic spread and population size of the Baha’i community aided in mobilizing resources to run the schools, and later maintain the parallel schools. The networks between the American and Iranian Baha’i communities were strengthened through the collaboration on education initiatives and the advocacy work done on behalf of the Iranian Baha’is by the American National Spiritual Assembly and other American Baha’i organizations and adherents; transnational ties also played a significant role in their resource mobilization. Had the Baha’is been recognized as a religious minority, perhaps special privileges similar to those extended to the Jewish and Christian schools would have allowed Baha’i schools to cancel classes on holy days, while meeting other regulations of the Ministry. The adaptive strategy of scaling down to parallel smaller schools run as religious classes, as well as integrating into the general secular public school system illustrates the impact of the ideological importance place on modern education—despite the perceived risks associated with attending such schools.
Muhammad Reza Shah and a stream of actuation. Over the decades from 1928 to 1941, the impact of schooling on the Baha’i community’s characteristics was profound (see Chapter 5). A new generation of educated and education-oriented Baha’is helped to establish an different view of the Baha’is in the eyes of the general public, which now saw them as being modern, educated and progressive (Abrahamian, 2008; Banani, 1962; Keddie, 1981). The government may have exercised repressive measures to limit the development of the religious aspects of the community, but it continued to facilitate their involvement in various arenas of the public sector as Iranian citizens (Sanasarian, 2000). In the years following the abdication of Reza Shah, the Baha’is integrated further into the state educational institutions, shifting certain aspects of identity boundaries and integrating themselves into the broader Iranian identity that was formed, while simultaneously engaging in their own private religious classes (Baha’i Publishing Trust, The Baha’i World, Vols. 8–17, 1954–1979). In other words, the opportunity structure allowed for a selective pluralist identity, so long as that identity was subordinated to the national one (Kashani-Sabet, 1999).
There is no detailed account of the educational facilitation process of the Baha’is during the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah (1941–1979), but there are important markers in the stream of educational actuation. While the educational initiatives of both Shahs had limited results (see Chapter 4) and benefited only a small segment of the population, the general change in the educational opportunities coupled with the orientation of community positively affected many Baha’is. In terms of large-scale processes shaping educational strategies of the Baha’is, these included:
1. Integration—participation in government run primary, elementary, and secondary schools; enrolment of large numbers of students in institutions of higher education and permitting them to study abroad;
2. Framing—the pursuit of education further emphasized by Baha’i leadership as religious imperative, service, worth tolerating hardship and harassment;
3. Mobilization and renewed coordination—continued increase in religious and moral education classes in homes and Baha’i centers; youth organizations and conferences throughout the country to supplement secular education;
4. Tolerance—sustained low-level harassment by teachers, other students, and clerics, but pursued educational opportunities;
5. Contention—use of an array of mechanisms to seek redress for discrimination and occasionally severe harassment in public schools, through LSAs and NSAs, including assistance from transnational communities.
Summary. Of the mechanisms and processes which were evident during the entire Pahlavi era, several prominent educational strategies become identifiable, all of which were shaped by the holistic dynamic of factors found in the education opportunity model. While Baha’is were not institutionalized, individual community members registered schools in their own name while mobilizing community research, collectively acting to meet educational needs. Contained contention, particularly international and international appeals, was a hallmark strategy in pushing for educational rights. When contention became transgressive, the government shutdown Baha’i run schools, but continued to facilitate them into the state system as students and teachers. Baha’is also responded by relying on old strategies of parallel education, and diffused a hybrid version of secular and religious schooling.
Comparative Review of Religious Minorities in the Pahlavi Period For the entire Pahlavi period, similar processes were at play in the development, selection, and deployment of educational strategies for all three groups. Sometimes educational strategies were formed and selected independent of government policies, but never without consideration of the consequences. However, other strategies were specifically designed and adopted because of existing government policies and practices affecting the religious minority groups. The processes and educational strategies chosen often differed based on the combination of their group features. Examining strategies through the lens of mechanisms and processes allows us to explain how similar and different strategies emerged. In this section I focus on the most prominent educational strategies employed during the Pahlavi era, and compare the similarities and variations for the groups.
It is important to note that there were definite periods during which policies of the regime were imposed on all three religious minorities, affecting their respective educational opportunities and developments. These coincided primarily with the development and implementation of state educational policies. Figure 19 illustrates a brief timeline when major impositions took place and where opportunities noticeably opened.
1927/1928 – Government Curricular Policies
1932– non-Iranian not allowed registering Iranian students
1934 – Baha'i run schools closed; school name changes
1936 – Many Christian ethnic schools closed down
1939/1940 – non-Iranian primary and secondary schools co-opted by government
1943-1978 – minority schools given increasing freedom
1960s– integration and migration causes decrease in Jewish run schools
Figure 19. Prominent government education policies affecting religious minority educational opportunities during the Pahlavi period.
As a result of various factors, including group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations, sometimes all three groups shared the same types of strategies, partially shared strategies, or relied on group-specific and unique strategies. Below, I compare how the various levels of shared and unique strategies were manifested in diverse forms.
Shared Strategies Model importation: Assimilation and adaptation. All three groups initiated modern schooling education by importing at least some aspect—if not identical replicas—of models from outside Iran. The Iranian Jewish community’s connection with the French Alliance Israelite Universelle Foundation (AIU) resulted in the importation and emulation of French-model schools for the purpose of assimilation into a secularized Western-oriented system. Later, however, the Jewish community’s desire for more religiosity and culturally relevant education led to the coordinated collaboration with the Ozar Hatorah, among other international Jewish organizations, in mobilizing and providing religious education. Unlike the AIU representatives’ emphasis on assimilation, the Christian missionaries made concerted efforts to adapt modern schools to include both missionary objectives and local cultural sensibilities. It was Christian missionaries who introduced Iran to modern schooling in the first place, as brokers, and through independent organizational mobilization and collective action. Ethnic Christians, in reaction to the missionaries, imported models from Armenia and the Caucasus region. This was a response that emerged from processes of competition and contention. Somewhere between the Jewish collaboration and the adaptive Christian missionary education initiatives, Baha’is were mandated by their religious leadership to start modern schools integrating the arts, sciences, and religious education. Their international religious leader also brokered the connection between Iranian and American Baha'i educators to import models similar to those used in the United States.
Innovation. Innovation of schools, their startup and customization, was the result of several factors. For the Jewish community, innovation took place when local Jews were dissatisfied with the AIU emphasis on French and European culture and secularization. For Christian ethnic groups, the innovation of community based schools—as opposed to missionary schools—resulted because ethnic Christian leaders saw missionary conversion efforts as a threat, and desired cultural preservation. This was spurred by processes of boundary activation and polarization in the community along sectarian and national ties. Baha’is created a hybrid of the Western model and Iranian Baha'i moral education in their schools, but their real innovation lay in the establishment of parallel classes when general schools were shut down.
Selective assimilation. When restrictive and demanding regulations were imposed on all three groups, selective assimilation was employed to avoid government repression on the one hand, and to solicit government facilitation on the other. AIU and other Jewish-run schools readily changed aspects of school structure and curriculum to meet state regulations. They were able to assimilate those aspects of schooling that cosmetically satisfied the regime’s requirements; however, because the state schools were based on similar French models, the structure needed little reorganization. Most Christian missionary schools aligned themselves with regime regulations to avoid restrictions by the government, and the threat of having the schools closed down. They did this by reducing foreign language instruction and removing significant elements of religious education. Furthermore, they relied on externalization, support from their host government representatives in the country to negotiate with the regime. Schools that failed to comply were closed, including many of the ethnic schools which did not have the capacity to meet government demands or resisted by remaining unchanged. Baha’is also modified their school models to meet government regulations at every turn because they were a nonrecognized minority and had to comply with the state’s requirements. Similar to Christians, they maintained elements that they felt were critical to their objectives by adopting the bare minimum requirements.
Expansion. All three groups were able to expand their schools through the use of increased resources, more open opportunity structures, and more complex network ties with their transnational communities and other organizations. The AIU representatives diffused school models and later used graduates of AIU schools as future staff. The Ozar Hatorah organization sent more instructors, as well as trained others inside Iran, to increase the number of schools and programs. Similarly, Christian missionary schools emulated American and European school models, recruited students from all religious minorities and Muslims, drawing on local teachers and administrators who had graduated and become educated. Armenians also benefited from networks with their own transnational community to increase ethnic schools. Although missionary schools ceased to operate by the end of the Reza Shah period, there was a noticeable increase in Armenian schools during the Muhammad Reza Shah period, because they were given the opportunity to create isolated schools. Like the Jews and Christians who faced relative education facilitation in the early Reza Shah period, Baha’is scaled up schools throughout Iran, and emulated other Baha'i run schools in bigger cities.
Institutionalization. The Jewish and Christian communities were recognized and represented in the governments of both Pahlavi regimes. This provided their educational initiatives with special features and exclusive rights. Baha'i schools were not recognized, and thus Baha'i run schools had to be registered with the state in the name of individuals, rather than the community. By institutionalizing—or in the case of Bahá'ís , semi-institutionalizing by registering with the government—all three groups were protecting schools from perceived and actual threats from severe government repression and more noticeably parallel authority repression and attacks. While institutionalization benefited Jews throughout the entire Pahlavi era, it had a detrimental effect on some missionary and ethnic Christian schools which either tried to sustain distinctive features or could not comply with government policies. Baha’is benefited from not being formally institutionalized when foreign groups during the Reza Shah period faced regulations targeting non-Iranian schools for closure. However, the fact that they were not recognized with special features worked against them when their uncompromising religious standard conflicted with state regulations imposed on all Iranian-based schools.
Contention. While contention is a process, it overlapped and constituted a special type of educational strategy, characterized by appeals and negotiation with the government, internal community and denominational strife, and international advocacy. Contention between local Iranian Jewish community members and AIU representatives shaped specific features of some schools. Contention with the government remained minimal for the Jewish community under the Pahlavi government, as they relied on assimilation and integration as main strategies. Christian missionaries and ethnic minorities faced sectarian contention, polarized by cultural and ideological divides. Boundary activation was initiated by local ethnic Christian leaders, not by missionaries who attempted to adapt to cultural mores of Christians in Iran. The government saw missionaries as symbols of old imperial presence in Iran, but nonetheless engaged in contentious interaction through appeals and negotiations through missionary host government representatives in Iran. Although ethnic Christians faced clashes with the government on grounds of national identity, there was no real record of attempts to use contentious modalities in the area of education, other than passive resistance to changes occurring during the first part of the Pahlavi era.
Competition. There was noticeable and active competition between missionaries and locally-based Christians for students and staff. This was sparked by the Armenian community religious leaders, and sustained through contentious interaction. While the Jewish and Baha’i schools did not engage in competition with the same intensity that existed among the various sects which divided the Christian community, they implicitly responded to the existing minority schools that opened to their population. All three competed passively with the emerging government-run schools which recruited minority teachers and administrators, as well as students to build their capacity.
Partially Shared Strategies Integration. By and large, while the establishment of their own schools was the primary means of accessing education, members of the Jewish community sought to integrate into the larger Iranian society, and when educational opportunity dynamics facilitated such integration, many participated in the government-run schools and universities. The disintegration of some Jewish schools towards the end of the Pahlavi era was primarily the result of this preference for integration strategy over isolation. Bahá'ís, like Jews, also benefited from open opportunities to integrate into the public system. While they maintained parallel religious schools after the initial closure of all Bahá'í -run schools during the reign of Reza Shah, community leaders and members relied on integration as the primary educational strategy during the second epoch of the Pahlavi era. Because they actively pursued educational opportunities and integration, both Jews and Baha’is saw significant social mobility during the Pahlavi era. Some ethnic Christians also integrated into the public education system once government-run schools fostered integration, and as a result of diminished missionary schools after their closure at the end of the Reza Shah era. However, because they emphasized and framed cultural preservation as a primary goal, only a marginal number of Christians actively chose integration even when opportunities were open to them. As will be discussed below, Christians leaned toward the strategy of isolation.
Paralleling. Parallel schooling, or running educational programs and initiatives outside the system of government monitored education, became important to Christians and Baha’is, particularly when their schools were shut down. Parallel schools were organized by respective community leaders and organizations, drawing on existing curriculum and human resources developed over the previous decades. Such parallel schools were facilitated in religious centers and privately owned property and venues. The Jewish community did not rely on parallel schooling, but did initiate Ozar Hatorah programs to supplement secular education, including the addition of religious classes to AIU schools run by Ozar Hatorah.
Adaptation. Baha'i and Christian foreigners brokered the diffusion of Western models of modern schooling which were then adapted in consideration of local religious and linguistic customs. The AIU schools did not engage in adaptation until extreme pressure from the local community over decades, since the French emphasized assimilation over adaptation. French AIU adaptation included partnering with Ozar Hatorah to offer supplementary religious classes and Hebrew language classes, but also incorporated the features required by the state-regulated curriculum for education.
Toleration. Jews and Baha’is who registered in public schools in pursuit of integration tolerated the minor harassment they experienced in those schools. Baha'i community leaders and members appealed against harsher treatment, while continuing to avail themselves of the education opportunities offered in non-Baha'i schools. In case of violations, they made continued use of international networks to pressure the government when human rights were at stake. The Jewish community did not necessarily engage in appeals, but did look to other schooling opportunities when harsher treatment was perceived as detrimental.
Group-Specific Strategies
External accreditation. Alliance Israelite Universelle schools sent graduates to France for higher education and training to become teachers and administrators. Unlike the Christians and Baha’is who trained staff locally, Jewish AIU representatives felt that proper training to meet assimilation and qualitative objectives would best be served by sending them to France, thus gaining legitimization through external accreditation. Many Jewish community members accepted this course of action, in the hope of successfully increasing socioeconomic status in Iran. This assimilationist external accreditation strategy lessened when local schools were established, but reliance on external certification remained an important process in their educational strategy deployment.
Isolation. Armenian schools catered strictly to the Armenian population to preserve culture and religious characteristics of the community. They relied on networks to diffuse methods and models that were customized to meet the agenda of insular communal life; thus, schooling was framed as a necessity for maintaining distinction. Boundary activation became the principal means of sustaining this isolationist strategy throughout the Pahlavi era, one which was preferred during both repressive and facilitative periods of the regime.
Religious Minorities in Comparative Context of Group Features Although the religious minorities pushed to provide educational opportunities through modern schooling prior to the Pahlavi dynasty, their educational strategies would subsequently influence those pursued during this period. Importing models from abroad, adapting or attempting to assimilate students into the new models was at the heart of the strategy. Government opportunity structures were gradually opening for minorities during the secular rule of Reza Shah, and were highly tolerated and facilitated during the regime of his son.
Composition and characteristics. The composition and characteristics of groups, in particular their orientation, gave an indication of their initial goals, but also reflected the standards and attitudes concerning the strategies considered acceptable and accessible. For example, ethnic Christians benefited from secular aspects of modern schools, but leaders framed their importance in terms of cultural and religious preservation. Jewish Iranians were initially attracted to schools because of the promise they presented in improving socioeconomic conditions, as well as better relations with the non-Jewish majority. Baha’is pursued secular education, in addition to religious studies, based on canonical instruction and because education was framed as both a religious obligation and a social service.
Educational attainment changed the very characteristics of these communities. Ethnic Christians exercised more isolation and enhanced cohesion through communal schooling. Iranian Jews not only improved socioeconomic status, but were also devoted to education, with high numbers of university graduates, academics, and professionals by the end of the Pahlavi era. Baha’is emerged from their formerly ostracized and stigmatized status to being counted among Iran’s growing middle and upper class. The pre-existing religious structures and institutions among all groups invariably facilitated the process of mobilization and collective action to meet educational needs.
Generally, the characteristic of the groups in other social areas permeated educational strategies as well. Jews continued to use assimilation and adaptation as a means of coping with restrictive conditions. Christian ethnic communities used isolation as a means of preservation, and Baha’is remained uncompromising in areas of religious principle and framed struggles and losses in terms of service and sacrifice.
Networks. Networks played a vital role as well. In fact, without strong network ties, I argue that groups could not have expanded educational initiatives. Jews and Baha’is benefited significantly from non-Iranian transnational ties with their religious affiliates in other countries. Coalitions formed between leaders of local Iranian communities with their colleagues and affiliate organizations abroad tapped into an array of resources which would otherwise not have been accessible to them. Christian communities in Iran, while divided along denominational ties, and thus not making full use of their potential network ties across sectarian lines, relied on transnational ethnic ties. Assyrians and Chaldeans in general did not use such ties, as they were weak to begin with. Armenians drew on transnational ethnic ties, but primarily used networks built into their hierarchical religious structure. Similarly, Baha’is used their hierarchical structure, but their centralized leadership and subsequent institutions were not based on common ethnicity.
Diffusion of methods and strategies from one country to another through these network ties led to success in implementing strategies. Cultural diversity was noticeably divisive in the case of Christians and Jews. However, where adaptation ensued, coalitions were more effective in ensuring school success. Additionally, the indirect ties that affected religious minorities in Iran gave a significant impetus for protecting the rights of some groups and providing further services. For example, Iranian Jews were able to expand networks beyond the AIU organization to other more religiously-oriented institutions and initiatives such as the Jewish Distribution Committee, Ozar Hatorah, and Zionist organizations. Likewise, Iranian Baha’is were able to draw on connections with sister communities in America and Britain, coordinated through the Baha’i International Community (BIC), and their cordial relations with their respective governments in pressing for the rights of the Baha’is in Iran.
Regime-group relations. While it may be intuitive to conclude that institutionalization through recognition and representation were advantageous to Christians and Jews, partial institutionalization worked against Baha'is. It is important to note that, in some cases, institutionalization caused groups to compromise educational goals. Using parallel schools outside of the institutionalization processes helped all three communities to supplement secular schooling with religious education. The relationship of each particular regime with other states also affected group-state relations. Missionary schools were partially closed down because of their association with Western powers, from which the Pahlavi government was trying to distance itself. Ultimately, educational opportunities were available during the regime of Muhammad Reza. However, this openness contributed to the waning of Jewish-run schools, and decreased the drive of the Baha’is to pursue community-run schools. Students in both these groups increasingly integrated into the government system. Armenian Christians, on the other hand, took advantage of the tolerance afforded by the regime, and multiplied the number of schools, maintaining their isolation.
Jewish Community in the Islamic Republic Period The close association of the Shah with Israel and the United States, which had afforded the Iranian Jewish community an open opportunity structure, as well as networks with ample resources, became a liability as revolutionary rhetoric heated up at the end of the 1970s. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the very foundations of the Iranian Jewish community was transformed in the course of a few short years.
Observing processes for the Jewish community during the Islamic Republic period is difficult, primarily because of the rapid decline of its population (from 70,000–80,000 in 1978, to 40,000 in 1984, to 10,000 in 2006; Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Census, 2006; Rahimiyan, 2008a; Yegar, 1993). Notwithstanding the small sample and limited population of Iranian Jews seeking educational opportunities in Iran during the latter epochs of the Islamic Republic, I have been able to identify fragmented mid-level processes, as well as several micro-level processes involving individual cases. Most of my interview participants inside and outside Iran agree that some of these particular cases are representative of common experiences of many Iranian Jews. Both the schools and the Jewish students faced significant challenges as a result of the government’s education policies in public schools, as well as structural and curricular reform. I again argue that past strategies—changes in group composition, characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations—shape successive ones. Finally, to understand the educational strategies of the Iranian Jewish community during the Islamic Republic era, it is imperative to consider other social and economic processes which overlap with them.
Streams and Episodes The Iranian Jewish exodus. Many Iranian Jews left the country during the upheavals of 1978 and 1979, many of whom planned to return after the political situation stabilized. However, after the regime executed Habib Elqanayan (an affluent and prominent member of the Jewish community) and several other members of the community, the rate of emigration accelerated (Sarshar, 2009; Yegar, 1993; see Chapter 5). In April 1980, the community’s spiritual leader, Chief Rabbi Yedidiya Shofet, left for Europe and advised other community members to flee (Sanasarian, 2000). Most of those who left in these first years were among the most affluent and educated—among the community’s leaders (Economist, 17 February 1979; Economist, 14 June 1980; O’Driscoll, 1988). While Jewish enrolment in community-run schools had declined in the 1960s (with increased immigration into urban areas and to Israel in particular, as well as enrolment in government-run schools), this latest wave of emigration severely affected Jewish schools.
Although most observers have described this rise in emigration as an outcome, I argue that it constitutes the exit strategy. By exit I mean the conscious and deliberate decision to leave the country with the intention of pursuing opportunities in the destination country (e.g., education, employment, social freedom, refuge); this also includes motives based on perceived unfavorable conditions limiting one’s opportunities. Iranian Jews had used exit as a strategy during less tumultuous times, but it is likely that the exodus beginning in 1978 was initially motivated by fear (i.e., threats to safety and survival, risk of losing wealth, etc.; O’Driscoll, 1988). Indeed, alarming signs of danger facing Iranian Jews included Islamist revolutionaries’ antagonism toward the Shah’s regime, as well as the virulent anti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse.
Between 1978 and 1979, travel was relatively unrestricted, but leaving the country required resources and networks for travel and relocation. Many of the educated first wave of emigrants coordinated with friends and family to relocate, and brought much of their wealth with them, while leaving some behind in Iran (Economist, 17 February 1979; anonymous Jewish leader, personal Interviews, 23 March 2009). Some Iranian Jewish parents sent their children ahead. Some 1,200 children were sent to Israeli boarding schools, and another 3,000 to Jewish schools in France and Switzerland (Economist, 17 February 1979, p. 75). Thus, those who may have wanted to leave but had insufficient funds were unable to pursue this strategy. The socioeconomic status of most middle class Iranian Jews gave them mobility, while networks in the United States and Israel made exit an optimal strategy. Likewise, the rise in persecution was not framed as something one should endure or bear for a greater purpose, making flight a logical choice.
Between 1980 and 1988 travel was hindered by the government, particularly for Iranian Jews and other targeted groups. Many Iranian Jews were forbidden to leave the country and often harassed through coercion (Anderson, 7 May 1979; Economist, 7 February 1987; O’Driscoll, 1988). Exiting was an even more costly strategy, because of the ban on travel that carried severe consequences if one was caught trying to leave Iran illegally.[13] American, European, and Israeli Jews extended help to those who wished to leave, the latter through the Jewish Agency for Israel, (Aryeh Dulzin cited in Anderson, 13 May 1979; Jewish Agency, 2009)—the Israeli government remained generally silent about Jews in the Islamic Republic. Likewise, the U.S.-based Hebrew Immigration Assistance Society (HIAS) also aided over 6,000 Iranian Jews to leave Iran between 1979 and 1988 (HIAS, 2009; O’Driscoll, 1988). The high concentration of Iranian Jewish immigrants in Southern California, led to the formation by a coalition of diaspora community leaders of the Iranian-American Jewish Federation (IAJF), to help settle Iranian Jewish immigrants find homes, jobs, and education, and assist other community members wishing to leave Iran (Iranian-American Jewish Federation, 2009; anonymous member on IAJF Board of Directors, personal communication, 8 June 2009). The IAJF (n.d.) collaborated with the American Joint Distribution community and the HIAS in providing aid to Iranian Jewish refugees. Thus, old and new networks, as well as their coordinated and mobilized resources, played a significant part in executing this exit strategy.
In the 1990s, Iranian Jewish emigration declined significantly. But reliable statistical data, reaffirmed by several Iranian Jewish informants, indicates that exit continues to be a strategy in the context of a looming threat (Iranian Statistical Centre, Iranian Census, 2006; anonymous Jewish leader, 23 March 2009; see Stahl, 26 December 2007; Voice of America, 25 December 2007 for examples) and for the primary purpose of educational opportunity ( Faryar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November 2009; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June 2009). One Iranian Jewish family therapist, who immigrated to the United States in 2001, stated that the principal limitation facing the Iranian Jewish community is not persecution, but rather the lack of educational and other opportunity, acknowledging that as her own reason for leaving Iran (Shirin Taleh, as cited in Greenberger, 2006).
Several processes combined to make exit a strategy as well as an outcome: polarization, framing, mobilization, coordination, collective action, coalition formation, and internationalization. While the Iranian Jewish community had shared close ties with the Pahlavi government, the Islamic Republic’s anti-Israeli stance, and initial persecution of many Jews, created a rift that polarized many Iranian Jews and hardliner Islamists, increasing ideological distance between them. Leaving was framed as a logical strategy by community leaders. The interaction and planned coordination of the different organizations mentioned above in support of Iranian Jews fleeing the country internationalized the exit strategy.
The Islamic Republic’s emphasis on religious identity stimulated a boundary activation across various groups, which resulted in many Iranian Jews shifting, favoring similarity with the international Jewish community over the Islamic Republic’s vision of the Iranian citizen. This did not negate their association with an Iranian identity, but a new distinction was being made (Fariyar Nikbakht, personal communication, 15 May 2009; Karmel Melamed, personal communication, 3 March, 2009; Nahid Pirnazar, personal communication, 21 October, 2009; Orly Rahimiyan, 30 September, 2009; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June 2009). By breaking from the remaining community that had aligned its support with the new regime and denounced other network ties to Israel and the United States, the immigrant Iranian Jewish community defected from educational efforts to sustain Jewish schools.
School Reform and Reorganization While details about processes of educational strategy for those who remained are scant, existing information provides enough analytical leverage and includes episodes related to adjustments and reactions to government-imposed policies regarding not only Jewish-run schools, but also the educational opportunity structure for Iranian Jews attending government-run schools. Despite the guarantee of representation and recognition in the redrafted Constitution (Articles 13 and 28) members of the Jewish community faced various levels of repression. Some members of the Iranian Jewish community, particularly the community’s representative to Parliament and the leaders of the Tehran Jewish Council, have suggested that Iranian Jews enjoy equal, if not more, rights and freedoms than they had during the Pahlavi period (Harrison, 22 September 2006; Islamic Republic News Agency, 16 January 2010; Tehran Council of Jews, 2009; Yashayaei, 2003). Others suggest that Jews enjoy limited freedom and that vigilance and tolerance of sporadic harassment is imperative (anonymous Jew in Iran, personal communication, 5 April 2009; Farahani, 2005; Karmel Melamed, personal communication, 3 March, 2009; Orly Rahimiyan, 30 September, 2009). At the local level, tolerance by government agents, school administrators and teachers, and the public varied (Sanasarian, 2000). In other words, the situation is complex, reflecting various degrees of regime facilitation, toleration, and repression. In turn, local Iranian Jews employ tolerance to cope with repressive policies and engage in assimilation to access opportunities.
Higher education. As part of the Cultural Revolution’s purging process targeting higher education and positions of influence, most Iranian Jewish university instructors were fired, often accused of being Zionists or having Zionist ties (Economist, 14 June 1980; Keyhan, 27 August 1979; Yegar, 1993).[14] The screening process put in place for admitting university students during the first decade of the Islamic Republic was particularly biased against Jews, Bahá’ís , and political dissidents (Torbat, 2002). During the application process, government agents conducted background checks, and those affiliated with unfavorable groups and ideologies would be screened out or monitored closely (Habibi, 1989; Torbat, 2002). Until 2004, all applicants had to indicate their religious affiliation. These additional barriers made accessing university even more challenging for Iranian Jews. According to one account, a Jewish professional, now working in Shiraz, had completed his undergraduate degree with exceptional academic performance. Upon applying to graduate school, he was declined admission, despite having ranked higher than many others who were admitted (anonymous in Iran, personal communication, 10 February 2010). He attributes the inequitable screening to having been targeted as a Jew. Networks are not useful in accessing higher education, and there are few collaborative efforts to meet educational needs in the public sector. After the Revolution, the Jewish community officially severed its ties with transnational communities. Many who do not leave the country, and are not admitted into public universities, enroll in private universities. In general, some Jews practice selective assimilation by dissimulating in public, and continue to practice Jewish communal life in private (anonymous in Iran, personal communications, 5 December and 4 April; Farahani, 2005).
Jewish-run schools and adaptation. Jewish-run schools and education opportunities changed drastically during the Islamic Republic. Immediately before the Revolution, there were about 20 Jewish-run schools. According to Haroun Yashayaei (2003), chair of the Tehran Jewish Committee, the number of schools dwindled to four after the establishment of the Islamic Republic and the imposition of new policies. In the first several years after the Revolution, most Jewish-run schools were temporarily shutdown, and required to meet new government regulations affecting school structure and curriculum. Many others were permanently closed or taken over by the government due to the shortfall of students and teachers caused by the Iranian Jewish exodus. The Jewish community complied without resistance. Most structural and curricular changes were implemented between 1981 and 1984 (Sanasarian, 2000). Ministry of Education regulations required that schools incorporate the new state curriculum, classes be segregated by gender and dress codes applied; that schools not be located on the same grounds as synagogues; that Persian be the sole language of instruction (including during religious classes); and that Islam become mandatory as a subject, in addition to Jewish studies (Sanasarian, 2000). The government issued special textbooks to be used as the religious curriculum for Jewish subjects (Mehran, 2007; Paivandi, 2009).
In most schools, government-vetted Muslim principals were appointed to replace Jews. Similarly, Muslim instructors have replaced many Jewish teachers (Yashayaei, 2003). From 2000 to the present, the Ettefaugh School (which remained open) has been run entirely by Muslim administrators and teachers, with the exception of the religious instructor (Darshi, 1998; interview with School Principle of Ettefaugh in Farahani, 2005), not only because of government-imposed policy, but because emigration had brought about a shortage of teaching staff certified by the regime. The Islamic regime required Jewish schools to remain open on their Sabbath and on Jewish holy days, despite canonical law prescribing suspension of work and school on those days. Compliance by the Jewish community with this particular regulation is a significant shift away from previous characteristics of the community during the Pahlavi era.
According to the Tehran Jewish Council (2009), out of the 3,000 Jewish students attending schools in Iran, half are enrolled in Jewish schools, while the other half participates in state-run schools. Jewish schools are funded by the various existing Jewish institutions in Iran (Yashayaei, 2003). Additional resources and funding also come from the Ministry of Religion (which oversees all religious schools) and the Ministry of Education (Yegar, 1993). I was informed that generally very few resources come to the Iranian Jewish community from the Iranian Jewish diaspora (anonymous AIJF board member, 8 June 2009; Sam Kermanian, personal communication, 2 June 2009). The Iranian Jewish community thus runs the schools on internal resources, and does not use networks, because their networks with the international community have all but disappeared, and they have become isolated.
In response to the flurry of reorienting policies, the Tehran Jewish Council agreed to all terms outlined in the regulations, avoiding any other confrontation with the regime. The old strategy of assimilation used during various periods since the Qajar period was once again invoked. The exodus caused a major shift in the composition and characteristics of the Iranian Jewish community, which in turn influenced the strategies that were acceptable and accessible to community leaders. With a significantly smaller pool of resources, abruptly severed network ties, and a constricted opportunity structure under the Islamic Republic, conceding to government policies was the primary coping mechanism. Unlike the Pahlavi era, when community members were disinclined to compromise Jewish laws, such as observation of holy days and Sabbath (Cohen, 1986), the recomposed community under the Islamic Republic evidently saw it as a means of survival (Fariyar Nikbakht, personal communication, 16 May, 2009). According to some of my interviewees, most Iranian Jews living outside Iran sympathize with the compromise of leaving schools open on holy days. “It’s not that we want to keep schools open,” one source in Iran informed me, “it’s that we have no choice in the matter if we want to keep our schools” (anonymous Jew in Iran, personal communication, 5 December 2009).
Several processes led to the circumstances and conditions facing Jewish-run schools, as well as their continued maintenance. Previous strategies and a reconfiguration of opportunity structure, resources, and networks available to Iranian Jewish community members influenced the formation and selection of strategies. Demobilization had the most noticeable impact on the schools. When Iranian Jews left Iran—among them teachers, administrators, community leaders, and students—schools were left with inadequate human, organizational, and material resources. Ultimately, most of these schools closed, leading to the downward scale shift of remaining Jewish schools. Consequently, the community complied with the new regulations in order to preserve the remaining schools.
The Iranian Jewish community mobilized and coordinated new efforts around a re-envisioned objective: preservation. Despite having an elected representative in the Majles, very little resistance was voiced (Sanasarian, 2000). The Iranian Jewish community became more dependent on the regime than ever before; thus, concessions were an intrinsic element in maintaining good relations with the regime and operating Jewish schools. Beyond institutionalization, an identity shift took place within the country whereby Iranian Jews reasserted their Iranian identity first, affirmed primary loyalties to the regime, and conceived their Jewish allegiance within that context.
Community leaders framed compromise as a necessity to preserve the community rather than considering it a deterioration of its integrity. Due to centuries of persecution, practices of dissimulation, cosmetic conversion, and suspension of certain Jewish laws was a common strategy of survival (Fariyar Nikbakht, personal communication, 2 November, 2009; Harrison, 2006; Nahid Pirnazar, personal communication, 21 October 2009; Orly Rahimiyan, personal communication, 30 September, 2009; Sharq, 1998).
The Tehran Jewish Committee also agreed to accept Muslim principals, not only because they were pressured to do so, but because community leaders thought that the Muslim principal could secure greater benefits for the schools through networks with other Muslim officials (Maron Yashayai, cited in Haftvan, 2006). Thus internal networks became more important in the absence of external networks in mobilizing resources and engaging in contained contention. The reconfiguration and ideological reorientation of the renewed Jewish leadership, aligning itself with the Islamic regime, constituted a new group of actors who mobilized and collectively acted on behalf of the remaining Iranian Jewish community. These processes illustrate the dynamic between the Islamic Republic regime and the Iranian Jewish community. Despite the lower quality of community schools as compared to public schools (Yashayaei, 2003), Jewish students were attracted because they experienced less pressure and peer harassment at Jewish schools; (anonymous high school girl who left public school to attend Ettefaugh, in Farahani, 2005; anonymous Jew in Iran, personal communication, 5 April 2009). Thus Jewish schools helped maintain a semblance of community cohesion.
State-run schools. Iranian Jews also accessed educational opportunities during the Islamic Republic period by attending public schools with mostly Muslim students, despite a perpetual sense of “otherness,” biased textbook content, derogatory rhetoric and treatment by teachers and other students, [15] and even when religion classes consisted solely of Islamic studies, with only historical reference to religious minorities (Mehran, 2007; Paivandi, 2008). Some students simply remain silent in order not to draw attention to themselves (anonymous in Iran, personal communication, 5 April 2009). Others tolerate slander and occasional harassment, but continue on with their studies. It should be noted that not all students and teachers alienate religious minorities, but it is evident that this remains a serious issue. Those attending public schools participated in Friday religious classes at synagogues, and thus paralleled their secular education.
Two local episodes illustrate well the nuanced environment facing Iranian Jewish school children and youth. In Shiraz, a Jewish professional who faced discrimination as a university student himself years ago, believes— based on his own hardship in university and graduate school in Iran—that there are currently limited opportunities for his daughters. Thus, he plans on moving to America once his daughters enter high school, in the hope of providing them with greater educational opportunity and social freedom (10 February, 2010). In an interview conducted by Ramin Farahani (2005), an Iranian Jewish high school girl tells of her humiliation when her religious class teacher told the class not to touch her because it had been raining, and that touching a wet Jew would make them impure. She admits this was not the first time she had been vilified for being Jewish. The girl’s family allowed her to withdraw from the public school, and sent her to the Ettefaugh Jewish school instead, despite its lower quality. This girl also stated that her family was seriously considering leaving Iran for her sake. Some of my interviewees recalled occasions when teachers in public school religious classes ridiculed Jewish students, but stated that at other times they were not harassed (anonymous in Iran, personal communications, 13 August, 2008, 3 October 2008, 18– 23 December 2009).
The processes described above illustrate the educational strategy of integration, including tolerance (of harassment), assimilation (of the mainstream cultural values or by practicing silence), and quasi-paralleling (supplementation of religious classes on Fridays). As mentioned before, there is little organized effort on part of the community to accommodate Jewish students who attend public schools.
Summary. Over the course of 30 years under the Islamic Republic, as a result of diminished resources in the wake of the exodus, Jewish educational strategies were reduced to attending the limited number of compromised Jewish schools, integrating into public schools, or exiting Iran for educational opportunity. Strategies of the past played a significant role in determining all three for a number of reasons: first, because more Jewish schools might have remained open and accessible to Jewish children and youth if their number had not declined so drastically during and after the Revolution. Second, resources previously available through network ties had shrunk, the results of the mass exit limited choices to community leaders and members. Third, members compromised standards and accepted government policies with no noticeable contention, tolerating continued, albeit occasional, harassment and bigotry in public schools. Fourth, Iranian Jews who had themselves experienced hardship or perceived greater educational opportunities outside Iran left the country.
Iranian Christians in the Islamic Republic By the time of the Revolution in 1979, there were at least 26 Armenian schools in Tehran alone with seven elementary and five secondary schools under a Board of Trustees appointed by the Apostolic Armenian prelacy, as well as another 14 private Armenian schools in the city (Amurian & Kasheef, 1987). Unlike the increased integration of Baha’is and Jews into the state system during the Pahlavi era, most Armenian students attended their own community run schools, creating an insular community. The failure of the Assyrian and Chaldean schools to expand may be explained by their lack of resources and relatively stagnant population growth, leaving them with only two schools for each community. Evangelical protestant Christians had largely integrated into government-run schools, enrolled in the ethnic Christian schools, or attended other religious minority schools.
The government of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had tolerated Armenian schools’ increasing use of Armenian language to teach history, literature, and religious subjects (Amurian and Kasheef, 1987). This provided abundant opportunities to develop a distinctive Armenian-Iranian identity and foster community cohesion. Historically, the Armenian language has been part and parcel of the religious identity of Apostolic Armenian Christians (Atiya, 1968; Manukian, as cited in Iran Times, 15 April 1983). I believe that this is the fundamental reason why maintaining its use was a critical issue during the Reza Pahlavi era, when schools were faced with the choice of either switching to Persian or shutting down. With the rise of the Islamic Republic, language once again became a paramount issue escalating into contentious interaction between the regime of the Islamic Republic and Armenian Church leaders.
Streams and Episodes Despite the paucity of available sources pertaining to educational opportunity for Christians during the Islamic Republic, I observe mid-scale processes which took place during the early years following the Revolution, and large-scale processes characterizing the last two decades. I focus primarily on the Armenian community, address generalities associated with the Assyrian and Chaldean communities.
As discussed in Chapter 5, in addition to the Armenians, there was a combined total of some 30,000 Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other Christian denominations at the outset of the Islamic Republic. After the Revolution, Armenian Christians emigrated in far fewer numbers than Jews but more than Baha’is, with nearly 50 percent leaving the country over the first two decades after the Revolution (see Chapter 5 for demographical statistics). Since they experienced much less difficulty than either the Baha’is or Jews in leaving the country, exit was a strategy more viable for that community. As mentioned earlier, some of the Christian communities in Iran had been associated with the imperial and foreign presence in Iran (Abrahamian, 1988). However, the isolationism practiced by ethnic Christians was initially perceived as a minimal threat to the new regime’s agenda for an Islamized nation (Sanasarian, 1995). This isolationist strategy was particularly manifest in the Armenian community’s educational goals (Iran Times, 15 April 1983). The relationship between the new regime and ethnic Christians was very likely smoothed over because Armenian leaders publicly renounced association with Western powers on the one hand, and paid allegiance to the Republic and its goals on the other (Islamic Republic News Agency, 19 September 1983; 1 February 1984; 9 July 1982).
As Sanasarian (1995) explains, the first few of years following the establishment of the Islamic Republic passed with little or no change to Christian communal life. However, between 1981 and 1983, tension between the regime and the Christian communities surfaced in several episodes of contention around educational issues. Two interrelated episodes stand out: the first entails group responses to government-imposed education regulations, which affected all recognized religious minority schools; the second concerned language and testing issues in Apostolic Armenian schools, ending with the closure of several schools.
Reformation and reorientation. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the government institutionalized Armenian and Assyrian Christians in the renewed Constitution by extending official recognition and giving them representation in Parliament. Recognized minorities were given special rights, which included the privilege of maintaining separate religious schools, permission to teach the language of their respective communities, and engage in state-approved ceremonies and other special functions (Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Constitution, Article 13 and 26). At the same time, beginning in 1981, many restrictions were imposed on minority schools, including name changes, gender segregation, curriculum reform, replacement of principals and teachers, new dress codes, and guidelines affecting religious and language instruction (Sanasarian, 2000).
All ethnic Christian schools were affected, but their reactions varied, due, in part, to group composition and characteristics, networks (both inside and outside Iran), and perceived relationship with the new regime. For example, while the Armenian representatives to the Majles lodged complaints regarding some of the education policies, Assyrians and Chaldeans ultimately acquiesced to government pressure, and gave up on appeals to maintain the number of hours dedicated to native-language instruction (Sanasarian, 2000). Moreover, as a result of a waning population, Assyrian schools were forced to take in Muslim students, while replacing principals and teachers with state-approved Muslim staff. Conversely, the Armenian political representatives and religious leaders in the northern half of Iran voice adamant objection in Parliament to unfavorable policies, via the media, and in direct one-on-one meetings with leading members of the Islamic Republic. Despite the imposed restrictions, Christian representatives and some other Christian religious leaders felt confident in protesting regime decisions without incurring a repressive response (Islamic Republic News Agency, 19 September 1983).
By and large, Christian communities offered little resistance to most regulations, such as segregating gender classes, dividing schools from churches, applying dress codes, or adopting the general curriculum of the Ministry of Education (Islamic Republic News Agency, 7 July 1982). Nevertheless, compliance did not mean that the transition was easy or advantageous to the community (anonymous Armenian-Iranian Christian in Iran, personal communication, 19 December 2009; Eliz Sanasarian, personal communication, 14 April, 2009). In 1983, the Ministry of Education ordered all religious minority schools to be headed by Muslim administrators (Haftvan, 2006). In 2003, this requirement changed in a revised clause allowing religious minorities to run schools, as long as they professed allegiance to the Constitution (Haftvan, 2006). But since 2005, even with the slight relaxation of the requirement, out of a total 50 religious minority schools, only three in Tehran and two in Urmieh have principals who are Christian (Haftvan, 2006). According to George Vartan, the Armenian representative to the Majles, this has contributed to the deterioration of Armenian culture in the community (cited in Haftvan, 2006). Indeed, language, religious instruction, and the replacement of principals surfaced as central issues of contention between Armenian schools and the government.
Three responses followed restrictions and impositions: rejection; adaptation; and assimilation (see Figure D6). Some schools rejected unfavorable impositions framing them as transgressions of their constitutional rights. This latter group of schools continued using their own religious textbooks and Armenian language for instruction. This resistance was fueled by community characteristics of isolationism which were tolerated by the previous regime. Other schools either adapted by adjusting to minimum Ministry requirements, or assimilated by abandoning native language instruction altogether (Sanasarian, 1995; anonymous Armenian-Iranian Christian in Iran, personal communication, 19 December, 2009). The latter two strategies were approved and facilitated by the government (Islamic Republic News Agency, 6 July 1982). Weakness in networks and lack of resources contributed to these concessions. In 1982, however, the Ministry of Education sternly rebuked those schools which failed to implement the policy, explicitly ordering Armenian schools to a) conduct religious instruction in Persian, and to reduce the hours reserved for instruction in Armenian and related subjects. Thus, Armenian history and culture should generally be “taken out of the curriculum…” (Iran Times, 15 April 1983, p. 17).
Within three years after the establishment of the Revolution, processes embedded in group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime relations shaped the immediate strategies of the various groups. Institutionalization of schools was mandatory. Thus, all religious schools were considered by the government as state schools with special privileges. Based on the acceptability of aggressive institutionalization, community leaders framed the situation differently and responses varied. For example, Assyrian and Chaldeans initially voiced reservation over the policies, but ultimately submitted to government pressure by assimilating because of concerns about other issues (such as the schools being completely closed down; Sanasarian, 2000). Assyrian and Chaldean schools had been forced to accept Muslim students because they had low enrollments in their schools. The educational strategy of community isolation led to demobilization because resources were inadequate to maintain school cohesion. By having to include Muslim students, replace principals and teachers, and include Islamic curriculum during religious studies, these latter schools also experienced a boundary shift, breaking down the insularity of the community. However, concessions served as a process of collection action to preserve a semblance of community schools, despite having to compromise fundamental features. Some Armenian schools adjusted, and adopted the bare minimum requirements, scaling down old self-determined curriculum in exchange for maintaining the steady mobilization of community and state resources, and keeping schools open.
Notwithstanding continuous compromise brought on by institutionalization, there were many Armenian schools, particularly in northern Iran that rejected some of the policies through contained contentious claims, using the Constitution as backing, appealing through political representative and religious leaders. These bold claims stem from the community’s composition and characteristic. The Apostolic Armenian community had the largest number of followers among the recognized religious minorities, perhaps justifying the need to show significant representation in the country. Secondly, by being institutionalized, channels for contained contention were appropriately followed—unlike Bahá’ís, whose access to such channels of communication was blocked. Armenian Apostolic church leaders also used their internal networks with Muslim clergy to broker support wherever possible (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). Such links between local religious leaders with local Muslim clergy and government agents had developed over decades to maintain the insular nature of the Armenian community (Amurian and Kasheff, 1987). While for decades prior to the Revolution, the Apostolic Church had sought to preserve their community by soliciting the help of government and Muslim parallel authorities to combat foreign missionaries (Berberian, 2000), they now used the same networks to ensure that they were not seen as a threat and safeguard the uniqueness of their community. Armenian leaders framed the preservation of Armenian language and use of their own religious textbooks as fundamental to their religiosity.
Contested boundaries. Representative leaders of the Armenian Apostolic community aggressively resisted the regime’s demands. This may have been motivated by their perceived relationship with the regime, the level at which they were affect by new regulations, and ultimately what they believed to be at stake. The new government decrees became an issue around which the Armenian community mobilized (Sanasarian, 1995, 2000). Artak Manukian, primate of the Tehran Armenian Diocese, vehemently opposed the new religious curriculum as “interference in our [Armenian] religious teaching,” and argued that “these officials cannot and are not authorized to prepare a textbook for our faith and put it into use” (Iran Times, 15 April 1983, p. 17). The Armenian-Iranian leadership framed the imposition as a government strategy to “kill off the Armenian school system and use of the Armenian language” (Iran Times, 15 April 1983, p.17). Manukian appealed to the Deputy Minister of Education, Haddad Adel, explaining that Armenian language and religious instruction were inseparable (Iran Times, 15 April 1983). Not only did select community leaders reject the imposed policies, but Manukian made several other counter demands: (a) only Armenians should attend community schools; (b) religious feasts be observed in schools; and warned that (c) unless Armenian custom and culture prevailed in schools, the community would be destroyed (Iran Times, 15 April 1983)
The religious leaders and Majles representative may have been outspoken, but it was within the bounds of contained contention. However, the situation escalated into transgressive contention as each side raised the stakes. This is illustrated by one episode between Armenians and the Ministry of Education in 1982–1983, when the Minister of Education, Ali-Akbar Parvaresh, requested that school administrators submit final exam questions for religious studies in both Armenian and Persian (Iran Times, 2 September, 1983). Armenian educators assumed that Persian translation was requested for vetting purposes, but on the day of the examination, Muslim government proctors distributed the Persian version of the test in Armenian schools.
Students responded by refusing to take the exam, and turned in blank tests (Iran Times, 8 June 2004); others were bewildered and incapable of completing the test (Iran Times, 2 September 1983). Manukian complained that “this issue is critical for us; why is the religious subject that is taught in Armenian—as is our right to do so—tested in Persian?” (Iran Times, 2 September 1983, p. 14). He argued that it was unreasonable to think that students who received instruction in one language could be expected to be tested on the same subject in another language. By inciting contention, the community and its leaders were making a bid for expansive rights to remain isolated from the government’s educational agenda.
While the government had tolerated the uncooperative behavior of Armenian school administrators and teachers in the past, this blatant disregard for repeated demands of the Ministry of Education provoked further intolerance, particularly in the face of the momentum for cultural hegemony fueled by the 1981 Cultural Revolution. The Speaker of the House, Hashemi Rafsanjani, lashed out at the audacity of Armenians in refusing to follow instructions (Iran Times, 22 June 1984). Students who had refused to take the examination were failed (Iran Times, 2 September 1983). In Tehran, the district school superintended followed orders to close down those schools in which students and teachers refused to comply (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). More than 12 schools were shut down, including some of the more prominent ones, such as Sahagian, Alik, Rostam, Nor Ani, and St. Mary’s (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). Manukian was meeting with Ayatollah Montazeri on the very day the schools faced closure (Iran Times, 6 July 1984). In response to Montazeri’s statements of sympathy and support, Manukian responded in frustration, lamented the restrictions on classes, and dismissal of teachers and principals; he also expressed great anxiety that all Armenian schools would also be shutdown (Iran Times, 6 July 1984, p. 1).
After government retaliation for disobedience to Ministry orders, the Armenians retreated, and agreed that language instruction would be reduced to as little as two hours a week, and that the state-issued religious textbook would replace their own curriculum (Sanasarian, 1995). Unable to marshal the clout necessary to change government policy, the community complied in order to keep other schools open. This led to increased migration. Whereas during the Pahlavi era, little resistance was used upon closure of schools, and the community preserved its good standing with the government, in the current situation, the Christian community tested the opportunity structure to its limits and adjusted accordingly, without using international networks.
Sanasarian (2000) explains that in the southern part of Iran (Isfahan) and in peripheral areas (Rasht and Tabriz), Armenians did not face as much rigidity as those living in Tehran and explains that this may be attributed to the dynamics of local relations and networks between Muslim clergy and local Armenian Church leaders. For example, while Armenian language was taught in Tehran schools for only two hours, in Isfahan six to eight hours were allocated. I suggest that this difference may stem from the variation in the local communities’ relations and network ties with local authorities, as well as the characteristic of the groups, the Armenian community representative in the south being less vocal in general than those in the north (Sanasarian, 2000).
Several important processes went into shaping the educational strategy of Armenian-Iranian Christians, including contention, mobilization, collective action, self-representation, new coordination, escalation, polarization, boundary activation, scale-shift, isolation, and framing. By audaciously resisting unfavorable government policies through transgressive contention, and appealing rights in Parliament through contained contention, the community’s leadership was attempting to maintain isolated schools to meet community goals of insularity. Leaders in the north acted collectively to present the case for the uniqueness of the Armenian community, suggesting that language was integral to religious integrity. They framed resistance to imposed changes as a constitutional right when addressing government agents, and as a religious imperative when coordinating efforts within the community. They pressed forward with goals of a distinct Armenian school by refusing to take exams or lessening hours of instruction, through writing letters to high ranking clergy, and voicing protest in parliament.
Other significant processes were at work. Mobilization of efforts to reject some changes and accept others enabled leaders to push the line. However, community leaders engaged in transgressive contention, overstepping the limits of government tolerance, thus provoking an unexpectedly repressive and demobilizing response: the closure of over a dozen schools. The movement by religious and political community leaders to keep the desirable features that had existed under the previous regime coalesced in a renewed attribution of self-representation, in a display by a coalition of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (see Tilly and Tarrow, 2004). Institutionalization may have hampered continuation of transgressive contention and pursuit of original educational strategies (such as the pursuit of more language, cultural, and religious content) because community leaders did not want to lose the rights and standing guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Conversely, institutionalization aided community leaders in voicing protest against restrictive policies through legal means.
As with the Jewish community, Iranian Christians downplayed their historic relationship with Western and Soviet powers, by emphasizing renewed ties and identity shift toward the Islamic Republic’s image of the Iranian citizen. Boundary and identity affirmation played a significant role in ensuring that the educational strategies of ethnic Christians would be carried out, by re-polarizing the community as distinct from other Christian communities, from transnational network ties, and from the new regime. Nearly all these processes were brokered through the Parliamentary representatives and the religious leaders. Some leaders were naturally more active than others, and enjoyed varying relations with local and national government, as well as with other Muslim authorities. Manukian’s public sentiments reverberated throughout the Tehran Armenian community, providing a vision and response to emulate: that commitment to the Armenian language was not simply a linguistic issue but a religious one, and its preservation imperative.
Adaptation and alignment. By the 1990s, the situation for recognized Christians relaxed. In 1995, the number of hours allowed for Armenian language use increased from four–five hours to six–eight in Tehran’s Armenian schools, as in other areas (Sanasarian, 2000). However, parents and teachers continued to complain that this was insufficient for their children to adequately learn the language (Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 2008). The response was to tolerate and accept boundaries. Several Armenian-Iranians living outside Iran recall positively having attended the Armenian-run schools (anonymous graduates of Alishan Armenian school, group forum postings, 20 June 2009–23 February 2010).The Islamic Republic’s amicable relationship with the newly formed independent Armenian state (est. 1992) has also provided a more open opportunity structure. According to George Vartan, the community’s representative to the Majles, in 2008 about 15,000 Iranians of Armenian descent were studying in Armenian universities (Trend News, 20 October 2009). Another factor that has made the opportunity structure for ethnic Christians less stressful than it was in the early years of the Republic, is the isolationist nature of those communities, with nearly all Armenian-Iranians attending community-run schools (Sanasarian, 2000). There continue to be large numbers of Iranian Armenians who leave the country to pursue higher education and economic opportunity, most of them settling in the United States (principally California), Armenia itself, and to a lesser extent Europe (Eliz Sanasarian, personal communication, 14 April 2009). Notwithstanding a generally tolerant situation, there have been individual reports of discriminatory experiences in university admissions process (anonymous in Iran, personal communications, 12 December, 2009; 10 February 2010).
In the last two decades, large-scale processes at work toward fulfilling educational strategies include mobilization, new coordination, collective action, isolation, integration, institutionalization, scale shift, and internationalization, strategies previously employed by the community. While official network ties to transnational communities in America and Europe weakened, families still maintain strong connections, and use these ties when members seek to leave the country (anonymous Armenian Iranian, personal communication, 4 November 2009). The strong ties between the Armenian-Iranian community and Armenia have reinforced efforts to keep a distinct insular cultural community by affirming identity boundaries. Ethnic communities, such as the Armenians have been able to sustain their characteristics through the employment of cultural isolationism, and during the Islamic Republic period, their relations with the regime have remained more favorable than those of any other religious minority in Iran (United States Commission on Religious Freedom, 2008).
Summary. For the Christian communities under the Islamic Republic, contained contention was used to press for more privileges and rights within the bounds of the Constitution. When group contention became transgressive, the situation escalated, resulting in government repression—resonant with the response of the Pahlavi government toward Baha’is who engaged in transgressive contention. Recognized Christian groups adapted by aligning with government policies while attempting to maintain a relatively isolated community. Over the entire course of the Islamic Republic to date, Christians made compromises to educational features while continuing to pursue an isolationist strategy which reflects how community leaders framed educational goals. Network ties to Western powers and transnational communities in those countries were severed to maintain good relations with the regime. Noticeably, the positive state-state relations between Iran and Armenia allowed for sustained network ties with transnational communities there. It is interesting to note that like the Jewish community, exit was the initiative and perhaps most impactful strategy on the community features after the Revolution.
Baha’is in the Islamic Republic of Iran Although Baha’is never attempted to reopen their own schools during the regime of Muhammad Reza, they had ample opportunity to integrate into government-run schools and universities. This led to a noticeable rise in their socioeconomic status, and subsequently their relation with both the public and the government—despite never being officially recognized as a religious group in the country. During this period, the Baha’i community not only expanded in size and developed its organizational institutions, but also strengthened its ties with its transnational community. Despite sporadic episodes of repression by some radical Muslim organizations and some government agents, the last 20 years of the Pahlavi period were generally characterized by government toleration and facilitation.
With the 1979 Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Baha’is experienced a drastic change in their relation with the government, as well as the composition and characteristics of their community. Unlike the Christians and Jews, Baha’is were never institutionalized within the Islamic Republic. Many high-ranking regime leaders declared Baha’is to be incompatible with the Islamic Republic (Hojjat’ul-Islam Jannati, cited in Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006). In general, the regime restricted the opportunity structure for Baha’is by targeting various aspects of the community which affected their educational opportunity dynamics and thus their strategies (Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006). In 1983, Baha’i administrative and charitable organizations were officially outlawed by the Attorney-General, Seyyed Hussein Musavi-Tabrizi (Keyhan, 21 September 1983).
In the atmosphere of the heightened anti-Baha’i rhetoric that was characteristic of some vocal Islamist revolutionaries, a number of Baha’is fled the country. Despite travel restrictions placed on Baha’is (like those imposed on Iranian Jews), especially between 1979 and 1984, 4,398 Baha’is immigrated to the United States alone (US NSA, 2009). Others traveled to Canada (3,000 according to Douglas Martin, personal communication, 31 March 2010), Europe, Australia, India, and other locations where they had network or family connections or where national Baha’i communities were able to provide services. As for the Jewish community, the social conditions facing the Iranian Baha’i community during this time has had a serious impact which has changed the composition and characteristic, networks, and regime relations of the Baha’i community and their educational strategies and opportunities over the three decades under the Islamic Republic.
Streams and Episodes I look at mid-scale and small-scale processes within two distinct streams for this period. The first stream, and its episodes, includes the general educational challenges and opportunities for Baha’i children attending primary and secondary level government schools during this period, in the context of the regime’s educational policies and practices, and some consequential educational strategies that emerged out of that evolving situation. The second stream entails the denial of access to Bahá’í students to higher education and their response by creating a parallel university, the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). To this end, I have selected representative episodes that reflect general trends of educational strategy selection.
Schooling in the Islamic Republics: Challenges and opportunities. The newly appointed Minister of Education, Muhammad Ali Rafai, a former leading organizer of the Hojjatiyah (an anti-Baha’i organization) in Qazvin, issued an edict that called for the purge of Baha’is from the education system, and held Baha’i teachers responsible for repayment of their salaries to the government (Figure D7 shows a facsimile). Rafai (1981) emphasized the regime’s uncompromising stance on Baha’is in public schools, stating that the Ministry of Education “will not tolerate followers of the Baha’i sect in its educational unit, so as not to defile and destroy the minds and thoughts of innocent students.”
Administrators and teachers identified as Baha’i were dismissed throughout Iran, including university instructors (Baha’i International Community, 2005). Regime repression peaked during the first epoch of the Islamic Republic; government agents dismissed Baha’is from schools and government jobs, along with other more severe treatment (Bordewich, 1987; Jamuri Eslami, 30 June 1980; Washington Post, 24 January 1980). The government used repression as a means to facilitate ideological congruence by purging incompatible elements out of its system or coercing assimilation of various groups to conform to the regime’s vision of the state (requiring Baha’is to recant; Associated Press, 30 July 1983; Bigelow, 1992; Kazemzadeh, 2000).
The Ministry of Education also targeted school children. In 1981, the Ministry of Education distributed an official form to Iranian schools, requiring students to identify their affiliation with the Baha’i religion, their family’s affiliations, the number of years they considered themselves Baha’is, and their willingness to recant their faith (Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Education, 1981; Figure D8 shows a facsimile). Prior to enrolling in the upcoming academic year, if students did not identify themselves with one of the recognized religious groups in Iran (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or Zoroastrian), they faced general harassment and occasionally expulsion (Baha’i International Community, 1982). Furthermore, in that same year, the Ministry of Education formalized the prohibition against Baha’is in private and public universities, issuing several letters of expulsion over subsequent years and prohibiting nonrecognized religious minorities from sending funds to students studying abroad (Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006; Kayhan, 4 August 1981, p. 4).
Those who identified themselves as Baha’i faced serious consequences. Over the course of the first three years, Baha’i school children were sporadically subjected to coercion, abuse, and expulsion from schools. Expulsion and suspension from school was not systematic, and occurred erratically in different parts of Iran. However, the numbers remained high; approximately 25,000 Baha’i children were expelled by 1983 (Southwest Newswire, 10 February 1984). Baha’i religious classes were also targeted. In Shiraz, several young women (among them teenagers), who were volunteer Baha’i religious class teachers, were sentenced to death and hanged by official order from the local government agents on charges of Baha’i propaganda (Roohizadegan, 1994; Washington Times).
Several responses followed. Some Baha’is left Iran via carefully chosen routes, such as those used by Iranian Jews escaping the country. Some parents and community leaders made direct appeals to school principals, local administrators, and even complained to regional government offices; however, most complaints were ineffective (Baha’i International Community, 1982; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2006). Baha’is had abandoned parallel secular education decades earlier because government schools provided sufficient venue and generally open access to educational opportunities; thus it was an out-of-practice strategy. However, parallel religious studies classes and programs had successively improved (Baha’i World Centre, The Baha’i World, Vols. 14–17). Parallel schooling, unlike during the previous regime, posed the danger of government retaliation because of Baha’i activities were officially prohibited.
The Universal House of Justice and other Baha’i national and local leadership organizations framed the persecution of Baha’is in two ways. First, to non-Baha’i governmental and nongovernmental organizations they characterized the Islamic regime’s treatment of Baha’is as a transgression of fundamental human rights (see Ghanea, 2002; Baha’i International Community, 2005b); this is a process Tarrow (2005) calls externalization, whereby local claims are extended and transformed from indigenous rights to universal human rights. Simultaneously, they provided ample moral support by framing the fortitude and perseverance of those who were bearing persecution as a service to and sacrifice for the Baha’i community (Universal House of Justice, multiple letters dating 1983–1992). Both of these were frames used in past episodes during the Pahlavi era when government agents and parallel authorities (Islamic clergy and anti-Baha’i organizations) harassed and attacked Baha’is. Thus, the Iranian Baha’i community’s transnational network was activated to work toward changing educational opportunity structure, and thus coalesced into an educational strategy (i.e., advocacy for educational rights).
Virtually all Baha’is, children and parents included, identified themselves as Baha’is upon inquisition, even in the face of possible dire consequences. One reason for this response was because dissimulation (an act of dishonesty) has always been prohibited in the Baha’i Faith, and was reiterated by the Universe of Justice and other National Assemblies (Universal House Justice, 1985, 1985a; National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, 1985). This is reminiscent of the uncompromising stance taken decades earlier during the Pahlavi era, in suspending Baha’i-run schools on Baha’i holy days because the religious injunction required them to be closed. The Iranian Baha’i community found itself with few options, especially because appealing to the government[16]—which did not recognize them—proved to be useless, while it was not willing to make what it perceived as unacceptable concessions. Consequently, community leaders and members turned to the Baha’i World Centre for guidance.
Building on decades of experience, the Baha’i International Community was mandated by the Universal House of Justice to launch a comprehensive campaign using media outlets, government ties, and other organizational affiliations in shedding light on the situation facing the Iranian Baha’i community, and soliciting help in pressuring the Iranian government to alter its course of action—including education-related issues (Kazemzadeh, 2000; Baha’i International Community, 6 June 2006). The BIC worked closely with National Spiritual Assemblies and other non-Baha’i institutions and organizations from around the world, including United Nations agencies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Federation of Human Rights (Sara Vader, personal communication, 7 December 2009). Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) “boomerang effect” model succinctly illustrates how group transnational networks and international organizations are used in restrictive conditions. The interests of the Iranian Baha’is were pursued through the channels of the Baha’i International Community, to bring external pressure on the Islamic Republic, after the Baha’i community itself was unable to ameliorate the situation via internal means. According to several sources, advocacy seemed to lessen the regime’s tendency to use violent behavior, but spurred the regime to use more discreet repressive measures (Ghanea, 2002; Bigelow, 1992; Baha’i International Community, 2005b; Kit Bigelow, personal communication, 2 October 2009; Diane Ala’i, personal communication, 18 November 2009).
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Baha’i children were once again integrated in public schools with relatively little resistance, and only isolated instances of suspension and expulsion. The government’s tolerance reflects its shifted focus with the leadership of a new pragmatist at the helm of government during the second epoch, and the rise of the reform movement during the third epoch of the Islamic republic. The shift from violent performances was partially an effort to facilitate assimilation. This was made evident in a confidential document issued by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCCR) in February 1991, outlining the general government strategy on how to address Baha’is living in Iran (Golpaygani, Islamic Republic of Iran, SCCR, 1991; see Figures D9 and D10 for facsimile and translation). Education was one of the central strategies in dealing with “the Baha’i question.” On closer examination, the memorandum presents a mix of repression, tolerance, and facilitation. For example, the SCCR recommends that Baha’is be “enrolled in schools provided they have not identified themselves as Baha’is.” However the policy also suggests that even if they are implicitly identified, “preferably, they should be enrolled in schools which have a strong and imposing religious ideology.” Thus, forced assimilation is was the ultimate goal.
Notwithstanding the revised government posture, Baha’is continued to either integrate into the education system or exit the country. Because conditions for leaving became less stringent during the second and third epoch of this period (ca. 1989–2004), many Baha’is continued to leave Iran. The strain of restricted opportunities in Iran affected community morale and cohesion (Baha’i International Community, 2005b; Sanasarian, 2000). In turn, community members took initiative and organized discreet classes on Baha’i studies in homes (anonymous BIHE and Baha’i religious class teachers in Iran, personal communication, 10–24 December 2009). Thus, paralleling became an additional strategy in addition to integration. The characteristics of the community had changed as a result of attrition among community leaders and the educated class; the use of parallel schooling was used to continue preserve community cohesion and identity. It is interesting to note that several Iran Baha’is both inside and outside the country informed me that although the heightened repression may have hampered facilitation of activity, it reinforced Baha’i identity. While seemingly counterintuitive, I argue that the effects of polarization (an “us-them” amplification) sparked by the regime emboldened boundaries and contributed to community cohesion.
While general social conditions for Baha’i individuals improved during the second and third epochs, as compared to the first, with the rise of the new conservatives in 2005, Baha’is again experienced difficulties in the schools. For example, in a survey of incidents involving insults, mistreatment, and even physical violence by school authorities against Baha’i students over a 30-day period (mid-January to mid-February) in 2007, nearly 150 cases were identified in 10 different cities (One Country, 2007). Other instances involving Baha’i students also reflect the general rise of intolerance, and the application of abrasive and clandestine methods to assimilate young Baha’is (see Baha’i International Community in US NSA, 2008, for summary report on attacks against Baha’i school children in Iran 2007–2008). I argue that the lack of favorable regime-group relations, and closed political opportunity structures, increased the importance of group networks and characteristics to compensate in forming educational strategies.
Looking back at the interactions concerning education between the Islamic Republic and the Baha’i community, several processes stand out: contention, coalition formation, collective action, escalation, framing, identity shift (or reaffirmation), internationalization, mobilization and demobilization, polarization, scale shift, and self-representation. The regime imposed high stakes claims on the educational (and other) interests of Baha’is, and as a result of failed cooperative attempts to appeal to the government, the Baha’i International Community and other national Baha’i communities collectively acted on behalf of Iranian Baha’is primarily through human rights advocacy to governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Information was diffused by Iranian Baha’i leaders to the BIC, which in turn diffused methods of advocacy to National Spiritual Assemblies around the world, who coordinated national and local campaigns in their respective countries. Baha’is who remained in Iran formed ad hoc coalitions to meet their needs, which included providing private religious classes for Baha’is, but also moral support and community cohesion by framing the fortitude of the community members as a service and sacrifice for “the Cause.”
Thus, the situation was escalating both within the regime and within the Baha’i community. The regime raised the cost of mobilization by threatening expulsion from school and banning students from higher education, in order to dissuade Baha’is from maintaining their loyalty to their community. In turn, Baha’is by and large rejected the threats, by disbanding their entire organizational structure after it was outlawed (maintaining contained contention), and while tolerating educational discrimination, sought representation and advocacy from transnational networks. This, in turn, not only polarized the two groups, but simulated boundary activation for Baha’i identity. The nationwide demobilization of the Iranian Baha’i community’s organizational structure and infrastructure (i.e., centers, property, holy sites, and service facilities), as well as the emigration of large numbers of educated and affluent community members was a significant blow to the Baha’i community’s composition and characteristics.
The Universal House of Justice continued to reinforce the morale of Iranian Baha’is by framing their ability to withstand repression as heroism and a courageous fulfillment of their loyalty and service to their faith. Inside Iran, framing the restrictive and inequitable educational policies as part and parcel of a greater sacrifice was genuinely accepted by community members. This practice has been an effective strategy for many years. The increased interaction between national and international Baha’i institutions with other organizations constituted a new level of internationalization and in some ways a transnational social movement on behalf of the Iranian Baha’is. By extending frames that presented the plight of Baha’i as a universal violation of human rights, the Baha’i community was able to garner the support of human rights organizations and democratic governments.
The adaptive innovation of a parallel higher education institute. Although the Islamic regime tolerated the return of Baha’is into the public school system, it refused their participation in higher education. This was part of the regime’s broader Cultural Revolution launched by Khomeini, which set out to purge and purify universities from what the regime perceived as anti-Islamic elements. The Baha’is turned to innovation to counter the effects of the ban.
Three episodes within this stream illustrate higher educational strategy selection and deployment processes. The first episode (encapsulating events across time) highlights the ongoing denial of entry into public universities by the Islamic Republic. The second episode is one of actuation, whereby the Baha’i community mobilized and put into motion the making of a parallel university. The third episode involves a government crackdown and raid on the university after it had been well established (representative of similar encounters between the regime and the parallel university).
Denial. Among the exclusionary policies which were initially imposed on Baha’is, denial of higher education was a central regime strategy to repress the community. To take the university entrance exam (konkur), students had to identify themselves as belonging to one of the four recognized religions in the Islamic Republic. Students who left the question blank, or wrote in Baha’i, were automatically disqualified. In the February 1991 memorandum, the policy required that Baha’is “should be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Baha’is...” (Golpaygani, 1991). For the first two decades, the only educational strategy to access universities was exiting the country; the network ties of the Iranian Baha’is with their transnational communities and families who had left earlier made this a possibility. This situation changed in 1987 with the establishment of the Baha’i parallel institute for higher education, the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE)..
Innovative adaptation. In 1987, a group of university professors, most of whom were fired from their posts after the Revolution, came together to develop an institute for higher learning, later entitled the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2009). With an open ban on public Baha’i activity, the advanced education classes were held discreetly in homes and shops privately owned by Baha’is, and relied heavily on distance learning modalities. Initially, the goals were modest, offering classes on subjects reflecting the expertise of instructors and interest of students (Baha’i International Community, 2005b; Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). Because degrees issued by BIHE were unofficial (i.e., not from an accredited university), participation in the programs was framed with reference to the Baha’i concept of advanced education as a service and religious imperative. Within several years, the number and diversity of classes grew to form quasi-departments divided according to disciplines and departments, such as civil engineering, business administration, computer software engineering, biology, sociology, and educational psychology. Despite being unaccredited and unrecognized by the state, the demand for entering the new university was exceptionally high (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, n.d.; 250 enrolled in 1987 and 1200 in 2008). I argue that not being institutionalized, and thus having little to lose in terms of legal rights, provided the impetus to take the additional risk of establishing the Institute and enrolling in its courses. In other words, institutionalization of the Jewish and Christian education initiatives, while providing them with some opportunities, caused them to make certain fundamental concessions, with the risk of losing what they had already acquired. Baha’is on the other hand, were denied government institutionalization, which actually propelled Baha’is to create a space to meet their needs in the ways that suited them.
Through the ad hoc Baha’i national and local committees, information was disseminated throughout various Baha’i communities, including lists of prerequisites, admission testing dates and sites, and protocols for study, supervision, examinations, etc. Between 1987 and 1999, most of the classes were administered in Tehran, where students would attend for a period of time, and then return to their homes to complete work (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 21 October 2009). When it became known that the postal service was interfering with the distribution and reception of materials, innovative means were devised whereby various appointed individuals would hand deliver curriculum and material packets.
As a result of community demands for access to the only means of higher education in the country, not only were more subjects and new fields included in BIHE, but also administrators reached out to trusted non-Baha’i associates working at public universities in Iran (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; anonymous Baha’is in Iran, personal communications, 10–24 December 2009). Over time, facilities were rented or purchased by the Baha’i community to host special classes that required laboratories and workstations, such as dentistry, chemistry, computer science, and architecture (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; Baha’i International Community, 2005a). However, BIHE continues to use primarily homes and private shops owned by local Baha’is as classrooms (anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 12 December 2009). To help accommodate the large influx of enrollments, many BIHE graduates volunteer as teaching assistants and lecturers.
With the advent and proliferation of the Internet, BIHE experience significant transformation and expansion. At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, the maintenance of records, and most course work was transferred online (administered by Baha’is in Canada). While most members of the governing board for the Institute remained in Iran, it also had affiliate board members in Canada and the United States (anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 12 December 2009). Moving courses online also facilitated an increase in the number of instructors able to teach classes and widened the range and scope of new courses. BIHE administrators and other Baha’i leaders outside Iran solicited the aid of academics and professionals to join what is called the Affiliated Global Faculty (AGF; Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). The number of Iran-based and international faculty grew from 273 members in 2006 (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006) to approximately 350 in 2009 (anonymous BIHE administrator in Iran, personal communication, 12 December 2009). The transnational network of the Baha’is reached down to the individual level, with Baha’i volunteers in countries around the world joining the AGF.
Since the late 1990s, an increasing number of BIHE graduates have successfully been able to receive recognition by universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, India and other parts of the world, and thus continue to graduate education (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). This was the result of highly coordinated and collaborative efforts between BIHE administrators, students, and transnational Baha’i community members in these countries (Baha’i International Community, 2005a). BIHE also sponsors scholarships for high performing graduates to receive graduate degrees abroad and then to return to join the Iran-based faculty of BIHE for a set number of years (anonymous BIHE administrator, personal communication, 13 December 2009).
Some salient processes that went into the strategy of innovation and adaptation of the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education include: actor constitution, coalition formation, mobilization, collective and coordinated action, framing, globalization and internationalization, and scale shift. Professors and professionals fired from previous positions regrouped and constituted a new sub-group of educators within the Baha’i community, forming coalitions with the Baha’i ad hoc committees, as well as reaching out to other academics and organizations inside and outside Iran. This new coalition of Baha’i leaders and educators mobilized the community’s resources and drew on networks to create a parallel institute for higher education. Procedures for accessing the private university were diffused through letters between the Institute and the community through the brokerage of the ad hoc local committees. By engaging in high levels of organization, a team of administrators, instructors, staff, and students coordinated students and class schedules, and collectively acted to facilitate access to higher education. The mobilization efforts gradually evolved and expanded in both scope and range to include more students, instructors, courses, and diversity. The ability to use homes, shops, and rented facilitates was gained earlier from the community’s experience during both the Qajar and early Pahlavi dynasty. The high level of internal networks within the Iranian Baha’i community, following a quasi-hierarchical structure in tandem with decentralized committees created functional channels of communication, resource allocation, and strategy deployment.
The pursuit of education was again framed as an imperative, but also now as a service to the Baha’i Faith itself. This consequently boosted the morale not only of students but also of the Iranian Baha’i community at large. Drawing on international networks, and building a pool of hundreds of affiliated global faculty members from around the world through Internet communication illustrates of the increasingly successful processes of globalization. When, beginning in the mid-1990s several students were admitted into recognized universities abroad, procedures were diffused among peer groups and BIHE administrators to other students. Non-Iranian universities who accepted BIHE students into their graduate programs unofficially certified BIHE and their educational enterprise. The collaboration of BIHE, other Baha’i organizations and academics, and non-Baha’i institutions in arranging transferable credit from BIHE to other universities also highlights the process of internationalization. Since 1987, the parallel university experienced a significant upward scale shift, with an increase in almost every feature, including faculty, courses, students, subjects and degrees. With all these developments, it is not surprising that in 1998, the expansion of the school, however tolerated it may been at various points, drew unfavorable attention on an unprecedented scale.
The raids of 1998. By 1998, the Institute offered the Bachelor degree in ten subject areas, each requiring 200 distinct courses each term in each of five departments (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). Although in the initial years of the school, the identities of professors were concealed from students, by mid-1990s, BIHE operated even more openly and established several laboratories and testing facilities around Tehran (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006; Baha’i International Community, 2005a). The expansion attracted the attention of the government. In September and October of 1998, government agents launched a surprising and sweeping raid of nearly 500 homes, rented venues, and shops associated with the university, confiscated over US$100,000-worth of equipment and essential documents, and arrested 36 faculty members and administers (anonymous BIHE administrative staff, personal communication, 10 December 2009; Baha’i International Community, 2005a). While the BIHE had experienced raids prior to this incident, they had been relatively mild and seemingly uncoordinated (anonymous BIHE administrative staff member, personal communication, 10 December 2009). The faculty members who were arrested and interrogated were eventually released, and were undeterred by their jailors to sign pledges to stop their activities.
The Baha’i International Community responded with a surge of public statements addressed to various international and national, governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Moreover, other Baha’i national communities were encouraged to become involved, including the solicitation of non-Baha’i academics and organizations (see United States Baha’i Website, http://iran.bahai.us/support-bahai-students/, for outline of advocacy instructions). The Universal House of Justice and Iranian Baha’i leaders continued to encourage students and educationalist involved in the Institute to continue their work over the next several years (Baha’i International Community, 2005a; also see a letter written by the Universal House of Justice addressing Iranian Baha’i students, 9 September 2007). With the aid of the Iranian Baha’i community, through individual donations from within and outside of Iran, the Baha’is were able to recuperate from the substantial losses.
Despite the alarming raid, participation in BIHE did not lessen, but rather continued to grow during the following years (Baha’i International Community, 2005b). Several instructors interviewed expressed their surprise that, despite the government’s vigilance in keeping Baha’is out of public universities, the regime tolerated or neglected the existence of BIHE (however selective it may have been). Nonetheless, government tolerance or neglect of the Institute must also be considered in its ability to remain open. In the face of the ongoing harassment, I suggest that without this narrow window in the opportunity structure, however restrictive it may be, no coordination, resources, or framing adequately explains the expansion of the Institute over the past 10 years.
As Figure D11 shows, contrary to what one might have expected, instead of showing a downward scale shift, the BIHE experienced an increase in its activity, resources (human, material, and cultural), and faculty (Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, 2006). Baha’is avoided confrontation inside Iran, and continued to operate the Institute quietly. The high flow of traffic occurring in the Iranian Baha’i network sustained most innovations and adaptations, including the increase of new forms of resources that were not present before (i.e., technological). As a general reaction to heightened repression in 2007–2008, particularly with the dissolution of the Yaran and increased raids of homes, the Institute scaled down its physical facilities (personal observation, 23 December 2009; anonymous BIHE chemistry instructor, personal communication, 23 December 2009).
Repressive facilitation. In 2003, however, the regime gave all appearances of opening a new opportunity structure for Iranian Baha’is to pursuit public higher education. The requirement to identify religious affiliation was removed from the entrance examination forms (Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, n.d.). In response to this seeming new opportunity, nearly 1,000 Baha’i high school graduates signed up and took the university entrance exam the following year (Baha’i International Community, 2005b). All students had to take a test on subjects related to one of the four recognized religions as part of the exam. Most Baha’i students chose to write about Islam, since it was taught in public schools and was thus most familiar to them. But upon receiving their entrance exam results, the Baha’i students were identified as Muslims (Baha’i International Community, 2005a; anonymous Baha’is in Iran, personal communications, 10–24 December 2009).
Several bold responses followed from among the 800 Baha’i students who passed the examination. The Iranian Baha’i community wrote a letter of appeal to President Khatami about the rights of Iranian Baha’is in the Islamic Republic (Baha’i Community of Iran, 15 November 2004). Part of the letter addressed what they called “the duplicity” of the government’s actions to sabotage Baha’i efforts to access higher education, and asked the government to provide the right of higher education to Baha’i youth who were Iranian citizens (Baha’i Community of Iran, 2004). There was no response.
The students who had applied actively tried to rectify the error on the forms, by writing to the Educational Measurement and Evaluation Organization, stating that they had been incorrectly identified. Officials responded by saying that because Baha’is are not recognized the information would not be changed (Baha’i International Community, 2005a; Affolter, 2007). Only 10 of the 800 who had passed the exam were acknowledged as having been admitted into university. All 10 rejected admission in protest and solidarity with their peers. From the perspective of the Baha’i community, this had clearly been a strategy on the part of the regime not only to demoralize Baha’i youth and encourage emigration, but also to keep human rights monitors at bay by showing that the regime had accommodated the Baha’is by giving them a chance to enroll—and then refusing to actually admit them to study (Baha’i International Community, 2005a). I suggest that the regime may have also used this strategy to encourage Baha’is to enter the state system by means of an implicit assimilation, avoiding the exercise of violent coercion.
In this situation, Baha’is continued to take the entrance exam and attempted to gain admission into public universities (Diane Ala’i, personal communication, 18 November 2009). However, time and again, Baha’is were identified as Muslims, and appeals to local and national offices ensued (Affolter, 2007). In some cases, a small fraction of Baha’i students are admitted (nearly 200), but at some point soon after they begin their studies, they are expelled (see Batebi, 2008, and Baha’i International Community, 3 October 2008 for examples).
Since 2006, several government documents have surfaced indicating the explicit pervasiveness of the policy to exclude Baha’i students (one of which refers directly to the February 1991 memorandum). For example, in 2006, in a letter directed to 81 Iranian universities, Asghar Zarei, the director general of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, issued instructions to expel all those who were identified as Baha’is (see Figure D12 for facsimile). Similarly, in November 2006 and March 2007, the government and university officials issued circulars to various branches of Payam-e-Noor University, Iranian’s largest public university (distance learning), requiring university administrators to block enrolment and continue expulsion of identified Baha’is (see Baha’i International Community, 27 August 2007 for facsimile and translation of documents). Students still attempt to attend public universities because employers and graduate schools around the world recognize Iranian university diplomas. In the clear expectation of expulsion, most Baha’i students simultaneously apply to the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education. Transnational community activism and advocacy on behalf of the Iranian Baha’i community continues. Without a means to access education, Baha’i youth continue to rely on the parallel university or study abroad as their primary strategy for accessing higher education (anonymous Baha’is in Iran, personal communications, 10–24 December 2009). In retrospect, the community’s ideological commitment to refuse to deny or even neglect stating their religious identity has a direct bearing on their access to public universities. These latest documents show that even transnational advocacy has not necessarily improved the prospect of changing the government’s policy of denying higher education to the Baha’is of Iran, but, rather, has led them to devise more innovative means of marginalizing active and vocal members of the community.
Summary. Baha’is who were blocked from educational opportunities in the first several years of the Islamic regime turned to advocacy and exit as the primary strategies to advance pursuit of educational opportunities. For the entire period of the Islamic Republic, Baha’is drew on several prominent strategies. Most of these were strategies employed during the Pahlavi era, although they assumed different forms. Variation in the regime-group relations—shifts in repression, toleration, and facilitation—had an impact on those processes that differed from past experience. I argue that in the absence of ties with the government, which marginalized the community and blocked access to higher education, led to innovative adaptation and bolder initiatives than both the Jewish and Christian community who had been given limited educational rights. It was also their centralized and transnational organizational configuration that supported continued mobilization and collective action to meet educational needs, despite increased waves of repression.
Comparative Review of Religious Minorities Under the Islamic Republic The radical transformation of the regime after the Islamic Revolution, recasting religious identity as a political identity within a theocratic state, entailed a series of reconfiguring relational dynamics, and ultimately group features, including characteristics and composition, networks, and regime-group relations. Not surprisingly, from the foregoing comparative examination of educational strategies during the Pahlavi era, some educational strategies were selected based on preference, others on those limited to a group because of the shifts in group features, and, finally, as a reaction to new government policies and practices. With a disparate and fragmented body of information to analyze, the mechanism-process approach made possible critical explanations of both similarities and differences in the educational strategies selected under the regime of the Islamic Republic. Similarly, a comparison shows more closely how group features bore on strategies, but, more interesting, how strategies shaped the very fabric of the features of the three communities.
As was done for the Pahlavi era, Figure 20 illustrates a relative timeline of major periods during which the government exercised heightened repression and closed educational opportunity structures, as well as periods when tolerance or neglect dominated regime behavior toward specific groups. Fluctuations in increased repression or imposition of specific educational policies reflect the regime’s efforts to meet state their own educational agenda and political goals.
1978–1979 — tolerance of mass exodus of religious minorities
1981–1985 — Height of Cultural Revolution and regime repression
1989–1996 — Period of pragmatism and relative neglect
1997 — Massive raid of Baha'i university
2004 — No longer required to label religious identity on university entrance exam
2005 — religious and political individuals not congruent are targeted
2005–2009 — Resurgence of government and mob harassment of targeted groups
Figure 20. Prominent government educational policies affecting religious minority educational opportunities during the Islamic Republic period.
As in earlier periods, the three groups sometimes shared the same types of strategies, partially shared strategies, or relied on group-specific and unique strategies. However, it is evident that during the Islamic Republic there was greater divergence of strategies; this can be explained by the drastic reconfiguration of group features. Below, I compare the development of prominent strategies by Jews, Christians, and Baha’is. It is especially important to note that past strategies re-emerged as the recurring course of actions chosen by groups, unless and until group features were changed, causing a rupture in regularly adopted educational strategies.
Shared Strategies Exit. Perhaps the strategy which had the greatest impact on both subsequent strategies and features of all three religious minority groups in the first decade of the Islamic republic was that of exit. Initially, many of those with financial means, higher education, and political clout fled the country in the first few years during and after the Revolution. Since the Revolution, the majority of both Christian and Jewish communities have emigrated in pursuit of educational and other opportunities elsewhere. Baha’is left Iran (some continue to leave) with refugee status, using network ties in communities throughout the world. While those who left were able to access education in the countries to which they immigrated, those who remained faced new challenges.
Tolerant Integration. Those who remained also integrated into the reformed educational system. Unlike the previous regime the Baha'i and Jewish community members who entered schools did so by tolerating general harassment and the discriminatory government curriculum. Nearly all Armenians remain isolated in Armenian Christian schools; those who do attend government public schools similarly tolerate minor harassment and discrimination. Assyrian and Chaldeans select integration in the form of conceding to government requirements to take in non-Christian students, in order to keep schools open. Those who do not tolerate these conditions usually receive harsher treatment and even expulsion. Baha’is appeal to school administrators occasionally, and Jews do sparingly as well; however, this is usually done without significant change in the situation. Tolerance on the part of Jews and Christians, without major appeal, is explained by the desire to maintain good relations with the state as a recognized religious community.
Partially Shared Strategies
Selective Assimilation. Both Jewish and Christian schools make concessions to government school regulations to keep schools open. This includes reduced language and religious instruction, use of government-issued religious textbooks, and forfeiting the Sabbath and recognition of some holy days by keeping schools open. Other concessions include gender-segregated schools, specific uniforms, and other compromises that do not reflect the goals of the religious community.
Institutionalization. Like under the previous regime, Jews and Christians are recognized by the government as legitimate religious communities, and are accorded a representative in the Parliament. Among the special rights of recognized religious minorities under the Islamic Republic is permission to run community schools with special features. Baha’is are not recognized or represented, and thus are forced to integrate into the state system, leave the country, or not participate in education at all.
Contention. In the first several years of the Islamic Republic, Armenian Christians were particularly vocal in resisting government policies which placed limitations on the isolationist goals and educational practices of the community. This was primarily carried out through contained contention, and was tolerated by the regime. However, when the community crossed the line, and engaged in transgressive contention, by protesting government-issued exams, the government closed schools, whereupon the community responded by backing off. Thus contention was reduced to contained contention. As a result of not being institutionalized, and being denied educational opportunities of various sorts during different periods, Baha’is engaged in contention through appeal and international advocacy on their behalf to the international community. It should be noted that the Jewish community did not engage in contention to meet educational needs, and fell back on assimilation and integration.
Group Specific Strategies
Assimilation. There are cases where members of the Jewish community assimilate into the general community, practicing dissimulation of religious affiliation in public, practicing their faith in private or in communal settings. This is done in hopes of avoiding harassment and discrimination in public.
Isolation. By the end of the Pahlavi period, Christians were extremely isolated in their schooling, and relied on continuing isolationism to meet the goals of cultural and religious preservation. While Muslim principals and many Muslim teachers manage most Armenian schools, the student body consists primarily, if not exclusively, of ethnic Armenians. Assyrian and Chaldean schools failed to maintain this desired isolation because of their small numbers; thus, their schools had to take in Muslim students. To this end, some members of these two groups attempt to attend Armenian schools.
Paralleling. Due to regime restrictions of cultural and religious education in community schools overseen by the government, Jewish and Christian community organizations maintain quasi-parallel religious classes for young people. These classes are held primarily in synagogues and churches, and are approved by the government. Similarly, the Baha’is hold private religious classes in homes and on private property, but because they are prohibited from conducting such classes publicly, they are constrained to be highly discreet. Perhaps the most noticeable case of paralleling as a strategy is the Baha'i community’s establishment and maintenance of a private parallel institute for higher education for nearly 3,000 Baha'i students, who are otherwise banned from public universities.
Innovation. Baha’i intellectuals and community members formed an ad hoc coalition to establish the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education. Through community resources and support, faculty members are able to mobilize and coordinate a series of classes, fields of study, and award degrees (not recognized by the state) to Baha'i students who are banned from higher education in Iran. They also draw on networks around the world, under the leadership and guidance of the Baha'i World Centre, to provide a broad global faculty of scholars to supervise classes by distance education.
Religious Minorities in Comparative Context of Group Features As seen during the Pahlavi period, group features had a significant bearing on the way in which mechanisms and processes combined to coalesce broad educational strategies. The variations in features and shifts that took place suddenly or over a longer period of time had a noticeable impact on other group features, and subsequently on the types of strategy that were (a) available and (b) acceptable to groups. In retrospect, while past strategies invariable influenced the selection of future ones, they were subject to the types of ties, resources, opportunities, and frames that were available and in play as are result of reconfigured group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations.
Composition and Characteristics The strategy of exit had perhaps the most significant impact on the Jewish and Christian communities, and to a lesser but still significant degree on the Baha'i community. With the vacuum of leaders, affluent and educated community members, who fled the country, in pursuit of educational and other opportunities and protection from perceived repression, those who remained faced new challenges with fewer resources on which to draw. For example, the Assyrian and Chaldeans were unable to mobilize resources required to protect schools from imposed integration. Most evident were the concessions made by the Iranian Jewish community by keeping schools open on the Sabbath, violating a fundamental tenet of Judaism, and by accepting compromises to the curriculum and staffing of the schools. The Armenian Christian schools attempted to show greater resistance initially, perhaps as a result of stronger leadership and larger numbers; however, after a repressive backlash on the part of the regime, they, too, made similar compromises. Baha’is, who were not only ostracized but whose organizations were banned from operation, reconfigured to form ad hoc committees to run community affairs and sought innovative means to adapt to the heightened repression of the regime. Their centralized leadership in Haifa helped to provide guidance in the pursuit of forming and selecting educational strategies. The characteristics of the Jewish community changed it grew smaller in number, consisting primarily of middle and lower class, and with leadership who outwardly aligned themselves with the regime, simultaneously denouncing association with previous transnational ties in Israel, the United States, and Western Europe. Armenian Christians also emphasized their support of the regime by disavowing association with Western and Russian powers.
Networks Composition and characteristics did drastically change, but so did the configuration of transnational and local networks. Because the Jewish and Christian leadership cut official ties with Israel and the United States—the countries providing their greatest support and network ties—they effectively cut the flow of material, human, organizational, and moral resources that came from them. I argue that this severing of ties to keep good relations with the regime made their network tie to the Iranian government more important in meeting educational needs. In contrast, Baha’is, who were excluded and marginalized by the government, relied even more heavily on network ties with its transnational community, and these indirect ties were used to fuel the advocacy campaign which countered the discriminatory state educational policies and practices, and provided support for other educational strategies. It is important that while human rights organizations, and several national and supranational government organizations have increased their discourse about human rights violations against all religious minorities in Iran, many Jewish and Christian community leaders, however difficult their situation may be, disassociate themselves from these groups and their claims, and realign themselves with the regime. I suggest that this is primarily the result of their consideration of relations and standing with the regime.
Regime-Group Relations When the Islamic Republic was established, I argue that religious identities became political, and thus a matter directly related to the state. In the first years of after the revolution, particularly between 1980 and 1984, there was heightened pressure on political and religious minorities. The government used coercion and force to facilitate support and alignment of these disparate groups. The Jewish and Christian community schools were faced with the need to make major changes, as a result of the regime’s intolerance of particular standards. The Jewish and Christian communities had been institutionalized into the new state system through official recognition and representation in the Majles, giving them the right to run community schools, albeit with some restrictions. Although they were able to engage in moderate contained contention to meet needs, transgressing the bounds threatened loss of other rights. I contend that this led both the Jewish and Christian communities to adopt a highly tolerant attitude toward government-imposed policies, and thus resulted in many concessions and compromises to keep group schools open. The most repressed of the three groups, the Baha’is, who continue to face high levels of educational discrimination and are still banned from higher education, had nothing to lose legally, since they were already excluded from the Constitution, were deemed a “misguided sect,” and were even targeted with sanctioned repression. The various levels of repression and neglect facing Baha’is by the Islamic regime led Baha'i community leaders and members to make innovative adaptations to meet educational needs. Thus, the fact that they were completely marginalized enabled the Baha’is to take greater risks than either Jews or Christians in meeting educational goals.
Conclusion In this chapter, I have identified educational strategies for each religious minority group, using historical narrative and the mechanism-process approach to explain how strategies were formed and selected by Jewish, Christian, and Baha’i communities in modern Iran. Through a cross-regime multi-case analysis, I have established that variations in group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime relations affect educational strategy formation and selection. While the literature on contentious politics looks at mechanism and process to explain phenomenon, I took these considerations a level further by looking at my proposed causal factors, which explain the nuances of the educational strategies that emerge.
Just as the deployment of strategies and their effect change a group’s composition and characteristics, networks, and regime relations, so the adopted strategies, in turn, affect the selection of subsequent strategies and change each group features. In other words, two cycles of interacting forces are simultaneously in motion, or what I call a bi-cycle effect, showing how the inter-relational dynamic of features and strategies serve as both conditional and causal forces in educational strategy formation and selection (see Figure 21 for illustration). Several prominent findings emerge from this analysis, the highlights of which may be helpful in reviewing how these three features influenced strategy selection, and how strategies in turn affected the three group features.
Figure 21. Bi-cycle effect: Relational dynamics of features and strategies.
The bi-cycle effect is an essential consideration of how one group’s education strategies emerge, continue, change, and vary from those of other groups. Where features are similar, strategies are also similar, with nuanced differences. However, when major shifts occur, there is a noticeable change in strategies accessible and acceptable to the groups. Strategies also affect subsequent ones, because they reflect the new configuration of the group features at play. For example, when the exodus of Iranian Jews took place during and shortly after the Islamic Republic, the composition and characteristics of the community drastically changed, thus limiting the set of strategies available—even if undesirable—such as the concession to keep schools open on the Sabbath. Because the leadership had been affected by the decline in educators and the reduced number of children attending schools, further compromises were made to keep schools open in order to preserve some semblance of community cohesion. This, in turn, became a common theme in subsequent strategies, such as acceptance of the heavily biased government-imposed curricula and the imposition of government-approved Muslim principals to run schools. This is only one example of how the bi-cycle effect model explains strategy selection better than other more simplified methods or descriptive analyses addressing the issues of religious minorities and education in Iran.
Composition and Characteristics Groups relied heavily on pre-existing organizations to broker and diffuse educational strategies, which ranged from integration into public schools to innovation of community run schools. I argue that the characteristics of the groups, particularly ideological orientation, determined the attitudes of community leaders and members in identifying what the educational goals were and which features were important. For example, seeing the advances made in the socioeconomic status of Iraqi Jews, the Jewish community became interested in modern schooling. This became the primary motive and driving force for most Iranian Jewish educational strategies. Once status had been assured, religious identity and cultural preservation gained importance. Christian groups in Iran were divided in their purpose for establishing schools and in their educational strategies: missionaries wanted moral and social education, while ethnic groups sought community preservation and development. Baha’is pursued educational opportunities by founding their own modern schools and integrating into public ones because education was mandated as an imperative by the head of the community.
Using my propositions within the mechanism-processes analysis, I explain that ideological orientation and framing by leaders influenced what strategies were acceptable and desirable, and which were unfavorable. For example, a selective assimilation strategy adopted by the Jewish community had its limits when religious education was compromised during the Pahlavi era, but was nevertheless tolerated. The exodus of tens of thousands of Jews during and after the Revolution, through a strategy I define as exit, significantly demobilized schooling efforts of the Iranian Jewish community, while fundamental compromise with Jewish law led to changes in the characteristic of the community. Baha’is were unwilling to compromise religious principles, and strategies were chosen within those constraints
At times ethnic and cultural divisions between transnational group members interfered with coalition formation and collective action, as in the case of Christian missionaries and Apostolic Christian leaders, or in the initial clash between French and Iranian Jews. These diversity issues ultimately influenced characteristics of the group, and, as I suggest, ultimately refined decisions made in meeting educational needs through boundary activation and polarization. When the Baha’i community faced severe setbacks after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, it continued to draw moral and organizational support from its central leadership in the Baha’i World Centre. Thus, I argue that the capacity of organizational structures, including transnational networks, determined the resources available to the three groups to employ educational strategies, and had a bearing on each group’s composition.
Networks Networks, I contend, played a significant role in the types of strategies available to the religious minority groups for a number of reasons. For Baha’is and Jews, the increase in network ties during the Pahlavi era provided them with resources and influenced regime-group dynamics. Christians in Iran benefited from the missionaries’ introduction of modern schools, but ethnic Christian leaders in northern Iran in particular separated themselves along cultural and denomination divides. Apostolic Armenian-Iranians strengthened ties with transnational same-denomination/same-ethnicity networks outside Iran—remaining a purposefully insular group. Networks were extremely important for Baha’is, and became the primary means of pursuing educational strategies, through advocacy and innovation. Coalitions built within Iran among Baha’is were fostered by the leadership of the Baha’i World Centre, which orchestrated external network ties around the world to provide resources, most noticeably in the form of advocacy. Iranian Jews severed almost all external network ties during the Islamic Republic era, becoming an isolated community with reduced resources to execute educational strategies.
I argue that it is precisely the weakness or strength of network ties that supports the ongoing activities of religious minorities in repressive settings. If networks are lacking or weak, then regime-group relations become central in shaping educational strategies. On the contrary, when regime-group relations are weak or strained, networks become an important factor in determining educational strategies.
Regime-Group Relations Although political opportunity structure offered openings and/or imposed restrictions on how strategies were executed, I explain that, this, in and of itself, did not ultimately determine the formation of strategies. Rather, it affected the type of strategies that were chosen. For example, while Jewish schools experienced high levels of tolerance during the Pahlavi era, they nonetheless experienced a decline because integration into the state system was being facilitated by the government. Conversely, Baha'is, who were excluded from recognition and representation, were able to create and run a parallel university despite a ban on attending public higher education.
Thus, I am convinced by the foregoing analysis that the manner in which a group responded to regime actions had significant bearing on strategies. The reason why Baha’is were successful in establishing the Institute for Higher Education during the Islamic Republic was because the group refused to acquiesce to government demands of recantation and denial of religious affiliation. When regime-group relations made it impossible—despite the use of international advocacy networks—to change unfavorable education policies, the government neglected to crack down harder on their efforts. Conversely, both Christian and Jewish schools made compromises to fundamental features of their schools to keep them open, but were included in public schools and universities.
Although it is clearly erroneous to conclude that institutionalization results in fewer opportunities, I argue that institutionalization has limits. Furthermore, I suggest that institutionalization can hamper some initiatives, and noninstitutionalization may lead to greater risk-taking and innovation in meeting educational needs—at least in the cases of minority religious groups in Iran.
The particular cases discussed here serve as examples of how group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations influence educational strategy selection. By analyzing events as processes and mechanisms, I have carried out an analysis that shows when and how similarities and variations took place. I assert that analyzing how strategies are selected also explains why those strategies were selected and deployed. Thus, I maintain the argument that conditional and causal elements overlap, and that outcomes themselves are also conditions and causes for strategy selection is critical in understanding how religious minority groups in Iran select educational strategies under restrictive conditions.
[1] AIU schools were established in Tehran (1898), Hamadan (1900), Isfahan (1901), Shiraz (1903), Sanandaj (1903), Kermanshah (1904), Bijar (1906), Nehavand (1906), Tuyserkan (1906), Kashan (1911), and Golpaygan (1914). Some of these schools closed down shortly after opening, and in some cities like Tehran, more than one school was opened.
[2] Alliance students were forbidden to speak Persian even in the schoolyard.
[3] Tables and Figures for this chapter are found in Appendix D.
[4] Mizrahi: from the east; that is, Jews descended from Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus.
[5] The count of 41 is cited in several places, and seems reasonable, considering that the organization had a presence in 31 localities throughout Iran (Ozar Hatorah, n.d.).
[6] According to Moshi Dellal, there were about 6,000 Iranian-Iraqi Jews by the middle of the 1970s, with the majority living in Tehran (cited in Dallalfar, 2002).
[7] To clarify, I use the term Iranian Christians to signify all locally based Christians living in Iran, including the Iranian-Armenians, Iranian-Assyrians, Iranian-Chaldeans, as well as subsequent Iranian converts.
[8] There is no record for when the Assyrian and Chaldean schools were established, but it is likely that they were begun in the late 19th century.
[9] For first-hand accounts of missionary goals and activity see Smith and Dwight (1834), Perkins (1843), Rice (1916), Wood (1922), Cash (1929), Howard (1931), Richards (1933), and Doolittle (1983). Also see United Presbyterian Church in the United States, Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations, Secretaries’ files: Iran Mission 1944–1973 Record Group 161, Iran Mission 1881–1968 Record Group 91, located in the Presbyterian Historical Society: The Archives of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
[10] In 1895, Anglicans and Presbyterians entered into a mutual understanding which delineated activities in northern Iran to be administered by American missionaries, with the work in the south to remain under the auspice of the British (Zirinsky, 1993b).
[11] One notable example is the formation of the Persian American Educational Society, collaboratively formed in the United States by American Baha’is and Iranian Baha’is residing in the United States. Their activities and reports served as a portal to the general American Baha’i community (see Star of the West, Vols. 1 -6). This relationship is highlighted in correspondence between Iranians and Americans in Iran and those in the United States; see Oral Platt Papers (Box 1) Ahmad Sorab Papers (Box 2, 4, 6); Hannan-Knobloch Family Papers, Box (19, 20, 22, 30) located in the United States Baha’i National Archives.
[12] See Momen (2008), Sabet (1997), and Shahvar (2009) for curricular subjects.
[13] Two open land routes taken by Iranian Jews who sought refuge went through Turkey and Pakistan. In 1988, for about US$6,900 (five million rials) an individual could be smuggled through mountain passes or suspended beneath livestock; for about US$1,200–US$1,650 an individual could be taken to Pakistan by a local Baluch tribesmen accustomed to less guarded routes (O’Driscoll, 1988).
[14] According to Hojjat al-Islam Abbas Mahfuzi (Montazeri’s representative at Tehran University), by 1983, only 6,000 members of the 1978 academic staff were still teaching in universities (cited in Menashri, 1992, p. 319).
[15] According to an Iranian Jewish leader who immigrated to Israel after the Revolution, Jewish school children in Tehran were forced to wear yellow uniforms to make them easily identifiable and some Jewish students were forced to attend Muslim schools (Associated Press, 23 July 1982).
[16] In addition to local and regional appeals, the Iranian NSA’s (1983) open letter called for the guarantee of particular rights for Baha’is, three of the 13 points directly related to educational opportunities of Baha’i children and youth.