John Elder interview, 1965.

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    This is our last convenient chance to record a conversation with Dr. John Elder
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    who is perhaps in a unique position among the foreign residents of Iran to comment
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    on some of the developments in this country over the past 41 years. Dr. Elder you
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    came to Iran first in what year? 1923. At that
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    time what was the political situation in the country?
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    The country was suffering a great deal from the results of World War One. And those are the last
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    days of the Qajar dynasty. Reza Kahn as he then was
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    had taken control. But Akhmed Shah was still the technical ruler of the
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    country. It's a matter of fact we saw him leave for the last time when he went
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    to Kermanshah not very long after we arrived.
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    I understand that your first assignment here in Iran was Kermanshah. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit
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    about what you came to do and even about what you saw and
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    what you felt the first few days back in the early 1920s in Iran.
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    Most of all I think I remember the difficulty of getting there. We entered Iran
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    coming across the Caucasus and then down of what was then Anzali or Bandar-e Pahlavi.
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    And it took us three days to get from there to
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    Tehran to begin with. There have been heavy rains and floods and washouts. There were three
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    bridges washed out. We crossed a couple of rivers on horseback and one by boat
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    and finally on the third day of the third day reached Tehran. And then,
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    when it came to leave Tehran we went by chartered bus and that was quite a journey
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    in itself. We had this derhabass, as they call it, entirely chartered for
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    the party and it took us all of the first day to get as far
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    as Karaj and between loading up and knocking signs down through the narrow
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    streets as we came along and the winding roads. We reached Karaj at sunset of the first
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    day and the second day we got as far as Avegam, the third day to Hamedan
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    the fourth day after a very narrow escape on the Asadabad Pass when the brakes
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    broke and we just roared into the town at top speed. We got as far as Salehabad
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    that day. And then the fifth day reached Kermanshah.
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    It's quite a contrast to modern times, modern travel. Somehow, we have failed to make it clear
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    precisely what it is you were going to do in
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    Kermanshah. I came out with the Presbyterian mission as an evangelistic
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    missionary.
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    My first I suppose you say job there was being pastor of the local church
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    in Kermanshah. Actually, in terms of this conversation I
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    want to stick more to Iran and the things that have happened in Iran but they are
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    inescapably inter meshed with the question of precisely what you have done here in
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    the 41 years that you've been here. Would you mind outlining very briefly for us the things you have
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    done in that period.
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    Well I've been pastor of three different churches here, one in Kermanshah, and then for time
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    in Hamadan and then for about 10 years with the evangelical church here in Tehran.
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    Actually I came to Tehran primarily for the literature production work. In connection
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    with that I've written, I guess it's 11 books so far, that I've written them in English
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    they've been printed in Persian, and some of them have also been printed in Arabic.
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    One of them also in English. And, have been in charge of the production and
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    distribution of Christian literature here. Then several times I've had an opportunity to do something in the
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    way of relief. When the earthquake came in Kangavar some
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    years ago, I had administration of some relief funds. And, a few years after that when
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    there were floods up in the mountains here. Again we had a relief project about $10000. It
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    wasn't very great. In the last few years I've been chairman of the committee that's been rebuilding is Islamabad
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    about 100 miles west of here.
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    It was largely destroyed after the earthquake nearly two years ago. Then in
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    addition I've had responsibilities in connection to the community school. I've been a teacher there and head of the
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    board for some time and also with the Alborz Foundation and of course quite a variety of
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    committees of all sorts also in Chairman the radio Committee for the inter
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    church council of Iran.
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    Dr. Elder, I have been here about a year and that period of time the amount of change
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    I have seen has been relatively small. It's obvious that change is occurring. I talk to
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    other people who were here say 10 years ago and come back and remark how
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    quickly things have changed. What is the viewpoint that you have over a period of more than 40
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    years.
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    Actually, it seems like an almost complete revolution since we first saw this place. In
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    every respect Iran has come forward very strikingly, I think. For
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    one thing, just the standpoint of health. The first year I was in Kermanshah
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    we inquired of all the women who came to our hospital there
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    to get some vital statistics about their families and children and found that about three
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    quarters of all the children being born at that time did not grow up. They died
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    as children. We also had no real health services there.
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    So many people, almost all the older people, were pockmarked with smallpox and
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    malaria was very prevalent. There was no running water of course. Water has
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    always had to be boiled and the streets were incredibly filthy. The
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    street cleaning establishment is largely consisted of gangs of prairie dogs that ate up
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    the garbage and the dirt was inches deep on the streets so that the
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    whole health condition was very very bad at that time. And in that respect it's been really
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    a complete revolution. The general vaccination
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    against smallpox, the anti-malarial campaign, which has been so very strikingly successful,
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    and the various serums against diphtheria typhoid and so on that have headed off these diseases.
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    Quarantine has kept cholera out, which came in almost yearly before that. And,
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    physically the opportunities of people growing up in Iran today are way beyond what they were at
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    that time. And then the educational change is very striking also.
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    When we first went to Kermanshah they had just for the first time opened a
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    girls school and that with great opposition. One of the leading clerics of the time had
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    denounced the girls school and the man who opened it, and even said that anybody who killed him
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    would have half of paradise. And shortly before we came there the man who as the head of
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    education was shot and killed. And they said that when the assassin is about to be executed and was asked if he had
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    anything to say for himself. Well all I have to say is hurry up. Half of paradise is
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    waiting for me. And he really believed it. The level of education is such
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    that my teacher or Persian teacher at that time boasted of the fact
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    literally that he had gone to school for three years whereas most of his friends are gone for one or two
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    years. And he was a teacher at that time. Of course, today, everybody laughed at the idea.
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    And when we went out in the villages I went out with the doctor and some trips to the villages. Every
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    village practically we went to had one literate person, either the hezbollah,
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    the head man or perhaps his secretary. So that there's
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    practically no education for women and the standard of education for men is extremely low. In that
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    respect there's been a complete revolution. About a third of all the students today in Iran are girls.
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    The person who hasn't finished the 12th grade today is considered to have some
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    defects in and that of education. There was no university at that time. It's open to some
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    years after that. A few hundred had gone abroad. Whereas now something like
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    15000 students I believe are gone abroad for education there's there's been
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    almost incredible advance over what was just 40 years ago. And then too, the
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    means of communication as I suggested have improved vastly over what they were then. Would
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    you mind talking a bit more about the change in the status of women. Do you think it's been
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    genuine and really deep reaching in these 40 years? Well,
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    it was originally enforced from above
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    certainly, the growing freedom of women. When we first came to
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    Kermanshah all the women wore this black chador, as it is called, with what they
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    called a pechuh that tied over a face so that a man literally wouldn't know his own wife. Everybody
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    wore that and it was one of the great achievements of Reza Shah that he
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    was able to abolish it at least among over a time generally among all
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    the people and even after his going among a considerable portion of the people. The way
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    he did it was was very wise I thought. Instead of just overnight trying to
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    bring about this revolution. He first appeared as a public
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    celebration with his wife and daughters unveiled and announced that as of
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    that date women would be free to wear the veil or not. Well there were a few of the more bold
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    spirits who cast aside the veil but not very many. And then he had a large
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    reception which he by the leaders of the government and specified they should come with their
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    wives in European dress and willy nilly all the leading
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    women appeared in western dress.
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    Where are they. Where did they find the Western clothing in those days?
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    I imagine it was not nearly so easy to find a Western
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    dress as it is for a modern lady in Tehran. Yes, it was quite a scramble to get them and
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    especially in the matter of hats was very difficult. Even came around the mission and borrowed
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    the old hats from the missionaries. And, believe me, an old hat for a missionary is an antique.
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    and it was quite it was quite a scramble to get it ready for these receptions. Then
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    after that was done in Tehran they followed up with similar receptions in all the provinces. And
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    there, the governor would have a similar reception and invite the leading people functionaries to
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    bring their wives in European dress. So that quite generally, the upper classes got
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    accustomed to the idea of discarding it. And then there was a general law that
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    forbidding carriage drivers to pick up women who were veiled because they
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    said, well the prostitutes wearing the veil and therefore they should just pick up unveiled women
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    and then a law that the bathhouse keepers and everybody use the public back in those days
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    the bathhouse keepers really to receive women who came in without the veil. And
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    then that shopkeepers to serve unveiled women. And then finally this is
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    over a matter of a couple of years and finally a complete prohibition that the veil should not be worn at all.
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    But it was done so gradually step by step that there was no real break
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    down at any one stage.
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    Can I differentiate here for my own enlightenment between the
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    term veil and the chador, which is still widely worn. Was it the veil itself that
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    covered the face that was being fought against? Oh
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    yes it was the covering of the face that was most objected to. The
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    veil is a Western term usually applied to this type of dress. And nowadays
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    they wear what they call the house chadur, or the house veil, which does not cover the face
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    unless they hold a veil across with their hands. But the old style veil included
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    this horsehair grating that completely obscured the face.
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    Was there ever a period when so-called household chador was eliminated or
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    largely eliminated in Tehran?
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    Well they were required to wear Western headgear also so that was largely limited as
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    well. It was only after Reza Shah left that again they were preaching
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    that the women should wear the veil. A lot of pressure brought on them. They were spat upon in public
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    places. Sometimes acid even thrown on bare arms and in the
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    more conservative portions of the city most of them resumed
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    the house veil at least, not the old style black veil as a rule. In
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    the 20s
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    was there any thought at all of the notion of giving women the vote? Was it ever discussed? or Was
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    it all considered quite impossible?
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    I think it was. Nothing has struck me more as being
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    different about civilization in Iran than just that fact that women are
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    not taking any part in social activities, social progress, reform movements, voting,
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    anything of that sort. There were just a cipher as far as social progress was concerned.
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    I remember quite a long article in the local magazine in Kermanshah proving
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    that women were only equal to one half the men. Various examples
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    from the law courts from inheritance and damage suits and all that to prove that a woman is
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    only half a man. That was a general feeling that at the most only about a half and it was
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    very commonly said Xanax on the other, that the wife has no brains.
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    I'm curious about these receptions you told us about at the time that Reza Shah was attempting
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    to change the question of the dress.
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    You say that he ordered his top functionaries to bring their wives in European dress. Before
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    that time would the wives have come to a reception under any conditions? in any sort of
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    dress? While they not. They might have come to be received separately by
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    the women folks in the ruins so to speak in the inside that they would not have sat down
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    with the men at all to eat with them. The men would eat separately and the women in another
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    section of the building would eat separately. But after that time it was not customary at all to eat
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    together. Of course to a newcomer from the US,
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    the thing that's striking is that the women, even the Westernized women, still do not take a
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    very active part in the conversation with the men at social
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    gatherings these days. But would you comment on all the changes that have come about.
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    Put that in a little more perspective for me.
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    I think it depends somewhat on the particular women with whom you conversed because some of them are
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    very very good conversationalists, very valuable talkers.
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    But I think there still is as somewhat of a feeling of hesitancy in a
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    mixed group of women having entirely felt
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    like they would do it in the West that there they completely belong. But there is a very very great
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    difference of course now that the women have the vote. They're being very much more
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    active in all sorts of social activities and it's becoming
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    much more like the civilization we're accustomed to.
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    Could you outline some of the main changes in the family structure that have come about in these 40 or 41
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    years that you've been here? Obviously if the role of the woman changes somewhat, presumably
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    the makeup and prerogatives of the family are going to change somewhat too.
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    It's very hard to say just what the family life was life 40 years ago
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    because I was not allowed to have any entree into it in those days. My wife would
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    call in the women's quarters if we called or sometimes and I would call on the men's quarters.
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    I think the old style of the family was undoubtedly much more
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    dictatorial than today. The man was the unquestioned master of the
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    house. Boys were very much preferred over girls. We often felt that
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    boys are pretty badly spoiled because of the fact that they were boys.
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    And certainly today the young people have much more of a feeling
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    of freedom and many of them are beginning to beginning to ask and demand the right to choose their
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    own partners. That seemed to us the strangest thing when we first came that
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    the young men would not even have seen their brides often. And,
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    were not supposed to have seen them at all before they were married and that the mother would pick
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    out the bride on consultation with various families in the neighborhood to try
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    to pick out one she felt was suitable. But, the man would not know at all what his bride would looks
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    like except by description until they were actually married. Now there are
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    increasingly love marriages. Young people get to know each other and select their
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    partners. I can't say there's always a happy arrangement but it often is.
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    Do you find that most of the Iranians you speak with now feel the notion of the Love
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    Marriage is the coming thing in this country that it's becoming the dominant way of doing
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    things?
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    I should think so although everything one says about Iran, I think we have to remember this that there
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    are two Irans that are very different from each other. There is the group we usually
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    meet here in Teheran,
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    the rather educated young people that have contacts one way or another with
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    Western life or Western ideals and are well educated and
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    progressive. And then there's a great mass of the people still 80 percent or more
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    that are very much living as they lived two or three hundred years ago. And, their ideas are much that
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    same type so that there are two quite different Irans.
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    I think that's been one of the great problems of the modern governance in Iran, that the
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    leaders have not been able to go as fast as they would like to have gone because of this dead mass
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    of conservatism that they have to bring along behind them so that
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    if I say that today the young people are thinking love marriages that would only apply to the cities in the very
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    educated people and only to a certain portion.
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    Yes. in the bigger cities.
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    Yes and you get back to villages and you find the family life and marriage and so on
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    just about the same as it's always been for centuries past.
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    Could we address ourselves for a minute to this relatively small segment that is
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    becoming westernized. I'm curious to hear some of your observations about the
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    Westernisation that's taken place in recent years, what you think about whether
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    it's been a good thing for Iran, whether it's taken in elements
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    that really hurt the country or hurt the culture or whether it's generally
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    been helpful to the development of Iran.
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    Well of course has been something of a mixed development and we certainly could not say that all the changes
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    have been for the improvement of the country. Certainly the
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    attitude toward women is a decided improvement, I
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    think without any question. The ideas of democracy that have
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    committed the country and or other generally accepted them on the young people are good
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    and the desire for a higher education is is all to the good. At the same
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    time not every Western custom is better than an eastern custom.
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    The cocktail party has become very common. When we were here for instance the men often would get
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    together and have a poetry party. That is they would open a book of poetry, read out
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    some very fine line of poetry poetry. And then everyone would try to
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    write a poem along that line. That was a very constructive and wholesome form of
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    entertainment and the cocktail party doesn't compare with it.
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    Do you feel the older style has almost died out here now in Iran or do you still see it.
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    Well it hasn't entirely died out especially among some of the older people.
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    I remember with great pride my language teacher in Kermanshah told me
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    that this is not the same as speaking out before we only study three years this is that he said more
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    but he said he was the seventh finest quote in that town. He was very proud of the fact,
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    because he had had one of these poetry parties. They had graded the poems and he had come out seventh and that was a matter
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    of very great pride to him.
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    And it's true today that many of the leaders of the Iranian government are also writers of
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    some distinction like I have a Indic Matt and Dr. Sadiff and others are not
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    only statesmen but also they're literary men of outstanding merit.
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    Do you see signs of any organized or semi organized attempt to
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    retain these older ways, to restore some of the, I suppose you might say, some of
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    the purity of the early Iranian culture?
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    Like I said I have seen much of that although there is a growing
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    interest and a very wholesome one in antiquities in Iran.
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    And now when we first saw Esfahan, I remember how utterly neglected the Ellicot
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    who seemed to be in the Tilsit tune in those historic places. Now in recent years
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    they've realized the value of those. They've cleaned them up.
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    They have them very well organized. They have guys on hand to show you around and the
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    Iranians are becoming much more aware of their past and proud of it. And
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    there has been a definite effort to revive the old arts and crafts in the Fine Arts Institute
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    here. The brocades, embroideries, rugs,
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    mosaic work and all that sort of thing is being definitely revived. And, that is all to the good.
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    It's it's very fine that's being done.
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    Dr. Elder, I suspect that a large portion of the value of this recorded conversation
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    is going to come to relative newcomers. People who have just gotten to Iran and are
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    perhaps a little confused about some of the complexities of it. For example, the whole
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    business of the religious richness of this country can really be quite
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    baffling to someone who has not read extensively. I know that you are
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    extremely well qualified to discuss this. I have heard you suddenly rattle off
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    a half an hour talk on some of the religious background of Iran. And,
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    I'm tempted to ask you if you would try it now just dig in and give us
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    a rundown on what what some of these religious backgrounds were and what what
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    they mean. What, for example, people are quite often baffled by the
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    notion of the Assyrian Christians. They are confused as to whether they're from
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    Syria even. Yeah I would like to go into that a little bit if you don't
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    mind.
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    Well I suppose we should start with the Zoroastrian faith, which was the
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    faith apparently of the Achaemenid and the Sassanid dynasties, the two most famous
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    Iranian dynasties, and also the Parthians which weren't so outstanding but
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    the Zoroastrian faith is originally a dualistic faith,
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    a God of light and the God of darkness fighting with each other, and man's duty was to select
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    which side he would fight on, to fight in the side of the God of light. And, the Zoroastrians
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    were outstanding for a very high standard of truth. Even their enemies
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    admitted as much. Herodotus, who was a Greek and hated the Iranians, said that the Iranians of his
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    day were outstanding for archery, for horsemanship, and for speaking the truth.
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    And one of the old prayers of Darius the Great was that God would this the master
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    would deliver the country from the foe and from famine and from falsehood. Those are the three things that he
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    specially dreaded. And, they had a very
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    high standard of character which seemed to me to register its imprint on the
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    civilization of that time. Christianity came into Iran very
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    early. We read, of course, in the Bible about the wise men who came from
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    the east and everything east of Palestine in those days was Iran and the
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    Magi. It was a technical term for Zoroastrian wise men. And on
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    the day of Pentecost when the church was begun in Jerusalem. It's reported that
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    there were people there from Elam and from Mesopotamia,
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    which was part of Iran at that time and from Medea and Parthia. All those provinces that are
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    represented there. So early in the first century Christianity
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    had begun to come into Iran. And it's very interesting to read some of the
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    old traditions as to how it entered Iran. The Armenians in particular have a very
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    interesting belief. It has to do with the story in John of the coming
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    of the Greeks, the last week of Jesus' life. They say that these men were sent by
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    the Armenian king Abkar [Also Abgar V]. And, Abkar had heard of the miracles of
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    healing that Jesus had worked. And so he sent his messenger there
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    saying that he had been ill. This Abkar had been ill for many years and hadn't been able to cure him and that
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    he heard that the Jews were not very well disposed toward Jesus and therefore invited him
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    to come to this city of Edessa and to cure him. And, he said, I have a neat
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    city and there's room for both of us.
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    And then the story is that. And incidentally Eusebius the church historian
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    says he saw this correspondence in the archives of Edessa. Jesus replied that he would
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    not be able to come, that he had to finish his work in Jerusalem, but after his death and ascension, he was sent two of his
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    disciples. And, the tradition is that Thaddeus was one of those disciples, that he
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    healed Abkar, that Abkar became Christian. As long as he lived, Christianity was the
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    religion of the court, but, after his death, a cousin ascended the throne
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    and he put Thaddeus to death and persecuted the Christians. And
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    today there is up in Northwestern Iran. Actually this past week, the Armenians from all over
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    Iran were making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thaddeus where he supposed to be buried in Catacolisa
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    towards Khoy. Tens of thousands go there just at this time, which is
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    his birthday supposedly, to celebrate him. The Assyrians
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    also believe that Thomas was the apostle who
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    brought Christianity to the Reziah [Rezaiyeh] area. Incidentally this is Assyria,not
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    Syria. They believe that they are descended from the Assyrian kings.
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    Ashurbanipal and those Ashur and
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    various kings that are great conquerors in the eighth, ninth century B.C., very
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    ruthless, very cruel and whose empire was finally overthrown by
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    a combination of the Medes and Babylonians.
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    And they believe that they are descended from this particular group and they became
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    Christian very early probably in the first century and the
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    resulting church is known in, usually in church histories as the Nestorian church although they call themselves the Church of
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    the East. And, they were flourishing and were quite strong
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    especially during the Sasanian Dynasty from the third to the seventh centuries and
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    on into the time of the Mongol invasions. And, it once had a very powerful church
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    with millions of adherents. It was supposed to have had twenty-five
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    colleges, some of them as many as 2000 students, a line of leprosaria and
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    of hospitals. And, they were very progressive and very evangelistic, sending their missionaries way out as far
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    as China and the Philippines. And then the Mongol invasions came along and millions of them were
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    killed at that time.
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    And the church received a blow that it never recovered from. When the
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    American mission was begun, it came as a mission to these people, to the Nestorian Christians.
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    And the idea of the mission was to try to revive and strengthen this old church, which was
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    having a very tough time of it. They were very strictly restricted in those days, their activities were
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    curtailed. There's only a small number of them. Most of them are illiterate. They had no medical care.
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    And so the mission began by founding schools, reducing the modern Syriac
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    to writing, translating the Bible into modern Syriac, and sending out doctors for
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    medical work and trying to reform this church from within as far as they could.
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    Can you comment just for a moment about the language involved? The language is the.
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    They call it the Syriac language, which is a direct successor to the Aramaic, the
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    Babylonian Aramaic, which was the language spoken in Palestine after the
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    captivity of the Jews. It's very close to present day Syriac. They
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    say that Jesus talked our language and some of the terms in the New Testament like "talamapui," the
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    young maiden arises just the same as they would say today in Syriac. So
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    that it is the direct descendant of this Babylonian Syriac spoken throughout the Near East
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    at the time of Christ.
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    What is the status of the Assyrian Christianity at the moment? Once
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    you mentioned that the Presbyterian mission worked on that basic problem. Has, has
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    it has its status improved? Is it a unified group now or
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    precisely what?
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    What is the situation there? Well, the condition has certainly improved a great deal. At
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    that time,
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    every Christian had to have a particular color cloth on him to show he was a Christian. And,
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    he couldn't ride a horse. And, he couldn't have a two story house and so on. And now they,
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    all those disabilities have been removed. The hope of the missionaries that there might be
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    reform movement within the church was partially realized, but not totally, so that
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    more evangelical Christians were expelled from the church and the Protestant church did emerge
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    from this activity. The Nestorian Church, as it is called now,
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    has a leader called Mar Shimum [Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII],  who lives in the United States. He's
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    been there since World War One. He went almost as a boy. So he had have quite a young man and
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    recently came back just about two years and a half ago for the first time in
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    modern times. And, he had a tremendous reception on the part of the Nestorian Christians who are there is
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    like to see him. Recently they sent a bishop here to Tehran. They have consecrated a
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    church building, which they didn't have until just a few years ago. They always met in our church building as a
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    matter of fact. There's been very fine feeling between the various groups. Then there's a certain
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    number of them also who became Roman Catholic, something like a hundred years ago. So that there are these
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    three groups about nineteen hundred. Also a large number
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    became Russian Orthodox in the hopes that they would get the protection the Russian government. The Russian
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    consul promised them protection if they would become Russian Orthodox. So tens of thousands of them did
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    go over. But after the revolution almost all came back to the Nestorian church when they lost that
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    hope of protection from Russia. And, as a matter of fact, it was the other way around.
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    So that the status of Christianity in an Islamic country is really
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    extremely complex?
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    Yes it is. They have certain rights now. For example,
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    marriage, divorce and inheritance are considered religious matters under Islam
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    and the Christians are allowed to have their own registration offices and their
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    own laws in regard to marriage and inheritance. And, the Christian laws are honored by the
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    Iranian government. When it comes to election,
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    they have their own representatives in Parliament. The Syrians now have one. The Armenians
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    have three, I believe now. The Jews have one and the Zoroastrians have one.
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    Dr. Elder, you came here 41 years ago as an evangelical missionary.
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    Have you seen extensive interest among the Islamic community in
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    Christianity in that period of time? Has the mission been
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    successful in simple terms of conversions?
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    Not a great many, but still enough to be not entirely discouraging as it were.
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    It's interesting to find what a very high opinion of Christ
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    the Moslems themselves have. Persian literature is
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    full of references to Jesus in the very highest terms.
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    So, so very high that you think this man couldn't have been a Muslim who had this idea of high
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    Christ and that it had quite an effect. There is a very warm
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    admiration for him among the Iranian people. Up the recent
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    times it was physically impossible for a Muslim to become a Christian. When the first American
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    ambassador came to Iran, he told of how when two Moslems
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    attended service in Isfahan, they were executed the next day for going. It just wasn't allowed. And,
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    it's only really after the adoption of the Constitution in 1906 when there has been the
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    degree of freedom which has made it possible for Muslims who feel convinced that Christianity is true to
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    become Christians and to be able to live in safety and reasonable comfort. Of
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    course, there is often social pressure of the strongest kind. But legally they have
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    been able to carry on and exist as Christians.
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    Now I know this is so elementary that probably even most of the people who listen to
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    this tape will know it. But I would like, if you wouldn't mind, to have a very brief rundown
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    on the on the basic division of the two Moslem faiths that exist
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    in Iran, the Shiite and the Sunni.
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    The difference between those two originated from a dispute of the succession to Mohammad.
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    After his death the Moslems got together in Mecca and
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    elected a successor. The Shia Moslems believe that was wrong, that the succession
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    should come automatically to Ali, the prophet's son in law. Actually
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    the Sunnis accepted Ali as the fourth successor. But then again after
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    Ali's death, he was assassinated, again they divided. The Shias believe that the
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    succession went through his sons, Hussein, Hassan, and so on, while the
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    Sunnis believed he was following by election and from that time on there has been
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    this difference.
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    Actually Iran was Sunni up until the time of Shah Abbas [Shah Abbas I]. Shah Abbas himself was a
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    Shia and he was constantly fighting the Sunni Turks party from
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    religious motives certainly. and partly from political motives probably. He decided that the official
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    religion of Iran should be the Shia faith which has been the case from then on,
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    although there are still many thousands of Sunnis, especially in Kurdistan, some parts of Iran. But,
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    they believe, that is the Shias believe, that there were 12 successors,
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    legal successors, to Mohammed. 12 caliphs, as we call them. And that the last
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    one disappeared. And at the end of the world will return again and be
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    reincarnated. Sunnis believe that the caliphs were elected right down
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    to the time of Abdulhamid. I believe he was the last one that was formally elected.
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    There are at least a reasonable number of Jews in Iran. Can you tell me some of the history of how
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    they came to be here and what their status is.
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    Apparently the Jews first came here in considerable numbers as captives at the time of Nebuchadnezzar
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    in 586 B.C. when he conquered Jerusalem. He
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    brought tens of thousands of prisoners. What is true too that the Sennacherib
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    after the conquest of Sumeria also brought Jews to,
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    up into, Assyria so that from that time on there have been Jews
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    in the Persian Empire. Of course the book of Esther tells how one of the people became the queen of the
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    country. The Jews who had a very similar experience to that which the
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    Christians have had. They've had many periods when they had been very severely restricted down
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    to fairly modern times. But in recent times again they have been recognized.
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    They were recognized throughout as having a right to exist but not a right to win others to their faith
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    just as the Christians did not have.
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    And in recent times they also have had much more freedom. When we
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    first came to Tehran they were concentrated in one
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    particular Jewish section of the city. But nowadays they have quite freely spread to all parts of the
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    city and are mixing in with the other population very freely.
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    There are still small but important numbers of Zoroastrians in Iran, are there not? There are
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    supposed to be about 20,000, I believe, something like that. And, a
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    number of them are here in Tehran. Originally, up until just recent times the
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    largest, I guess, perhaps still the largest, gathering of them is down around Yaz in Kerman
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    but in recent years many have been coming to Tehran. So I wouldn't know whether Tehran now perhaps has
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    half of them by now. And, they have been especially interested in land development.
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    Some of them are very prosperous people. They are a self-knit community. They do not accept
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    converts. They don't try to make any. And, they discourage anyone leaving their group very
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    strongly and take very good care of their own poor and
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    see to it that they are properly buried when they die and so on. Would you talk for a moment
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    about another rather unusual group, the Bahai? The
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    Bahais owe their origin to a man who called himself the Bab,
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    who made his claim in 1844 to be, to be the door by which a new
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    revelation was to come. And he gave very elaborate
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    legislations, several books of it, as to how Iran was to be organized and how the world
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    has to be organized. And then, there were clashes with
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    the government.
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    They had a long-drawn out fight up at Sheikh Tabarseum Mazhandaran. S
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    everal armies were defeated of the government, but the government's armies, then finally that was conquered. Zenjahn
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    also there was fighting. And, the Bab himself was eventually executed.
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    A few years after that one of his followers, Baha'ullah by name, claimed to be his
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    successor claimed to have the same relationship with Bob that
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    Jesus had with John the Baptist, and, who brought in a new dispensation.
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    It has laws that resemble the laws of Shia Islam but are somewhat different.
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    That is they have three prayers a day, instead of five and pilgrimage is to Acre [Akka] instead of Mecca. Two
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    wives are allowed in the Book of Akdas as instead of one as is the case, or
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    instead of four in the case in the Koran. And they have
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    19 days fast instead of 29 days fast. There are various changes of that type.
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    And the Bahais have been very active in their propaganda
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    work. They have sent missionaries to America. They have the last
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    figures I saw there show some 8,000 Bahais
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    in America. And, they have adherents in Africa, Japan, various other countries.
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    We've forgotten any other important groups here on this quick run over of the religious
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    makeup of Iran?
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    Well there is another group that I have found the most interesting group, which technically are
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    considered a part of Islam, although they have many differences. They call themselves
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    the Atla-Hat are the people of the truth are often called the Ali
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    Elohis. And there are they claim millions of
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    them. I don't know just how many there are. Each local group has its
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    own pir, its own head man, and their sacred
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    books are in Kurdish poetry and not given into the hands of other people. But
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    they have great reverence for their own pirs. One man whom I knew always saved
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    the hairs of his beard because his followers felt very efficacious in curing disease.
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    And they're very sturdy and very likeable people.
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    Their origin seems to go back about 800 years.
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    Some believe that they were originally Christians who adopted certain
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    outward forms in order to escape persecution. Many of their ideas, especially in some
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    of the groups, do correspond quite closely to Christian ideas. And.
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    they have their headquarters in Iran. One of the other interesting features is
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    that they claim that they can eat red hot coals of fire when they go into
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    ecstasy. They have their zikrs, their meetings, in which after reciting some
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    particular phrase many many times they get some ecstatic feeling. And then,
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    they suddenly say I'm just hungry for a fire and and eat it without
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    being burned.
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    Do you have any way of knowing about the objective reality of this
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    particular claim?
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    No, I don't. I've talked to various people who have claimed to have done it, claimed to have seen it.
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    And at one time I thought I was going to get to see it myself. But they said Now we'll let you come and
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    see this on condition that you become an Ali Elahi, if we actually do eat coals. I
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    sure enough it is really a miracle to say yes.
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    There's another group of course here in Iran, which I think you would call a religion. That is the
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    communist group, which has a very important part in the politics of
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    modern Iran. Under Reza Pahlavi, they had very little
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    influence. He was extremely suspicious. Of course he got his start fighting the
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    Communists up in Gilan, so that he was under no illusion as to what their purposes were
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    as far as Iran is concerned.
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    And then I remember even here at our college in Tehran. They
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    organized the YMCA and used the conventional red triangle as a symbol and the head of the
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    YMCA was put in jail because this red is supposed to indicate a communist movement. Of
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    course he was able to prove that it wasn't, but they were very, very suspicious. And, the comments were very
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    closely restricted.
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    And then when World War II came along. And, there were British Russians moved in and occupied
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    the country, then all bars were down. And, the country was flooded with
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    communist propaganda. It was truly amazing to me the amount
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    of preparation that had gone into preparing the literature. It must have taken years to
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    get it ready for this particular time. They didn't know of course when they could be able to
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    use it but they had it already. A friend of mine who was minister of education said one of his students
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    made a list. There were over 1500 titles of books and tracts in Persian,
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    that the Russians had prepared presenting communism. And, they had loudspeakers on the street
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    corners. They bought in movies to villages and towns that had never seen a movie at all before
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    and constant broadcasts from Moscow. And, they just flooded the country at that time with the communist
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    propaganda and there was no way of heading it off at all.
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    That is the Allies had agreed that any official government
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    statements were not subject to censorship. And this was all put out by TASS, which was a
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    government so it couldn't be censored. And on the other hand the
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    news agencies like Associated Press and Reuters and so on, they were censored. So they couldn't answer these things, with the result that
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    there was a strong communist movement at that time, which really was
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    extremely threatening. When we came back just after the war.
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    Azerbaijan was in communist hands. They'd set up that so-called democratic government. They were
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    broadcasting in Tehran and threatening to take over Tehran, if they didn't accept their
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    independence out there, and they were having great demonstrations here in
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    the city of tens of thousands of people out in the street shouting the common slogans. One got the
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    impression that they just might take over Tehran any time they felt like it.
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    Did you have? Excuse me. Did you have a feeling at that time that it really was sort of a
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    matter of touch and go as to whether Iran might become what
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    amounted to a communist satellite?
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    Well very much so. I remember coming home from the demonstrations, which must have included
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    20 or 30 thousand people and thinking, why anytime these people feel like
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    it, they're going to take it over. They were raising money from people who hated them
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    and didn't dare refuse them. They go into shops and
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    banks government offices and just go from desk to desk and demand contributions to the Communist
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    Party. And, people just were afraid not to give it to them. They were that influential
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    and it was one of the modern miracles to all of us who were here, I think,
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    when the battle for Azerbaijan was won within 24
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    hours and the Democratic Movement there collapsed. The leaders all fled. It just
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    overnight the whole situation changed. And then they cracked down on the communists here in Tehran. And, they
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    had to go underground. And the situation just overnight reversed itself.
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    That's exactly the sort of recent history that people tend to have forgotten about or
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    somehow not to have read about at the time. How do you think the
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    decision was won there? Where did the pressure come from that forced the Soviet troops to leave
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    northern Iran and that led to the collapse of these so-called democratic
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    governments in the Azerbaijan area?
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    Well it was largely I think through the influence of the young Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
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    who was determined that this thing should be fought out to the finish
  • speaker
    and Razmara [General Ali Razmara], who was the head of the army at that time and he and the Shah
  • speaker
    moved their troops in. I heard, I don't know whether it's true or not, that Kamal al Saltani, who
  • speaker
    was prime minister had warned them not to go ahead if there is to be fighting but that the
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    Shah was convinced that they had to go ahead whether or no and gave those orders. At any rate they
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    did go ahead from two centers, one toward Zanjan and one out toward Sanandaj. A
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    nd, it was a very a very successful operation. I
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    think none of us thought that they would be able to win, especially as quickly as they did.
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    The Russians were supposed, or had equipped the Democrats so-called up in Azerbaijan.
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    And I think they just didn't really believe that they were going to have to face such a formidable force.
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    Whatever was the reason. After a day or so of fighting they collapsed and fled
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    and took truckloads of loot with them when they left Tabriz
  • speaker
    up into Russia and just thing collapsed overnight. Oh
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    how happy people were. There's a very interesting picture here in
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    Tehran that one of the local artists has made of the reception given to the
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    Shah when he went to Azerbaijan after the reconquered. He has an
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    unusual style in the same picture. He shows sort of a panorama and then on one side a
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    close up in the same canvas. And, this panorama shows the Shah coming with
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    these thousands of people out to greet him and his soldiers and some woman coming up before him. The
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    Panorama is a picture of this mother saying will you give me permission to slaughter my
  • speaker
    son before your feet in Thanksgiving for your great victory. And the tears coming down the
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    Shah's face. It really happened. That woman did ask to be allowed to
  • speaker
    sacrifice her son.
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    She was so happy that Azerbaijan had been reconquered. Dr. Elder, though you've been here
  • speaker
    41 years. I imagine that the most interesting shifts in the
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    Russian attitude toward Iran perhaps have been in the past what 15 or 16 or
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    17 years since since the time of the collapse of the puppet
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    governments in the western part of Iran?
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    Yes that was 1946. You see in the Azerbaijan event. Then, the next
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    time, when they seemed to be the most threatening, and here you'll get very different
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    accounts from different people, so that mine may be mistaken. But the next time when they were very
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    strong was under Dr. Mossadegh [Mossadegh, Mohammad] , who was not a communist I'm quite certain.
  • speaker
    And yet he felt he could play along with the Communists and get their support and
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    be able to rule and keep them under control. And at that time [1953] again
  • speaker
    the communist became very strong. They were very free. They conducted great
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    demonstrations again out on the streets. They had their press, their paper, the Mehr-dong for the older
  • speaker
    people, and a paper the young people. And
  • speaker
    it was a conviction of many of us that there again the communists were just on the verge of taking over. Some
  • speaker
    communists that we knew said to us, "In another 48 hours, we are going to take over."
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    And then very reliable authority that
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    thousands came across the Russian frontier with Persian documents at that time.
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    And the supporters of the Shah were invited in for conferences in the cities and put in
  • speaker
    prison. So everything seemed to be building up to a takeover,
  • speaker
    ostensibly by Dr. Mossedegh, but actually engineered by the Communists. And, a
  • speaker
    communist defector later said that we would have kept Dr. Mossedegh about six months and liquidated him. At
  • speaker
    any rate, there were two or three days there when the mobs were running wild, when they were
  • speaker
    smashing the Shah's statues, tearing down wherever they were, it was the Shah's, Mohammad Reza Shah's, tearing down the Shah's pic
  • speaker
    tures in all the shops. Going along the streets and
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    smashing the street signs on the Avenue Shah and Shah Reza and Pahlavi wherever
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    the name of the Shah was in, they smashed those street signs and
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    just. The mobs were really taking over. People were just
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    shocked at what was going on. And then, it was at that event that the coup d'etat [1953] occurred.
  • speaker
    And Zahadie [Zahadie, Fazollah] came to power and the Communist Party again was
  • speaker
    outlawed and went underground. And that. It was again a time when it seemed to us it was
  • speaker
    very very close indeed to the precipice, that just a few more steps, and they would have gone over. In
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    the following months and years after that the Tudeh party was
  • speaker
    virtually eliminated as an important force in Iran, was it not? Yes, of course it went underground. It
  • speaker
    was very strong for a long time. The government was very
  • speaker
    fortunate in that it rather accidentally
  • speaker
    captured the secret code and the list of members of the Communist Party and was
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    able to smash the communist conspiracy at the heart. And
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    after a long time they finally located the underground newspaper. They kept coming out for a couple of
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    years after the party had gone underground. But finally located up in Shimran in the place built secretly
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    under the ground. And yet the
  • speaker
    change again was just overnight. The day
  • speaker
    before when I went out on the street, almost invariably, somebody would yell at me, "Yankee! Go
  • speaker
    home!" And, you felt a very hostile atmosphere everywhere you went. All
  • speaker
    the brick walls and vacant walls were on the street the words "Yankee! Go
  • speaker
    home" were written. It was very strong. But the next day everybody was smiling, everybody was
  • speaker
    cordial. No more "Yankee! Go home," Everybody you see was friendly.
  • speaker
    That is an amazing change that again happened just overnight. At this
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    period, I presume, the official Soviet attitude toward the Iranian government was
  • speaker
    pretty harsh kind of. Was there a time when the radio propaganda say was
  • speaker
    particularly vile?
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    Yes it was very strong. And and my story after that especially it was
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    very vicious and nothing was too
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    mean or unprincipled or unfair to be said. So that I imagine you
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    find the current atmosphere fairly remarkably different?
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    Yes. Is it much less of a feeling of tension and anxiety and
  • speaker
    threatened revolution, one kind or another.
  • speaker
    There was a few years ago. Dr. Elder, you spoke about Tabriz at some length. Weren't you
  • speaker
    also there for an earlier important historical event in the
  • speaker
    Tabriz area? Not in Tabriz.
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    I was up in Yerevan during World War Two, World War One.
  • speaker
    That, that's what I'm referring. The last part of World War One.
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    I was there for nearly two years at the time of the Armenian Republic
  • speaker
    and engaged in relief work there at that time. We had at one
  • speaker
    time we had 18000 orphan children in orphanages and about ten thousand
  • speaker
    people working in factories, cloth factories, and thread factories, rug factories and so on. The
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    refugees are quite extensive the relief work for the Armenian
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    refugees mostly having come out of Turkey and some out of the Kars
  • speaker
    area.
  • speaker
    And what had been Russia and became part of Turkey. That's a period in history,
  • speaker
    I suspect, most of us don't know much about at all. Would you mind telling me a little bit more
  • speaker
    about it? About the sort of work that went on and the sort of historical forces that produced this
  • speaker
    situation?
  • speaker
    Well the Russian Revolution resulted in the collapse of the
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    Russian armies on all fronts. However down the Caucasus, the Armenians
  • speaker
    and Georgians and Azerbaijanis were so hostile to the Turks that they felt this is
  • speaker
    our war. We're fighting for our independence. We'll carry on whether or not the Russians are
  • speaker
    there. A number of us had come out of America as YMCA secretaries. And
  • speaker
    I was one of a group sent the Caucasus to open soldiers clubs for the support of the Russian troops and we came
  • speaker
    out. But by the time we got to Tiflis, the Russians were just leaving wholesale, looting
  • speaker
    the bazaars as they went, often in committing all sorts of crimes,while going back to their homes. And,
  • speaker
    the Armenian, Georgian, Azerbaijani armies were being organized to carry on the
  • speaker
    war. They formed a Transcaucasian Republic of Armenia, Georgia, and
  • speaker
    Azerbaijan. Actually, the Armenians were the only ones that did much in the way of fighting, but they did. They
  • speaker
    sent their troops in against the Turkish empire. They didn't
  • speaker
    have much of a chance. The Russians had had something like a million troops down on that front. They just had a few tens
  • speaker
    of thousands but they did their best. Very shortly
  • speaker
    after, they only were able to. It was about May of 1918 when the
  • speaker
    war came to an end. The Turks took over all the Kars and
  • speaker
    Alexandriapol area but they did not conquer Yerevan where we were, as they had expected to.
  • speaker
    And then this Transcaucasian Republic broke up into three republics: the Georgian Republic,
  • speaker
    the Azerbaijan Republic, and the Armenian Republic. And I happened to be
  • speaker
    present in Parliament when the Armenian Republic had its first meeting of Parliament. And,
  • speaker
    the American people didn't know it, but on the part of the American people, I gave it congratulations and good wishes
  • speaker
    for the success of their new government. But there were hundreds of thousands of
  • speaker
    refugees there. And so our main activity during that time was working with these
  • speaker
    refugees. This Republic lasted until I think it was
  • speaker
    1921 in January when the communists came back again and reconquered
  • speaker
    that area and made it part of Russia
  • speaker
    once more. We came through there in 1923 after it had again become part of
  • speaker
    Russia mainland, just to pay a visit and have
  • speaker
    several times since then gone across Russia, but we haven't been down in Yerevan since then. Perhaps
  • speaker
    this is a completely unfair thing to ask, particularly without
  • speaker
    any warning. But after the long period that you have spent in this part of the
  • speaker
    world, are you able to summarize or sum up for yourself what you think has been the
  • speaker
    effect of your work of spending well over 40 years here? Do you feel that
  • speaker
    you personally and the groups that you worked with have accomplished something, something
  • speaker
    good or something worthwhile? One doesn't
  • speaker
    like to answer that question really.
  • speaker
    Well I think. I'm sure if I think you can say surely I think it is very worthwhile. The
  • speaker
    church in Iran has shown very significant growth, I think, in its
  • speaker
    sense of responsibility, its leadership and its numbers. I think the various
  • speaker
    books I have been able to write have been useful and are being read. And it's
  • speaker
    been a privilege, I think, to have had a part in this various kinds of relief
  • speaker
    work and the activities of the radio committee and other committees.
  • speaker
    I think it's been very worthwhile as far as I'm concerned.
  • speaker
    Well I apologize for the unfair question. And, it is as difficult one as a man can can very
  • speaker
    well be asked, I suspect. Before we end, do you think of any
  • speaker
    other major subjects that I haven't asked you about or contributions you feel
  • speaker
    you might be able to make to new people here in terms of your particular knowledge?
  • speaker
    Well there's one just one observation I'd like to make. It. B
  • speaker
    oth for young Iranians and for foreigners. And, that is
  • speaker
    to guard against the danger of comparing Iran with New York or London
  • speaker
    and deciding on the basis the fact that you find some
  • speaker
    difficulties and therefore nothing's happening in Iran. Young people often feel
  • speaker
    that way. They go to New York, come back to Tehran or some village, and they think oh we're way behind. We're not getting
  • speaker
    anywhere. But when one compares Iran today with what it was 40 years ago, there's every reason
  • speaker
    for optimism and feeling that Iran has gone ahead, is going ahead, and will go
  • speaker
    ahead. And that, even though we find many things that don't seem to
  • speaker
    us to be up to standard. If we compare even them with what they were 30 or 40 years
  • speaker
    ago even in those particulars, also there's been great progress. So that, I feel optimistic
  • speaker
    about Iran and its future and confident that it is going to go ahead and be an increasingly
  • speaker
    prosperous and stable country.
  • speaker
    Dr. Elder thank you very much.
  • speaker
    [Elder speaks with someone in a Persian language.]
  • speaker
    [Elder continues to speak in a Persian language with someone.]
  • speaker
    [Elder continues conversation in a Persian language.]
  • speaker
    [Elder continues conversation in a Persian language.]
  • speaker
    is.
  • speaker
    [Elder speaks with someone in a Persian language.]
  • speaker
    khi.
  • speaker
    [Elder speaks with someone in a Persian language.]
  • speaker
    that.
  • speaker
    er.
  • speaker
    [Elder conversation in Persian language continues.]
  • speaker
    et.
  • speaker
    [Elder tapes concluded.]

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