shade of opinion that had overthrown the Shah, from Islamists to communists, was represented in the university and on the shoras that ran it. This paralleled developments within Iran, as workers seized the factories and peasants the land, running the country democratically through their respective shoras.
Parts of the university were occupied by main political parties. The engineering faculty became the Fedayeen headquarters. The place thrummed with energy, young people came and went, armed with Kalashnikovs or carrying bundles of newspapers. It was to the Iranian revolution what the Smolny Institute in Saint Petersburg had been to the Soviets. These headquarters were still used as lecture theatres, however. Passing through one day, I happened upon a lecture by Houma Nategh, a professor at the department of Persian literature and a noted activist herself. More than 500 people sat in rapt attention while she spoke about the contribution of women to the armed struggle.
In fact, the engineering faculty became something of a revolutionary tourist attraction, with workers and peasants coming to gawp at ‘the kids with machine guns who have taken over the country’.
Our brand of open, libertarian education spread throughout the country. Once a week I would make the 100km drive to Ghazvin to lecture at the university. These lectures were open to anyone. They dealt with problems from the industrial shoras to the nature of the land reform. Hundreds of young people would turn up, most associated with the Fedayeen.
Khomeini himself returned in early 1979, two weeks after the Shah left for exile. On 1 April that year, the country voted to become an Islamic Republic. By the end of 1979, Khomeini had been declared supreme ruler. But it was soon felt that the revolution wasn’t making progress and I began to focus my own criticism on the reluctance of the new Islamic regime to make any progressive concessions to the workers and peasants. Our revolution was being taken from us. The regime began to take action against the workers’ and peasants’ shoras. Khomeini declared a jihad – a holy war – against the Kurds and sided with the feudal and capitalist forces against the workers.
This assault was not confined to Kurdistan and the workplaces of Iran. It showed its ugly face in the attacks by Hezbollah thugs against the universities and other places of learning. Calling itself the Islamic Cultural Revolution, it spilled the blood of the students and professors who had fought so courageously against the Shah. This counter-revolution brought with it sexual apartheid and shackled all freedom of expression.
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