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Journalist, Author Nazila Fathi On Life In Iran Before, After The Islamic Revolution

Women in various states of dress on the streets of Iran.
Amir Farshad Ebrahimi
/
Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

NazilaFathi’s childhood bookended the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. She was nine years old when supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the Shah and established the current theocratic regime. Before the revolution, her father had been a high-level civil servant in the Ministry of Energy. After the Shah was overthrown, he became a farmer.

Fathi reacted to the revolution the way you would expect any nine-year-old to – upset that strict, redefined gender roles meant she could no longer swim in her housing complex’s pool.

“That pool was the source of life for me and all the other kids, including the girls, and then after the revolution we were banned from swimming in that pool. Girls were no longer permitted to wear bathing suits and jump in an outdoor pool,” Fathi said. “And that was huge for me because I had to sit around the pool, wear a headscarf over my head in the blistering heat and watch the boys.”

But that hardship inspired her, and she was willing to embrace the unfamiliar and uncomfortable because she had her eye on the goals she hoped to achieve.

“There were a lot of things I couldn't do as a woman. But if I was covered, if I wore the veil, and if I wore the long coat that the regime required me to wear, there was nothing that I couldn't do in that outfit,” Fathi said. “And even though I hated it when I reached eighteen, I knew I wanted to do things. I wanted to change my life.”

She turned 18 the year Khomeini died, and as the first foreign reporters were allowed into Iran, the journalism bug bit her while she watched a press conference on TV. She wanted to ask questions, and realized Iranian politicians were more willing to speak to foreign reporters, rather than local journalists. In 1990 a devastating 7.3 magnitude earthquake killed tens of thousands of people near the northern Iran town of Rudbar. She found work as a translator as a second wave of foreign journalists were allowed into the country.

“They were more interested to write about life in Iran rather that the earthquake,” Fathi said. “I started sending memos to the reporters I had worked with as a translator and they started relying on my memos to write stories from outside the country. And they relied on me as a source.”

Fathi moved to Canada in 1999, and returned to Iran in 2009 as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, covering the presidential election and the so-called “Green Revolution” that followed. She hasn’t returned since she fled the country fearing retribution by the government against journalists covering the 2009 presidential elections and the protests that followed.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

JOSHUA LANDIS, HOST: Nazila Fathi, thank you so much for coming to Oklahoma.

NAZILA FATHI: Thank you so much for having me.

LANDIS: Well it's a pleasure. I've been looking at your really wonderful book here. Tell me, the Iranian Revolution. 1979. You were a young girl  - nine years old. What impact did the revolution have on your family? what did it mean for you and your father and mother?

FATHI: Well, It had a huge impact. I mean. I was just nine years old and you would imagine that a nine year old would not understand when there is such political upheaval. But the first impact of the revolution on my life was that we had a swimming pool in the housing complex where we lived. And I had swam in that pool all the summers that I can remember. That pool was the source of life for me and all the other kids, including the girls. And then after the revolution we were banned from swimming in that pool. Girls were no longer permitted to wear bathing suits and jump in an outdoor pool. And that was huge for me because I had to sit around the pool, wear a headscarf over my head in the blistering heat and watch the boys.

LANDIS: You couldn't go in it all the even if you wore full...?

FATHI: Of course you can't swim in a veil and a long coat, but no we were not allowed to because we did is we jumped in the pool from time to time secretly. But we were not permitted. If we were caught, we would be lashed, even as young girls.

LANDIS: Now did you know anybody in your neighborhood who had actually lashed?

FATHI: Yeah, a lot of people were flogged.

LANDIS: Flogged? I mean, with a real cable?

FATHI: Yeah, with a real cable, electric cable, they were flogged from their backs. They came home with gashes on their backs. It usually took weeks for them to recover. For various reasons, I mean, for drinking alcohol. For showing hair. For a lot of different things you could get lashed. his was one of the Islamic punishments that was introduced after the revolution.

LANDIS: And what about your father?

FATHI: So that was how I felt the revolution had changed my life. My father had been a civil servant. Quite a senior manager at the Ministry of Energy. And he was fired because he had never supported the revolution. In fact, he was not very happy in the months leading to the revolution, that a lot of his employees were just leaving their desks. Going out on the streets to protest against the Shah. So one of the first things that they did after the revolution was to report on him, and he was fired. And he was never able to work for the government. Instead he became a farmer. My father had studied in England. He was among a very small percentage of Iranians who had higher education. Had studied overseas. Spoke English and these were all things that were not acceptable by the Islamists. So after he lost his job, he had an orchard that he had inherited from his father in the city of Tabriz in the northwestern part of the country. And he started driving there. And he would stay there for months then work on a farm.

LANDIS: Now, did he make an income from that? Were you poor?

FATHI: Well, yeah, our life changed dramatically. We lost a huge source of income. Yeah. Our life took a turn for the worse. We were not poor. My father was making money   from the orchard. But we didn't have the income. But he used to have income that he used to have in the past. But by contrast, our maid - her name was Nasan - I talk about her life extensively in the book. Her daughter had supported Khomeini. She had been a revolutionary, an ardent supporter of the revolution. Within months after the victory of the revolution, she gave us two good news. One of them was that she was getting an apartment. She was getting  a place of her own. I had visited her with my mother at her current place, which was a tiny, tiny room where she and her six or seven children slept. I didn't know how they fit in that room. But they were given a house in the suburbs of Tehran. And then her daughter became the principal of a school, and her life began improving. Her life started to change for better, and this is the story of a lot of Iranians. A lot of poor Iranians who chose Khomeini as their leader. Because it was more people from the lower classes. People who were religious and traditional who followed Khomeini.

LANDIS: Now, was she from the countryside originally or was she from the city?

FATHI: No, she was from a remote Azari-speaking village. She was illiterate. She'd never gone to school, and had worked as a maid all her life supporting her children. She'd marry three times. None of the husbands had stayed with her. They had all left her. She was a single mother. And eventually the daughter who supported the revolution and managed to climb up the ladder helped improve their life.

LANDIS: So now is that true for many poor people in Iran, or is that just a small bunch of poor people?

FATHI: No, that is true for many people. This was not, probably, the intention of the revolution. But Khomeini knew that he could not rely on the support of the middle class Iranians They had opposed the Shah. But they had not chosen him as their leader. They wanted democracy. When Khomeini came to power, it was very clear that he was not going to deliver on a lot of promises he had made. The vision that he had for the country was not the vision that educated Iranians [had]. A lot of them had been socialist. A lot of them had supported the revolution because they wanted to get rid of dictatorship. They were not going to choose another dictator as their leader. So Khomeini started banishing everybody. Those who had supported the Shah and those who had opposed the Shah. But they were not going to choose him as their leader.So he started drawing people from the villages. Religious people. People like [unintelligible] who were ideologically committed to Khomeini's ideas. And as they were hired, a lot of people were fired from the civil sector. They were really replaced by people who did not have the expertise. But they had the ideological devotion to work for Khomeini and his revolution. They began climbing the economic ladder

LANDIS: Now you eventually became you know a very famous journalist for The New York Times. How did you get out from underneath this family that had fallen on hard times? What's your story?

FATHI: Well, you know, I learned one thing after the revolution. That was there were a lot of things I couldn't do as a woman. But if I was covered. If I wore the veil. And if I wore the long coat that the regime required me to wear, there was nothing that I couldn't do in that outfit. And even though I hated it when I reached eighteen, I knew I wanted to do things. I wanted to change my life. So the veil and the long coat that we called monteux became sort of my shield to move forward, to do things that I wanted to do. And I was very lucky to start working for The New York Times. When Khomeini died, I was eighteen years old, and the first group of foreign reporters were allowed to come into the country. And I watched a press conference on TV, and. It was then that the journalism bug sort-of bit me. I wanted to be in a position to ask questions. And it was very clear that the Iranian candidate who was running was very eager to speak to foreign reporters, not to local reporters. Just about three years later there was a devastating earthquake. A lot of people were killed and for the second time since the revolution, the Iranians permitted a large group of foreign reporters to come and report on the scale of the devastation. It was in the town of Rudbar. And luckily my French teacher, my private French teacher put me in touch with a group of reporters who were looking for translators. And I started working first as a translator for these people. And of course they were more interested to write about life in Iran rather that the earthquake. And early on after that in 1993, I started working with The New York Times. And you would be surprised, but the internet and email came to Iran quite early in the early 1990s. I got an e-mail service. And that e-mail address transformed my life. I started sending memos to the reporters I had worked with as a translator and they started relying on my memos to write stories from outside the country. And they relied on me as a source, and that's when I became a fixer. I moved up from being a translator to a fixer. They put me on a retainer. And I was very lucky to work for the Time Magazine.

LANDIS: And the fixers are the ones who actually really write most the stories for The New York Times and these foreign reporters. I mean every reporter I talk to when I go to Beirut or someplace else says, 'You know, we're only as good as our fixer.'

FATHI: That's true. I can't say that about myself, but that was how I moved up and became a reporter.

LANDIS: Now, you went to university. Did you find that there were any lingering doubts about you because of your parents? That you weren't blackballed from doing what you wanted to do? That there weren't people sort of looking at you and thinking, "You're not a good member of the, you're not are a true Iranian and a loyal member of the Islamic Republic.

FATHI: You know, I sort-of entered the workforce on what I was doing in the 1990s. And by that time Iran had changed dramatically. It was very different than the '80s when Khomeini was alive. By the early 1990s a lot of people who had supported Khomeini were becoming what we call reformers now. They were seeking to change the system.Of course, just by looking at me they knew I was not one of the revolutionaries. You can tell from the kind of clothes that people wear. How they carry themselves whether  they were people who moved up because of the revolution, or they were people who had never supported the revolution, so it was a very easy for them.

LANDIS: What are the signs? What do you wear in order to be a revolutionary or a non-revolutionary?

FATHI: As simple as the way you wear the headscarf. If you wear the scarf loosely over your head, show your hair, that's a sign that you're not a big supporter. You don't want to be a walking symbol of the regime. But those women who were revolutionaries, who were ideologically committed to everything about the revolution, they wore their headscarves in a way that was a statement. They were making a statement.

LANDIS: So what did this, how did this revolution changed itself? How much has it changed today? What are the biggest markers of that change?

FATHI: Well, you know, I think that the revolution has changed in very profound ways. I mean what you now is almost nothing left of the revolution and the regime Khomeini created in 1979.

LANDIS: They don't flog you if you want to swim?

FATHI: You can't swim. You still cannot swim. And people are still being flogged. Because it's in the penal code. But it doesn't happen as often as it used to, or you don't hear about it as often as you heard about it back then. They publicized these kinds of punishments to intimidate people. Now, they are quite embarrassed about having laws like that. And if they do it, they do it secretly behind closed doors.

LANDIS:  Let me ask you as we draw near the close here. Can Iran evolve away from this very strict Islamist republic into something more democratic? Or will it take another revolution?

FATHI: Now that's the million-dollar question. As I was saying there were certain principles of the revolution that are still there. One of them is, of course, the slogan of "Death to America." The other is how women dress. And the other one is animosity toward Israel. These are principles that Iranian leaders have been very hesitant to change. I don't know what it takes for for them to change them. But if they change, there's not much left of that revolution. But these are things that they are guarding. They don't want it to change. One thing I know is that Iranian people themselves are very hesitant to engage in any kind of activity that would lead to revolution, to any kind of institutional change. That is not because they like this regime. The reason for that is because they remember the 1979 revolution, the bloodshed.

LANDIS: But you were in the middle of the 2009 Green Revolution. You got kicked out of the country weeks afterwards.You even were told the regime put your name on a list where snipers could shoot you if they saw you. That's a revolutionary period, wasn't it?

FATHI: . It felt like a revolutionary period. But I think what people wanted, expected from those events was to force the regime to back down and just hold another election. They were not going to overthrow the regime.

LANDIS: But they thought the elections had been have been rigged.

FATHI: Exactly. 

LANDIS: Well, Nazila Fathi, it was a pleasure having you here. Thank you so much.

FATHI: Thank you so much for having me Josh.

Copyright © 2015 KGOU Radio. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to KGOU Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only. Any other use requires KGOU's prior permission.

KGOU transcripts are created on a rush deadline by our staff, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of KGOU's programming is the audio.

Brian Hardzinski is from Flower Mound, Texas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He began his career at KGOU as a student intern, joining KGOU full time in 2009 as Operations and Public Service Announcement Director. He began regularly hosting Morning Edition in 2014, and became the station's first Digital News Editor in 2015-16. Brian’s work at KGOU has been honored by Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the Oklahoma Associated Press Broadcasters, and local and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brian enjoys competing in triathlons, distance running, playing tennis, and entertaining his rambunctious Boston Terrier, Bucky.
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