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The Anti-Aryan Moment: Decolonization, Diplomacy, and Race in Late Pahlavi Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2021

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In 1946, the entertainer and activist Paul Robeson pondered America's intentions in Iran. In what was to become one of the first major crises of the Cold War, Iran was fighting a Soviet aggressor that did not want to leave. Robeson posed the question, “Is our State Department concerned with protecting the rights of Iran and the welfare of the Iranian people, or is it concerned with protecting Anglo-American oil in that country and the Middle East in general?” This was a loaded question. The US was pressuring the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops after its occupation of the country during World War II. Robeson wondered why America cared so much about Soviet forces in Iranian territory, when it made no mention of Anglo-American troops “in countries far removed from the United States or Great Britain.” An editorial writer for a Black journal in St. Louis posed a different variant of the question: Why did the American secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, concern himself with elections in Iran, Arabia or Azerbaijan and yet not “interfere in his home state, South Carolina, which has not had a free election since Reconstruction?”

Type
Review Essay
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 691 - 702
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Robeson, Paul, “Russia, The Symbol of Progress,” Negro: A Review (St. Louis) 4, no. 8 (1946): 53Google Scholar.

2 “Our Nation's Schools,” Negro: A Review (St. Louis) 4, no. 10, (1946): 11.

3 Schayegh, Cyrus and Di Capua, Yoav, “Why Decolonization?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 52, no. 1 (2020): 141CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh, “Colorblind or Blinded by Color? Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Iran,” in Sites of Pluralism: Community Politics in the Middle East, ed. Oruç, Firat (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019), 172–74Google Scholar.

5 Mehri Nasiri, Hosayn Khosravi, and Asghar Rezapourian, “Shenakht-Nameh-ye Doktor Mohammad ‘Ali Islami Nodushan,” Motale‘at Adabiyat-e Tatbiqi, no. 54 (2020): 377–78. In another interview, Islami Nodushan was asked about his views of Yazdi philosopher Ahmad Fardid and supported Fardid's claim that he, not Al-e Ahmad, had first used the phrase gharbzadegi (Westernitis), which Al-e Ahmad then popularized. Nodushan used the term “Occidentalise” to translate gharbzadegi. See Maryam Seyyed Hasani, “Zendegi Sarshar az na gofteh-hast: Mosahebeh ba Doktor Islami Nodushan,” Rudaki, no. 12–13 (2007): 270. Most researchers have focused on Nodushan's literary output, especially his work on the Shahnameh, but not on his travelogues, which for historical purposes offer many valuable insights. This special issue, edited by Javad Abbasi and Mahmood Fotoohi-Rudmajani, focuses on various aspects of Nodushan, though not in the contexts (or in reference to some of the works) discussed here. In particular, see: Abbasi, Javad, “A Realist Iranophile: Reflections on Professor Nodoushan's Contributions to Iranian Studies,” Iran Namag 3, no. 4 (2019), 3–22Google Scholar.

6 Mohammad ʿAli Islami Nodushan, “Mard-e Javan va Darya,” Yaghma 150 (Day 1339/1960–61): 485–86. The title, “The Young Man and the Sea,” suggests a take on Ernest Hemingway's novella, The Old Man and the Sea.

7 Nodushan, “Mard-e Javan va Darya,” 488–89.

8 See Bill, James A., The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), ch. 4Google Scholar, for an indispensable history of this relationship, although not about Nodushan or race relations. For other important works on US-Iranian relations and Iranian student groups, see respectively: Shannon, Matthew K., Losing Hearts and Minds: American-Iranian Relations and International Education during the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; and Matin-Asgari, Afshin, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar.

9 Kashani-Sabet, “Colorblind,” 153–80.

10 For discussions of race in Iran, see Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh, Frontier Fictions, Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804–1946 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. For discussions of slavery, media, and race in Iran, see Beeta Baghoolizadeh, “Seeing Race and Erasing Slavery: Media and the Construction of Blackness in Iran, 1830–1960” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2018). For a history of slavery until abolition in Iran, see Behnaz Mirzai, A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800–1929 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2017). For a study of race in Persianate literature, see Minoo Southgate, “The Negative Images of Blacks in Some Medieval Iranian Writings,” Iranian Studies 17, no. 1 (1984): 3–36. For anthropological discussions of Afro-Iranians, see Mahdi Ehsaei, Afro-Iran: The Unknown Minority (self-published, 2016). Also, Pedram Khosronejad, “The Face of African Slavery in Qajar Iran: In Pictures,” The Guardian, 14 January 2016. For related discussions, see Amirhossein Vafa, “Race and the Aesthetics of Alterity in Mahshid Amirshahi's Dadeh Qadam-Kheyr,” Iranian Studies 51, no. 1 (2017): 141–60. These studies do not consider, however, Iran's engagement with Black global politics in the contexts discussed here.

11 Mohammad ʿAli Islami Nodushan, “Nabard-e Rang Dar Ifriqa-e Jonubi,” Yaghma 13, no. 3 (Khordad 1339/May–June1960): 114–15.

12 H. E. Chehabi, “South Africa and Iran in the Apartheid Era,” Journal of Southern African Studies 42, no. 4 (2016): 690–91, doi: 10.1080/03057070.2016.1201330.

13 Ettela‘at, no. 12074, 7 September 1966, 1, 3. For an interesting essay at the time about race relations in South Africa, see Hushang Moqtader, “Tab‘izat-e Nezhadi Dar Ifriqaye Jonubi,” Khirad va Kushesh, no. 2 (June–July1969): 132–43.

14 Ettela‘at, no. 11618, 22 February 1965, 1, 4.

15 Ibid., 4.

16 Seyyed Hadi Khosroshahi, “Mosalmanan-e Siyah va Nehzat-e Rahayi Bakhsh dar Amrika,” Falsafeh va Kalam, Maktab-e Tashayo‘, no. 11 (May–June1964): 44–48. Khosroshahi wrote another article that referenced a New York Times article and discussed Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. His writings reflected the intellectual distinctions in Iranian society regarding the narratives of Black American Muslims and racial tensions in America. See Seyyid Hadi Khosroshahi, “Islam behtarin panahgah-e siyahan-e Amrika,” Falsafeh va Kalam, Dars-hayi az Maktab-e Islam, no. 6 (Jan.–Feb. 1964): 40–44. After the revolution, Khosroshahi (d. 2020) served as the Islamic Republic's ambassador to the Vatican. For related writings on Khosroshahi and Algeria in connection with Iranian revolutionaries, see Naghmeh Sohrabi, “The ‘problem space’ of the historiography of the 1979 Iranian Revolution,” History Compass 16, no. 11 (2018): 1–10. The issue of race, however, is not problematized in Sohrabi's essay. For important discussions about Iranian intellectuals and their engagement with events in Algeria and elsewhere, see Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996); and Negin Nabavi, Intellectuals and the State in Iran: Politics, Discourse and the Dilemma of Authenticity (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2003).

17 Ettela‘at, no. 11619, 23 February 1965, 4.

18 Ibid.

19 Ettela‘at, no. 12552, 6 April 1968, 1–2, 17.

20 Ibid., 18. This article discussed the reaction of Pope Paul VI to Dr. King's death. King had visited the Vatican in 1964, seeking support for the civil rights struggle in the United States.

21 Ettela‘at, 7 April 1968, 1.

22 Kayhan, no. 6494, 08-01-1344/1965. University scholar and historian, Khanbaba Bayani, had translated an excerpt from André Siegfried's Les Etas-Unis d'Aujourd’hui (Paris, 1927) that discussed the history of the Ku Klux Klan. This is one of the earliest known Persian discussions of this group; Khanbaba Bayani, “Ku Klux Klan,” Adabiyat va Zabanha, Nashriyeh-e Zaban va Adabiyat Farsi, no. 4 (1948): 18–27.

23 Kayhan-e Varzeshi, no. 549, 11 December 1965, 17. In the next issue, American boxer Emile Griffith was highlighted for retaining his middleweight title; Kayhan-e Varzeshi, no. 550, 18 December 1965.

24 Ettela‘at, no. 11327, 26 February 1964, 1. Muhammad Ali's victory over Floyd Patterson also made front-page news in another Persian newspaper: Kayhan, no. 6691, 23 November 1965, 1, 11.

25 Parviz Khorsand, “Cassius Clay: Champion of Boxing,” Falsafeh va Kalam, Nashriyeh-e Ma‘aref-e Ja‘fari No. 1 (Mehr 1343/September–October 1964): 49–55. This fascinating piece references Langston Hughes and boxer Jack Johnson's victories and challenges, in assessing the experiences of Black Americans.

26 Kayhan, no. 6691, 23 November 1965, 1.

27 Iran's literati became similarly engrossed in the war. The literary journal Sokhan published a series of articles on Vietnamese art, poetry, and antiquity. A particularly moving section included the vignettes of Vietnamese children who had become the unfortunate and innocent victims of the conflict. These vignettes, collected by a French journalist and translated into Persian for an Iranian audience, voiced in simple and poignant language the hardship that Vietnamese children endured. See the issue of Sokhan, no. 22 (1972).

28 History Vault, File 201748 009 0050, Collection: Vietnam Veterans Against the War Records, 1967–2006; Source:Vietnam Veterans Against the War Records, 1967–2006 (Mss 370; PH 4580; M2012-012; M2013-174), Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin Iranian Student Association in Washington-Baltimore to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 20 November 1973.

29 History Vault, File 201748 009 0050, Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization, Inc., “Statement of VVAW/WSO in Solidarity with the Iranian Students Assoc.,” 6 September 1975.

30 Towfiq, no. 50, 4 March 1971. For other images of Vietnam, see Towfiq, 16 September 1969; Towfiq, 22 October 1970; and Towfiq, 12 November 1970. For discussions of Iran and Vietnam in the context of race and decolonization, see my book, Heroes to Hostages: America and Iran in a Troubled Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Elements of these arguments also were presented as “America's Vietnam in Iran” at an online workshop on Pahlavi Iran, 19 March 2021, UCLA.

31 Towfiq 49, no. 50, 4 March 1971.

32 For an informative and indispensable discussion of Al-e Ahmad's background and prominent writings, see Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1993), 39–80. Also, Nikpour, Golnar, “Revolutionary Journeys, Revolutionary Practice: The Hajj Writings of Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Malcolm X,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 34, no. 1 (2014): 67–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Al-e Ahmad's hajj travelogue, see Lost in the Crowd, trans. John Green (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1985).

33 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Mission for My Country (London: Hutchinson, 1961), 175, 178.

34 Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Safar-e Amrika (Tehran: Ferdows, 2003), 212–18. This section provides an extensive and important discussion on Farmer and the African American civil rights movement. Before the complete pubication of this work, parts of Al-e Ahmad's US travelogue were published in the journal, Mahnameh-e Jahan-eI Now.

35 Mohammad ʿAli Islami Nodushan, “Azadi-ye Mojassameh: Gozareshi az Safar-e Amrika,” Yaghma, 20th year, No. 8 (Aban 1346/Oct.–Nov. 1967), pp. 393–394.

36 Ibid., pp. 394–399. Also, Islami Nodushan, "Azadi-ye Mojassameh: Gozareshi az Safar-e Amrika,” Yaghma, 20th year, No. 11 (Bahman 1346/Jan.–Feb. 1968, pp. 561–573. For Nodushan's other related publications, see Azadi-ye Mojassameh (Tehran: Entesharat-e Tus, 2536/1977); and Iran ra az Yad Nabarim, 4th ed. (Tehran: Entesharat-e Tus, Bahman 1351/1973).

37 Islam Kazemiyeh, “Dar Barehyeh Yek Zorurat,” Arash (1968), 4.

38 Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, “Protest and Perish: A History of the Writers’ Association in Iran,” Iranian Studies 18, no. 2–4 (1985): 189–229.

39 Roland Burke, “From Individual Rights to National Development: The First UN International Conference on Human Rights, Tehran 1968,” Journal of World History 19, no. 3 (2008): 275–96. See also A. S. Thompson, “Tehran 1968 and Reform of the UN Human Rights System,” Journal of Human Rights 14, no. 1 (2015): 84–100; Sarah B. Snyder, “The 1968 International Year for Human Rights: A Missed Opportunity in the United States,” Diplomatic History 42, no. 5 (2018): 831–58; and Andrew S. Thompson, “The First World Conference on Human Rights and the Challenge of Enforcement,” Iran Namag 3, no. 4 (2019), 72–90. Also, for criticism of the human rights discourse and the shah, see Roham Alvandi, “Late Pahlavi Iran and its Global Entanglements” (lecture), University of Pennsylvania, 12 November 2018. For conversations about race, human rights, and civil rights, see Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, “Global Civil Rights in Iran: Gender, Poverty, Race” (lecture), Iran and Global Decolonization symposium, University of Pennsylvania, 20 May 2021. My arguments are excerpted from Heroes to Hostages.

40 “Roy Wilkins to Head U. S. Delegation,” Milwaukee Star, 27 April 1968, 12 (available from Readex: African American Newspapers).

41 Suzanne R. Spring, “Year of the Shah,” Harvard Crimson, 5 June 1980, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/6/5/year-of-the-shah-pthe-big. Also, Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (London: Oneworld, 2008), p. 334.

42 National Library and Archives of Iran (hereafter NLAI), File 245-004425-0049, “Mobadelat-e Bazargani-ye Iran ba Keshvarhaye Ifriqa-i dar Salhaye 1350/51.” See also NLAI, File 245-004425-0070, for a comparison of the trade figures from the first six months of approximately 1969 and 1970. For economic relations with Ethiopia, see NLAI, File 245-004204-0034, “Ravabet-e Bazargani-ye Iran dar 5 Mahe Avval-e Sal-e 1348 va Moqayeseh-e an ba Moddat-e Moshabeh-e Sal-e Qabl.” This folder contains very detailed and extensive trade figures for several years.

43 Léopold Sédar Senghor, “Farhang-e ‘Zangi’ Chist?” Jahan-e Now (1970–71): 48–50. This volume includes many translations and pieces on African film and theater, including by Bakary Traoré and Paulin Soumanou Vieyra.

44 Agostinho Neto, “Piruzi Hatmi Ast,” trans. Ahmad Karimi, Jahan-e Now (1970–71): 45–47.

45 Fatemeh Qassemzadeh, “Idehayeh Mo‘aser va Qavi dar Ifriqa” (trans. from Le Monde, June 1970), Jahan-e Now (1970–71): 103–9.

46 Sokhan 20 (1970): 510.

47 Sokhan 22, no. 7–12 (1973): 1013–14. Also, see David Caute, “Pust-e Siyah va Maskhaye Sefid,” trans. Kazem Zarʿeiyan, Negin, no. 73 (1971).

48 ʿAli Shariati, Duzakhiyan-eRuye Zamin (Ahvaz: Intisharat-e Talash, 1957). For an informative essay on Shariati's translation, see Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “Who Translated Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth into Persian?” Jadaliyya, 13 August 2020, https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41564/Who-Translated-Fanon's-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-into-Persian. For a useful biography of Shariati, see Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998).

49 For more about Shariati on Fanon, see Farzaneh Farahzad, “Voice and Visibility: Fanon in the Persian Context,” in Translating Fanon Across Continents and Languages, ed. Kathryn Batchelor and Sue-Ann Harding (London: Routledge, 2019), 129–50.

50 Lady Mary Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (London: J. Murray, 1856), 78; Kashani-Sabet, “Colorblind.”

51 Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions, ch. 7; Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, “Cultures of Iranianness: The Evolving Polemics of Iranian Nationalism,” in Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, ed. Nikki R. Keddie and Rudi Matthee (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 162–79. For related discussions, see David Motadel, “Iran and the Aryan Myth,” in Perceptions of Iran: History, Myths and Nationalism from Medieval Persia to the Islamic Republic, ed. Ali M. Ansari (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014). For another related study, see Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).

52 For a recent study of the subject, see Robert Steele, “Crowning the ‘Sun of the Aryans’: Mohammad Reza Shah's Coronation and Monarchical Spectacle in Pahlavi Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 53, no. 2 (2021): 175–93. See also Ali Ansari, The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 174, for implications of the title. For related discussions, see Roham Alvandi's introduction to The Age of Aryamehr: Late Pahlavi Iran and its Global Entanglements, ed. Roham Alvandi (London: Gingko, 2018). For historical background, see Iran: A Country Study, ed. Richard F. Nyrop (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1978), 65.

53 “It Is Time for Us to Return to Our True Stand with Our Brothers and Sisters,” Black Panther 5, no. 23 (1970): 6.

54 International Protest Supports Iranian Students,” Black Panther 5, no. 8 (1970): 6. See also “It Is Time for Us To Return,” 6.

55 International Protest Supports Iranian Students,” 20.

56 Sokhan, Vol. 20 (1970): 471.

57 “Staple Singers the Hit of Iranian Arts Festival,” Jet, Vol. 38, No. 26, 1 October 1970, 60.

58 Robert Steele, “The Keur Farah Pahlavi Project and Iranian-Senegalese Relations in the 1970s,” Iranian Studies 54, no. 1–2 (2020): 1–24, doi: 10.1080/00210862.2020.1792768.

59 Majalleh-e Daneshkadeh-e Adabiyat, Daneshgah-e Tehran 23 (1976): 1.

60 Islami Nodushan, Mohammad ʿAli, “Afriqa az Nazar-e Sédar Senghor,” Majalleh-e Daneshkadeh-e Adabiyat, Daneshgah-e Tehran 23 (1976): 1–10Google Scholar. When discussing Senghor's ideas, the newspaper Ettela‘at translated négritude by using the less palatable term kakayi; Ettela‘at, 27 June 1976, 9.

61 Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo), “You hang homosexuals, stone women and exterminate Jews,” Twitter, 30 May 2020, https://twitter.com/secpompeo/status/1266875321590087685?lang=en.

62 M. Azad, “Bar Bolandtarin Qalehhayeh Donya,” in Nameh-e Kanun-e Nevisandegan-e Iran (Tehran: Mu'asseseh-e Entesharat-e Agah, 1980), 91. For an interesting article on Lumumba translated from a French piece in Historia, see Abdollah Kowsari, “Payan-e Zendegiye por Majera va Ghamangiz-e Lumumba,” Khavandaniha 28, no. 76 (1967–68): 21–27. In addition, a Persian translation of Lumumba's My Country, Congo, appeared in 1970: Mihan-e Man, Kongo, trans. Amir Fereydun Gorgani (Tehran: Morvarid, 1969). For reporting on congressional investigation of the CIA's role in alleged plots against foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro and Lumumba, see Sokhan 20 (1970): 232; and Kayhan, 22 November 1975.

63 Jonathan C. Randal, “Women, Blacks Ordered Freed in Iran,” Washington Post, 18 November 1979, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/11/18/women-blacks-ordered-freed-in-iran/66947cbd-c9b1-4933-ac10-0e400c67e215. To read about the recollections of an African American marine, Westley Williams (d. 2020), held hostage in Iran, see: Chris Churchill, “Black, Female Iranian Hostages Excluded from Deal,” Times Union, August 20, 2016: https://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Churchill-Black-female-Iranian-hostages-9175262.php. Willams' release is plausibly described here as a “publicity move.” For a discussion of activist Angela Davis in a women's magazine just before the revolution, see “Hamaseh-e Zendegi-ye Yek Zan-e Mobarez: Amrika dar Ayineh-e Angela Davis,” Zan-e Ruz, no. 706, 23 Day 1357/13 January 1979, 22–23.