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The Politics of Student Alienation: The Case of Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

James A. Bill
James A. Bill*
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

A leading force demanding change during the mid-20th century has been the university student. These demands are increasingly being backed by riot and rebellion as students throughout the world intensely challenge ongoing institutions and administrations. Few societies, regardless of geographic position, political system, or stage of economic development, have escaped recent episodes of serious student upheaval. France and Holland, the United States and Mexico, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Egypt and Pakistan, Japan and Vietnam, and Turkey and Korea have witnessed shattering outbursts of student activity. The student has become the loudest spokesman for social change and a leading catalyst for political transformation. Political elites everywhere now realize that they can no longer ignore student demands but must devise policies to come to grips with them. The substance of these demands and the consequent elite policy are two key factors that are shaping the direction and progress of nations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Winter 1969 , pp. 8 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1969

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References

Notes

1. The research resulting in this study was carried out in Iran between 1965-1967 under a fellowship granted by the Foreign Area Fellowship Program. The conclusions in this article, however, are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Fellowship Program.

2. An early analysis of the important Iranian middle class was introduced by Cuyler, T. Young in “The Social Support of Current Iranian Policy,” Middle East Journal, VI (Spring, 1952), 128-143.Google Scholar In 1963, we called special attention to the significance of the professional intelligentsia in Iran. See Bill, J. A., “The Social and Economic Foundations of Power in Contemporary Iran,” Middle East Journal, XVII (Autumn, 1963), 400-418.Google Scholar For a more extensive study of this new middle class and its role in Middle Eastern politics, see Halpern, Manfred, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 51-78.Google Scholar Several interesting analyses of the professional middle class by Iranian scholars have been printed in recent issues of the Persian journals, Jahān-i Naw and Masā’il-i Irān.

3. These figures have been calculated on the basis of statistics drawn from the two official Iranian censuses. See Ministry of Interior, National and Province Statistics of the First Census of Iran: November 1956, II, pp. 309-310Google Scholar; and Plan Organization, National Census of Population and Housing: November 1966, Advance Sample, Bulletin No. 3, p. 35.Google Scholar

4. Borhanmanesh, Mohammad. “A Study of Iranian Students in Southern California” (unpublished Ed. D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1965), p. 1.Google Scholar

5. Ministry of Labor, Barrasī-hā-yi Masā'il-i Nīrū-yi Insānī--Investigation of the Problems of Manpower (Tehran, 1964, I, pp. 567-570.Google Scholar

6. In his book, Javānī-yi Purranj (Suffering Youth), Iranian psychologist Dr. Nāsir al-Dīn Sāhib al-Zamānī lists and discusses sixteen problems that plague Iranian youth: problems of work, education, independent study, recreation, acceptance and recognition, sex, mate-selection and divorce, military service, generation conflict, togetherness without understanding, value conflicts, disharmony between home and school, too little or too much independence, lack of guidance and leadership, fear of rivals, and lack of social ideals. Ṣāḥib al-Zamānī's study is the most serious analysis of the situation of Iranian youth. The study is well research and well documented. Javānī-yi Purranj (Tehran, 1965), pp. 22-23.Google Scholar

7. The original questionnaire was drawn up by Seymour Martin Lipset and translated and administered by a trained Iranian social scientist. This survey will hereafter be referred to as the Tehran-National University Survey.

8. Ṣāḥib al-Zamānī, Javānī-yi Purranj, p. 60.

9. The Plan Organizations's “Introductory Report to the Third Educational Plan” indicates that in 1960 less than four percent of all students were enrolled in vocational schools. This percentage has been slightly increasing.

10. Ṣāḥib al-Zamānī, Javānī-yi Purranj, p. 33.

11. Shahani, Khusraw, “The Pain of Youth and Its Cure,” Khvāndanīhā, 27th yr., No. 4 (5 Mihr 1345/1966), p. 18.Google Scholar

12. An example of one such widely distributed movie is Majīd Muḥsinī's “Parastū-hā bi-lānah-hā-shān bar mīgardand-The Swallows Return to Their Nests. : Muhsinī has been a deputy to the 21st and 22nd Majlises and has traveled to Europe to try to convince Iranian students to return. In 1966, the Prime Minister's Office began putting out a high-quality literary magazine entitled Talāsh and has distributed it to Iranians throughout the world.

13. The man who directed the Iran study was Dr. Morteza Nassefat of the Institute of Social Studies and Research of Tehran University. The statistics of the following two paragraphs were drawn from his manuscript “Les Situation des Etudiants Iraniens a l'Etranger et Leur Role dans l'Echange des Valuers Culturelles entre l'Iran et Leurs Pays Hôtes” (Tehran, 1965)Google Scholar and from United Nations document UNESCO/SS/COM/5 Rev. -PRIO, Oslo, November, 1964. The sample was selected with regard to age, date of return, country of study, branch of study, period of residence abroad, type of student (scholarship), level of education, and sex. All those questioned returned between 1955 and 1962 and had been studying in France, England, or the United States. In the Egyptian and Indian surveys, the host countries were Germany, England, and the United States. The study itself is a very scholarly one and the Iranian section is particularly well done.

14. See Alfred Bakhash, Kayhan International, February 27, 1963.

15. Suyin, Han, A Many-Splendored Thing (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1952)Google Scholar, quoted in Mostofi, Khosrow, Aspects of Nationalism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Research Monograph No. 3, 1964), p. 45.Google Scholar

16. Personal copy of the minutes of the April 1967 meeting.

17. ‘Abd al-Ḥusayn Nafīsī and Iftikhār Ṭabātabā’ ī, Barrasī-yi Masā’ il va Mushkilāt-i Javānān-i Dānishjū va Dānishāmūz-i Ṭihrān-- An Examination of the Problems and Difficulties of Tehran Secondary and University Students (Tehran: Plan Organization, 1966).Google Scholar

18. In a personal interview, the Prime Minister vigorously denied this. There are probably few such agents in the Youth Palace, but it immediately inherited this reputation as its predecessor, the Youth Guidance Organization, was well staffed with such agents. To counter the criticism that the Youth Palace belongs to a privileged few, Iranian authorities have recently established a dozen more youth centers throughout the country. It is also important to note that a conscious effort is being made to separate the Youth Palace organization from formal government affiliation.

19. This is particularly interesting since only 1/6 of the students sampled were of lower class origin.

20. Habīb Nafīsī, “The Brain-Drain: The Case of Iranian Non-Returnees,” Paper Presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for International Development, New York, March 17, 1966, p. 7.

21. There are many relevant statistics but their reliability is questionable. It can be said with reasonable certainty though that 75 percent of the suicides in Iran are committed by young people between the ages of 15 and 30. In the early 196O's, there were half a million reported cases of opium addiction in Iran. Heroin is the near-monopoly of young people in Iran while opium is more common among the older generation. See Ṣāḥib al-Zamānī, Javānī-yi Purranj, pp. 203-204.

22. Personal Interviews, March 1966.

23. Prime Minister Huvaydā has been especially sensitive to the problems of youth and, with the Shah's support, he has made a great effort to understand and meet student demands.

24. “New Plan for the Organization of Schools,” Sukhan (Shahrīvar 1, 1341/1962), p. 77.Google Scholar

25. For a detailed analysis of the traditional power patterns in Iran, see J.A. Bill, “The Plasticity of Informal Politics: The Case of Iran,” Paper Prepared for Delivery at the U. C. L. A.--Society of Iranian Studies Conference on the Structure of Power in Islamic Iran, Los Angeles, California, June 26-28, 1969.