In 1961, in my last year of high school in Tehran, I wrote two emotional poems inspired by current black liberation movements in Africa and America. Like most Iranians, I did not suspect that the Middle East was as guilty of racism against blacks as Europe and America were. Ironically, it was in New York, in the late ‘60s, that I came across medieval Iranian sources showing racism against blacks. I decided then to do a paper on the subject, but resisted the project for a decade. In November 1979, when Khomeini ordered the release of all blacks among the American hostages “because [blacks] are oppressed by American society” (The New York Times, November 19, 1979, A:12), I was finally prompted to undertake the present study, to set the record straight.

By all accounts the departure of the shah from Iran in January 1979 was met by most Iranians with the expectation of greater freedom for both the individual and the group. For a number of minority groups, this included the expectation of greater cultural and political autonomy. Initially, the new regime appeared to be sympathetic to such expectations, but by the summer of 1979 violent conflicts were erupting between the central government and members of several tribal, regional, and ethnic minority groups. While the central government appears to have contained the ethnic and regional autonomy movements, officials and analysts have continued to express concern over the possible fragmentation of Iran, and autonomy movements are viewed by many as a significant obstacle to the consolidation of the new regime and/or a threat to its stability.