4 - Zahra’s Paradise, 1977–1978

Summary

Homa Nategh Defends our Faith

It was early one October morning when our family phone rang. Mozafar, a friend of mine from Kurdish Sanandaj who lived not far from our Tehran home, was on the other end of the line. A major demonstration, he hastily explained, was underway at Tehran's main cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra (Zahra's Paradise). He was moments from stepping out the door when he decided to call me, so we agreed to meet there. It was a mild sunny day, and by the time I finished the walk from Aryashahr, our neighborhood in Tehran, to Behesht-e Zahra, it was late in the morning. Taking in the sea of people that had already filled the cemetery's vast grounds, I realized it would be no use trying to find Mozafar. After aimlessly wandering the cemetery for some time, a group of people outfitted with microphones and recording equipment caught my eye. I stepped closer to study the scene. Three or four foreign reporters were interviewing two women, one of whom I recognized as Dr Homa Nategh, a professor of history at the University of Tehran and a well-known Marxist critic of the Shah. I had met Dr Nategh a few times as a student. I attended several of her classes and raised the intellectual and political questions they raised for me with her after class. She was always kind and made herself available to students.

I waited for the foreign reporters to pack up and leave before I, along with some other members of the remaining crowd, approached the interviewed women. One bystander praised their intelligence and thanked them for representing the women of the revolution so graciously before the foreign press. More compliments followed. Then Nategh, who spoke confidently and in eloquent Persian, addressed us: “We put the foreign reporters in their place. They were questioning Islam's treatment of women, raising all sorts of concerns about revolutionary religious forces and the status of women. We, of course, defended our faith, telling them that in our revolution no difference exists between men and women. We are not at all worried,” she concluded, “about what will become of women after the Shah's fall.”