Remember – Episode Ten: Turning Great Suffering into Great Work; The Baha'is of Iran's Underground University Narrative

You won't let us into the university? We'll build our own. Sounds like a dream, right? It may seem crazy or like taking a step into the impossible, but there have been and are people throughout history who have changed the harsh, heavy, and oppressive reality by dreaming and pursuing their collective dream. The mobile or underground university of the Baha'is in Iran is an example of such a collective dream coming to fruition. "You know that really, aside from the problems and discrimination that all citizens of Iran face, Baha'is are subjected to more discrimination, oppression, and conflicts, including the fact that Baha'is are not allowed to study or work, and this has been evident since the early years of the revolution. Many Baha'is were expelled from various government and non-government jobs, including those who taught at universities. Baha'i students were also banned from studying and were expelled, and new students who wanted to start their education were not allowed to enter universities. Then the Baha'i community thought, well, it can't be that the youth of this community do not study." These are the words of Behrouz Afaq, a journalist, former director of the BBC World Service, and one of the founding fathers of Persian-language media, and this narrative reflects the suffering of thousands of Iranian Baha'is deprived of education over the past 40 years. A suffering that became a guiding light and from which a great edifice emerged; the establishment of the underground and mobile university of the Baha'is, despite repression! This week in the tenth episode of "Remember," I bring you a tale of hope, inspiration, and imagination. A narrative from narrators whose words can reflect ideas of civil resistance against oppression and dictatorship and autocratic rule; something that perhaps every oppressed and government-repressed society needs more than anything else. This week in "Remember," we will recall the tireless efforts of people who managed to build a great institution through cooperation and collective will in the most repressed conditions. I ask Behrouz Afaq how, in those early years, in the early 1980s, the Baha'is, who had no means or power, started and managed this university? Behrouz Afaq: "Before the internet came and the possibility of virtual and online teaching arose, classes of this university actually took place in people's homes. Classes were held in living rooms and around kitchen tables, libraries, educational workshops, and physics and chemistry labs were set up in garages and basements of people's homes. Notes, books, and educational materials were sent to the students by motorcycle couriers, and they would take exams or if they were to write theses, they would collect the theses and bring them to the graders. This is how it started. One would go to the bus station to pick up the students, another would cook food for them and bring it, one would drive them here and there, and one would prepare books for them. I mean, from the very beginning, this was truly a collective effort and it grew larger and larger. About 20,000 people have studied at this university so far. How do you think such a level of cooperation and empathy develops in a society that is known for not being very cooperative and collective? How does such significant cooperation form under repression? Afaq: Well, it is a minority community that is under pressure from all sides, and its rights are taken away, and no one comes to their aid. Naturally, they first come to each other's assistance and support one another. A very important point is that education and learning are immensely important in Baha'i teachings and are more essential than anything else. Therefore, the denial of university access for their children is a deprivation that families cannot come to terms with. Baha'is may be imprisoned, their cemeteries may be attacked, and in the early years of the revolution, they were executed, and it seemed to the Baha'i community that there was not much they could do in the face of these issues other than protest. But if they can do something for their children's education, they will do it. In fact, it is a kind of victory of resilience, creativity, and construction over ignorance and hatred. What can the Iranian society, which today perhaps reacts to government repression more than ever, learn from this victory of resilience over ignorance, as you say? As a successful example? Afaq: I think this is a truly extraordinary example that you can achieve a specific limited task with unlimited perseverance and resilience. A community like the Baha'i community, which is a minority and has faced so much deprivation, has not considered itself a victim and has not reciprocated in kind. They have engaged in a constructive and creative endeavor with ethics, peace, and adherence to the principles that the Baha'i community believes in, and they do this with a kind of integrity. They provide a service with integrity. Without claims, with dignity, patience, and kindness, without quarrels, disputes, or violence. This is a collective effort that becomes an institution and, in terms of mobilizing and organizing ordinary people, I think it is an extraordinary achievement. It is a very successful endeavor that can be inspiring and a model for others. Many of our non-Baha'i compatriots also assist in this project; professors and intellectuals who are not Baha'is volunteer and risk their jobs and even lives to come and help this university and teach, which is very significant, and we really need this kind of empathy and respect for diversity in Iran. Yes, you mentioned the help of non-Baha'is to this university. Although this university is not recognized by the Islamic Republic government, it is accepted in many prestigious universities around the world. What do you think is the reason for this global acceptance? Afaq: This constructive resilience is attractive and interesting to everyone. Everyone wants to be part of it because they think it is an extraordinary civil experience. Moreover, many students who have gone from the Baha'i university to prestigious universities around the world are now professors there and have become distinguished individuals at those universities. This is because they have studied hard and what has led to their success is their love and passion for learning, not resources. Because the resources have been very limited. Their interest in learning has enabled them to excel academically. I know of cases where, for example, professors [at foreign universities] were completely unaware of such a topic, and then a Baha'i graduate went to that university for further studies and said, 'I have studied this subject and I am skilled in these areas, and now I want to come to your university and pursue a master's or doctoral degree,' and when they tell this story and explain how this university operates, the professors are genuinely captivated. It is like a magnet. A parallel city! The hidden university. But what is this story that captivates everyone? How is it possible that in the repressed Iran of the Islamic Republic, which has officially and by law practiced Baha'i extermination and oppression for 44 years, some of the repressed decide to shape a new destiny for themselves and their descendants instead of surrendering to the fate imposed by the government? In the early years after the victory of the 1979 revolution, the deprivation, harassment, and devastation, as well as the arrests, torture, murder, execution, and exile of Baha'is in Iran intensified to such an extent that by 1983, more than 100,000 Baha'is were forced to leave their homeland. Nevertheless, many Baha'is remained in Iran, deprived of everything, including work and education! In 1987, expelled Baha'i professors, in collaboration with the Baha'i community, initiated a project that was more like a lofty dream. A secret and underground university for Baha'i youth deprived of education in Iran. Individuals like Dr. Pakzad, Dr. Parviz Javid, Dr. Ismail Ghaderian, and Dr. Parvin Mottahedeh were elected as the founding board of the underground university. In September 1987, the first entrance exam for the unofficial Baha'i university was held with the participation of 1,700 Baha'i candidates from across Iran. Where? In the basements of Baha'is' homes in several major cities. In October 1987, the first classes for Baha'i students began with 800 students. The secret and mobile university of the Baha'is gradually expanded. It became more successful each year. Baha'is diligently and in a completely academic and professional manner advanced the university's work, and with each passing year, more and more prestigious universities around the world recognized the degrees from this university and accepted its graduates. It seemed that an impossible dream had come true. A parallel city had been created. A place where Baha'i youth were no longer deprived of education. "In the late 1970s, a dissident thinker from Czechoslovakia named Václav Benda introduced a concept called Parallel Polis, which later expanded thanks to his writings and those of Václav Havel and other thinkers. The aim of this concept of Parallel Polis was that when you are faced with a totalitarian government that has a grip on all areas of life, whether cultural, economic, or political, you can resist and endure against this government in a non-violent, yet creative and proactive manner. In other words, become self-sufficient and be able to meet your own needs—culturally, economically, and politically. These are the words of Erfan Sabati, a sociological researcher who speaks about the construction of a parallel city. About the efforts of citizens under repression to build what they want without the repressive government. An idea that has many supporters in Eastern European civil resistance movements and, for example, in Poland, a mobile university emerged that is not dissimilar to the Baha'i mobile university in Iran. What was the aim of establishing this secret university in Poland? Erfan Sabati: "In Poland, students were expelled from universities due to purges or political and ideological censorship, or they were not allowed to enter universities at all, or professors were expelled, or even if they were not expelled, they were not allowed to discuss certain individuals, ideas, or books. As a result, there was a very eager atmosphere for teaching and learning among both students and dissident professors. These two groups came together and established the mobile university in Poland, which, however, only lasted for four years, but its success was such that, for example, the administrators of the Warsaw University [the official national university] were compelled to ask students and professors to return to official universities and promised that they would try to provide more freedoms and open up more space. This atmosphere lasted for a while, but again when repression intensified in 1981 after martial law, that small space of political openness that had been created in universities disappeared, but the memory of those four years of the mobile university in Poland still endures. Mr. Sabati, building these parallel institutions, this parallel city you refer to, is indeed a difficult task. It is not easy to do such a thing under repression. How can we build our desired institutions when a dictatorship is still in power? Sabati: Building parallel institutions means creating informal social, cultural, economic, and political systems that not only bypass the official structures of a totalitarian government but may ultimately replace them. This is generally referred to in the literature of civil resistance. For example, Ms. Erika Chenoweth, a renowned theorist in the field of civil resistance, emphasizes the importance of parallel institutions and states that civil resistance movements must be able to create and develop such institutions before they can succeed, thus gaining legitimacy and authority for themselves. In other words, alternative building must begin before the totalitarian government is dismantled and respond to needs that the totalitarian government neither wants nor can meet. The emphasis here is that this type of resistance has a constructive aspect and creates new structures, systems, and resources. For example, in Poland, the name of the Solidarity movement was derived from a newspaper called Solidarity, which was banned by the government but had millions of subscribers, and although this newspaper was banned, the fact that millions of people subscribed to it gave it legitimacy. The legitimacy that the resistance movement later enjoyed. This resilience and resistance were not just slogans. They were creative and constructive. Some Baha'i theorists who have written about this topic use the term constructive resilience for the establishment of the Baha'i university because it is not a passive movement; the aim has been to create something from this deprivation. Now, returning to the Baha'i university in Iran, did the founders of the Baha'i university take inspiration from the university in Poland? What strategy did they have in mind? Sabati: I doubt that the few Baha'i academics who came together in 1987 to establish this Baha'i university were familiar with the concept of Parallel Polis among Eastern European intellectuals or even the mobile university in Poland, both due to the severe information restrictions that existed in the world and especially in Iran after the revolution. It was more of an endogenous response from within the Baha'i community. It was an appropriate response to the circumstances they faced.