A Bit of Iran's Legacy: In Conversation with Mrs. Roya Parsay

Q - From KianB: I am somehow one of the kids who was growing under your aunt'policies when I was in kindergarten and primary school in the 70's. Too young to remember everything, now after looking 30 years back, I realize how intelligent and self-giving they were working to develop a prosperous future for next Iranian generations. That is of course something I am proud of. But there are a lot of leftists and Islamists propaganda to demonize Shah and his people as a justification for 1979 revolution. Please tell us a bit how you grew up and what was the sphere in that time to grow up in a country with an optimistic future? And how Iranians react to the fact that revolution destroyed our future?


A- I do want to answer this question for the sake of the younger generation or somehow older ones like you who asked this question. You see we were in a state of transition from old ways to new ways. We did not know how good we have it since we did not see the neighboring countries and TV would not show them realistically. TV would not even show Iran realistically.
What was hidden from us for example was Khomeini himself. I was seeing a lot of growth economically, advancement, but people were not growing with it. I learned about politics after revolution, at that time I was just watching what happens to us. I was a pure ignorant about politics.

I would see my aunt as Secretary of Education to go to work every day at 6 am and come back home with a pile of files to continue to work at night. I also would see my father appraising Mossadegh and I loved both of them I mean both Shah and Mossadegh and also both my aunt and my father. I could see my father and my aunt loving each other at the same time as discussing issues with each other, in fact my father was not physically and emotionally able to leave his house for 5 days when he heard my aunt was executed by firing squad.

But I could not have a discussion with a leftist(chap) or any other political person in public or didn't know any in private cause it was not allowed or talked about.
But the society was living in peace, harmony and struggling too. Nothing compared to what is going on now, we were a proud nation then and we are a shameful nation now.
We are ashamed of how our religion is portrayed to the world by this regime in Iran, these terrorist people in power ,beliefs, customs and the way the government is running in Iran. We are back to dark ages. We don’t want to be associated with them and ask that this regime be eliminated totally.

We want the old days back . When we did not have to wear a veil by force or when we proudly had a woman in the cabinet. Dr.Parsay was a pioneer and I want her way to be continued.

Now this was my answer to this question. I invite all to answer this question as comment anonymous and tell us how they felt during those times. Thanks.