A Report on the Oral History Project for Female Political Activists

A Report on the Oral History Project for Female Political Activists during the Second Pahlavi Era and Islamic Revolution

Summary
The Oral History Project for Female Political Activists during the Second Pahlavi Era and Islamic Revolution is being carried out since 2006. The project is underway by me on behalf of the Center for Publishing Imam Khomeini Works. It has been carried out in two phases. The first phase has been interviews with ten women most of whom political prisoners which has been compiled in 500 pages and is under printing. The second phase includes there parts which is underway at present. The main goal in the second phase was interview with some twenty female political and social activists who were active during Islamic revolution in different areas the texts of which will be compiled in the near future. The article is going to present a brief report about the women with their names.
Keywords: Female, Islamic Revolution, political campaigns, female social activists

Introduction:
The Oral History Project for Female Political Activists during the Second Pahlavi Era and Islamic Revolution was carried out by me in the Center for Publishing Imam Khomeini Works in two phases since 2006 till 2010. The aim was to collect systematically the memories of female political activists who were active during 1963 to 2006. The project in the second phase done in 2008 includes the oral history of a number of female political and social activists who took part in different areas during post-revolution era.
The research question of the project was first the status of women in campaign areas before the Islamic revolution and after the developments in 1963. The identification of the committed and active women a large number of whom were in the prisons of the Shah's regime is the goal of this research.
The recording and compiling of female oral history in the area of historiography of women during the Islamic revolution is a necessity in this research which is of great importance because the area of research especially scientific work in oral history is very difficult and drastic, and perseverance in this regard has direct relation with the researcher's motive and goals, especially when the status of research in the area of female historiography is very low despite the physical presence of women in scientific areas and it has often been found in libraries. This is while the researcher has many concerns in the area of oral history and sexuality is very distinctive in this area.
The main principle in female oral history is to establish relations with those who are regarded as the main theme of research, and it's very easier for such women to contact with female researchers due to the country's cultural conditions. Also it should be admitted that research should have a strong public relation in order to attract the interviewers. 
The goal of research in the meaning of historiography has often been manly.  The research and memories in oral history area has also often been the same. The figures of books about oral history of male activists prove this while the number of books concerning women's memories is very few. Although the number of female activists has been less than those of male, a significant list of them with some 600 names along with their photos is seen in the Joint Committee Prison. And this is just a small part of the role of female political activists. Thus, the compiling of female oral history can be an evidence for the historiography of the memories of pioneer women who played a major role in bearing the fruit of revolution and its growth and development.
As it was mentioned, the status of female oral history in terms of the research record faces with vacuum except a few number of Muslim women's memories in the form of memory-writing and not oral history, and a book about the memories of leftist women -- authored by Vida Hajebi, a political activist during the Shah -- inside the country.   Therefore, I engaged myself in this area due to my historic commitment and thanks to God's help, and so far I have succeeded to conduct interviews with thirty women who were active politically before and after the victory of Islamic revolution, and have recoded and registered more than 140 hours of interview. 
The project's application in the area of historical researches is to pay attention to the narrations of different narrators in common issues brought up in the interviews as well as to complete written documents of this period in the social and political history of our country. Also, telling and explaining of the unknown and unwritten narrations which the narrators explain about the period as the main actors is of great importance in analyzing the issues.
Barbara Tuchman, American Pulitzer-Prize winning historian in studying the reasons and elements behind the First World War took a quarter-century flashback to pre-First World War period as quoted by herself in order to find the root cause of the start of the war. I took such flashback from 1953 in studying the reasons and elements behind the Islamic revolution and provided the grounds for studying the project. In this line, I worked for six months on studying the events before the victory of the Islamic revolution especially the 1963 uprising and the formation of popular campaigns until the victory of Islamic revolution in 1979.
Different phases of female oral history project:
Phase 1) The methodology studying of oral history and compiling of the article of oral history methodology which has been published in the scientific-news journal of Researchers in the Research Center for Humanities and Cultural Studies (no. 16, August 2007 to March 2008).
Part of the article about the methodology of oral history says:
Oral history is carried out by using a special method which is among the naturalistic methods and qualitative research.
Naturalistic research methods are seeking to explain about the human's complexities. They believe in the human's complexity and his ability to shape experiences and that the fact is a composition of realities, and stress that they can understand the human's experiences through collecting and analyzing of his mentalities and profiles.  In this method, the experiences of the participants are noticed and the dynamic, holistic and individual aspects of the human's experiences are emphasized.
In any oral history project, the people take part in social interactions actively and find different experiences. They in these interactions and experiences collect various views and ideas in order to find facts. In this way, oral history researchers are seeking to study some of the facts by using the qualitative research and consider as unimportant their generalization.
The questions raised during the qualitative research of oral history for its searchers are who can have rich information resources for studying, and what we should see in order to achieve a clear understanding of phenomenon. Furthermore, new questions are also raised: with whom we can talk in order to approve, correct or deepen what we have understood? Burns and Grove in their qualitative research do not call the persons who take part in the research as individual or sample. They call them as participant or informant, because there is no interference on these persons, but they participate actively and this improves their social life and interactions. Patton (1990) calls this kind of sampling as purposeful or theoretical since the individuals are selected for study who have experienced the considered experience or have special views about it.

Sampling in qualitative research of oral history
The methods of sampling in oral history in terms of qualitative research are as follow:
1- Convenience method: Available or voluntary persons are used in this method. They can be recalled by an advertisement. Thus, these persons cannot have the richest information necessarily. So, it is possible that enough information is not obtained by this method.
2- Snowball method: This method which is sometimes called network or chain method is a suitable, efficient and cheap method for gaining access to those persons whose finding is difficult otherwise. In this method, the researcher asks the first samples selected usually in an easy way to introduce the other individuals who have valuable experiments and viewpoints in the considered field in order to take part in the study. This method not only takes less time but also makes the establishment of connection with the researchers easier due to the acquaintance of the ne individuals with the first person.
3- Theoretical or Targeted Sampling: The sampling starts with an easy way and little by little takes the shape of snowball and finally targeted sampling. In other words, the oral historian tries to select samples meaningfully on the basis of what kind of information is needed following the initial findings. Therefore, the selection of the individuals in later phase can be affected by those who have already been involved and the information they have given.
The result is that the process of sampling in oral history researches is based on the decisions made practically and its main character is being sensitive to the conditions, the collected information and the interpretations done.
The second Phase) My commitment in the first phase was to formulate a 500-page book about the memories of women. The first woman with whom I conducted an interview was Mrs. Manzar Kheir who was a teacher in Refah School and had been arrested and imprisoned in 1973.   Her graceful and glowing explanation of the imprisonment time is really readable.  But what was very important from my viewpoint due to the women's conditions, was the process of the female personality growth and their formation of social, political personality. Thus, their family characteristics and social conditions can be of great importance in terms of female historiography and the modeling of the current generation from such characters. The next one was Mrs. Sussan Haddad Adel who was a pupil of Refah School. She was less than 14 when she was imprisoned and her profile as the student generation of that period especially her explanation about Refah School and the method of teaching is very important in this interview. Mrs. Rezvaneh Dabbaq was Haddad Adel's schoolmate who was involved in the school's political activities. The tolerance of the painful imprisonment period was so obvious on her that the burden of the tortures of that time could be seen in her eyes.  The fourth one who was introduced by the institute was Mrs. Sorour Talieh (Yazdi). She was the first woman who met Imam Khomeini (May his soul rest in peace) in Neauphle le Chateau, taking the responsibility of caring him.  She is the eldest among the narrators. She was an activist under Mosaddeq – coming from the family of Hassan Roshdiyeh, the founder of schools in Iran. Her father and husband who were also involved in political activities played a major role in the formation of her personality. Her father was involved in anti-regime activities during Reza Shah and her husband had immigrated to the United States due to the pressure of Mohammad Reza Shah's court on him and was a co-founder of Islamic associations and a political activist.  Her family and campaign profile is also very interesting.
Mrs. Ashraf Montazeri who along with her brother Martyr Mohammad Montazeri was involved in anti-regime activities in printing and distributing communiqués and taking the documents of political activists to abroad. Mrs. Fatemeh Miri (Ma'adikhah), the intimate friend of Ashraf Montazeri who is the symbol of patience and tolerance among the ones who were interviewed. She joined the group of the anti-regime campaigners after personality development, withstanding the hardships of her husband. 
Mrs. Alieh Emamzadeh from Mansouroon group and the aunt of Martyr Jahanara is a political woman who lived secretly for two years and I in an interview asked her to talk about her secret life. She was among the last prisoners who were released from Qasr Prison on the eve of the victory of the Islamic revolution.  
Mrs. Soraya Maknoun is a cultural activist and a co-founder of the universities' Islamic associations in the early revolution whose husband was martyred by the MKO terrorist outfit in the early revolution. She is an academic who were basically involved in female areas after the revolution.
Mrs. Ashraf Boroujerdi is a political activist in Isfahan University and the wife of Martyr Engineer Moatamedzadeh who were martyred in a terrorist attack on June 28, 1981.
Mrs. Fereshteh Bzargan, the daughter of the late Mehdi Bazargan, the head of the interim government during the revolution who were interviewed due to the illness of Mehdi Bzaragan's wife. She explained interesting memories. She was the first woman who reported Imam Khomeini's entrance to Mehrabad Airport in English to the whole world. 
The second phase started from September 2009 and some 20 women were interviewed till September 2010 which has not so far been compiled. The aim in this stage was merely to interview those women who were involved in social and political areas after the revolution. Their names have just been cited as follows:
1- Mrs. Nafiseh Fayyazbakhsh (the youngest lawmaker in the fourth round)
2- Mrs. Raobabeh Rafiee (The wife of Martyr Fayaz Bakhsh)
3- Mrs. Simindokht Vahidi (the lady of culture)
4- Mrs. Fatemeh Rake'ee (a poet of revolution)
5- Mrs. Zahar Mirkhan (political prisoner)
6- Mrs. Akhtar Roudbari (political prisoner)
7- Mrs. Zahra Jazayeri (political prisoner)
8- Mrs. Masoumeh Jazayeri (political prisoner)
9- Mrs. Masoumeh Khadang (the wife of Dr. Rezaee)
10- Mrs. Zohreh Sefati (a religious lady)
11- Mrs.  Moqaddasi (a religious professor in Mashad)
12- Mrs. Zahar Shojaee (the advisor of the president during Khatami)
13- Mrs. Azam Nouri (a senior manager in the Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry)
14- Mrs. Esmaeel Nazari (political prisoner)
15- Mrs. Farangis Qassemi (political prisoner)
16- Mrs. Soheila Jelodarzadeh (lawmaker)
17- Mrs. Parvin Slaimi (political prisoner)
18- Mrs. Masoumeh Ebtekar (the champion lady)
19- Mrs. Moluk-ol Sadat Beheshti (The eldest daughter of Martyr Beheshti)

Female Oral History Centers
The centers which have focused on female oral history are very limited some of which have been cited as follows:
1- The Center for Islamic Revolution Documents which has published "the Oral History Project for Muslim Female Political Activists (1963-1979)" in a book by Azama Morad Haseli Khameneh.  The most primary steps have been taken in this research in which a few number of female activists have been recognized. But according to the author, the main problem was that some women were not ready to be interviewed while to me and in view of my experiences in this field, the connection skills of the enforcers of oral history project is of great importance.
2- The Institute and Center for Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works which has compiled and recorded from 2006 to 2010 the oral history of the political and imprisoned women before the revolution – from 1953 to 1980- and the women active in social, cultural, religious and political arenas during three decades after the victory of the revolution part of which is under publication.
3- The Artistic Department of the Organization of Islamic Revolution Propaganda (Sureh) which has published a few single memories of women in a limited number. The memories of the wife of Imam Khomeini (may his soul rest in peace) and Mrs. Tabatabaee (the wife of the late Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khomeini) are under publication. 

Conclusion
In compiling the oral history of Muslim female activists, the non-Muslim female oral history also needs to be supported by oral history centers in terms of female historiography so that such memories are not published and distributed outside the country.
- Originally, female oral history would better to be carried out extensively across the country, provinces and regions in order to complete the role of women in historiography.
- In this project, many women who played a major role in social and political struggles were not willing to be interviewed, thus their confidence-building, invitation and justification is necessary in this way, demanding its special strategies the importance of which should be addressed.
- The recognition and division of those women who have been active before and after the revolution socially and politically and the kind of their participation in social and political areas should be carried out within a scientific framework and this is very important. 
- With regard to Islamic revolution's historiography, thematic research should be based on interviews and adjusting the narrations and it is one of major goals. Therefore, in addition to the memories and narrations of the lives of humans, thematic research is of great importance in presenting oral history projects.

Faezeh Tavakoli
faezehtavakoli@yahoo.com  
MA in Historical Researches, Cultural Studies and Humanities Research Institute
Translated by: Mohammad Baqer Khoshnevisan