Reza Aslan: evaluation

Transcript context

…The current Iranian protests — how aware are they of this heritage? Is there a direct link? Or it’s something from the distant past, like talking to Americans about an 18th-century Shays’ Rebellion or something? Iran has had three major revolutions of the 20th century: the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, the Nationalist Revolution in 1953, and of course, the revolution of 1979. Those three moments are part of the history of the country. It’s what you learn in school. Now, of course, depending on the time, what you learn about it sometimes changes. The heroes change. For instance, there was a time in which Howard Baskerville, who fought in the Constitutional Revolution, was taught in schools. There were schools named after Howard Baskerville, streets named after Howard Baskerville. He was part of the traditional teaching of 20th-century history for most Iranian schoolchildren, myself included when I was there, but not anymore. Really, since 1979, that part of 20th-century history has diminished to the point where it’s really hard to find anyone under the age of 50 in Iran who could tell you who Howard Baskerville was anymore. Even the Constitutional Revolution itself hasn’t been taught with the same rigor since the ’79 revolution as it used to be. Primarily, for a while, it was because these are people fighting against the shah. I think post ’79, there was this idea that, hey look, in the same way that our ancestors fought against the shah, we are fighting against the shah, too. Over the years, the teaching of it has actually become a little bit less robust, primarily because it’s hard to argue that you’re following in the footsteps of a revolution, the purpose of which was to bring equal rights to each citizen, when you live in the current Islamic Republic. Why did the Constitutional Revolution fail?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.