Trita Parsi

Trita’s father’s name had been put on a list of people who would be executed on the spot if he were to return to Iran. He was accused of having collaborated with the Shah’s Secret Service. Trita says this was utterly false, and that his father had actually been tortured by the Secret Service. After arriving in Sweden, Dr. Parsi felt it was necessary to return to Iran to clear the family name, as he feared the revolutionaries would execute other family members. Trita is moved as he recounts the day his father left Sweden.

“I knew that I was saying goodbye to him forever. There was no guarantee of what would happen. I knew this – even at five. We had only just been away a couple of months and my mother couldn’t even speak the language; it was a very lonely and scary time.”

“My father returns to Iran and they do not execute him on the spot. Instead, they put him back in the same prison he had just been in months earlier when the Shah controlled it. He ended up sharing the cell with the very man who had been the head of that prison when my father was an inmate the year before. So, my father’s former prison ward was now his prison mate. The revolution executed this prison ward, but my father actually managed to clear his name. Those who were then controlling the jail were a bunch of 20-year-olds: many of whom were my father’s former students and knew that he was not sympathetic to the Shah.

They were able to get him released, so my father left Iran and has never returned.”

The trauma of coming to Sweden under those circumstances and the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq had a profound impact on both Trita and his brother, who now works in foreign policy at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

“My uncle had been a governor during this time, so there were legitimate fears of what could happen to the rest of the family. I think it shows something – particularly for those living in the US, where there is a very romanticized view of what a revolution is.”

“America is one of the only countries in the world that has had a successful revolution. Most are quite disastrous and extremely chaotic, as was the one that I lived through. There is this Western – particularly, American – expectation: the notion that, when a situation is bad in the country, why don’t people just rise up and do a revolution? Like it’s as easy as snapping your fingers.”

Trita says Sweden was a fantastic country in which to arrive. Everything was different and exciting. Children pick up the language very quickly, so he and his brother had no trouble adjusting. Trita’s parents did though. As a university professor with his research funded by the Shah government, which had fallen, Trita’s father no longer had a job.

“Sweden was not particularly globalized at the time, so there was no way my father could ever get a job at a university without speaking Swedish. So, it was a veritable struggle for him. He ended up working for several years at an archive, essentially sorting newspapers. With a PhD. This was very different from being a professor in history and sociology. Unfortunately,

Dad never worked as an academic again, which was the case for a lot of people at the time. Sweden was in its own isolated corner in northern Europe. A job market in a society that was structured to handle people arriving who may be extremely highly educated but, because they did not speak Swedish, could simply not blend into society. To truly understand that their career had ended at the age of 39 could not have been easy.”

Trita credits his mother with being the rock of the family. She was just 29 when she relocated, so she had an easier time: especially when it came to learning the language. She easily became part of the job market; in fact, not having a PhD was an advantage. She had more options, which made the adjustment easier.

“Mom ended up working as a Persian native language teacher in the Swedish school system. In Sweden, if you are not a native Swedish speaker, then you are entitled to one to two hours each week of schooling in your native language, for which the government pays. I think this is brilliant. This later became my father’s work as well: certainly, more suitable for him than just sorting newspapers.”

“Nevertheless, it was difficult for everyone because they both come from relatively big families. As a result of the revolution and the war, everyone split up: some left Iran; some stayed. Most were spread out in various countries throughout Europe. That type of family cohesion, which is so essential, had changed across all of these borders.”

Trita first studied at Uppsala University where he did a bachelor’s and a master’s in political science. He was very interested in also getting a degree in economics, so he applied to the Stockholm School of Economics in his third year. He did his last two years at SSE where he received his Master’s.

“Those two years were absolutely wonderful! One of my greatest hopes is that my kids will actually go back to Sweden to study because, as I’m currently teaching at Georgetown, I see the value of some of the best schools in the United States at the graduate level. At the under-graduate level though, the best schools in the world can be found in Sweden. I would prefer to see my kids study in Sweden and have the same opportunity as I did.”

Trita has not lived in Sweden now for two decades. Back when he arrived though, Iranians who came to Europe were known as the new immigrants.

“What does a multi-cultural society look like and how does it function? That debate continues today. When I grew up, there was a very clear divide: You were either Swedish or not Swedish.”

“And for those who were of a foreign background, there was a sense of rejection, which then caused a counter-rejection. People were cleaning out their original identities even though they did not know much about what they actually were.”