Baroness Haleh Afshar

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is Baroness Hali Afshar. She grew up in Iran and Paris, but for the past three decades has called Britain her home.

Presenter0:35

Now an expert in Middle Eastern affairs, she holds professorships in politics and women's studies and in Islamic law, her expertise and views in high demand in the West post nine eleven. A crossbench peer, at first glance she seems an unlikely member of the establishment, as a Shia Muslim, a Marxist and a committed feminist, and, in this at least, she is part of a distinguished family tradition.

Presenter0:59

Her mother campaigned successfully for Iranian women to be given the vote, and her grandmother railed against the wearing of the veil. Although it has to be said, Haliach Shahr, on your grandmother's part that wasn't really motivated by any political stance, she simply thought she was too pretty.

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:11

Motivated

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:15

She felt she was far too beautiful to cover, and she couldn't see why she should.

Presenter1:19

And did she really cast it aside?

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:19

And if she

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:21

Oh, yes, I mean my grandfather gave the very first party in which women were invited uncovered.

Presenter1:28

And when would that have been the party?

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:30

Oh I sh I should know the exact date, but I don't. But it was in the mid twenties that they actually removed the veil. But my maternal grandmother was very clear that she really was not to be hidden anywhere.

Presenter1:41

And you yourself we have to make it clear because it's uh radio y you you look to me a a a very westernized woman. You have this very chic bob, you're wearing sort of left bank colonnette.

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:49

Uh

Presenter1:53

Very Western.

Baroness Haleh Afshar1:53

Well, I I I never I mean, it really clothes uh was always western when I was growing up. It was never any question of anything else. And uh I would find it very difficult to cover because for three generations we've we've actually insisted on not covering.

Presenter2:10

Yeah. In the introduction there, when I was explaining some of your background, I listed the many and various characteristics and causes that you're known for, a feminist, a Muslim, a Marxist, an expert on the Middle East. I'm wondering which one you would put first on the list, which is the most important.

Baroness Haleh Afshar2:24

Well, I think that that Marxism is is certainly changed over time. I became a Marxist, I think, when I was about

Baroness Haleh Afshar2:32

eleven or twelve because my cousin was a Marxist and I remember writing slogans on on on the wall of our of our garden.

Baroness Haleh Afshar2:40

And my father took me to one side and said

Baroness Haleh Afshar2:43

why are you writing these slogans on the wall? And I said, well, how do you know I'm writing them? He said, because nobody else would write at knee level, you know. But I think that that my Marxism has been tempered by life and our experiences. So in all of those characteristics,

Baroness Haleh Afshar2:59

It's difficult to say because I am

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:02

a feminist, and I think that that's at the core of everything that I do.

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:06

I am also born in Iran and I remained Iranian. But of course, after 9-11, I then became a British Muslim.

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:15

because that was an identity which was regarded as problematic.

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:19

And we were all told to choose between our identities as Moslems and our identities and as British. And I am what I am. And why should I choose when other people don't have to?

Presenter3:31

For now then, tell me about your first piece of music that you've chosen to day. What is it, and and why have you chosen it?

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:37

Barum Barune is a song about the arrival of the rain, and it's sung by Shusha Gabi, who is a wonderful singer for whom I have a lot of of admiration, because she was

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:49

One of the first Iranian women to come in the West, and she was bohemian and a singer, and loved, and I absolutely adored her.

Baroness Haleh Afshar3:57

And it's also the celebration of rain.

Baroness Haleh Afshar4:01

When I was little we used to sort of sing baroom baroon when it was raining, you know. We all used to rush out and dance in the rain because it was such a wonderful gift.

Speaker 34:11

Permolegiseki Quam ten yokuri Nasreolohobuazizom tusomna turi

Baroness Haleh Afshar4:20

Real

Speaker 34:28

War on war on each other.

Speaker 34:32

What on title?

Presenter4:37

Shusha Gapian Barun Baruni, The Reign. So, Hari Afshar, you were born in Iran in 1944. Your father was a politician and an academic, and it was.

Presenter4:46

It's fair to say a hugely privileged upbringing that you had. Describe it to me.

Presenter4:50

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar4:50

Well, I I was I was very lucky. I mean my parents were both very, very active and busy, but also incredibly loving.

Baroness Haleh Afshar4:58

And really in my childhood I never had to do anything at all for myself. I mean, when I was fourteen years old, my nanny would bath me, she would undress me, she would put me to bed, she would be there in the morning, she would dress me, my mother would comb my hair, and it was just completely accepted that this is how it is.

Presenter5:17

So you're every whim catered to and somebody else always always doing it. I'm wondering about the house itself. How what sort of home was it? What made it look?

Baroness Haleh Afshar5:21

I'm wondering about the house itself. What sort of home was it?

Baroness Haleh Afshar5:29

And it kind of had the core boisier turn because they had just come back from France and we had this fabulous staircase on which my brother and I didn't behave at all with the kind of necessary decorum. We used to slide down, jump up and down. And, you know, we were only four, so there were always more people working looking after us than there were us, because, you know, there was a gardener and a driver and a cook and a cleaner and there was an army of people looking after us. And did your friends lead the same sort of lives? Well, yes. The friends that I knew well did. First of all, the family was enormous. So all around were my uncles and my cousins. And so we actually were like a sort of great big army of kids. So most of my friends were from there.

Presenter6:13

And your family, when you were quite young, moved to Paris. Why did they move?

Baroness Haleh Afshar6:17

Well, a whole lot of things happened. I think part of the kind of personal reason was that I had a baby brother who died and I was very upset about that.

Baroness Haleh Afshar6:26

Part of it was that it was the late forties and there were all kind of negotiations about um international politics, and my father had done comparative law.

Baroness Haleh Afshar6:36

And the Iranian government was very keen to have someone who would actually be able to.

Baroness Haleh Afshar6:41

Give advice and present the Iranian position and safeguard our position. And so we lived there for about two years.

Presenter6:49

And your young life in Paris is it I I can't believe this is true. I read that you um well, you've described this very uh rarefied, some might say spoiled existence that you had as a tiny child, but is it true that your parents had a certain type of Persian rice flown across to Paris because you refused to eat uh the the normal rice that one could buy in the markets there?

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:07

That one could buy an

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:09

Well, I'm afraid it is true. I mean, the the the the my rice came in a diplomatic bag, and I would only eat it if my mother cooked it. So you were very, very spoiled. I mean, were you

Presenter7:20

I mean were you were you a brat? Were you a spoiled brat?

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:22

I was a very difficult child. I really was very difficult. And my family would say I was a brat.

Presenter7:22

But I'm

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:29

I riled against all the rules and regulations, you know, that demanded that you behave in particular ways. I'm I'm not very good at behaving in particular ways.

Presenter7:39

Yes, I get that feeling. I'm very interested in your mother. She seems like a.

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:39

I'm I'm

Presenter7:43

A very sophisticated character. I mean, although she was somebody who campaigned for women's rights, she did it in an untypical way. I mean, she was.

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:52

My mother was was a piece I mean, my mother was

Baroness Haleh Afshar7:55

And she remains really an icon in my life. She was fantastic.

Baroness Haleh Afshar8:00

Because she was exactly the opposite to my bratish existence. She pursued her politics by always the the most sociable way, giving the very best dinner parties, inviting the right people. So she could function within a system fantastically effectively. And then she's produced this brat who

Presenter8:20

Tell me about your second piece of music to day, then.

Baroness Haleh Afshar8:23

Well, Jaten Rais is a song that my mother used to sing when I was very, very little, when we were in in France.

Baroness Haleh Afshar8:30

and she, unlike me, could really sing.

Baroness Haleh Afshar8:33

And very sadly I lost my mother when I was fourteen.

Baroness Haleh Afshar8:37

And um this song which is about waiting and thinking.

Baroness Haleh Afshar8:42

Um, just makes me think of her.

Speaker 48:44

Lord L'Artis, near love, leanton par Nevon ma porteur des brie noitans, Gueton ma porteur, de coutoma, et las pleuvians, pleuvians, nevians

Presenter9:12

Josephine Baker and Jatandre, I will wait. So, Harry Archae, it was a quintessentially English book that made you question the constraints, such as they were, of this life you were living. Jane Eyre. It it seems rather odd to me that you came across a book like that at all. Explain a little of the impact that it had upon you.

Baroness Haleh Afshar9:30

Well, I mean, I was fourteen and there was this young woman

Baroness Haleh Afshar9:34

Who loses everything?

Baroness Haleh Afshar9:36

And she is able to cope, first of all, with the hardships at boarding school and and then to just stand on her own feet. And I just thought, you know, if I wanted to do anything, you know, if I wanted to get up, I need my nanny to dress me. So, you know, how would I ever be able to do something like that? And it actually made me decide to come to England.

Baroness Haleh Afshar9:58

And I knew not a word of English?

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:00

And my father did something that he had never done before. He actually took.

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:05

um two months' leave, and we drove from Tehran to London.

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:11

talking all the way about what a bad decision it was, or, you know, maybe I should change my mind and

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:17

And eventually when we got to England it was obvious I wasn't going to change.

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:22

So then I they put me in a in a school where I was supposed to learn English.

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:29

I didn't know any English. The only words I knew was the words of a song called Kiss Me, Honey, Honey, which wasn't really much ever.

Presenter10:35

I mean, it would only get you so far.

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:38

Well, with my upbringing it wouldn't be happy anywhere.

Presenter10:42

And it seems to me I you know, obviously in Jane Eyre there is this this sense of of deprivation, of endurance. Is this partly the key to your character? Are you quite a romantic person?

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:53

Yeah.

Presenter10:53

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:53

I'm certainly very romantic.

Presenter10:53

And the first

Baroness Haleh Afshar10:55

I always felt that what I had was not a fair share.

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:00

And if I had gone down the kind of route that was planned for me, I would have married an affluent person and done the same thing and replicated it. And I just felt that.

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:09

If I wanted to do anything to change things, the first thing was to be able to stand up on my own feet.

Presenter11:14

And the only way you could do that was by in a sense transplanting yourself to a different culture.

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:15

In a sense, transplanting yourself to a different level.

Presenter11:21

Piece of music, then.

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:23

Um Gul Narori singing Marobebus. Marobebus is a revolutionary song.

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:29

which is about someone going after their destiny, leaving where they are. But it became very popular when I was a teenager in Iran, and it became very popular as a goodbye song of lovers. And I remember my cousin and I trying to play it on the piano and singing it as a love song.

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:48

And it it's a song that reminds me of both night

Baroness Haleh Afshar11:51

ardour and conviction that change would come, but also of the romantic side of love and everything else.

Speaker 411:57

Gudashta Hau Godashthe.

Speaker 412:02

But I'm but just as you yourself

Presenter12:26

Hassan Gulnaraghi singing an Iranian revolutionary song, Marabibus. So I'm wondering what your first impressions then of England were. You'd only read about it, and here you were driving to Solihull to your school, aged fourteen. What impression did it make?

Baroness Haleh Afshar12:37

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar12:39

What imp

Baroness Haleh Afshar12:41

Well, the first thing that hit me was how low the sky was.

Baroness Haleh Afshar12:45

I was not used to grey skies which just hit you on the head, and it was how uniform all the houses were, and it took me a long time to get used to

Baroness Haleh Afshar12:56

The weather, but I mean particularly the light that the the light was missing.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:02

I mean, once I I got to school, I was absolutely astounded at all the rules and regulations and and and the whole idea that you had to obey because you were told.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:11

And my poor headmistress had a difficult time with me.

Presenter13:14

And in your first term, then you were struck by profound family tragedy. Your mother was killed.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:18

Unfortunately my my mother died.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:22

And she died in in a car crash.

Presenter13:23

In a car.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:25

And that was the hardest thing.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:28

I think I've ever experienced because

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:31

When I was at school I would write to her every day about everything, and she would write back every day.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:38

And I never felt as really I've left.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:41

And then suddenly she was not there anymore. And how did you hear of her death? Well, that was really awful because they didn't tell me anything.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:50

And then one day the headmistress asked me to stay back, and she announced it in the morning assembly that my mother had died.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:57

And it and that was

Presenter13:58

And that was that was the first moment you had.

Baroness Haleh Afshar13:59

Yes, yes. And and and I was absolutely

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:03

I mean, I was just in pieces.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:05

Um, and I just I just I mean, you know.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:09

I sort of cried all morning.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:12

And then decided, okay, you know, this is not what my mother would have wanted. You know, I have to get myself together. I have to pull myself together.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:18

And my father came very soon after and took my two cousins and I on a kind of long holiday because

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:25

Actually, he was worse than me.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:29

And I suddenly realized that I had to actually look after him. And so.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:34

I think I suddenly grew up, um

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:37

in a way that I never thought I ever would.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:40

And because I look very much like my mother.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:42

I had a feeling that I had to kind of step into her shoes. Indeed, what was.

Presenter14:46

Is there an expectation that you would return to Iran permanently and fulfill that role of being able to do that?

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:50

And

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:51

I mean, that I realized that on the next holiday when I went home. That's the point at which I decided that.

Baroness Haleh Afshar14:58

That was not.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:00

What she would have wanted for me and is certainly not what I wanted for myself.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:04

And so I suggested to my father that he should perhaps marry.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:09

and and have a wife. And I suggested the name of a good friend of my mother's who

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:15

Just happened, had just gotten divorced.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:18

And um

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:19

Eventually they did get married and I was about to come back and study. Tell me about your fourth choice today, then.

Presenter15:24

Dave.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:26

General Craternien is actually Edith Piaf saying exactly that because

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:30

I do not regret any of the decisions I made, and I went subsequently to make an equally bad decision in my family's eyes by marrying Maurice, but

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:39

I think

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:40

I was very, very lucky. I made the right choice, and I think at the time for the right reasons.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:46

Because I grew up with reason being very much part of our family discussions.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:53

And that's the Shia thing. Shias say that which is reasonable is permittable and that which is permittable has to be reasonable.

Baroness Haleh Afshar15:59

So, although I made things that were unconventional wrong in the eyes of many, reason won.

Speaker 416:07

Oh ria doadoria.

Speaker 416:17

Se paying.

Speaker 416:21

Hallelujah.

Speaker 416:26

From a foodie mas a wecume souvenir.

Presenter16:35

Edith Piaf and no gene regret rien. So you returned to Britain, Heliachard, to become a student, and I'm imagining your first real sense of liberation.

Baroness Haleh Afshar16:45

Oh, I mean when I got to university I thought, Great, I'm going to cook.

Baroness Haleh Afshar16:49

But of course the difficulty was I'd never ever cooked, so I had a friend who anything. Anything.

Baroness Haleh Afshar16:54

But I did want to learn to cook. And so I remember asking a friend of mine who lived the floor below, you know, what's the simplest, simplest thing that I can cook, please? And so she said, Okay, here is a little pot and here is an egg. You fill the pot up, you put it on the cooker. When it boils, you put the egg in it, you wait four minutes, you've got a boiled egg. And I thought, Okay, I can do that.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:14

And then I had to go down again, because I had no idea how you knew when the water is boiling.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:21

I actually I learned to cook by following to the letter all the the sainted Delia and her her instructions

Presenter17:29

So when she wrote that book about how to boil an egg, it was you she was writing.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:31

It was you she was writing it for. She was writing it for and I'm very grateful to her.

Presenter17:37

Um you were the first one of the first Iranian women to to vote. That would have been in nineteen sixty two. You were eighteen in nineteen sixty two. That must have been quite a connection to your mother, given that that was something that she had in her own sophisticated way agitated for.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:42

When I was finished. Two US agent.

Speaker 417:43

In a non-

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:44

1962. Yeah.

Speaker 417:47

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:47

Given that that

Speaker 417:48

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:48

He had

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:51

I mean, I was actually I mean I

Presenter17:52

Uh

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:53

In in many ways I have always felt that I had to fulfil.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:58

Her destiny.

Baroness Haleh Afshar17:59

She was fantastic.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:01

For her time.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:02

And

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:03

I look like her, I behave very much like her, I had to do.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:08

What I knew she would have wanted me to do. How do you feel that you have done that? Do you feel that you have already done that? Well, I was really, I mean, I think that.

Presenter18:12

Well, I I was really I mean, I think

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:15

when I was appointed to the House of Lords.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:18

I wore her watch.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:20

Because I knew.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:22

that she would really be proud of me.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:25

And I felt very much her presence that, you know, she felt she had achieved.

Presenter18:32

Let's take a break then for your next piece of music. Tell me what you've chosen.

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:37

The Yellow Submarine is a song that that goes right through our family. First of all, because I actually won a ticket to hear the Beatles in a poker game.

Presenter18:49

So let explain more of that. When were you playing poker and who had the ticket to see the Beatles?

Baroness Haleh Afshar18:54

Well, I mean, when I was doing my A-levels, we were a very funny bunch of people, including Sir Reynolds Fiennes and all kinds of other people who kind of um I didn't play uh poker with him, but I used to go on the back of his motorbike, and it was the craziest rides I've ever had. It was huge fun. But anyway, we were a kind of funny group of people who danced hard, played hard, and and playing poker was amongst the things that we did, and I was incredibly good at it. And so I won this ticket, which is wonderful.

Baroness Haleh Afshar19:25

And then the the the yellow submarine is a song that I sang to my children when they were in their bath and they didn't before they realized I couldn't sing.

Baroness Haleh Afshar19:33

And it's really for my son Ali, who is now playing it. And also I remember my daughter's mother in law, Molly's mother in law, and I were dancing to it at her hen nights when we all went. So it it's sort of it's a rhythm through my life. And I still am crazy about the Beatles.

Speaker 419:52

The band begins to play.

Speaker 420:01

We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine Yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine

Speaker 420:14

Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.

Presenter20:21

The Beatles and Yellow Submarine has lots of resonances throughout your life, but not least I'm struck by this image of you being a hard poker playing student who occasionally rid on the back of the motor bike of Ranolph Fiennes. Somehow I can't get that out of my head. Um you really enjoyed your sixties, did you?

Baroness Haleh Afshar20:37

I loved them. I was I was absolutely ready for the the the liberation that was flourishing.

Presenter20:44

Uh You were studying for your doctorate at Cambridge. And at this point, were you intending to resume a life back home in Iran?

Baroness Haleh Afshar20:51

I always I had always planned that England was is going to be a a prelude to a life in Iran. I was always going to return. But I had an agreement with my father.

Baroness Haleh Afshar21:04

that so long as I would study, I didn't need to get married. And so in order to really not get married, I became much more studious than I would ever have been in my life. And so I went on studying.

Presenter21:18

But very significantly, by the time you were back in Iran in the seventies, you had already met in England the man who would later much later.

Presenter21:27

go on to become your husband. How how had you met?

Baroness Haleh Afshar21:31

Well

Baroness Haleh Afshar21:32

I was walking down a corridor and Morris walked through a glass door, eating an apple.

Baroness Haleh Afshar21:37

And I just said to him, You're far too good looking to be walking on your own. Why don't you join us? And I really meant it, you know. We were we were already about three or four people, and he joined our gang.

Presenter21:47

So even though the seeds of romance were sown and you were very attracted to him, there's even a gleam in your eye now as you talk about him walking through the glass door with with the apple in his hand, you you did go home and

Baroness Haleh Afshar21:52

I'm looking through the glass door with

Baroness Haleh Afshar21:57

Yes, yes. I really

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:01

Well, I went back to Iran and worked as a land reform official and a journalist. One of your degrees had been a very good idea.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:10

And I went back.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:12

And I worked for the Ministry of Land Reforms and I became a journalist, which was something that was very close to my heart.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:18

And, of course, then I had to do the marriage market.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:22

I mean, I wo I was then twenty eight, twenty nine, I was a grown up lady. So

Presenter22:25

So and in terms of the cultural climate of the time, relatively old not to be married.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:29

I was very

Presenter22:29

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:30

He ought not to be married.

Baroness Haleh Afshar22:31

But I was old enough to say, Look, I would like to have a lunch, and I would say, Look, you know, I'm very willing to marry you, but I would like to tell you that I have a life, and this life consists of me getting up at five o'clock in the morning, going to my office in the ministry, which started at seven thirty. Between two and three, I'm always free for lunch, we can always have lunch, but then three o'clock I start at the newspaper, and then at the newspaper, when I finish, I start doing the the social rounds because I was a gossip columnist. And so I usually get home about two o'clock in the morning, and I'm available from two to five. Not an entirely enticing.

Presenter23:07

The enticing prospect for a husband, one might imagine.

Baroness Haleh Afshar23:09

Well, I don't know, because when I got married to Maurice, I said to him, You know, I'm going to look for a job anywhere in the world. And he said, Okay.

Presenter23:17

Uh tell me about your next piece of music then.

Baroness Haleh Afshar23:19

Well, my next piece of music is The Queen of the Night.

Baroness Haleh Afshar23:23

And Morris introduced me to the opera, and it s it was an absolute amazing revelation. I mean, I just fell for it. And the Queen of the Night was something that we always judged the singers. You know, if you really can sing

Baroness Haleh Afshar23:38

those notes. You're absolutely top in our list. But also, Maurice has a tendency to try and sing The Queen of the Night. And we never allow him to go beyond the second note. But you know, it's both a family joke, but also a song that I think is wonderful.

Speaker 424:09

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah. Boop beep boop beep boop boop.

Presenter24:53

Lucia Popp singing The Queen of the Night from the Magic Flute by Mozart with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer. Nineteen seventy nine, then, of course, was the Iranian Revolution. How were your family and friends back home affected by what went on?

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:07

It was absolutely ghastly.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:10

Many, many of the kids that I had grown up with were actually killed afterwards because they were the establishment.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:18

And I remember after the revolution I used to get a daily paper from Iran.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:23

And they used to publish the name of all the people who'd been executed.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:28

And I used to just open the paper, read the names, cry.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:33

and then go to work.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:35

Because it was just a massacre of young, intelligent talent. I just found it.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:43

Very, very painful because

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:46

The kind of revolution that many of us were still hoping for and thinking about.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:51

Had not been a religious revolution. I remember.

Speaker 425:53

Do you have a

Presenter25:53

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar25:54

Many of my colleagues and friends are at the very beginning saying, Oh, well, yes, we allow the religious people to just head this because, you know, we are the left, we are organized, we have all our cadres in place, and the moment that things have started, we will take over. And of course, they all got killed. And and I found that absolutely abominable.

Presenter26:14

Coming up to date, you are not slow to criticise the people in charge in Iran for their human rights record, and indeed you do plenty of work supporting women in Iran currently.

Presenter26:25

I'm wondering how much pressure you come under these days from the Iranian authorities.

Baroness Haleh Afshar26:31

I actually

Baroness Haleh Afshar26:33

became a target because I wrote a criticism.

Baroness Haleh Afshar26:36

of Khomeini's analysis on women by saying this is not Islamic.

Baroness Haleh Afshar26:40

which I had actually wrote as a chapter in a book. I didn't expect it to get widely published. But I was sitting in my office one lunch time in Bradford,

Baroness Haleh Afshar26:50

And this young man came in and he sort of put a knife out and he said to me, I have dishonored Islam, I should be ashamed of myself, and it was his duty to pay back the sins that I have done.

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:04

And so I I sort of said to him, but you know, Easton does not allow you.

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:08

to become an executioner. And you know, you have to think about it. And I also then picked up the phone and and dialed a number and said, um, there's a young man in my office who seems very disturbed. Could you send a couple of people up, please? And then I put the phone down and I said,

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:22

Look, there are a couple of people coming up, and if they arrest you you'll probably get into a huge amount of trouble.

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:29

However, there's a back stair just down the stairs. If you dashed down those stairs, nobody would see you.

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:34

And the choice is yours.

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:36

And um

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:38

He he ran, and the reality was that when I when I when I died, nobody answered. There was nobody coming up this

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:47

But anyway, I think I was convincing enough for him to run.

Presenter27:51

And as f uh you're entirely convinced, are you that this was one young agitated man working out of his his own disenchantment?

Baroness Haleh Afshar27:59

No, no, no, I'm not. I'm not. I did feel that that perhaps there was a threat, but I don't feel that at all now, because I think that.

Baroness Haleh Afshar28:07

You know, they know my views, and I don't go back.

Presenter28:11

You cannot go back, do you mean?

Baroness Haleh Afshar28:13

I think it would be very unwise for me to go back.

Baroness Haleh Afshar28:16

I miss it very much. I don't think you ever forget your homeland. And I think that you just you just accept that, you know, if you are as privileged and as happy as I am, you have to have a bit of pain. And, you know, you have to live with it.

Presenter28:30

Let's take a break for some music. Tell me about your seventh track today.

Baroness Haleh Afshar28:35

Is Jacqueline Dupre playing the Predue to Bach? And I must say that I came across the cello concertos at universities. And of course I played it when Molly, my daughter, was having Kate, our first grandchild. And she told me later on, you know, Mother, did you realize that you were dancing around the room to Bach? and I said it was just fantastic. So it it it's a music that again I have carried through my life and and it's a wonderful piece of music.

Presenter29:59

Jacqueline Dupre playing the prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No. One.

Presenter30:03

One of the I think probably the important things that I missed out in the beginning when I was introducing you among feminist, Marxist, Shia Muslim was mother. You are the mother of two now grown up children, but the maternal role wasn't one that you expected to fulfil.

Baroness Haleh Afshar30:11

Yeah.

Baroness Haleh Afshar30:18

Well, we hadn't I mean, I I really did not want to have children.

Presenter30:21

Why not?

Baroness Haleh Afshar30:23

Because I had seen how de-skilling motherhood was and how difficult it was in this country. It wasn't like having children in Iran when you had a lot of people who looked after them.

Baroness Haleh Afshar30:35

And it just seemed to me that the moment that you became a mother,

Baroness Haleh Afshar30:39

The assumption was that, you know, all your intelligence drained away, and there was just the system didn't allow you to be a mother, a carer and a worker.

Baroness Haleh Afshar30:49

And and I had two younger brothers who I absolutely adored. My uh husband, Maurice, had a twin brother with lots of children. We felt we didn't need to add to the problem.

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:00

And so Molly arrived as a huge surprise. I was seven months pregnant, and I didn't know that I was expecting her, because she was tiny.

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:10

And Molly arrived.

Presenter31:13

Totally unexpected. So how did you reconcile all of your philosophical beliefs about how a woman um has the power to conduct herself without children with the fact that there was Molly?

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:25

Babies are a miracle. I mean, she arrived and she's been the center of our lives along with Ali. I mean, I always thought that they were the best things I ever did in my life, my babies. I absolutely love it.

Presenter31:37

And given this, you're always as I speak to you, you're always laughing and smiling, you have a very gregarious quality, how on earth are you going to manage on your own, on the island, sitting in the sand?

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:47

I'm going to find it very, very difficult.

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:50

Because I love people and I just can't imagine.

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:55

Being without people.

Baroness Haleh Afshar31:57

I think that I will probably start talking to the trees and the plants, really.

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:01

But I would find it very difficult. Tell me about your final piece of music then.

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:06

Well

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:08

The Wind Beneath My Wings is an incredibly important song to me because my daughter was singing in a concert.

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:16

At school, and she sang this song, and she began by saying that she was singing it for me.

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:22

And my children, of course, went through teenage years where I could not recognize them.

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:28

And it really was, to me, amazing that this naughty, rude little girl who I was having so much trouble with, really thought that I was the wind beneath her wing.

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:40

I mean, I I just burst into tears'cause I laugh a lot like

Baroness Haleh Afshar32:45

And so it's a wonderful moment in my life.

Speaker 432:49

I know that you're my hero.

Speaker 432:56

Everything I would like to

Speaker 433:07

An Eagle.

Speaker 433:12

You are the wind in my way.

Presenter33:17

Bette Middler and Wind Beneath My Wings. I'm going to give you then, to take away to this island, Halle, the complete works of Shakespeare, and I do you want the Koran or the Bible?

Baroness Haleh Afshar33:27

Can I please have both?

Presenter33:28

It's something

Baroness Haleh Afshar33:29

Set that.

Presenter33:29

So, only one religious text. You'll have to choose which one's it going to be.

Baroness Haleh Afshar33:32

I would choose the Quran. So the Quran to teach me. And you can choose a book of your own. Which book? It will have to be the poems of Hafez, who is.

Presenter33:34

So the Quran

Baroness Haleh Afshar33:41

of wonderful Iranian poetry.

Presenter33:43

Right.

Baroness Haleh Afshar33:43

Yeah.

Presenter33:43

Those you can have. And you're allowed a luxury as well. What's what will your luxury be?

Baroness Haleh Afshar33:48

So hard. I think I'll have a rose bush. I love the scent of roses, and I think it might start me planting a a a scented garden, which would be a wonderful thing to do.

Presenter33:59

It's yours, a rosebush indeed.

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:00

Thank you.

Presenter34:01

And if you had to choose just one of the eight.

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:04

Or from the discs

Presenter34:04

Oh, from the discs. Which one would it be?

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:06

Hard enough to choose eight.

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:08

Um, it would have to be the Bach, I think. I just I would put it on and dance around the rose bush and have a lovely time.

Presenter34:16

Kali Afshar, Baroness Afshar, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:20

Yeah.

Presenter34:20

Thank you.

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:20

For invite Yeah.

Presenter34:21

Uh

Baroness Haleh Afshar34:22

Mm-hmm.

Presenter34:22

Yeah.

Presenter34:29

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.