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In 1921, Reza Khan took over the government in Iran and ,consolidating all power in his hands, became Shah of Iran in 1925. He announced that Iran was an independent country with an ancient history and its people those of the Aryan race. The aim of this huge political propaganda campaign was two-fold. His first intention was to highlight the Persian language and culture in comparison with minority peoples and languages such as Turks, Arabs and Kurds. Secondly he wanted to cut Iran off from its previous history of centuries of Turkish kings and rulers by linking Iran to the Pahlavi kings of the Hakhamanid period. One of the politically well-orchestrated steps that he undertook at this juncture was to forbid the use of minority languages in schools, government departments and diplomatic circles. Azeri Turks, who formed about half of the population, came under a great pressure. They were forced to learn Persian language instead of their mother tongue. Even six year old primary school children were obliged to speak Persian in their classrooms. I myself remember when I was seven years old, an Azeri fellow pupil, who could not ask to go to the toilet in Persian, wet himself and was punished for this. In high schools pupils were under even more pressure. They were fined for speaking in Azeri. This is like forcing English primary school children to speak in French or German without prior
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