Abbas Amanat

that are brought up in these families, even in small towns, in very traditional families, in families that belong to that kind of a more religious, loyal to the clergy or to the clerical classes, their children,

can now move on, particularly women.

Because in my times, it would have been unheard of that you would have a young woman of 18, or 17, 18, 19, from a traditional city such as, for instance, Yazd, or in Southeast and Iran, to move on elsewhere for education, as you do in this country, okay?

Now, it's completely accepted that a woman wears hijab because she's forced to wear hijab to go to a university completely on the other side of the country.

And this movement of the population, not only because of the universities, but in general, if you now visit Iran, you hear accents, local accents, provincial accents,

All over the country.

That is a Azerbaijani Turkish accent from the northwest of the country.

You can hear it in the Fars province in the south.

And vice versa.

So...

And Kurdish, for instance.

Or even more marginal regions, such as Sistan province in the southeast of Iran, which has been the subject of this recent massacre when they actually attacked the population when demonstrating and killed a fair number, at least 60 people.

So this movement of the population...

this creation of a larger middle class, the better educated middle class, much better educated.

Iran has 86% literacy, which I think probably, I haven't checked that, but probably is better than Turkey even, is probably better than anywhere else in the Middle East.

Iran has one million school teachers, which may not seem as much if you're in the United States, but it's a fairly big number, I

Can you linger on the massacre?

What happened there?

Well, the Sistan province is a Baluch ethnicity, of Baluch ethnicity.

Baluch is a...