This is John Batcher.

What follows is a preview of my lengthy conversation with Brenda Schaefer, Dr.

Brenda Schaefer, author of Iran is more than Persia.

This is the story of the minorities that around the Tehran donut hole, the minorities

are in sharp dispute with the Central Authority, the Islamic Republic, sharp dispute.

The statistics are everywhere, the one that impresses me most here, Brenda explains, 40% of

the people in Iran don't identify Persian as their language at home.

They speak other languages.

The minorities are united against the regime

that does not mean of course that the minorities are united

here's Brenda

right so you know people that are looking now at this this wave of-regime protests, I keep hearing analysts right and say,

wow, all the minorities are in this together. Isn't it wonderful how unified they are?

Part one and part two are not necessarily the same.

I mean there are a lot of minority groups that wanted to get rid of the Soviet Union.

That doesn't mean they didn't have different agendas once, you know, once the Soviet Union was

weak or once you know, or once it had collapsed.

So I think Iran is discovering, yes, right now that Persians, Kurds, Turks,

Balooch, people could be united in getting rid of the Islamic Republic, but once that happens,

they're going to have a huge dilemma.

And if the Persian mainstream opposition is wants to let's say they want to establish democracy

they're going to have to allow language rights, cultural rights for minorities and this is something that at this

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