Making the Choice for Justice

The three men killed in the attack at the Bahá'í Center in Mdantsane on 13 March had been invited by the local Bahá'ís who reside in that all-black township to assist them to discuss how the community might observe the International Year of the Family.

All three men were deeply involved in efforts to promote race unity. All were in South Africa by choice, attracted by the opportunity to work for racial justice.

Hooshmand Anvari

Hooshmand Anvari fled his native Iran shortly after wholesale persecution of Bahá'ís began there in the late 1970s, arriving first in the United States of America, where he got an education as a computer specialist and was married. After visiting South Africa once in 1985, Mr. Anvari and his wife decided that they could make concrete efforts to improve the situation between the races there, and so they made plans to re-settle, even though he had recently obtained U.S. citizenship.

"It just seemed that there was so much you could do for the Africans here, because at the time the blacks had absolutely nothing," said Dina Anvari, Mr. Anvari's 33-year-old widow. "People tried to talk us out of moving, saying that apartheid was so awful. But for us, that was the challenge. To be able to work to see that all the races were accepted. And at the time, they were not accepted in any way, except within the Bahá'í community. And it was such a wonderful feeling that you were actually doing something right."

The Anvaris arrived in 1990 and in 1991 they began to establish a small tutorial school for black children in East London. "Although by then the so-called 'white' schools were ostensibly open to everyone, blacks had to pass very high-level academic tests to get into them," said Mrs. Anvari.

Their school, Mrs. Anvari said, was designed to help young blacks overcome the huge gap between the white schools and the education they had received in the black schools. At the time Mr. Anvari was murdered, Mrs. Anvari said, they were serving about 80 students with Saturday classes and other tutorials after school. Mrs. Anvari said she plans to carry on with the school.

Riaz Razavi

Mr. Riaz Razavi, also, felt drawn to Africa. He left his native Iran in the early 1970s, settling first in Lesotho, where he met and married a Belgian woman. They came to South Africa in the early 1980s, and for a number of years Mr. Razavi worked for the Ciskei Development Bank.

About two and a half years ago he took at job as director of finance at the University of Fort Hare, which is located in the town of Alice and is the main university in Ciskei, a job he took, in part, for the opportunity to help the homeland's black population, said Daniel Ramoroesi, a black Bahá'í who has been good friends with Mr. Razavi since Lesotho. "He was a very great friend of the African people," said Mr. Ramoroesi. "He gave his services to almost everybody."

Mrs. Anvari, whose husband was a good friend of Mr. Razavi, said he used to spend his weekends traveling into black townships to promote the Bahá'í ideal of race unity.

The Razavis have two children, Rouhieh, a 13-year-old girl, and Jalal, a 15-year-old boy. Mr. Razavi was also an accomplished musician. He lived in Kingwilliams Town.

Shamam Bakhshandegi

Dr. Shamam Bakhshandegi was born in Africa, in Mauritania. After finishing high school, he came to South Africa for university and then dental school. After graduating in 1989, he immediately set up his practice in Mdantsane, working mornings at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital and afternoons at his own clinic here.

"Shamam was very dedicated to the Africans, and that is why he wanted to practice here and to work with them," said his mother, Mrs. Badri Bakhshandegi in a recent interview. "His heart was always with them."

Unmarried, Dr. Bakhshandegi lived in East London. A dynamic individual who spoke five languages, he was heavily involved in the community at large. He was a member of the local Rotary Club and wrote articles on dental hygiene for the local nursing newspaper.


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