c. 2005 Religion News Service

LAKEWOOD, N.J. _ Every Wednesday afternoon, business school dean Siamack Shojai shuts the door of his office at Georgian Court University and starts his second job _ radio talk-show host.

As students walk by his office, Shojai gets on his telephone and broadcasts live to his native Iran. For the past three years, his weekly Farsi-language talk show has been transmitted to the Middle East by Voice of America.

The call-in show now reaches more than 1 million listeners, giving pro-democracy Iranians a forum. As tensions between the United States and Iran rise, the Catholic college administrator has become an unlikely celebrity in the Middle East and an enemy of the Iranian regime.

The idea that he is sitting on a suburban New Jersey college campus speaking to listeners 6,200 miles away about overthrowing a regime does not seem to faze Shojai.

“This is a global village. I don’t feel like I’m talking overseas,” said Shojai, 48. “It’s our back yard. What is happening there is affecting us.”

Iran has been run by a fundamentalist Muslim regime since the shah of Iran _ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi _ was overthrown in 1979. The country, which lies between Iraq and Afghanistan, is home to about 69 million people.

In recent months, President Bush has increased tensions in the region by giving mixed signals on whether the United States would use a military strike to quash Iran’s suspected nuclear program.

“This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous,” Bush said during a recent visit to Europe. “Having said that, all options are on the table.”

In his State of the Union in January, Bush also angered the theocratic government by directly addressing the growing pro-democracy faction in Iran.

“As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you,” the president said.

Voice of America is a U.S.-funded international broadcasting service that has transmitted radio and television shows in multiple languages around the world since 1942. The programs go out to more than 100 million people, using satellite, short-wave and medium-wave radio to reach many countries largely closed to Western media.

Shojai said his listeners in Iran are overwhelmingly pro-democracy. Few give their full names or hometowns when they call out of fear they will be punished.

During a typical broadcast last month, Shojai’s show opened with the international news and weather.

“It’s another Wednesday evening in Tehran,” a host in Washington, D.C., said in Farsi, inviting listeners to dial an international number to speak with Shojai.

The calls are routed from Iran to producers in Voice of America’s Washington control room, then to a speaker on Shojai’s desk in New Jersey. Shojai jots down notes on a yellow legal pad in the right-to-left script of his native Farsi as his listeners’ scratchy voices fill his small office.

“We request from the leadership of the U.S. and all decision makers over there just to explode two gas cylinders in the sky of Tehran and Qom. Then you will see that the Iranian people will get rid of the regime,” said a passionate caller who identified himself as Ali from Karaj, Iran.

“Talking is enough,” he added. “We are all suffering economically.”

Though he gets the occasional pro-government caller, most of the show’s listeners express similar sentiments and ask for American help to overthrow their government.

“This is the impact of Voice of America. There was a time they wouldn’t dare to criticize,” Shojai said.

Shojai encourages his listeners to push for a “regime change” in Iran. He advocates imposing United Nations economic sanctions on Iran to help promote a change. He also supports some U.S. military intervention in the country, if needed.

Shojai, who is also a regular on Voice of America TV shows transmitted to Iran, seems to be having an impact, said Homayoun Majd, a veteran Iranian broadcaster who co-hosts Shojai’s show from Washington.

“He is very famous there now,” Majd said. “He has a lot of people talking.”

Born in Tehran, Shojai was the oldest son in a middle-class family. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a real estate attorney.

He left 27 years ago to attend graduate school in New York and never went back. He went on to earn his doctorate at Fordham University and become a respected economist.

His unlikely radio career began a decade ago when a local Iranian radio station in Los Angeles was looking for a Farsi-speaking economist to interview.

Shojai found the work easy and was eventually offered a Farsi radio show on a Long Island radio station. Three years ago, he was given a 50-minute show, called “Weekly Talk With You,” on Voice of America.

His wife, a special education teacher in New York, and three sons _ ages 22, 18 and 16 _ support his unorthodox career.

Georgian Court officials are also supportive, he said. The small university has gotten some unexpected free publicity in Iran out of Shojai’s success.

“They know the name by now, they know New Jersey,” he said.

Though he dreams of visiting Iran, Shojai said he would likely be imprisoned by the current government if he returned. For now, Shojai can do little except give his listeners a place to ask questions and voice their opinions. He has few answers when they ask whether U.S. help is on the way.

It is almost a relief, he said, to open the door of his office again and become a business school dean. On campus, he can solve problems and make decisions that help students.

“I walk out of here and I have to go to a committee meeting or teach a class,” he said. “That’s when I like to be a dean.”

(Kelly Heyboer covers higher education for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

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