One of the most important encounters of our time in Iran has been the hardest one to blog about. I've changed the names of the two people involved and removed all of the possibly identifying detail which I'd originally intended to include. You'll understand why.
One afternoon, Aisling and I bumped into a father and his teenage daughter. Dad was carrying a bag of groceries. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, dad invited us to have lunch with them. "That'd be lovely," Aisling replied.
We walked on together, introducing ourselves. Dad's name is Firouz, his daughter Hengameh. Hengameh's English is good, Firouz's more rudimentary.
We arrived at their house and Firouz busied himself preparing first chay for everyone and later, lunch. As we sat around drinking chay, Firouz asked, "what's your opinion of the Iranian government?"
I tried to give a diplomatic reply, along the lines that in European media we read a very one-dimensional view of Iran, so part of the reason for our visit was to talk to ordinary Iranians to find out what the real story is. Firouz saw my reply for what it was, an attempt to side-step the question, chuckled, and then began slowly revealing his own opinion on Iranian politics and describing his experiences under the theocratic regime since the 1979 revolution.
Firouz was a young teacher at the time - in his early twenties - and was politically active. When the Islamic revolutionaries gained the upper hand, he was sacked from his job. Worse things happened, but I'm not going to mention those details - they could be used to identify the people concerned.
All of this was mediated through Hengameh, who's fourteen.
Firouz didn't volunteer the information that he'd been tortured. I'd asked. Hengameh didn't know what the English word 'torture' meant, so I said "Bastinado?"
"Hah!" exclaimed Firouz and looked at the floor, then his daughter. "Yes", said Hengameh.
Bastinado is an old punishment which has been used in Iran for hundreds of years. The victim is put on their back with their legs in the air strapped to a horizontal wooden pole. The soles of the victim's feet are then lashed with whips.
While Firouz is good-humoured and stoic, Hengameh is filled with a righteous rage about the impotence of ordinary Iranians to effect change in the country.
Throughout our conversation, the television was on, murmering away quietly in the background. A newscast showed Mullahs involved in the preparations for the religious festival which was happening at the time. "Look at them, they're animals!" Hengameh exclaimed. "They're not religious, they're violent and they only want power."
Firouz served up delicious fried freshwater fish, local flatbread, rice and yogurt with aubergine and garlic. As we ate I asked both Hengameh and Firouz if they expected to see an end to the theocratic regime in their lifetimes. Firouz shrugged and said it was impossible to predict. Hengameh seemed more fatalistic: "The ones in power will do anything to keep their power. They are not the Iranian people. They don't care about anybody."
"How many journalists are in prison in Ireland?" Firouz asked. "None," I replied emphatically. "In Iran, two hundred and fifty," he responded drily, watching me for my reaction. Yes, I was shocked. Back at home, I've checked that statistic; Reporters Without Borders write in their 2008 annual report on Iran that "...the country remained the Middle East’s biggest prison for journalists, with more than 50 journalists jailed in 2007." Irrespective of the accuracy of Firouz' statistic, the contrast with Ireland is revealing.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when we all gathered up our things to leave. I was really shaken by what I'd heard - it's one thing to read about human rights abuses, another thing entirely to speak to someone who's been on the receiving end of that abuse.
In Iran, people are subjected to brutal and arbitrary injustices. There is no free press. Anyone who dares to speak out is silenced. How galling it must be when the brutal regime claims to take its word from God to justify its exercise of power.
Showing posts with label what Iranians say. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what Iranians say. Show all posts
05 January 2009
02 January 2009
Seven years in the war
We got a lift today from a double-jobbing taxi driver who's also an army officer in his other job. He spent seven years fighting the Iraqis during the Iran/Iraq war and was injured three times. "Iran kheyli [very] bad," he told us again and again.
01 January 2009
"Givaneh!"
It's the month of Muharram in Iran and black-clad male Shia adherents are parading in the streets in preparation for the day of Ashura, which is the day on which the Shia saint Husayn was slain by troops of the Sunni Caliphate at the Battle of Karbala 1,329 years ago.
The anniversary is treated as a period of mourning; for weeks in advance, on bus journeys, we've been hearing monotone chants for hours on end grieving the loss of Imam Husayn. The event is covered on television as though Husayn was killed yesterday. Mullahs weep openly in television studios. Hours of programming are given over to the event.
A parade of several hundred men walked past our hotel in Shiraz yesterday. I went out onto the street to watch them. A lone drummer beat out a slow rhythm on a huge bass drum while the men chanted a monotone dirge. They each wielded a whip, made from several short lengths of chain attached to a wooden handle, ceremonially striking themselves over the shoulder and onto their backs in time to the drum. It was more a stroking, not a lashing. (It's no longer considered appropriate to break the skin.)
It was dark, but I stood on a raised grassy median strip in the middle of the busy road and tried to take some snaps in the available light. A man about my own age approached me. "Where are you from?" he asked. "Ireland," I replied. "Man Irlandiam."
"Givenah," he said scornfully. "They are foolish."
The anniversary is treated as a period of mourning; for weeks in advance, on bus journeys, we've been hearing monotone chants for hours on end grieving the loss of Imam Husayn. The event is covered on television as though Husayn was killed yesterday. Mullahs weep openly in television studios. Hours of programming are given over to the event.
A parade of several hundred men walked past our hotel in Shiraz yesterday. I went out onto the street to watch them. A lone drummer beat out a slow rhythm on a huge bass drum while the men chanted a monotone dirge. They each wielded a whip, made from several short lengths of chain attached to a wooden handle, ceremonially striking themselves over the shoulder and onto their backs in time to the drum. It was more a stroking, not a lashing. (It's no longer considered appropriate to break the skin.)
It was dark, but I stood on a raised grassy median strip in the middle of the busy road and tried to take some snaps in the available light. A man about my own age approached me. "Where are you from?" he asked. "Ireland," I replied. "Man Irlandiam."
"Givenah," he said scornfully. "They are foolish."
Mohammad Reza in Jolfa, Esfahan
This is Mohammad Reza, enjoying food and conversation with us in the old Armenian quarter of Esfahan. Dinner with random strangers? Only in Iran could you contemplate such a thing.
We were standing on a street corner in Jolfa in the dark, looking in the guide book for a restaurant that wasn't there anymore. I was wearing my tourist beacon. Mohammad Reza approached us and asked did we need help. We got into the usual introductory chat ("Where are you from, what do you do?") and after we'd wandered around for a bit and consulted the map several times, he confirmed that the restaurant we were looking for was definitely closed.
We asked him to suggest another restaurant to us and invited him to join us for some food. After protestations, he politely took us up on our offer.
Mohammad Reza is a material sciences student, studying in Esfahan but also a native of the city. He'd spend a year living in Vancouver when he was fifteen (his dad is a university professor) and going to school there. He'd loved it. He's 22 now and almost finished his course. We'd learned all this before we'd even found the restaurant. His English is excellent and he's a funny guy with a quirky sense of humour.
We had a great evening chatting about all kinds of subjects; towards the end of the evening, Mohammad told us how, as a rational fellow, he'd weighed up the evidence for and against God and had decided that Islam was the religion for him. Yes, he admitted, he was born into a Muslim family, but on balance he reckoned it was the religion with the best moral code.
He explained that Muslims don't believe in the Christian notion of the Trinity or in the divinity of Jesus ("There no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet") and when we got onto the topic of heaven and hell, I asked about the fate of unbelievers.
"Well," he said with a grin, "there are good Muslims who go to heaven and there are bad Muslims who go to hell. If you're born a Muslim, it's impossible to be unbeliever!"
We were standing on a street corner in Jolfa in the dark, looking in the guide book for a restaurant that wasn't there anymore. I was wearing my tourist beacon. Mohammad Reza approached us and asked did we need help. We got into the usual introductory chat ("Where are you from, what do you do?") and after we'd wandered around for a bit and consulted the map several times, he confirmed that the restaurant we were looking for was definitely closed.
We asked him to suggest another restaurant to us and invited him to join us for some food. After protestations, he politely took us up on our offer.
Mohammad Reza is a material sciences student, studying in Esfahan but also a native of the city. He'd spend a year living in Vancouver when he was fifteen (his dad is a university professor) and going to school there. He'd loved it. He's 22 now and almost finished his course. We'd learned all this before we'd even found the restaurant. His English is excellent and he's a funny guy with a quirky sense of humour.
We had a great evening chatting about all kinds of subjects; towards the end of the evening, Mohammad told us how, as a rational fellow, he'd weighed up the evidence for and against God and had decided that Islam was the religion for him. Yes, he admitted, he was born into a Muslim family, but on balance he reckoned it was the religion with the best moral code.
He explained that Muslims don't believe in the Christian notion of the Trinity or in the divinity of Jesus ("There no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet") and when we got onto the topic of heaven and hell, I asked about the fate of unbelievers.
"Well," he said with a grin, "there are good Muslims who go to heaven and there are bad Muslims who go to hell. If you're born a Muslim, it's impossible to be unbeliever!"
31 December 2008
I love you SO much
This is the title page of a book left lying on a motorbike saddle in Yazd. The wind must have blown it open; the picture of Ayatollah Khomeini grabbed my attention, and when I moved closer I saw the English text that the book's owner (or a secret admirer) had inscribed. Does the message refer to the subject of the photo, the owner of the book, or someone else? I'll never know, but images like this are what make Iran totally unique.
27 December 2008
Lady in black
We have used the taxi-sharing system a few times but this was my first chance to sit beside a woman in full chador. Ben sat in the front and with a few Farsi and English words and lots of laughs we all tried to make ourselves understood. When we got out of the car, I held hands with the woman and her final parting to me was 'Happy'! - How lovely
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