Chapter NINE

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spoke to him in my own language and asked him to keep the door open so that I could have some fresh air. (The temperature in Tehran at the time was over lOOoF. Inside the room it must have been much higher!) He told me he would be reprimanded but, however, kept the door slightly ajar to allow some fresh air to filter through. Thus I sat, still covered in chocolate, until a police officer came to question me.
On the evening of 7 September 1978 the Shah had forced the Cabinet to declare martial law in Tehran and eleven other cities. Mohsen told me what had happened during the past few days in the streets of Tabriz and Tehran. He had witnessed the events first-hand. The following morning (Friday 8 September) my friend Mahmud, who had completed his studies in architecture in London and returned to Iran to work, called at my sister's house and asked me to accompany him to a street demonstration. By the time we arrived near Jaleh Square in eastern Tehran it was about 8.30 a.m. Thousands of people were converging on the square from all directions, while helicopters were hovering over the area. Just as Mahmud and I were approaching the square itself (about 8.45 a.m.) we heard shooting. Mahmud became very excited when he heard this; he wanted to rush into the square but I stopped him. "There is no point in going with empty hands to face armed soldiers. You see they are shooting at people. It is pointless to waste our lives without doing anything useful."
Mahmud agreed and we sheltered behind huge trees near Jaleh Hospital. We could still hear the shooting and hundreds of wounded people were being rushed into the hospital, into houses, or bundled into cars and taken away. There were many people trying to help the wounded, when tanks and armoured cars appeared from behind the old Majlis building with mounted machine-guns firing at the people in the street. The soldiers did not look like Iranian soldiers to us. They had long fair hair or were very dark. Mahmud and I squatted with many other people, sheltering behind huge trees or in the narrow alley next to Jaleh Hospital.
In Jaleh Square that day hundreds of people were shot dead by the soldiers firing from the ground and helicopters. (Houses were also attacked by the helicopters. There were bullet marks on the walls and the people were hit through their heads and shoulders.) It was not safe to walk on the streets of Tehran. Mahmud and I returned home in the late afternoon. I heard an eye-witness saying that he had seen in all 3,672 dead men, women and children in Bihisht-i Zahra (a burial ground in Tehran) by 4 p.m. on Friday 8 September. This day became known as "Black Friday". Significantly, I did not see a single mullah either at Jaleh Square area or among the wounded or killed.
Most of the wounded in the streets of Tehran were saved from being taken away by the army. I heard another eye-witness saying that the army buried the dead and wounded together. Some of the doctors in Tehran had made their clinics available free of charge for the treatment of the wounded people. Dr Akbar Sa'idi (the brother of Ghulam-Hussein Sa'idi), who is a surgeon, had organised 24-hour portable surgical units which carried out operations in Tehran. I visited one of his units in the city centre (near the city park) where Dr Sa'idi had full surgical equipment and a standby nurse. Ordinary people were also helping. I was impressed by his courage, enthusiasm and love for the people in saving their lives.
"Black Friday" neither intimidated the people nor deterred them from taking part in further street demonstrations. It was clear that the Shah had lost any chance of a peaceful reform. There seemed only two ways forward: either a revolution or a military counter-revolution. The atmosphere ren1ifided me of a poem, "Birds of Storm" by Shafi'i Kadkani (a well_khown contemporary poet from Mashhad): 0 birds of storm! May you fly high.
How did you so lovingly accept
In your own blood
The impact of lead bullets,
So kindly!
….
I want to question the breeze,
How will the sea move today
Without the tide of your heartbeat?
0 birds of storm! May you fly high.

The 40th day after Black Friday fell on 16 October. A national strike was declared by political and religious leaders. The strike was very successful. All shops and bazaars were closed in Tehran and other Iranian cities. Thousands of people gathered at Bihisht-i Zahra to honour their martyred relatives. They made speeches opposing the Shah and prime minister Sharif Imami and his Cabinet. The place was surrounded by army commandos and armoured cars mounted with machine-guns. The University of Tehran was also surrounded by Scorpion tanks and commandos. This was the most successful strike of the past eight months and all schools, universities, factories and civil servants participated. In Dizful and Andimeshk and other Iranian cities the army opened fire on demonstrators and killed dozens of students and workers.
On 11 October 1978, in order to censor and silence the press, soldiers were sent to the Keyhan and [ttilla'at newspaper offices. They wanted to censor every article and all news. This had been common practice since the coup d'Hat of 1953 and the press employees were forced to accede to the suppressive regulations. However, on this occasion, the press employees, being aware of the political atmosphere in Iran and the need for a free press, refused to co-operate with the censorship and rules imposed under martial law - and went on strike. The strike was a complete success, and lasted for over two months. The government tried to persuade the writers and reporters to return to their work, making numerous promises, including freedom of the press without interference, but they did not succeed. The writers told the military government, "You can kill people by arms, you can censor by force, but you can never write by bayonets. Writers belong to the people." This political stand by writers and reporters brought them closer to the people.
I knew one of the writers (a Or Mojabi) who worked for [ttilla'at newspaper who told me, "During these years of dictatorship we writers and reporters suffered a lot. We appeared to be working for the newspapers who supported the Shah and did not write about the shortcomings in the country and what was happening to the people. But we writers were, at heart, with the people and wanted to defend their interests, rights and independence. It is very frustrating for writers or reporters who love their country and people but cannot help them by using their pen in freedom. Censorship negates the development of constructive ideas in society and all dictators are afraid of these ideas. We have still a long way to freedom. . . but it will be gained by our people. Our writers have an important responsibility in this process. . ."
The strike of workers in the oil industry, in copper and other mines, and factories began in October 1978 and lasted until the Revolution of February 1979. The Iranian oil industry workers were to play an important role in the Revolution itself.
I could not stay in Tehran indefinitely and I was anxious about what was happening in Tabriz, so I travelled to my home town by coach. The passengers talked about their recent experiences and current affairs more openly than ever before. A lady sitting in the next seat told me that she made this journey to Tehran every fortnight to see her son in Evin prison. "How long has he been in prison, and why?" asked a gentleman next to me. "He has been in prison for more than seven years. My daughter was also imprisoned, but she was set free after two years. Both my son and daughter were at Tabriz University. My son was in the third year of an engineering course and my daughter the first year studying Persian literature. One night the police - two civilians and two commandos - stormed into our house and began to search everywhere. They pulled out all the books, newspapers, papers and whatever we had in our cupboards. They were looking for books and weapons. They did not find any weapon; in fact my children did not have any. But they found books of stories by Samad Behranghi, two books of Azerbaijani tales by Behruz Dihqani (who was tortured to death in prison in 1973), the Defences of Khusraw Ruzbih (a professor at the Officers' College who was executed along with other Tudeh Party officers after the coup of 1953), the collected poems of Hakimeh Billuri and Marzieh Usku'i (two well-known Azerbaijani female poets. Marzieh, a teacher, was killed by the Shah's forces in 1974). They took the books and my two children. I begged them to take from the house whatever they wanted but to leave my daughter and son. They refused and said that after they had. been questioned they would be sent back home. When I heard nothing after searching for a year and a half and spending all my savings on travelling and police bribes, I finally discovered my daughter and son in Evin Prison!"
Here I translate from Azerbaijani a poem by Hakimeh and a poem by Marzieh:

I love my people much, very much, Not because I am related to them; They appreciate one's service Because of this I love them.

They love guests
Because of this I love them.
They are not interested in lining their pockets,
But in filling their hearts,
Thinking about others' pain.
My people understand minute particulars,
My people support truth,
They carry pride in their heart and dignity in their hand, They are down to earth,
Dignified, patient and content.
I have observed all this.
Their patience is like a mountain,
Their natural ability like a spring.
They have a patience like that of Canaan.
I love their youth very much,
Because they are loyal.
I love their old very much,
Because their words are meaningful.
The mothers' words are influential,
Their vision is long-sighted.
My people have good habits.
They have open and bright hearts.
From childhood it is a habit among us:
To respect the old.
Affection cannot be bought and sold,
Love and service cannot be hindered,
Work is regarded Holy.
For these reasons my people make me live
the people's affection.
And this longing to see my motherland
Can also kill me.

(A poem by Hakimeh Billuri)

I was a small and slow-moving river Running through forests, mountains And valleys.
I knew that stagnant waters Die within themselves.
I knew that in seas,
In the bosom of the waves, New life is born
For small rivers.

Neither the length of the road
Nor dark fissures,
Nor the fear of being stopped from running, Held me back from movement.
Now I have joined
To the eternal waves.
Our existence is in effort;
Our death is in idleness.

("The Wave" by Marzieh Usku'i)

On 25 October 1978, 1,126 political prisoners (men and women) were set free. Among these were some well-known names, for example Vida Hajibi (a university lecturer, the campaign for whose freedom I had been involved in), Muhsin Yalfani (a theatrical actor and stage manager) and Abu Turab-i Baqirzadeh (a writer and translator).
In the midst of the freed political prisoners stood an old, dignified man called Safar Qahramani from Azerbaijan, who was regarded as the world's longest-serving political prisoner. He had been in prison for 30 years, 15 of which he had spent in the terrifying Burazjan prison. When he was freed in Tehran he did not know even one street. He had asked his fellow prisoners, "What does an 'apartment' look like?" He was interviewed by a newspaper reporter in his sister's house in Tabriz. Replying to questions, he said, "After 30 years of imprisonment, this freedom was unexpected. I owe my freedom to the people. If it were not for the right struggle of the people I would have stayed in prison until the end of my life. I regard this freedom dearly, because many faced bullets and lost their lives.
"Thirty years ago, after being active in the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan for five years, which had successes and failures, I was arrested and imprisoned. My activities were against the rule of the feudals but, knowing this, they still sentenced me to life imprisonment. Two years ago they took me and 60 other political prisoners to Evin prison and wanted me to write to the Shah and ask to be pardoned. I refused. For this reason they kept me in the worst conditions of Evin prison. The prison warden told me, 'You'll stay here until you disintegrate.' I laughed and said, 'I am unperishable. The people are behind the prison's walls'.
"Because of my continual protests against the prison authorities I was sent to the 'green cell' in Evin. This is a place where one cannot tell night from day. Air is pumped into the cell. Besides this more recent experience, the terrifying Burazjan prison has swallowed 15 years of my life. I had been without a visitor for years. Don't be surprised if I do not know the city and any street. Still, every second, I think with my whole being about those who remain political prisoners. All of my life is hidden in my past. I still live in prison because the rest of the children are in prison. I have seen young people, who had not yet grown hair on their faces, imprisoned for merely reading a book. All of my being is full of memories. I have left some prisoners behind with whom I have spent 25 years. What can I say about my own freedom?
"I cannot appreciate the beautiful word of freedom at the moment. . . I beg you to tell this to the people of Iran: We have been freed by the struggle of the people. Using the word 'amnesty' for our freedom is not fair. The people freed us and will free the rest of the political prisoners. We believed in this and still believe. Even when our friends were taken for torture and we could only hear their protesting agony, still we did not lose our hope of the people. My chest is a book, written in blood, 30 years of my memories. You ask me what do I desire? I explicitly answer, 'My desire is the freedom of political parties and freedom of all political prisoners. . .'
"You ask me about recent government policy. I am very pessimistic. I believe that the government of Iran is more afraid of people's unity than anything else. Hearing of the arrest of Bihazin, during the final minutes of my 30 years of imprisonment, is the reason why I am pessimistic." (Mahmud I'timadzadeh, known as Bihazin, was a prominent writer and translator, who had translated Shakespeare's Othello and had written novels and short stories including a collection entitled Besu-yi Mardom (Toward the People). He was the chairman of the Iranian Writers' Association and founder of the "Democratic Unity of Iranian People". He is still in one of the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one among hundreds of other political prisoners. )
Many political prisoners had met Safar Qahramani and were inspired by his strong personality and dignity. He was a symbol of resistance against the Shah's dictatorship. The Shah's regime could not break him. He had created the legend of "No" against the regime.
When I was in Tabriz he was being received by thousands of people. My brother Mohsen and I went to "see him in". The Tabriz streets were full of flowers. One of his fellow prisoners was a lorry driver who had spent a few years with him and had put his feelings about Safar Khan in a poem called "The Man", which was published in the first issue of Iran-Shahr, a Persian weekly newspaper edited by Ahmad Shamlu, in September 1978. I include a translation of this poem below.

I am writing about the man,
The man who has stayed thirty
Springs of his life in a city
Without even seeing that city, even for a day.
He is a village man.
In the city of restless people
He is the bearer of troubles and patience. This man with broad shoulders,
With strong stature and broad chest,
With the strong arms of dignity,
He is an everlasting man.
In patience he is a very Job of the time,
His broad forehead is a mirror to all
The sufferings of the prison.
In frozen and hard days
Safar Khan is warm and resilient.
This man from Azerbaijan
With olive-coloured face,
And eyes like black-velveted angels,
He is a man without a mask.
He is equal to the sun
In this permanent winter.

Thirty springs have passed,
But he is still upright and content
Like a tall cypress standing in winter.
In the summer of love,
Safar Khan has the secret of understanding.
This sun which can move at night,
Without showing dismay on his face,
Stood on firm for thirty years of deprivation
Still hoping to see the rebirth of spring.

He has roots in the heart of earth,
He has opened his arms to the universe,
He has sheltered many imprisoned tigers.
A world of dignity resides in his heart,
In this dark house he is in love with light.
In front of Ahriman [Satanic power]
He is like fresh verses of Ahura [divine power].
Without fear from the horror of storm
Safar Khan is a man of eternity.

This is indeed the literature of resistance and Persian modem literature has many examples of this. Ahmad Shamlu himself, writing under the name of "Bamdad", is a well-known Iranian contemporary poet. He, too, suffered under the Shah's regime. Here I translate from Persian one of his poems, "On the Pavement" (published in November 1978):

My unknown friends Like burnt out stars,
So many of you have fallen cold on the dark earth,
That you might say
The earth
Will ever continue
Having night without stars.
Hey!
Look at streets from behind the window
See the blood on the pavements! . . .
This is the blood of dawn, as if on the pavement
Such beats the heart of sun
In its drops. . .

Faridun Tonikabuni (another contemporary writer) wrote in his Notes on Prison Memories, "Even Paradise without freedom is hell. But prison is twofold hell." (Keyhan, 23 October 1978.)
While in Tabriz I joined the National Solidarity of University Teachers at Tabriz University. I was invited to give a talk on the nature of "Cultural Exploitation" on 1 November 1978, which }Nas published in Keyhan newspaper. Explaining in this talk how cultural exploitation was linked with economic exploitation, I referred to the experiences of Samad Behranghi, as related in his Study of Educational Problems in Iran.
On completion of his course at the teacher training college in Tabriz in 1957, which was based on modem and American theories on education, Samad became a teacher in a village school. The school consisted of one room and a toilet. The windows needed repairing and the roof leaked on rainy days and during winter. The school was located outside the village itself and the pupils walked to school. In winter those who did not have proper shoes were forced either to stay at home or work in a neighbouring carpet factory. American or Western educational theories could not be put into practice under these conditions. Thus Behranghi in the book wrote, "Until we see an environment or society closely, until we live in it, mix with the people and hear their griefs and learn about their wants, it is vain and useless to show ourselves sympathetic to that society and people, and even to write stories for them. . ." A person who is living comfortably in Europe or Tehran and writes books about the education of poor villagers cannot be objective and aware of the difficulties resulting from living conditions.
When the Iranian students and others denounced the Shah and the West they were, in fact, opposing social injustice and the culture of an unjust society where the ruling classes controlled books, schools, the mass media and the entire educational system. The people were thus being exploited both economically and culturally, bodily and spiritually.
While the Shah was busy buying hundreds of Phantom bombers, Chieftain tanks and many other sophisticated weapons from the West, the villages in Iran needed schools, teachers, doctors, roads and other basic necessities of life. The Iranian people had seen and experienced social injustice and had identified the West with the Shah through their close cooperation and common interest. So the students, teachers and the people' as a whole did not believe in the fine words - "democracy", "human rights" and "love" which were taught by the Shah and his Western backers. In his article, "literature for Children" (published in June 1968), Samad Behranghi criticised the passive and conventional moral and social laws, saying, "The time of limiting children's literature to passive propaganda and rigid instructions has passed away. Instructions such as cleanliness of the hands, face and body, obedience to parents, listening to grown-ups, laugh and the world laughs with you, helping the poor in the style of Charity Clubs, and many other examples like these, whose total and final result is to keep children ignorant of the important and urgent problems of life and their living environment. Why should we suffocate a child in the cocoon of vain luck, happiness and hope, while his elder brother is desperate for free breath and freedom. Does not a child need other things than learning about cleanliness and obedience to grown-ups, and listening to his teacher (which teacher?), and ethics (which ethics?) that men of power, comfortable and of dominant class, support and propagate? Should we not tell the child that there are children in this country who have not seen the colour of meat or even cheese for months or years? Because there are a few people who always desire to have 'goose cooked in wine' on their table! . . . Should we not tell our children that more than half of the world's population is hungry; why they are kept hungry; and what ways there are to cast off their hunger? Should we not teach a child a scientific and correct concept of the history, development and evolution of human societies?" Behranghi concluded his article by commenting, "Fine words about obedience and human love from those who have the largest slice of the cake are certainly to be expected, but for those who have only crumbs, these words are valueless. . ."
In October 1978 the teachers in Tabriz and other cities were on strike, and held a gathering in the hall at Firdausi Secondary School. The National Solidarity of University Teachers in Tabriz also met and decided to support the teachers' strike. The teachers were mainly opposed to the dictatorship and wanted to elect their own headmasters and local educational authorities. The university teachers had written a letter of support, which was to be presented at the teachers' meeting. I offered to take the letter there. When I arrived, the school was surrounded by police, commandos and many civilian SA V AK members. However, I went into the hall, gave the message and sat and listened to the speakers. The teachers eventually succeeded in many of their demands.
Meantime, I taught in the department of English and helped a number of postgraduate students who were working on the social importance of Persian literature. Some of my colleagues at the university were American. One was an ex-serviceman who had served in Vietnam and South-East Asia. There was also a married couple (Mr and Mrs Peach), who seemed to be more than simple teachers; most of the university believed that they worked for the CIA. These American teachers received a much higher salary than their Iranian counterparts. There were also hundreds of American advisers in different governmental departments and industries, most of them former army officers or servicemen from Vietnam. They did not seem to know much about the job for which they were being paid. One American lady admitted that she had been employed without knowing what she was going to do in Iran. Only after her arrival was she placed in charge of a computer, about which she knew very little; but she had managed to save her face through the kind help of Iranian engineers! One can imagine how these well-qualified Iranian engineers, who received barely half her salary, felt about the situation; especially since many of these same Iranians had once been students in the United States, where they could find only the lowest-paid jobs in restaurants and other places where white Americans did not want to work.
As the street demonstrations and public meetings continued in Tabriz and other cities, political actions became more frequent on the basis of belonging to the main muslim communities, for example the Shi'ite community, which accounts for approximately 90% of the population of Iran and 10% of all the total world population who profess Islam. Belonging to one or other community did not in itself determine the political character of such actions. While the Shi'ite clergy in Iran made a positive contribution to the development of the initial stage of the Revolution, at the same time the counter-revolutionary activity (the Shi'ite community) in Afghanistan had a different political character. While in Iran the Islamic factor initially helped to highlight the anti-Shah and anti-Imperialist (the United States in particular) content of the Revolution, in Afghanistan the banner of Islam was used to launch a counter-revolutionary drive backed by the United States through Pakistan. I noticed that both in the university meetings and the street demonstrations Islam was used by the religious-bourgeoisie in order to take the Revolution out of the class struggle.
Mahmud Dawlatabadi, a well-known contemporary writer, made a series of speeches during what was known as the Week of National Solidarity of the Universities in Iran (the first week of November 1978). He warned his audiences against volcano-like eruptions of emotions:

The truth is that, contrary to many people who think they are living at an exciting point in history, I feel that we are experiencing a very dangerous process in the nation's social and political history. I do not think I am the only one to realize this. Without doubt many of our learned political scholars have reached this understanding before I have. But the practical atmosphere in society is ahead of their views, and this has created fear among intellectual observers. This fear of the general and actual atmosphere of society has forced many of our learned men to take an indecisive stance, they accept and even praise the current phenomena of society without having the courage and frankness to warn of possible dangers, of a future avalanche.
This very fear and lack of frankness in principles have also given a chance to a group of notorious people who are more Catholic than the Pope in demanding freedom. It is generally noticed that these people who only yesterday were openly and deeply involved in corruption and a parasitic lifestyle, are today still involved although not so openly as before. They pretend to be more sympathetic nurses to our children than their mothers. They have stepped in this market and are trying to take the bridle of this bolting horse. . .
This revolt is in itself acceptable because it is genuine. On the other hand it is dangerous because it is out of control. It is so much out of control that it drags men of thought and ideas behind like helpless people. The revolt is likeable because it has roots in the heart of the masses. It is fearful because it has no place in the mind of the masses. . .
The protests are based in blind instinct and excitement. They are not equipped with wisdom. The masses are hoodwinked and allowed to say whatever they want. One who has not got anything wants everything. Taking an extreme stance is either side of the same coin. It is putting imagination before reality and entrusting the heart to one's own deceit. The unhindered marching pleases the heart and open space removes petty conflict, if there is one, from the mind. But awareness and limitations are lost. Yardsticks are dropped. Excitement is increased in vain. The movement is becoming monopolized and dragged to extremes and will finally lose its way in extremity and chaos. Since they lack a united ideology and political organization and are not equipped with necessary political techniques at this social, historical point in time, these rapid emotions do not seek a vehicle for their aims and ideals. . . It has not even got a chance to select its mottoes. Naturally, in these circumstances, the movement becomes monopolistic and dogmatic. The leading men of thought and ideas have not been allowed during the past quarter of a century to walk along with the people, alive, at the same pace, slowly and creatively, together and on a reciprocal basis, they have been dragged behind the people. And - alas - actions run before thoughts. . .
The Revolution does not belong to one group. It belongs to all people of Iran, to all ideological and religious groups. Thus the most comic and at the same time the most dangerous political phenomenon of today is the replacement of one dictator by another dictator. . .
The workers in the factories, on a wide scale, are still demanding their historical and justified rights. They are suffering and are in need of the most elementary living conditions. Miners and factory workers, who have been kept in the conditions of the medieval ages, are protesting against these conditions. The idle peasants, who are more than three millions, are still scattered all over the country like homeless refugees.

(Keyhan, 4 November 1978.)

By the end of November 1978 it became clear that Ayatollah Khomeini had gained control of the Revolution. Ayatollah Shariatmadari was being undermined, even in his homeland of Azerbaijan. Just talking about Ayatollah Shariatmadari in the university was frowned upon by those who later gained important positions in the Islamic Republic government. There were even conflicts of opinion about the two ayatollahs within individual families in Tabriz. However, Ayatollah Khomeini's resolution and firm position against the Shah were winning the people in Azerbaijan over to his side.
In December 1978 the Shah appointed Bakhtiyar as prime minister. Bakhtiyar was a follower of Mossadeq and a liberal-minded man; he appeared on national television with a picture of Mossadeq in the background. By offering a series of reforms, he tried to win over the opposition. One of my Tabriz University colleagues commented, "I wish the opposition would accept his offers and cooperate with him and save us from an unforeseeable future." I said, "I doubt the people would accept Bakhtiyar because he was appointed by the Shah. But I admit that Bakhtiyar's announcement of the Shah's leaving Iran (apparently for a vacation), cancelling $7 billion worth of arms contracts, stopping the sale of oil to Israel and South Africa, withdrawing from CENTO, releasing political prisoners, dismantling SA V AK, freezing the assets of the Pahlavi Foundation, etc., seems the most radical move ever announced since Mossadeq's government."
Many political personalities expressed their views about Bakhtiyar's government and in general they had a negative opinion of his Cabinet. But Dr Sadiqi, a prominent professor of sociology at Tehran University and exmember of Mossadeq's Cabinet, supported Bakhtiyar. In one interview, he said:"Dr Bakhtiyar, as I know him, has two distinct qualities. First, he has a strong personality which makes him outstanding among many national leaders. He has the courage to step forward in these circumstances, when all are thinking about how to become a hero or achieve a position. Second, he loves and is interested in his own homeland. His interest in the independence of his country is a theme that he has stood by unwaveringly for many years; and I think, at this time in history, it is a victory for our nation to see someone like Dr Bakhtiyar in charge of forming a Cabinet and highlighting the everlasting name of Dr Muhammad Mossadeq . . . a man whose name the mass media could not even dare mention.
"Bakhtiyar had the courage to step in and it is our duty and that of all national leaders to help him and save the country. Now it is not a question of Dr Bakhtiyar in person, the National Movement, or you and I and even His Majesty the Shah, but it is a question of a country which we have to save. . ."
Although Bakhtiyar described Ayatollah Khomeini as the "Ghandi of Iran" and allowed him to return to Iran, his own government was rejected by Khomeini, who called for further strikes and demonstrations and declared that any government appointed by the Shah was illegal. But Ayatollah Shariatmadari declared that he (among other moderate religious leaders) would support the new premier and expressed his anxiety about the country's future. Meantime, Bakhtiyar warned that if the opposition rejected his plans on the basis of constitutional laws, the army would follow the example of Chile and establish a military dictatorship. But Bakhtiyar knew that the American General Hoyzier had been specially sent to Iran to supervise the transfer of power and neutralise any possibility of a coup by Iranian generals.
Many demonstrations were staged in Tabriz and the masses came out in large numbers not only to oppose the Shah but also to denounce Bakhtiyar's government. On 13 January, over one million people marched in the streets of Tabriz (many travelled to be there from other cities of Azerbaijan), demanding the resignation of Bakhtiyar and the return of Khomeini from France.
On 16 January, I heard at two o'clock in the afternoon that the Shah had left Iran. I rushed out with my brother Mohsen, taking my camera as I wanted to go to the city centre to record what was happening. I saw that our street was already packed with people. Some were dancing; some were mounted on crowded lorries. All cars, taxis and other vehicles had their headlights on. Men and women, including mothers with their children, lined the pavements or were sitting on their rooftops watching the crowds and the celebration. The soldiers had confined themselves to the inside of lorries and were holding up pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini to save themselves from possible attack.
By the time my brother and I reached Danishsara Square, which was dominated by a large statue of the Shah, the crowd were just preparing to climb up and pull down the statue. I filmed the fall of the Shah's statue, and its replacement with pictures of Khomeini and Shariatmadari. Before filming, however, I noticed that a quarrel had broken out between the two soldiers who were guarding the statue. When the crowd approached the statue, one soldier wanted to fire into the crowd but his comrade stopped him by hitting him on the nose, which began to bleed violently. The crowd encircled them, saying that it was not time to quarrel but to be united against the common enemies - the Shah and America. People offered flowers and sweets to the soldiers by the statue and in army vehicles. Women were giving away sweets and encouraging their brothers and husbands by standing on the pavements and raising their fists.
In the past, during bloody street battles, the women had played an important part by turning their homes into first-aid centres to treat the wounded. In this way they prevented the arrest and interrogation of hundreds of combatants or demonstrators. When the crucial days of the Revolution were approaching and the conflict between the Shah's army and the masses was becoming more and more violent and bloody, women in Iran were very active and played a decisive part in the Revolution. In Tabriz I saw women piling up sandbags, wearing jeans or army uniform, and sitting behind machine-guns. In Tabriz women showed such courage and resoluteness that it became a saying among the Shah's commandos "You can move rocks but you cannot move women". As so often happens, these women have been betrayed by the Revolution they helped to bring about.
After the crowd had toppled the Shah's statue in Danishsara Square, Mohsen and 1 moved toward Saat Qabaghi (City Council Square). By the time we arrived the people were pulling the body of the Shah's statue along the street, while a tall person carried the head of the statue above his head mimicking the Shah. All the streets were still packed and buses and cars were unable to move. 1 could hear this poem being relayed through a loudspeaker:

It is night and the face of motherland is dark.
We have lost many brothers,
They have been drowned in blood.
For the sake of freedom,
Take your daggers, your weapons
Fight to bring the revolution to fruition. . .
Let us unite and free ourselves from slavery and despotism,
Workers and peasants unite. . .
Rise up and bring down the palace of tyrant.

1 met some university students, who told me that they were on their way towards Tabriz Prison, which was situated on the outskirts of Tabriz on the road leading to Tehran. They intended to free the political prisoners. 1 decided to join them.
When we arrived, one group had already attacked the prison and was trying to open the gates. Another group was approaching the prison. They were mainly workers, students and poor peasants who had moved to Tabriz and made their homes in the valleys of the Own-Ali mountain, where they lived in mud huts without electricity or proper heating. The students and 1 lost each other among the crowd. As the crowd approached the prison building, commandos suddenly appeared on the roof and started to fire at the crowd. People took shelter behind concrete structures and stone walls. 1 hid behind a concrete structure while 1 was filming the shooting. The hail of bullets was so fierce that 1 abandoned filming and lay down on the ground. Red-hot bullets were whizzing over our heads so closely that 1 could feel their heat. Someone pulled me back saying, "Doctor, don't go so close to the edge. You might be shot. We need you. . ."
After the shooting stopped and the crowd began to disperse, 1 talked to the young man who had pulled me back. He was a worker and lived at OwnAli mountain, which is not very far from my parents' house. We started walking towards the city centre. 1 asked him about his life and about his reasons for opposing the Shah's regime. He said, "1 work here and there.
Sometimes 1 work at the carpet factory and in summer 1 prefer to do construction work. 1 work to support my mother and little sister. My father became ill and died last year. They said he had rheumatism and bronchitis. Our house is damp. A high electricity pylon passes over our valley but underneath we live without electricity and heating. It is very hard to live like this."
"What has the Shah got to do with this?" I asked. He answered, "After all he is the head of our country. We expect him to think about our living conditions. We suffer from cold in winter and from heat in summer. While we do not have drinking water and electricity, the rich people on the other side of the city have plenty of electricity and water. They even have swimming pools. Two kilometres away from our area you can see blocks of luxury flats built for the families of army and air force personnel. We do not expect to have those kinds of flats, but we want at least to have water, electricity and work. I tell you we live worse than animals. We are not regarded as human beings and members of this society. I know your brother Mohsen. Ask him about our living conditions and you are welcome to my home to see for yourself."
I asked Hassan, the young man, if he had taken part in other demonstrations. "A few days ago I took part in a protest demonstration in front of the American Consulate in Tabriz. My shoes were torn and when we were attacked by the police I could not run fast enough and fell in the gutter next to the pavement and broke my glasses. Now I can neither see properly and work nor can I afford to buy a new pair of shoes. I wished I was dead then.. ."
I met Hassan a. week later and he took me to his house. His mother seemed embarrassed by her son's showing me their home. They lived and slept in one room. There was neither a kitchen, nor a bathroom. At the corner of a small yard was a toilet and in another corner of the yard was a pot next to an old paraffin oil stove. The place looked more like a dumping ground than a home. Hassan showed me the entire area, where hundreds of desperately poor people lived. I was allowed to film the area and talk to some of the men and women who lived there. I had previously filmed this area, and the high-voltage pylon which crossed above the lower parts of the Own-Ali mountain, in December 1978, about two Or three months before the Shah left. At that time many people did not dare to come out and talk in front of the camera. I had only managed to interview one man who was building his home while it was snowing and one woman who lived further down towards the bottom of the valley. The man told me that they had been to the electricity board and asked for electricity, but the electricity board asked for money and the man did not have the two thousand tomans (equivalent to £60) to pay for it. The woman said, "We live in this room and do not have heating in this cold weather. There is no water either. I have to leave my young children alone in the rOom and travel to the other side of the valley to collect water. We went and asked for electricity and they wanted two thousand tomans for each pole. We do not have that money to give. The Shah promised us water and electricity many years ago, but we did not get it. . ." While I was interviewing this woman I could see on the other side of the hill many Phantom bombers on the ground of a military base next to Tabriz airport. There were still over 50,000 American military advisers living in Iran at the time, receiving huge salaries from the government.
This area, called Dabbakhana Usti (upper part of the skin factory), did not have a single doctor or a clinic. Many children suffered from dysentery, especially in summer. For treatment they had to travel to the children's hospital in the centre of Tabriz. I also filmed in this hospital soon after the Revolution of February 1979 and interviewed Dr Baradaran, who was in charge.
There were queues of children waiting for urgent treatment. Dr Baradaran told me, "You can see for yourself. We have to put two or three children in one cot because there is a shortage of beds and facilities. In this situation one baby passes infection to another, or when one child cries and moves it disturbs the next child. It often happens that one baby causes the death of another by disturbing and disconnecting the tube which supplies water to the sick child's body! We have not got enough nurses to watch them constantly. We simply cannot cope with so many sick children. This is the largest children's hospital in Tabriz. It is a pity to see so many children die. It is really a waste. The government could have spent much more on hospitals and child care. . ."
After the Revolution Dr Baradaran and I organised a clinic at Dabbakhana with the generous help of medical students in Tabriz. This clinic was open for 20 hours a day and treatment was free, with only a nominal charge for medication, and was able to drastically reduce the number of sick children, especially in summer, by attacking the causes of dysentery. Later on I heard that the clinic was shut down by the Komiteh, a committee which was formed after the Revolution in every district, mainly composed of militia men, who were very diverse in their social outlook, and claimed to protect the Revolution and the Islamic Republic, on the charges that the medical students belonged to left-wing political groups.
On 1 February 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and millions of people in Tehran welcomed him as the leader of the Revolution. The state disintegrated and Bakhtiyar could no longer govern. Power passed into the hands of the Komitehs and city councils. In Tabriz and other parts of Azerbaijan many of the Komitehs were taken over by clerics. In Tabriz there were large-scale demonstrations in support of Ayatollah Khomeini and his provisional government headed by Mahdi Bazargan, a mechanical engineer and leading member of the Liberation Movement, which was a religious branch of Mossadeqists. On 9 February, in Tehran, the Imperial Guard withdrew after intense fighting with the people, in which the Left (Fida'is, Mujahidin and Tudeh members) played a crucial role. Large quantities of arms were distributed to the people. On 11 February at 6 p.m. Tehran radio announced the end of the 2,500-year monarchy and the success of the Revolution.
The same course of events took place in Tabriz the following day, 12 February, where General Bidabadi attempted to crush the Revolution. First he distributed arms to all SA V AK members, but withdrew his commandos from the streets. In fact he neither ordered the police to withdraw nor to refrain from shooting. When a big crowd of people converged on the police station near the city park, Gulistan Baghi, to take it over they faced the policemen who, in desperation, fired at them, killing many and wounding hundreds. I was with my friend and saw people collecting white sheets in which to wrap the dead. When the city hospital announced shortages of blood, ice and medicine, within an hour hundreds of people queued to donate blood and had taken with them so much ice and medicine (bought from chemists) that Tabriz radio had to broadcast announcements asking them to stop bringing more. A food shortage had also been declared and foodstuffs such as eggs had been requested. An eye-witness said that a heap of eggs and ice was piled up in front of the hospital. The hospital refused to accept more contributions.
Two things above all remain distinct in my memory about the Revolution. First, people offered whatever they could afford, even their own lives, especially those members of the poorer sections of society. Second, people were not frightened of anything - even death. "It is rather death which is frightened of these brave people," I commented to my friends at the time.
On 13 February a Tabriz City Council, formed of local dignitaries, teachers, workers, clerics and merchants met and decided to appoint people to organise their local Komitehs. With two other people from Davachi (Shams-Tabrizi Street) I was appointed to organise Komiteh No. 3 and to supervise local security and cooperate with air force cadets and officers. When we went to the local police station (the place assigned to be Komiteh 3) we found it in ruins and decided to go instead to the next building, which belonged to the City Council's Cleansing Department.
We organised some tables and arranged the rooms. Several young militia men came with us. One of them, a short and unintelligent-Iooking person about 30 years of age, came along and wanted to be my bodyguard. Although I refused to have a bodyguard, he still insisted on staying with me. Later on, Captain Bayburdi, an air force officer and commander of the cadets in our Komiteh, discovered that my bodyguard was a weapons smuggler and an agent for Mullah Binabi, who supported Khomeini and opposed Shariatmadari.
Within three days we had organised the Komiteh and arrested and disarmed a number of SA V AK members, who had fired into the air to create panic among the local people. Then the mullahs took over the Komiteh and the man who was supposed to be my bodyguard stopped me entering the Komiteh building and threatened to kill me. I returned home.
That evening, Captain Bayburdi came to see me at home and announced his resignation and the withdrawal of his cadets and personnel from the Komiteh. We parted on good terms. Later on, in 1983, I heard that Captain Bayburdi had committed suicide in mysterious circumstances.
I recall three events from those days when I was working with Captain Bayburdi. The other two people, both merchants, who were supposed to be working with me as local representatives, did not turn up either through fear or expediency. Thus I had to rely totally on Captain Bayburdi and take his opinion into consideration. The first night of the Revolution the captain, a few young dedicated militia men and I were sitting and having a cup of tea after a long, tiring day. It was midnight. One of the militia brought in an old man who was very drunk but could still talk and joke. He had four bottles of wine in his pocket. I asked him why he was so drunk and where he had bought the bottles. He replied, "Sir, all my life I used to pass the wine shops and look at the bottles from outside the window. Today these shops were open and everything was free. I drank more than four bottles and took some more bottles away with me. It is the happiest day of my life." I asked the young man who had brought him if he knew where his house was. He said, "He lives at Oabbakhana." Captain Bayburdi and I decided to ask our driver to take the man and deliver him to his family, as we were afraid that something might happen to him on his way.
The second event happened on the second night. Two policemen were brought by some Gurichai people (from a mainly working-class area) who demanded that these policemen should be executed. They had allegedly taken part in shooting the demonstrators opposing the Shah's regime. The policemen were shivering with fear and could not talk. Captain Bayburdi and I said that we could not decide about their case; there should be a trial and if they were found guilty then the court should decide what to do. Besides we could not be sure whether they had fired on the people or not. The men insisted that these policemen had fired on demonstrators. Finding ourselves in this awkward situation, we promised to make an investigation and collect evidence from eye-witnesses and then we would send the case to the House of Justice. Fortunately, the crowd left, but the two policemen refused to go, being frightened to leave the building in case of attack. We let them sleep in one of the back rooms.
Before we decided to keep these policemen in the Komiteh building, we asked them to tell us the truth about whether they had killed any person during the recent demonstrations. We even promised to help them because they each had a family and children. Both of them admitted that they had fired in the air, not to shoot anyone but to protect themselves from attack.

Our investigations proved this to be true. When we told them that they could leave the Komiteh, they said that they were drug addicts and asked our help. The only thing the captain and I could do was to send them to a hospital and ask for them to be treated. They agreed with this decision and were pleased to be safe. Their families were informed.
The third event occurred on 15 February 1979. Captain Bayburdi and I visited Amir-Khiz, Davachi and Dabbakhana, which were all covered by the Komiteh 3 area. Some air force personnel accompanied us. We wanted to find out what was happening in these areas. The sound of machine-guns could be heard here and there. Were people being shot or was it merely to create chaos? I heard the BBC World Service saying on the radio that hundreds of people were killed in Tabriz on that night. Actually only a few people were shot dead that night; those who used machine-guns were SA V AK members and were disarmed within 24 hours by air force members.
Captain Bayburdi and I were surprised to see two or three young men brandishing sticks and guarding the Gurichai district at 2 a.m. They were so proud and determined, believing that they could face any enemy. We asked them what had happened to the member of the militia who had been sent by Komiteh 3 to guard the area. They said, "He is sleeping in the mosque. He had not slept for the past two nights so we wanted him to rest while we guard the area for him!" We were truly impressed by the sincerity and courage of these people. Captain Bayburdi said, "You people deserve freedom and I kiss the feet that support your body. . ."
Soon after the Revolution, the government forces attacked the Kurdish and Turkman people. Many were killed. I learned about the situation in Kurdistan through Dr Khaliqi, my colleague at Tabriz University. Dr Khaliqi was himself a Kurd and knew the area inside-out. He described how the people had been bombed and killed by government forces. Upset and angry at this news, I telephoned Mr Bazargan's house in Tehran that night. He was not available so I left a message expressing my anxiety about Kurdistan. His wife kindly promised to convey my message. After three days I heard that Mr Bazargan had sent Ayatollah Talqani to Kurdistan on a fact-finding mission. I later heard that Ayatollah Talqani's report stated that the innocent people in Kurdistan needed food and housing not bullets. Kurdistan needed urgent attention. Despite this report the bombing and shelling continued. Thousands of people died or lost their homes and fled to other cities as refugees. We were told by the government-controlled media that those who died in Kurdistan were "anti-revolutionaries".
A few days after I heard the news about Kurdistan, I talked again to Dr Khaliqi and suggested that he ought to return to Kurdistan and try to bring peace to his motherland. At the same time I also suggested that we both travel to Tehran and meet Mr Furuhar, who was minister of labour in Bazargan's Cabinet. Mr Furuhar had known me since Mossadeq's time. I had met him with Mr Ghani-Zadeh on several occasions. Both men were sincere supporters of Mossadeq.
Or Khaliqi and I accordingly travelled to Tehran the same day. We met Mr Furuhar and discussed the matter. He was pleased to put forward Or Khaliqi's name to the Home Secretary as a possible secretary of state for Kurdistan. While in his office, Mr Furuhar expressed anxiety about unemployment in the country. He asked me if I could be helpful in allocating proper jobs to those students who had returned home from abroad. I showed my willingness to help and also wished to work in Azerbaijan. He agreed and suggested that I should immediately contact Mr Muqaddam Maraghei (the newly appointed governor-general of Azerbaijan) and tell him about our conversation. Mr Furuhar added, "An official letter, appointing you as director of labour in Azerbaijan, will be issued shortly." Before I left we decided to meet on Friday 2 March at his home to discuss the matter further. I had written down some suggestions about the situation in Azerbaijan, which I gave to Mr Furuhar and asked him to pass on to Mr Bazargan.
I returned to Tabriz, contacted Mr Muqaddam Maraghei and told him about Mr Furuhar's suggestion. After a few meetings we decided that I should work on a plan for opening the closed factories, providing jobs for both skilled and unskilled workers, and particularly deal with unemployed carpet-makers who had lost their jobs during the Revolution when the carpet market was bad. At the same time Mr Murtazavi, the vice-governorgeneral, suggested that I organise the Social Democrat Party in Tabriz. Mr Muqaddam Maraghei himself was the leader of this party and Mr Murtazavi hoped that he would be prime minister in the near future. I did not show any interest in this and said that I preferred to be helpful in solving the unemployment and labour problems in Azerbaijan.
I sat and worked for a whole week and prepared a plan with the help of an economist friend who had recently completed his PhD studies at the London School of Economics. We both took the plan to Mr Maraghei and gave it to him to study and make any necessary suggestions. We agreed to meet again and discuss the matter, and hoped that by then an official letter confirming my new appointment would have reached Tabriz.
I met Mr Maraghei after a few days. Without being specific, he said, "Or Sabri, your labour programme is similar to that of Pishavari." I was surprised to learn that Mr Maraghei did not approve of my suggestion that the closed factories should be opened and put under the management of a committee democratically elected by the workers of the same factory; or that instead of depending on loans or temporary unemployment benefits, the workers should be employed in construction works to build schools, hospitals, roads and houses. Neither I nor my economist friend could understand how we could solve the problem of unemployment without carrying out some practical and essential work in the area. In the end both Dr Khaliqi and I failed to receive any letter from Tehran. Many, like us, who had been prepared to carry out all sorts of service without expecting big salaries, remained idle. Bazargan's government seemed indecisive and more afraid of revolutionary forces than the anti-revolutionary ones such as big landowners, major businessmen and traditional religious leaders. I became even more convinced that this was so when Bazargan and his Cabinet visited Tabriz a month later.
When Bazargan visited Tabriz with his entire Cabinet, on 25 March 1979, I was one of three representatives from Tabriz University (the other two were Professor Manuchihr Murtazavi, ex-principal of Tabriz University and Professor Rawshan-Zamir) who met him and attended a lunch party held in the governor-general's official building. Mr Bazargan talked about the workers and said that they should return to their factories and the peasants to their villages. Afterwards the workers' representative rose and read out a list of their needs and made several suggestions. Mr Bazargan seemed annoyed. A long silence followed. I then stood up and commented both on what Mr Bazargan had said and on the suggestions made by the workers' representative. I said, "Mr Bazargan, you suggest that workers must go back to the factories. Now most of the factories are closed and their owners have either fled the country or are sitting in their country villas waiting to see what will happen next. Your government ought to invite these factory owners to reopen their factories in two weeks' time. If they fail to open them within two weeks then your government itself should open these factories and let a workers' committee run them. The products of these factories could be sold in co-operative shops and the profits used to both pay the workers and plough back into the factories.
"About the peasants whom you have suggested should be sent back to their villages: this suggestion seems to me like someone throwing a big stone at Mount Own-Ali (we could all see the mountain from where we were sitting) and then order the stone to stay on the mountain. There must be energy to hold the stone on the mountain otherwise it will fall down. Similarly, if there is nothing in the villages to attract the peasants - no land, no water, no seeds, no proper houses, no doctors or many other essentials of life - then how can we expect these desperate peasants to go back to their villages and stay there? Land, water, seeds, proper houses and other essentials of life must be provided, then they will return without persuasion or force."
When 1 had finished, Mr Bazargan said, "Why do you expect everything from my government?" He sarcastically concluded by adding, "I am glad that a university teacher has risen in defence of workers." Someone reacted to these statements and said, "If we do not ask your government to provide for our needs then should we ask our neighbours to help us? You have accepted the responsibility of being the government of Iran after the Revolution. We have made the Revolution to promote the needs of workers and peasants; otherwise why would we have gone through all those terrible days?"
After lunch I spoke with General Madani, Minister of Defence. In the middle of a conversation about the political situation in Tabriz University and the position of university teachers, we were joined by Amir Intizam, the government spokesman. I asked Amir Intizam when the government would introduce land reform and the other radical reforms which the country badly needed. He replied, "It is too early to think about land reform. The Revolution is still in danger." He did not, however, specify who it was that threatened the Revolution. Later, I learned how the Bazargan government had attacked and brutally suppressed patriotic and national forces in Kurdistan, Turkmanistan and in various political groups. Only then did I understand what Amir Intizam meant by "anti-revolutionary" elements. In fact, right from the first days of Bazargan's government ex-SA V AK members and people who had been influential civil servants during the Shah's rule, grew beards and filled very sensitive governmental jobs and positions. To my surprise, there were quite a number of these kinds of people in Tabriz and they pretended to be more revolutionary than the true revolutionaries. I remember a certain person called Muhammadi, a well-known SA V AK member at the machine and ball-bearing factory. He disappeared during the Revolution, but returned to Tabriz and the factory after February 1979 with a long beard saying that he had been pardoned by Imam Khomeini. He had said to the workers in the factory, "I told Imam Khomeini that I was in SA V AK, but my work had been to catch Communists, and the Imam told me to return to my job and continue catching Communists."
It seemed to me that the people were divided into three groups. First there were those who had suffered and been deprived for years, and in whom the pent-up energy and desires had now erupted like a volcano without mind and control. These people faced the Shah's army and death. Thousands of lives were lost. Second, there were those who had held influential positions under the Shah and were from comfortably-off traditional middle-class families. These people were aware of where their interests lay and the directions they should follow. They were using religion as a cover. They were to be found among the workers, teachers in schools and universities and among businessmen. These people often wrote slogans for and gave directions to the first group, which consisted of thousands and even millions of innocent men and women in the streets of Tabriz and other cities of Iran. If the second group wanted to label a person or political enemy as Godless and anti-revolutionary it did so through these honest ignorant masses. I remember in February 1979 when the Fida'is tried to organise a demonstration in front of the American Consulate in Tabriz. They were faced by a large group of men wielding sticks or sitting armed on motor bikes and shouting, "Fida'is are Godless" and "We do not want Communists". In the end they were forced to cancel their demonstration. One of my friends commented that "America must be delighted to see that she is not without support. . ."
The third group was a combination of political groups and parties: the Mujahidin, Tudeh Party, Fida'is, Mossadeqists and so on. These groups came under systematic attack, and in a concerted way. Their meetings were disrupted by ordinary people (often mere youngsters) who were directed by a mullah or members of the second group I have mentioned. I remember one
night when the students occupied Tabriz University demanding the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from France to Iran. I stayed with the students. There were a few very fanatically religious students who barred the third group from taking part in this sit-in at the university.
Thus, soon after the Revolution had occurred those who were truly revolutionary and had played a crucial role during the uprising against the Shah were now denounced as being anti-revolutionary, anti-God, Communists, Western-oriented, spies and Bahais. The reactionary forces, important businessmen in the bazaars and major landowners raised the flag of Islam and Revolution shouting, "There is no party but the party of Allah", "There is no leader, but Ruhullah". By "Ruhullah' they meant Ruhullah Khomeini. I heard this slogan for the first time in December 1978 in Tabriz, when a group of young people came from the city to Tabriz University led by a young mullah.
Ayatollah Khomeini, in fact, in a message to school and university students on 8 October 1978, clearly accused the Left and Communists of being dependent on foreigners and deceived by them. This created a wave of criticism among non-religious groups in Europe and Iran. Afterwards, whenever other political groups or parties held a meeting, a group of "Hizb Allah" or "Party of God" members appeared, shouting out the same slogan over and over again until the meeting was disrupted and forced to disperse. There was, I believe, an underground organisation for such disruption and other serious crimes. The anti-revolutionaries began to shout louder than the revolutionaries.
On 4 March 1979 I paid a visit to Dr Karim Sanjabi, the minister of foreign affairs after the Revolution and an important member of Mossadeq's Cabinet in 1953. He received me warmly in his office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran. Leaving his huge desk he came and sat next to me. He was dignified and courteous, but his eyes seemed tired and his smile was mixed with sadness. I congratulated him on his important job and said, "You must be glad to see this freedom after years of imprisonment and suppression under the Shah. Iranians, Azerbaijanis and Kurds in particular need a strong and well-organised united democratic front to fight against' injustice, unemployment and illiteracy, and to carry out radical and revolutionary programmes." Or Sanjabi agreed with me but then stated, "There is much to be done. One does not know (or is not allowed to know) where to begin. I feel old. My friends and I have spent our youth and energy either under a suppressive atmosphere or in prison. Now that the time of working and fulfilling the essential needs of the Revolution has arrived we feel too old to carry out such duties. In addition, certain social and political relationships have also tied my hands. I blame the Shah for all this. He committed a big crime by the 28th Mordad coup d'etat."
When I questioned him in general about the minority peoples of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and Baluchistan, and in particular about the Kurdish troubles, Or Sanjabi did not seem to have such clear ideas as had Mr Furuhar. I suggested, for example, that priority must be given to the mother tongue in Kurdistan, Azerbaijan and other parts of Iran. In schools a Kurdish and an Azerbaijani child should first learn to read and write in his or her mother tongue and only afterwards learn Persian as an official language of the country. Or Sanjabi commented, "The Kurdish language differs in Mahabad from Kirmanshah. In other words, the Kurdish language is not the same all over the area." I responded by pointing out that "the difference is rather in the dialect than in the language. We see similar differences in Azerbaijani, Arabic and even Persian. Once children start learning Kurdish from text books then this will gradually create a common literary language, understandable all over Kurdistan. This is also true about other minority languages in Iran." This was perhaps of little importance for a minister of foreign affairs, but he listened kindly and showed interest.
Before returning to Tabriz, I called on Mr Oariyush Furuhar in his office. He regretted to hear that neither Or Khaliqi nor I had received any communication from the minister of the interior.
The University of Tabriz was reopened after the Revolution. Special classes were organised in the afternoons and evenings to prepare the students for their finals. I started teaching night-classes and enjoyed the work. My subject was the art of essay writing. I discussed the concept and origin of "imagination" in a literary and social context: whether art and literature have class roots and how "imagination" works in a class-based society.
I also taught English language and literature to the first-year students. There was a mixture of men and women students: most of them worked during the day as teachers, army personnel, farmers, joiners - all manner of jobs. I found them extremely enthusiastic, eager to learn and appreciative of any help. They did not like to be regarded as students, or at least to be treated like children. Creating a sense of personality and self-respect among them worked wonders. Many students passed, although I did not think their standard was as high as it should have been and much was based on rote learning. This perhaps stemmed from the social and educational restrictions that all the universities had suffered during the previous years.
Many students talked to me about their work and private life. One of the women explained how she had attended classes in the university without telling her father. "He disapproves of girls studying at university. I attended the classes secretly until my mother told him about my attendance. He was upset about it but realised that it was too late to change my mind." By 1979, 133,000 students were studying in colleges and universities in Iran. One third of these were girls. The fees were so high that low-income citizens had little chance of entering the colleges. A few years before the Revolution, the government had announced a scheme whereby any student wishing to study could do so on condition that for each year of study they should work for the government for two years after finishing their studies. Many students preferred to both work and study at the same time.
The situation of women in Iran worsened after the Revolution of 1979. In his speech, Ayatollah Khomeini had rightly said, "We owe our revolution to women." Unfortunately, the Islamic Republic of Iran has repaid its debt to women by denying them the most essential human rights. There are still many Iranian girls and mothers who are tortured in prison for political reasons. They want freedom, independence, social justice and peace. Iranian women have long suffered on two fronts, by socio-economic exploitation and sex discrimination, yet they have struggled alongside freedom-fighting men throughout history, particularly during the Revolutions of 1905 and 1979. Iranian women are closer to the bitter experiences of life under the regime of Vilayat-i Faqih (the rule of a religious leader). They have endured all manner of sacrifices and have suffered most through the loss of their sons and husbands during the past eight years of the Iran-Iraq war.
In a society where women are mostly barred from employment, the poverty and hardship that results from these deaths pushes women into yet more dependent and humiliating positions. The government's solution was to encourage men to marry more than one wife! But these women and their daughters will appear again in the streets of Iran with more determination and unity. The Shah's army could not move them and "You can move rocks but you cannot move women" had become the proverb of the Revolution of 1979 in Tabriz. The regime of clerical dictatorship cannot be an exception, although it is more devastating to women than the Shah's regime because it has the weapon of religion.
Here are two poems I wrote at the time:

Poem from Tabriz:
You may see me under veil,
You may see me in prison,
You may see me in the fields,
You may see me at work.
Don't look on me as helpless! Under my veil I have a loving heart, Inside prison walls a strong heart, In the fields I have waiting eyes, At work I have strong arms.
I shall heal our wounds by love,
I will break the prison walls,
I shall meet the waiting eyes,
And embrace all in my loving arms.

Palestinian mother

I have waited for years,
I have waited for days,
I have waited for hours,
I have waited for minutes,
To see my freedom at my door, To see my children at home, To have a land for my own, To have the freedom for all.

The sun is rising behind the barbed wires,
The wind of change blowing through the prison walls,
The birds began returning home,
And want to be free in their home.

At the beginning of the Revolution I supported it and felt that Khomeini was a radical religious leader who could pave the way in a religious society for social justice and eventually for Socialism. I saw Khomeini as similar to the philosopher-poets like Rumi and Attar, who opposed the ruling dogmatic system and rigid religion of their time. They opposed social injustice. Khomeini, furthermore, seemed the only leader since Mossadeq who was able to unite the people against the Shah's regime, and millions supported him. Khomeini made many moralistic and revolutionary speeches highlighting the position of workers, peasants and the oppressed masses. He said that "The Prophet of Islam kissed the hand of a worker saying that a worker's hands are holy". He presented the Revolution as one of the oppressed rising against their oppressors.
Within two years I realised that a gulf existed between the words of Ayatollah Khomeini or the Islamic Republic of Iran and their actions. The workers and peasants were abandoned or left at the mercy of factory owners and landowners. Labour laws passed were anti-working-class; political and opposing religious groups were persecuted. Many intellectuals, doctors, engineers and teachers were sentenced to death for holding contrary political and religious views.
The first election after the Revolution, in which I myself participated, was rigged and the votes of other political parties ignored. I noticed in one polling station that the votes given to Mujahidin-i Khalq and the Marxists were more than those for the supporters of the Hizb-Allah. Musa Khiyabani (for Mujahidin-i Khalq), for example, polled 478 votes and Hujjat aI-Islam's Sayyid Hussein Musavi 305. Sayyid Hussein Musavi, however, was the one elected. I interviewed several people who were in charge of polling booths. They confirmed that the votes for groups other than the Hizb-Allah were suppressed. I argued with some of those who attended at the polling stations. Armed men, however, were everywhere and I thought it dangerous to protest too strongly.
There is a long dark story attached to Mullah Hussein Musavi mentioned above. He later ordered the execution of hundreds of young political prisoners and those from minority religious groups such as the Bahais. One Bahai was a prominent ear, nose and throat specialist, Or Faramarz Samandari. He was arrested and executed the same night. The following day all medical doctors went on strike, but their action was stopped by military force.
In the summers of 1981 and 1982 when I revisited Iran, I remember that Sayyid Hussein Musavi used to fly once or twice a week from Tehran to Tabriz to sit as a judge in the city prison. People were accused of being "antirevolutionary" or "corrupted on earth". In summary trials he used to sentence to death many young men and women.

. . . I have not fulfilled my youthful desires
And have remained with the young eternally young,
I have given my unperformed song to the river
So it can sing it with the young.
The spring which gushes out of a mountain: is me
It is the one that springs from the heart of rock!
The fire is made bright by the fire in my chest
The thunder is my voice.

Anywhere fists are raised they are my fists!
Any wound caused by slashes is on my back!
Anywhere you hear the voice of freedom: It is me!
I breathe through all these protests. . .
(Extract from "Spring in the Sun", by H. Sayeh.)

In the evening of the days that he was in Tabriz the spectre of death used to cover the sky. The dreadful sound of execution by firing squad could be heard in the streets by the mothers and families of those who were imprisoned. Every mother and every family used to sit in agony and wait for news of their loved ones, not knowing whether they had been spared or not. They only heard definite news of the execution the following day, when a prison guard would call at their house to demand payment for the bullets that had been used. If an unmarried girl had been executed the guard would hand over a token "bride price" to the family: to protect themselves from the possible wrath of God for executing a virgin the guards would hurriedly "marry" a condemned girl to one of their number. This practice does not, of course, exist in Islam and, indeed, the execution of women is a controversial issue in religious dogma.
I cannot say more than this about that hellish time and atmosphere. I know only that two of my friends' mothers had heart attacks and died on the evenings that they waited for news of their child's fate. I have recently heard that Ayatollah Khomeini has dismissed Mullah Musavi from all his posts because of his corruption and for committing adultery with female prisoners and prisoners' wives. Various members of his family, who had risen with him, were also dismissed. Such a mullah is the real enemy of the Revolution, not the unfortunate "anti-revolutionaries" he had put to death. The irony is that Ayatollah Khomeini himself had appointed this mullah to such a position.
I monitored all the government elections. The number of votes cast in every poll steadily dropped after the first referendum. About 20 million people took part in the first referendum; 15.7 million in the constitutional referendum; 14.1 million in the presidential elections; figures for the parliamentary elections showed a steep drop in the number of voters. The most important reason for the decline was political. The vagueness and ambivalence surrounding the aims and objectives of the Revolution and the constant efforts by certain powerful circles to attract the attention of the masses through empty promises and high-sounding slogans were instrumental in dampening a great many people's enthusiasm.
I talked to Izzat on 28 March 1980. He complained bitterly about price rises and the shortage of paraffin. "Mr Khomeini has made everything upside-down," he declared. "It is not Khomeini's fault; the mullahs and big businessmen have done this," I commented.
Izzat reacted angrily: "It is Mr Khomeini who has let these dogs out against the people. We have lost everything. Even one kilo of potatoes costs 80 rials. What has happened to paraffin? What has the Revolution got to do with paraffin? During the Russian Revolution paraffin and other goods were brought from North Azerbaijan and the price did not change. So long as the system is the same, so long as these people who possess everything rule the country, nothing will change. Now those who have money and are strong get whatever they need and the poor and weak are left helpless. I have no knowledge and education; my experiences have taught me that mullahs and these religious leaders do not care for the working class and the poor. Their words never match their deeds. They are good actors and they know how to deceive people." "It is partly the fault of the people who support the mullahs and vote for them," I replied. "In the parliamentary election I did not receive many votes." (I had stood as an independent candidate for the Majlis in March 1980.)
"Many people voted for you," Izzat answered. "I myself saw that many of my friends and neighbours voted for you. I was standing at the mosque in front of our house and someone said you had 950 votes just in one box. I heard people at the voting box saying that if you write your votes inside the mosque you must only vote for the mullahs. I tell you, this whole election seems suspicious and I have my doubts about it. What happened to so many educated people - doctors, teachers, lawyers, writers - and the workers who we know in our district? They were really popular, honest and kind men. None of them are elected! Only mullahs come out of the boxes. . ."
I chatted further with Izzat and recorded him speaking in his vegetable shop. He had recently converted part of his vestibule into a small shop selling fresh vegetables. I then went into the house to see Humai. I had to pay Humai a visit because it was Nawruz and I had brought her a present. We sat down and talked for an hour or so. My brother Mohsen joined us later. Humai told me how clever her sons, daughters and grandchildren were: "I don't really want for anything in the world. My daughters and grandchildren visit me often. Two of Marzieh's daughters and three of Fatima's daughters are newly married. My sons, Majeed and Hamid, are also married and have their own homes, thank Heaven. My only problem is the pain in my legs. I cannot walk far. I used to walk to your parents' house - carrying two children. I never felt tired."
I offered to take her to a doctor for treatment. She asked me again as before: "Cannot you treat me yourself? Come back to Tabriz and open a clinic and treat me properly." This time I did not repeat that I was not a medical doctor.
Izzat died in 1984 but Humai is still alive and living with her son Hamid. I can contact her by telephone: although she cannot hear half my conversation, I still feel delighted to hear her affectionate words in Azerbaijani, "Sagh 01 ogh1um ke mani Yada sa1misan" ("Be healthy, my son, for remembering me").
On the same day that I visited Izzat and Humai, I also called on some carpet-makers in their district. I interviewed one of the master carpetmakers called Mr Sarkhush Dildari. I asked his opinions about the Revolution and about his living conditions. He said: "At the beginning of the Revolution we got together (160 families), collected money and built gutters in the middle of our alleys. We covered them with iron sheets. These gutters could take rain-water and all dirty effluent out of our alleys and houses. The city council provided some unemployed workers and we kept them well supplied with food to encourage them to do the job properly. We all worked together. In the end we were in debt (14,000 tomans). Mr Maraghei, the governor-general after the Revolution, did not pay attention to any requests for help. We therefore decided against asking the governor for money to pay
our debt. One of our neighbours, Haj Aziz, contributed 8,000 tomans and the rest was paid by the rest of the neighbours. The problem has not been solved yet. We need urgent attention from the government. There is the problem of the sewage system. The cesspits in our houses are full. If we want to have them emptied, a special machine is needed. This machine cannot enter our narrow alleys. A hose of between 600-700 metres in length is needed to stretch from our houses to the main street. This problem has not so far been solved.
"After the Revolution the government decided not to charge for water. We do not want free water; we would rather the government charge us money and instead do something about the sewage system. We are even prepared to help. Neither the city council nor the city governor have paid any attention to our conditions. Our head men are frightened to approach the government and ask for help. Several times the leading men in our district have been taken away by government forces and either beaten up or harassed in different ways. Now they are frightened to approach the governor's office for help. They only want to protect themselves. And so the district committee which was organised at the beginning of the Revolution is now defunct. No one wants to take part in local meetings.
"We are told by Ayatollah Khomeini and his Government that the Revolution of 1979 was the revolution of the 'Mostazafin' (the deprived). We are 'Mostazafin'. This does not mean that I do not have clothes and a home. I have these. But I need other things - a hospital for example. If a samovar overturns on my child there is no emergency hospital in this part of town. I have to carry my child to the main road, find a taxi (if I am lucky to get one quickly) and take my child to Imam Khomeini Hospital, right on the other side of the city. All this would take at least an hour. That is, if I can find a taxi, the traffic is not busy and all goes well, my child will reach hospital in an hour. Heaven knows what could happen to the child in an hour. It depends on how serious the accident is.
"If there were a clinic in our district to deal with the sick and emergency patients one of our problems would be solved. During the Shah's rule they set up a clinic which still exists, but it does not have proper doctors or medicine. It merely dispenses some patent medicine for the relief of stomachache, for example. They hand this out for both children and adults. Our children often become ill with gastro-enteritis, for example, and pass germs on to other children in school. If a child is treated in time he will not pass on infection to another 60 pupils or so in a classroom. If the Islamic Republic wishes to help us, we need a health service. We need work. We expected the Revolution to give us what we needed. A revolution has taken place and we are told that the factories are nationalised, that is to say, they have become the property of the people. I am prepared to do anything: I can make carpets, I can work as an electrician. I can drive. When I go to the office of the governor-general in Tabriz and ask for work, they either label me as 'antirevolutionary' and beat me up or send me to the Department of Unemployment where they put me on a waiting list. My number is 10320. This means after 10319 people have found a job then it will be my turn. The other day I decided to go and see either the governor or his assistant. I managed to see his assistant and expressed my desire to work and help the Revolution. Instead of giving me a job or something to do he offered me a loan. I refused and said that if I accepted the loan what should I do after I had spent it? I added that this is a bad and anti-revolutionary act to give a loan to a worker who is able and willing to work. If we have made a revolution and the factories are nationalised, then we workers have the right to work in these factories. I still support the Revolution. We don't demand much from the Islamic Republic. I have two children, support my wife and mother and need work and a hospital. My children need an education and I want them to have a good future."
I recorded this interview about a year after the Revolution, in March 1980.
The workers, peasants and the poor people in general, who had gathered under the umbrella of Islam in the hope of realising their social and economic needs had already begun to doubt. They questioned whether this umbrella of the ayatollahs would offer them secure shelter. Many people (including myself) had begun to realise that there were two umbrellas and two Islams in the country: those of the rich and those of the poor. Each had their own interpretation of Islam in terms of land reform, property ownership, labour laws and many other social and political matters.
Those political groups or individuals who defended land reform and demanded social justice and political freedom were labelled and accused of being "anti-revolutionary", non-muslim, Godless, Communist and Monafiq (trouble-makers). All institutions were taken over by seemingly fanatical and dogmatic muslims. Many teachers were accused of being left-wing or Marxist and were sacked. To even mention a poet like Gulsurkhi and utter the word khalg (the people) brought the charge of being a Communist, which usually cost a man his life. This also became a common occurrence in the universities and classrooms. I was accused of being a Communist because I discussed Samad Behranghi and interpreted the works of great muslim writers such as Allama Muhammad Iq bal, the "poet of the East" (1877-1938).
After the Revolution various ideological discussions and serious disputes started in the University of Tabriz and other seats of learning. They ranged from the philosophy of Marxism to the role of "Vilayat-i Faqih" (supreme Islamic judge: Ayatollah Khomeini is regarded as the" Vilayat-i Faqih"). I remember that I was once invited to read a paper on Allama Muhammad Iqbal. I had originally written this paper in 1977 for an international seminar on the Iqbal Centenary held in New Delhi and Lahore. My paper, a summary of which I shall give here, caused great controversy among the students and teaching staff. I said:
"Informed muslim scholars who have rejected the Islam of princes and kings have returned for inspiration to what they see as the original, pure spirit of Islam. The late scholar Ali Shariati argued in Iran that Islam was originally in revolt against the oppressive rulers of the time, but was soon taken over by these same rulers to be used as another 'instrument of oppression'. Like Christianity, Islam was taken over as a state religion by leaders who advocated acceptance and humility while they themselves lived in splendour. Muhammad Iqbal, one of the great muslim poets of the 20th century, wrote when India was still under colonial rule and condemned this kind of exploitation:

What shall I say about the poor, suffering muslim, valuable only as a human being?
He has neither energy nor excitement in his blood.
His hands are as empty as his pockets.
Do not tell me that God has done this.
You can wash away dust by this excuse.
Turn upside down this world - where
the unjust steals from the just.

(From Armaghan-e Hejaz.)

"Iqbal was against the mullahs who supported the rich and kept people ignorant of social justice and human understanding. Like other religions, Islam has both progressive and conservative followers, according to their socio-political outlook. There are parallels with Christianity. In the days when the official Church worked hand-in-glove with the ruling class, there arose revolutionary Christian writers who returned for inspiration to the original concept of Christ, the saviour of the poor and wretched. When socio-political needs arise, people use the nearest intellectual jVeapon against their social enemies. William Blake, for example, the revolutionary Christian poet, defended his vision against that of the official Church and social system:

The Vision of Christ that thou does see,
Is my Vision's Greatest Enemy. . .
Thine loves the same world that mine hates,
Thy Heaven doors are my Hell gates. . .
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white.
(From The Everlasting Gospel.)

"This vision is still active in present-day Latin America and Iqbal's vision is alive in Iran, Pakistan and throughout the Middle East, where the working classes and the poor use religion as a weapon against the ruling classes and American imperialism."
This weapon, which was wielded in the 1979 Revolution against the Shah and the ruling classes, was now steadily turning against those who had made the Revolution, who had made sacrifices and suffered the most. Major commercial interests, landowners and other reactionary forces persuaded the influential ayatollahs (especially those in the Council of Guardians) to use their religious weapon under the name of" Vilayat-i Faqih". They turned it on the workers, land and social reformers, democratic forces and political parties and organisations who demanded these reforms. To divert the people's attention from the main aims of the Revolution and essential social reforms, the leaders of the Islamic Republic first exploited the American hostages episode.
The seizure of the American Embassy and 66 of its American occupants by militant students on 4 November 1979 had become a major issue. Conservative and ruling interests in both Iran and the United States fully exploited the episode for their own advantages. Ronald Reagan owed much of his success in the 1980 presidential election to the hostage issue. It is little wonder that he had wished the hostage case to be continued and not to be resolved before the election. I later heard rumours that he had promised Khomeini's regime more arms than President Carter had offered in exchange for American hostages.
When I visited Iran in the summer of 1980 and closely followed events in Tehran around the American Embassy, I became convinced that it was much more than a simple hostage affair. A counter-revolution was taking place against democratic and revolutionary forces. By these means the Western world and Israel achieved their political initiative and regained the ground lost during the Revolution. Day and night anti-American slogans continued to appear in the streets and the media and Ayatollah Khomeini called America "the Great Satan". Meanwhile, the import of goods from America, Western Europe and Japan continued unabated. I saw sacks of rice imported from America with "Death to America" stamped on the outside. One of the mottoes of the Islamic Republic was "self-sufficiency", yet agricultural imports for the first eight months of 1987 alone cost $2.5 billion; this in addition to the purchase of arms which amounted to billions.
The West was worried about the left-wing element in Iran, especially the Tudeh Party. In February 1980 I discussed the situation with a longserving British expert on Iran. He told me that the Revolution in Iran had taken the West by surprise; the West was anxious to keep Bazargan in power because the clergy were incapable of governing and sooner or later the Tudeh Party would take over. I disagreed with him, pointing out that Ayatollah Khomeini had millions of supporters and the Tudeh Party was not strong enough to take over the government in Iran. The British expert commented, "It is true that Ayatollah Khomeini is supported by millions, but millions cannot govern the country. A number of technocrats, like Bazargan, are needed to govern and also keep in check the activities of the left." Later on, the West, realising that the ayatollah£ were accommodating their purposes (namely the suppression of the democratic forces and the continuation of trade with the West), decided to support, discreetly, the regime.
The following summer I met Sayyid Musavi. He was then minister of foreign affairs and is at present the prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We met in his office and discussed the political situation in Iran and the country's foreign policy. After complaining that there were too many decision-making centres in the country, he revealed his anxiety about the influence of "left-wing" literature in the universities and schools. He said, "We need some dedicated muslim writers to counteract this trend among the young, who are easily influenced by the left." He suggested that I should apply for a government position and send my publications to him. When I returned to Britain I sent him a copy of my book on William Blake and my articles on Allama Muhammad Iqbal. I never received a reply. I still kept wondering how the anxiety of the British expert about the left was repeated by Mr Musavi.
During 1980 attacks on the left and on democratic forces in general continued on a wider scale in the universities under the slogan of the "Cultural Revolution". In April 1980 a speech was given by Mr Hashimi Rafsanjani (the present Speaker of the Majlis) at Tabriz University, in which he referred to the activities of the "anti-revolutionaries" and the need to purge and purify the educational institutions of undesirable elements. Immediately afterwards, a huge well-organised mob wielding clubs attacked the university, beating and ejecting all the left-wing student organisations. They called themselves "muslim Revolutionaries" and aimed to rout those "anti-God" elements who were left-wing or Communist and thus "antirevolutionaries"! Many of my friends witnessed this event in Tabriz. I later witnessed similar scenes myself.
At the same time as the Tabriz demonstrations parallel events occurred in the universities of Tehran and other cities. All offices of the left-wing organisations were forced to dose; they were burnt and looted and their members savagely attacked, wounded and killed. Meetings addressed by the President, Mr Bani-Sadr, were also disrupted. In all these events, too, the attackers used the slogan of "muslim Revolutionary" against the "antirevolutionary" Communists! They were similarly organised, armed and all used the same savage tactics. Behind all these events there was an organised corps of former SA V AK agents, reactionaries in the government circle who wanted to suppress intellectual freedom in the universities and establish a "pure Islamic State with its own Islamic Education System". The universities were closed for over two years and hundreds of students, mostly female, were disqualified for being left-wing or "anti-revolutionary". Many university teachers and top scientists were forced to leave the country and become "God-sent" brains for Western institutions. Canada and the United States managed to attract thousands of them. Thus the so-called "Cultural Revolution" turned out to be against the culture and valuable human achievements of the country.

I Live Under War
Saddam Hussein of Iraq declared war on Iran on 11 September 1980. This further strengthened the position of the traditional clergy and pleased the West, especially the United States, for a number of reasons. Iraq counted on a swift military victory over the Shi'ite theocratic government in Iran because it was seen as a revolutionary and a regional power centre. Hussein thus hoped to deprive the Shi'ite separatists in Iraq of outside support. The Revolution of 1979 in Iran roused hope and gave moral support to the Shi'ite population of Iraq who had been governed by the Sunni minority. While Ayatollah Khomeini counted on Iraqi Shi'ites, Saddam Hussein relied on the nationalist sentiments of the Arabs in Iran's province of Khuzistan.