Chapter NINE

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In the summers of 1981 and 1982 I experienced the hell of war in Tabriz and Tehran. Both Tabriz and Tehran were bombed and hundreds of civilians were killed or wounded. There was a mixture of revolutionary patriotism and mourning. Thousands of men, young and old, from Azerbaijan and indeed from other parts of Iran rushed to the front hoping to push back the Iraqi army, which had penetrated 60 kilometres into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980. This was regarded by Iran as "the start of the Iraqi aggression". Meanwhile, black flags hung mournfully on the doors, roofs and mosques, in memory of fathers, brothers and sons killed in action. Those who had lost their sons or husbands were celebrated with flowers and greetings. Being killed in action was regarded as martyrdom and a sign of true devotion to Islam and the Revolution. The parents of the martyred offered sweets, cakes and tea to their visitors; their families were favoured and helped by the government of Iran.
The war stimulated patriotism and fanaticism among the general public, although for the children and mothers it was a terrifying experience. When Iraqi bombers appeared over the city, many faces grew pale. The children were told that as soon as they heard the warning sound they should rush and hide under the stairs (they used under the stairs as a shelter - as if bombs would not affect the stairs!). Mothers carried their babies and hid them in the basement or under stairs. Once the Iraqi aeroplanes came at midnight while everyone was asleep and my sisters and their families were in my mother's house. They rushed into the basement carrying the sleeping children and babies. The aeroplanes bombed the Tabriz oil refinery. The sound was so loud that it seemed as if a bomb had fallen next door. The entire building shook. One blast followed the other and all of us felt that we were in danger of being hit. Suddenly my youngest sister, Aghdas, realised that Yusif, her youngest son, had been forgotten in the panic and was left upstairs. She began to cry. I ran up to bring him downstairs. I saw that he had just been woken up by the noise and was looking for his mother. I took him to his mother and he complained, "Mum, I hate these planes. They make too much noise."

Look at our homeland!
It is a cage of mourning birds
Which have bleeding beaks.
Look at its earth!
The torn remnants of red tulips rise up from it.
Look at its roads
A caravan of poverty and refugees are waving.
Look at its sky
Where the angry clouds are rolling. . .
(Extract from a poem by Siyavush KasraL)
I asked people about their opinion on the causes of the Iran-Iraq war. The majority believed that Saddam Hussein had started the aggression, backed by America and Israel. This is what the Islamic Republic of Iran had stated through the government-controlled media. The war was, therefore, between the just (the Islamic Republic) and the unjust (Saddam Hussein and his backers). I rarely heard people say that the dispute was between the Shi'ite and Sunnites, as the Western press often asserts.
More sophisticated Iranians believed that the imperialist powers showed a significantly great interest in the dispute between Iraq and Iran. Shortly before hostilities began, the media in the United States and western Europe started to discuss both the threat to tHe Islamic Revolution from Iraq and the threat to Iraq from Iran. Ahmad, my friend who had graduated from Edinburgh and taught English in Tabriz, argued that the Iran-Iraq war was essentially planned and encouraged by the United States. He said, "America had three aims. First, they wanted to distract revolutionary Iran from essential social reforms inside the country. They also wanted to strengthen the position of important businessmen in the bazaar and landowners who would benefit from the war by price rises and hoarding of essential goods. This would create false shortages and mean they could sell their goods for vastly inflated prices." (This indeed has happened during the past eight years.) "Second," my friend continued, "America wanted to turn conservative Arab states (such as Saudi Arabia) against revolutionary Iran and sell them more arms. Above all, they wanted to have a military base and presence in the Persian Gulf and Arab countries who, in the past, were reluctant to admit America. Even countries like Kuwait, who used to take a somewhat neutral stance, were forced to take shelter under the American wing." (Kuwait's tankers, in 1988 for example, sail under the protection of the American flag. Now the United States has the largest fleet in the Persian Gulf and military bases in the Indian Ocean, Middle East and North Africa, i.e. Egypt.) "Thirdly, America intended to destroy two strong armies, namely those of Iran and Iraq, and thus save Israel from possible danger at the hands of these power centres." (America not only managed to bring about the destruction of most sophisticated weapons in Iran and Iraq by letting them turn against each other, but also sold billions of dollars worth of weapons to Iran. London was also used as a centre for financial and weapons transaction (as was reported in the Observer, 28 February 1988). Iraq bought a great deal of weapons from France after the start of war in September 1980.)
In the summer of 1982, Samad (my nephew, who was 18 years old) returned to Tehran from the war. I had a long talk with him. He described the situation at the front. "It is a selfless atmosphere. We were six in one trench. We were fighting day and night. Although we were hungry and tired, everybody put his fellow soldiers' interest before his own. When we had little food left, everyone said he was not hungry in case the others were more in need of food. . ." Samad had an ideal, heroic and spiritual vision of the war. Knowing he was potentially a good student I tried to persuade him to stay behind, finish his education and thus serve his country better. We returned to Tabriz together. On the way we had a long discussion about the nature of the Iran-Iraq war and its negative effect on the peoples of Iran and Iraq.
While in Tabriz Samad told me that he had lost his cousin Ali in the war and had brought his "testament" with him. "Ali wrote this statement before attacking the enemy positions," Samad said. He handed it for me to read. The paper stated, ". . . My dear parents, don't cry or be sad after my death. This is the way that I have chosen, the way that leads to the bosom of Allah, to eternity. . . My ultimate desire is to be martyred as Imam Hussein was in Karbala . . ." Samad seemed to be feeling guilty. "Ali is martyred but I am sitting, eating and living in comfort." Samad could not overcome his sense of guilt. His friends called on his house every day and urged him to rejoin them at the front. My sister Aghdas was disturbed and worried about Samad's state of mind. She told me one day: "I cannot sleep. I have nightmares. The other night I dreamed Samad had returned to the war front and was killed like his cousin - I cannot bear to see him leaving Tabriz." Although Samad had promised to stay in Tabriz and finish his education, after I returned to Scotland I heard that he had been killed in the war.
Aghdas later went alone to visit her son's grave in Tabriz in the middle of winter. She fainted on the grave. She lay in the snow for a long time until someone found her and informed her family. This experience and her grief made her so ill that she had to stay in bed for months and she still suffers from a sore back and neck. My mother's death was hastened by her grief for Samad. Countless numbers of young men have been killed in the. years of fighting, from both the Iranian and Iraqi sides. According to UN estimates, more than a million people, including women and children, have been killed. Over a million Iranians and three hundred thousand Iraqis have been crippled. The material damage has reached over 500 billion dollars.
All those killed were once children like Sa mad, whom we see in the photograph holding his cousin's hand.
People in Iran and Iraq are all sick and tired of the war; mothers in particular hate the fighting:

I wish war had never been created,
I wish the seed of war had never been sown.
War has swallowed so many children,
War has destroyed so many blossoms.
Our earth has experienced so many wars,
Our earth is left in ruins by wars.


Samad with his cousin, winter 1965.

My children are murdered by war,
My heart has shed blood by war.
I wish war had never been created,
I wish the seed of war had never been sown.

I have received many letters from Iran since 1982. One mother wrote:

. . . my husband earns 1000 rials a day [on the black market £1 is worth about 1600 rials]. There are nine in the family. My children are hungry and have become ill. In the past cheese and bread were cheap and we could afford to eat these with vegetables. Now cheese is 1200 rials per kilo, and we cannot afford to buy it. War has caused nothing but hardship for us. I wish it would stop soon. Ayatollahs do not want to stop the war. The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said the other day "If we accepted a truce we would accept the downfall of our regime".

Another letter says:

. . . I am writing this letter by paraffin light. Saddam's planes are coming to Tehran and the power is cut. My mother is shivering in the corner of the room. My little daughter Mona [five years old] has told me to wake her up when the planes come. . . The other day, Mona said "Mum, I don't want to die. I am too young to die".

Here I end my story, but Iranian mothers have a lot to say - in the future.

0 mother, 0 mother, I hate bombs
They frighten me to death when they drop
For it shakes our house and city
It shakes my heart, I tremble inside.
I dream every night of war planes
Appearing above my head in the sky
I scream and cry in my dreams
I am disturbed all through my sleep.
0 mother, how long will this war last?
How many of my brothers will be lost?
I have already lost two, 0 mother
I cannot afford to lose another!