Da (Mother) 4

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni
Translated from the Persian with an Introduction by Paul Sprachman

2022-7-12

Da (Mother)

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Translated from the Persian with an Introduction by Paul Sprachman

Persian Version (2008)

Sooreh Mehr Publishing House

English Version (2014)

Mazda Publishers

Author’s Introduction

When I was around fourteen, I read the book Zanan-e Qahreman (“Women Heroes”). Apart from the lives of the women of early Islam, what interested me was the figure of Djamila Boupacha, though it was hard to accept that a young woman would, with all her being, enter into a one-sided struggle against the occupiers of her country. To preserve the honor and independence of her people, she bore all the barbarous tortures of the French but never gave in to the disgrace of occupation.

Several years later, after the Baathists had savagely attacked Iran, slaughtering the people of my hometown, it seemed that living a life of comfort no longer had any meaning. I realized then that comfort amounted to a type of humiliation that was nothing short of self-annihilation. I had never imagined during those days of fire and gore that I would be burying with my own hands the innocent children of the town, as well as my own relatives, covering them with earth pink with their own blood. This was when, under normal circumstances, I couldn’t stand to be away from these relations, even if only for a few days.

But these were the realities I faced, and even now after several years, they are still fresh in my mind. During those years, though individuals from a variety of places have repeatedly come to interview me, insisting I speak about my experiences, I have always refused, feeling if what I had done during the war pleased God in some way, I didn’t have to shout it from the rooftops. But there came a time when the situation changed, and those who had served their country, preserving the sacred Islamic Republican system, were being accused of warmongering. At that point I decided to defend the Holy Defense itself, and there was no other way to do this but to record my memories of what had happened during the war.

One day in late April or early May 2001, someone from the women’s unit of the Office of Resistance Literature and Art at the Arts Council (hereafter the Office) contacted me, requesting an interview. Because I was not sufficiently familiar with the organization and its staff, I refused. I did so because I wanted to make sure the interviewers were trustworthy people with only the purest of motives. So I began reading the books published by the Office and this—praise God—put my mind at rest, and I could tell them what I remembered. After some preliminary meetings and discussions, it was decided Ms Seyyedeh Azam Hoseyni would interview me. Because of my physical condition, the interviews had to be conducted in my home, which forced Ms Hoseyni to travel back and forth regularly.

Because my aim in these interviews was to show how we were the injured parties in the war, how we had right on our side, I was content to answer the questions in general terms, keeping many painful memories and feelings to myself. This phase of the interviews lasted about thirty hours and yielded three hundred pages of written text. The text, which was not altered in any way, met with the approval of specialists at the Office, but all of them thought many of the topics were not told in sufficient detail and needed clarification. Regardless, it was not easy for me to agree to more interviews, because recalling the details of what had happened would have been distasteful to me and emotionally trying. Thus, my memories were compiled without more interviews. After a period, Ms. Hoseyni and I got to know each other better, having traveled together to Iraq with a group of other people to conduct a two-week picture and book exhibit.

This trip and our later association led me to a more precise understanding of interviewing and the process of recording my memories. This was why, when I had the chance to go over the text of my recollections again, and by the time I read the questions raised for clarification, the relationship between Ms. Hoseyni and me had become so close that I was now able to open myself up to her. During the second round of interviews, which also took place in my home, Ms. Hoseyni followed up, went over, analyzed, and finalized each issue and incident in a gentle and understanding way; but this forced me to recall painful scenes, which even after the passage of a number of years had remained vivid in my mind.

Recalling these things often increased the psychological strain on me, raising my blood pressure and giving me severe headaches. Nevertheless, I persevered until it got to the point where my very soul rebelled against the process. The conflict that raged between my mind and spirit manifested in physical illnesses that interrupted the interviews a number of times. The need for quiet during the interviews also kept my children in their room for hours, depriving them of their horseplay and favorite TV programs. My husband and son would return home later and later each day so they would not disturb the interviews and the work could reach a conclusion. During this period, my oldest daughter, in addition to providing hospitality, assumed all the household chores.

As the work continued, Ms Hoseyni and I cemented our relationship, becoming so close that when I had to recall something particularly painful, I no longer felt embarrassed to have tears flowing down my cheeks in her presence. But on several occasions my physical and mental condition and other daily concerns made me regret agreeing to the interviews, and I sought various excuses to end them. At each such time Ms. Hoseyni patiently, without using any pressure and with a proper understanding of the situation, encouraged me to go on. Her tolerance, in fact, convinced me in the end to keep up my end of the conversations.

Those also were the days when I was working part-time at the Martyrs Museum and attending classes three days a week. At one point, the pressure of work caused a piece of shrapnel lodged near my spinal cord to act up, forcing me to remain bedridden at home. On the strict orders of a physician, I had to avoid any kind of stress or excitement that might affect my nerves. This stopped the interviews for a number of months. After I had returned to relative good health, the conversations restarted both at my home and at the Office.

Conversations at the Office were not without headaches. The small size of the interview room, people coming and going, telephones ringing, and the racket coming from the courtyard and the basement often interrupted my train of thought. I also had to wrap myself in a blanket to keep out the cold, which seeped in the room through cracks in the door and the window. Because sitting hours on end in a chair made my back ache, I had to get up periodically and walk around or stretch out on the floor for a few minutes. During this phase of the interviews, I would spend six or seven hours expanding on what I remembered. Ms. Hoseyni then jotted down what I said word for word so I could answer her questions about the incidents in as much detail as possible.

The process went on like this from September 2005 to June 2006. My recollections, which covered the period from the beginning of the war to my coming to Tehran, amounted to more than 1,000 hours….

Here I feel it necessary to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Mehdi Farahani for his expert and sympathetic advice. Likewise I am grateful to Mr. Ali Reza Kamari and Mr. Morteza Sarhangi, both of whom read the manuscript of this book and favored me with their informed opinions and guidance.

I have called the book Da (“mother”) to pay homage to the sacrifices of all the mothers of the martyrs, especially my own long-suffering and patient mother who devoted all her love and the very essence of her existence to the Lord. If it hadn’t been for these adoring and grief-stricken mothers, the soldiers would never have made their way to the battlefields. The protection and support provided by these women heroes allowed their proud sons to remain steadfast in the face of an eight-year enemy assault and to sacrifice their souls for the sake of today’s freedom and tranquility. Finally, I hope Khorramshahr shall one day regain its splendor and become the Lord’s country, which it had been in the past.

To be continued …