Mutual Memories from winter of 1978

Gholamreza Azari Khakestar
Translator: Natalie Haghverdian

2015-8-10

We are on the eve of thirty sixth anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution and what remains in the memories and thoughts of the public is the victory and overthrow of the imperial rule. This victory remains as a critical event in the memories of the generation before the revolution. Almost all have memories of the winter of 78 which are in some cases very general and diversely based on personal perspective. Indeed, the Islamic Revolution of people in Iran was a public mobilization with leadership of late Imam. It was the result of public unity and empathy where all were moving towards one direction. At the beginning of the revolution there were certain people and figures but moving towards winter of 1978 it grew public. The demonstrations grew bigger and became the arena for mutual and public memories despite the fact that elites and political figures have various interpretations of the struggle and victory of the Islamic Revolution.

Sometimes the general events are so simple that it seems they’ve just happened while talking to the activists and influential figures and when you ask for reasons and causes of the event they talk about grounds, special logistics and revolutionary ideology. In this article the issue is how mutual memories are formed and how shall they be documented? Is there a logical relation between participants in one issue?

 Islamic Revolution was the joint effort of various groups and founder of the revolution referred to this issue in his speech. He considered history documentation to be very important and asked historians to study the roots of revolution from various perspectives. “You should know the important responsibility you have as historians.”

The founder of Islamic Revolution in his message emphasized on personal preference in history documentation and writes: “most historians write history the way they desire or as they are ordered not as it has happened. They know the end from the beginning and eventually get there.”

 In part of the message he has referred to the goals of revolution and emphasized on the roots of Islamic Revolution and said: “I’m asking you to clearly reflect the goal of public uprising wince most historians sacrifice the goals of revolution based on their personal preference or has their commanders’ desire. Today, historians are documenting the history of the honorable Islamic Revolution of Iran who are the agents of west and east. The history of the world is full of praises and animosity of different individuals.

Late Imam Khomeini, in his message to Seyyed Hamid Rohani (1) stated the role of some groups in the Islamic Revolution and history documentation in form of oral history. If you could deliver documented history to the media including various issues of the revolution narrated by various affected groups, you had done a good job. The columns of the history of Islamic Revolution shall be based on those oppressed by superpowers. Emphasis on combating oppression and uprising against petrifaction were other issues in the message.

“You should show that how people struggled against oppression and petrifaction and regression and substituted real Islam as preached by the Prophet with royal Islamic thought, capitalistic Islam, hybridization Islam and in one word the American Islam. The fact that when every movement in the religious school was labeled to Marxist or British movement, a couple of real clergies jointed the public and the poor and sacrificed their life and came out victoriously.

The last part of the message refers to revolutionary struggles since 1962 and combat of clergies to bring the Islamic Revolution to victory.

“You should clearly state that in 62 the Islamic Revolution started in the battlefield of oppression and how the clergies suffered and their voices were never heard and they were wrongfully convicted of spying; however they held their faith in God and made the effort and fought against all those accusations and won in an unequal battle.” (2)

In the message few points are very clear. First is that the historian shall base arguments on documents and evidence. Second is that the role of public shall be emphasized since the Islamic Revolution was the result of their joint efforts.

What are the memories of the public from the Islamic Revolution? Do they have similar memories? Do they have general ideas of the events or they have individual perceptions from different perspectives regarding one issue? All those who participated in the demonstrations of 78 were part of a key event since their presence resulted in the victory of Islamic Revolution. If the role of the public is ignored there would not be a correct understanding of the Islamic Revolution. The joint memories of the winter of 78 are general based on participation in demonstrations and after over three decades these memories are very general and are not complete, except for those cases that the narrator has been a participant in the event. Most people relate to the event and majority participation in the combat against Pahlavi regime is a common issues. The messages of revolution brought groups of people together and people see their identity and there seems to be a logical relation between presence of the majority in demonstrations of 78. How these memories related to the reality of today? It seems that historians of today have a difficult job considering all those theories and documents available since every year new documents are reviewed or revealed bringing historians closer to reality.

Today, documentation of public memoirs of the Islamic Revolution is conducted in oral history centers and it seems that researchers might have a proper analysis based on the documents and available sources of oral history.

Notes:

1- Seyed Hamid Hosseini Rohani (Ziyarati) bore 1942 in Mahdi-Shahr County. He was a member of Imam Khomeini’s office in Najaf. He was the founder and former head of Islamic Revolution Documents and Evidence Center in 1980. Imam Khomeini wrote a letter in January 1988 to delegate production of Islamic Revolution history to him. Of the works of Seyed Hamid Rohani are: Movement of Imam Khomeini, Memoirs and Battles of Martyr Mahalati, Documents of Islamic Revolution, Revolution Voices: a selection of letters, declarations and enlightening speeches of Imam Khomeini and review and analysis of Imam Khomeini’s movement in Iran. He resigned from Islamic Revolution Document and Evidence Center in 1997 and in 2002 he founded “History Research Foundation and Islamic Revolution Encyclopedia”. He was the editor in chief of 15 Khordad periodical.

2- Message of Imam Khomeini to Seyed Hamid Rohani in 1988, Scriptures of Imam Khomeini, Vol. 21, p. 239 and 240.
http://www.jamaran.ir/fa/3871