Memoirs of Marzieh Hadidchi (Part 1)

2017-7-25

Memoirs of Marzieh Hadidchi (Dabbagh)

Edited by: Mohsen Kazemi

Tehran, Sooreh Mehr Publications Company

‎2002 (Persian Version)‎

Translated by: Zahra Hosseinian

Introduction

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Men are not the only performers of various social, political, economic, and cultural scenes; women are also involved, and their historic position in social developments should be further explored and investigated.

The role of women in the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and the protection of achievements and the management of its goals, is significant and basic. During the fights and political activities against the Imperial regime, women played direct and indirect roles: their direct activities in fighting included armed and operative ones; printing and giving out leaflets, tapes, and books; participating in (belief-political) educational classes of political-social studies, attending in meetings and circles and organizations; secret activities; attracting fans and members; financial assistances; speeches and propaganda; attending in marches and protest demonstrations; establishing secret communications with individuals and organizations; even the leadership of the group, and consequently their arrest, torture prison problems, exile, and migration. Among the indirect activities of women are  upbringing well-informed and devout children; encouraging their husband, brothers and children to participate in the fights; guardianship of the family and children during their husband’s escape and exile and imprisonment; providing the family’s livelihoods; and providing peace of mind for fighting men.

Addressing the role of women in the history of the Islamic Revolution is a historical and cultural necessity. After all, recording and publishing memoirs of women who have been directly involved in the emergence and victory of the Islamic Revolution is one of the best and most documented methods of the historical study of these days.

Mrs. Marzieh Hadidchi, known as Dabbagh, is one of the pioneering Muslim women in fighting who stepped into the battlefield knowingly and positively and tolerated a lot of hardships. Her life is full of small and big events and incidents, attachments and boredoms, psychological and mental and rational desires, religious choices and divine experiments, which expressing some parts of it will be useful and worthwhile for the history of the Islamic Revolution.

For the first time, studying thirteen hours of Mrs. Dabbagh's interview about her life memories and fights interested me in exploring more details of her life. Along with this interview, which was thirteen hours and I carefully studied three or four times, I noted down from another interview published in ‘Payam-e-Zan’ (Women's Message) journal, issues 11, 14, 15 and 18, entitled "The Message of biography". In spite of the positive points, I recognized some defects which were needed to be resolve and complete.

At February 2000, after several phone calls, I succeeded to visit Mrs. Dabbagh in Islamic Republic's Women's Affairs Office for the first time. The purpose of the meeting was to encourage her to publish her memoirs. She accepted bigheartedly and we agreed to detect the defects of the memoirs and present some questions for them; so that, she could answer them in her home, outside the framework of interview. This way was easier for her.

Mrs. Hadidchi replied to about 300 questions in five hours and shed light on the ambiguities of her memories. But there were still gaps in the names of individuals, places, times, and even in description of some of observations and encounters, in some of which there was no help for it. Because of the plurality of events and passing of time after four to five decades, causes memory decline and forgetfulness. And when we insisted for interview Mrs. Dabbagh said several times, "There is no date in my mind at all", "Again you wrote ‘with mentioning the date’, unfortunately, the date should be omitted", and "At that time, the matter of time was not important for us at all […] we didn’t pay attention to the date in our plans, only wanted to do something and got close to the [victory] of the revolution."

In addition, because of the lack of permission, Mrs. Dabbagh refused to mention and reveal the names and identities of some of the witnesses and agents involved in the incidents. Also, she reasoned that during fighting they encountered people whom none of us had permission to exchange identity information because having much information was problematic when we were arrested and interrogated.

Providing photographs and documents for the book was one of the biggest problems. Mrs. Dabbagh said that she had loaned all of her photographs, identity papers, and documents, which protected them with lots of problems, to a person to get copy of them (apparently that person had also tried to record Mrs. Dabbagh's memoirs). Unfortunately, after a while, he refused to return photographs and documents to Mrs. Dabbagh; and after Mrs. Dabbagh followed up many times, he said that she hasn’t given him any photo and document, and she has no evidence for her claim and can litigate and ... However, she referred to relevant centers, but the only success was receiving a few photos and nothing else.

There was a great deal of effort to communicate with some of the relevant people, who were contemporary with Mrs. Dabbagh in the fight, in order to use their memoirs for completing Mrs. Dabbagh’s. A number of them collaborated and a summary of their interviews has been added to the "appendix". It is worthwhile to thank each of them. Some of them, like Mr. Gharazi, did not cooperate with us, in spite of about three months of efforts and continuous calls. On the morning of May 13, 2001, Mr. Gharazi, through a telephone call, said: "I reflect on this (recording of memory) and I won’t interview." I explained to him that it may aroused his complain after the release of the memoirs. He said: "Everything Mrs. Dabbagh has said about me is correct and I accept it." Unfortunately, Mr. Mohammad Hasan Dabbagh and Rezvaneh Dabbagh also did not attend the interview. They only gave a few vague and unfinished answers to our written questions, which were not very workable. People, who lived abroad, as well as Le Monde and Libération newspapers, did not pay attention to our electronic communications.

In spite of all this, it was tried the content of Mrs. Dabbagh’s speeches and memoirs was arranged in a timely manner, without any substantial changes, and as far as possible, by observing the timing of historical events.

After two years of efforts to collect and compile Mrs. Dabbagh's memoirs, it could be said that her reminiscences are both memoirs and report of memoirs. In this memoir there are description of childhood, school days, prison time, torture and etc. In the process of reporting the memoir, only brief description of an event has come and the person herself has not played any role in the cause of its occurrence. And she was only the witness or the listener of the event. Therefore, the factors of the event's occurrence and emergence, its results, and the factors involved in it have been given an overview.

Mrs. Dabbagh's memoirs are a narration in the scope of the birth of the revolution until its victory, in which some of fighters’ misfortunes and affairs have also been shown. There was no idea to go beyond, but in terms of the unique importance of two sections of Mrs. Dabbagh’s life (commanding the Hamadan Revolutionary Guard and departing to Moscow to convey the message of Imam to Gorbachev), these two sections also have been added.

If the memory aided and Mrs. Dabbagh could say all her observations, hearings, encounters, confrontations, and etc. with details and specifications, today a multi-volume book of her memoirs was in front of you. Therefore, we also do not consider the publication of this book as an end to the description of important points of Mrs. Dabbagh's memoirs. And for completing it, we are thinking about preparing another book, using the memories of her family, fellow-warriors, friends, and even critics.

It is worth mentioning that step-by-step enjoyment of technical and professional advice of the great professor Mr. Alireza Kamari, spiritual support and guidance of Mr. Saeed Fakhrzadeh, sincere efforts of friends: Mr. Seyyed Mohammad Sadegh Feyz, Ali Takalu, Mohammad Karimi, Seyyed Mehdi Hosseini, and also the efforts of Ms. Maryam Balzadeh (from the Association of the Women of the Islamic Republic) as well as other colleagues and friends, facilitated completion and compilation of this book. I appreciate all of them and wish ever-increasing success for them.

Thanks to God

Mohsen Kazemi

August, 2001

To be continued…