People-centered Memory Night

Mohammad Mehdi Abdollahzadeh
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2018-7-24

In the sacred defense, people played a key and valuable role. In those days, mosques in each neighborhood got new functions. Local mosques were for enrolling to dispatch to the front, gathering people's help for the front, preparing dry packs such as nuts, sewing some cloths of warriors, baking jam and a variety of support services for the front and the warriors. The fighters who went to the front when returned, informed their family and mosque's support centers needs of the front, and according to the needs, they sent that kind of goods to the front.

It seems that if mosques now play a more significant role in holding memory nights and recording memories of warriors and supporters of warriors, there will be more succeed in recording memories; a program to be endured if it has a popular status, and its management, planning, implementation and even its costs to be undertaken by people, and has genuine popular support. Accordingly, for a while there is a program named Yademan-e Shahid (martyr memorial) in mosque of Hazrat Abolfazl (PBUH) of Damghan that is memory-centered. The ceremony is in the way that on the anniversary of martyrdom of martyrs whose families live near the mosque, a program to be held called Yademan-e Shahid.

One of these programs was held in commemoration of martyr Ghodratullah Uozbashi, provided and cooperated by mosque council of Abolfazl (AS), resistance group of Bab al-Havaej (The door to fulfilling needs), the martyr's family, Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans, and headquarters of memory nights of Damghan after prayers of Isha on July 13, 2018. This martyr was born in Dibaj, Damghan. At the age of fourteen, he was sent to the front with Jahād-e Sāzandegī and after a twenty-day period, he became a loader driver. He was present four years at the front and died eventually a martyr due to the enemy mine blast.

At the beginning of the session, the presenter read a summary of the martyr's life. Ali Ziaeefar, the younger brother of the martyr, was the first memory teller. In addition to being in the family with his brother during maturation, he also participated at the front with his martyred brother two times. He narrated summarily memories from his brother's childhood and some memories from the time he was with his brother on the front so that tell more about his parents after his brother's martyrdom. He said when his parents heard news of his brother's martyrdom at the early stages they didn't turn a hair but martyrdom of the eldest son of the family was not something that to be forgotten or not a regret that be easy to cope with it.

Brother of the martyr said his brother very few and rarely was on leave. For four years, we saw him rarely at home. Occasionally, when he was on leave, after two or three days, he was informed that his presence on the front was necessary, and he immediately went to the front. At the last time, his parents offered him a girl to marry, and Ghodratullah even did not have time to hold a wedding ceremony and its arrangements, he had to go to the front. In this deployment, after several days, he died a martyr due to a mine blast: "After martyrdom of Ghodratullah, I observed tears of my parents sometimes. After a while, I suggested them to propose to the same girl whom they had spoken with her family for my brother. They agreed and thanks to God we have a very good life." Intensity of regret of martyr's brother in narrating memory, and his father who was at the entrance of the room impressed audiences for a while.

Seyyed Mohammad Shamsipour, a bulldozer driver during the holy defense was the second memory teller. For four years, he was a martyr fellow in Technical Engineering 27^th Rasul Akram (pbuh) Battalion of Damghan. He told some memories about morality and behavior of martyr Ghodratullah Uozbashi, and said about expertise of the martyr, "in some areas of Kurdistan we had to build a bridge. The situation was not such that heavy cranes could be moved to those areas. As a result, heavy decks should be located by excavator at the place of installation. Ghodratullah had a great skill in this regard." He added that, in addition to the loader, Ghodratullah worked with a variety of roadmaking vehicles if needed, and in some operations in the south, he was literally a Sangar Saz-e Bi Sangar (trench-less trench maker).

The last memory teller of this program was the martyr's mother. In respect for this mother, all audiences said Salawat, and when she was narrating memory about his martyred child with sweet dialect of Dibaj, all the audience heard. At the end of the program and after reception, evaluating the session was held by planners, executives and three members of the martyr family. In opinion of majority of people, memory telling meetings titled "Yademan-e Shohada" had been hold already more better, and it is good that such programs should be performed in some mosques.