SABAH (18)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2020-7-14

SABAH (18)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.

Persian Version 2019

Among the members of Jihad there were Maryam Kohandel and Fariba Toghrol; my classmates in Farah and Irandokht high schools. Fariba and I were classmates for four years. I met Maryam Amjadi after the victory of the Revolution and in the high school’s Islamic Association meetings. Maryam was a student in Khorramshahr Jame high school and I was studying in Irandokht high school. When we had meetings in our schools, the revolutionary members of the Islamic Association would gather from all over the city to brainstorm or organize a joint event. I met Maryam in these meetings. She was tall and fit; very friendly and passionate. Kaed was also another girl who had a special and loud voice. She always chanted the slogans in demonstrations and the public followed her. I had met and known her in these meetings.

One or two days later, I visited Jihad again. I went to Jodeydeh village with a few other members. At the entrance of the village, there was one cannon 135. I was very surprised. I had heard that Commander Madani, governor of Khuzestan, had placed the cannons at the entrance of each village to counter the attack of Arab Public but I had never seen one before. This was one of the actions that we criticized. He wanted to frighten the Arab Public whereas we believed that this action could turn the attitude of the rural population against Islamic Republic.

In the village, we started our work. Some of the members started re-building the damaged houses. I went to search for children who were wandering in the village. I invited them to study Quran. I knew that they were in poor condition due to the flood and were not willing to study, but this was one of the methods to attract them and give them hope. Some of them did not pay attention at all and only one or two who listened to me. I knocked on every door asking them to send their children to learn Quran and become literate. They closed the door firmly on my face asking me not to bother them! I did not know why they disliked me. They acted if was a leper.

The first few days went by advocating Quran classes. Finally, I could persuade some families to send their children to Quran class. When my class was held in the Hoseyniyeh of the village, I had ten, twelve students. They were between eight to thirteen, fourteen years of age. I did not have much age difference with some of my students. I was twenty years old and was only a few years older than some of them.

Hoseyniyeh was a building made of mud with a big door and a few small windows from which little light came in. The dark green paint on the lower part of the walls had made it darker inside. We sat on the simple rugs of Hoseyniyeh and read the small verses of Quran and I thought them the simple rules of Tajwid. Our books were those that had the thirty versus of Quran. I taught the girls and another person from Jihad, taught the boys. I talked to them in very little Arabic that I knew. Some of them, especially those boys who had attended school, knew Farsi and understood what I said.

Those days because of all the negative actions and propaganda of Arab Public about the Islamic Republic among the rural population, some of them held grudge against the government. The Arab Public made rural population think that the Islamic Republic is a regime created by Fars people to eliminate Arabs! All our efforts in cultural and other groups were to clean this poisonous mind with our behavior and activities and make them understand that in Islamic Republic, Arabs and Fars people are equal.

Frankly speaking, our efforts were not useless. Many flood-stricken people, who noticed our endless efforts to help them, realized that they were wrong in their judgement. However, there were also others, who were hostile and did not accept us!

Once, one of my students told me: “Iraqis smuggled weapons into our villages and gave it to us saying that these weapons are your honor and dignity and you should guard them with your life. These weapons will guard you and Arab people.”

What the little girl told me was interesting and surprising. She said; “my uncle sold his honor and got married with that money!”

The influence was so deep that they thought those weapon were their honor. When she started talking, her friends also trusted me and told what the Arab Public had done in the village. My students were telling the truth. After the flood, many weapons emerged from water.

Summer of 1358 passed with the cultural activities in Jihad. I have good memories of those days. The result of our work and efforts day and night, were the smiles on the faces of rural people. This gave us relief from the hard work.

When the Arab Public movement died down and peace returned to our city, I started religious and faith classes. Once or twice a week, Shahnaz and I attended the Teachers Islamic Association. Different topics were put on discussion the meetings of the Islamic Association: issues from problems in education and identification of revolutionary and cultural individuals to be appointed for various posts. One day, during one of the meetings, it was decided to identify and introduce a few teachers as candidates of Majlis (parliament) membership. Everybody had an opinion. A few volunteered and enlisted.

In my opinion, among the teachers and participants, Younes Mohammadi was the best choice. He was a member of the Teachers Islamic Association and an active revolutionary member and very committed to Imam. On the other hand, Younes was Arab speaking and in case of making it to the Majlis, he would have been supported by the Arab speaking tribes of Khuzestan. Younes had a strong and solidarity-oriented personality. His devotion and love to Islamic Republic was quite significant from his round the clock activities before and after the Revolution. Besides this trait, he had good manner and left a good first impression. He was very liked by the public.

He was with us that day. I waited for him to volunteer but he did not raise his hand. I raised my hand and asked them to add the name of Brother Younes Mohammadi to the list. He was shocked, and didn’t accept it saying that it is a big responsibility and he might not be able to undertake it. I explained my justification for nominating him. Some other teachers including Shahnaz and Khadijeh Bazoun supported me and talked to Younes. He kept silent and seemed to be convinced. Later he participated in the election and thanks God, was elected as the representative of Khorramshahr in the Islamic Council (Majlis) for a few tenures.

After the victory of the Revolution, there was freedom and many “-isms” were established. The activities of these fighting groups and Mujahedin included holding speech and book exhibitions mostly in the riverbank. The riverbank was public picnic area. In the afternoons, ice cream, sandwich, kebab and fruit shops were open and people came there to have fun.

It was very interesting. These groups were well equipped. They had tents, books, pamphlets, brochures, tape recorder, even closed circuit TVs to broadcast speeches of their theorists such as Masoud Rajavi! Their appearance and clothes were also pretty and chic. All of them intended to attract more followers. They had big propaganda. Many of them were known to be Communist and Lefties[1]. Their thoughts such as Jihad and campaign against oppression came from Islam but when they wanted to operationalize them, they turned towards Russian and Chinese theorists.

We, the revolutionary groups, did not sit still. We had none of their facilities and were only supported by our Islamic Government but we went to their groups and discussed and challenged their beliefs. For example in the field of supporting the laborers’ rights, they said that Islam has no specific and documented law to support the laborer’s rights; or in field of economy, Islam has no specific and specialized solutions whereas Communism and Leninism have a manifest and charter on these topics. We responded that it is not through and since we Muslims have not read and interpreted the verses of Quran carefully, we cannot label it as inefficient. We said that Islam is a complete and divine religion and we have to implement its laws in the Islamic Society to be able to resolve our problems and we should not look for the solutions in different “-isms” which are the product of human mind. One of the main weaknesses in their beliefs was the objectivism and materialism which gave us a great opportunity to maneuver.

To be continued …