Report of the First Oral History Conference of Executive Agencies II

We must reach an Iranian pattern for oral history

Maryam Rajabi
Translated by Fazel Shirzad

2017-10-31

Note: As Iranian oral history website reported, the first congress of executive systems for oral history was held by National Documents and Library Organization of Iranian Islamic Republic and by working with Iranian Society of History, Oral History Society and Women Researcher Society In the congress salon of National Archive building of National Library on Monday 24th Mehr 1396(2017, October, 16). Then, we read in the second of report on the first congress of executive systems for oral history as follows:

It is important to understand experiences

The second panel of the congress was a discussion about the challenges of oral history for executive systems attended by the members and experts of the executive systems and Dr. Ali Asghar Saeedi, Morteza Resoulipour and Shafigheh Niknafas.

In the start of the panel, Asghar Saeedi said:" using oral history is different in every culture and country, and we must make our oral history gradually. God willing, we will reach an Iranian pattern for oral history, and it is valuable for us a lot.

You may have started to work in oral history for few months, but you can be sure that your experiences are unique ones. As you do an interview with someone, you must infuse one that his/her words are significant; you must consider your experience important as well.

To attract the attention of addresses is the most important part of oral history          

Morteza Resoulipour went on to say:" in my opinion, the most important and difficult part of working in oral history is neither interview nor compilation. Although both of them are important; it means, how can an interview be made? What is an active interview and its circumstances? To compile an interview was always a huge problem for interns and members of oral history who were not familiar with principles, transcribing and the style of writing well. Although, it is true that "Orality" is the main factor of oral history, it must be transcribe as a written output for oral history; so, the members must be familiar more with the principles of editing and writing to transcribe contents. A poverty that can be in document centers and institutes managed by oral history, is related to such problems.

 The most important part of oral history is to attract the attention of addressees. The members of oral history need to know how they can be in a relation with people. What it consider to be many of contents resulted from oral history is not entirely related to oral history but they are possibly related to a press interview. It means, a reader cannot find the presence of an interviewee in the content as good as possible. Many people have told me that someone would make an interview with another one, but s/he didn’t have any information about such and such, and on the other hand, s/he knew that the words must be told in an expected way. What point is implied in the words of this person is that the words of the interviewee would not surly belong him or her. We must provide a social circumstance to do an interview. If narrator (interviewee) has some ideas and prospects on a special issue while interviewer don’t have any words to say, here communicative logic won't be created between them; they won't made a dialog."

Morteza Resoulipour added:" we must make our oral history. In my opinion, two events taken place in country caused oral history to be developed; Iran's Republic and Iraqi Imposed War against Iran. These two events challenged all identity foundation of society, and unseen aspects of people were clearly reappeared by the events. The history of Pahlavi and Qajar's period was noticed and analyzed much more after Islamic revolution opportunities provided in 1357(1978) and the war. Let's be aware that such experiences don’t cause someone to be misled in order to theorize. I believe that theorization is result of an accumulation of experiences over years; so, until the experiences are not accumulated and we theorize with no experience, it will be a small talk. We must write and record our experiences and reflections in order that someone, such as Dr. Saeedi to be able to derive some theories after accumulating the information. During the years, some books were emerged from theories for oral history written by those who have never had experience in the field of oral history."

Morteza Resoulipour went to say:" at least, I was working with three important executive systems, and the first one was Red Crescent Society. I traveled from the border of Tehran to southeast border of Iran by my car, and whenever I found interested persons, I tried to speak with them and record and write their memoirs; I realized that Red Crescent or former Red Lion and Sun Society of Pahlavi's regime served people more than other executive systems as the first civic institute of Iran. I am so proud of my interview with assistant manager of former Red Lion and Sun Society named Dr. Hossein Khatibi. In 1349, Iran's Imperial General Inspection Organization received an assignment to provide a report from Health Centers to king[1]; the report showed that the people of Iran were dissatisfied with all of Health Center, such as charity Institute and clinics covered by Red Crescent Society. I recommend to read the book "Ranj-e- Rayengan"[2]  to knew the history of Red Lion and Sun Society."

The second institute was Keshavarzi[3] Bank. The oral history of this organization is written, and the history of former and current executive managers and the members of board of directors and the provincial managers of the banks is recorded and written in two volumes. The third institute was oil Ministry. I'm compiling the oral history of this organization. The vice president of Oil Ministry was an attendant for writing oral history. He was interested in doing such works and encouraged us to do it. We do interviews with someone, but the vice president have stopped down from his post one month before I called him.

In my idea, there are three steps for everybody to serve in every organization. Getting experience is the first step. It means, s/he starts to work in different posts of an organization and get experience from different parts. s/he, after managing for a while, can be a manager of a post because of his/her experiences and qualifications. After being manager for a period of time, s/he will be a requested to train new staffs as a consulter on his/her final days of serving in order that some new staffs to be replaced. The experienced person can be asked for recording his /her experiences; that's kind of activity in the field of oral history."

Questions and answers; training is the most important work

Nahid Shahverdi, the consulter of vice president in the Mystery of Industry, Mine and Trade went on to say:" this Ministry have been established by combining of four ministry since 1360(1981); the Ministry of Mines and Metals, the Ministry of Heavy Industries, the ministry of Mines and Ministry of commerce in 1390(2011). Considering the range of issue for these four ministers in compiling oral history. It is better to choose those among the staffs of the ministry as a director or team leader, then we can do it from outside of ministry. What guidance can give for recording oral history in such organization?

Responding to the question of Shahvredi, Hassan Taher Del, a retired staff of Mellat Bank said,:" we must separate two groups: first, those who are responsible for technical task as a interviewer or interviewee. Second, those who are responsible for sound, image, etc. you can use of those are specialist in their work for second group, but retired and motivated ones can be used for first group.

Khalil Nemati, faculty member of Islamic Azad university of Rey replied the question of Shaverdi:" as a employer, at first you must determine the range and field of your work. Second, you must know what the commitments of your organization are.  If you are trying to make history from outside of organization, you must make sure whether an interviewee is ready to give information to interviewee or not. Assuming you have specified number of narrators, and you went to make oral history from outside of organization, do you keep commitment to give the narrators to interviewers in a specified time? Do you keep commitment to give documents to contractors? Third, you must choose a researcher not only to be master in the field of oral history but also s/he be merely experienced in research and familiar with the methods of research. The last point is about frameworks what your organization will determine for.

Dr. Ali Asghar Saeedi also responded to Shahverdi:" the experience of each organization can be different. It is not possible to answer this question directly, and complexity must not be an obstacle to work. For instance, if you choose someone among the staffs of organization, she may be disinterested in working because of being accustomed to habitual activities. Choosing someone from outside of organization can be also problematic because some are unaware and beginner to work in the field of oral history; they are only able to record. I think every organization needs a technical section and an emergency center such as Document Organization."

Ali Fayyaz, from Assembly of Seyed-o-Shohada 10^th Division's Fighters also said:" we are doing such works for 20 years, and I've found that the name of this work was oral history since last year. Ten years after Iraqi imposed war against Iran when the Iranian fighters and veterans, one after the other, were being passed away for various reasons; so, the memoirs and history of the fighters were hidden in hearts. We decided to start recording such memoirs spontaneously. At first, we began to make interview with the fighters. Then, we found the parents of martyrs and interviewed with 2800 of them. Now, we have a nice treasure of interviews. After that, we found those, who had attended in various operations, and we did interview with them. It is not possible to determine a chart of task for staffs in an office or organization but a staff must be interested in this field himself/herself.

Colonel Abdulah Esmaeili, the representative of Sacred Defense's Documents also said:" in armed forces, the works in field of oral history is not only done by militants attended in the war, but many of students and researchers, as a contractor, come and we make a contract with them in this field. Fortunately, the headquarter of armed forces announced as a statement, that Foundation for Preservation of Works of Sacred Defense and one of its deputies, specially the organization of Sacred Defense's Documents, is the administrator for recording oral history of sacred defense. This statement led in some results; one of them is that army and Sepah exchanged their experience."

Colonel Hossein Foroutannejad, who is responsible for training, research and information technology of Sacred Defense's Documents Organization, also said:" there is organizational chart determined in organizations. I can't work in oral history spontaneously because I need to have supporter. I found that I'd must accept an organization, and then follow the pattern it set. We held various oral history workshops. I believe that we must get help both from inside and outside. Training is most important work. We had few members to work in oral history, and the members were passing away for various reasons. We need five trainer for each province; we have to ask National Documents Organization for employing some trainers in provinces."

Norlla Nosrati also said:" as I gained experience over 20 years for being staff, I believe that the first spark of a work is always produced by love, interest, persistence and effort. In fact, when those interested and special persons hold a belief, the managers will accompany them for benefit and improvement that will bring to organization."

To be continued…