Holding the Specialized Conference on Sacred Defense Oral History

We Have Less Than 1% of Sacred Defense Oral History

Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2017-11-14

The specialized conference on oral history of Sacred Defense was held in the conference hall of National Archive Organization by Research and Training Circle of Sacred Defense Documents and Papers Organization and accompanied by NLAI's Institute of Documents on November 1, 2017.

Invitees to this program were directors and experts of field of Sacred Defense's oral history in general directorates of Foundation for Preservation of Relics and Publishing Values ​​of Holy Defense of coordinate provinces and organizations. As well as, Amir (2nd brigadier general and higher in the Islamic Republic of Iran Army) Mohammad Fahmideh, deputy of head of Foundation for Preservation of Relics and Publishing Values of Holy Defense, Maryam Mojtahedzadeh, Head of Organization for Publishing Relics and Values of Women's Participation in Holy Defense, Hojatoleslam Saeed Fakhrzadeh, Officer of Oral History Department of Office of Islamic Revolutionary Literature of Hozeh Honari, Gholamreza Azizi, president of Documents Research Institute of NLAI, Sardar (General) Gholamreza Alamati, Head of Organization of Documents and Papers of Holy Defense, Amir Hamidreza Gerami, Head of Department of Literature and History of Holy Defense, Colonel Hossein Foroutannejad, Head of Research and Training Circle of Organization of of Documents and Papers of Holy Defense and Sardar Mohsen Sheikhi, Director General of Preserving Relics and Publishing values ​​of Holy Defense of Tehran province were present.

Hossein Foroutannejad, head of Research and Training Circle of Documents and Papers of Organization of Holy Defense, had said before the one-day oral history conference: "The purpose of the conference was to accompaniment  of related and coordinate organizations on oral history of Holy Defense for unifying executive plans, explaining special strategies , policies and approaches of oral history of Holy Defense and evaluating performance of notified programs in field of oral history in six months of the current year.

Sardar Gholamreza Alamati, head of Documents and Papers Organization of Holy Defense also said in the Specialized Conference on Oral History of Holy Defense, "oral history of Holy Defense is considered as a sacred defense document. Those who were observers on scenes of the war today are a without intermediary document of the sacred defense that the document organization of Holy Defense is responsible for using the opportunity. There were more than two million warriors during the holy defense, if we had recorded one hour of memory from each person, today we would have a rich archive. While, unfortunately, we have less than one percent of oral history of Holy Defense era, this is a disaster. This means that we could not extract that latent treasure in chest of warriors. Policymaking for recording oral history have been taken place in all general directorates of the Foundation for Preservation of Relics and Publishing Values of Holy Defense in provinces ​​, and we must plan for recording oral history of other parts of military and civil organizations.

Amir Mohammad Fahmideh, deputy of chairman of the Foundation for Preservation of Relics and Publishing Values of Holy Defense, also described type of activity of Documents and Papers Organization of Holy Defense and stated: in 2014, the organization was established with aim of authority, centrality, guidance, supervision and control over relics of Revolution and Holy Defense periods that recording oral history is also of tasks of this organization.

He noted that: combination of the army, IRGC, Basij and the people, created sustainable security of the country. Today, in recording oral history, we must not forget axis of unity, nor do we show role of a group less or more highlighted. In oral history interviewer plays an important role and unity and integrity in interviews has great importance.

Amir Hamidreza Gerami, head of Department of Literature and History of Holy Defense also said: There are also differences in the sacred defense books, for example, there are differences in number of the martyrs and situation of aggression of the enemy in our territory. Therefore, in order to avoid distortion in the sacred defense, head of the Foundation for Preservation of Relics and Publishing values ​​of Holy Defense entrusted responsibility of audit of Sacred Defense books to Literature and History of Holy Defense. Anyone who wants to publish a book in field of holy defense send for us a copy of it before publishing which if it is confirmed, the book will be published.

In the Specialized Conference on Oral History of Holy Defense, professional workshop of oral history was held with presence of Hojjatoleslam Saeed Fakhrzadeh and there were also two book launches of "From Abadan to Halabcheh" and "The Expert and Practical Handbook of Oral History of Holy Defense".[1]