by SOHEIL ASEFI
As we marked the 32nd anniversary of mass political executions of 1988 in Iran, and the 42nd anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, the publication of Voices of a Massacre: Untold Stories of Life and Death in Iran 1988 as one of the first extensive scholarly books in English is a significant contribution to the current scholarship on the post-revolutionary Iran. Nasser Mohajer, the author who has compiled, translated, and edited the text, is a scholar of modern Iranian history based in Paris. He combined and translated old and new materials into English and the six chapters of the book contains, state document, testimonies, eyewitness descriptions, reflections and memories of the loved ones of those executed and their friends and comrades. Prior to the publication of this book, along with International human rights organizations which have documented the massacre, a few exiled Iranian writers, artists and political analysts have published articles and made documentaries about the crimes. Ervand Abrahamian’s Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Iran, University of California Press, 1999 is a significant scholarly work on this topic. There are also publications by the Persian section of US government-affiliated human rights industrial complex like Geoffrey Robinson’s The Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran, 1988, published by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)-affiliated Abdorraman Boroumand Foundation in 2013 that provided witness testimonies, and official statements exposing the crimes.
The editor of Voices of a Massacre covers the chapters mostly with secondary literature and recorded oral history interviews. This is a valuable collection of primary sources for non-Persian speaking scholars to extend their knowledge on the most crucial events/tragedies of the post-1979 Revolution in Iran throughout the survivors’ voices. The politics of memory, “no to forgetting!” is at the heart of this book. As the editor argues, “the absence of Iran from discussions of more or less similar tragedies” is one of the reasons why this project was undertaken. (p.28.) Angela Davis who wrote a foreword to this book, compared the great massacre to other crimes against humanity in the twentieth century, such as the massacre in the Latin America, or those part of European’s settler colonialism projects like the native American genocide.
“Voices of Survivors,” begins with the testimonies of women prisoners. The moving narratives of the female Marxist prisoners describing the situation inside the prison give the readers an account of the deeply embedded nature of their agency and subjective experience in one of the darkest periods of contemporary Iranian history. The daily namaz(Salah/prayer) torture (consistent of five lashes at each of the 5 prescribed times for namaz) pictures the heroic resistance of these female prisoners is at the heart of this book.
Along the same lines, the book goes beyond the capital’s prison which has usually been the focus of most scholarships on this topic; it brings us to the other prisons in the provinces across the country such as Mashhad, Isfahan, Gilan, Hamedan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Semnan, and Dezful through the narratives of the survivors.
All the Money to My Child and The Sazman (Organization)
“The Mothers of Khavaran,” the Iranian version of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentine, delves into the struggle of the mothers of those revolutionaries who were executed in the 1988 summer and buried in mass graves in Khavaran. Some aspects of the agony, efforts and struggles in the aftermath of the 1988 national disaster are documented through an exclusive interview with Forough Lotfi Tajbakhsh, the mother of Anoushirvan(Anoush) Lotfi one of the leaders of The Organization of Iranian People’s Fadaian, Majority [OIPF (Majority)] and a political prisoner in both the Shah’s and the Islamic Republic’s regimes, and Dr. Brigit Behzadi, the wife of Dr. Manuchehr Behzadi prominent journalist and members of the central committee of the Tudeh Communist party of Iran(TPI,)both executed in the massacre.
“We shouted, ‘Why are you beating us?’ They said, ‘You are the mothers of these communists…’” (p.232.) Forough Lotfi known as “mother Forough,” or” Mother Lotfi” who in her last visit to the Evin prison had promised her fallen son Anoush not to put on any black clothes but to dress in white with a red flower on her chest describes the frustration and devastating moment after she heard her son had been executed.
Before leaving Iran, writing constantly and openly about this Islamic Republic’s off-limit subject, the 1988 massacre, was considered a major felony for me resulting in my capture and imprisonment in section 209 which is an unofficial secret detention center inside the well-known notorious Evin prison, run under the administration of the VEVAK (Islamic Republic of Iran’s Secret Service.) While in prison the first thing the interrogator showed me was a copy of a letter written by Mother Forough(Mother Lotfi) in my support as an evidence of my transgression.
In this interview in the book, she delves into her ongoing battle with the prison’s authorities to save her son’s belongings of including his will. With her persistence a guard finally gave her a piece of paper after tearing up the top part of it. Anoush had written, “give my watch and my wedding ring to my wife. My mother has my permission to spend all the money I have on my child and the organization [OIPF (Majority),] “they had crossed out the word.” She then describes how she made it to Khavaran shortly after the execution and found an area covered with fresh soil, started shoveling and saw Anoush’s hand, along with parts of his shirt which was exposed.
Soheil Asefi for more