STORY

Our head teacher had graduated from the same school

Thanks for another gem of a story Shazde. I loved the stereotype partition of the books and thought you made it up, until I read in your comment that it was real.

In answer to Oon Yaroo's question I would like to add that according to the historian Mohammad Amini, the number of mosques at the end of the Shah's time were few hundred times more (yes few hundred times) than their numbers at the time of his father. Apparently as a defence against the socialist Russia (sweet irony or what?). The society just harvested what it grew.

فرامرز جان

Many thanks for your continued support.

The level of violence (physical and pyschological) that I obeserved in the IRI schools, is beyond my ability for description.

I wrote this story three times and tore up again and again, because the more authentic narrative was too close to reality. As part of my own journey, I am revisiting these old pictures and places; but that school is a place where I don't dare revisit.

For example, the books-in-the-cellar tale was real, but much more sinister. Those books were donated by the school's best student's father who owned a bookstore. The real ending has traumatized me to this date, as it led to the expulsion of that kid from school (on grounds of homosexual perversion) and the jailing of his father (on grounds of spreading anti-allah literature).

I am sorry, but the real realities of IRI are too dark for me to revisit with wide open eyes, and perhaps, too dark for you to enjoy in stories. Everytime that I recall that evil reality, it just kills another bit of my soul ... like the bursts of an old poisonous tumor.

The Reality Check

Thank you dear Shazde for another great story.

You have been through a lot and have witnessed incredible things and as the result you have a very clear vision about the evil nature of the Regime. I hope that the pro-Regime people here in the west and the NIACie homeboys would have the same opportunity and get a taste of this Regime for what it really is.

Violence begets violence and those abused kids at some point become Basiji abusers themselves and the cycle of violence continues.

اون یاروی عزیز

You pose some good and serious questions, which one is at a loss to answer.

What happened to Iran, in my humble opinion, can be called a Collapse of an Unstable State. The elite were too far from the masses, and the leadership was unwilling to face the reality, and unable to change and adapt.

It was hard for me to understand the dramatic and draconian sequence of events that changed and almost destroyed the Old Iran. But writing, just like recalling and remembering through multiple therapy sessions, has helped me understand. And thanks to that understanding, a lot of my anger towards the past has turned into action. And likewise a lot my my fear for the future has given way to more optimism and passion.

Civilizations come and go ... humanity is our only constant.

Shazdeh Jan, great story as usual!

Burning, banning, and destroying non Islamic books are an old tradition of Islam, Muhammad, Mullahs, and their followers!

It was only five six years before the event of your story when we used to buy Playboy magazine, Maxim Gorky's Mother, Velaimir Kirkharkofski's Father and all sorts of other books at the news stand in front of Daneshgah Tehran!

What happened to Iran, Shazdeh?

How come all of sudden, we went from a semi/quasi civilized nation into a barbaric one? Or, was the barbarism always there but contained?

If the Yahudi kid who is probably a grown up man now sitting somewhere in Israel and wishes revenge on the mullahs and their killing thugs, I don't blame him at all!