In the morning we were under the shah’s rule, in the evening it was a new age, a new totally democratic popular government, sort of the ideal of the anarchist philosophers, real power of the people in the hands of the people and for the people, no government institution left, everything run by soviets of people’s representatives, with no standing army but just local militias.
Early morning I wake up. I have an appointment to pick up Majid my best friend and go to a series of speeches and demonstrations by the Tudeh party in Elmosanat University. These days are so colorful and exciting. I know I will never live life like this in my whole life again. After all, These events, if you are very very lucky, just happens once in a lifetime and most people on this planet never have the opportunity to experience such a thing. They are doomed to normal boring lives, day after day. I am among the few lucky ones in the history that am going through a full fledged popular urban revolution like the English and French revolutions so let me cherish every moment of this ecstasy and every drop of this maddeningly strong red wine. It is like sitting in a movie theater 24/7 and watching the most exciting, the most interesting and absorbing action movie in the world. Every moment is different. River of time has changed pace and is running like a flood. Every day is new, every day something new happens, every day new cracks in the structure of power appears. The crushing strangling dictatorship of the Shah is falling apart, something nobody could even dare to imagine to witness in his lifetime. Shah has already escaped in disgrace with his family and a few moments after the radio announced that he has left the country nothing remained in the whole country that would testify that there was ever a shah ruling this country for the past 37 years. The smallest relics and statues were brought down and broke. Now we are in a new phase, where the core of the army who is still faithful to their ruler are facing the whole population. Every moment an explosion might take over the whole power structure. Everybody is scared of a copy of the 28th of Mordad American. The American coup that brought back the Shah and a nightmare to my country for the next 25 years. Americans are still plotting behind the scenes to keep any possible remnant of his government, but the last pieces of the structure is falling apart now. Even the mighty empire can’t keep its crony on the throne anymore. The whole country, every class of the society is up against just one person, the Shah. The sense of unity is unique, something you never find in other revolutions. He is so hated in the society that there is no group left to support him. From the rich bazariz to the dirt poor peasants are all united in their opposition to one person, to Shah. Beautiful is this unity, which is so rare, but a glimpse of it is enough to make you drunk for a lifetime. For once, there are really two colors here and the choice is made so easy, you are either for the dark, the shah and the Americans, or you are for the light, the oppressed people of Iran. And after 37 years of bloody rule and torture and mayhem, nobody has any doubts about that choice.
I eat a quick breakfast and drive the car. Gasoline is nearly extinct in this second oil producing country in the world. A long-term debilitating strike by the oil workers and the whole industry has brought the country in to a near standstill in this cold winter. To fill up a tank you have to wait in long lines of cars for hours, and even for a few days. I am lucky I have gas in the tank today and I want to use it. The party has asked everybody to be present at the elmosanat university. And we are going. I drive true eerily empty streets in this early morning. If you have gas, driving in Tehran is an experience to cherish. There are no cars anywhere, and it is like driving on a movie set without any cars in the street. In a jiffy I am in North Tehran, pick up Majid and we are heading to Elmosanat, calm and cool in our ignorance of what is going on in the other part of the city, where last night a mere struggle over watching a TV program of the return of Khomeini, in an airforce base has now turned into an armed insurrection, with pro and anti khomeini forces in the army now facing each other in a battle over the fate of the revolution. This had to happen, sooner or later, since the day a big group of the airforce officers showed up in Khomeini’s residence and vowed allegiance to the revolution.
We reach the university. The gates are closed, nobody is here!? Strange, where are the throngs of people expected, the party supporters and cadre and sympathizers. There is nobody around. We get out, check the gates, there are not even guards anywhere, nobody in the university, the streets are too deserted, even for these days. There are even no signs about the cancellation of the program. We head back, we have come too early in the morning and there are nobody else to ask what has happened. It is strange, the party does not just call off its meetings without notice.
But on our way back we notice the columns of smoke, billowing from different parts of the city, something’s going on, something new. I notice some cars in the streets, agitated, driving fast, with lots of people inside each car, and for the first time, I notice something new in the cars. In a few of them, I see the tip of the guns jotting out of the windows. Some very few people in the cars are carrying guns. Well, this is new. This is the first time I see guns in the hands of the people not the army. OK, something is going on. The revolution up till now was strangely peaceful, with people carrying only their feasts against the guns, baring their chests in front of the guns and dying heroically without fighting back. But now, I see guns in people’s hands. Instantly we notice that we are entering a new phase. The battle has started, the one everybody was waiting for, and this time, people have guns in their hands.
Last night, pro Khomeini forces had opened the doors of the garrisons to people and started to distribute guns and ammunition to anybody who came in, indiscriminately. In parts of the city the battle is raging. The last remnants of the Shah’s special guard who are brainwashed to fight for him to death are battling the people and the other sections of the army that are on open mutiny now. Tanks are in the streets. Majid wants to go to his neighborhood. I drop him off at an intersection near his home and drive back home.
I am living in an anarchist’s dream now. It is pure anarchy. There is absolutely no central power, no government, no army, no police, it is pure anarchy, government of people for people. People say Khomeini has ordered everybody to break the martial law and stays in the streets tonight. There are talks about other units of the army invading Tehran under the command of the American officers. I stay in the streets. We walk down the main street of our neighborhood, past the police station. The hated police station, now a few of them are on the roof and one has a bull horn imploring people not to attack the station. He says the army central command has issued a command for the whole army not to take part in the battle pro or against Khomeini and remain neutral. People have brought huge thigh cables from the government Electrical posts and tied them between light poles as a barrier against the tanks. With these barriers, no cars can drive. We can only walk, ah, the pure air in the polluted Tehran, it is amazing. No cars, no heating, no oil, the air is pure as 200 years ago, when there was no Tehran here spreading on the foot of the mountains.
I join a group of neighbors near our house. Everybody is armed, with something, sticks and knives and I even see a sword. These days and nights have brought people together. Neighbors who had never met each other now know each other by first name. There is a huge bonfire in the middle of the street, it is cold, and people gather around it, I can count more than 100 of our neighbors here. Suddenly all of them break into singing “Ey Iran”, the national popular anthem of my country. After years and years of listening to the Shah’s imposed national anthem, which is nothing but praise of him and his father, it is so emotional. I start to cry and see lots of people crying.
There is no radio, and no TV. But at around 4:30 in the afternoon there is a rumor that the central TV station has been liberated by the revolutionary forces. The staff of the TV station who were on strike for months, are hastily back. I don’t see it, I am in the street, but the ones that see it say that they just gather in an indistinct room, in a rush and start talking to people. Apparently the Shah’s guard had tried to capture the TV station but people and other army forces had stopped them. The cameras show rows of tanks being stopped on their way to the TV station. This is so invigorating, for the first time in my life I am hearing the TV and radio, who were always praising his majesty, the sun of the Arians, now declaring his demise and the demise of the Pahlavi dynasty and the victory of the revolution. There are announcements by all the parties, mostly leftist parties, asking people to stay in the streets tonight and to fight against anti-revoluitionary forces. Am I dreaming? All my life, from the time I can remember, I had one big dream, and that was to see the end of the bloody rule of the Shah, and now it is happening in front of my eyes. Right here, in the streets of Tehran, and the world is watching us. We, people of Iran, are playing the greatest game of the last half century.
We hear shots fired from the direction of the garrison at the east side of the neighborhood. This is one of the greatest garrisons inside Tehran. We move towards the garrison. Near the garrison there are lines of people behind the walls, there are shots fired from inside the garrison, towards the people. I see soldiers escaping the garrison and running towards the people. I see one of them shot dead right there in the middle of the highway that separates us from the barbed wires and walls of the garrison. I see others escaping to this side and taking off their army uniforms, they don’t want to be mistaken as the Shah’s army and killed by people. Some people here have clothes ready for them, they change and melt among the people. Later we learn that the government officials that were arrested towards the end of the Shah’s rule, by his own command, to save his neck, were imprisoned in this garrison and managed to escape when the garrison fell into the hands of the people. Some of them were arrested later and brought to justice and some disappeared and later were appeared mostly in LA.
For the first time I see somebody with a M16. The American gun which is the standard army gun for the foot soldiers. The same gun that had killed so many Vietnamese when it was used in Vietnam. The guy shoots a few bullets into the air. I see one of the most famous Iranian wrestlers right there, with a radio in one hand and a gun in the other. People clap for him. He is so popular, wrestling is one of the most popular sports in Iran and this guy has got several gold medals in Olympics and is popular and now he is here, next to us, shooting at the garrison. The shots from the garrison die off gradually. Nobody is there anymore. People start to move towards the garrison and cross the highway. I follow, the barbed wires are cut off already in one place and the wall pulled down. People spread out inside the garrison through the hole in the wall. For so many years I used to pass around this huge garrison to go to school. I walked around it and always looked inside through the gates, mesmerized by the tanks and other army vehicles parked inside in huge numbers. And now I am inside. I follow the crowd. Now I come across a big building, one storey, people go in and come out with guns and ammunition. Loads of ammunition. Boxes of mortars and every conceivable explosives. I follow in, I want to have my own gun. Nobody tells me, or anybody else, that one spark might start a huge explosion that will blow all of us to pieces. In that confusion it can happen at any moment. This happens later that night in another huge garrison at the south west of Tehran and a for a long time that night we can hear huge explosions and the orange color of fire reflecting from the clouds.
But, this does not even pass through my mind. I want my gun. I go in. Inside is dark, pitch dark. It is night already and there are no lights. People roam inside and you keep bumping into them. You touch the shelves in search of a gun, and at last you come across rows of them and you grab one and you run out. Now, for the first time in my life, I am touching the cold metal of a gun, a heavy gun. Everybody is carrying guns, I get back through the hole in the wall and cross the highway. People are carrying big boxes of ammunition. And then I see a tank in the street, and it is run by ordinary people, it has been taken from the garrison and a few people are trying to drive the beast. There are many tanks and other army vehicles like this that night in Tehran, taken out of the garrisons, a few of them end up in the Tehran University and when tomorrow I go to the university I find them parked in the centre of the university with the leftist party’s insignia and flags on them.
It is getting late, there are bonfires everywhere. Electricity is back, the long strike of the electricity workers is apparently ended at last. As all the other strikes. In the next few weeks, everything will be back to normal, we will again have gas and electricity and public transport and everything. But tonight I am on cloud nine. I have my own gun, I have seen the birth pangs of a new order, of people’s power, pure and true democracy when there is no government, just people’s soviets. I bring the gun to home. My parents are there, and my uncles. All watching the new really national Iranian TV. There are news after news from different cities, following the lead of Tehran, all falling one after the other to the revolutionary forces. The army has just melted down and disappeared, the police also. There is absolutely no police force, and no army. Just armed people in the streets, protecting this dear newborn, this victorious revolution. No festive mood can be compared to this. Everybody is happy, everybody is laughing, people are crying with joy and hugging each other in the streets.
This morning, when I was leaving home, I was still an Iranian living under the oppressive dictatorship of the Shah and the Americans. Tonight, I am a proud citizen of a new democratic government, belonging to a brave people that after 50 years of resistance, and hundreds of thousands of executed and tortured, at last have managed to get rid of the yoke of the foreign powers.
And I have my own gun.
No comments:
Post a Comment