The Eternal Revolution by Hamad Albloshi

Author:Hamad Albloshi [Albloshi, Hamad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, Iran, Political Science, World, Middle Eastern
ISBN: 9781784535421
Google: 4a0MjwEACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2016-07-30T01:12:28+00:00

Figure 5.5 Four weekly newspapers and their coverage of the issue of the martyrs on the last or front pages.

Martyrdom, as Roxanne Varzi (2006) asserts, ‘became state policy’61 in Iran, and ‘the repetition of the memory of glorious death through symbols, especially chants, replaced a coherent language and thought process, bordering on what some might define as mad love or simply madness – majnūn’.62 This madness has appeared in many publications and newspapers associated with the hardline conservatives, many of whose members fought in the battlefields and brought their experience back to Iranian society after the war. However, these conservative publications state that the pragmatists and reformists within the system did not appreciate the sacrifices of these veterans and martyrs or disseminate their thoughts among the Iranians. For Dihnamakī, a director and founder of the Anṣār-i Ḥizbullāh group, ‘instead of guns, they [the authorities] have given guitars to our youths’.63 Dihnamakī believes that the authorities under the leadership of the pragmatists and reformists put the culture of martyrdom and the war aside and propagated Western culture.

To counter this, the hardline conservatives have discussed these issues in their publications. Some of them deal with the issue of martyrdom and the war and are entirely committed to their cause. Shalamchih, Ṣubḥ-i Dukūhih, Jibhih, Ṣubḥ, Fakkih and Yā Lithārāt are the main publications that have focused on the war, and many of them were named after battlefields, for example Shalamchih, Dukūhih and Fakkih.

A review of four of these publications shows the attention that has been paid to the issue of martyrdom after the war. Twenty-nine issues of each of four weekly newspapers, Shalamchih, Ṣubḥ-i Dukūhih, Jibhih and Yā Lithārāt, were selected.64 The front and last pages of each of these issues were examined to see whether they feature stories or pictures about the martyrs. Most of them, as Figure 5.5 shows, display at least one photo of a martyr, either on the front or last page, or even both.

One reason for this repetition of the martyrs’ stories may be the hardline conservatives’ desire to keep the revolution alive in the minds of the people and to keep the faith in the principles of the revolution flourishing in Iran. The war was a great source of mobilisation and zeal; therefore, it is important for the regime to keep that zeal alive, especially after the attempts to normalise the revolution following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.

Estimates of the numbers of Iranians killed in the war vary. Some believe that there were about 1 million Iranian deaths as a result of the war,65 and another estimate asserts that there were about 400,000 casualties on both sides.66 However, the most precise and recent estimation of Iranian casualties puts the number of Iranian deaths at 213,255. Among them were 7,054 people under the age of 14 and 65,575 aged between 15 and 19 years old. This means that 72,629 Iranians younger than 20 years old were killed in the war, which represents 34 per cent of Iranian martyrs.

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