All My Fathers, All My Sons

Iran reveres its martyrs. But could respect for the dead lead to a threat against the living?

TEHRAN,

Iran - It's Thursday afternoon on the sprawling grounds of Beheshte Zara cemetery, and like on all Thursdays, Iran Allahkarami is planning to spend the day with her sons. To fight off the winter chill she has brought a silver samovar filled with hot water for tea. On her blanket there are also plates of cookies, dates, and oranges that others have given her as they make their rounds.

"We come here on this day every week from morning until night," says Allahkarami. "And when darkness falls we say, 'How quickly the night has come.'"

Every row is alike at this cemetery for Iran's war dead, universally referred to here as "martyrs": long stone slabs laid side by side with the name of the dead, an etched portrait, and the date and name of the place he was killed, if known. There is a rectangular glass display case at the head of each grave, often filled with the martyr's Koran, prayer beads, an Iranian flag and a color photograph.

Allahkarami makes a sweeping gesture across the rows of graves that have no names or photographs -- the unknown martyrs.

"These are all my sons," she says proudly, but then leads me to the specific plots for those she actually gave birth to -- Hossein and Hassan.

Of the two, Hassan's body is the only one actually interred here. He was killed in an offensive near the end of the Iran-

Iraq War, says Allahkarami, when shrapnel from a mortar round struck him in the head. He was 18 years old.

Hossein disappeared somewhere in Iraq in 1985, three years before Hassan's death. He was just 16 and had forged his identity papers, according to Allahkarami, to be accepted into the army.

Allahkarami also lost a brother in the war.

"It was for God's satisfaction," she says. "Our enemies were attacking our country. I say this on behalf of all martyrs' mothers. I'm not angered by the death of my sons."

But truthfully, Allahkarami knows she doesn't speak for all the martyrs' mothers. She concedes she has argued with her friend Maryam Tavaghai, who has expressed misgivings about the war and the loss of her son, Hooshang. For long hours Maryam sits to the side of his grave. Hooshang was not a volunteer, but a conscript in the Iranian Army.

While many of the photographs in the glass cases at the head of the graves show young men in military fatigues with stern looks or macho smiles, Hooshang's shows a young man in a striped, yellow sweater. He has a boyish grin and bushy brown hair. Like Allahkarami's son, he too lost his life to an Iraqi mortar. He was 24.

In Iranian society there are few more revered than the martyrs -- defined as anyone killed during war or violent struggle -- or their families. Most receive financial benefits from the government for their sacrifice, including housing allowances for parents and widows, free healthcare, and educational stipends for surviving children.

But because so many were killed during the Iran-Iraq War (Iran has estimated that nearly 300,000 people died; figures for Iraqi dead run as high as 240,000) the Iranian government found it difficult to keep up with so many payments. And while no one from the Iranian Martyrs' Foundation would speak on the record for this article, there has been criticism that some of the support going to martyrs' families has been scaled back.

At the closing stages of the war, Iran was specifically criticized by the international community for its so-called Martyrs' Brigades, in which "dispensable" children would move in front of the combat troops, clearing minefields with their bodies and allowing Iranian troops to advance.

But because of the honor martyrs are given and the esteem in which they are held -- particularly amongst Iran's poor and more conservative religious populations -- the concept of actively seeking martyrdom has become an attractive option, especially amongst those who have little else to live for. The notions are reinforced by Iranian clergy.

"Martyrdom, for us, is our school, our ideology, our heart and our prayer," says Mullah Hassan Ali Ahangaran, a religious consultant to the Martyrs' Museum in downtown Tehran. "It allows the continuation of Islam. The blood of the martyr revitalizes our religion."

It's that kind of zeal, western observers worry, that helps to transform a natural respect for the dead into suicidal attacks on the living.

A "Commemoration of Martyrs" organization reportedly is orchestrating a new and large-scale campaign to recruit suicide bombers against

Israel and the West. Mohammad-Ali Samadi, a spokesman for the organization, was quoted as saying that 50,000 Iranians had signed up for "martyrdom-seeking operations," and of these, 1,000 had been "organized into garrisons."

But the official relationship between Samadi's organization and the Iranian government is unclear. Equally unclear is whether "suicide bombers" are actually being mobilized or if the claims are merely posturing.

Posturing or not, Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already set off alarm bells in most of the rest of the world, recently calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map." 

Inside the Martyrs' Museum, 27-year-old guide Morteza Alizadegh takes me on a tour of the exhibits, which in many ways seem to be just larger versions of the glass display cases at Beheshte Zara cemetery.

Alizadegh says his father is one of those still missing from the war with Iraq. Since he left when Alizadegh was just a baby, he never got to know him.

"But working here," he says, as we walk through the museum, "I feel like all of these men are my fathers."

The second floor is primarily for the martyrs from the Iran-Iraq War, showcasing one individual from each Iranian province.

"We have been given so many items from the families," says Alizadegh, "that we have to rotate the exhibits. But there have been problems. Once, the father of a martyr came to the museum and his son's belongings were not displayed. The man became so angry he wanted to fight us."

The exhibits are a combination of both the macabre and the mundane. There are always photographs, and usually some of martyrs' military gear -- boots or a canteen, a worn-out sweater, an ammo belt. There are also items representing their hobbies and interests -- a karate robe, the ribbons and trophies of an equestrian champion, a picture of another riding a motorcycle.

There are also several of letters, like one from a 15-year-old boy named Gholam Reza Rezaei, who wrote these words to his parents before he left for the frontlines in the war with Iraq:

"If I am to reach the high-level of martyrdom, please don't cry for me and don't wear anything black for me. Please just pray and give praise to Imam Khomeini."

He was killed in a battle in the Kurdistan region of Iran.

There are also displays for so-called foreign martyrs, including those who have become suicide bombers in attacks against Israel.

On the first floor, there are displays for those who died in confrontations with the Shah's forces as well as during the actual Islamic Revolution. Some are particularly graphic, including pictures of executions and articles of clothing stained with blood from more than two and half decades ago.

On some of the exhibits there are push-button audio recordings providing a brief overview both in Arabic and English.

Back at the cemetery, Iran Allahkarami continues her vigil at the graves of her sons and talks about the threats she sees to her country and Islam.

She says it is the indirect attacks that are so dangerous now, like the satellite receivers that transmit "filth" over the airwaves, the women who won't wear hijabs, and the drugs being distributed by the "enemy."

"They even have these happiness pills called ecstasy," she says. "These are worse than war because before we could see the enemy, now we can't."

Allahkarami is part of an Iranian paramilitary organization called the "basij," which turns up every time the government calls on them, particularly for political rallies and other patriotic displays of support.

"We love the president," says Allahkarami, of the former hardline mayor of Tehran, Mamhoud Ahmadinenejad. "And Imam Khomeini is the light of my life."

She says that America and Israel are the two greatest enemies Iran faces today. "I hope it will be demolished soon," she says of Israel.

"Our kids were killed for these values," she says, sipping a cup of tea, "Whatever our leaders and government say, we're ready to obey."

 

READ MORE FROM KEVIN’S TRIP TO IRAN:
Sex, Drugs and HIV: No Strangers to Iran (Jan. 13, 2006)
‘Brown Sugar’ Junkies (Jan. 11, 2006)

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