I was walking up and down the sidewalk and, beside the market of the second-hand clothing sellers who sold second-hand clothes, I was waiting for a sign.
Rah va Rahavard
An Experience-Narrative of a Life
Mohammad Kianoush-Rad
Part Nineteen
**The Market of Opposition to the Bazaar**
After the death of Ali Shariati in Khordad 1356 (June 1977), a demonstration broke out on Pahlavi Street in Ahvaz. We were scattered along the sidewalk. For cover, each person kept himself busy with something. I was walking up and down the sidewalk and, beside the market of the second-hand clothing sellers who sold second-hand clothes, I was waiting for a sign.
Mr. "Parishan," our neighbor who was from Malayer, had a shop on the western side of the market. As soon as he saw me, he called out: "What are you doing here? Are you looking for something?" I became a little flustered. I said: "No. I was just passing by. My eye fell on the clothes."
I hurriedly said goodbye. I was walking on the sidewalk without purpose. The gathering point was between Ferdowsi and Hafez streets. Suddenly Sadeq Kermanshahi's older brother stood in the middle of the street. All alone, he sent a loud salawat.
This was the sign to start the demonstration. Like locusts and ants, we jumped into the middle of the street. Someone said: "The Shah, the executioner, killed Shariati." We too ran trotting and repeated the slogan. I did not notice, but apparently a group on the other side of the street had also chanted slogans. We had not yet reached the head of Hafez Street when we heard the sound of Colt pistol shots. Everyone ran in some direction. Some toward Cyrus Street and some toward Kaveh Street.
Seyyed Jamal Mousavi was arrested in this demonstration. The people on the sidewalks and in the alleys were watching the scene. Some were frantically trying to distance themselves from the fray and running to the sides. They did not know what had happened. The sound of gunfire had frightened the people. The slogan "The Shah, the executioner" in the middle of Pahlavi Street, in broad daylight, had frightened and stunned the people and the shopkeepers.
Chinese sneakers had just come to the market. It was easy to run with them. They had also become fashionable and were in two colors, cream and brown. The kids usually wore this type of shoe.
Anyway, this was the first street demonstration in Ahvaz in which the sound of the policemen's gunfire echoed in the street. The main core of the demonstration were the students of Jondishapur University.
Five months later, in Aban of that same year, Mostafa Khomeini died. Mostafa's memorial ceremony became a pretext for the people's subsequent protests across the country.
The ceremony was held at the Hosseiniyeh A'zam. Rowghani, the head of the board of trustees of the Hosseiniyeh, as always, humbly in black clothes and with his hand on his chest as a sign of respect for the people, was standing at the door. In this ceremony, for the first time, the name of Ayatollah Khomeini was heard from the pulpit by Seyyed Ali Shafiei, a famous and trusted cleric of the people. He courageously uttered the name of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Events followed one after another. For the fortieth-day ceremony of the martyrs of Tabriz, Hadi Ghaffari had been invited to Ahvaz. In Ahvaz, Ghaffari was the guest of Mahdavi, one of the city's reputable bazaar merchants.
The bazaaris played an important role in activating the struggles of Ahvaz. Mohedin and Daneshavaran were two religious associations founded by the bazaaris of Ahvaz. The bazaaris were the financial source of the mosques and seminaries, and from the heart of these same mosques, fighting Muslims were nurtured.
Before the revolution, we Islamist revolutionaries had a negative view of capitalists and wealthy bazaaris. Part of it was influenced by Marxism and another part stemmed from the type of view of the Islamists who supported Shariati and the idea of "gold, force, and deception" or "Alavi Shi'ism, Safavid Shi'ism."
The anti-bazaar thinking also had an intellectual aspect. The bazaar was the anti-bazaar. The intellectual had to take an anti-capitalist and anti-bazaar and anti-bazaari position. Under the influence of these concepts, I made the short film Qiyam. I have always debated with the Marxists about the incorrectness of Marx's class understanding, but the thought of Islamic leftism, willingly or unwillingly, had in practice fallen into that path.
Although the bazaar played an important role in political and social developments from the Constitutional Revolution to the National Oil Movement and the revolution, the intellectuals ignored this role. Many revolutionaries were from bazaari families but in practice took positions opposed to the bazaar.
I did not have much affinity with the wealthy bazaaris of Ahvaz. Perhaps for this same reason, I went less to the Jazayeri Mosque.
In Ahvaz, religious bazaaris like Mahdavi, Yahyavi, Haddad, Mohammadzadeh, Sane, Bijan-Zadeh, Panbehkar, Khansari, Maleki, and others played the main role in the bazaar strikes or in inviting speakers.
The opposition of most bazaaris to the Shah had a religious color, and the opposition of the intellectuals had an anti-tyranny color.
Hadi Ghaffari gave a speech after the prayer. With an unimaginable courage, he overturned the entire institution of the monarchy and attacked the Shah and SAVAK in the harshest tone. Attacking the Shah, and with such explicitness, was new. The result was obvious. The people were severely provoked.
The agents had gathered outside and some of them were in the mosque and among the crowd. Their goal was to arrest Hadi Ghaffari. The women's courage was more than the men's. Ghaffari went to the women's section. The women formed a circle around him and in their protection freed him from the hands of the police.
It was the thirteenth of Farvardin. The bazaar was half-closed. The darkness of the night and the silence and emptiness of the bazaar had made the atmosphere heavy. A coherent demonstration had not formed. At the door, as the crowd was leaving, the agents beat the young people on their heads and feet with batons to disperse them. They did not bother the women and the elderly.
While running and panting, we watched our surroundings and chanted slogans. I was afraid. Yes, one should not lie, but at the same time, for the sake of our ideals, for the sake of Islam, for the sake of freedom, we overcame our fear.
On Cyrus Street and the surrounding streets, there was a game of chase between the people and the police. Sadeq Kermanshahi, one of the sincere and fighting kids of the Jazayeri Mosque, was injured, and Mohammad Taqi Katanbaf was also martyred.
In this event, some criticized Mr. Jazayeri for why he had allowed Ghaffari to speak. I have explained this matter in the book "Haj Agha Kharmagas."
To be continued...
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