In my youth, reading and becoming acquainted with politics was consoling and saving for me.
Memoirs and Experience-Narrative of Mohammad Kianoush-Rad, Representative of the Sixth Term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly
Rah va Rahavard
An Experience-Narrative of a Life
Mohammad Kianoush-Rad
Part Four
I did not understand. Now I understand.
In my youth, reading and becoming acquainted with politics was consoling and saving for me.
We used to say: "We are alive for this: that we do not rest. We are a wave whose tranquility is our non-being."
Today I say: We are alive for this: that we rest.
When we stop, sit, and with a Janus-faced gaze think about the past and the future.
In today's world of politics, full of resentment, sometimes reading, writing, and loving is a way to our tranquility and liberation.
In 1966 I went to school. The road was far and long. Behind the railway station and in the Hasht-Bangaleh area, the organizational houses of the railway employees. The Sarlashkar Ansari boys' elementary school.
The first-grade teacher was a Zoroastrian lady. Very kind, small in stature, dark-complexioned, polite. Her straight, black, short hair on her white, manteau-like clothing gave her a special heavenly beauty. One could not help but love her. I loved her, even equal to my mother. I felt her sweet sense of calm that pervaded the classroom atmosphere.
Zoroastrians were our neighbors. I heard the great message of Zoroaster, the great Iranian prophet, in childhood. The thought of being the first and last human, becoming human, and remaining human. Zoroaster's sacred heavenly trinity.
My third-grade teacher was dry, ill-tempered, and impatient. I had arrived late to class or had not studied my lesson, I do not remember. The only thing I remember is the striking of a wooden whip on my hands. However, probably he was so good that he himself could not punish the undisciplined or unstudied students and had delegated this duty to the class monitor.
What do we know—perhaps Mrs. Hosseini had encountered a problem yesterday or the day before. An argument with her husband, having no savings, a child's illness, having no house and thinking of a rented house, being tossed about in a strange city. Perhaps she is thinking of an incurable disease that the doctor told her about last week. Perhaps she received a punishment order due to several absences and class closures, and dozens of other possibilities...
I did not understand. Now I understand. Now I understand why we harbor resentment. How impatient we are. Why we harbor enmity. Why a teacher is angry. Why a worker rebels. Why a father finishes himself, his wife, and his children with a pistol shot.
Why we do not consider our rival a friend and we fight. Why in politics, instead of rationality, we suffocate ourselves in the storm of emotion.
Why, because of language, color, race, ethnicity, tribe, city, religion, sect, we have drawn a demon-like wall and an iron curtain over ourselves. Why we deprive ourselves of the pleasure of being together.
Why we do not forgive. Why we do not apologize. Why the word "sorry" is abandoned among us. Why we issue verdicts of takfir so quickly. Why we judge others blindly. Why we are sullen, sour-faced, and angry. Why "they do not want to return your greeting." Why they do not laugh. And dozens of other whys. We do not understand.
The whole problem is not understanding the reasons and causes of others' behavior.
Civilization is not established by gathering people together. It does not grow and flourish. Animals are like that too.
Civilization began where I understood you and you understood me. Love for oneself dies and love for the other is born.
When two opposite sexes, with all their differences, become one.
When in the burning love of two souls and in a cold winter, with the warm embrace of a heavenly bond, full of affection, they become intricately woven into one body.
Understanding and comprehending the other is the starting point of every civilization. I did not understand Mrs. Hosseini. I became angry with her. I was offended. But now I understand not only Mrs. Hosseini, but the behavior of many people. Sometimes I agree with them.
Most of us humans forget a thousand good deeds but do not forget one bad deed. We must forget this too.
To be continued...
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