Sgt. Silver #4

"Khaveh Shoh!"

It was probably one of the easier phrases to remember growing up. Literally, it means "drown," or "choke," but if it if someone ever told you that, he meant for you to "shut up!" Whenever I heard the phrase, I thought of one of Iran's poets, Samad Behrangi, who wrote countless children's stories. Behrangi was from Azerbaijan, a province in the North of Iran that, for centuries, had been, and still is, neglected and oppressed by Iran's government, and whose residents have been forbidden to speak their native tongue, Azeri. Behrangi was a social critic and he knew that if he ever vocalized his thoughts, his life would be in grave danger. So he wrote a story... the story of a little black fish... who would leave his stream to explore a sea he wasn't sure existed. I remember my father reading The Little Black Fish to me when I was young, but it wasn't until many years later that I understood what the story was saying. Behrangi's tale was a criticism of the government, it was the story of a maverick who would stand up and break free from society's fears, set out into the uncharted realm, and fight against the predatory ruler. Although coated as a children's book, Behrangi's fish became a symbol to the people who wanted to challenge the U.S. sponsored dictator, Padishah Reza Pahlavi. Soon, the government became worried at the dissent that came from this free thinker. The government saw the effect this story had on the Iranian people, and so they outlawed Behrangi's book. But once Behrangi has criticized the government, he and his fish became symbols of freedom and resistance, and so his fate was sealed. That year, 1968, Behrangi's corpse was found floating upside down in a river in Azerbaijan. The only way, it seemed, to shut Behrangi up, was to choke him and to drown him too, like "Khaveh Shoh" means. Khaveh Shoh: to drown, to shut up. The day after his death, the papers reported that, at 28, this healthy and robust school teacher had died in a swimming accident. Eleven years passed until the Shah was finally overthrown, but his replacement was scarcely a better candidate. Mullah Khomenei, a man who would preside over an even longer reign of terror. When Khomenei came to power, The Little Black Fish was a legal piece of literature once more, but when the caliphate recognized the dangers such freethinking work would pose to any dictatorship, the black fish was outlawed once again.

These days, when I watch television, when I watch the media, when I watch the President, I feel like I'm drowning. I hear the stories about "human dignity," "extremist Islam," and "democracy," and I wonder what it would have been like if, on that fateful day in 1953, the U.S. and Britain hadn't overthrown the Persian Prime-Minister to install a dictator. I wonder where I would be, if I would be, and how the world would look. But no matter, when the public sentiment against Iran in the '50's centered around "communism," today it is replaced by "radical Islam" and "terrorism," and I see the Messianic vision of an altruistic nation trying to protect itself and to free women from their oppressors once more... but I'm not touched. The lights beam out of the television set past me, around me, but they don't register in my retina for too long. For a second, I see a clip, only eight seconds long, but it shows Persians protesting, chanting, and being broken up with gunfire, the television returns to its original message, how it would be better if Iran's oppressors were overthrown, and I think to myself, by whom? I think of the Persians I just saw, their voices loud and filled with passion, and I watch these men shut up, not by silence, but by drowning their words with the Messianic vision that I am all too familiar with. I think back to the September 11 families who said "Don't mistake our cries of grief as calls for war," and I try to imagine what the protesters I just saw would think about the newsreel they have been fitted in. Would they, perhaps, say "Don't mistake the hatred of my government as an invitation of yours"? I don't know, but somehow I'm skeptical that their chants were asking for foreign powers.

I turn off the TV, and go through the bookshelves. I open several photo-albums, only to close them seconds later and move onto the next album, until I finally find what I'm looking for. I sit down in the living room and flip through the pages and I see faces, some of whom I personally know, talk to, call aunt or uncle, some of whom I only know through the sound of their voice over the telephone, but a few of whom who I've never had the chance to meet, they linger in my mind. I look at one of them, one of the best looking Persian men I've ever seen, tall, dark, muscular, yet his facial features seem soft, but with a regal quality. I ask my mother, "where is Uncle Abbas buried?" She turns around, "No one truly knows. We know the row of the funeral he is buried in, but there are 29 other graves in that row, and none of them have an inscription on them." The thought pains me, even though I've known about his death for many years. Somehow, I know that 29 other families share that exact same pain. I know that these families, alongside my family, cried over that very grave where my uncle is buried today, and cried over the 29 other graves, not knowing whether the grave they kneeled over belongs to their son or not. But they all cared for all thirty graves, and still do. And thousands and thousands of others have a similar story, some of whom stand at the next row of graves, or a few further down, or maybe in a different city alltogether, each story is different, but they all teach the same lesson, the lesson of the pain and suffering that comes from war. Its a story too common in a country that has had to deal with a failed revolution, and may once again deal with a new revolution from a new generation of college students, who have heard the horrors of the last revolution, but remain dedicated to that undying quest for equality. The story of pain is still there, but it is in no way unique to Iran, that pain has been shared by millions of people across the world, from the gypsies and Jews under Hitler, to the Congoans under King Leopold, to the Carthaginians under Scipio. I think about the unnamed graves, and I mumble, "even after death he is still not allowed to have a voice," but my mother says, "in death, he brings unity to a group of people who need it." And I think about that, I think about the unity that those in Iran need. A unity that should not be broken up by a selfish foreign power. My brother has turned the television on again and I see three words at center of the screen: Axis of Evil.

"Khaveh Shoh," I think to myself. I don't hear any voices questioning America's history with Iran, I don't hear anyone talk about the deaths that are going on in Iraq, in Afghanistan; instead, those voices are silenced and their message drowned by the news anchor. I'm worried, I wonder whether that cycle of pain, that cycle of death, has to repeat itself again. I wonder if America will once again trigger that cataclysm. Inside, I root for those college students, chanting on the streets, and I just pray that they overthrow the government before America does. For a brief moment, I see the protesters again, a few waving signs, and I catch a brief glimpse of what appears to be a black fish, and I'm content.

I look at my mother, and I know she's thinking the same thing. We sit there, and we watch the news, and we dream that dream, that dream that millions of other Persians who've lost their homeland dream. But each time my brother clicks the remote, we hear the same war drums beating on. I try to put my mind to sleep, I try to forget that soon America will be embroiled in another conflict, I try, I really do, but the only voice I hear is that of Bill O'Reilly. My mother does the same thing, we try to shut out those voices, and cling onto that hope... until, like a famous poem, human voices wake us, and we drown...