Maybe One Day You’ll Become Somebody | ...شاید آدم شدی
from The Photographer’s Notes
من این نابرابری را شخصاً تجربه کرده‌ام و از این‌که به خاطر مبارزه‌ی با آن چنان‌که باید نجنگیده‌ام احساس شرمساری می‌کنم. پدرم گرچه قدری عصبی مزاج بود، اما نه خشن بود نه آن قدرها عقب‌مانده، حتی نشانه‌هایی از مهربانی و تجدّد را می‌شد در رفتارها و برخوردهایش دید ــ مثلاً به یاد ندارم مرا کتک زده باشد، یا مثلاً وقتی در غیاب او از دخل یکی دو ریال پول بر می‌داشتم و با آن خرما می‌خریدم درحالی‌که دستهایم را در دستش می‌گرفت، می‌گفت «دستهایت چسب چسبیه، باز هم خرما خورده‌ای؟ برو دستهایت را بشور!» (به شیوه‌ی شرلوک هولمز جرم را کشف می‌کرد ولی صراحتاً به رویم نمی‌آورد!) اما با این همه رفتارش با دخترها و مادرم متفاوت بود، مثلاً یک بار که خواهرم را سینما برده بودم به جای آن‌که مرا تنبیه کند، خواهرم را تنبیه کرد! گهگاه هم مادرم را می‌زد، تا آنجا که بالأخره یک روز (سیزده چهارده سالم بود) به او گفتم اگر یک بار دیگر دست روی مادرم بلند کند میکشماش، که دیگر نکرد و الان که فکر می‌کنم می‌بینم خود او قربانی سنتهای جامعه‌ای مردسالار بوده است و به همین دلیل هم گرچه جرمش محرز است، به اشدّ مجازات محکومش نمی‌کنم. و وقتی در جوانی نابینا شد و به دنبال آن ورشکست، مادر بود که با خیاطی ما را بزرگ کرد . . . و برای رفتن به دانشگاه، باز هم مادر بود که با قبول کردن بار سنگین تأمین معاش خانواده، او را برای ادامه‌ی تحصیل من متقاعد کرد. حالا دیگر مادر هم رفته است اما هنوز این حرفش در خاطرم مانده که گفت: پسرم، این همه سختی کشیده‌ایم چهار سال دیگر هم روی آن، برو درس بخوان شاید برای خودت آدمی شدی . . .
۱۳۹۵/۹/۵
Around thirty years ago, a friend asked me for a collection of photographs to be showcased in an exhibition on women’s rights and inequality in London. I didn’t attend the exhibition myself, but of the photographs, the above one was selected as the poster image. They sent me a few copies of that poster which should be lying somewhere in my archive among piles of similar material.
I personally have witnessed such inequality between men and women and feel ashamed for not having fought hard enough against it.
My father was an anxious man, though not aggressive or very close-minded; you could even detect hints of kindness and modernism in some of his behaviors. I don’t remember him hitting me, or, for example, whenever, in his absence, I took one or two rials from the cash register of his bookstore-stationery store to buy dates, he would take my hands in his and say, “Your hands are sticky. Did you have dates again? Go wash your hands!” (He would use Sherlock Holmes’ methods to discover the crime, but he would not unravel it in my face.) Despite this, his behavior towards my mother and sisters was different. I remember once when I took my sister to the cinema with me, instead of disciplining me for it, he disciplined her. And he would occasionally hit my mother, so much so that one day (I was thirteen or fourteen) I told him that I would kill him if he ever again raised a hand over my mother; which he never did after that. Now that I think about it, I realize that he himself was a victim of the traditions of a patriarchal society, and for this reason, even though his crime is of course evident, I do not sentence him to capital punishment for it.
He was still young when he turned blind and went consequently bankrupt. My mother then worked as a dressmaker and earned our life to raise us. When it was time for me to enter university, it was once again my mother who took it upon herself to bear the weight of earning the family living so she could persuade my father that I continue my studies. Now my mother too is gone, but I still remember what she told me back then, “My dear son, we have already gone through all this hardship, four more years is nothing. Go do your studies, maybe one day you’ll become somebody.”
2016 (1395/9/5)
یک توضیح
من هنوز وقتی یک یونیفورم‌پوش مجهز به باتوم را توی خیابان می‌بینم تعجب می‌کنم؛ باور نمی‌کنم دلش بیاید با چنان چیزی بر فرق سر مردم بکوبد و با خود فکر نکند که دارد جگرگوشه، مادر، پدر، خواهر یا عزیز کسی را لت‌وکوب می‌کند . . .
همه‌اش به خودم می‌گویم قاعدتاً نباید از این‌که در چنین هیأتی در انظار دیده می‌شود خوشحال باشد . . .
گویا از برشت است که گفته: «آن‌کس که حقیقت را نمی‌داند نادان است، اما آن‌کس که می‌داند و آن را دروغ می‌نامد تبهکار». . .
آن‌کس که از شکنجه‌ی دیگری لذت می‌برد یا بیمار است یا حیوان.
چهل‌وچند سال پیش، وقتی یک روز در اتاق تمشییت، بدنم در واکنش به ضربه‌های شلاقی که بر کف پایم می‌زدند از روی تخت می‌پرید، به گوش خودم شنیدم یکی از شکنجه‌گرها به آن یکی گفت: «خوار. . . نزنش، فلج می‌شه!»؛ می‌دانم استثناست، اما به گوش خودم شنیدم . . . قصدم نه تبرئه کردن است، نه محکوم کردن، دارم از انسان، از انسان در موقعیت‌های مختلف، از سقوط کردن یا نکردن، از سنّت، از قانون، از آموزش حرف می‌زنم.
سال ۸۸ داشتم با دخترم توی خیابان راه می‌رفتم، جلوی مأموری ایستادم و پرسیدم: آقا شما واقعاً ما را می‌زنید؟ گفت چرا بزنم، گفتم همه‌اش می‌ترسیدم، چقدر خوشحالم کردید، و بعد در حالی که چند قدم آن طرف‌تر را زیر چشمی نگاه می‌کرد، گفت: برو آقا، نایست، اونا می‌بینن. . .
می‌گویند در کشورهای شمال اروپا سه سال طول می‌کشد تا اسلحه در اختیار مأمور قرار دهند و در آمریکا سه ماه! و در پاره‌ای از جوامع به جای آن‌که مجرمین را به زندان و اعدام محکوم کنند، روانه‌ی آسایشگاه‌های روانی می‌کنند. . .
عکس سیزده چهارده سالگی‌ام ، همان سنّی که پدرم را تهدید کردم اگر دست روی مادرم بلند کند میکشماش...
۱۳۹۵/۹/۸
Postscript
After I shared the above post, a friend for whom I have much respect called me to say, “Just a few days ago a man smothered his daughter-in-law; news of knife slashing, putting wives on fire, and acid burning are not yet things of the past, and yet you failed to accuse your father, a man for that matter, strongly enough in your note.” I tried to explain, “I clearly said that his crime was evident. But also what he did belonged to a long time ago.” My friend was not satisfied with my explanation. So here I am.
I confess that the fact that my father spent a big part of his life in darkness and suffered much has impacted my judgment of him; but to tell the truth, when I was writing that note I was thinking about other issues as well: about how many of those who are guilty of such injustices and even crimes are ordinary people who commit such acts simply because they follow old traditions and beliefs, while being supported by the law or by the silence of the law and not being educated. They are not demons or criminals by birth. They simply don’t know better; no one has taught them, they have not learned. And some are perhaps sick. I myself was not always the person I am today. Until forty or fifty years ago I couldn’t understand how it was possible to disrespect or raise a hand over someone and continue to live with them, or hit someone and make love to them. I was aware of mental illnesses, but I still could not understand such acts; I grew to learn about them.
I’m still surprised when I see someone in uniform carrying a baton in the street; I can’t believe that he can bring himself to hit people over the head with such an object, without thinking to himself that he is harming someone’s loved one, mother, father, sister. I keep telling myself there is no way he is ok with appearing as such in the public.
I think it was Brecht who said that “a man who doesn’t know the truth is just an idiot, but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook.”
The man who enjoys torturing another human being is either sick or a beast.
Some forty years ago, one day in the interrogation room while my body kept jumping up from the bed in response to the lashes coming down on my feet, I heard one of the torturers telling the other one, “You bastard, stop hitting him; you’ll turn him into an invalid!” I know such reactions are an exception, but I heard this with my own ears . . . My intention here is not to acquit people or to find them guilty. I want to speak about the human condition, about the human in different situations, the human who descends or does not, of traditions, of the law, of education.
In 2009* , I was walking in the street with one of my daughters. I paused in front of one of the guards and asked, “Sir, would you really hit us?” He said, “Why should I hit you?” I responded, “I was terrified that you actually would. You relieved me.” Taking a stealthy sideway look at the men a few steps away, he retorted, “Keep moving sir. Don’t stand here. They’ll see you.”
I’ve heard that in northern European countries it takes three years for a police officer to receive a gun; that wait time for the U.S. seems to be only three months. In some societies, criminals are sent to asylums instead of being imprisoned and sentenced to capital punishment.
The picture is from when I was thirteen or fourteen, the age when I threatened to kill my father if he ever again raised a hand on my mother.
2016 (1395/9/8)
*1 The year of the street protests against the disputed presidential election in Iran, which were responded to with utter violence by the government.
Translator’s Note
Nasrollah Kasraian has told stories through images for almost half a century, driven more than three and a half million kilometers all over Iran in order to take pictures, and changed the history of Iranian photography and ethnography through his work.
In 2016, he joined Facebook and began writing little notes that were accompanied by photographs from his archive. This was not a small feat for someone who still does not carry a cellphone, who at the time didn’t even know how to type, and only taught himself gradually. For Nasrollah, Facebook became a platform on which to tell stories and make commentaries, of the present and the past, of his travels, of daily life, of events, of people, of anything and everything. With his zest for life and the human connection, and with his down-to-earth honest style, he gained a large readership in no time. Unfortunately, he decided to close down his account in 2019, but the collection of his notes up to that point amounts to more than five hundred pages.
The following is a translation from two of those pieces from The Photographer’s Notes. Other pieces from this collection have appeared before at Asymptote and Quarterly West.
—Poupeh Missaghi
Nasrollah Kasraian
Nasrollah Kasraian was born in 1944 in Khorram Abad, in the province of Lorestan in Iran. Known as the father of Iranian ethnographic photography, he was arrested by the Pahlavi regime in early 1971 for his political activism and for the translation ofThe Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara. Whilst in prison, he translated his first book on photography. Upon his release in 1975, he became a professional photographer. Since then he has published more than thirty-one books of photography, many of them in collaboration with his wife, the ethnographer and educator Ziba Arshi, documenting the lives of different Iranian ethnic groups, nomads, and the diverse natural landscape of the country. Sarzamin-e Maa Iran (Our Homeland Iran), Gozar(Transition), Isfahan, Kurdistan, Tehran, Torkamanha-ye Iran (Iran’s Turkmans), Damavand, Kavirha-ye Iran (Iran’s Deserts), Persepolis, Shomal (The North of Iran), and Jonoob (The South of Iran) are just some of his titles. In 2015, Gozaresh-e Yek Zendegi(Leaves from a Life), a selection of his photographs, was published in celebration of his lifelong legacy.
Poupeh Missaghi
Poupeh Missaghi is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, Asymptote’s Iran editor-at-large, and an educator. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Denver, an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and an MA in translation studies from Azad University of Tehran, Iran. Her nonfiction, fiction, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, and she has several books of translation published in Iran. Her debut novel, trans(re)lating house one, was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. She is currently a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Writing at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
Issue 10.2