Iran, 1980: A demonstration marking the first anniversary of the revolution
June 15, 2009
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Iran: Can Its Stories Be Told?
Journalists — Iranians and Westerners — share their firsthand experiences as they write about the challenges they confront in gathering and distributing news and information about Iran and its people. Their words and images offer a rare blend of insights about journalists’ lives and work in Iran. In the fifth part of our 21st Century Muckrakers series about investigative and watchdog reporting, the focus turns to coverage of issues involving public health, safety and trust. And in Words & Reflections, essays touch on objectivity, religion, blogging, Ireland and post 9/11 America.
In the mid-1960’s, Reza Deghati taught himself the principles of photography as a 14 year old living in Tabriz, Iran. During the early 1970’s, his pictures were of rural society and architecture, which he then studied at the University of Tehran. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 shifted Reza’s focus to the city, where he covered the conflict for Agence France-Presse and Sipa Press. Reza, who uses only his first name, then photographed events in Iran for Newsweek until 1981, when he fled Iran after being forced into exile. In the nearly 30 years since then, Reza has traveled throughout the Middle East and Asia, and into Africa and Europe, and had his work published primarily in National Geographic. “I have been using my camera as a tool to bear witness,” he writes. In Afghanistan, Reza founded a nonprofit organization, Aina, through which he has supported the development of independent media and fostered cultural expression. In 2008, National Geographic’s Focal Point published “Reza War + Peace: A Photographer’s Journey,” and Reza has generously contributed photographs he took in Iran in 1979 and 1980 to our project. His words accompany the photos that follow.
Iran, 1980: A demonstration marking the first anniversary of the revolution
Iran, 1979: Reza photographed the first massive demonstration against the shah, and in his book he describes how he came to be there with his camera.
Fabric Store, Iran, 1979: For months, I had watched the black chadors take over, becoming more and more widesread in the towns and the countryside. Yet Iran has a variety of people, a multiplicity of colors and landscapes. Even though decades have passed since I last saw them, I can still recall the rural women with their colorful petticoats, which contrasted with the red of their houses, made of clay. And I can still see the vividly colored rugs and the fabrics with the elaborately worked embroidery.
When I entered this fabric shop, where the only choice lay in the weave of the material, I felt stifled and depressed. The only style available was for the chador; the only color offered was black.
During those days, I often felt that, unconsciously, the people of Iran had agreed to go into mourning
My life was turned upside down one fall day in 1978. I was working as an architect in Tehran at the time and was in the architect’s office. Suddenly, I heard a strange, unfamiliar shout. Some angry protestors were screaming, “Marg bar shah!” (“Death to the shah!”). I went to watch from the window. Soldiers came and blocked the street from both sides.
Iran, 1980: Ayatollah Khomeini: At last, I had the opportunity to photograph Ayatollah Khomeini in an intimate, private setting. This would be my chance to try to gain some understanding of this man who had become such a powerful enigma. He was sitting in a bare room, which had no past or future, no history or memory. I had time to take only three photos. Then he cut me off, saying harshly, “I’m tired.” THroughout our session, he never looked me in the eye. I had sought his gaze to silence a doubt that had lurked in me since his return to Iran a year earlier. When he arrived a reporter asked him what he felt about being back after 15 years of exile. His reply, “Nothing.”
He was the symbol of hope for an entire nation. We had risen up against the shah in a revolution that had eruped spontaneously throughout the country. But after my brief encounter with Khomeini, the doubt I felt gave way to certainty that a fist was about the come down on our dreams of justice and freedom.
A year after I took this photo, I left Iran, forced into exile. Earlier I had been arrested by the shah’s secret police for being a dissident. I was imprisoned for three years and tortured for five months. Now, because of my photographs showing the repression carried out by Khomeini’s regime, I was under threat from his government and had to flee. In the years since then, I have been a nomad searching for a part of my homeland in every country I visit—a quest that is like picking up and reassembling the scattered pieces of a puzzle. My camera is always looking for the truth that often hides in the shadows of events
The soldiers shot blindly into the crowd. The students could do nothing. Some died instantly, falling to the ground. Others, wounded, crawled away to protect themselves. Still others ran for shelter. Then I saw one student who was fleeing but taking pictures as he ran.
Cemetery, Iran, 1981: In writing about his journey to become a photographer in Iran and his departure from his country, Reza observes that “Iran had become a huge cemetery, where figures dressed in black wandered among the tombs”
Iran: Can Its Stories Be Told?
Journalists — Iranians and Westerners — share their firsthand experiences as they write about the challenges they confront in gathering and distributing news and information about Iran and its people. Their words and images offer a rare blend of insights about journalists’ lives and work in Iran. In the fifth part of our 21st Century Muckrakers series about investigative and watchdog reporting, the focus turns to coverage of issues involving public health, safety and trust. And in Words & Reflections, essays touch on objectivity, religion, blogging, Ireland and post 9/11 America.
