The Hero and Heroin

A war veteran loses the drug battle

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The Hero and Heroin
by Kamin Mohammadi
03-Apr-2009
 

Tehran Bureau -- 'During the war,' says Farideh, 'the days were dark and the nights were light in Abadan.' Farideh now lives in Shiraz, one of the millions of refugees displaced by the war. I am in Shiraz -- famous for its verdant gardens, springtime orange blossom and great poets -- to talk to refugees like her and try to get a sense of what it was like for Ebby when they left a burning Abadan to escape the war.

Like the tens of thousands of other civilians who fled the fighting, Ebby's family, as well as all our other aunts, uncles and their families, left Khuzestan throughout 1980 and 1981, and headed to cities such as Shiraz, Tehran and Esfahan (during the two-year Iraqi foray into Khuzestan, the government had to shelter up to 1.5 million refugees). The government had set up refugee reception areas in these cities and provided accommodation to refugees -- Ebby's father decided to keep his wife and young children in the lodgings provided by the government. Like my other uncles, Ebby's father had to return to Abadan to work and only visited Shiraz when he could get leave every few weeks. It was here, as a 12 year old, that Ebby first started to dabble with drugs. 'All these families were mixed up together,' Farideh says, 'and a mother couldn't possibly control who her kids came into contact with.'

Life in Shiraz then was not easy. The locals did not take kindly to these new arrivals. Rationing was in force and Shirazis resented extra resources being handed out to the refugees. There was discrimination at every turn and Farideh, whose eldest son is the same age as Ebby, tells me that they were isolated at school, distinguished by their Abadani accents and teased and taunted by the other children. 'And remember none of our children had their father standing above them,' she says, 'Our men were obliged to stay in Abadan and could only visit irregularly. It was hard for Ebby's mother, she had six children and she was in refugee housing, not with us. It was a hard time.'

Shiraz is now a lively city of more than one million people, but back in 1980, 'there was hardly anything here,' says Farideh. 'We came from Abadan, remember, which was built by the British. We had lovely lives, we were sophisticated. To us Shiraz seemed very provincial so it was very insulting to us to be treated this way by these people. On top of everything else.' She shows me pictures of her wedding. The young couple captured in black and white are handsome and carefree. A slim Farideh pouts at the lens, her skirt several inches shy of the knee, her black beehive dropping teased curls on her brow while beside her my youthful uncle seems filled with confidence of the future. You can almost hear the money jingling in his pockets, an air of immense well-being pervading the scene. 'Ah,' Farideh sighs, 'Those days in Abadan. Dances at the yacht club, parties at the Abadan Hotel...' Farideh still possesses cheekbones to swing off, but her hair is hennaed to cover the grey and her figure long ago permanently shrouded in a shapeless dress.

She is suddenly fierce. 'When they first bombed Shiraz, I was happy,' she declares, referring to the first 'war of the cities' in 1984 when Iraq bombed 30 key Iranian cities for two weeks. I stare at her in surprise. 'Because finally they understood what we had lived through,' she explains. 'Finally they understood that the war was real, that we hadn't made it up.'

It may be 20 years later and she may still be living here, but Farideh has never forgiven the Shirazis.

____

Although the eighth-century martyrdom of Imam Hossein drives Iran's Shi'ism, with thousands collecting during the month of Moharram to commemorate Imam Hossein's death, flagellating themselves, beating their chests and crying, in reality, most Iranians didn't want to be martyrs, most mothers weren't praying that their sons be killed for the glory of Allah. Iran liberated Khorramshahr in May 1982 and in June, Iraq called a ceasefire which was rejected by Iran. The Iranian Chief of Staff General Sayed Shirazi vowed to 'continue the war until Saddam Hussein is overthrown so that we can pray at [the holy Shi'ite town of] Karbala and Jerusalem.' This marked a turning point in the war, when Iran turned on the offensive, trying to push into Iraq.

For Iran's new Revolutionary government, the war may have served a useful purpose of allowing it to consolidate its power and see off opposition groups. The Revolution had empowered many disenfranchised Iranians and the war held them together. For the world's powers, the Iran-Iraq war ensured a weakened Iran, one unable to spread its fundamentalist fervour throughout the region. At different times through the eight years of the war, various western powers supplied arms to both sides though Iraq received the most conspicuous help, in both armaments and economic aid.

By 1984 it was reported that some 300,000 Iranian soldiers and 250,000 Iraqi troops had been killed, or wounded. Saddam started using chemical weapons against the Iranians in 1982 with use of non-lethal tear gas but its success in disabling the Iranians led to many more chemical attacks where mustard gas and Sarin nerve gas were used. Iran charged Iraq with 40 uses of chemical weapons between May 1981 and March 1984 and in 1986 UN secretary general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, formally accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Iran. Citing the report of four chemical warfare experts whom the UN had sent to Iran in February and March 1986, the secretary general called on Baghdad to end its violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol on the use of chemical weapons.

Iraq attempted to deny using chemicals, but the evidence, in the form of many badly burned casualties flown to European hospitals for treatment, was overwhelming. According to a British representative at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in July 1986, 'Iraqi chemical warfare was responsible for about 10,000 casualties.'

According to his wife, Ebby didn't want to be a martyr. By the time he was called to the front, war weariness had set in among Iranians and the troops. With Iranian troops called to push into Iraqi territory, many of the soldiers had lost their zeal: they had wanted to defend their own land, not invade Iraq's. The battles were horrific and losses heavy: mass graves harboured thousands of bodies and tales of drug addiction in the trenches was rife. Away from the front line, Iran's economy was suffering -- by 1987 nearly one in two Iranians was unemployed and shortages of basic commodities grew worse. The population had boomed, nearly tripling in the years since the Revolution to 60 million by the end of the war. The five 'wars of the cities' had spread the terror to all of Iran's main cities and nowhere felt safe.

From Abadan's cemetery we drove back into town with Esmael and Ebby's sisters. His wife departed for home in a nearby town, she was rushing back to make dinner for her children. They didn't know where she was, years ago she had told them that their father worked in another town and could never get time off, so she hadn't yet told them what had happened, couldn't show them how upset she was. 'At least,' she told me, 'I think my son may have guessed. He is 12 now and I have a feeling someone has said something to him.' I asked her when she was planning to let them know and she fixed me with a blank stare: 'How do I tell them? What do I tell them?'

Sitting around dinner with my cousins, no one talked of Ebby's life, his drug addiction. Afterwards when the other guests had departed and we sat over steaming black tea and almond and rosewater sweets, I asked them to tell me about him. Esmael sighed and took a deep breath. 'I was in the war too,' he said, 'But I was lucky not to be at Shalamcheh. Ebby was scared. He was weak already,' he was referring to his dabbling with hashish in Shiraz. 'And he saw too much. He once told me about the night before one of those 'human wave' attacks. No one was sleeping, they were praying and weeping and most were really scared. There were suddenly loads of drugs around -- hashish, opium, everything -- Ebby said that it really helped. Maybe that was how he got into the heavier stuff…'

I had certainly heard plenty of anecdotal evidence about drugs and even alcohol at the front. Maybe that is how Ebby became addicted to opium, but we will never know. All they knew for sure is that by the end of the war, when Ebby came home, he had a habit and his parents, worried and not knowing what to do, protected him.

Iranian society is formal and much store is set by respectability. A drug-addicted child is a problem that affects every member of the family: Ebby had two marriageable sisters and so he was sheltered and supported by his parents who gave him money to feed his habit, having no idea what else to do -- at that time there was no formal support for addicts or their families.

When he met Mina, her parents were against the marriage, they had heard the rumours and wouldn't allow it. Yet Mina was strong-minded and for a year she refused to marry anyone else. 'From the first I loved only him,' she told me. After their marriage, like many young Iranian couples, they lived with Ebby's parents. Ebby worked and held his life together. Their son was born after a couple of years and a few years later, they had a daughter. 'We were happy,' Mina dabbed at her eyes. 'We were ordinary.'

They were living back in Abadan where Ebby's family had returned after the end of the war in 1988. Abadan was a ruin and the economy was a mess but Iran restarted petroleum refining and petrochemical production in Abadan on a smaller scale using reconstructed plants and the city's port reopened in 1993. As Mina says: 'There was work and we had a small comfortable life.'

It was after the death of my uncle and his wife that the situation began to change for Ebby and Mina. In their own home, Ebby started a cycle of battling the drug. His elder sister got married and her husband, who was a friend of Ebby's, would periodically find a house in to which they would take Ebby to help him go through the trials of withdrawing. But he would always start again. As the years dragged on the strain started to tell on the relationships, Ebby's brother and sisters started to draw away from him and Mina, who they accused of encouraging him. I asked her if she too was involved with drugs and she looks horrified. 'Of course I wasn't,' she pursed her lips. 'Look, we weren't like that, like those people you see on the streets.' Then she grew a little sheepish. 'But after his parents were no longer here, I did buy the drug for him sometimes.' She looks down at her nails. 'I had to, he was my husband and he couldn't do without it. I loved him and it made him happy…'

They may not have been 'like that' then, but eventually Ebby ended up on heroin and on the streets. Soon after I saw Ebby for the last time, Mina's parents insisted that she leave him, and she took his children and moved back into their house. She got a job and got on with life as a single parent. She never divorced him, though within Iranian law she easily could have on account of his addiction. I asked her why and she said simply: 'Because I loved him.'

____

Abadan is no longer the sophisticated city of pre-revolutionary days. The grand Abadan Hotel where my parents would dance the night away is now a broken down shell of a building. Braim, the residential area of the oil company still has clean streets and rows of bungalows but the entrances to its streets are now fenced off to prevent locals coming in. The refinery is still at work -- in 1997 it reached the same rate of production as before the war -- and the waters of the Shatt still flow gently between the town and Iraq's fields of palms, but the main town is a dusty relic of its former self, the pavements half unpaved, and streets with their neon shop fronts a mixture of new buildings, shambolic old buildings, and gaping holes where bombed out ruins have not been rebuilt.

My cousin Milad is taking me on a tour of Abadan. He is a young man in his early 20s, typically Abadani, with slicked back hair and a pair of Ray Bans permanently fixed on his face. He speaks with an Abadani accent, his Farsi peppered with English words (another legacy of Abadan's cosmopolitan past) and he is wearing pointed shoes -- the latest fashion -- and he takes great care over his clothes. Khuzestanis have ever been thus: they have a reputation for being fond of looking good and having a good time, the fashion for slicked back hair and Ray Bans stretching back to the glory days of Abadan. (In our home in London there is a 1960's picture of my youthful father after a decade of living in Abadan. His hair is slicked back and he is wearing Ray Bans. He is not from Khuzestan but it is infectious.) It was Milad who came across Ebby a year ago, begging on the streets, and it was Milad who identified Ebby's body when he noticed him missing from his usual post.

It is early evening and and as it is winter, the climate is at its best, balmy and breezy with no sign yet of the hellish humidity that besieges Khuzestan nine months of the year. He points out the various bazaars that bring in goods from Kuwait, brand goods that people clamour to buy, from shampoo to coffee whitener. He points out the area called the Kuwaiti bazaar, opposite the cordoned off site of the old infamous Cinema Rex, historically the starting point of the Revolution: on 20 August 1978, the Cinema Rex was locked from the inside and set on fire, resulting in 430 deaths. It was widely believed that the government of the Shah was responsible: there were several dissidents inside. This sparked mass demonstrations against the Shah, who was overthrown six months later. Recently there was another fire on the site and now it is being prepared to become a new shopping mall, selling shoes. Milad tells me that several sets of bones have been unearthed since the work started.

Turning down a side street, Milad shows me where Ebby used to sit, outside a shop selling brightly patterned blankets. 'He was cold at the beginning of the winter,' he says, 'so I bought him a blanket here.' Across the street, on a corner outside the bank where Ebby would post himself through the mornings begging for money, stand his 'friends' -- other addicts clustering around a blind cigarette seller with an Arab scarf around his neck. They are in various degrees of narcosis: one man is standing, leaning at a dangerous angle, another is crouching on the ground, head falling forward, shoulders hunched. Everyone knew Ebby, Milad says, and they let him do whatever he wanted. They knew he had AIDS, they didn't want to go near him.

There are an estimated 2 million drug addicts in Iran though some put the real figures as high as 6 million. 200,000 are injecting drug users. This is a high proportion of a population of 68 million -- the United States, for instance, has one million opiate addicts in a population of around 270 million. Last October, Reza Sarami, who heads the anti-addiction programme of the national anti-narcotics trafficking body, reportedly said drug use was rising by eight percent annually, at this rate Iran could be counting nine million addicts -- one seventh of the population -- in 20 years.

Iran borders Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium and the drugs come through Iran on their way to lucrative western markets. Historically there has been a tradition of opium smoking in Iran in which older men would gather at home to talk and share an opium pipe. This was a social activity and the opium smoking wouldn't interfere with their lives. The big change is the move to intravenous heroin use, a change that can be partly attributed to opium prices skyrocketing after the Taliban's ban on growing the poppy and heroin became cheap and available instead -- a hit of heroin costs less than a packet of cigarettes. Add to this the largely young population of Iran, living with high unemployment rates, scant opportunities for recreation, fiercely contested, limited university places and growing rates of depression and you can see why there is such cause for concern.

With intravenous drug use comes HIV and Hepatitis, and sure enough, AIDS is now being seen as a real problem in Iran. The first reported AIDS case dates back to 1987, when a six-year-old haemophiliac child was diagnosed to have been infected, resulting in the establishment of a National Committee to fight AIDS. Since then, there have been 4,237 reported cases of HIV/AIDS. Of this number, 626 have developed full-blown AIDS and 585 have died.

But these figures are nowhere near accurate and even the government acknowledges that a better estimate is around 20,000. The figures don't include the likes of Ebby, who was never treated or registered as an AIDS patient. Last summer, my uncle, Milad's father, came to Abadan and took him to a local drug clinic. They refused to take him in, he was too infectious. There was no hope for him, they said, better not to risk other lives for one that could not be saved. Ebby returned to the streets with his swollen legs and the weeping sores on his feet.

Ebby had had full-blown AIDS for a few years. The majority of Iran's AIDS sufferers -- 65 percent -- are men who have contracted the virus through contaminated needles. Prisons are the main source of HIV infection; addiction is a crime and addicts possessing 5gms of heroin or 30gms of opium are routinely jailed. Some 180,000 people are incarcerated in Iran's prisons, more than half on drug charges. Up to 100 inmates reportedly share a single needle. Ebby had been regularly in and out of jail over the years.

'After Mina left and he became homeless,' Milad continues, 'Ebby would sometimes try to get jailed so he would have somewhere warm and dry to sleep.' After he was so obviously suffering from AIDS, he literally couldn't get arrested and Shapur Park is where he would mostly spend the night, sleeping by a cedar tree.

According to other addicts, getting heroin inside prison is easy. Experts have called for a more moderate approach in order to curb the spread of drug-related AIDS, most notably by way of the free distribution of syringes to avoid contamination. A recent law has made it possible for pharmacies to supply free syringes to registered drug addicts signifying a sea change in the Iranian governments' policy. Until recently the emphasis was on reducing the supply of heroin -- now it is shifting to reducing harm.

In the deprived streets of southern Tehran, I turn into a dusty cul-de-sac to find a door that I have been told has no sign. There is a curtain hanging across the open doorway and lifting it, I look down into a small courtyard filled to bursting with men, queuing. On the other side of the courtyard, there are steps leading to a gallery and the queue snakes up here, filtering to the right where, from small window, someone hands out methadone. I squeeze up the steps, turn left at the top and am ushered into a small office, also bursting with people, three desks and stacks of boxes.

This is Persepolis, a harm reduction NGO, and Iran's first methadone programme in a non-governmental organisation. Started in a town in the province of Fars near the historical monument Persepolis in 1998, it was originally a drop-in centre for addicts as part of a GP's surgery. Dr Bijan Nassirimanesh, the NGO's founder, was keen to remove the stigma and the amount of referrals it took for addicts to get treatment. After nearly four years, he moved the operation to Tehran and chose the south because 'there the need was greatest.'

When I drop into one of the three Persepolis day centres now established in southern Tehran, Dr Nassirimanesh is away. I sit down opposite Mr Rouhy, a fast-talking man who runs the centre. He tells me that the lessons learnt in Fars persuaded them that harm reduction was essential, so the centre offers addicts a package of syringes, clean needles, tape, alcohol pads, condoms and distilled water -- as well as food, clothes, a bath and medical attention, including wound and abscess management, all for free. The 200 addicts that drop in every day are all homeless and those registered for the syringe package have to bring back the used syringe the next day before they can get another package. 'It's part of the education,' he says, 'Plus we don't want the streets littered with used needles.'

The team consists of doctors, a psychiatrist and an outreach team that takes the same packages out into the community. Many of the other staff are former addicts and often they just listen to the addicts' stories, inspiring them with their own success at beating the drug. Rouhy insists that, despite the need for sensitivity in the Islamic Republic where extra-marital sex is illegal, teaching the addicts about condoms is essential. 'We try to be sensitive,' he shrugs, 'But it is really important. And of course we don't judge. We don't force anyone to come off the drugs. We just make sure they are safe.'

There is a kitchen and on alternate days, lunch is offered. Below the office there is a day room where people can sit and drink tea and talk. Until recently, Dr Nassirimanesh tested every addict that came to him for HIV. Of 500 addicts he tested, 25 percent were found to be HIV-positive. However, the centre no longer has the resources necessary to carry this out. Rouhy sighs. 'There is such a need for what we are doing,' he says. 'We have no shortage of people who want to work, no shortage of people needing treatment. What we don't have enough of is funding. Get me funding and we will happily open a Persepolis in every district in every town.'

Centres such as Persepolis or the 65 'triangle clinics' located in hospitals and prisons concentrating on a three-pronged approach (treating AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and drug addiction at once) are pinpricks of hope in a dark landscape. As is the government's new approach, in which about half of the approximately US$80 million allotted annually to fighting drugs now goes for supply reduction and half towards decreasing demand. Still, the numbers they are fighting are massive and while the causes for addiction are not being addressed, then people like Mr Rouhy and Dr Nassirimanesh are just fire fighting.

Although there is now better education and families across the whole social spectrum are affected by this epidemic, there is still a stigma attached to having a drug addict in the family. By the time Ebby died, none of his siblings had seen him or talked to him for years. After years of trying to assist him to give up, after all his lies and deceit, they had all finally given up. His elder sister says to me: 'He stole from me, he lied to me and I still gave him money and tried to help. But in the end, it was impossible to try to find a husband for my sister with Ebby coming around every time he needed a fix. So in the end I had to stop him from coming to me, and eventually when we moved, I never gave him my new address.' She is crying as she tells me this. 'He was my brother and I loved him. But what could I do? Our parents aren't here and we have no family left in Abadan. I had to look out for my sister.'

His younger sister is nursing her first child. She is less emotional. 'He brought this on himself,' she declares. 'For me, Ebby died a long time ago. And even though I told my husband about him after we were married, his family still doesn't know about his addiction and I have no desire for them to find out. Ebby was a disgrace to us all. At least now that he is dead I can get on and grieve him. But for me, Ebby died a long time ago.'

____

Twenty miles from Abadan, we alight in Khorramshahr, declared holy ground since the two-year Iraqi occupation. Many buildings are still mere shells, the reconstruction here is slow; the economy has never really recovered from the destruction and depopulation the city suffered during the war. The city centre has shifted since the war as the old city centre has not been reconstructed, meaning that the uncle who accompanies me, takes a little while to get his bearings, even though he knew this area 'like the back of my hand before.' We head to the city hall to get a pass for Shalamcheh, the no-man's land between here and Iraq which saw so much blood shed. Since it has become a shrine to the war, a place of pilgrimage, visits have been formalised: only special taxis make the trip to Shalamcheh and usually the passes are only handed out at the weekends, not during the week, as we went. However we were lucky to find an amenable official who, without looking up, wrote the requisite letter for us in response to our entreaties.

The taxi speeds the couple of miles along an empty two-lane highway, flanked by a flat wilderness, usually dusty and empty, but in the last two days turned to marshes of mud by heavy winter rainfall. As we near Shalamcheh, there are mounted signs extolling the virtues of martyrdom, and there is a burnt out Iraqi tank half buried in the ground. This land used to support many villages but now there are only the straggling remains of one or two. 'There are still lots of mines here,' explains our taxi driver, a Khuzestani Arab whose own village is not far.

We come to a small outpost manned by a couple of young guards. The driver hands over our letter while chatting to the guards who he obviously knows well: he is licensed to come here certain days of the week. They usher us through and we turn right onto a long straight road, surrounded by this vast emptiness, the odd shelled-out tank the only punctuation. There are the odd remains of machine guns and the burnt-out shells of tanks abandoned at the side of the road. Occasionally there are large banners bearing the garishly painted images of martyrs who died in the war, of generals, of ordinary soldiers too. We draw into a muddy parking lot, all around us the dips and elevations of trenches and dug-outs still clear in the landscape.

'Shalamcheh: welcome to Iran's Kerbala' announces a sign. Kerbala, in Iraq, is where, in the 8th century, Imam Hossein was martyred. Ahead of us lies a prayer area to the right, just an aluminum ceiling covering the devout from the sun and rows of billboards displaying pictures. The shrine itself lies to the left, a dome covering a cool hall supported by columns and culminating in a centrepiece of a glass case, set in a depression in the floor edged by sandbags and red paper flowers. In the glass case there is the broken remains of guns, helmets, Korans and other relics of soldiers' lives collected from these killing fields, all watched over by the picture of a dead, bloody soldier.

Outside, there is a path leading to a small graveyard for unnamed soldiers and beyond, a couple of watchtowers, a few metres from border with Iraq. We head up to the watchtowers, passing a couple of guards, all very young men, looking bored and surprised to see us -- we were the only visitors. From the top of the watchtower, an Iranian flag dancing lazily in the breeze, I spot an Iraqi outpost on the other side of the border. A lonely guard waves to us. 'Sometimes,' says one of the soldiers who has wandered over, 'they come over and borrow some sugar lumps for their tea, or come and share sweets with us.' He grins, barely out of his teens, just serving his National Service: 'You know, we are all friends now.'

I wander off as I'm listening to him, a little way from the path. 'Stop!' he shouts after me, alarmed. 'Mines' he explains. 'There are still mines here. All the way to Ahvaz.' Ahvaz is some 120km away. 'As soon as we think we know where the mines are, they shift,' he explains. When it rains like this in the winter, the mines move in the marshy soil. 'We lost a couple of men just a few weeks ago,' the young soldier says. He hands us a pair of binoculars. 'Pity you weren't here half an hour ago,' he laughs, 'The Iraqis were singing and dancing over there.'

Stories abound of shocking incidents the war made commonplace here: half a garrison lying down on an electric fence so that others may go through; a hundred boys throwing themselves in a river to act as a human bridge; the children that ran at Iraqi tanks with Molotov cocktails or hand grenades. You can see why the Iraqis were scared.

There are burnt trunks of date palm trees spiking the flat wasteland, and looking over the scrub and mud, I think about Ebby living through the winter here, waiting in muddied trenches, scared. Rousing religious tunes would be played over Tannoys and mass prayers led before battles to whip the troops into religious frenzy, but by the time Ebby was here, war weariness had set in and volunteers were drying up. Many of the troops were conscripts like Ebby and they didn't have the same zeal as those who had flocked to enlist in the first few years.

The silence here is eerie and somehow full. Underneath my every step may be the bodies of men and boys: a troop of 400 that came from the holy town of Mashad in the northwest of the country, only to be buried alive by the Iraqis on arrival. Four major battles were fought from April to August 1988, in which the Iraqis massively and effectively used chemical weapons to defeat the Iranians, using nerve and blister agents against Iranian command and control facilities, artillery positions, and logistics points. In the last major battle of the war, played out here, 65,000 Iranians were killed, many with poison gas. The pictures lining the prayer area don't shy away from any of this: there are bodies, dismembered, beheaded, bleeding, wounded. Men praying in the trenches, looking shell-shocked, men marching, laughing, fighting, bearing their arms and hugging their comrades. Pictures of the dead with their names underneath: some just young boys, some in the height of late 1970's fashion, frozen forever in their youth. Just as shocking as all this blood and guts is a picture of a troop marching in the area at the start of hostilities: Shalamcheh was like an oasis, green and lush with date trees and all shades of bushes and plants. The men marching through this fecund land are laughing with confidence, convinced of their victory, passionate about their God and their land.

The pictures are here as a testament to the glorious values of martyrdom, of the bravery of Iran's sons. To me they just speak of futility, a waste of young lives and of land as old as time.

The war between Iran and Iraq was one of the great human tragedies of recent history. Perhaps as many as a million people died, many more were wounded, and millions were made refugees. The resources wasted on the war exceeded what the entire Third World spent on public health in a decade. And even now, as those who lived through the war struggle to come to terms with their memories, the war is still claiming its casualties.

____

In death Ebby has found a status he never enjoyed in life. For many of the men who fought in this war, the only honourable outcome was death and the martyrdom that entailed. For those that survived, living proved too much to bear. For some, it meant reintegrating into a society that every year cared less for their war. For others locking away the war years and striding on with life as if those years never happened was the only way to go on. For the likes of Ebby, that was not an option. Despite support from family, a loving wife and children, Ebby's love for the drug that helped him forget was stronger than anything and to it he sacrificed his family, his home and, in the end, his life. While still alive, reeling through the streets of Abadan, he was a disgrace to his family, an embarrassment to his country and a shameful testimony to the war that shaped him. In death, Ebby has finally become once again a beloved son, a much-missed brother and a loving father and husband. Another martyr to the war that continues to haunt its survivors.

An abridged version of this article first appeared in the Financial Times magazine. Click here for Part 1, Part 2 of this essay published in Tehran Bureau.

AUTHOR
Kamin Mohammadi's first book, a family memoir and modern history of Iran, will be published by Bloomsbury later this year. 

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Good reading

by Ragen (not verified) on

Nice piece. I started reading thinking I would just go through the text quickly and in fact I read it all and even printed it. I like your depiction of the iraki border. I feel sorry for Ebby,but some of us are strong and some aren't.Weaker people should be helped, but it's easier said than done, and as you piece shows it , even love is not enough. I am a franco-iranian filmmaker in Paris, France. I'll try to keep track and get a copy of your book. Way to go!


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Umemployment

by shirazie (not verified) on

same problem existed during shah's time. as an unemployment went up in early 1970's - drug addiction increased.

Young people need to burn their energy either on the field of sports, war or constructive work. End of the day it is a personnel choice.

We are about to go through the same trouble in USA. Noticed the rise in mass murder by unfortunate and unemployed.


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More than 5% of Iranian

by earl (not verified) on

More than 5% of Iranian population is addicted to hard drugs. The IRGC is involved deeply involved in distrubution of all kinds of drugs for profiteering.

Islamic terrorism and drug cartle are connected at the hip.


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an extensive evil plan to destroy Iran.........

by lucifercus (not verified) on

......of the great satan. How sad.
Also "IRANIAN"`s Iran is destroyed. How disgraceful.
The IRAN of the honorable iranian nation is sooo ABAAD as never before. Go there and see. Since monthes they are celebrating, congratulating, dancing and singing. the glorious songs of their Revolution, the happy songs of their nowruz. Wendsday was their day of stabilizing the fundaments of their Islamic Republic. Yesterday was the day of nature - zisdeh beh dar - and today -- please please dont blame me for it -- well today they celebrate the birthday of their 11th Imam. They say they would accept anybody who wants to join. the simple condition is: She/He has to visit koran school for a while first.
How strange, what? and in america poeple are demonstrating against unjustice against immigrants. where the "true" americans themselves are deeply suffering from unjustice. How many million $s are paid as gratification to managers of concerns which have got money from the black servant in white house to recover? Knows anybody anything to report about these subjects? There will be no danger for reporters. In america poeple have the right to speak critically. Where are the critics? I should say Iran does not need poeple who report for money and america hates the critic.


Maryam Hojjat

Kamin

by Maryam Hojjat on

Thanks for your thoughtful blog.  Very sad that IRAN lost more than half million of his young men to that horrible war.  One day in free IRAN history will introduce the criminals who instigated and continued those bloodshed of innocent young men.

 

Payandeh IRAN & IRANIANS   


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The addict is the addict. Here, the family is to blame.

by Assal B. (not verified) on

After reading this piece, I am eagerly anticipating reading Mr. Mohammadi's book debut. I am sure that Iranian.com will keep us posted as to when the book will be ready for release.

Drug addiction is one of the world's greatest evils and it is so heartbreaking to realize that, in having served in the Iraq war, Ebby will forever be revered in death as he never was in life. Like so many others whose sins and hardships were erased and ignored with the word "martyr". The blame doesn't rest on Ebby, though, not like his younger sister claims. The blame rests on the government, the social structure, and the family, etc. The addict cannot be the hero. He is the addict. The family that loves him is obligated to save him and play hero. When they don't; when their hearts are too weak; it is their sin that Ebby's soul is lost. Not his.

This story really touched me and brought tears to my eyes because I know Ebby is not just some exception to the rule. His story, his plight, and his tragic downfall is sadly becoming the trend in the country that was once so great.


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nice story.....

by ali133 (not verified) on

i'm from ahvaz....and it's very sad to see what the akhoonds have done to our great khuzestan and iran as a whole.
with all his issues, the shah was a true patriot- ROOHESH SHAD- for when he was king iran had respect, peace and security.
the mullahs destroyed the army and brought shame and despair to our great land
YOU THINK THAT ABADAN, AHVAZ, AND KHORAMSHAHR would have been attacked under the shah's watch??? i think not, saddam was peeing in his pants from our might
by the way, your comment about cinema rex- IT IS A KNOWN FACT- PROVEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN, THAT KHOMEINI AND HIS FELESTINI GOONS SET CINEMA REX ON FIRE TO TRY TO BLAME SAVAK FOR IT.....just like jaleh square.
this so called revolution was nothing but an extensive evil plan to destroy iran and set it back a 1000 years...this is what u get when you let a buncha of bloodthirsty akhoonds take over your homeland!


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The Hero and Heroin A war veteran loses the drug battl

by luciferous (not verified) on

a family memoir and modern history of Iran, will be published by Bloomsbury
BAH BAH; BAH BAH. The best book, the best story the real facts. The book has, I am suer, a big chance to become the BestSeller of the year 2009 and the coming years there after. Why report in the united states of america about Vietnam heros? IARK-GIs? Afghanistan? As in the united states so in all western countries the nations get fed by force with real and halfreal and unreal stories about the misrable social situation and unacceptable life conditions in Asia afraica and elsewhere. But by no means they report more than minimally neccessary amount about pooreness, unhumanity and other bad things in their own country.
I mean every boda must have the possibility to earn her/his life. This book will be suitable tool to get money. Since it reports about poeple who have thrown the satans out of their country. the latters need now to be convinced: Iranians have a bad life now in Iran.
KHAYLI MAMNOON