A Victim’s Narrative: Mr. Teacher

 

 

Mr. Teacher

Date of Martyrdom:  24 November 1999

 

As always, there was a lot of talk. Parents always tried to express their children’s problems at the parent-teacher meeting. As the school’s vice president, he did his best to listen to them. He understood and understood their words better than anyone else and knew that all their concerns and worries were justified as parents of children. He tried to ease their worries by listening to their pain and heartache and reassuring them to solve the problems.

During the years he was the school’s vice president and even before that, he always had a good relationship with the students’ families. Therefore, he was very trustworthy and respected by them.

It was Ramadan and all the parents were fasting. He tried not to talk too long so as not to cause them suffering and tried to hear all their concerns as quickly as possible and make decisions together for the welfare and progress of the school children. As one of the school officials, as well as an experienced teacher, he, along with other school parents, identified the shortcomings and decided to gradually resolve the school’s problems according to priorities.

In the end, Mr. Jalizawi, the school’s deputy, had managed to establish good communication between the students’ parents and the school administration, as always. He decided to take action in the coming days, based on the decisions made in the meeting, to resolve the school’s shortcomings.

He returned home. After a hard day’s work, he started playing with the children. With his twin sons. He took time to talk to his daughter every day, and the warm atmosphere of the house was always warmer with his father’s presence. His daughter would talk to Baba about her future with warmth; about the dreams she had, about the questions she had in her mind, about her lessons, her worries and concerns.

Without showing the slightest tiredness on his face or being disturbed by hearing the concerns of the parents of the schoolchildren, father would listen to his daughter’s words and understand her worries. As soon as the father heard the girl’s words, the heavy burden of worries would be lifted from his shoulders.

The mother, despite the father, did not worry about raising the children. At the end of every hard day, when the father of the family returned home, the worries, fatigue and apprehensions would end and the mother would find peace by his side and her fatigue would go away.

But the next day, it started strangely from the beginning. Mr. Teacher had breakfast with his family as usual, and then, as usual, he dropped his daughter off at school and went to his work school. No one could have guessed how the day would end.

It was the month of Ramadan, and the atmosphere in the city was full of joy and happiness, as always during this month. But the weight of a big event weighed on that day. Mr. Jalizawi had a meeting with the school principal and discussed with him the shortcomings that had been raised at the parents-teachers meeting yesterday. They decided to resolve the problems as much as possible.

He was keeping his promise to the children’s parents. That is why he was trying to provide the children with the most facilities so that they could have a better educational environment. Considering that the shortcomings of the school had been identified the previous day, he decided to take action to provide them after iftar.

Therefore, he made the final arrangements with the school principal and went home for iftar after school hours. He was in a hurry at the iftar table to go to the market as soon as possible to get the supplies and have more time to do this.

Like every day of Ramadan, they sat at the iftar table with their family and broke the fast with gratitude to God for the end of a day of fasting.

The children expected their father to play with them, as he always does. His daughter wanted to talk to him, the twins wanted to practice talking to him, and the mother wanted to tell him about the day’s events. But the father said that he had to go out as soon as possible to get the supplies.

The children understood, but they were used to their father being at home after iftar and were a little restless. But the father, as promised to his parents, had to go out to buy supplies. He went to the car to start, but the car wouldn’t start. The mother felt bad. He told his daughter to go to your father and tell him that now that the car won’t start, he shouldn’t leave the house anymore and that he should leave the work for another day.

But at that moment the car had started and the father had left the house. The daughter, who was trying to reach her father, could not call him and returned home.

The atmosphere in the house was not the same as every day after the father left. Because every day after iftar, the father was at home. And because there had been a change in the father’s work, the children felt restless. Everyone was waiting for the father to return home again, but the wait lasted for hours. There was no news of him. It was getting late and the mother’s concern was increasing. The children also felt the mother’s concern, but they remained silent out of fear. They gradually fell asleep with the same concern, but the mother did not sleep until morning and spent the longest night of her life with strange anxiety. The anxiety did not spare her until morning.

Early in the morning, the mother and son, who were worried that their father was missing, went to the hospitals, but they found no trace of their father. The mother called one of the father’s close friends and informed him. He also came to help. They visited the hospitals and police stations again. At one of the police stations, they told the father’s friend to bring his ID card.

At the police station, the father’s friend had been told that something had happened. He tried to bring the mother home under the pretext of the ID card. When they returned home, the friend told the family what had happened and informed them of the father’s martyrdom. Suddenly, the mother of the family burst into tears. She could only tell the news to her children by crying, wailing, and stuttering. For the children, hearing this news was unbelievable.

Continuing their evil activities, the hated MKO terrorists had fired several mortars at Shahid Chamran University in Ahvaz. The father of the family, who was driving in front of the university, was hit by one of the mortars. He had to get out of the car, because the car had also stopped moving. But at the same time, another mortar exploded and several shrapnel hit him on the right side of his body. One of these shrapnel hit him on the head, causing a fractured skull and his martyrdom.

This event was so shocking and unbelievable that it caused severe psychological damage to other family members. After three days, the martyr’s body was buried. But the grief of losing his father weighed more and more heavily on the family every day.

The absence of his father was a severe blow to the children. After that, the daughter of martyr Jalizawi, who was 15 years old at the time, felt the absence of her father at all important moments of her life, from the time she was accepted into the university to the engagement ceremony and the wedding.

The twin brothers of the family were also affected by the long-term absence of their father. They experienced a difficult life. A daughter who no longer had a father to take her to school, a mother who bore the heavy burden of life alone, and children who grew up without a father. All of this and the pain of many years was the result of the greed of a terrorist group that destroyed the warmth of a family’s life with its hostile and blind actions. This pain will weigh on the chest and heart of this family for years to come.