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Oral history and its significance in local-writing of history of imposed war in Iran
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The Iraqi imposed war against Iran is an important event in Iran’s contemporary history the consequences of which have affected many affairs of the people’s lives. It has had various political, social, cultural and economic impacts. In reviewing these impacts, a number of questions are brought up. Questions like what aspects of the war have been focused on more so far? What aspects of the war military, or cultural and economic are more important? How the social nature of the war is likely to be manifested in the writings? How is the status of identities and ethnicities in the history of war? And to what extent is it necessary to pay attention to individual identities and local characteristics?
The extent of territory, the ethnic and racial variety, and the participation of many people in the eight-year imposed war have set the stage for many grounds on collecting, organizing and analyzing the events related to the war. Despite a valuable look at the war and a joint perception from it, certainly in view of the level of involvement in the war and local regional characteristics, different looks have likely been existed in Khuzestan, Khorasan, Kurdistan, and Tehran. The reviewing of the written works in the field of the historiography of the war indicates that despite some references, not much attention has been paid to local-writing in the history of the war and it has always been tried to look at it from a single aperture or certain intellectual approaches.
In the past several decades, researchers in various intellectual and research fields in the world have paid attention to oral history as a research tool and method, and in view of the extent of its application in political, social, economic and cultural grounds, it has proved that it is able to be shaped according to the time and place of every period. Documenting of the history of the war has been one of the reasons for the shaping and spread of oral history in Iran after the victory of the Islamic revolution and many books have been written by using oral history interviews. Popularity, capability to establish relation with various areas of the history of the war, simplicity in accessibility and the attraction in oral expression of war memoirs which has the capability to be portrayed, and create visual attractions has caused many to use oral history in the recent decade to a large extent. These attentions which have sometimes popular and non-governmental nature, are influenced by official approaches toward the historiography of the war. In view of the fact that using of oral history is popular and capable, it seems necessary to portray the local history of the war. In this line, the following suggestions can be studied for using oral history to a larger extent:
- Most compilations about the history of the war have been written with official language and their authors regard the nationwide distribution of books and lack of understanding by the public as the main reason for this. Conducting oral history interviews in local language and their recording can provide information needs of local researchers for the future so that local policymaking in compiling and presenting the historiography of the war in different areas are provided.
- Paying attention to various tools for transferrin messages and conception of the war in the past several years and the expensiveness of paper in Iran have caused many writings not to be considered as the most way of compiling the history of the war like the past and oral history with its special capabilities can be paid more attention by the authorities.
- Using oral history in local-writing of the history of the war is in fact to release from the problem of official and dominant discourse in the country which has provided the grounds for the participation of different groups with different tastes so that individuals can be seen in various levels.
- Paying attention to archive-building in local-writing of the history of the war through oral history sets the stage for inter-generation dialogue and provides the grounds for familiarization of different social classes with various educational degrees with the conception and nature of the war,
- The social history of the war is an important tool for dialogue with international community and is considered a strong point of the imposed war. Oral history is one of the important means of enriching social historiography of the war the capacity of which will spread widely in line with the local-writing of the history of the war.
Abolfazl hasanabady, PHD
Translated By: Mohammad Bagher Khoshnevisan
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