The necessity and benefits of finding a solution

Seeing, hearing and reading memories well and correctly with the aim of deep understanding of what has happened, and correct feeling of the atmosphere of the memory's time, force us to do our best to be informed of circumstances of the events so that we can figure out the history of our land more knowingly and literally. This represents the significance of our attention to the history and identity of our past deeply and correctly which is of course praiseworthy.  However, there is also another reason forcing us to make our utmost effort in view of the above mentioned cases. In addition to the necessity of understanding the history of our land better and more deeply, we need to do our best to find ways and methods of transferring the conceptions covered in the body motions and voices of the interviewees in order to recognize the internal world of the witnesses and actors of Iran's history. This is of great importance since the tradition of our historiography especially in writing the profile of those who have been active in historical arenas is in a way that pays less and perhaps no attention to the individuals' habits and temperaments and mentalities. But today, with the spread of the research areas of the science of history especially in linking with other social and human sciences like psychology and educational sciences, it is important to note that the historians and researchers active in historical studies have the responsibility to recognize the personality, spirit and thinking of the actors of different arenas of Iran's contemporary history and it needs to be met thoroughly and completely.  Thus, now that many of effective persons in the history of our land are now living and available and can be interviewed, we should not lose this big and historical opportunity.  So, we should try to discover the angles of their personality and are informed of their character more than ever in order to be able to find out the reasons and circumstances of the events and incidents as a result of this precise recognition and awareness. Even, we can discover to what extent the personal character of the individuals can influence in crucial or public decision-makings which are effective in the process of the history of a land. (Example of this is the recommendations of the first infallible imam of the Shiites Imam Ali (PBUH) to the judges on the impact of body on mind as a result of issuing a verdict). Apart from the necessity of recognizing the personality of the history's actors in understanding history, we can also determine the atmosphere ruling over the spirit, soul and body of Iranian man in different events of Iran's contemporary history. We can identify the sentiments and observe the people's internal sways in order to recognize and study the atmosphere, culture ruling over the inwardness of Iranians in the general and comprehensive analyses.
We conclude that knowing personal, moral and behavioral characteristics of the interviewees in historical researches is so necessary that it is good to think about the circumstances of having access to it and receiving necessary data and information in this regard, and to seek proper solutions. The issue becomes more important through using the method of interviewing in oral history. Therefore, it seems that now that the grounds have provided for meeting and talking to active elements of different arenas of Iranian history and culture, we'd better to think more seriously about registering and recording motional and verbal output of these people about which we talked earlier so that they are saved and kept in the best possible way and are presented to eager persons through which the researchers use them. 

This is also noticeable from the cultural viewpoint and cultural symbols. The interviewees' expressing of motions and voice and in general weak and strong excitements represents the type of the birthplace culture and the environment of raising and personality and behavioral growth and good and bad display special behaviors and excitements. Thus, in view of them, the cultural foundations of the interviewee on one hand and his or her environmental birthplace on the other hand can be recognized well. In other words, "every culture has special instrumental rules for showing excitement. These rules are experienced in certain times and determine proper behaviors for every excitement… so some stereotyped and conventional forms of exciting is created on the background of the fundamental manifestations of excitement which are apparently general. It can be called a kind of exciting language which is familiar for the people of a certain culture but it sometimes causes the people of other cultures to be misunderstood."(1) For instance, it can be referred to the difference of two cultures in various lands and nations in which some weep for the death of the loved ones and some others rejoice and dance. Of course, it is worth mentioning that "Manifestations of face" which is one of the clearest aspects of expressing excitements has a general meaning in fundamental excitements. It means that people of various cultures agree on what excitement is expressed in a certain photo (of different positions of face)." (2)

Recognizing the character of the individuals is another case in which registering of the interviewees' positions, motions and voices are of great importance. Every individual expresses special excitements according to his or her personal mood. So, a certain connection with the mood of individuals can be found in expressing different kinds of excitements. Therefore, scientific researches stresses that the human pays more attention to the events in accordance with his or her mood rather than events which are nor in accordance with personal mood…Thus it can be interpreted that the level of remembering the memories which are in accordance with personal mood has direct relation." (3)
    
In confirming the significance of recognizing the characters of interviewees as the actors or witnesses of history, it should be said the character or spirit of the individuals would have an impact on their evaluation about other peoples or even lifeless objects. Moreover, “human can also influence judgment about the perils of the current world … and every certain person can have his or her impact on our judgment for the world and the peoples…for example nervous people are more prepared to regard others the cause of undesirable events, but sad people have more tendency to regard misfortune as the cause of that event.”(4)

There is no certain plan or instruction about how different excitements expressed most in the form of moving face muscles are transferred from the atmosphere of interview to text and become available to the audience. Also we do not have a precise method or proposal about how the motions we regard as body language or exciting and nervous tics and other ones showing habits, characters, nature, temper, manner, culture or any other subject are transferred. Furthermore, there is no certain method about some non-writable voices like laughing, crying, coughing, belching and clearing the voice of throat which need to be transferred out of the interview atmosphere somehow, and the interviewers have done less about it during the past years. Thus, lack of method unity and lack of general methods and not recognizing the motions and voices by the interviewers have caused serious defects are created in this work and the audiences do not identify completely in such a way that the interviewees, interviewers and the owners of memories have done. Therefore, we in this article are going to explain about the new or used methods so that every interviewer can apply them according to their conditions. It is worth mentioning that these methods are just proposed and they need to be completed or changed in order to be operated.

 
Proposed solutions:
First proposal: The introduction of a book which is usually written by the interviewer or compiler can be a place for informing the audience some part of the said issues. The interviewer can explain about cooperation or hard things that have happened as well as the situation of the interview’s meetings especially different states of the interviewer. The interviewer in the introduction can also speak about how he or she deals with the questions, method of answering, the loudness and quietness of the voice, the ascent and descent of the voice, excitements, and physical behaviors and even the indelicacy of face and hand skin or shortness and tallness or type of wearing and trimming and other personal issues and external cases so that the reader while reading the lines of the book can depict in his or her mind the probable motions of the interviewee, finding a close and tangible relation with the one who is saying the issues. However, such issues are very precious and valuable for the historian who is going to have a psychological and personality analysis from the interviewer.

Second proposal: Mentioning actions and motions and even the illogical voices of the interviewer in the interview text especially in certain places where special motions such as laughing, crying, and shouting, getting nervous and gnashing or even using the body language are expressed when something special is said, can be brought inside the text between bracket [] or are filled in the footnotes. Such word by word or line by line explanations can be like a road which from the very beginning until the end of the memories familiarizes the reader deeply with the interior and exterior spirits, mentalities and characters of the interviewee. It should be mentioned that anybody is not able to do all the things but this is the job of an interviewer either whose mind depicts the interviewee’s motions, voices and states during the interview or be a wary and active interviewer so that he or she immediately hears the voice of the interviewee again while interviewing or at the end of interview and before losing the time and elimination of memories from the short-time memory, and register and record what he or she is remembering so that what the interviewer has written about expressing the conditions of the interviewee in every interview completes what the interviewee have said. However, anybody is not able to do this. So, anyone cannot be a serious, effective and good interviewer. Therefore, he or should have the new and important and good characteristics mentioned above in order to conduct an interview. However, about the issue, it needs to say that any interview can have different compiler. So, it should be said that an interview can be useful which is compiled just by a precise, active and smart interviewer. This surely adds to the value of the work.
Third proposal: This proposal has come to mind of a number of the experts of oral history and the compilers of memories for some time and whispers of it can be heard. It is very good that along with a compiled or published book, the audio CD of that interview is also attached and sold. This proposal has some benefits which all know very well but it does not have the purpose which is in the second proposal at all.   It also has some deficiencies one of which is probably that the voice of interview has been selected because no interview is presented to the public entirely or being trampled of the rights of the publisher through copying or becoming available to the public the audio version of the interview instead of the book.

Fourth proposal: We can use a combination of the considered proposals namely they are used both in the introduction and the text or footnote so that the reader finds maximum connection with text.  The text should be presented in a way that the reader is fully put in the atmosphere like scriptwriter for the director and play for the actor or actress, and it depicts a full image of the conditions ruling over the interviewee throughout the history and during the interview. The advantage of this proposal is that the text in terms of power of expressing sentimental and internal displays has become visual in a way that it can be used later by the story writers, filmmakers and playwrights.
Of course, we in this article did not talk about an effort for transferring the tone and accent of interviewee which demands the increasing patience and obsession of the interviewer. It needs another topic.

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that these proposals especially the first and second ones have its own special advantages and deficiencies which possibly create a dispute between interviewer, and compiler with the person of the interviewee. But the main purpose of presenting the article and proposals is first to attract the attention of oral historians to the issue of necessity of transferring illogical words and voices and the body motions of the interviewees to the text for the public readers and then presenting proposed solutions in order to be able to resolve the problem, or encourage active minds to present better solutions.

Jafar Golshan Rowghani
PhD Candidate of Islamic Iran History
Translated by: Mohammad Baqar Khoshnevisan



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