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In Honour of the Anniversary of the Publication of the Oral History Weekly
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The Iranian Oral History Website will be five years old by Bahman (February) and the Oral History Weekly will at the end of this week enter its third year of publication. Time flies by faster than we can imagine; before long we shall have the 100th issue in our hands. These numbers add up to a prestigious resume for all those who, in their pursuit to produce content, have surfed the virtual space days after days, have toiled, and have occasionally furrowed their brows, but have at last broken into a smile of content.
This is what designates media work. Consider an author who reads his/her work with much joy once it is published as if it is someone else`s and he/she is reading it for the very first time. This in the short run fades out the numbers; but in the long run, all these count, evoking astonishment at what has been done. Feeling such astonishment is not vanity, but is rather rooted in patience acquired when one tries to produce daily or weekly content packages, for those who have shown such fortitude hours after hours occasionally for writing a headline for an article are the only ones who comprehend.
Oral history is no different; it requires patience, fortitude, and precision to be recorded and immortalized. The environment and the content of the website and the weekly periodical of oral history published by the Center for Research and Study of Resistance Culture and Literature approaches every and each line of news, reports, criticisms, and comments from this perspective. It is underlined that this novel field is not to focus only on the ideals; it should proceed to better analyze the status quo. We cannot know our final destination we know where we are.
Along the way, the general audience and particular addressees of these pages watch every step taken closely and sternly; they analyze results and occasionally produce and present significant works. Their influence may not be considered by oral history people at the website as well as the weekly. Yet an ideal accomplishment for a media is to produce an internal, lasting, quiet effect, similar to how a first-grade teacher influences his/her students; for he/she is the one who teaches them alphabet, and later on whenever a student speaks or writes correctly, he/she is indebted to his/her first-grade teacher.
If the Iranian Oral History Website and Weekly has succeeded to be such a guideline in a relative topic introduced by the system, they are close to accomplishing their objective. Now, on the eve of the website`s entering its sixth and the weekly`s entering its third year of publication, deciding upon themes and choosing subjects requires a new basis in terms of new objectives. This issue could be a topic of research in discussions and opinion polls, and the results could be discussed with the audience.
Ahad Gūdarziyāni
Translated by: Katayoun Davallou
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