The South Side of Heaven

Abstract

I portray mnemonic practices of Iranians who engaged with the past and keep the memories of martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) alive within frames and words. Through pictures taken during the annual commemoration of martyrs in southern Iran, I show how religiosity, politics and generational guilt are entangled in post-war Iran. I move against the grains of memory studies and visual anthropology by maintaining the silences and what is left unsaid instead of rendering war memories, acts of remembering and ways of seeing epistemologically coherent. I argue remembering is a practice locally shaped according to the politics of everyday life and not by imagined presupposition of memory scholars. Therefore, I draw an ontological approach towards memories in Iran by ways of seeing and religious worldview of those implicated in the Iranian memory machine.

Invented Tradition as a Theoretical Approach Within Iranian Memory Studies: A Review

“…A second type of social memory research emerged chronologically closer to the present day and comprised most Iranian memory research. This group includes the works of Abdi (2001), Chehabi and Christia (2008), Shirazi (2012), Gruber (2012), Moayeri (2015), Soroushfar (2016), Rolston (2017), Azad and Partovi (2019), Saramifar (2019), Parsapajouh (2019), Kashfi (2021), and others.…”

“…Another set of research papers by Ram (1996), Chehabi and Fotini, (2008), Tabrizi and Behrooz (2009), Gruber (2012), Shirazi (2012), Moayeri (2015), Soroushfar (2016), Choobbasti (2016), Shirvani (2018), Zokaei & Vaala (2019), Parsapajouh (2019), and Saramifar (2019) apply the three fundamental rules of politics of memory at a general level. Therefore, these works can be considered the moderate narrative of invented tradition within Iranian memory research as they conceptualize the state, tradition, and context between the conservative and radical narratives.…”

Symbolic objects in contentious politics

“…He poured money into it and subsidized "pilgrimages" to memorials of martyrs and former combat zones in southern regions. The Sazman Hifz Asar and the Shora received an enormous budget to convert all former combat zones into memorial sites and to build roads for visitors to access them (see Saramifar 2019). These new developments, alongside the new focus on martyrdom, were examples of the indirect promotion of the version of political Islam accepted by the right-wing president's ideologies.…”

Memories, piety and formation of civil religions: Do revolutionary youth sing along with the memory machine in Iran?

“…The Setad also initiated Arzeshhaye Defa Moqadas (the Organisation for Preservation of the Heritage and Values of the Holy Defence), which continues its activities today in close association with HH, along with Sazmane Hifz Asar , the heart of the Iranian memory machine (see Saramifar, 2019b; Varzi, 2006), which promotes a culture of martyrdom. The organization posits everyday life as the arena to normalize martyrdom and perpetuate nation-building around Shia notions of sacrifice and salvation.…”

“…The visitors participate in commemorations following etiquettes and rituals of Muslim Shia pilgrims who visit holy sites. They walk barefoot on sand and gravel, humbling themselves and crying in memory of the pain suffered by martyrs (Saramifar, 2019b). The term Ziyarat (pilgrimage) is constantly used by visitors and organizers because of its resonance with Shia practices and rituals of visiting shrines.…”