WALLS WITHIN AND WITHOUT

I had always believed that the breach between my compatriots and my community was due to their prejudice. I was not used to thinking that it might also be due to mine. There are, of course, understandable reasons for this. The negative mindset of Iranians towards Baha’is has a long history. It is rooted in events that took place over the course of a century or more. I had lived in Iran as a Bahá’í and had been raised in a Bahá’í family, and my childhood and school years were replete with episodes of prejudice against the Baha’is – not only on the part of strangers, but even those close to our family in the small town where I grew up. Furthermore, all that had been inflicted upon our community, our friends, my family, and myself since the Islamic Revolution could hardly be denied. But now, in prison, I was being forced for the first time to assume some responsibility, too, for the breach between us.

For the first time in my life, I was living cheek by jowl with people whose beliefs and ideas I had never seriously considered before. I was eating the same awful food and enduring the same miserable hardships as others with whom I had no immediate affinity – not only the virulently anti-religious and radically secular Iranians but also extreme examples of religious, some might even say fanatical, ones. These were people whom I had always assumed despised the Baha’is and opposed the Baha’i Faith. And I was being forced for the very first time to face up to my own fears and prejudices about them. If there was a breach between us – and I have to repeat the words if only to stare at them on the page and hear them echo in my mind – if there was a breach, I had to accept my share in maintaining, if not in creating, it.

I was becoming acutely conscious that whatever trumped up charges that had been brought against me, whatever trial I might have to face before the Revolutionary Court, I had to confront an inner judge and jury here and now. My spiritual beliefs as well as my sense of self were being tested in this place. There was no possibility of escape or evasion, no means of defence, no chance to run away from this inner tribunal. It was a unique opportunity.

I faced it when someone like HN spoke to me earlier that spring about the hardships suffered by the members of her political faction, the Mujahedin. When she described these tragedies, the pain poured out of her, through the heat of her breath, the throbbing of her wounds, the bitterness of her words. When I saw her distress and felt her anguish, I told myself: You never knew! You never bothered to think about these people! You were oblivious of the sufferings of your compatriots!

Another chance was given to me, when I lived at close quarters with S, a very orthodox prayer-meeting woman, a lady bishop who had spent her life reciting the Quran at religious gatherings and growing plump and nervous on chicken gizzards. And in my heart of hearts, I was really rather afraid that when she found out that I was a Baha’i, she would probably hate me because of it. But to my astonishment, I discovered that she never felt that way at all. When she assured me of it, with all sincerity, I thought, You had no idea who she was! You totally misjudged her!

The same opportunity came to me when I found myself living side by side with journalists and secular nationalists, with supporters of the Green Movement and Communists, with radical feminists and other reformists, with artists and intellectuals and all those who belonged to that inaccessible and elite strata of society, that ivory tower where I assumed everyone sneered at Bahai’s for being benighted and backward religious fanatics, “like everyone else.” And when I became acquainted with these people, and got to know them personally, and began to identify with their hopes and fears, I would rebuke myself, saying,

You never saw these souls! You never heard their voices before!

And I began to wonder, how come? What had held me back? What had I feared? Why had I not thought I could be friends with these wonderful human beings who shared my mother tongue and my fatherland? And that was when I realized that I had not yet left behind my own bitter past, the pain of persecution I had suffered as a child. It was still with me. My eyes were still blinded by the stones, and my ears stopped against the cries of “Najes!” and “Sag Babi” which I had experienced, hiding behind that high school wall.

But in Evin the walls began to crumble within me. We had always spoken about the importance of breaking down our mental walls, our psychological barriers, the blocks and hindrances that had separated the Bahá’ís from their compatriots. But we had not realized that these walls had been built in such a gradual and insidious manner that we ourselves, consciously as well as unconsciously, had taken part in maintaining them, out of fear.

Now we were discovering that perhaps not everyone hated us, as in the past. Not everyone was out to get us. On the contrary, our fellow prisoners wanted to know more about us, found affinity with us, thought our beliefs logical, reasonable, even convincing. They rejected the nonsense they had heard about the Baha’i Faith all their lives. No one looked at our heels in search of a hoof. No one spoke about the promiscuity in our gatherings or assumed we had incestuous relationships. All these false illusions and groundless prejudices, these impenetrable barriers erected between us and our dear compatriots on the basis of the bigotry, intolerance and lies which they had been told for years – all these rock-hard inner walls began tumbling down!

Clearly, the time had come for the Baha’is to break down our inner walls of fear as well. We had to find our place in this beloved land that is sacred to us. Even though its leadership had not yet acknowledged our existence, even if its government had not yet recognised our rights, the time had come to forge new bonds with its dear peoples. It was time to talk to each other without prejudice, to get to know one another without fear, to become acquainted with each other’s points of views and beliefs so that oneness could take root.

Those of us who forged friendships in Evin realised that this was the catalyst required for true progress in our society. We had to embrace the full diversity of our rich culture, all the different strata of Iranian society. We had to work in unity, together. And maybe it was only these catastrophic events that could break down the walls between us, place us side by side and enable us to live together. Our lives were being knit more and more closely in the confinement cells of Evin, even as the tests and trials were tearing the whole country apart.