| Then They Came for Me | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Maziar Bahari |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Family Memoir, Imprisonment, Iran |
| Genre(s) | Biography |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4000-6946-0 |
Then They Came for Me, A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival is a memoir by Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari with Aimee Molloy, chronicling Bahari's family history, and his arrest and imprisonment following controversial 2009 Iran presidential election. It was published by Random House in 2011.
Contents |
Then They Came for Me gives a background of Iran’s modern history from the Shah to Supreme Leader Ali Khameini's reign; and provides an account of the days leading up to the fiercely contested election -- the enthusiasm and optimism of the reformist presidential campaign, and following the allegedly fixed election, clashes between the outraged reformists and the Iranian government.
The book is also the tale of Bahari's family, in particular his father and sister, from whom Bahari derived the inner strength to survive his confinement, his mother, who endured the imprisonment of not only her husband but two children, and Bahari’s fiancée’s tireless campaign for him and the unborn child who inspired in him a hope for freedom.
The activist Bahari family was no stranger to political repression. Maziar had heard harrowing tales of prison torture and misery from his father who had been imprisoned under the Shah, and visited his sister in prison in the 1980s during the early years of the Ayatollah Khomeini regime. Having and taken what (he thought) were the necessary accreditations and recommended precautions, [1] Bahari is first convinced that his arrest must be a mistake. [2]
Bahari was held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison for 118 days (June 21, 2009 – October 17, 2009). His large interrogator (whom Bahri nicknames "Rosewater" for his fragrance of choice) would explode into rage without warning [3] slap, beat, aggravating his migraine headaches until "it felt my head was going to explode." [4] Using psychological or "white" torture, Rosewater would threaten Bahari with the possibility of "every tactic necessary" to make him talk including interrogation up to fifteen hours a day for four to six years; tell Bahari he would rot in prison (until he "put your bones in a bag and throw it at your mother's doorstep!" [5]), or was soon to be executed as an example to others (`I will make sure you die before Ramadan, Mazi, ... but I will also make sure that I smash your handsome face first` [6]). Bahri was assured he was "forgotten" and rotting in prison `for people who are laughing at you.'[7] ("`There are campaigns for everyone in this prison -- even the most unknown of the prisoners -- but nothing for you` he laughed"[8] When this turns out not to be the case and Bahari is allowed to call his wife, Rosewater listens in and mocks his declarations of love to his wife.
These threats and beatings were often combined with such blandishments as nescafe and fruit and promises that "we are going to be friends".[9] and questionable proclamations of the jailers' belief in "Islamic kindness".
Compounding Bahari's suffering was the guilt he felt over the suffering of his 80+ year old widowed mother who lived alone and whose daughter had died five months earlier. Back in London, Bahari's fiance Paola was pregnant with their first child.[10] All these facts his jailers were aware of.
`We do not want to harm you. We do not want your wife to raise the child alone. I do not want your child to grow up an orphan. Is it a boy or a girl? ... And you have a mother who has lost two children and her husband in the past four years.'[11]
Beatings and interrogation alternated with stretches of solitary confinement in a windowless cell during which Bahri feared he was going crazy.[12].
"I couldn't escape from the loneliness of solitary confinement, not even in sleep. I would dream about sitting in my cell alone for days, forgotten and abandoned. I would cry for help and try to open the door, but no one could hear me. My cries often woke me up, and seeing the locked metal door, I didn't know if I was awake or still trapped in the dream. This went on for days, and I prayed for Rosewater to call me, even to beat me. At least it was human contact." [13]
Desperate to get back to his pregnant wife, Bahari quickly agrees to video confessions of the wickedness of Western media, but hold out against "naming names", i.e. incriminating individual politicians or journalists, giving information that "would harm my contacts or the people close to me."[14]
During his ordeal Bahari carried on imaginary conversations with his dead father and sister, both former political prisoners. His father (i.e. his memory of his father) urging him to be courageous and offered advice on outsmarting the interrogator. One night Bahari dreams of a song of Leonard Cohen and later called the song his secret weapon against his interrogators:
"Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on. And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song. I don’t know how long the dream lasted, but I didn’t want it to end. I knew what emotions awaited me when I woke up—the fear, the shame, the hatred—and I wanted this feeling to last forever. I felt better. I felt safe. And, though only in my dream, I once again felt free.”[15]
As his interrogation leads nowhere, and pressure to release him from his wife, Newsweek magazine and Hillary Clinton mounts, Bahari is transfered to a far more comfortable group cell with other political prisoners. He promises his jailers he will help spy for the Revolutionary Guard after his release and is given a "partial list" of dozens of journalists and opposition activists inside and outside Iran to monitor. With $300,000 bail, a signed promise to report to the Guard every week about the activities of the "anti-revolutionary elements", and repeated threats that the Guard will bring him back to Iran "in a bag" if he reneges, Bahari is released and flies back to London.
Bahari describes the recent turmoil in the Middle East and the possibility of a democratic, independent government in Iran.
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show commented on the book, "Your ability to connect the story to your family, and the nuances you pick up, even from your captor, is incredible."[16]
“Mr. Bahari’s ordeal, which he has chronicled in his moving and, at times, very funny book Then They Came for Me, is more than just a random event in Iran’s spiral from authoritarianism into totalitarianism. His arrest in June 2009 was one of the first organized government responses to a wave of grassroots protest movements that would soon sweep across most of the Middle East and North Africa. Because of Mr. Bahari’s superb personal knowledge of Iran’s government, he was able to produce an account of exactly how, and why, he was tormented, and the larger context of a fast-changing regime. It offers a number of lessons about the way Middle Eastern politics work.” Doug Saunders, The Globe and Mail.[17]
"Bahari’s account of his 118-day incarceration, “Then They Came For Me,” turns a lens not only on Iran’s surreal justice system but on the history and culture that helped produce it... Bahari’s book is a damning account of a nation run by paranoid, sexually frustrated conspiracy theorists." –Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post.[18]
“Then They Came for Me is a gripping story that weaves his family’s history of incarceration by Iranian rulers with his own.” –Leslie Scrivener, The Toronto Star.[19]
“While Bahari's vivid descriptions make for a good read, perhaps the most compelling aspect of Then They Came for Me is Bahari's ability to capture the frustration that many Iranians, at home and abroad, feel toward Iran's current government. Then They Came for Me is not only a fascinating, human exploration into Bahari's personal experience but it also provides insight into the shared experience of those affected by repressive governments everywhere.” –Hamed Aleaziz, Mother Jones.[20]
“Then They Came for Me is engaging and informative — a gripping tribute to human dedication and a cogent indictment of a corrupt regime.” –Andrew Imbrie Dayton, The Washington Independent Review of Books.[21]
“This harrowing memoir provides an illuminating glimpse into the security apparatus of one of the world’s most repressive countries…. Especially timely given recent events throughout the Middle East, this book is recommended for anyone wishing to better understand the workings of a police state.” –Kirkus Reviews.[22]