From Bombs to Life – Mary Lafain

The wrinkles on sixty-eight year old Mary Lafain reveal a tremendous depth to her struggles.  Tired and weary from the glare piercing through her windows caused by the sun, the insightful woman comfortably slips back into her rocking chair, anxious to be interviewed.  On October 12, 1938, Mary was born into a financially unstable family.  At the age of twelve, she began working in hopes to help support her family by housekeeping for a Persian-Muslim family.  In the hands and control of the family, Mary went through many ordeals, which severely affected her emotionally.  One of the ordeals that she reveals to us is her struggles with practicing her religion while under the family's supervision.  Unable to practice her beliefs, she had been shunned from fulfilling her lifestyle as a young Christian woman.  Overcoming this obstacle, Mary appreciates every single moment of her life today.  As she watches her cats play with the colorful yarns while knitting sweaters for her grandchildren, Mary realizes that her struggles had made her the strong woman she is today.

The real leader of the revolution was, Ayatollah Khomeini.  He was an educated man, except he could not lead a revolution.  The truth was that there were hidden leaders.  Yes, if you wanted to know who the leader of the revolution was, it was Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Revolution was controlled from both, inside and outside the country.  People inside the country were getting orders from outside the country to run the groups.

There were different groups running the revolution such as Mojahedi and Cherick Fadahi.  Both these groups had their leaders.  A group of students which were studying in the main “University of Tehran” also had their group.

The important reason for the revolution was, that they wanted freedom, which I don’t know what that meant because we did have freedom.  They were saying that we deserve better lives, high salaries, better education and better benefits for their students.  The factor was that my country has oil, so the people were thinking since we were selling oil to Europe we were suppose to have money in the country.

I was scared, because we had our normal life; most of the people were scared too.  They didn’t know what was going to happen; they didn’t know what a revolution was.  It was very unusual and the name, Islamic Government, was not familiar because in Shahs Government we all were treated the same.

Before the revolution, economy seemed good; people had their jobs, salaries and their benefits.

After the revolution everything was worst; no jobs and no money.  You could go to work for months and not get paid because there was no money in the country.  Into the first couple of months of the revolution the war between Iran and Iraq started and that just made everything even worst, due to that the countries that traded with Iran left because there was no profit for their companies.

I believe people emotionally before the revolution were happy they had days to celebrate and most important they had their normal life.

However after the revolution, as I said, things went worst.  What I remember is only sadness.  I remember February 1978 in my house we were having lunch when my daughter went to get something that second we heard shooting from the street.  For a couple seconds we were in shock: rite away we heard this bullet go through the window and we were thinking if my daughter was safe. At once we got up and ran to the room opened the door to find out the bullet had missed my daughter by inches.  Can you imagine in our own house we didn’t have any security.  I also remember May of 1987 when the war was happening between Iran and Iraq it was a scary, dark Friday noon; we went to visit my sister.  We were having lunch when this big rocket flew over the apartment.  We were scared and expecting it to hit the apartment.  Seconds later we heard this crashing sound; it was a scary deadly silent.  All we could see and hear was smoke, fire, and people screaming and crying.  We went to the street and saw people with no shoes just running on the street and crying.  Two buildings from my sisters’ apartment was where the rocket had hit killing hundreds of people.

My precious Iranian people are known as well educated people.  Before the revolution the students received scholarships, benefits and loans from the government.

The education after the war like everything else was worst.  You had to be a family member of the government to go to universities.  If you talked out of line about the government they would beat you and kill you.

Shah was in the country during the revolution.  He did not take any action because he thought this was nonsense and it would stop. He could have easily ordered his army to kill the people except he loved his country and the people and all he wanted was peace.  He left the country hoping to return when everything went back to normal, did not happen for him.

I believe were still in the revolution.  When you start a revolution…you start at a point to get results.  My country and that revolution there was no result.  The government never took over their promises.

None of the groups started running the country.  There was a new group by the name of Hezbollah.  Mojahedin, Cleric Fadahi, students, labors all remained groups.  Hezbollah took every group combined them and called themselves Hezbollah.  Later on they realized the other groups had no say.

People in the beginning of course were waiting for new laws, if they are going to keep their promises.  Except they don’t work for the people, they are working for they’re own good and they’re own benefits.

The minority of the people like us Christian Armenians, Jewish people, and Assyrians had to fight for our rights.  We had to live in very hard situations.  Most of the people had to leave the country. 

Interviewed by Parshan Dar Avanesian