Reza Baraheni - September 28, 2004
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| From left: Dr. Reza Baraheni and Dr. Javad Heyat |
At first glance, recognizing and introducing Dr. Javad Heyat seems quite simple. Those interested in learning more can check one or several private and public websites. These sites can be related to medicine or literature; they may pertain to notable figures in Iran or Azerbaijan. His constant presence in these centers presents us with a summary of his journey: born in 1925 in Tabriz, educated in Tabriz, Turkey, and France, a renowned heart surgeon, a close friend and colleague of the famous Dr. Christiaan Barnard, a member of the Academy of Surgeons in Paris, the person who performed the first new heart surgery in Iran exactly fifty years ago at the age of thirty, the first open-heart surgery in 1962, the first kidney transplant in Tehran during the same decade on a human, and the first heart transplant on dogs...
It is clear that knowledge, if not accompanied by courage, does not advance the work of science, culture, or humanity. Heyat is a genius of limited opportunities. With limited resources in science and culture, and with the countless devastating calamities that scholars and cultural figures grapple with, one can either take action and strive to achieve some results, or complain and let the complaints serve as a cover for inner cowardice and fear. However, the genius of limited opportunities places his innate talents and acquired powers at the service of a work ethic that initially does not reveal what the outcome will be. Only after many years can one understand that someone who could recognize the city from a distance did not misinterpret the signs; he has entered the city and knocked on our doors one by one.
Recall Nima Yushij's expression about the wall, where he said: “Until dawn in this warm night / I have lit a lamp, for / I want to lift my wall / in the house of the blind / and have laid down a blindness / with a finger, which is the flaws...” The genius of limited opportunities builds a wall in the house of the blind, even if they, unknowingly and uncomprehendingly, point fingers at someone who lays brick upon brick, in the dark night, so that by morning, when the sun rises, there will be a shelter over the people. Hundreds of medical articles in Iranian and international publications, editor of the monthly "Medical Knowledge," a surgeon in several hospitals, director of several hospitals, head of the surgical department at this or that university, author of seven essential books on the identification of the lineage, language, and literature of the Turks of Iran and the world, honorary professor at medical universities in Azerbaijan, the person who took a hundred Iranian doctors to Azerbaijan during the Azerbaijan and Armenia war to treat war injuries, winner of the Golden Medal in Medicine from Istanbul University for fifty years of service to medical science, editor and director of the magazine "Varlıq" for twenty-three years—a shelter for Turkish and Persian writers of Azerbaijan, from the late Professor Zahtabi and Dr. Hamid Natqi to many living scholars, at the forefront of which sits a linguist and literary scholar like Professor Farzaneh, who is exactly like Dr. Heyat, the genius of limited opportunities. Heyat dedicated everything he achieved in medicine and everything he inherited from his family to serve these limited opportunities.
Why does the name Heyat evoke so much respect? Perhaps one reason is that his ambition serves the local people, in a way that is seen in a very limited number of local servants, with some differences, at two levels and topics, reminiscent of Franz Fanon and Aimé Césaire. To accurately pinpoint the illness, to move beyond generalizations, to identify and engage with the specific illness of a particular region and its surroundings—this is the task of the genius of limited opportunities. He is not seeking to wear a crown, to be paraded from one university to another, or to be metaphorically treated like a child. The main characteristic of the genius of limited opportunities is grappling with the details, with the specific problems that everyone faces in their native land. The main champions of the struggle against colonialism did not start with generalizations; they focused on the details that come together to form a tangible, material, and spiritual whole, which cannot be grasped from afar. Should the people be treated or not? Do they need to learn the languages of a country, their mother tongues, or not? From a distance, we all agree with the generalities, and we especially know, living in Canada, that you cannot tell someone living in Quebec: “You should only learn English!” One language, even if it’s a foreign tongue, for everyone! A Quebecker would drive you mad. It leads to civil war. This is something that "Michael Ignatieff," who wrote "The Rights Revolution," knows well. We know this too. But as soon as we see this situation in our own country, instead of paying attention to the local existing reality, we officially turn to a superstition called "one language, one nation!" and lead people, like Dr. Jalal Matini, who engages with the languages of various nationalities, towards separatism, meaning we do exactly the opposite of what Heyat does. Because Heyat points to the local wound, while we pull the banner of racism back and forth, fabricate history, and instead of inviting our people to accompany, collaborate, and cooperate, we constantly hold the "sword of Damocles" over the Arabs, Turks, and Turkmens and tell the speakers of Iran's diverse languages and cultures: "Either accept it or die!"
Heyat, the genius of limited opportunities, emphasizes equality and democracy, the objectivity of history, and a democratic understanding of contemporary history. We do not want to be people serving the multitude of outdated beliefs. We want the past to serve today and the contemporary people, the people of today, and the brilliant culture and democracy of the contemporary world. We seek contemporaneity with the contemporary world. Anyone who tells us to forget the mother tongue of more than 67 percent of the people of Iran is a spokesperson for the Middle Ages. They are not contemporary with the contemporary world, even if they have access to the benefits of public media anywhere in the world. The work of the geniuses of limited opportunities involves using paper and pen, and a three-room office where two rooms belong to patients and the other is dedicated to a suppressed language and culture. We place our trust in this type of work because we see in it a path for public education for all the underprivileged, all the deprived children of the country. It is a simple yet challenging task, easy and difficult, without the grotesque posturing of so-called global television and the whitening of hair over serving, going to this task today and another task tomorrow, without shame for fabricating stories against those who have been the geniuses of limited opportunities in the past and present. Work, and work, and work—this is the concern of those who are devoted to the rights of the mother tongue and the mother language over their child, who do not want the mother language of one respected child to be imposed as the primary mother language over another child. The choice of the next language must belong to that child, depending on the local conditions and what their subsequent languages will be. We know it is in the best interest of all the people to learn several regional languages well. Persian, Turkish, and Arabic are the three major languages of the region. We respect the teachers and learners of all three major regional languages and other languages, and we see the imposition of Persian as the mother and official language as akin to the works of Hitler and Mussolini, and their regional cohorts, whether in the political and governmental sphere or the cultural and linguistic sphere. Our main emphasis is on the work of those who sacrifice themselves and give their lives to closely serve the construction and reconstruction of people's minds. We mourn the loss of former friends who today validate the atrocities in Iraq and the horrors of Guantanamo and the prisons of the "others," and who, like beggars, work only for a fee, seemingly unaware: not everyone who shaves their head knows the way of the mystic / not everyone who inflames their face knows the way of love / not everyone who makes a mirror knows the way of the prince. That person, a child who knows the way of the fairy today, is someone who wants the people of Iran, the children of the people of Iran, to speak their mother tongue, to be educated, to attend university, and anyone who does not want this desires a fragmented Iran. Star Khan brought down the Russian flag, and Pishavari was also buried by Stalin and Baqirov, and all of this originates from the fact that they were subservient to the government of the people over the people. Yes, Star Khan should never have gone to Tehran to be killed in such a horrific manner. And Pishavari should not have gone to the Soviet Union to be killed in an even more horrific manner. For Star Khan, his shooters were foreign, who killed him; for Pishavari, his enemies were of the same kind. Those times have passed. We want geniuses of limited opportunities, a six-by-four room in a small office devoid of luxury, and an eighty-year-old young man who, on one hand, addresses the wounds of the people, and on the other, has his hand on the pulse of the mother tongue of the children of the people, shaping another image of an indigenous intellectual, a local intellectual, one who observes the details of local emotions.
Now let me tell you a few personal anecdotes about him:
— A man who called me in '48, '49, or '50 has a hoarse voice. He asks me to go to Javid Hospital as soon as possible. Why? Because Gholam is there and wants to see you. What happened? Nothing happened, just come now. So I go. When I enter the room, Sa'adi is lying on the bed with a swollen and injured face, and his lips and mouth are bandaged and shut. What happened? A burly man dressed in military uniform is standing in a corner, watching the scene. Another soldier, taller than the first, stands in another corner, looking like someone who, if he hasn't done anything, is suspected of having done something wrong, but it’s not his fault. The situation is simply explained by Dr. Heyat himself, or perhaps by Dr. Akbar, Sa'adi’s brother, who is also a doctor like Gholamhossein and Dr. Heyat. The head of the hospital is Dr. Heyat, who has bandaged and shut Gholamhossein's face and mouth. Gholamhossein is silent because he cannot speak, occasionally rolling his eyes toward the burly man, then turning back toward us, trying to convey something in silence. Dr. Heyat explains that the night before, Dr. Keli had thrown the key to open his door and go inside. These two men confronted him, and one of them said, “We’ll take care of your mouth,” and without waiting for Sa'adi's reaction, they actually did take care of his mouth, mainly working on it with their fists. Until the noise in the street attracted Akbar and the people of the house and the surrounding houses, and the one who had "taken care of" the mouth claimed that Sa'adi was drunk and had said bad things, and another person, who had fled, had beaten Sa'adi and run away, and these two, if they are here, came to inquire about the doctor, and we ask why they didn’t catch the one who hit and ran away? And only the burly man speaks, saying, “It was dark, plus the gentleman was injured; we had to do something.” The people of Sa'adi’s household brought him to the hospital. Later, Sa'adi grew his mustache a bit thicker so that the stitch marks wouldn't be visible. Then a so-called guard comes and takes the two men away. And Gholam, who doesn’t say a word, with his wide eyes, stares blankly at the empty air, and Heyat says, “The bastards!” Sa'adi gestures to Akbar to take him away, and Heyat says, “No! Not yet!” Eventually, he agrees to discharge Sa'adi. And this is neither the beginning of the story nor its end, because a few years later, Mo'eddi slices Sa'adi's stomach and legs with a knife.
— In the early days of the revolution, we believed we had revived the Azerbaijan Association. This situation continued for a few months. It seems that a few Azerbaijanis want to organize the language and culture of Azerbaijan through the association. The Azerbaijan Association is a shot toward darkness. Dr. Heyat, Dr. Katabi, Dr. Noghati, Professor Farzaneh, Ganjali Sabahi, and I, who am the youngest among them, gather. Various meetings are held. A few of us are elected as the board of directors, along with three or four others whom I do not know well. Suddenly, without consulting each other, we realize that either nothing is moving forward, or some want to move in a specific direction. One by one, we start resigning. Infiltrators want to appropriate the association for their party’s benefit. We recognize their pattern of operation. One by one, we become aware. The first is Dr. Noghati, who withdraws, then Professor Farzaneh, then I, and then the board. Let the accomplice of the thief and the companion of the caravan be left alone. They want to do the same with the Writers' Association. There, these friends are not Azerbaijanis. Interestingly, the issue quickly comes to light, and the association expels everyone because it also deals with people who organize their affairs and the culture through limited opportunities. Cultural work is neither underground nor the work of large parties; it is a daily endeavor of the people. This is not to say that we do not want parties. Practicing democracy and the culture of a nation is a daily exercise with the inner and outer lives of each individual in that nation and society. Moreover, directives cannot be issued from above or from the outside. Even now, in the midst of oppressed nationalities, we clearly see how all the threads that Dr. Mahmoud Afshar and the Pahlavis, along with their successors, such as Eynollah Reza, Dr. Varjavand, and Dr. Jalal Motini, have woven and continue to weave, have been rendered null and void. The ascent of a million Azerbaijanis to "Kalibar" and the Castle of Babak, to make the Azerbaijani voice heard by the world, that internal and genuine voice, and the courageous declaration of the linguistic, cultural, spiritual, and material needs of an oppressed nationality, has made all those delusional and racist threads null and void. It does not take genius to understand an issue as simple as this. Common sense tells us that one cannot cut off the language of the people. The mother tongue is a right, and it is above all other rights, and any betrayal of it is the worst kind of betrayal. Interestingly, it is in such circumstances that some, like Dr. Heyat, who could easily sit at the top and be valued, take on every kind of blame to establish the rightful claim of the mother tongue, not only to assert it but also to organically integrate it as a core part of the needs of the peoples of Iran, to save nearly seventy percent of the population from being voiceless, uncultured, and without identity, and to incorporate it into the main discourses of the country within the current borders before the feelings of centripetal flight on one side and the machinations of external and non-regional powers on the other side exploit it for their benefit and to the detriment of the peoples of Iran. The genius of limited opportunities is not a genius of abstract issues. It is a genius of useful action week by week, month by month, and year by year. This is because people gradually come to realize everything, and nothing can advance like a patient and persistent explanation—an explanation that is involved and engaged. This brings me to the last point of this brief note, which has now become more than just a brief note. — Over the past twenty-two or twenty-three years, Dr. Heyat, in addition to publishing his valuable books on linguistics, culture and language of Azerbaijan, and the history of Turks in Iran and the world, has published the magazine "Varliq." This magazine has operated on the razor's edge over the years. The issue of the language and culture of Azerbaijan, which constitutes the language and culture of more than 37 percent of the population of Iran, is a sensitive matter. Racists increase their pressure every day to have the government shut down the "Varliq" magazine. On the other hand, the prudent and perceptive nature of Dr. Heyat has prevented any suspicions from being directed at this magazine. The selection of articles, the choice of people, and the manner of presenting the magazine have kept Dr. Heyat standing through these turbulent times. Dr. Heyat is neither leftist nor rightist nor centrist; he believes in a fundamental principle: that the language and culture of Azerbaijan in Iran are part of the language and culture of a multi-national country like Iran. Only by mastering it, developing it, and placing it in the priorities of the country’s culture and civilization can we establish mutual understanding among the ethnicities and nationalities of Iran, with equal rights, cultural, and civil recognition. The opportunity for the peoples of Iran to reach this moment of understanding is short. In my opinion, Dr. Heyat, this genius of limited opportunities, seeks this understanding along with equality. Taking steps toward this understanding is a human duty. Let us honor Heyat's efforts.
September 28, 2004
Link to the original text in Farsi: https://www.pensouthazerbaijan.org/2022/09/blog-post_9.html