News and Features
Blood Brothers
By Timothy Taylor published Mar 1, 2011
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In 1984 two soldiers, an Iranian and an Iraqi, meet on the battlefield. Amazingly, 20 years later, in Vancouver, they meet again
East Esplanade in North Vancouver, opposite the industrial waterfront. An unassuming storefront. Powermax Auto Repair reads the sign above the garage door, which is battered from use. Inside, all the typical sights and sounds of an auto mechanic's shop: the flash and buzz of an arc welder, the radio playing in the background, the big red box of Snap-On Tools, and, of course, the house project car. In this case a 1950s Pontiac StratoChief that sits in a rear corner of the garage, awaiting the attentions of the proprietor as these become available between jobs.
It's an ordinary place, in other words. And yet-through the man who founded this shop, Zahed Haftlang, born in Iran in 1968, a survivor of years of war and torture, and a refugee claimant to Canada in 1999-it is extraordinary too for the way it connects Vancouver to a critical place and date in Middle Eastern history.
The date is May 24, 1982. It's called Day of Martyrs in Iraq and Liberation of Khorramshahr in Iran, both labels referring to what happened that day in one of the bloodiest battles of the Iran/Iraq war: the battle for Khorramshahr. A port city in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in southwestern Iran, Khorramshahr was an affluent city before the war. But situated on a crucial waterway, it was also a strategic prize. When the Iraqis invaded in September 1980, Khorramshahr was among the first objectives.
The fighting was brutal. Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to have died in the assault. And despite committing thousands of troops, a lengthy artillery barrage, and as many as 500 tanks, Iraq faced tenacious opposition. They took two months to secure the area, losing over 6,000 men in the process. As a result, Khorramshahr became an emblem of resistance to Iranians. In one widely told story, a 13-year-old Iranian travelled to the city without telling his parents after hearing of the invasion. He fought alongside adult soldiers before being killed disabling an Iraqi tank with a hand grenade. Within months of the boy's death and the news that Khorramshahr had fallen, thousands of Iranian boys had volunteered. Haftlang was one of them.
He'd been living east of Khorramshahr in Masjed Soleyman. He was 12 and had nine sisters and five brothers. Home life was difficult, especially with his father. One incident in particular spurred him to action. He was caught stealing money from his father to go to the movies. His father punished him by branding his heel with a skewer heated to red hot in the stove. Haftlang recuperated at a friend's house, where they concocted a plan to run away to war.
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At University, I had Iranian AND Iraqi friends. Their understandings of the reasons behind the war(s) were expressed in disturbingly identical ways, with a puzzled manner indicating that they too found it lacking.
This story illustrates how truly senseless and conscienceless such wars can be. But thankfully there can still be heroes and hope found among the unwilling participants who put their humanity first.
Thank you for this powerful story.
Incredible story. An education, I learned a bit about a chunk of history I'm embarrassed I know too little about. So well written! A tribute to intelligence at Vancouver magazine for being the one to get to print it. Survivors in such a world, we are better for being able to know such stories. I'll regard all strangers with even more sympathetic curiosity, not to know them, but to appreciate that everyone deserves goodwill, kindness, compassion ("grace," without need to somehow earn it) and high regard. Such a cosmic coincidence that the story had a beginning, middle, and a happy end. Praise good.
