You may have heard of the world’s shortest tragic story, attributed by some to Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” This concise phrase shook the literary world, using an economy of words to describe the life of a young couple who lost their newborn. However, more tragic than this famous literary phrase is the story of a pink dress that Zahra never got to wear because she was martyred.
There’s no need for wordplay or lengthy sentences to describe the photograph; the image speaks for itself to the world. This window into destruction is Zahra’s home. Zahra was an eleventh-grade student, only 11 years old, whose greatest wish was to wear the pink dress she had just bought. Rescuers, while clearing the rubble of Zahra’s devastated home – where she and her family members were martyred – found a diary belonging to her. It reveals that enemy missiles, in their “support” for the Iranian people, target childlike dreams. From pink jackets to pink dresses, it seems they have a problem with colors.
Zahra had written: “I’m so excited about my dress. Today, Mom and I went and bought this glittery pink dress for my birthday. Mom had baked a cake for me. Dad was supposed to come home late; we’re used to his absence. I wish I could always be with Dad…” Although Zahra couldn’t wear her pink glitter dress to her heart’s content, by being martyred alongside her father, she can now be with him forever, in an eternal embrace.
Amidst the destroyed remnants of a hopeful home, where nothing is recognizable, the pink glitter dress stands as a testament to the collapse of human values. The street is wet; the sky of Tabriz weeps over this tragedy. Yet, the self-proclaimed human rights advocates, who do nothing but express concern, remain silent.
But this photograph is not just the tragic tale of an unequal, imposed war. The children of Iran will fall asleep to many stories in the future – the story of Helma, one and a half years old, who could melt a heart of stone; the story of a teacher, a new bride, who loved her first-graders; and the story of thousands upon thousands of victims of the arrogance of those whose dirty politics are as distant from the world of our children as several hundred galaxies.
There’s no news in the foreign press about the martyrdom of 167 students in a Minab school after two airstrikes, the martyrdom of hundreds of children and civilians, and the destruction of over 66,000 residential units. Do you still believe these attacks are “aid” to the Iranian people?
By Nasrin Savar