Nycklar till himlen

[Blixten]

Läser just nu Krigen under kalla kriget av Gunnar Åselus, professor vid försvarshögskolan.

Åselius skirver att man i väst förfärades över bilder på barnsoldater med plastnycklar. (Minns ej exakta ordalydelsen.)Tyvärr visar han ingen bild i sin bok.

[tryggve]

Läser just nu Krigen under kalla kriget av Gunnar Åselus, professor vid försvarshögskolan.

Åselius skirver att man i väst förfärades över bilder på barnsoldater med plastnycklar. (Minns ej exakta ordalydelsen.)Tyvärr visar han ingen bild i sin bok.

Precis, där handlar det om pojksoldater som har dessa plastnycklar kring halsen, inte om barn som skickas ut för att rensa minfält. Nu har jag iofs inte samma bok, utan "Slagfälten efter 1945, del 2", men kapitlen är (vad jag har förstått) identiska och författaren densamma.

Det finns en bild på en pojksoldat (sid 400, kapitlet "Vågor av människor vid Shatt al-Arab") med texten:
"En iransk pojksoldat med orden "Gud är större" på sin hjälm. Hängivenheten och offerviljan hos hundratusentals frivilliga var den kraft på vilken de styrande ayatollorna i Iran ville bygga sin motoffensiv. Unga pojkar som han på bilden hängde plastnyckar om halsen som symbol för det väntande martyrskapet". (min fetstil).

Förvisso användes de inom miliserna som kanonmat, men det är väl ändå inte riktigt som att använda barn enbart för att röja minfälten. Dock borde det ju kunna ge sken av att man faktiskt skickar ut barn för att röja minorna för de reguljära trupperna.

[G:son]

Hittade en analys av kriget, daterad 1. april 1985,

The Iran-Iraq War:
Strategy of Stalemate
Major Robert E. Sonnenberg, USMC:

Operation "Ramadan", July 1982
Khomeini was not interested in peace except on his own terms.
By early August, Iran had launched three major drives directed at
cutting off Basra from Iraqi forces in the south. The first
attack was on July 13th, and drove ten miles into Iraq before
Iranian forces were ambushed and checked with heavy losses.
Another Iranian attempt on July 21st was also stopped. The
Iranians apparently lacked the command and control, air power, and
logistics to sustain an attack.
The third major assault occurred on July 28th. The attack
gained nothing. The lives of large numbers of teenagers, who had
filled the ranks of infantry, were expended. Plastic keys to
paradise were found clutched in cold hands and bodies cloaked in
battle jackets bore stenciled signs that proclaimed that the
wearer had the Imam Khomeini's permission to enter heaven.23

Fotnoten 23 hänvisar synbarligen till:

22Evans, "Iran-Iraq: Bloody Tomorrows," p. 38.
23Ibid.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... 85/SRE.htm

Den tämligen betydelselösa frågan gällde ju, huruvida dessa nycklar över huvudtaget har existerat.

Edit:

Beträffande minröjarna av kött och blod kan följande vara av intresse:

“In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettela’at, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the mine fields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes could henceforth be avoided, Ettela’at assured its readers. “Before entering the mine fields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”[1]

The children who thus rolled to their deaths formed part of the mass “Basij” movement that was called into being by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The Basij Mostazafan – the “mobilization of the oppressed” – consisted of short-term volunteer militias. Most of the Basij members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically and by the thousands to their own destruction. “The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies,” a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War has recalled, “It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander’s orders, everyone wanted to be first.”[2]

The western media showed little interest for the Basiji – perhaps because journalists could not be present during the hostilities or perhaps because they did not believe the reports. Such disinterest has persisted to this day. The 5000 dead of Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attack on the Kurds of Halabja have remained in our memory. History has forgotten the children of the minefields.

[1] Cited in Baham Nirumand, Krieg, Krieg, bis zum Sieg, in: Anja Malanowski und Marianne Stern, Iran-Irak. ,Bis die Gottlosen vernichtet sind’, Reinbek (Rowohlt) 1987, p. 95-6.

[2] Cited in Christiane Hoffmann, Vom elften Jahrhundert zum 11. September. Märtyrertum und Opferkultur sollen Iran als Staat festigen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 4, 2002.

http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents ... jads-world


/G:son

[tryggve]

Den tämligen betydelselösa frågan gällde ju, huruvida dessa nycklar över huvudtaget har existerat.

/G:son

Så sant, det hade jag faktiskt glömt bort....

EDIT: Hmm, jag googlade på "iranian boy soldiers keys to paradise" och en av träffarna jag fick var denna
http://books.google.se/books?id=uaLNr45 ... t#PPA62,M1

På denna sida (sid 62 i boken "The IRan-Iraq war ,1980-88") så visas då en bild som jag tolkar som en bild på iranska barnsoldater i Basji-milisen. En av dessa stackars killar har en scarf på sig, och på höger sida på kroppen hänger något svart som kanske skulle kunna vara en av dessa plastnyckar. Men jag är osäker... Dessutom är det ju inte runt halsen.

[G:son]

Det är inte särskilt svårt att hitta samtida referenser till nycklarna, men att man skulle ha beställt just 500.000 plastnycklar, från Taiwan eller Kina, känns som en senare konstruktion. NY Times skriver om "små metallnycklar", 25.6.1988:

By FOX BUTTERFIELD
Published: July 25, 1988
It was this spirit that enabled Iran to recruit hundreds of thousands of young men after Iraq's initial surprise attack in 1980. Many inductees were made members of the Revolutionary Guards, the paramilitary religious militia that eventually became Iran's most ferocious battlefield force. The Guards were thrown into battle at first with little training and with poor weaponry. Their enemy was dug in along Iraqi positions protected by interlocking fields of fire.

But in 1981, the under-equipped Iranians halted the Iraqi advance, and in 1982 they drove the Iraqi forces back inside their own territory. Teen-age Iranian boys, recruited by local clergy, were used to clear battlefields of mines and barbed wire.

Their tickets to paradise were blood-red headbands reading ''Warriors of God,'' and small metal keys signifying that the Ayatollah had given them special permission to enter heaven. In some battles, the Iranian reinforcements arrived proudly carrying their own coffins.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... gewanted=3

/G:son

[varjag]

Jag efterlyste for ett par dagar sedan, bilder av dessa 'nycklar' paa AHF. Det enda matnyttiga svaret hittills var detta...

my father was a doctor in iran-iraq battlefield,those [...] sent thousands of children betweeen 9-16 on minefields,they use to hang a plastic key on their neck telling them its the key to paradise gate.when my father spoke to them he realised these innocent pure children were brainwashed beyond redemption!![...]
Posted Aug-6-2008 by "molaomar"

Men plus en ganska laang videofilm dar en ung Basiji-pojke intervjuas...antagligen av Irakisk TV. Dar ar fyra ungdomar med i videofilmen men intervjuoffret ar sannerligen ingen imbecill - utan en ytterst talfor pojkvasker paa kanske 12 vaarar. Naagra 'nycklar' syns inte till underas ihopknappta klader.
Kanske naagon forstaar farsi och kan oversatta vad barnet berattar....?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a03_1217997327

Varjag

[G:son]

Tänkte ge denna tråd lite konstgjord andning. Har tyvärr inte hittat någon bild på en nyckel till paradiset, men däremot en iransk konstnär som gör installationer inspirerade av dem:

Entekhabi’s „kilid“ is also to be understood as a symbol and a reference to the small plastic keys, handed to children soldiers in the Iraqi/Iranian war. They were handed to them as the key to the otherworldly paradise to equip them also in a ideological way for martyrdom, before the children were used as human mine detectors. The bombs tear up bodies, souls seek refuge in paradise. At the watchtower, visitors will find countless used original keys, which do not lock or open any lock anymore. Every visitor may choose one and take it home.
Entekhabi’s work, reminding of neon advertisement signs, the aesthetics of fairs and village festivals, casts a new light on the watchtower, the remains and current symbol of a past, formerly proud, industrialized security system.

http://www.entekhabi.org/htm/kilid.html

[varjag]

inte hittat någon bild på en nyckel till paradiset, men däremot en iransk konstnär som gör installationer inspirerade av dem:

tack för länk och bild!Konstnären var uppenbart i närheten av nycklarnas hemska verklighet. Och vi noterar med nöje att Himmelens Rätta Nyckelhål tydligen hade en colour-code. Bara nycklar med de persiska färgerna passade , Varjag

[Hans]

Postade frågan på ACIG där det hänger en del perser och har hitintills fått en bunt svar men bara ett nyttigt:

I hope this helps, I do not want to get into a political discussion. But I knew first hand of several middle schools and high schools in my area from which underage children as young as 13 went to the front, and when they got killed, the school was named after them. I have been to their funerals. I have also witnessed many basiji rallies of young boys getting ready to go to the front, but cannot confirm their ages. But the certainly looked in the range of 12-16, and since this is just a subjective observation, you cannot take this as proof of anything. I have also witnessed and heard of other soldiers witnessing young basijis in large numbers at the front. But I have never seen or heard of any first hand witness accounts of plastic keys being handed out to these kids. The first time I ever read about this was in Time magazine, and listening to Radio Baghdad.

Incidentally, I have heard many accounts of a guy riding a horse at the front, and basiji units being told that it was the 12th imam. But none of this is confirmed, so again, you cannot take it as proof of anything.

All this being said, child soldiers are a sickening thought, and for anybody to defend it in whatever name is inexcusable. I thought it is outlawed by some UN convention, but don't know for sure. War is despicable to begin with, to coax or pressure children into joining it is just downright criminal.

-Mehrabad

MVH

Hans

[varjag]

Tack Hans för den insikten från Iran. Det är intressant lära att o m dessa nycklar existerade, så var deras existens en ganska väl bevarad statshemlighet.

All this being said, child soldiers are a sickening thought, and for anybody to defend it in whatever name is inexcusable

Man vågar nog inte hoppas att denna iranierns fromma tanke, snabbt sprider sig till de mummelmullor i Afghanistan som just nu, flitigt rekryterar barn till ''levande bomber''.

Tryggare kan ingen vara
än Allahs lilla barnaskara.......

Fy Fan!

Varjag

[Hans]

Hans, for what it is worth I spoke to my grandfather (which was a principal) today and he can confirm that children on the streets and in certain schools in Tehran were given keys as symbols of keys to the gates of heaven when they enlisted

Merci Tarmac.

So a (almost) firsthand account. Please, could you next time you talk to your grandfather ask for more details - exactly who gave them, how did the look like - and even better - could he find a photo? Or maybe he knows somebody that could?

Cheers (almost salimati)

Kommer det mer återkommer jag.

MVH

Hans

[tryggve]

Mycket intressant, jag såg tråden på ACIG.

[G:son]

Bra jobbat, Hans.

/G:son

[Blixten]

Läser just nu Krigen under kalla kriget av Gunnar Åselus, professor vid försvarshögskolan.

Åselius skirver att man i väst förfärades över bilder på barnsoldater med plastnycklar. (Minns ej exakta ordalydelsen.)Tyvärr visar han ingen bild i sin bok.

Jag gjorde en Hex och mailade professorn som var vänlig nog att svara. Uppgiften om bilderna bygger på hans minnen från hans läsande av Newsweek och liknande under tiden det begav sig.

[Hans]

Jag gjorde en Hex och mailade professorn som var vänlig nog att svara. Uppgiften om bilderna bygger på hans minnen från hans läsande av Newsweek och liknande under tiden det begav sig.

Bra jobbat Blixten!

MVH

Hans