Black Wednesday…
This article examines Black Wednesday in Mohammareh as a moment when violence targeted not only people and the city, but also the consciousness, identity, and will of the Ahwazi Arab people. It explores how power attempts to turn fear into a permanent part of a people’s inner structure, arguing that the purpose of memory is not merely to preserve tragedy, but to transform pain into awareness, presence, and strength capable of preventing repression from being reproduced and history from repeating itself.
When Power Tried to Kill the Human Before the Land
Not every massacre is committed merely to control land.
Some massacres happen because the existence of a conscious people, in itself, becomes a threat.
And this is what makes certain moments in history more dangerous than mere “bloody events” or “political clashes.”
Because they expose the truth that systems of domination always try to hide:
Occupation does not fear the land alone…
It fears the human being who knows the land belongs to him.
And here begins the story of Mohammareh.
In the spring of 1979, what happened in Mohammareh was not merely a passing confrontation after the fall of the Shah.
It was the moment when the Ahwazi people discovered a harsher truth:
That many of the forces which had raised the slogans of freedom and revolution against tyranny… were not prepared to recognize the freedom of peoples when it came to the Arab people of Ahwaz.
The revolution in which oppressed peoples participated to overthrow the monarchy — and in which the Ahwazis were among the most active contributors — did not transform, after the Shah’s fall, into a project that recognized the rights of peoples.
Instead, it rapidly became a struggle over who would monopolize power, the state, and meaning itself.
And when the Ahwazis demanded the implementation of promises related to their right to self-determination, and recognition of their political and national existence, this was not treated as the legitimate demand of a people who had helped overthrow tyranny…
But as a danger that had to be crushed early.
And here emerged one of the harshest truths in the modern history of the region:
Forces may disagree over the form of the regime… yet unite when it comes to preventing peoples from possessing their full right to determine their own future.
Thus, Mohammareh was not merely a confrontation with a new authority.
It was a moment in which domination began reproducing itself… under different names and slogans.
And what was required was not merely the silencing of weapons.
But the destruction of the more dangerous idea itself:
That the Ahwazi human being might believe he has the right to own his land, his future, and his identity.
Black Wednesday was not merely a day on which people were killed.
Nor was it simply a passing confrontation between a government and protesters.
It was a moment in which power attempted to redefine an entire people:
From a people possessing will, identity, and memory…
Into a people that must learn fear.
This is why Mohammareh was not merely a military target.
It was a psychological, political, and symbolic target.
Because cities that carry the memory of peoples…
are sometimes more dangerous to systems than armies themselves.
Mohammareh was not merely a city on the banks of the Karun.
It was one of the places where the Arab Ahwazi identity remained alive despite every attempt at erasure, Persianization, and the reshaping of consciousness.
And this is why the goal was not merely to control the city…
But to break its meaning.
And in many cases, systems do not begin by physically killing the human being alone.
They begin by killing his confidence in himself.
By convincing him that:
* his identity is a burden,
* his history is a problem,
* his voice is dangerous,
* and his future must be designed for him from outside.
And this is what allows some massacres to transcend blood itself.
Because they become long attempts to reshape the consciousness of an entire people.
Thus, the most dangerous thing about Black Wednesday was not only the number of victims…
But the message intended afterward:
“Either you learn fear… or you pay the price for refusing it.”
Yet history has always proven something different:
Power may occupy land…
but it fails when it cannot fully occupy consciousness.
And this is why peoples are not defeated only when they are oppressed…
But when they lose the ability to understand what happened to them in the first place.
And here begins the difference between:
A people that carries memory,
and a people that builds consciousness from memory.
Memory alone may become recurring sorrow.
But consciousness transforms pain into long-term understanding.
This is why the greatest danger after massacres is not only forgetting…
But allowing sacrifices to become an emotional season repeated every year without changing anything.
Black Wednesday must not remain merely a memory for mourning.
It must be understood as a moment revealing how systems deal with peoples who refuse dissolution.
For when any authority senses that a people’s identity is becoming consciousness,
and consciousness is becoming presence,
and presence may one day become power,
it begins trying to break this chain early.
Thus, what happened in Mohammareh was not isolated from a larger project:
A project aimed at controlling:
* the human being,
* identity,
* language,
* memory,
* geography,
* and even the way a people understands itself.
But more dangerous than all of this…
Is that the world itself often responds to such tragedies with a cold silence.
Not because the truth is always unclear…
But because many peoples do not possess sufficient influence to force their suffering into international calculations.
Ahwaz is not merely a land rich in oil.
Nor merely a troubled region at the margins of headlines.
Ahwaz is one of the regions most deeply connected to:
* global energy,
* the stability of the Arabian Gulf,
* maritime corridors,
* and regional balances of power.
And in many cases, oil often appeared clearer to the world than the human being living above it.
And here begins one of the most dangerous crises of the modern age:
When the value of land and wealth becomes greater than the value of the human living upon it.
Thus, the Ahwazi cause is not merely a matter of borders or politics.
It is the story of a human being trying to remain human despite every attempt at erasure.
Real occupation does not begin only when land is taken.
It begins when a people is gradually pushed to lose confidence in:
* itself,
* its identity,
* and its ability to shape its own future.
This is why the most dangerous thing peoples can do after catastrophes…
Is to allow fear to become a permanent identity.
Mohammareh is not merely a memory of blood.
It is a historical test:
Does pain become consciousness?
Or does it become long-term fear?
And here begins the responsibility of generations.
Not merely to remember what happened…
But to understand:
* why it happened,
* how to prevent its repetition,
* and how to build peoples whose consciousness cannot easily be reshaped by repression.
Because systems may succeed in controlling cities for a time…
But they always fear the moment when the human being begins understanding himself again.
Thus, the most dangerous force born after massacres…
is not the weapon.
It is the human being who refuses to become internally broken.
And Black Wednesday will not remain merely a date…
If memory becomes consciousness,
and consciousness becomes presence,
and presence becomes a force that makes it impossible to return the Ahwazi human being to the position of victim once again.
Because the true tragedy is not that peoples are killed once…
But that they are killed again and again through silence,
forgetting,
and the cold normalization of injustice as though it were natural.
Some peoples are not left to live in peace…
They are left to learn fear generation after generation.
And when such a scene becomes ordinary within the memory of the world, silence itself becomes part of the tragedy.
Mohammareh was not merely a city where victims fell…
It was a terrifying mirror reflecting what can happen when interests become clearer than the human being,
and when an entire people is left between:
repression,
international silence,
and a world that sees in land a source of wealth… more than it sees in human beings a right to life and dignity.
Thus, the question is no longer merely:
What happened on Black Wednesday?
But rather:
What does all this say about a world that has learned to coexist with fear… more than it has learned to protect the human being?
— Hamid Shayea Al-Ahwazi —
22.5.2025