Farzad Kamangar: 'Don't Forget, There Is a Dream of Leyla'

Rastinews — The Little Black Fish lives with his mother within the narrow confines of a small stream. The other fish in that stream spend their lives merely eating and sleeping, convinced that the water they inhabit is the whole of the world. But the Little Black Fish refuses to live that way; he wonders what lies at the end of the stream — whether a great sea exists beyond it, or nothing at all. Despite the pressure and fear coming from his mother and the neighboring fish, he makes up his mind and sets off toward the sea.

On his journey toward the sea, the Little Black Fish meets many different animals, each standing for a type of character found in society. A haughty frog and a timid crab try to turn him back. But the most important encounter along the way is with the heron. The heron tells the Little Black Fish that he is not alone, and that there are many others like him. It gives the Little Black Fish a small knife; this knife is a symbol of 'knowledge and the power to protect oneself.' With that knife, the Little Black Fish learns that he need not remain defenseless against injustice and enemies.

In the end, the Little Black Fish succeeds and reaches the sea, but there he meets the greatest danger of all: a pelican. The pelican swallows a small fish and the Little Black Fish and traps them in the pouch of its throat. There, the other small fish, frightened and in tears, begs the pelican for mercy, but the Little Black Fish refuses to surrender. He uses his knife to tear open the pelican's belly and kills it. The other small fish escapes and throws itself into the sea. After this, no one knows what becomes of the Little Black Fish; he disappears into the deep waters of the sea.

This fable titled "The Little Black Fish" — whose original Persian title is "Mali-ye Siyah-e Kuchulu" — was first published in 1967. For nearly 60 years, children not only in Iran but across the world have opened their eyes to life through this book.

The author of this book, Samad Behrangi, wanted his work to carry a message about the philosophy of life, death and freedom: "Dying is easy; what matters is the effect your life has on the lives of others. Freedom never comes without a price, and sometimes, to save future generations, one must sacrifice oneself." Like his own hero, "The Little Black Fish," he too had set out on a journey, struggling for freedom. The tragic twist was that Behrangi himself, at the age of 29, would drown in a river — the Aras — and lose his life…

Samad Behrangi was born in 1939 into a poor family in the Charandab district of old Tabriz. His father was a seasonal laborer who had left for Baku with a group of other workers and never returned. Orphaned, Samad grew up alongside two brothers and three sisters under harsh conditions. Despite everything, after finishing primary and secondary school, he earned his teaching certificate at the Tabriz Teacher Training College. He became a teacher at 18 and, for the rest of his life, taught in villages across East Azerbaijan province.

Behrangi would later describe himself this way: "I was not born like a mushroom, without a mother or father, but I grew up like one; unlike a mushroom, though, my end did not come quickly. Wherever there was a trace of moisture, I drew it to myself; there was no one to give me water. I grew up... twisted and stunted, like a water-starved rosebush, into a teacher in the villages of Azerbaijan. My father used to say: If Iran were divided up among Iranians, your share would be no bigger than this."

He was no ordinary teacher, but a committed idealist. He criticized textbooks written for urban life that bore no relation to village realities, and he worked to persuade parents to send their children to school instead of putting them to work in the fields. After repeated complaints and reports from the Shah's intelligence service — he never missed a chance to criticize the education system — he was stripped of his high school teaching post in 1962 and reassigned to a primary school. Two years later, in 1964, he was tried by a military court over the publication of his book "Pare Pare" and suspended from work for six months.

His writing began with a satirical, critical style, and he wrote his first story, titled "Adet," at the age of 21. Stories such as "Telxûn" and "Bênav" followed. His books, especially "The Little Black Fish" and "Ulduz and the Crows," became especially well known and widely read among the revolutionary movements of the era. He also rejected calls to cooperate with the Shah's oppressive government and refused to dedicate the opening pages of his book to the Shah.

Samad Behrangi drowned in the Aras River at the age of 29 — the exact circumstances remain unclear to this day. His brother later said: "We found his body after two days. There were only two or three wounds on his thighs and legs." Many intellectuals and revolutionary movements of the time accused SAVAK, the Shah's intelligence organization, of killing Behrangi.

Behrangi left behind not only his written work but also became a foundational figure for a school of idealist teachers across Iran, including Eastern Kurdistan. Many teachers, both under the Shah and later under Khomeini's Islamic Republic, would follow in Behrangi's footsteps. One of them was Farzad Kamangar — a teacher whose approach mirrored Behrangi's, and whose fate would ultimately mirror his as well.

Writer, activist and teacher of Kurdistan…

Farzad Kamangar was born in Kamyaran, near Sanandaj, in Eastern Kurdistan. He grew up on land subjected to systematic discrimination and cultural and national assimilation — a reality that instilled in him, from childhood, a strong sense of humanism and national identity. He completed his education in Kurdistan and, after receiving his diploma, began his career as an education worker.

Kamangar was a successful teacher who spent 12 years teaching children in the schools of Kamyaran, notably at the Kar û Daniş vocational school. But teaching, for him, went beyond the classroom; he saw it as a social responsibility, and he taught his students not only Persian but also Kurdish language and literature.

He served on the board of the Kamyaran Teachers' Fund (Kurdistan branch), was a member of the writers' council of the cultural-educational monthly "Royan," and belonged to the Kamyaran Environmental Association. Writing under the pen name "Siyamend," he also published influential articles on human rights, women's rights and environmental protection in various journals.

In 2006, while traveling to Tehran to seek treatment for his brother's serious illness, he was arrested by Iranian security forces. Following his arrest, Kamangar was moved through prisons in Sanandaj and Kermanshah before being taken to Evin Prison in Tehran. He spent nearly 33 months in detention, including 16 months in solitary confinement under physical and psychological torture. The regime charged him with "membership in the PKK/PJAK" and "involvement in bombing attacks," accusations he consistently denied, insisting he was nothing more than a civilian activist and a teacher of the people.

Kamangar's trial became emblematic of the injustice of Iran's judicial system. In June 2007, in a hearing that lasted only seven minutes — without witnesses, and without his lawyer able to mount a proper defense — he was sentenced to death on the charge of "waging war against God." Despite international appeals and objections from human rights organizations including UNESCO and the European Union, Iran's regime did not reverse its brutal decision.

On the morning of Sunday, May 9, 2010, Farzad Kamangar was executed at Evin Prison alongside four fellow political prisoners: Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Shirin Alam-Holi and Mehdi Eslamian. After the execution, his body was not handed over to his family and was buried in an unknown location. To this day, the site of his grave remains unknown.

Farzad Kamangar became an immortal name in the hearts of Kurds and all freedom-seekers through his letters from prison and his courage in the face of the death sentence. In his letters, messages and poems, he wrote of freedom, oppression, the nature of Kurdistan and his young students. One of those students was a girl named Leyla, who during his lessons would always rest her hand beneath her head and fall silent, drawing his attention. Teacher Kamangar would ask her, "What are you thinking about?" Leyla would answer, "I'm thinking about my dreams."

Before he was taken to the gallows, Kamangar wrote in a letter what he wished to leave behind as a legacy to the Kurdish people: "Don't forget, there is a dream of Leyla"…

These are the final lines he left behind for his students:

"Hello, children,
I have missed you all. Here, day and night, I weave the poem of life with memories of you. Every day, in your place, I say 'good morning' to the sun. Behind these high walls, I wake with you, I laugh with you, and I sleep with you.

Sometimes 'something like homesickness' takes hold of my whole being. Ah, how I wish that, as we once did, after the outing we called our 'scientific excursion,' when we grew tired of all the crowds and noise, we could forget the dust of our exhaustion and our sweat by going to the village's clear spring. How I wish we could once again listen to the 'sound of water's footsteps' and let our bodies be dampened by the tenderness of flowers and grass.

Because when a father has no bread to put on the table, what difference does it make whether Pi (π) is three point fourteen, or a hundred point fourteen? We set aside the lessons of 'the sciences,' with all the chemical and physical changes of the world, and hoped instead for a change born of the law of 'love and miracles'… We waited for a change that would bring us all, for Newroz, a new pair of shoes, beautiful clothes, and a table filled with sweets.
Ah, how I wish that once again, in secret and in hiding, far from the sharp eyes of the school's overseers, we could learn the Kurdish alphabet, recite poems and sing songs to one another in our mother tongue, and then join hands and dance the govend together… I entrust you to the wind and the sun, until a morning not too far away, when you will learn the lesson of love and purity for our homeland."