A Persian and an Arab: Friendship on the Plains of Khuzestan

Our car came to a stop and my dad announced our arrival to the house of Khalaf Shabani. I jumped out as quickly as I could, as the youngest child I was always stuck in the middle of three other siblings and any car ride longer than an hour was a torture. Khalaf Shabani was an Arab, who lived in the predominately Arab village of Khalafabad. He was a respected member of his community since he was both the elder and the doctor of the community. Khalaf Shabani, always had a double-barrel gun around his shoulder with bullets hanging next to it. I remember how people in Khalafabad would look at us as our car pulled into the village, we looked and dressed differently and usually they would not see anyone from outside coming to visit their village. Khalafabad did not have much to see, it was very much rural, with mud compound houses, where human and animals lived in closed proximity. I remembered going over to see the water buffaloes that Khalaf Shabani kept. As kids we played with Khalaf Shabani kids who were many, since he had more than one wife. We ended up sitting around and eating a simple meal together and then leaving.

I never understood why my father would drive over 100 kilometer on a Friday to visit a rundown village in the middle of nowhere, and spend time with a person who he seemly had nothing in common with. But whenever we went there, Khalaf Shabani and my dad would embrace like two brothers, then sit down and drink tea and talk about the things that had happened since the last time they met. Khalaf Shabani would talk more since his life seemed more interesting, in his Arab-Farsi accent, he would tell my dad about the cow giving birth or taking care of a patient on the other side of the village. My dad would tell him about the happenings in Ahvaz or about the workers he supervised at the National Iranian Oil Company who were always doing something crazy.

Today as the region struggles to find peace and curb intolerance, I look back at those days when my dad, a Persian and Khalaf Shabani, an Arab lived in peace with each other and interacted in a way that their differences seemed insignificant though they came from two different worlds. As a child those experiences shaped who I am as a grown up, perhaps brainwashed to think that it is a man's goodness that is important not the name of his religion, his language, his ethnicity or his economic status!

Both men are deceased now but theirs was a friendship that transcended culture, class, language, ethnicity and neighborhood. I am amazed by the bravery of both men to break down the walls that society had created to keep them apart and yet they boldly brought it down and chose to walk that extra mile to ensure that their children would not live apart.

I only hope today more will walk that extra mile that a Persian and an Arab did four decades ago.