Book Review: Iran Awakening

Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shirin opens her prologue with the admittance of the state on the killings of it's critics. While straining through piles of files and interrogation transcripts to build the victim's family case she saw the killing list which states that she would be next.....

Shirin recounted her childhood and university years during what was to culminate into a very tumultuous period of Iran. It had traversed the period of the Qajar Dynasty, Reza Shah, Mohammad Mossadegh and Shah Pahlavi with devastating consequences. Soon she found herself serving an unpopular government within the justice system.

I remember back in 1971 when the 2500 years of Persian Empire celebration was held at the ruins of Persepolis both with utter pomp and extravaganza. $300m was spent on silk tents with marble bathrooms, food and wine when so many poor didn't even have baths. The exiled Ayatollah Khomeini was livid.

Soon the Shah Pahlavi absconded and the Ayatollah was back. Laws were rewritten as fast as they could ....so was women's status. Shirin, the once lady Judge soon found herself "transferred". The same transgressions on human lives repeated themselves this time in the name of you know who.

It would appear to me that the the revolution resulted in changing one tyrannical rule with another......She remained in Iran helping out victims of the power of the day. The Nobel Peace Prize was an acknowledgement of her effort and sacrifice in a country still having problems with it's human right issues.


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