We'll Build a Bridge

I recently finished a memoir by an incredible woman named Shirin Ebadi. Her book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, tells her story of growing up under the rule of the Shah, the quick ascent of her legal career, her zeal for the revolution of 1979 and her subsequent struggle under the Islamic Republic. Shirin Ebadi's story is the parallel story of the fate of democratic and intellectual freedom in the last 35 years in Iran. Shirin fought to overthrow the tyranny and brutality of the shah, only to see it replaced with an equally brutal and culturally more-oppressive regime. Now, Shirin and others continue their quest to bring basic human rights and basic freedom to their brothers and sisters.

My timing in reading this book is no coincidence, I wanted to read it because of the recent events in Iran. I wish I had read the book prior to the Iran election, because the events after the election wouldn't have surprised me.

Some of the things from her book supported what I had already learned about Iran, women and democracy. For example, the anti-shah movement was not at all a pro-ayatollah movement. The ayatollah was but one of several factions seeking to overthrow the tyranny of the shah. After the shah fled Iran, it took the ayatollah a year or more to consolidate power and begin the Islamic Republic that we are familiar with today. Also, Iran's cultural view of women is very different than Arab cultures and Iran has long respected some authority for women. One of the difficulties for the Islamic Republic has been their inability to control the women in the country. The scenes of the crowds after the recent election made clear that Iranian women are engaged and taking some leadership.

There were also several things I learned from the book. Probably the most distressing thing to learn was how the Iran-Iraq war solidified the rule of the Islamic Republic. What made that particularly difficult was the role of the United States in furthering that war by supporting Saddam Hussein, even after we knew that Saddam was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. As I mentioned earlier, being anti-shah did not mean you were pro-ayatollah. When the Iran-Iraq war started, there were many factions still working toward resisting the kind of rule desired by the burgeoning Islamic Republic. The weak rule of the government was one of the reasons Saddam knew it was a good opportunity to strike. The counter-productive actions of the United States in that war are too tragic to be mere irony. Though I believe we sincerely wanted peace and democracy in Iran, we managed to help squelch all dissent and cement the control of the hard-line leadership. When I look at the present position of Iran, I see a perfectly human response to 50 years of duplicity and complicity and the occasional direct intereference. In fact, I am in some ways surprised to read about (and see evidence of) a decidedly pro-Western sentiment among the younger generation of Iranians. This was not the focus of her book at all, but certainly a theme that stood out to me as an American.

Ultimately, "Iran Awakening" is a book of hope. The revolution took a necessary pause during the Iran-Iraq war, took several more years to recover its voice, and has been steadily on the rise since 1999. Shirin Ebadi, at great personal cost, has taken that fight one case at a time. As a lawyer, Shirin has picked the ripest opportunities she can find to fight within the system for human rights, and democratic, cultural and intellectual freedoms. Her work has earned her the Nobel Peace Prize. Shirin, and many like her, continue to push for reform within the Iranian systems. They report a growing resentment and strengthening resolve, and the world has recently seen evidence of what is apparently right below the surface.

Shirin's story is far more textured than I've relayed here, and her story reveals as much about the rich Persian culture as it does the gritty reality of today's prison cells. So while I learned a lot about the social and political climate of an important and strategic country, more importantly, I took a trip across a bridge and caught a glimpse of families that love like I love, care for their children like I do, and die like I will.

"As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise. We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact. We think of them as enemies. We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do. We forget that they are our brothers and sisters..." Henri Nouwen