Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi: Discovering Justice

"In the Iranian justice system, a judge is not required to first practice law, and I sent out in my studies intent on judgeship" [p15, IMO a person should never be able to become a judge without having first practised law]

"...it was fashionable to affect intellectual airs, and to skillfully [sic] dissect the shah's flaws in conversation, but to be truthful about it, we were not very bothered about such questions. " [p17, showing her lack of interest in politics or deep knowledge thereof. Just noticed that shah is spelt with a small s throughout the book]

"We socialized, in mixed groups of men and women, along such wholesome lines. True, it was the era of the miniskirt, and around the university - indeed, all around the city - stylish young women bared their legs in homage to Twiggy, the fashion icon of the moment. The students at Tehran University came from middle- or working-class backgrounds and didn't view their social live as a realm for experimentation. We didn't wear veils - in fact, the three veiled women in our university class stood out - but neither did we date, in the Western sense of the word. We always gathered for coffees or weekend trips in mixed groups, and although men and women studied together in the library, in class women still occupied the front rows, and men the back." [p19, liberal society and a lack of Islam - only 3 veiled women!]

"To conservative clerics, the university was a den of corruption, a polluted place where men and women sinned under the pretext of coed learning... the perfect excuse to invoke against the possibility of a [woman getting] a university education." [p20, so why are universities still mixed now in Iran Shirin and with more women than men in higher education? Such a spiteful and accusatory attitude]

"In 1964, the year before I had started law school, the shah had expelled a little-known, scowling cleric, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, to Najaf, Iraq, because of his fiery sermons that cleverly attacked the government. But with the ayatollah in absentia, no ideology or leader had yet emerged for anti-shah sentiment to coalesce around... To be anti-shah, in those days, did not mean you were pro-Ayatollah Khomeini." [p20]

"In March 1970, at the age of twenty-three, I became a judge." [p21]

"Though they squaked at the very notion of the SAVAK [secret police], people still trusted the legal system and sincerely believed that the laws protected their rights." [p22]

"...the shah had spent $300 million on makeshift silk tents with marble bathrooms, and on food and wine for twenty-five thousand people, flown in from Paris." [p23]

"One evening at a friend's party, a young man circled around me half the night, until he persuaded the host to introduce us... it was arranged for us to meet at another party the following week. He declared himself smitten, and said that if I reciprocated his interest, he would immediately ask for my hand in marriage." [p25]

"In January 1978, President Jimmy Carter arrived in Tehran on a New Year's Day visit and called Iran "an island of stability." The evening news broadcast footage of the shah toasting Carter with champage, the first time a largely Muslim nation had observed their leader drinking alcohol on national television. Not long after, a newspaper published an article aggressively attacking Ayatollah Khomeini. The next day, seminarians in the holy city of Qom revolted, amrching on the shrine with chants called for the ayatollah's return. The police shot into the crowd, and a number of men were killed." [p32]

"In early August [1978], a crowded cinema in the southern city of Abadan was burned to the ground. The flames engulfed four hundered people, burning the alive. The shah blamed religious conservatives, and Ayatollah Khomeini angrily accused SAVAK." [p33]

"[After Ayatollah Khomeini had written a letter instructing citizens to rise up and expel bureaucrats, Shirin and others went to the minister of justice's office]... He looked up at us in amazement, and his gaze halted when he saw my face. "You! You of all people, why are you here?" he asked, bewildered and stern. "Don't you know that you're supporting people who will take your job away if they come to power?" "I'd rather be a free Iranian than an enslaved attorney," I retorted boldly, self-righteous to the core. Years later, whenever we ran into each other, he would remind me of that fateful remark." [p34]

"On February 1, 1979, the heavy-lidded, stern face of Ayatollah Khomeini emerged from an Air France jetliner..." [p35, when you're a revolutionary leader you have to look stern and he was a very old man too - what irritating criticisms she makes!]

"Ayatollah Khomeini did not speak that day of an Islamic state, nor did he say what would come next. But he called on God to cut off the hands of Iran's enemies" [p36, what an interesting way to word things... to a nationalist Iranian/eastern audience this is good but to a western audience this is shocking - from the general tone of the sentence you can tell it's meant negatively]