The first female Muslim to win the Nobel Prize, a political activist, writer-historian and one of Iran’s first female judges, visited DU last Wednesday, making the statement that “there are really no points of difference between Iranian and American people.”
Shirin Ebadi, author of Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, delivered her lecture and fielded questions discussion before students and community members. Her DU appearance contrasted sharply withe the protests she encountered May 16 when she spoke at UCLA.
Ebadi said she wrote the book as an introduction to Iran, as a reflection on her life as an Iranian woman, and as an exposCB) on Iran’s current laws against women and political prisoners.
“The worth of a female’s life is that of a man’s,” said Ebadi. “In a car crash, a woman’s compensation is only half that of a man’s; in courts, two female witnesses equal one man; men may divorce their wives on almost any grounds, where it is nearly impossible for a woman to divorce her husband.”
Strikingly, this is all in a country where women are better educated than men as 65 percent of university students are women.
Ebadi also turned her attention to the shortcomings of Iran’s current government, a government she says has sharpened for the differences between Iran and the United States.
The limitation of freedom in speech in Iran is evident in the current ban of her book in the country.
“The people of Iran have criticisms of their government. They want an increased observance of human rights, they want democracy. But they do not want Iran to become a second Iraq and they will not permit foreign soldiers,” she said.
Ebadi argued that democracy is not a gift to be given to a nation, but is rather a culture and historical process that cannot come out of a situation in which the existing government can repress the Freedom Fighters.
Iran Awakening details many historical illustrations of Ebadi’s positions. One of these involves the coup operation against the Iranian Premier done by the US CIA in 1953, of which Ebadi joked Iranians have a “bad memory” and need to realize again that negotiations must be public and direct, not behind closed doors.
Another example given in her book of Iran’s need to change its government involves a description of the execution of a sizable number of innocent Iranians in 1988.
Ebadi also replied to one audience member’s question regarding whether Iran’s atomic program has peaceful purposes.
The world does not buy it [Iran’s alleged peaceful purposes],” said Ebadi. “In a democracy, the people won’t let the government abuse its power; they supervise the government. Therefore it’s only democracy that can respond to such an anxiety [as this].”
In addition to promoting the sanctioning of laws fair to women and protective of freedom of expression, Ebadi encourages more friendly, productive relations between America and Iran, starting with a realization of their peoples’ similarities.
“We shouldn’t always resent the past. This is the time to forgive people and move toward the future. There is no dispute that cannot be resolved,” she said.
