Anyone who doubts ideas still have power should have seen Iranian human rights attorney Shirin Ebadi struggle to give a speech at UCLA this week.
Barely 5 feet tall, the soft-spoken Ebadi was overshadowed by the lectern in the dark, cavernous Ackerman Ballroom when she stepped up to a resounding standing ovation from the 1,100-strong crowd, which seemed mostly Iranian American. Her criticisms of her country's Islamic government won her round after round of applause, cheers and standing ovations from hundreds of admirers who chanted her name. Yet midway through her speech, a handful of protesters -- some of them supporters of the shah monarchy that once ruled Iran -- began yelling, calling her a liar, an apologist, an agent of the Islamic regime.
Half a dozen hecklers were escorted out. Equally electrified crowds lined up for Ebadi to sign her new memoir, "Iran Awakening," the ostensible raison d'etre of the evening.
This was not the kind of literary event where people share white wine and muted pleasantries, but that's no surprise. Ebadi, 58, won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her "efforts for democracy and human rights." She is a lightning rod for the broad array of strong viewpoints brought to Los Angeles by the continuous waves of Iranian emigres since the 1979 ouster of the shah. Her many admirers here see her as someone who is risking her life to fight for justice in Iran. The detractors who show up at her speeches say that her dissent doesn't go far enough and that it provides a window dressing of tolerance for an intolerable regime.
Ebadi's memoir, which details her journey from a modest Muslim girlhood to her role as the government's most prominent critic, makes it clear that Ebadi is accustomed to far more than peaceful protest. In 2003, 50 thugs yelling "Death to Ebadi!" rushed to the podium as she was speaking in Tehran. She once spent 23 days in jail. In 2000, when she sat down to read official files detailing the dozens of intellectuals hacked to death, strangled or shot by secret police, something in the fine print caught her eye.
"The next person to be killed is Shirin Ebadi," a state death squad leader tells a government minister in a transcript, as casually as if he were ticking off a little chore on his to-do list. OK, the minister said, just wait until the end of Ramadan.
