I’ve read several memoirs lately by people from totalitarian and/or war-torn countries. I’ve noticed there are a few “types” - those for whom family is everything, and those for whom ideological values are everything. Shirin Ebadi, author of this book, belongs to the second camp. An Iranian human rights lawyer and activist who won the Nobel peace prize in 2003, she risked everything many times to stand up for freedom and human rights of Iranians. Because of her actions, her children and spouse faced death threats and imprisonment from the regime multiple times, but she never wavered in her activism. Her courage and steely determination not to give an inch to the totalitarian regime were formidable. 

Yet as a mother, I have to admit there was a part of me that felt a bit squeamish reading some of this. No doubt the world needs people like Ebadi who are bravely willing to sacrifice everything in the fight for freedom and human rights. But when your activism puts your own family at grave risk? I suppose this is how totalitarian regimes manage to stay in power - they know most citizens will not make the same daring choices Ebadi made. I know I wouldn’t. 

So the book left me feeling a mix of emotions: awe at the bravery of Ebadi, sorrow for the losses she and her family endured because of her work, anger at the regime, frustration and despair that the regime has managed to cling to power all these years despite the bravery of Ebadi and so many others. Perhaps most stark, it made me feel gratitude to live in the West, which I know is probably not a PC thing to say but whatever. I will take my first world problems any day over living with the type of existential threat and impossible ethical dilemmas Iranians and others living in totalitarian regimes face on a daily basis.