Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah to a Leader of Resistance

Manouchehr Ganji

Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002 - History - 263 pages

The realities of Iranian life are far more harrowing than most people imagine from the outside. Ganji paints a portrait of duplicitous clerics arbitrarily arresting, torturing, mutilating, and executing citizens, all in the name of Islamic Justice. A system of apartheid has been instituted against women. While 60% of the population lives below the poverty line, the mullah regime has hoarded billions of dollars in accounts and properties in Europe, Canada, and Japan. Roughly 70% of the population is under 30 years of age and opposes the regime. In the year of 2001 alone, 220,000 people--mostly educated youth--left the country in search of better lives. Ganji stresses that the best defense against terrorism is offense, and that the United States can and must establish a proactive policy of helping Iranians struggling for the freedom of Iran, in and out of the country.

Western policies toward the Iranian mullah regime have thus far been reactionary rather than proactive. The regime in Iran has been an incubator of international terrorism, aiding and abetting international terrorist groups in and out of the Middle East. The author argues that now is the time for the United States to substitute rhetoric with action in policies toward the ruling clerics in Iran.

Contents

• The Last Years of the Shahs Reign: 3
• Other Major Factors in the Downfall of the Shah: 35
• Survival Instinct The Struggle to Stay Alive: 45
• Khomeini Khameinei Rafsanjani Khatami: 69
• The Roar of a Fundamentalist Typhoon: 95
• State Terror War and a Chalice of Poison: 113
• Export of the Revolution: 131
• A TwentyThreeYear Record: 143
• Life in Exile: 165
• The Flag of Freedom Organization: 183
• The Future: 209
• Notes: 223
• Select Bibliography: 249
• Index: 253

Popular passages

Page 222 - ... which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people...‎

Page 143 - Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." "* You mean, you can't take less" said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing.‎

Page 76 - humanitarian' scruples are more childish than reasonable. Under the terms of Koranic law, any judge fulfilling the seven requirements (that he have reached puberty, be a believer, know the Koranic laws perfectly, be just, and not be affected by amnesia, or be a bastard, or be of the female sex) is qualified to be a judge in any type of case. He can thus judge and dispose of twenty trials in a single day, whereas the Occidental justice might take years to argue them out.‎

Page 80 - The coquettes who put on makeup and go into the street showing off their necks, their hair, their shapes, did not fight against the Shah. They never did anything good, not those. They do not know how to be useful, neither socially, nor politically, nor professionally...‎

Page xiii - Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.‎

Page 44 - In Iran, the Carter administration's commitment to nonintervention proved stronger than strategic considerations or national pride. What the rest of the world regarded as a stinging American defeat, the US government saw as a matter to be settled by Iranians. "We personally prefer that the Shah maintain a major role in the government," the President acknowledged, "but that is a decision for the Iranian people to make.‎

Page 5 - Iranian prison or if he desires, he can leave the country tomorrow, without even paying exit fees and can go anywhere he likes, because he is not an Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law.1 1 Internatlnnnl CommlRslon of Jurists.‎

Page 1 - I commit myself to make up for past mistakes, to fight corruption and injustice and for the formation of a national government to carry out free elections.‎

Page 75 - Islamic judge, with a pen and inkwell and two or three enforcers, to go into a town, come to his verdict on any kind of case, and have it immediately carried out.‎

About the author

MANOUCHEHR GANJI is the founder and Secretary General of the Flag of Freedom Organization of Iran, a democratic opposition movement against the clerical regime in Iran. He also is the founder and Secretary General of the Organization for Human Rights for Iran. Dr. Ganji was the Minister of Education of Iran from 1976 to 1979, and Professor of International Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the Tehran University before the revolution. Dr. Ganji has published extensively on law, human rights, and the situation in Iran in English, Farsi, and French.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah to a Leader of Resistance; ABC-Clio ebook
• Author: Manouchehr Ganji
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002
• ISBN: 0275971872, 9780275971878
• Length: 263 pages
• Subjects: History / Revolutionary