Claremont McKenna To See Real Human Rights Activist Speak on Iran

I recently saw Persepolis with my girlfriend. For the first time I find myself agreeing with the critics. It is certainly one of the best films of 2007. (Alas, I must warn you that it is in French. Though I am fluent, it might be difficult for non-French speakers to follow along. There are a bunch of funny mistranslations that any French speaker can pick up.)

Persepolis details the autobiographical coming of age of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian-born graphic novelist who settles in France. This film, unlike much of multiculturalist crap out there, doesn't apologize for the totalitarian Islamo-fascism, anti-individual liberty hell that is modern Iran. I won't give too much of it away, but this film pulls no punches against the ayatollahs' hijacked state. Indeed some of the depictions were so au
thentic that some in the audience were convinced it must not be true. One man stood up and proclaimed that it was propaganda. I wish that it were, my friend, but Iran really does imprison the innocent and torture the idealistic.

Fortunately, some of my fellow Claremont McKenna students will have an opportunity to see that modern hell for themselves when Ms. Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, comes to speak this term. She recently spoke out against some of the more disturbing acts of torture by the Iranian regime. This real torture occurred when the judicial authorities in southern Iran amputated the right hands and left feet of five convicted robbers this week.

This event is a must attend for anyone professing to understand the situation in the Middle East and for any would-be human rights activist.

And yet, the CMC's Blog For Human Rights spends more time attacking The Claremont Independent and the U.S. than addressing the real violators of human rights. What a shame. Indeed they wasted more ink on Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize than Ebadi's. I hope they change their blog before Ms. Ebadi arrives, lest they ignore one of the more pressing issues of our day.