Slouching Toward Medina 251He stiffens and looks up at my face. I can tell we are the same age,
though his tired eyes and his unshaven jowl make him appear much
older. He is a child of the revolution; I am a fugitive—an apostate. He
has spent his life surviving a history that I have spent my life studying
from afar. All at once I feel overwhelmed. I can barely look at him
when he asks, “Where have you been?” as all passport agents are
required to do. I cannot help but sense the accusation in his question.
On the day Khomeini returned to Iran, I took my four-year-old sister
by the hand and, despite my mother’s warning not to venture out-
doors, led her out of our apartment in downtown Tehran to join the
celebrations in the streets. It had been days since we had gone outside.
The weeks preceding the Shah’s exile and the Ayatollah’s return had
been violent ones. The schools were closed, most television and radio
stations shut down, and our quiet, suburban neighborhood deserted.
So when we looked out our window on that February morning and
saw the euphoria in the streets, nothing could have kept us inside.
Filling a plastic pitcher with Tang and stealing two packages of
Dixie cups from our mother’s cupboard, my sister and I sneaked out to
join the revelry. One by one we filled the cups and passed them out to
the crowd. Strangers stopped to lift us up and kiss our cheeks. Hand-
fuls of sweets were thrown from open windows. There was music and
dancing everywhere. I wasn’t really sure what we were celebrating, but
I didn’t care. I was swept up in the moment and enthralled by the
strange words on everyone’s lips—words I had heard before but which
were still mystifying and unexplained: Freedom! Liberty! Democracy!
A few months later, the promise of those words seemed about
to be fulfilled when Iran’s provisional government drafted a constitu-
tion for the newly formed and thrillingly titled Islamic Republic of
Iran. Under Khomeini’s guidance, the constitution was a combination
of third-world anti-imperialism mixed with the socioeconomic theo-
ries of legendary Iranian ideologues like Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ali
Shariati, the religio-political philosophies of Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid
Qutb, and traditional Shi‘ite populism. Its founding articles promised
equality of the sexes, religious pluralism, social justice, freedom of
speech, and the right to peaceful assembly—all the lofty principles the