Blood and Carnations

<p>In Iran the Orwellian nightmare became a reality for the family of Laila Yazdi - for her and her western educated husband for their two daughters and for her parents and grandparents. The truth of what happened to the members of this westernised aristocratic group first under the stresses of the Shah's 'white' revolution and then under the extreme radical regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini is not obscured for the English-speaking world as were the genocidal catastrophes that were post Versailles Germany communist Russia Eastern Europe and China. The Persia that she and her family knew was a country on the fringe of the western way of life. In its modern guise as Iran they saw it play a significant part in the political military and economic affairs of the twentieth century.They lived through its being a supply route for military aid to communist Russia in World War Two the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the rise of a wholly changed Middle East.But they also witnessed the crushing of those hopes that seemed to light the path to their country's entry into a modern secular world where women and men stand on an equal footing and the rule of law is a realistic expectation in economic and social relationships.</p>