Personal Narrative: Our Revolution

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Our Revolution If they would have just left us alone, this wouldn't have happened. I am Behnam Abedini. I’m 21, and I was a student at an Iranian school in Tehran . It all started in the year 1908. My grandfather constantly told me stories about the oil reserves that were found in the Persian Gulf. We had oil, but not enough money to extract and refine the oil. The big bucks British did though. They were given a lot of profit from this and had the freedom to extract all the Iranian oil that they pleased. This maddened my grandfather, and his level of anger would rise in this part of the story. He would scream, “They are stealing from us, they are stealing from us.” The people of Iran watched their Shah and these British businessmen become …show more content…
He revealed the Shah for the thief that he was. My grandfather would have loved to have seen someone successfully express their views and to have the people hear them. A newspaper article stated that Ayatollah Khomeini was a closet homosexual and British agent. All press was run by the government, so this deeply angered the Iranian people. Everyone in my family would participate in these riots, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs. If I did not go, I would have been looked down upon as a coward. If you protested, you were shot by police, Instead of retreating, the Iranians, including my whole family, pushed forward and protested against the Shah. I had lost many family members to these riots, including my brother and four of my …show more content…
We fed them and gave them water. We sent thirteen hostages back to the U.S. They were mostly women. We had 52 miserable hostages. I had no idea what we would do with all of these people, but we found ways. Sometimes, we would blindfold them in front of huge crowds in front of television cameras. We kept them in solitary confinement for long periods. They were never allowed to talk or read at anytime. Some would go crazy after being left in these dark, eerie rooms for long periods. We had to keep the hostages in different areas making it impossible for a rescue. Some were kept in the prison in Tehran and kept in dark, musty cells. We would not change their clothes very often, but we did let them go to the bathroom. They were constantly scared for their lives and would have sudden outbursts of sobbing. They always looked nervous and downcast. You could tell from their eyes. Their eyes were huge, but their pupils were tiny. They had seen so many horrible things and feared that their co workers were now dead. We made sure to keep them scared by constantly threatening them with harsh words and thrashing out onto them. They were too scared to try to escape. Some of the hostages were tortured, but none of the hostages that I looked after were ever tortured. I couldn't bring myself to do it. They were humans. I couldn't stand to do this job much

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