Srinagar, Feb. 14 -- I can close my eyes and hear the chants: "Marg bar fascism! Marg bar fascism!" It was a fine summer day in July 1979. I was a graduate student at the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I had just returned to Iran for the summer break, and my homeland was in the frenzied grips of an historic revolution.
"Death to fascism! Death to fascism!" That is all we could scream, a crowd of a few thousand gathered at the football field of Tehran University to rally against the Islamists trying to claim the revolution for themselves. We were an eclectic crowd - some were leftists, some were not; more than half of us were women, some scarfed, many not; some men wore beards, many not - but we a...