Bahan
Call me Ben, because no one, of any ethnicity but mine, ever seems to get it right.
When I was 21, just out of university, the Shaw selected me for a special project.
To build schools, for the future of our country's children.
I was never to get rich from this, at least I never intended to - I was young, considered a genius in my field, I wanted to contribute.
But this country, my country as it was then, was rife, rotting, sweet with corruption.
The Shaw's daughter would land by helicopter in a remote village, sit with the elders and promise a school.
I was the keeper of her promises, the builder of 1,139 schools.
My family's relationship with the Shaw ensured that my work was obscenely overcompensated.
The Ayatollah, when he returned in a finger-snap during the anarchy of 1979, scrutinized all of the Shaw's associates.
I spent 18 months in prison, tortured over and over again, and asked daily where my portion of the Shaw's money went.
Finally they freed me - my wife and children dead, my body scarred and bent. But not then, not now, with my spirit broken.
My schools are still used, today, to teach the children of Iran.
Robert Douglas Hickey |
