Masoud Banisadr's gripping
account tells of his role as one of the highest-ranking members of the
Iranian Mojahedin, an organisation powerful enough to influence foreign
policy in Europe, the USA and the Middle East, and equally effective at
controlling the minds of its adherents.
As a postgraduate student in
the UK, Masoud's desire to overthrow the Shah and later the Khomeini
regime led him to join the Mojahedin, an organisation that demanded
total obedience and pseudo-spiritual identification with its charismatic
leadership; scrutinising every aspect of its members' lives. It
regularly 'purified' its ranks using psychological humiliation so severe
it drove some to breakdown and suicide.
The Mojahedin's
revolutionary fervour demanded total sacrifice. Masoud was pressured to
divorce his beloved wife; alienated from his family and career; left for
dead on the battlefields of Iraq and Iran; and separated for over a
decade from his children. Years later, following his defection as one of
the organisation's key personnel travelling between Europe, the US and
Iraq, Masoud has decided to tell his story.
Strikingly candid and
courageous, Masoud is a gripping personal narrative, a
passionate warning against the dangers of militancy and a shocking
exposé of the inner workings of the Mohajedin.
Masoud Banisadr
was born in Tehran in 1953. In 1976 he travelled to the UK, where he
obtained an MSc in Engineering and Mathematics from Reading University,
and joined the Mojahedin at the onset of the Iranian Islamic Revolution,
later working in its international media and diplomacy sections.
Banisadr defected from the organisation in 1996; he lives in London.