Moral Accounting An Activist Draws Interest at the Bank
By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page C01 Shirin Ebadi's big day at the World Bank, her first visit to Washington since winning the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, began outside, on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the chill wind of a very gray morning. She was immaculate in a light blue pantsuit, better suited to August, and her hair and makeup were television-worthy. It was just after 9 and she was about to spend the next six hours meeting the suits.
Hair, makeup, clothing -- none of this matters much, except that Ebadi has an untouchable, remote, hands-off quality that is seamless, from the way she looks to the way she talks to the way she moves through a room. The Iranian lawyer, the first Muslim woman to win the Peace Prize, is a civil rights activist, a champion of women and children's issues, a former magistrate in Iran and now a Nobel laureate traveling the world at breakneck speed, using the limelight while it lasts. She is never off-message. She has put on determination like a coat of armor, and there are no chinks in it.
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