hello brothers
after the 1979 revolution, the shah was abolished and Iran was now an islamic republic, some would consider this the downfall of iran, and to be honest i agree
what are your thoughts and opinions?
Thoughts on the current political situation in iran?
Posts
Total:
74
-->
@Aryanman
From what I've read, women's rights were improving under the Shah of Iran, but the improvements made, went to the wayside, after the Shah fell from power.
I've also heard that the Shah's regime had numerous flaws, as well as a large amount of corruption.
But I've never looked into the subject deeply, I just have shallow impressions of Iran and hearsay from others.
-->
@Lemming
some say revolution happened because shah was taking his way too quickly and maybe if he slowed down iran would have been a great country today and many muslims did not like the women's rights part
also here is an interesting video where shah criticizes Britain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imil1iIpIYA
-->
@Aryanman
As I glance over the Wikipedia article for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, I see this
Some achievements of the Shah—such as broadened education—had unintended consequences. While school attendance rose (by 1966 the school attendance of urban seven- to fourteen-year-olds was estimated at 75.8%), Iran's labour market could not absorb a high number of educated youth. In 1966, high school graduates had "a higher rate of unemployment than did the illiterate", and the educated unemployed often supported the revolution.[277]
And I am reminded of a book I read 3-5 years ago.
The Psychology of Dictatorship by Fathali M. Moghaddam
I don't remember 'most of the book, but I 'do remember one piece of it. Let me find the book and page. . .
Ah, there it is, page 66,
"How does one explain revolutions such as one in Iran in 1978-1979 when the 1973 oil price increases resulted in a huge boom the the Iranian economy? I was a student in England at the time and regularly visited Iran in the 1970s; the economy was rapidly expanding. Why did a revolution come about in an expanding economy? This gets at the heart of another paradox discussed by various researchers (J.C. Davies, 1974; Runciman, 1966):
Revolutions often take place during periods of economic growth.
The key to this paradox seems to be feelings of relative depravation arising out of rising expectations. A central psychological component of this process is the social comparisons people make (Corconan, Crusius, & Mussweiler, 2011), particularly at the intergroup level (Taylor, Moghaddam, & Bellerose, 1989) In assessing their own situation, people make comparisons with themselves as they expected to be. For example Ahmed compares himself with particular others around him, but he also compares his situation with the situation he expected to have (as Lamiell, 2003, demonstrated, people often come to assess their situation by comparing themselves to the persons they could be) When what Ahmed expected to have is far better than what he actually has - for example, he expected to be driving a new car but is instead taking the bus - he feels relatively deprived. Leaders can manipulate feelings of relative deprivation by influencing the social comparisons people make.
Manipulating Relative Deprivation
In Iran during the 1970s, expectations were rising faster than actual income, so that feelings of deprivation grew despite improving standards of living. The Shah and his cronies actually speeded up this process by suggesting that Iran was becoming the Switzerland of the Middle East. This was a fatal mistake because rising expectations among Iranians resulted in discontent with the Shah's regime. In contrast Khomeini seemed to have a natural instinct for dealing with such situations when he came to power. Instead of trying to meet expectations, or raise expectations with lofty promises, he dramatically lowered expectations after the revolution.
This was a reversal of course because before the revolution, Khomeini had raised expectations and highlighted how Iranians were deprived and how the Shah's regime was failing to provide adequate services to the Iranian population. In taped speeches that were smuggled into Iran and circulated widely (I personally listened to a number of these tapes), Khomeini made exciting promises about how the living conditions would improve for Iranians after the revolution and how they would receive free government services and enjoy a higher standard of living (These early, prerevolution speeches have been wiped clean from the postrevolution records within Iran). But after the revolution and the consolidation of his monopoly on power, Khomeini radically changed his message: This world is of no value, and material things are worthless! We must strive to please God and only think of our fate in the next world! The material life is not of value; we must dedicate ourselves to the spiritual life! By dramatically lowering the expectations about material conditions and living standards in this material world, Khomeini shifted the discourse and lowered expectations among Iranians." - The Psychology of Dictatorship by Fathali M. Moghaddam
Watched the video,
Shah Of Iran Critisizing Britain
I think he makes fair points, and had reasonable expectations of his country continuing on course, to be of a more equal position, not exploited of foreign powers.
no it isnt the downfall of iran, not much ahs changed other than the political ideology of the rulers
-->
@Dr.Franklin
TBH i think islam ruins nations in modern times. christianity, Zoroastrianism or bahaism would be much better for iran
-->
@Aryanman
yeah sure
-->
@Aryanman
I'd imagine for near all religions, same as governments. They go through different iterations, versions I mean, of their practice.
Changes occurring due to time, distance, events that shape.
I don't know much about Islam, Zoroastrianism or Bahaism myself.
-->
@Aryanman
We should air-drop feminist literature into all of their cities. That'll show 'em. Nothing destroys a nation quicker than importation of our cancerous liberal-degenerate culture.
About the nukes.... it's going to happen sooner or later if it hasn't already (we have been fearmongering about it for a decade).
They want nukes so that we don't bully them and pull what we did to Saddam. They aren't going to use them the second they get one. Pakistan has had nukes for decades and has been fine.
I don't support global policing, so I'm not inclined to care.
-->
@Aryanman
Be careful what you say. That's jot a threat it's a genuinely friendly warning.
Everything you typed in this thread is violating blasphemy laws of Iran at the very, very least.
-->
@coal
@Aryanman
coal is well informed on this subject. I'll tag him and perhaps he'll weigh in.
-->
@oromagi
@Aryanman
Thank you for thinking of me. I might try to hunt down some comments I've made here and maybe in another context where I lay out my thoughts on Iran in greater detail.
But briefly, I would welcome the day that the United States and Iran are once more allies, as we were before the so called Iranian revolution and as we will be once more when the current regime yields to the will of the Iranian people. Iran is a beautiful country with a rich culture and vibrant tradition of leadership regionally and beyond. There is so much potential, currently wasted, under the status quo. It is tragic. The Iranian people have so much to offer the world.
-->
@Aryanman
Iran is a Nation of people controlled by backwards thinking bullies.
Backwards thinking bullies who themselves were controlled by backwards thinking bullies.
If you teach your kids nonsense, they will grow up believing in nonsense.
Such is culture.
-->
@zedvictor4
do you hate iran?
-->
@Aryanman
I've never been there so I wouldn't know.
If you mean do I hate all Iranians....Then no.....I don't hate any Iranians
I just dislike backwards thinking.....Particularly stupid religious ideology and the forced conditioning thereof.
-->
@Aryanman
I'm curious. How many apostates have you met in Iran? I'm assuming you live there. I want you to include apostates who were forced to apologize for apostatizing and apostates who remain incredibly secretive in their life.
-->
@Lemming
I'd imagine for near all religions, same as governments. They go through different iterations, versions I mean, of their practice....
I'm sure you know this but what you said doesn't apply to Islam. During the Umayyads, Greek influence was prevalent. According to muslim historians, they were inevitably removed by argumentation (lol) because succeeding imams found greek-inspired ulamas incredibly erroneous. I think Islam now is the version conceived during the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
I chose to apostatize specifically for this reason: that I prefer the philosophers of the west rather than the east. My opinion.
-->
@MarkWebberFan
ive only met few, less than 20
-->
@MarkWebberFan
@Aryanman
I am largely ignorant of Islam.
Religion I'm most familiar with is (General) Christianity, which has seen 'many denominations, changes.
So it's likely I make erroneous comparisons.
Though I suppose Catholics might maintain fairly solid solidarity, and consistency in their beliefs, given their common ties to the Pope and the Catholic Church.
But it 'does seem to me when glancing about history, that religions, depending on the countries practiced in, the leaders, amount of war at times, aggression. End up fairly tolerant at times, or intolerant, but 'depending on time and circumstance.
I've been given to understanding that at various times and locations, Islam has been a religion tolerant of the existence and practice of religions different than it's own?
Going by Wikipedia, because of my shallow knowledge.
-->
@Lemming
...I've been given to understanding that at various times and locations, Islam has been a religion tolerant of the existence and practice of religions different than it's own?"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error...
Well, that's a lot to unpack. First of all, the application of that verse requires the obligated help of the Hadith (sayings of the prophet). If you ignore the latter, you're branded as a Quranist which means you're not really a muslim. Since you've said a lot about history in your post, I'll end the implications of being a Quranist here and move on to more relevant things.
In medieval times, it is perhaps the most tolerant. Non-muslims (though branded derogatorily) are only obligated to pay Jizya (non-muslim tax) and they enjoy equal protection under muslim empires. If you look up medieval publications, Jewish authors tend to co-write with Muslim authors.
Unfortunately, that's where tolerance ends. For new converts, especially women, you are forbidden to leave Islam. You will always be branded a muslim and any attempts to convert out will inevitably lands you a one way-ticket to senior clerics/scholars. Even if you disagreed with their attempts to revert you back to islam, you're just inviting yourself to be slapped with a death sentence. I want to note that such sentences are rarely carried out because apostates prefer to live a secretive life. Islam is not "tolerant"; its believers will believe in this apostate ruling until the day of judgment and will still think it's right to apply death sentences to ordinary citizens. They'll call you evil and relish in the fact that they've carried out a command from god.
A good general rule for observing how Islam works is to think like the muslims themselves. For muslims, the scholars (ulama) represent islam. For example, when Islamic empires reached peak power, their philosophical guidance is largely directed by scholars: the Asharis and muatazis. Both were initially influenced by Greek philosophers. As such, reason-based philosophy was regularly applied in religious rulings. However, their dominance lasted less than a century. The Muatazis were the first to disappear as succeeding imams found that greek philosophy perverted Islam. For example, imam Ghazali wrote the "The incoherence of the philosophers" as a starting critique of greek-inspired ulamas. Plenty of other new ulamas follow suit. What you have now is the exact religious ideology prescribed by the prophet himself.
Since you live in the US, Id say that ilhan Omar is a moderate. Muslims will brand her as a deviant (which isnt bad for the west). It is a strong word -- used sparingly to denote muslims who are "lost in the forest". You should only start worrying if muslims start flocking to her in large numbers.
-->
@MarkWebberFan
Your explanation is appreciated.
the current political situation in iran
after the 1979 revolution
One of these things is not like the other lol.
-->
@oromagi
@Aryanman
I have written pretty extensively on Iran, pre- and post- revolution, in other contexts (here and elsewhere). And this is a perspective some may be familiar with if you've encountered some of the things I've said before. Here is the relevant timeline, abbreviated of course:
- In 1951, Mossadegh was appointed to be prime minister by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
- Mossadegh was a nationalist reformer, and introduced a number of political changes, several of which were widely popular among Iran's cities, youth and rising professional class. This is important because at the time, Iran was little more than a feudal economy.
- As a part of Mossadegh's "reforms," he unilaterally nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company --- i.e., British Petroleum's predecessor --- including its assets, wells and refineries. Months later, Iranian oil exports essentially ceased (which continued well into 1952) as a result of this decision.
- Mossadegh blamed sabotage, but in reality it was because he didn't know how to run the wells or refineries.
- By late 1951, opposition to Mossadegh's "reforms" had grown.
- While always unpopular with Iran's religious/conservative elements; his so called progressive reforms translated into rapidly deteriorating economic conditions inside Iran.
- The youth "activists" who once stood behind him became dissatisfied with what they regarded as a frustration of their vision for the future of Iran. As such, they were united with the religious/conservative elements in their opposition to Mossadegh.
- Mossadegh blamed British intelligence for his unpopularity among both groups. However, at most, British and American intelligence did little more than encourage forces already in motion and opposition held by a growing majority of the Iranian electorate. Mossadegh's decision to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and its assets, again, was to blame for the lack of oil revenue coming into the Iranian economy.
- The British government tried, repeatedly, to negotiate with Mossadegh, though their efforts at peaceful resolution bore no fruit. Mossadegh took a hardline position against the British and in October 1952, declared England an enemy of the people of Iran and ended all formal diplomatic relations.
- The United States had largely ignored Mossadegh, up to this point. Washington regarded this as England's crisis, though once Mossadegh severed diplomatic ties with the UK concerns, Washington feared Mossadegh would turn to the Soviet Union for support.
- Washington's concern was not, contrary to several speculative, revisionist accounts, to protect British access to Iran's oil --- as that would have been counterproductive to their own interests. American-interested Saudi Aramco doubled production and gained considerable market share of global oil exports after Mossadegh's nationalizing the Anglo-Persian Oil Company --- directly benefiting the United States.
- In 1953, the United States and British Intelligence coordinated primarily to finance what is now known as Operation Ajax.
- This measure was intended to restore the Shah's rule, dismiss Mossadegh and replace him with Fazlollah Zahedi and Abbas Farzanegan --- who would restore the Iranian economy and resume Iranian oil production, reversing Mossadegh's expropriation of British assets.
- However, as a condition of restoring the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's assets, the former British monopoly on Iranian oil was ended and international competition was permitted. The Shah argued that this helped reduce British influence in Iranian politics, and created economic conditions for vast public infrastructure spending and modernization.
- From 1978-1979, a series of events took place that resulted in Shah Reza Pahlavi's overthrow and replacement with the current theocratic Iranian government (and its successor leaders).
- This so called "revolution" was the result of naive leftist students who were exploited and manipulated into believing that they were somehow "allied" with the religious/conservative elements of Iran's political environment.
- The Islamist right of Iran claimed that they and the leftist students they manipulated had a common enemy in "Western imperialism," which they passed off as causing Iran's economic decline following Mossadegh's nationalizing the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
- Mossadegh's actions were the sole proximate cause of that economic downturn; not "Western imperialism" or other such nonsense. Yet, the 1953 actions were cited by Iranian religious extremists who led Iran's so called "revolution" as evidence of western influence in Iran's domestic politics, and continue to profoundly exaggerate the CIA's role in interfering with Iranian domestic politics to this day.
- It turned out that the students who conspired with Iran's religious fundamentalists were sold a bill of goods. They wanted more of Mossadegh's secular nationalist reforms; instead they got fundamentalist theocracy, a tragedy yet to be rectified to this day.
- Most Iranians do not have the kind of deeply held animosity towards the United States that figures of the Iranian government have articulated. They, especially the older generation of Iranians who remember life before 1979, see Khamenei's nonsense for exactly what it is.
I regard these events as tragic. Invariably, this could have been avoided. Yet it was not. And we are here. The Iranian people live with this history every day, though with the younger generations' increasing connection to the outside world I expect to see the day that the current regime is destroyed. I expect to see the day when Iranian-American relations normalize, where we trade with Iran once more as we did before Mossadegh's catastrophic series of failures.
It is only a matter of time. However bad things are now, there is cause for hope in the years and generations to come.
-->
@coal
This is a pretty good timeline.
-->
@Aryanman
Thanks
-->
@Lemming
@Aryanman
Lemming Wrote:
From what I've read, women's rights were improving under the Shah of Iran, but the improvements made, went to the wayside, after the Shah fell from power. I've also heard that the Shah's regime had numerous flaws, as well as a large amount of corruption.
Aryanman Wrote:
ome say revolution happened because shah was taking his way too quickly and maybe if he slowed down iran would have been a great country today and many muslims did not like the women's rights part
Both of you are correct, and each of the Shah's conspicuously western/liberal ideas and policies as well as the speed at which he was implementing those changes played a role. The Shah, for example, profoundly expanded women's access to education, employment opportunities and political representation. Those reforms prompted a tremendous backlash among the religious/conservative elements of Iranian society.
For his part, the Shah responded to political opposition with violence and repression. In particular, 1957, "SAVAK" or "the National Intelligence and Security Organization" (read: Iran's "secret police" similar to the NKVD) was basically given carte blanche power to investigate opponents of the Shah, arrest them, indefinitely without filing charges and torture them into confession.
The problem here wasn't that the Shah expressly ratified all of these practices at the scale they were practiced, so much as SAVAK interpreted the Shah's intent broadley and without restriction. Disappearances of those suspected to rival the Shah became common, among both leftist socialists who opposed the Shah's economic liberalization (the delusional students who later would be manipulated into supporting the so called Iranian revolution by Iran's religious/conservative elements) and Islamist extremists who opposed the Shah's social reforms.
That being said, in this day and age most of what SAVAK was engaged in between the 1950s and 1970s would fall into the category of "counterinsurgency" and "counterterrorism," as opposed to something like NKVD or KGB-style internal political repression. Notably, verifiable estimates as to the scale of these repressive measures are hard to come by. Khomeini accused the Shah of imprisoning somewhere between 100k - 300k people over those decades and having killed more than 100k people --- but this is absurd. The real figure is probably around 1/100th of that, although this remains disputed.
While SAVAK's actions are the main source of the "corruption" charge, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's lack of regard for appearances did not help his domestic political standing. For example, the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire is typically regarded as the straw that broke the camel's back. While the intent of the celebration was to demonstrate Iran's ancient civilization and history and to showcase its contemporary advances; in reality this spectacular exercise in largess and vanity almost certainly contributed to events that resulted in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
The New York Times described it accordingly:
The cocktail reception was held shortly before sundown in the gardens of pink and red geraniums and 10‐foot rose bushes of the exquisitely tiled stucco Bagh‐e Eram, a public palace. Invited were perhaps 600 courtiers, affluent Iranians, visiting Iranologists, scholars and the press—not the presidents, prime ministers, assorted royalty and highly placed commoners from 63 countries due here for the national celebration.
The guests, mostly strangers to one another, stood in little clusters. The Austrians searched out other Austrians and the French hunted up the French while waiters in dinner jackets passed drinks on mirrored trays.
It was a very simple party, particularly in view of the partridge stuffed with foie gras and truffles Maxim's of Paris is preparing for Thursday's dinner honoring the heads of state.
Aside from the dabs of runof‐the‐mill caviar in tiny pastry cups, the hors d'oeuvres, apparently prepared by the Shah's chef, ran to hot dog cubes with mustard, deviled eggs and bread squares topped with garlic‐flavored salami and maraschino cherries.
The "haves" were invited. The "have nots" were left out.
Further reading: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/12/18/letter-from-iran
-->
@coal
Interesting read, both the post and the further reading.
-->
@coal
Very good historical summary.
Venezuela's nationalization of oil suffered from the same problems as Iran did. Especially with the replacement of experienced petroleum engineers and mechanics with political supporters and family, increasing the cost of production to the point where they were vulnerable to competitive market forces and price shocks.
-->
@Greyparrot
@Lemming
Thank you. Make no mistake though, my sympathy is, has always been and will remain with the Shah. However imperfect and flawed, he was a reliable and trustworthy ally who in the final analysis had Iran's best interest at heart with an eye for his country's future.
-->
@coal
How ought the establishment respond to unrest in a country, I wonder?
Machiavelli said "it is much better to be feared than loved."
But that it's important to "avoid inducing hatred."
Certainly the people seemed to become upset enough in time, to rally in great numbers,
Going by the Shah in Iran, 'or Louis XVI of France, extravagance, 'apparent corruption, 'apparent incompetency, or straying from the idealized path, often seems to irritate the people. Inducing their hatred of their current affairs.
I suppose if the Shah had gone for a more 'limited monarchy, for example your article mentioned
"He said that he favored a return to the constitution of 1906—a document that a liberal movement with support from the clergy had wrung from the Qajar dynasty, which preceded the family of the present Shah. The 1906 constitution provided for, among other things, a supreme council of five religious leaders who would have a veto right over all laws. “If they found the laws repugnant to Islam or to principles of justice or against the interests of the majority,” Shariatmadari said, “they could reject them.”
Reminds me of American Supreme Court.