Status Updates From Iran: A Beginner's Guide

Ironically, the oil revenue explosion of 1973 and 1974 had negative consequences for the regime. It greatly enhanced its sense of self-confidence and its policies of repression. In March 1974, shortly after the fourfold increase in the oil prices, official party politics took a dramatic turn. The shah disbanded the official Mardom and Iran-e Novin parties and replaces them with the single National Resurgence party.

decry gharbzaedgi, or Weststruckness & advocate cultural authenticity and nativism.

the shah described his new regime as classless and reinterpreted the democratic Iranian constitution as nezam-e shahanshahi (the imperial system), essentially an absolute and arbitrary regime

But it was by no means economic factors alone, or even primarily, that determined the fundamental causes of the revolution of February 1979, when the whole of Iranian society, rich as well as poor, high as well as low, burst out in a historic revolt against the state.

The shah's strategy of economic development led to constraints, bottlenecks and inflationary pressures and, above all, the frustration of expectations, despite the fact that almost all sections of the population had gained in welfare over the period 1963-1977. Such an economic landscape contributed to social discontent and revolutionary trends.

Having given himself the title Aryamehr (Aryan Sun) in the mid 1960's, the clearest manifestation of the shah's pan-Persian Aryanism was the fabulous international celebrations, in October 1971, of the 2500th anniversary of the Persian empire, at the cost of $22 million when the country's annual income per head was around $350.

Senator Hasan Akbar said as early as 1964:
His Majesty is trying to become both Xerxes and Fidel Castro; but this is impossible.

Mohammad Mosaddeq (1882-1967) lead the movement fro the nationalization of Iranian oil - known as the Popular Movement of Iran - from 1950/1951.
Mosaddeq was elected prime minister in April 1951. The oil dispute having dragged on and remained unsettled, his government was overthrown in August 1953 by a combination of foreign and domestic forces. He was jailed and banished for the rest of his life.

Mohammad Reza Shah rule:
1941-1953 the period of turmoil and democratic experiments, the shah was a constitutional monarch
1953 coup
1954-1963 the shah was a dictator
1963-1979 the shah became an absolute and arbitrary ruler
February 1979 revolution

Compulsory unveiling was received very badly by the large majority of women. In Europe it would have been tantamount to a decree declaring that women must go out topless.

Iraj, the leading satirical poet, wrote against hejab and blind marriage arrangements, and emphasized that the covering of hands and faces by women was contrary to the teaching of the Qur'an. Around 1918, the nationalist poet Eshqi wrote the long poem entitled The Black Shroud which ended with the verse:
As long as women live in shrouds
Half of the Iranian people are not alive

Regarding the educational system
History and literature glorified ancient Persia, denigrated Arabs and Turks, ignored the numerous Iranian ethnic groups which included Turks and Arabs, and pretended that Persian was the only language spoken in Iran.

The indefatigable justice minister Ali Akbar Davar made great reforms to the judiciary, which was almost a faithful copy of the French system with suitable adjustments in the case of certain criminal and civil laws to the requirements of shari'a law. It was done with efficiency and dedication, though it could not server more than 5% of the population because the great majority were poor and illiterate

1920's forced sedentarization
military campaigns against the nomads
disarm the tribes for the 1st time in history
see Kaveh Bayat
"this programme took a very brutal, and in some cases, genocidal form."
After the shah's abdication in 1941, almost all settled nomads returned to nomadic life

Ataturk was not an arbitrary ruler like the traditional Ottoman sultans and caliphs, he was not financially corrupt and, unlike Reza Shah, neither he nor his army and bureaucracy liberally took other peoples' lives and property.

Reza Shah has often been compared to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, whom he both admired and tried to emulate. The comparison is understandable but misleading. Ataturk was a modern dictator who strove to modernize Turkish politics along with his nationalist and modernist drive, in other words creating a secular nation state and modernizing the economy and society.

They sometimes wrote qasidehs (long odes) that even an expert might take for a classical one if it was presented blind to him or her. Fatollah Khan Sheybani - that unhappy poet - is a shining example of those who imitated the classics almost perfectly. And just as they had harshly and hastily castigated their predecessors, they themselves were rejected with contempt by the modern literary critics of the 20th century.

a reversion to the classics (10th to 16th centuries) was justified. 19th century poets and their works were certainly better than their 18th century counterparts, and they did salvage Persian poetry from the sorry state towards which it had declined.