This is a follow up post to Part 1.
The factors behind the Iranian Revolution are debated among historians. It is generally agreed reaction to the Shah’s White Revolution is the main cause. Prior to the White Revolution the aristocracy and theocratic elite held power. They plotted to reverse the Shah’s reforms.
The White Revolution brought economic prosperity and freedoms the Iranian people had not known. Between it’s institution in 1963 and the late 70’s people began to take these things for granted. A 20 year old university student in 1979 (born in 1959) did not remember life before the Shah’s rule. The natural rebelliousness, inexperience and restlessness of youth is easily exploited.
Jalal al-E-Ahamad was a Iranian professor, writer and son of an Islamic cleric. He adopted standard anti capitalist rhetoric to influence the youth. He drew from Karl Marx and Frantz Fanon to paint Western society as a colonizing influence. He coined the term gharbzadegi; intoxication with Western ways.
Basically the reforms the Shah had instituted against feudalism, just as 19th century Europe was changing around Marx, were painted as feudalism. The capitalist reforms that took power away from feudal lords and churches were framed as being themselves feudal. The dark history of the feudal society was blamed on the new democratic societies. It’s like fascist, double speak rhetoric.
The Shah began to vehemently embrace Persian identity. Some diplomats thought he was starting to lose his mind. In 1971 he held the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire open to foreign dignitaries only. The event cost between $17 and $21 million. A drought was occurring at the same time.
By late 1974 the oil boom had begun to produce not “the Great Civilization” promised by the Shah, but an “alarming” increase in inflation and waste and an “accelerating gap” between the rich and poor, the city and the country… The next year the Rastakhiz political party was created. It became not only the only party Iranians were permitted to belong to, but one the “whole adult population” was required to belong and pay dues to. Wikipedia
In 1976, the Shah’s government angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the Great. “Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535.”The same year the Shah declared economic austerity measures to dampen inflation and waste. The resulting unemployment disproportionately affected the thousands of recent poor and unskilled migrants to the cities Wikipedia
Iran was experiencing a religious revival for some strange reason, and the popularity of the Ayatollah was rising.
To replace the shah’s regime Khomeini developed the ideology of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) as government, postulating that Muslims – in fact everyone – required “guardianship,” in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists. Such rule would protect Islam from deviation from traditional sharia law, and in so doing eliminate poverty, injustice, and the “plundering” of Muslim land by foreign unbelievers. Establishing and obeying this Islamic government was “actually an expression of obedience to God”, ultimately “more necessary even than prayer and fasting” in Islam, and a commandment for all the world, not one confined to Iran Wikipedia
As the Islamic movement gained steam Shah Pahlavi’s regime felt more threatened. They began to crack down on Islamists. This reaction turned into popular sympathy for the followers of Khomeini.
Most of the groups behind the Iranian Revolution sought a return to the Iranian Constitution of 1906. These groups lacked the military training and loyalty of Ayatollah Khomeini’s forces. They were mainly middle class and had been educated in Iran’s university system.
Other opposition groups included constitutionalist liberals, the democratic, reformist Islamic Freedom Movement of Iran, headed by Mehdi Bazargan, and the more secular National Front. Communist groups—primarily the Tudeh Party of Iran and the Fedaian guerrillas had been weakened considerably by government repression. Despite this the guerrillas did help play an important part in the final February 1979 overthrow delivering “the regime its coup de grace The most powerful guerrilla group, the People’s Mujahedin, was leftist Islamist and opposed the influence of the clergy. Wikipedia
Does any of this seem familiar?