The Shah’s drive to modernize Iran in the 1960s and 1970s transformed what was a largely agrarian based society into an industrialized one. The main beneficiaries of this move were the Pahlavi family and a few Iranian industrialists. Those workers who moved from the countryside to Iran’s major cities seeking job opportunities were the ones who suffered the negative effects of this modernization program’s unsustainable pace. Furthermore, the billions of dollars in oil revenues were mainly invested in modernizing projects of transport infrastructure and the military. Affiliation with the Pahlavi family was the criteria through which the contracts for these projects were attributed. Together with massive corruption and wasted resources, the rate of inflation rose steadily. The Shah’s regime grew increasingly militarized and repressive towards freedoms of speech and of the press. And the Shah was largely perceived within the country as a puppet of foreign interests, namely of the US.
In the face of such precarious government, there was no single sector in Iranian society—the upper class, the modern middle class, the abandoned working class—that was not deeply dissatisfied with the Shahs’ rule. The more vocal protestors were the jobless students, many of whom were to study in the United States and become advocates of freedom. The Shah’s reforms also clashed with Iran’s Ulama, until then highly independent from state authorities, due to the government’s meddling in the areas of education and law. The Shah reacted by shutting down several religious schools and by trying to enforce an apolitical Shi’ism obedient to the monarchy. Iran’s clerical establishment, and Khomeini in particular (exiled since 1964 for accusing the Shah of undermining national sovereignty), thus became an active part of the opposition to the Shah.
Iran’s religious establishment was one among the variety of disenchanted social groups—and the most resourceful. All these groups came together in one single movement united in the opposition to the Shah, and around the goal of creating a new state. As Patriakarakos explains the 1978 protests in Tehran, “The people marched and then, en masse, they prayed. But 90% of them didn’t know how—they just copied the mullahs.” Indeed, one of the slogans of the revolution became an all-encompassing “Freedom, Independence and Islamic government”. However, after the Shah’s removal, the differences within this coalition, particularly between secular and religious groups, became obvious. Upon Khomeini’s return, he quickly consolidated his power among religious groups, and drove away the secular ones, opening the way for the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the referendum to decide on the adoption of an Islamic Republic, 98% of the Iranian population voted in favour.
The Iranian revolution can be seen as Islamic in the sense that religion did play an important role in mobilizing the revolt against the Shah, and the religious establishment was one of the most important opposition groups. Essentially, Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic came to replace the leadership vacuum that was left after the Shah was deposed. In his defense of Islamic values, Khomeini came to personalize the promise of a leader that would secure a better future for the Iranian people.
Moving forward to present times, some parallels are being drawn between the Shah’s absolute loss of legitimacy, and the magnitude of the protests advocating the illegitimacy of President Ahmadinejad, but also that of Khamenei himself. There are indeed some parallels in the lack of civil liberties, the ruthlessness of security forces, the oil revenues which are not reaching a majority of the population, and rising inflation. Furthermore, there is massive corruption, in which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is deeply involved. As Karim Sadjadpour recently wrote in The Majalla, “Khamenei’s Iran is no longer an Islamic Republic, but a tight-knit cartel of hardline clergymen and nouveau riche Revolutionary Guardsmen.”
In spite of these parallels, the magnitude of today’s protests seems to be exaggerated by many observers to the extent that they ignore the considerable percentage of the Iranian population who still backs Ahmadinejad. More importantly, and despite the slogans such as “death to Khamenei”, today’s protests do not aim to defy the character of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but aim at the legitimacy of the current government. As Najah Mohammed Ali wrote in The Majalla, “Political insiders say the situation now is a revolution within the Islamic Revolution itself.” What we are witnessing is “a struggle between supporters of the “Islamic Republic”, with all its institutions and election mechanisms, and advocates of transforming it into an “Islamic government”.
So, is what we are witnessing today, with the massive protests in the streets of Iran’s major cities, a revolt against Iran’s Theocracy? It seems not. The main issue, as in the Shah’s era, is bad governance. The ongoing protests are not a revolt against the ideal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but against the way it’s being run.
Manuel Almeida
