Changes in Iran After the Islamic Revolution

Iran was now unprotected, and a new power came into being. The Arabs invaded and the quality of life changed. “People fell into poverty as the greedy court imposed ever-increasing taxes. Tyranny tore apart the social contract between ruler and ruled that Zoroastrian doctrine holds to be the basis of organized life” (21). The Iranian people couldn’t survive with a ruler who had no sympathy or respect for them. Their life was being over run by foreigners.

This was one reverse too far, for Iran's young “cherish a packet of grievances, ranging from the acute shortage of jobs to the social restrictions that ban most boy- and-girl outings. Restrictive though it is, the system allows discussion of these complaints, and many niggling rules have been quietly eased since Mr. Khatami took over” (Anonymous Iran's second revolution? 13). It was, however, after the police and their allies, the Islamist bully-boy militia, raided the dormitories in Tehran University, where they killed at least one student and probably more, that the shout for change began to penetrate “out-of-bounds areas. The students started to call for fundamental reforms, questioning the legitimacy of clerical control” (Anonymous Iran's second revolution? 13). They even went so far as to challenge the sacrosanct heart of Iran's Islamist edifice, the ultimate authority of the “supreme leader.”

The reformation of the country of Iran toward Islam caused turmoil among the people because the drastic changes forced on the people were not easily accepted. One of the major changes is that

In the late 1970's, the world was hit with the events of the Iranian Revolution, a movement in which the Shah was overthrown in replacement with Ayatollah Khomeini. Causes for this movement included the economic, political, and socio-economic conditions in Iran before the Revolution. Economically, the Shah's hopes for the country ended up being their downfalls while politically, the Shah's ruling as a dictator prohibited the freedom of the Iranians. Socio-economically, the Shah didn't place much emphasis on religion, angering the majority of the population. The overthrow of the Shah led to the uprise of a religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, a figure supported by many. Unlike advice

Early in the 1960s, the Shah announced social and economic reforms but refused to grant broad political freedoms. Iranian nationalist condemned the Shah and his U.S. supported regime and accused him of “westernizing” of Iran. Between 1963 and

With the new regime gaining control of the country everyone’s lifestyle had to change. All bi-lingual schools must be closed down. They are a symbol of capitalism. Of decadence. This is called a “Cultural Revolution” (Satrapi 4). Those were words spoken by the Shah. The transformation happened overnight. The country was divided once again. People wanted the freedom to be religious at the same time maintaining a modern lifestyle. The country was divided for and against the war. Those against the war were in possible danger of losing their lives if the government found out about their political views. The government controlled the power and held the citizens oppressed. Dissident political activism, absent for seventeen years among college students, has resurfaced in the Iranian political scene as of early 1997. (Mashayekhi 283) The Cultural Revolution has returned. Similar to the revolution of 1980 that lasted three years this revolution began with the protest of freedom of press after the shutdown of the Salaam. It seems like a never

As Susy Kassem once said, “Just like freedom, truth is not cheap. Yet both are worth more than all the gold in the world. But what is freedom, if there is no truth? And what is truth, if there is no freedom? Both are worth fighting for – because one without the other would be hell” (Kassem). In the beginning of 1980, the Cultural Revolution began, and with it the people of Iran fought back against the existing regime. The government oppressed the citizens by changing their education into a religious based system and forcing the women to wear veils, stripping them of both their truth and their freedom. Refusing to conform, the revolutionists had to secretly rebel while hiding from the government and their neighbors. In Marjane Satrapi’s

Imagine one day you wake up in a box, where you are told what to do, what to wear how to live and all your freedom has been taking away from you. This was how ilife was like during the Islamic Revolution. The Islamic Revolution was a revolution to overthrow the monarchy government of Iran and identify themselves as an Islamic State. The Islamic Revolution took place during the years 1978 to 1979 . Over 60,000 people lost their lives and many more lost their basic human rights, such as the increasing amount of executions and lack of fair trials (Afray). After the revolution, the Iranians lost their freedom of speech, political freedom and lowered gender inequality rates.

However, the ideas had already spread throughout the Iranian people and religious protesting escalated continuously. People’s ideas of recreating a religious based government persisted to an unstoppable level. Khomeini, whom many protesters felt to be a hero, said in a speech in 1979, “Do not try to westernize everything you have! Look at the West, and see who the people are in the West that present themselves as champions of human rights and what their aims are. Is it human rights they really care about, or the rights of the superpowers? What they really want to secure are the rights of the superpowers. Our jurists should not follow or imitate them” (Ayatollah Khomeini: speech on the uprising of Khurdad 15, 2010). Based on this quote, the “voice” of the protesting Iranians was that westernization was not a good thing because the west does not care for human rights and freedoms of the lesser powers in the world and that the way to change for the better is to impose the Islamic values that already existed into society. In January of 1979, the Shah fled the country under the pressure of the people and Khomeini returned to Iran to be greeted as a hero (Bentley & Ziegler, n.d., p. 1117). Fighting erupted between Khomeini’s supporters and remaining military officials and on the eleventh of February the government fell. On the first of April, Khomeini proclaimed the beginning of the new Islamic republic (Islamic

The emergence of the Islamic Republic in late 1970’s Iran demonstrates how middle class Iranian people purged themselves of the Pahlavi Dynasty in an effort to continue down a more righteous and egalitarian path. As a result, the country underwent a complete social upheaval and in its place grew an overtly oppressive regime based in theoretical omnipotence. In response to this regime, the very structure of political and social life was shaken and fundamentally transformed as religion and politics became inexorable. As a result, gender roles and the battle between public and private life were redrawn. Using various primary and secondary sources I will show how the Revolution shaped secular middle class Iranians. Further, I will show how the

In the year 1979, one day the Islamic Revolution started because they did not like the king. In the book Marjane says, “ Down with the king”(10). Marjane's point was they did not support the king's decisions because they affect their society. This changed Iran in the way the rules are they were more strict.

During the Iranian Revolution in 1979 transformed Iran’s political,social,and economic structure. Secular Laws were replaced with Islamic laws creating an outburst. Women were often abused,raped,treated as slaves,and accused of false imprisonment. These tortures things that most women had to face are against the Islamic religion.

The late 20th century saw many social changes, especially for Iranian women. One of the changes involves the education system. For example, Satrapi once attended a non-religious French school that was co-ed. Then after the revolution, the government forced her and other females to go to an all girl school with an uniform that included wearing a veil. The government believed that males and females should be separated in schools and that bilingual schools are “symbols of capitalism” (3-4). Another example is the way women dressed, especially in public. As mentioned earlier, girls had to wear veils in

Before the revolution, Shah Reza Pahlavi was the ruler of Iran. Under his leadership power was clustered and concentrated among his close allies and networks of friends and others with whom he had close relations. By 1970s, the gap between the poor and the rich was widening and huge distrust about his economic policies grew. Resentment towards his autocratic leadership grew fuelling people to dissent his regime further. Shah now was considered an authoritarian who took full control of the Iran government preventing the Iranians from expressing their opinion. The government has transformed from the traditional monarchial form of government to authoritarian with absolute authority replacing individual freedom of the Iranians. This transformation to Iranian was unacceptable because they needed to control their own affairs. They wanted self-government where they could take control as opposed to what Shah was doing. Shah was seen as a western puppet for embracing authoritarian form of government (Axworthy, 2016).

Various factors influenced the 1979 Iranian revolution, but at the core of this significant event was Islamic fundamentalism. The Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, led this movement to end the thirty-seven-year reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, also known as the Shah of Iran (Diller 1991, p.152). The revolution was a combination of mounting social, economic, political and religious strains. The nation of Iran was never colonized, unlike some of its bordering countries, making its people intolerant of external influences. The Shah had gradually westernized and secularized his country, creating a strong American presence that was being felt