White revolution in iran pdf

The military was purged and attempted coup plots within it against Khomeini were foiled Keddie ; Arjomand , Whereas Khomeini had initially banned the clergy from running for public office, in , he reversed this ban. Khamenei was elected president and the clerics tightened their control Wright What was western was considered decadent- part of an imperialist plot Nafisi Reminiscent of Robespierre and Lenin, after the bombing of the IRP headquarters in the summer of , a reign of terror began Moaddel , The Iranian Revolution had a contradictory relation to the revolutionary tradition.

The Islamic Civil Code instituted after the revolution contain many elements of Sharia law. Shiite law was modified and administered through the state. Reversing the policies of Reza Shah, the judiciary was desecularized and brought under the control of the clergy. The regime removed women from the bench.

Penalties such as flogging, amputation, stoning to death and crucifixion were reintroduced for adultery, homosexuality, and other sexual offenses. Sodomy was punishable by death. One of the forms of punishment was removal of the same organ that the offender has damaged.

Revolutionary courts and a morality police were established which enforced rules these rules Arjomand ,,, ; Moaddel ; Nafisi ; Keddie ; Afary , Under the new laws, women did not have the same rights as men.

They were considered to be worth one half of men The Family Protection Law was repealed. Polygamy, temporary marriage, child marriage age 9 for females was allowed. Women lost their rights in child custody and divorce.

The legal system again permitted honor killings. Adultery on the part of a woman was punishable by stoning. The government closed day care centers. Abortion was banned. Women were required to veil. Those who wore their veil too loosely, had strands of hair showing, wore makeup or nail polish were subject to 74 lashes or one year in prison. Women were forced out of the workplace and back into the home. The authorities prohibited women from participating in spectator sports. Men and women were segregated in public places including educational institutions Keddie ; Wright , ; Afary , , Parents did not marry off their daughters at age 9 and women were still allowed to have an education.

Paradoxically, the Islamist regime was both anti-modern and modern. At the time of the revolution, the universities were controlled by secularists and leftists. During the Cultural Revolution, the regime shut them down for three years and purged them. The national educational system was desecularized and brought under clerical control. There was an Islamization of the universities, in both curriculum and personnel.

Professors were dismissed and students were expelled. Men and women sat in separate sections of the classroom Moaddel ; Wright ; Nafisi Paradoxically, due to this more comfortable atmosphere for girls from traditional families, the number of women attending universities has increased.

During the Cultural Revolution, there was a repression of the arts and culture. The government censored books, art, film, radio, television, and film that were considered Un-Islamic.

Western style clothes including miniskirts, bikinis, and ties were banned. The government prohibited the use of sexuality in advertising. Women were required to wear modest Islamic attire. Liquor was prohibited- even wine from Shiraz. Gambling was prohibited Parsa ; Wright , 99, , , , In the Islamic Republic, wearing makeup paradoxically became an act cultural resistance against the regime Afary The government permitted Jews to drink wine Abrahamian ; Wright In the mid s, the regime eased many of the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution Wright ; Nafisi Whereas during the period between and Khomeini used radical rhetoric to mobilize the masses, beginning in he toned it down and instead focused on institutionalizing the revolution as the Islamic Republic of the propertied middle classes.

The Thermidorian reaction had begun Abrahamian The regime went though several phases in its suppression of the opposition. In the s, it engaged in mass executions.

Wanting to improve its public image, in the s it either tortured in ways that left no physical marks or executed its opponents extra judicially Ebadi , , The regime has found out that in the age of the Internet, it impossible to blackout communications without shutting down the economy itself Ebadi With the death of the charismatic leader, there is the problem of the succession.

Rafsanjani, who was a pragmatist, became President. He revived the stock exchange, privatized over companies that had been nationalized, created free trade zones, and eased restrictions on foreign investment. Rafsanjani and Khamenei blamed religious radicals for economic stagnation. They purged them from the government and replaced them with moderate western educated technocrats.

Charisma was becoming routinized Weber , , ; Chehabi ; Abrahamian , ; Wright ; Keddie The new elites, while still coming from the old middle classes are increasingly educated.

In post revolutionary Iran, two cultures have emerged. The first is a traditional culture of the old middle classes the Ulama and the bazaaris and the urban poor.

There has been an alliance of those who are modern whether religious or secular against those who are traditionalist and conservative. As a reaction to living under a theocratic state, Iranian society has become more secular Moaddel ; Afary After the Cultural Revolution, the government eased many of the regressive laws involving sex and gender relations.

Since , women have been able to practice law. Sharin Ebadi , has argued for the rights of her clients based on a more flexible interpretation of Islamic law. The government reinstated parts of the family protection law, such as maternity leave. Women have also gained more rights including being able to initiate a divorce if the husband takes on a second wife. Women are allowed an abortion up to the fourth month if it threatened the life of the mother.

To control population growth, in the government promoted family planning including contraceptives and vasectomies. Despite the lowering of the marriageable age for girls to 9 after the revolution, from to , the average age of first marriage for girls went from The process of modernization has continued in the Islamic Republic in the spheres of education, healthcare, urbanization, and family relations.

Under the new regime, there has been a rise literacy rates and an increase in the enrollment of women in higher education. The birthrate and infant mortality rates have declined Keddie , , ; Afary One consequence of the Cultural Revolution to relieve boredom , is an increase in drug addiction. In , Iran had the highest rate of illicit drug use in the world Keddie ; Wright ; Afary The cultural repression of the Cultural Revolution has softened.

There is greater tolerance concerning alcohol, dress, and sexual relations. Young people have resisted the restrictions on sexual relations Wright ; Keddie Conservatives attempted to ban VCRs, satellite dishes, and Barbie dolls. Reformers vs. Conservatives In , Mohammed Khatami, a reformer, was elected president. One of the reasons behind his victory was the female vote Wright , While Rafsanjani pursued economic reforms, Khatami pursued cultural reforms like easing censorship and greater rights for women.

The government raised the age of marriage for women to Some of the reforms that Khatami wanted to make were freedom of speech and press against censorship , the right to privacy from surveillance , the right to a trial, the right to a lawyer, innocent until proven guilty, a ban on torture, universal housing, free education and health care. Under Khatami, there was a cultural flourishing including the production of secular films and a growth in reformist newspapers and magazines.

Khatami was popular among the new middle classes, women, students, and minorities. In response to the reform movement, which emerged under Khatami, there was a conservative backlash.

The conservatives threw their support to Ayotollah Khamenei. Raids on Tehran University, led to the student revolts of In , there was a second round of student revolts. Both were suppressed with riot police and vigilantes thugs Wright ; Ebadi , ; Keddie , ; Afary The ruling elites represent an alliance between the commercial bazaar bourgeoisie and conservative clerics. They have gained the support from the lower classes through state support of the Basij with the expropriated properties of the Shah.

The conservatives have used the Basij to suppress the reformers Keddie , ; Afary The election of Mahmud Ahmadinejad in June returned control to the conservatives and hard-liners Keddie Ahmadinejad was a former member of the Pasadran. While a gay subculture was able to reemerge covertly in the Islamic Republic, Ahmadinejad has used the Basij to crack down upon it Afary , Beginning in the mid s, there has been increasing hostility toward clerics.

Many clerics, like followers of the late Ayotallah Montazeri, have supported the reform movement Keddie ; Wright , The reform movement is composed of religious nationalists, secularists, former regime loyalists and intellectuals Ebadi Parts of the reform movement understand itself in the religious context of reformation. For them, it is not a rejection of religion but rather the rationalization of it. It is a movement in the direction of religious rationalization and hence of secularization.

Some secular reformers point out that Sharia laws are still in effect and the reforms have not gone far enough Keddie The reform movement, which has reemerged since the questionable loss of Mousavi to Ahmadinejad, is the latest development in ongoing conflict between conservatives and reformers.

The movement has gained the support of leaders of the revolution, Ayatollahs and past presidents including Rafsanjani, Khatami and Montazeri. The regime, which is now controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, has used the Basij to suppress the demonstrations.

The reform movement is not only about religious reform within the context of Islam but also about political reform- removing the state from the control of the Supreme Leader. The reform movement is the carrier of the process of secularization in the sense of differentiation and religious rationalization.

Conclusion So how do we make sense of the Iranian Revolution in light of the theory of secularization? Does the Iranian Revolution disprove the theory of secularization? The Pahlavi Shahs modernized Iran economically and culturally but did not modernize it politically. Their forced secularization from above only had the support of the new middle classes; it alienated the old middle classes the Ulama and the bazaari.

The suppression of both communists and nationalists left the Islamists as the only viable political alternative. The Islamic Republic modernized economically and politically but culturally it was a return to tradition. It attempted to do something new by returning to something old. While the Islamic Republic attempted to establish a theocracy, it was superimposed over a republican form of government.

Amineh and Eisenstadt argue that the Iranian Revolution gives support to the idea of multiple modernities- that modernization can be uncoupled from Westernization- that a country can modernize without westernizing i. Multiple modernities is an excuse for authoritarian rule. The permanence of the established order in Iran is questionable; like other authoritarian modernities, it may be a temporary state of affairs. The rule of political Islam after the revolution has given rise to a secularization process.

In contrast to the process of secularization, which took place under the Shah, the secularization, which is occurring in the Islamic Republic, is not coming from above, but is more organic. Through survey research, Kazemipur and Rezaei discover that while desecularization has taken place on an institutional level dedifferentiation , as a reaction against this secularization has taken place on an individual level.

Using survey research from and , Mansoor Moaddel finds that a process of secularization is occurring in Iran, which he speculates is in response to the Islamic Republic. What we see in Iran is that forced secularization dialectically led to a religious countermovement against it. Dedifferentiation has in turn sparked a new secular movement for religious rationalization and differentiation. Even if one were correct in the argument that the Iranian Revolution disproves the theory of secularization, there remains the question of what happens when the process of secularization is reversed?

What are the potential consequences of dedifferentiation and the establishment of a theocracy? This should give those who pronounce the death of secularization and celebrate religious revival Rodney Stark and R. Stephen Warner something to think about. Granted that secular revolutions were the first to invent terrors.

Some would argue that the ideologies around which they coalesced are also religions, albeit secular ones. Religious movements can be progressive and emancipatory but like secular movements, they can lead to the opposite. In contrast with secular revolutions like the French and the Russian, the relationship of the Islamic Republic with modernity is not as clear. Like the French and Russian Revolutions, the Iranian Revolution has freed Iran from a monarchy and like the Russian Revolution, it has freed itself from Western imperialism.

Like its predecessors, it has replaced one form of despotism with another. It has instituted a type of control that one finds in authoritarian states- if not in totalitarian ones.

The grab for power during the Iranian Cultural Revolution resembled Gleichschaltung. While the revolution was perhaps a step forward politically at least from a monarchy , culturally it was a step backward in its interpretation of Islam. Michel Foucault, who is considered by postmodernists to be one of their own, embraced the Iranian Revolution as it was unfolding.

This is because he saw Islamism as a rejection of modernity. Foucault became embarrassed of this position after the regime began executing homosexuals Afary and Anderson Since the revolution, many Iranian intellectuals have been attracted to postmodernism Matin-Asgari The Iranian Revolution causes us to question notions of historical progress.

When one understands modernity as involving a process of secularization- in the sense of differentiation and religious rationalization- what we see in the revolution is a countermovement in the direction of desecularization and dedifferentiation. Khomeini was first imprisoned, then kept under house arrest from October to May ; in November , he was exiled to Turkey. For additional Cold War news and events, please be sure to connect with us on Facebook. Widely published, Lisa holds a Ph. Areas of particular interest and expertise include Cold War Studies, sustainable development, heritage, and the environment.

Most credible Iranian sources and Western journalists dispute that. I know because I lived in Iran from Thanks for your comment Cyrus. Information for the section you are contesting is drawn from two academic sources.

Readers may want to take a look at both approaches, depending on their objectives. Some member of Iranian communist party argued that the purpose of white revolution and in particular land reform in Iran was to ruin Iranian agriculture and make Iran depend on the US more than before.

For example the imported rice from US in Iran can reach the Iranian buyers much cheaper than the rice which was produced in northern part of Iran.

It forced the Iranian farmers to runaway to cities and so on. Is there any document to support or decline such claim. The ulema provided a structure to the revolution, as it staged protests exactly forty days after protesters had been killed. This began on 7 th January , followed by more protests on 18 th February, 29 th March, 10 th May and so on, until such protests garnered sufficient momentum to warrant sustained action.

These actions followed a particular structure as forty days was the traditional duration of mourning after a funeral Kurzman, The revolution was escalated further to commemorate Ashura, a day devoted to the martyr Husayn Ali Hussain, Facing such opposition, the Shah left Iran a month later, in January Khomeini returned to Iran soon after, at the beginning of February.

It is clear from the chronology of the revolution that the ulema gave disorganised protests a structure, ensuring that revolutionary fervour did not fade away but was instead concentrated on certain days of the Islamic calendar. Such symbols constitute the Karbala paradigm, which we will now turn our attention towards. The Karbala paradigm refers to a range of symbols and rituals related to the martyrdom of Husayn Ali — the third Imam — at the Battle of Karbala.

Hence, the mourning of protesters during was not simply an occasion to grieve, but an occasion to revolt. This combination of an overarching theme of rebellion with a calendar based around historical examples of resistance allowed the ulema to communicate to the Iranian population a revolutionary message in religious language. Thus, the employment of the Karbala paradigm to unify a mass movement and depose the Shah provides strong evidence for labelling the revolution as Islamic, even though its initial demands were political and economic rather than religious.

This essay has demonstrated that the Iranian revolution of can be appropriately labelled as Islamic. Although the demands and unrest that initiated the revolution were political and economic, the Iranian ulema used its position of influence to co-opt the revolution and translate political and economic demands into religious symbolism. The eventual leadership of the revolution was Islamic, due to the institutional power of the ulema and the repression that other organisations had faced.

The example of Ali Shariati shows both why the left failed and how the left could have succeeded if it had not been harshly repressed. With the loss of Shariati and the failure of the left, the Iranian ulema represented the only available option for a population which desired revolutionary change.

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