Best of Iranian.com: Revolution

Fifth installment of the “Best of Iranian.com” project highlighting features published before 2007. [see: “Being Iranian.com”]. Through a series of blogs I will publish the “best of…” selections under different thematic categories. Here is the selection for the theme “Revolution”, with additional picks by Jahanshah Javid. Also see section on pre-2007 features related to revoltion. See here for Best of Index.

Peaceful, gradual change
"The most important lesson" of the 1979 revolution

February 8, 1999
On January 30, 1999, members of The Iranian mailing list were sent questions to gague their general views on the 1979 revolution. Here are the results>>>

Statue of Liberty seized
Stutend protesters seize America's most famous landmark to make a point, 1977
Newspaper clipping
April 1999

Reverberations
An outsider's perspective of the revolution

By Sayed S. Husein
September 20, 2000
For someone who is not an ethnic Iranian, I am a great admirer of The Iranian. In the course of some research, pertaining to the 1979 revolution in Iran, I came across this magazine. I found the articles very informative. More importantly, the magazine seems to have a distinctive flair for objectivity. A good measure of my interest in this magazine, apart from specific academic interest, is simply to connect and share the experience of people going through somewhat similar political circumstances. Belonging originally to Iran's neighbor Pakistan, I am no stranger to bad governance, dictators, or the use of religion in vain. The chronology, or the details might differ, but the essence is more or less the same>>>

Memory lane
Looking back at the road to revolution

By Payman Arabshahi
February 11, 2001
Chronology of events leading to the fall of the monarchy selected from the Iranian media on the eve of the anniversary of the Iranian revolution of 1978/79. The quotes are translations from Persian. Some of the text is from Masoud Behnoud book "275 Rooz-e Bazargan" (275 days of the Bazargan Government), Tehran, Elm Publishers, 1377/1988>>>

Not alone
The editorial against Khomeini and what followed

By Kaveh Ahangar
June 6, 2002
It was about 7:30 p.m., January 8, 1978. I had just arrived home from school and habitually made myself a cup of tea. It had been a cold, wintry, and gloomy day. The phone rang. It was Ali, one of the secretaries (dabir) of CIS -- Confederation of Iranian Students -- from Chicago>>>

Reset
Revolutionary images: Posters, clocks, serving trays ...

By Jason Rezaian
March 5, 2003
From the moment I stepped off the plane in Tehran, I couldn't escape the images of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his still living sidekick, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. I wasn't afraid or intimidated, because I was used to this kind of propaganda from my trips to Cuba. What surprised me more than anything were some of the expressions that these ayatollahs displayed. Any American with a pulse has seen images of Che Guevera or Fidel Castro embracing a fellow revolutionary or black peasant, cigar inserted in broad smile>>>

Those days
Photo essay: Revolution
By Kaveh Golestan
January 2003
(in Persian)

Iran diary
Photo essay: Iran 1971-2002
By Abbas
February 3, 2003

Vaallaa nafahm bood!
On the anniversary of the revolution
By Pesare Shoja
February 2003
(in Persian)

Hett or Bagh
Looking back half a century at an uprising in Dezful

By Najmeh Fakhraie
July 22, 2003
Early in September of 1951 a round, heavyset middle-aged man walks into an old, archaic city - so old in fact, that he can feel the dust beneath his feet>>>

Too late
... to try to blame others for the mess Jebheh Melli created

By Hassan Farzin, Ph.D.
June 27, 2003
I reviewed "A raw deal", the excerpt from Dr. Bahram Bahramian book. I assume every Iranian who was alive and saw the events of 1978-1979 disturbances in Iran, remembers how people, some by design, and many due to their ignorance, helped in the unholy takeover of the country (and as much as $40 billion a year of petroleum cash flow to be used to fill pockets and funding terrorist groups) by a bunch of murderers under the name of religion>>>

Outspoken or outsmarted?
The "high-jack" theory is another self-denial attempt made by those who were outsmarted by the clergy

By Parkhash
August 12, 2003
The appearance of a letter by T. Zolfaghari in response to another three-year old letter by Kambiz Ameli [Letters, 1 August: "Dwelling on the past"] was what triggered the writing of this piece. In this bizarrely belated, if not out-of-date response, to the spurious allegations made by Ameli some three years earlier, Zolfaghari urges us to drop the question of "who to blame for the revolution" and move on. Ironically, it is Zolfaghari himself who, strangely after a three-year lapse, is still hooked on the subject of on who to put the blame>>>

What people say
About before and after the Revolution

By Heresh Rezavandi
August 27, 2003
I don't know about you guys but whenever I'm with other Iranians we always end up talking about Iranian politics. Here are some funny, sad, interesting, weird and very true comments about the Islamic Revolution>>>

Then, why?
Still can't think of a proper answer

By Azadeh Madani
January 12, 2004
In mid 1980's, after going through haft khaan-e rostam, my family and I entered Canada with a couple of suitcases. We registered our children in a local school, and started looking for a job to make a living from zero. After a couple of weeks, we received a letter from the school where our children attended. They invited the parents to attend an important evening meeting>>>

A new spring of freedom?
25th anniversary of the revolution

By Fariba Amini
February 10, 2004
I believe that in this Majlis all groups must be allowed to participate. This is our lesson; it is our school of thought, to listen to the words of righteousness. This is the way every good human being should be, to listen to the other person, to hear the opposing view and to find the best amongst him or her. In our parliament, opposition should be able to enter. And even if they don't, we must invite them to do so and to express their views. We should not be afraid of other groups or their views. A true parliament is one that has the vote of the majority and everyone can express their views and can vote accordingly. -- From a speech at the first Friday Prayer in 1979 by Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Talleghani>>>

Hindsight
Photo essay: Farah Pahlavi on Barbara Walters

By Jahanshah Javid
March 7, 2004
I thought I should take some photographs while watching the Barbara Walters interview with Farah Pahlavi (on ABC's "20/20", Friday, March 5). I took about a hundred pictures and almost all of them are here for your viewing. Yes, there are a lot of pages to click and the quality of the pictures is nothing special. But the messages in every image are powerful enough to make us think about where we were and where we are>>>

Incomplete puzzle
Failing to understand Shariati

By M. Mohsen
April 20, 2004
Dear Mr. Ebrahim Nabavi, I read your article on criticizing Dr. Ali Shariati for what he believed about the rule of the ruler, the Imam. [See "Doktor Ali Shariati, moalem-e shahid-e maa"] Well, if it was about anybody else I would probably still stay in my dark corner and watch how you mess people up but not this time. First of all, Dr. Shariati's targeted audience, the buzzword these Westerners use a lot, was not ordinary people. He was a humanist sociologist and his audiences were mostly students. This means he had a very narrow definition about Imam and leadership. As you see the subject, leadership, is a major component of any social study>>>

Doktor Ali Shariati, moalem-e shahid-e maa
Another look at the Islamic thinker's views on democracy and...
By Ebrahim Nabavi
Apeil 2004
(in Persian)

Enghelaabzadegi-ye omoomi
1979 article about secularism, Shapour Bakhtiar and the looming revolution
Mahshid Amirshahi
August 2004
(in Persian)

We haven't changed a bit
Iranians fell for Khomeini. Now they're falling for Yazdi

By Pullniro
September 30, 2004
The whole thing about Ahura Yazdi has brought back so many beautiful childhood memories and I would love to share them with you and I hope they will be as meaningful for you as they are for me and my family>>>

The Islamic Revolution lives
All this mumbo jumbo about a "second revolution" happening in Iran is just gibberish echoed by disillusioned Iranians in exile

Lawrence Reza Ershaghi
February 6, 2005
The violence of the pen is more lethal than that of the sword. Our image of Iran has been so politicized, so dehumanized, since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, that we can't see the reality for all the propaganda. We can't separate the truth from the fiction. Movies like Not without my daughter and the majority of Iranian expatriates in the United States being anti-revolutionary, perpetuates this propaganda of Iran being a land of "terrorists.">>>

1979 things that went wrong
I was listening to old tapes of Khomeini's famous speech...

Amir Nasiri
February 3, 2005
The year was 1979. It was the year of change and reconciliation. Yes, it was the year of change. A mullah came out of no where and gave a series of promises to millions of people of no mans land and then betrayed the same people who fought and helped him to come to power. The mullah's name was Khomeini, the people were the Iranian people and the country was Iran. I remember that time. I was only 6 years old. I could see the happiness, confusion and some sort of hope in people's eyes the first few days. My father used to drive in his small beetle (ghoorbaghe-ee) and hand out Cigar Shirazi to all soldiers and then grab their head and give kisses on their foreheads>>>

Slates wiped clean
The truth about "Marg bar Shah"

Jim S.
February 3, 2005
Today while spending a day at home, I heard a commotion coming from my son's room. Thinking that I had better make sure that he wasn't tearing the room apart lest his mother raise holy hell with him when she got home, I opened the door and walked in. He wasn't tearing the room apart at all. He was sitting on the end of his bed watching cartoons and chanting with the crowd of cartoon characters. Here was my ten year old boy with a clenched fist raised in the air, sitting on the end of his bed chanting "Marg Bar Shah" (Death to the King)>>>

Yekshanbeh, 22 Bahman
A diary entry from February 11, 1979

Shirin Vazin
February 6, 2005
I used to write my diaries from the age of 13. When the revolution in Iran took place I was just 15. The attached files show what I have written on 22 Bahman 1357 (February 11, 1979). Since I don't have a Farsi program on my computer I scanned the relevant pages. Maybe you can still use it somehow on your site>>>

Death & rebirth
An essay on the 1979 Revolution for English class

Jahanshah Javid
February 10, 2005
I wrote this essay for an English 101 class on April 10, 1990 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I had left Iran four months earlier after spending the 1980s as a reporter and photographer who was more than just sympathetic towards the Islamic Republic. By the time I left for America, I was angry and disappointed at the revolution and religion -- and myself. I still am... :o) I found this essay among letters and photographs my mother had saved. (She added the "AND REBIRTH" herself. The handwritings -- except on top of Page 1 -- is my professor's.)>>>

For children's sake
Parents, children and the 1979 Revolution

By Lobat Asadi
April 20, 2005
While it is tempting, you just can't blame the 1979 Revolution for everything. We should take a hard look at how some men left behind their children in order to either save their country or encourage the Revolution. The latter, no self-respecting intellectual Iranian will ever admit to, no matter how open-minded. But the disturbing truth remains that many did support the revolution, yet most regret their decision. As a result, some Iranian youth of the 70s had to endure the loss of their pride and history as well as and the break up of their family>>>

Foucault's revolution
French philosopher's views on the 1979 revolution

Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson
May 19, 2005
Throughout his life, Michel Foucault’s concept of authenticity meant looking at situations where people lived dangerously and flirted with death, the site where creativity originated. In the tradition of Friedrich Nietzsche and Georges Bataille, Foucault had embraced the artist who pushed the limits of rationality and he wrote with great passion in defense of irrationalities that broke new boundaries. In 1978, Foucault found such transgressive powers in the revolutionary figure of Ayatollah Khomeini and the millions who risked death as they followed him in the course of the Revolution. He knew that such “limit” experiences could lead to new forms of creativity and he passionately threw in his support. This was Foucault’s only first-hand experience of revolution and it led to his most extensive set of writings on a non-Western society>>>

Mostaz'af and Mostakbar
The idea of a classless society entered Iranian revolutionary discourse via the Marxist-Leninist left and was coded by Islamist groups

Minoo Moallem
June 23, 2005
It is in the name of Mostaz'af [the downtrodden] that Khomeini led the revolution. While the revolutionary period can be characterized by the intensive negotiation of contesting political forces, certain ideas, such as Mostaz'af, enabled the re-negotiation of hegemony by reconstructing a central consensus through which revolutionary reality could be filtered. The concept of hegemony and a war of position is borrowed from the work of Antonio Gramsci. By hegemony I refer to both the competing social and ideological forces and those forms of representation that are the major sources of domination>>>

The coming second qiyamat
When a system lacks a responsive legislator, independent judiciary and enlightened leader or executive, then the recipe for political and social change, even if it is regressive, will require violence

By Guive Mirfendereski
June 26, 2005
My earliest recollection of participation in a political process dates to the mid-1970s. The Shah had tired of the staged bickering among the country’s various permitted political groups and parties. The governing party had been in power far too long and there was no alternative to be pursued>>>

Mostaz'af and Mostakbar
The idea of a classless society entered Iranian revolutionary discourse via the Marxist-Leninist left and was coded by Islamist groups

June 23, 2005
From Chapter 3 of Minoo Moallem's "Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran">>>

Long live the king!
You have to be a perfect ignoramus or an astoundingly grand idiot to assert that Maoists in Nepal wish to impose a democratic republic

By Alidad Vassigh
May 9, 2006
I do believe the media manipulate people, though probably there is no grand plot. Like consummate liars, they believe what they state. The "truth" it seems according to most media is that the world is better off if everyone were secular, left-of-centre, Clinton-sympathizing, spineless, witless hypocrites, but preferably unconsciously so, as thought may prompt irksome changes of opinion (you might for example conclude you dislike the abusive, self-righteous, rake-in-the-money polemicist and vulgar pamphleteer Michael Moore, and go vote for Bush again)>>>

We don't need old farts
We need young, charismatic and reckless leaders who can breathe fire into our hearts and strengthen our will

By Arash Sayedi
June 2, 2006
Old farts are everywhere, and they bring with them the ghosts of the past; Ghosts that are long dead and need to remain so. So long have we stood with our backs to the future, dragging with us the remnants of our past. Important as history may be, it need not necessarily be used as a yardstick to measure the future. For the morrow brings with it new and unexplored terrains worthy of a new look. So many of us perceive today's world through lenses crafted in the searing fires of the industrial world; One that still bore the pains of colonialism, of coups, of revolutions and counter-revolutions>>>

Long live the king!
You have to be a perfect ignoramus or an astoundingly grand idiot to assert that Maoists in Nepal wish to impose a democratic republic

By Alidad Vassigh
May 9, 2006
I do believe the media manipulate people, though probably there is no grand plot. Like consummate liars, they believe what they state. The "truth" it seems according to most media is that the world is better off if everyone were secular, left-of-centre, Clinton-sympathizing, spineless, witless hypocrites, but preferably unconsciously so, as thought may prompt irksome changes of opinion (you might for example conclude you dislike the abusive, self-righteous, rake-in-the-money polemicist and vulgar pamphleteer Michael Moore, and go vote for Bush again)>>>

We don't need old farts
We need young, charismatic and reckless leaders who can breathe fire into our hearts and strengthen our will

By Arash Sayedi
June 2, 2006
Old farts are everywhere, and they bring with them the ghosts of the past; Ghosts that are long dead and need to remain so. So long have we stood with our backs to the future, dragging with us the remnants of our past. Important as history may be, it need not necessarily be used as a yardstick to measure the future. For the morrow brings with it new and unexplored terrains worthy of a new look. So many of us perceive today's world through lenses crafted in the searing fires of the industrial world; One that still bore the pains of colonialism, of coups, of revolutions and counter-revolutions>>>

There will be no revolution
Then what will happen to the Islamic Republic?

Ben Madadi
December 4, 2006
It would be naive also to under-estimate the popular support that the Islamic regime enjoys. Would the majority of Iranians vote for a non-Islamic, secular, republic if they had the choice? I'm not so sure they would. But maybe even the majority of Americans would vote for a Christian republic if they had the choice, which they don't, for the joy of the liberals, and the Iranians who live in the US. America is far ahead in democracy and it seems absurd to imagine a religious system in the US. But Iran is not like that. Let's not forget that modern Iran, as we now know it, was built on the basis of religion, and that religion was Shia Islam. Modern Iran is not, and was not, the pre-Islamic Iran. Modern Iran was a religious state from the start. Iranians have been bound on Shia religion for about 500 years >>>

The Good Revolution
Why the Islamic Republic is good for Iran

Faraz Jamshid
November 29, 2006
Many Iranians, both inside and outside of Iran, view the Islamic Republic as an obstacle to Iran's greatness. They believe that the fascist Islamic government should be removed so that freedom, peace, and democracy can spread. They believe that the concept of a theocracy (or more specifically, the velayet-e-faqih) has been thoroughly discredited by history and view the Islamic government as a throwback to medieval ways of thinking. In short, they would like to see Iran take its place as one of the civilized nations of the world, and they believe that the first step is to adopt their institutions. These critics are right in many ways, but they are wrong in one very crucial way. Democracy is not a magic elixir that can cure all of a society's problems. In fact, history has shown us that democracy without the proper ingredients often leads to disaster >>>

Pop Islam
Iran's Islamist and pop cultures seems to mingle by loosing themeselves into each other

Anna Mahjar Barducci
September 2006
The avenues of Teheran have changed their colours. Soon after the Islamic revolution in 1979, led by Khomeini, only the austere black was allowed to decorate the streets of the Iranian capital. Since then, the colours of the revolution have developped. Blinding yellow and fluorescent pink flags wave now in the alleys of Teheran. The colours that used to be part of the profane along the last 27 years have now been incorporated into the holy, with the exception of the rigorous dark women dresses. The revolution overwhelmed the Iranian reality, without being able anymore to cleave the profane from the holy. In this way, the appearace of the Iranian republic has been changed to trasform everything into a product of the ayatollah’s regimes. However, this evolutionary process gave birth to a new pop-Islamic revolution, which influences religious ceremonies too >>>

Blasts from the past
Photo essay: Unearthing half a century of underground revolutionary material
June 2006
Jahanshah Javid

The martyr and his creator
Part 9: Returning to Iran: 1986-87

Sima Nahan
May 1, 2006
Payam-e Shahid (Message of the Martyr) is an everyday tribunal for the rhetoric and politics of the Islamic Republic. A clever propaganda device, it reiterates stock sentiments and injunctions in a new context each time. When it actually is the words of individual men, it also provides a first and last chance for a great number of faceless sons of poverty to claim existence and, however prefabricated and short-lived, a voice. It is a tribunal for Man-as-Martyr-of-the-Islamic-Republic... In the "Vocabulary of Martyrdom" we are given "love," "quest for purification," and "desire for perfection" to substitute for "pain, suffering, and poverty" which, according to the teacher who celebrated the martyrdom of his student, constitutes the vocabulary of the slums of Tehran. But the stock phrases that are endlessly repeated in a sampling of Payam-e Shahid seem to strengthen the suspicion that the vocabulary of man-as-martyr is infinitely more limited than the vocabulary of the slums of southern Tehran, rich with humanity as that is>>>

Tulips and poppies
Part 5: Returning to Iran: 1986-87

Sima Nahan
March 2006
Behesht-e Zahra (Paradise of Zahra) is the name of a huge cemetery outside of Tehran, on the highway to Qom. Conceived and partially constructed before the revolution, it is being rapidly filled, while not yet quite finished, as if testifying to the fulfillment of a grotesque prophecy. Entering the grounds very early on a summer morning, having left home at dawn in order to avoid the mad traffic of downtown Tehran and the scorching sun of midday in the desert, we are relieved by a gentle breeze drifting our way from a generous stream of fresh water running through the main boulevard>>>

Revolution by bus drivers
Ordinary Iranians are becoming courageous to speak out against oppression and bullying by the Mullahs

Amir Nasiri
February 2006
For the second time in the past few months the courageous bus drivers have taken on paramilitary fascist militias on the Tehran streets. According to a friend's observation that the areas the bus drivers had gathered have been blocked by Para military groups and any access to any of the bus drivers is under security watch and tightly controlled. Can this be forefront for a new revolution? Does this mean that other groups who have been yearning for such an occasion would join our heroes and demand for more freedom and rights for all Iranians?>>>

Bakhtiar beh maa goft!
On the premiership of Shapour Bakhtiar 37 days before the 1979 revolution
S.H. Jalili
January 2006
(in Persian)