The Islamic Revolution and its Impac on Marji’s Family Essay

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

He encouraged his supporters to engage in massive but peaceful protests, that spread through the country in 1978. The Shah and his forces responded by attacking the protesters, killing hundreds. This caused the protests to grow until it callumated in Black Friday on September 8th 1978. The Shah declared martial law and his forces killed thousands of protesters. Losing international support from the United States, the Shah fled to Egypt and the Ayatollah returned back to Iran. Protest continued with many blaming the United States for the Shahs actions and taking hostage workers at the US Embassy in Tehran. They would be held as captives until January of

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

To begin, a few key events that caused the Iranian Revolution must be known to understand the politics and major changes that Satrapi grew up with in Tehran. The Iranian Revolution began on February eleventh, 1979 when the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was succeeded by the Islamic Republic. This took place partly due to an event that occurred about a year earlier; on January ninth, 1978 in the city of Qum,

With the shah still sick, it was hard to manage what was back in Iran. The speed of change in Iran was too hard to get command. “The shah was in trouble, reaping the harvest of years of brutal and unpopular policies, including the use of secret police that controlled dissent with arbitrary arrests and torture.” It was obvious that the shah had lost all control of his people of Iran, but the president had hoped for an alliance of opponents to be formed. A man

Firstly, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi was the extremely isolated leader of Iran who was extremely concerned, by any means necessary, with consolidating his power. Not only did the Shah completely remove himself from the suffering society and ignore the injustice surrounding him but he ruled with absolute power meaning that everyone else had little say in government, if any at all. The Shah also created a force known as the SAVAK, and it was largely and widely feared by those who opposed the regime as it was known for extreme surveillance, torture and even execution. Mohammed Reza Shah completely overlooked the fact that up to 70%of Iran’s population of 20 million was living in poverty without basic liberties and at the mercy of their landlords. This evidence proves that the needs of the Iranian people were not being met which in many cases, like the case of the English Civil War sets the stage for revolution. Charles Stuart I, was a leader who also ruled by divine right with the belief that he was superior to everyone, including parliament whom he, due to this

The complexity of America’s relationship with Iran increased steadily beginning in 1908, when Iran struck oil. The Shah, the king or emperor of Iran, after taking the place of his young predecessor Reza Shah Pahlavi with the help of the CIA, led Iran into a period of extreme wealth and prosperity, the likes of which the Iranian people had never experienced. However, with the growth of wealth in Iran came the growth of Iranian resentment towards the West, specifically the United States. The Iranian’s resented the uneven distribution of wealth that they felt existed and the United State’s influence in “westernizing” their society. In 1963, this growing hatred led to a conflict with the Islamic clergy. The conflict was quickly settled by the Shah, but he was unaware that this dispute was the beginning

The Iranian Revolution was an uprising by the common people of Iran who were upset about the doings of their Shah and his government. The Shah’s treatment of his own people can be characterized as unjust and cruel. After all, he severely limited the rights of groups whom he felt threatened his power to rule. He opposed the political rights of religious Shiite groups, which especially enraged Iranians, and led to the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. The Ayatollah was a religious leader who would overthrow the Shah and establish a proper Islamic State in the nation. Ever since, the so called Islamic Revolution has raised concern over the dangers that Iran may pose to the Western world. Nevertheless, the Iranian Revolution was a progressive movement that reflected the major concerns of Iranians towards corruption in government, all with the intention of removing injustices and enforcing rightful liberties and common needs.

Iranian hostility of United States can be traced back to the 1950s. The United States supported any regime that was not communist, even though they would be considered very unpopular with the people of their country. Because of this, Iran became an anti-communist country and the Shah became an ally of the United States. In 1950 the Shah left Iran when Mohammed Mossadegh was elected Prime Minister. After Mossadegh election, he used his authority and nationalized the oil industry in the country. This incident generated fear in the United States. The state department felt that communists could abuse this anarchy and Iran could turn against the United States. The Shah, who had been removed from power, contacted the United States and the Central

On August 19, 1953, the American CIA helped to overthrow a democratically elected prime minister in Iran-Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who was elected in 1950-and restored the Shah to his Monarchical leadership position (“A short account of 1953 Coup”). The Shah was a modernizer for Iran in many respects, promoting the growth of a modern economy and a middle class, and championing women's rights. He outlawed the hijab, which is the full-body veil that women are to wear, according to Islamic law; encouraged education for women up to and including at the university level; and championed employment opportunities outside the home for women. The Shah was restored to his Monarchical leadership position

In 1953 American intelligence agencies helped royalists led by the Shah seize power from the Prime Minister in a coup de tat. After the coup the Shah made the country into an absolute monarchy. The United States helped the Shah tighten his grip on power over the next twenty-five years, training his special police and providing financial and military aid. During this period the Shah used the secret police to purge opponents and ruled with an iron fist. While he did bring significant reform to Iran, including modernizing the country, many were resentful of his ties to the West and angrily saw the reforms as attempts at Westernization. Popular support remained tepid and eventually led to protests and a coup in 1979.

After the communist revolution in Russia, the British install Reza Shah Pahlavi as shah of Iran in 1925 to prevent the spread of communism. Then because of his relations to Hitler in World War II the Russians and British invaded Iran again. The forced Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became the Shah of Iran (White, 2014, pp. 207-208).

During Satrapi’s early childhood, the traditions and history of Iran had been going through drastic changes. The Iranian Revolution was when Iran’s monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who led the revolution. ii

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).

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