No, and with good reason. SAVAK was … not nice.
Anyway, I’m not about to shed any tears for the Shah. Sic semper tyrannis.
You seem to be implying that the Iranian mullahs were against education?
If so, could you expand on that, give some examples, perhaps provide a cite or two?
Also, could you explain how that squares with the numbers provided in table 4 on page 13 of this paper, showing that the Iranian “literacy rate for women at age groups 15-19 to 25-29” increased drastically between 1966 and 1996, i.e. throughout both the Shah’s rule and the Khomeinist rule that followed? If Khomeini et consortes hated education, wouldn’t one expect a decrease rather than an increase?
The Iranian revolution never was particularly opposed to female education, and female education/literally expanded rapidly after the revolution took over.
Iran made a concerted decision in the 1990s to lower its birth rate which is why they have low fertility today. (Modern Iran has a total fertility rate slightly under the United States). I could be wrong, but I don’t think Islam has any particular theological objection to contraception in principle (unlike Roman Catholics and some Orthodox Christians).
Not so much “education” i.e. reading and writing - as the fundamentalists are against western influences that would persuade their population to become more secularized, abandon mosques the way modern education has done for the western population abandoning churches.
Like this:
So in other words, they’re not against education, just against Western-style secularism.
Doesn’t Iran have a loophole for prostitution? Something about a temporary marriage?
The Iranian revolution paradoxically expanded educational opportunities for a substantial number of women. Women from very conservative families typically would have been discouraged (if not outright forbidden) from attending a university where they would surely encounter men. After the revolution, there were many more opportunities for single-sex education, which created an acceptable educational alternative for those women.
Beyond that, weren’t most of the Iranian Basij human wave attackers religiously fueled boys or young men, of presumably the social strata that would typically have the largest families?
I’m guessing that not only were a bunch of young men killed, but they were disproportionately the ones who’d have the largest families.
What is the problem in comment by westerners here on these issues is almost all comment is based on superficial understanding that sees the Islamic world through the lens of the area that is dominant for the anglo-saxon press, which is the oil-full Gulf - the Saudi Arabia in particular - and its neighbors.
this leads again and again to very gross misunderstandings of what is the typical and the ordinary, even in the arab world.
The real problem is the comments are made on an understanding of the ‘fundamentalist’ Islam that are based on an idea that the Saudi model is the typical understanding even among the Islamist (which I can observe in the way most use this here, they understand it as = muslim …).
Except of course the western style education has continued and even expanded, although it has caused problems for the retrogrades.
Yes, not even against the university education of women and professional women, in the contrast to the american allied Saudis… Who become in a gross irony the template that the americans then see all the muslims through. Oh sorry, “extremist muslims…”
You refer to an idea prevalent in the shia theology.
It’s temporary marriage, not prostitution, and it’s not inherently any weirder than Britney Spears and her 24-hour marriage to that drummer (which happened in the United States, not Iran).
Did you read the Washington Post article?
I don’t dispute the claim that the concept of education (and to the credit of the Iran government… REAL education) is happening for both sexes, unlike the Wahabi-inspired cloistering of females.
The point I made, along with the point the Mullahs running the Iranian government were making in the article, shows that education that promulgated “western concepts” - secular, rational and scientific thought while minimizing religious adherence - was the direction of society that the shah was taking Iran, and the direction that raised the opposition of the mullahs. Of course, there was updating the laws to minimize the explicit and implicit authority of the mosque in people’s lives, growing materialism, and certainly the outright viciousness of SAVAK to also influence the opposition to the shah and by extension, the West.
However, Iran was well on the way to a modern, first-world economy. The problems of war and especially sanctions may have slowed or stalled that development, but so much of Iran is modern, and urban - the situation where extra children are a cost not a benefit during extended childhood. So the rulers of Iran may have demonstrated intelligence and foresight with a birth control program (done right) but the people were ready for that.
Similarly, a modern industrial society cannot get by without engineers, technicians, managers, etc. and all that goes with that - a need for the teachers and universities to provide a literate, educated population that can take advantage of the benefits of modernization. The warehouse workers, receptionists, office workers - everyone pretty much needs to be literate, in the West and in Iran. To the credit again of the Iranian government, they recognized this and kept education going. however, they are likely finding themselves fighting a losing battle, as they alienate the very classes that are needed to keep society functioning, as they did that previous election where only cynical thievery and thuggery allowed them to stay in power.
Yes, not that I need an english language american newspaper to learn about these things.
Except of course that there is not ‘mullahs’ who run the Iranian government… not that simple and not that simple that there is a single view of ‘mullahs’ in the Iranian systems.
The shah of Iran had an elitist system like many in the region that did indeed produce the well trained secularist oriented elites.
the problem for these comments, they have very deep misunderstanding of the cultural and the dynamics.
I always think of the left european writing that makes every school shooting into a narrative about the american gun culture.
the presentation of the idea of if only the Iran did not have a revolution it would be modern like USA and the savak it is just an inconvenience… that is not for this forum.
I will agree that the social dynamics and politics of a large country cannot be summarized in a simple paragraph or two and many depictions of the situation are distorted or confused. As I understand it, Khamenei as supreme leader approves the Guardian Council which approves the laws of the elected parliament, and disqualifies candidates- so regardless of the dynamic, it is effectively a rule by the very conservative, very strictly religious leader(s). SAVAK or the Revolutionary Guard, people who maim and kill don’t win hearts and minds and it’s only a matter of time.
Besides, we’re straying from the main post and my main points:
The population pyramid does not show a significant dip in male population that can be attributed to war deaths; as a result it is unlikely that the war contributed to any great extent to the demographic shift.
Iran is in fact a relatively modern and industrialized society despite the efforts of the west and hostile neighbours to stymie that development. The “powers that be” whoever they are have also not made efforts to block this, in fact have continued and improved it, despite the implication that it could lead to a more secular, less religious society contrary to what some in power might desire.
The shah to some extent initiated the development, whether as a personal ambition to “make his mark”, to help his people, or a way to make him and his cronies filthy rich, who knows? Most likely a bit of all of those reasons. The revolutionary government had the good sense not to halt this development. As a result, economically Persian Iran stands out from its Arab neighbours as a much different society in many ways.
Others have pointed out the active birth control initiative of the early 90’s. My point was that the advanced economic development of Iran helped ensure its success. For poor peasants and farmers, children are free labour and old age security. For urban wage-earners children are an economic cost.