Google 1970s Iran vs now. It’s an interesting contrast of how quickly societies can change; and some would argue, not towards the future but backwards.
YSK: Iran’s new incoming president, Masoud Pezeshkian, on the campaign trail presented as a moderate and said he would abolish Iran’s morality police, so the era of enforced Hijab might be coming to an end. He assumes office on the 30th and I expect there will be an internal struggle between his admin and established power over the issue, but since the morality police were a focal point of the last major protests there’s a lot of popular support for abolishing or at least reforming them.
I"m not up to date on Iranian politics but wouldn’t the supreme leader essentially say “yeah, no…we’re not doing that” and that would be the end of it? or are they more like a monarchy type figure.
The “supreme leader” is more like John Roberts in a US context than the actual dictatorial leader of Iran. The Iranian government actually resembles the US government in a lot of ways where the Supreme Court is under the control of the Mullahs. I’m sure no one in America can imagine what it is like to live in a country where the supreme court is filled with religious fundamentalists.
The difference is that Iran is already where the fundies want it. John Roberts is still trying to take us there.
Not objecting to your point, just musing.
That is the shame of the revolution and the lesson tankies refuse to learn. The mullahs and their followers didn’t start or fight any of the battles. They came and restored peace in the resulting power vacuum.
That is the shame of the revolution and the lesson tankies refuse to learn.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. A “tankie” would probably tell you that the Islamic Revolution was an entirely predictable and avoidable backlash to the pro-western government that was installed via coup in the 50s. Allowing Iran to govern itself would have almost certainly lead to a better result for everyone - that is, everyone except the capitalists who pushed for the coup in order to retain control of Iranian oil for another twenty years.
In an earlier comment I reference that the material conditions in Iran are due to the coup in 1953, but I don’t think in this chain and it was in my mind when I wrote it. I was talking about a specific lesson from 1979.
The revolution was a communist revolution brought forth by Iranian leftists and students who had no ability to plan for after the collapse of the Shah’s government. They were more focused on the revolution than leadership and long term success, maybe they thought the Russians were going to help but it is hard to know because they were all executed. My uncle was among them. I don’t blame them the need for revolution is always present but before the revolution there was no solidarity among the people so when the revolution came the socialist coalitions collapsed and Khomeni came from Qom to establish the Islamic republic.
The lesson is that before we can be aggressive and support wars and violence we need the next regime to have roots in the ground. This is why I believe that orgs like Richard Wolff’s democracy@work are more important than anything else we can do as leftists because once time comes where the capitalists need to be removed we need to have the foundation of the society that comes next in place already or else we’re going to end up with barbarism, like how most of the 20th century communist attempts went and no longer exist. In this specific scenario democratizing the enterprises in Iran would have disrupted the Bazaari and may prevented the rise of the current Liberal government in Iran.
The dig at tankies was not because I am a liberal but because I am a disgusting trot.
It’s funny that people in the West are completely unaware of how this happened…
And yet Tankies still “critically support” modern Iran
Edit: Lmao, Tankies dont like it when you provide documented (by their own side) proof that they’re in love with fascist governments
Do you even know what critical support means?
My point is look at the list of highlighted allies, and if your set of values is similar to theirs, maybe rethink whether or not you are an ally of lgbtq people or even treating people with decency. If you guys critically support Russia and Iran, maybe we critically support the West?
There is a section above that lists nations that they support and a section below that they critically support. The ones above are the ones who’s values they align with. The ones below are “enemies of my enemies”. That is what critical support means.
Take a good hard look at the middle east and its recent history and tell me that Iran is the problem. Look at Israel, the Saudi Kingdom and the Islamic republic seriously:
- who has committed the most genocide?
- who is the most homophobic?
- who spreads the most terrorists?
- who oppresses their women the most?
And back to you, who in that critically support category is currently freaking their neighbors out the most because they’ve made it clear they want to reclaim their old glory and old country (aka imperial) borders? As well as openly assasinates citizens of other countries IN said countries? And sure, lets go a step above where it says you fully align with their values, China’s track record with LGBTQ rights, while not the worst comparitably, isn’t particularly great, and when it comes to how they treat minorities the Uyghur people would like a word and so would the falun gong.
At least with Republicans in the US, they are open about hating gay people and minorities, yet the Prole Wiki pretends like it gives a shit.
who in that critically support category is currently freaking their neighbors out the most because they’ve made it clear they want to reclaim their old glory and old country (aka imperial) borders
Are you referring to Russia? Because Putin’s never said “hey let’s re-conquest the old Russian Empire”, he’s actually been pretty consistent at saying “hey I don’t want NATO touching my border”.
You seem to have a very distorted view of reality, which is frankly a result of all of the propaganda you have consumed and adopted uncritically into your worldview. The Uyghurs are healthier and wealthier now than they have ever been as a result of Chinese anti-poverty and modernization programs, and the Falun Gong were always a cult on the level of Scientology who needed to be broken up and their members deprogrammed before they convinced more innocent people to kill themselves in acts of protest against teaching science in schools.
Are you referring to Russia? Because Putin’s never said “hey let’s re-conquest the old Russian Empire”, he’s actually been pretty consistent at saying “hey I don’t want NATO touching my border”.
So Putin has been pretty consistent, just in saying “hey let’s re-conquest the old Russian Empire”
I’m a bit East of Iran and also clueless…
In the 1950s, the democratic government of Iran almost succeeded in driving out the monarchy for good. The US and the UK secretly sponsored a coup (‘Operation Ajax’) taking advantage of said government’s instability over an oil/nationalization dispute. The UK wanted to keep their colonial-era concessions, and Iran, understandably, rather prefered they didn’t.
In the late 1970s, there was a revolution which DID drive out the monarchy, but was hijacked by religious extremists.
Well, here I don’t see feminists promoting hijab as ultimate feminism. I wonder why…
Some people lack baincells to understand hijab or not hijab is matter of choice
Thanks, Murica. World’s biggest terrorist nation for over a hundred years.
The photo above was taken while Iran had a government that was friendly to the US.
The present day oppression of women is being done by the people that overthrew the US backed government. People chanting “Death to America” should be a clue that the oppressive government there today may not be on friendly terms with the US.
Missing from the photo are the millions of people being tortured by Saavik while the rich elites got to live like in the picture in Tehran. The US backed a reign of terror that led the people to a revolution and actually electing this current shitty government. The US overthrew democracy in Iran in 1953 to establish a king because they dared to want to nationalize the oil company and fund their own country and are very much responsible for the bad material conditions in Iran today.
None of that changes the fact that the present day Iranian government is oppressing women and supports the Triple-H of terrorism (Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis) which has resulted in a huge amount of suffering.
I like history and all but there’s not much use to it if we don’t learn anything from it. Using history as an excuse for present day bad actors doesn’t achieve any positive result. If the bad actions of the US had bad repercussions later, what should we assume the bad actions by Iran today will have in the future?
No one, certainly not me are making excuses for the Iranian government. I am a literal refugee and this is a history community. The photo title has an obvious bias to it as if the 70s were a time that they should return to and also suggests most women in Iran were living like this in the 70s. Neither are true. There are also women today who dress like this in Iran and don’t wear Hijabs, it isn’t as strict as the media makes it seem and rich people don’t follow laws anywhere in the world.
Saying “it’s all the fault of the US” is making excuses.
Mahsa Amini was born 22 years after the Iranian Revolution, 47 years after the US backed coup.
Mahsa Amini was beaten to death 44 years after the Iranian Revolution, 69 years after the US backed coup.
So how many more years need to go by before we can say “Iran is fucked up because they beat women to death for not wearing a Hijab” without someone making the excuse that “It’s not their fault because the US did some bad shit X years ago”? Like what the value for X here? 100 years before Iranians are responsible for their own actions without it being in some degree the fault of the US?
I think a country can’t have a lot of progress if it’s defaulting to scapegoating another country for all of their problems. Japan was literally nuked by the US and they don’t do that kind of shit. What’s done is done and wallowing in the past doesn’t move anything forward.
Afghanistan in the 1970s was similarly culturally ascendent and relatively progressive.
See, e.g.,:
And then America Happened
The Soviets moreso than the US in the case of Afghanistan.
The country actually received substantial modernization aid from both, but eventually went through a series of coups that culminated in the Soviet invasion of the country and the rise of the mujaheddin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan#Barakzai_dynasty_and_British_wars
The US isn’t blameless in how the country turned out, but it’s a much less direct line than it is with Iran.
The Sovjets came at the invitation of the current government of that time. Also Afghanistan being pushed towards the Sovjets is a result of the US propping up Pakistan, which was proxy-warring against Afghanistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Afghan_War
I would argue all colonial powers are of similiar blame in repeatedly fucking Afghanistan over.
