On 16 January 1979, Iranians woke to headlines declaring that Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had been deposed. Crowds of jubilant citizens danced in the street, waving newspaper front pages and currency with the Shah's visage excised. This was the culmination of days of demonstrations against the Shah's regime, seen as a capricious rule under which Iran had been treated as the Shah's plaything, and where he had been overly influenced by the United States.
The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, long exiled (initially to Iraq and finally to France), would soon return to take control of the uprising for which he was partly responsible. Though unable to return to the land of his birth, cassette tapes of his speeches and sermons had been smuggled into the country throughout his exile, inspiring leftists, communists and religious zealots alike. Iranians yearned for the end of their figurehead's exile, and a new era of change. In its early stages, the Islamic Revolution was truly a "people's revolution".
Like the Russian and French revolutions before it, however, the Islamic Revolution's early elation soon gave way to disillusionment and terror. Khomeini had been lauded as a morally upstanding cleric of a completely different ilk to the Shah. After his return on 1 February 1979, the Ayatollah set about crushing all dissenters from his vision of a country run by Muslim jurists, employing the torture and murder of opponents he had so deplored in the Shah. Khomeini's vision for Iran was not simply a Persian-infused version of the freedoms enjoyed in the west, but a full-scale reversal of what he considered to be the licentiousness and depravity of the "Great Satan" of US influences.
Khomeini's greatest repudiation of the doctrine that had prevailed before his return came in the form of the 444-day embassy hostage crisis, resolved only on US president Jimmy Carter's very last day in office, before the far more belligerent Ronald Reagan took power. Iran, with an $8 billion ransom in unfrozen bank accounts, had humbled its arch-enemy and demonstrated to the world that it would neither be toyed with nor bullied.
Despite the reformist agenda of Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005), this government-sanctioned sense of independence from the wider world has persevered. The regime of current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has danced rings round the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), despite attaining unflattering inclusion into the "axis of evil," and has forged ahead in its quest for technological advancement, most recently launching a satellite to global consternation and mutterings of Iran's growing threat to regional stability.
Nevertheless, it is important to remember that a full 70% of Iran's population were born after the Islamic Revolution. Today, despite the rigid segregation of the sexes and the curtailment of women's freedoms, 65% of university students are female. While Amnesty International remains very concerned at the human rights abuses taking place under the current regime, Iranian subculture flourishes. Despite the clampdowns on popular music and self-expression, one of the most popular party songs in Iran is "The Level of My Hotness " by 16-year-old Sahra, who invites listeners to "Come and hug me. Why are you looking at me? Come and fuck me. I'm giving you permission." Though obviously proscribed by the authorities, the song has been a fantastically successful download on the Persian-language blogosphere.
In the elections scheduled for June this year, the reformist Khatami may throw his hat into the ring again to challenge Ahmadinejad - who many believe is being used by the Ayatollah Khamenei, the last of the high-profile original revolutionaries - and the increasingly domestically oppressive and internationally confrontational stance. Unemployment in Iran is rising, inflation is galloping upwards and subsidies for water have been cut. Surprisingly, for a country that is one of the world's major oil producers, there are also cuts in fuel subsidies. The next election in Iran may not be fought on the basis of which candidate best adheres to the goals of the Islamic Revolution, but on which one can be counted on to repair what many perceive to be economic mismanagement. It remains to be seen if their wishes will be fulfilled.
Not much more than a year ago, Kenyans turned against each other as the results of a disputed election were contested. Today, as the nation attempts to recover from these self-inflicted wounds, the populace is being asked to determine "The Kenya [They] Want" and to forge a path for the future. Will there be a revolution? While the scars of tribalism and the post-election violence persist, it is doubtful that there could ever be a collective repudiation of the current state of affairs. On the other hand, should those in power fear such an uprising? Indeed they should, for the will of the people can never be indefinitely deferred.
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