Iran's Revolutions: Crash Course World History 226 Video Lecture | A Complete Guide to World History : 2 - World Knowledge

Hi, I’m John Green and this is Crash Course
World History and today we’re talking about Iran.
Oh, Mr. Green? Mr. Green? I know that country.
It’s in the Middle East. It’s with Egypt.
No, Me from the Past, we’re going to talk
about Iran. Now, I used to be you so I remember
when you would look at this part of the world
and you would be like, “oh yeah, that’s a thing.”
And in your case that “thing” extended
more or less from I guess, like, western China
to, like, uh, Poland.
Then you’d make a bunch of broad generalizations
about that area and no doubt use the terms
Arab and Muslim interchangeably.
But as usual Me From the Past the truth resists
simplicity. So today we are going to talk
about Iran and just Iran. Specifically, the
1979 Iranian Revolution.
So the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its aftermath
are often seen by detractors as the first
step in the creation of an isolated, fundamentalist
state that supports terrorism, and, you might
be surprised to hear me say, that there is
some truth to that interpretation.
That said, the way you think about the Iranian
Revolution depends a lot of which part of
it you are looking at.
And regardless, it’s very important because
it represents a different kind of revolution
from the ones that we usually talk about.
So the 1979 uprisings were aimed at getting
rid of the Pahlavi Dynasty, which sounds,
like, impressive, but this dynasty had only had two
kings, Reza Shah and Mohammed Reza Shah.
Before the Pahlavis, Iran was ruled by the
Qajar dynasty, and before that the Safavids.
The Safavids and Qajars were responsible for
two of the most important aspects of Iran:
The Safavids made Shia Islam the official
state religion in Iran, starting with Ismail
I in 1501, and the Qajars gave the Muslim
clergy – the ulema – political power.
So most of the world’s Muslims are Sunnis
but the Shia, or Shiites are an important
sect that began very early on – around 680
CE and today form the majority of Muslims
in Iran and Iraq.
Now within both Sunni and Shia there are further
divisions and many sects, but we’re just
going to talk about, like, the historical
difference between the two.
Shia Muslims believe that Ali should’ve
been the first Caliph, Sunni Muslims think
that Abu Bakr, who was the first Caliph, was
rightly chosen.
Since that disagreement, there have been many
others, many doctrinal differences but what’s
more important is that from the very beginning,
Shia Muslims saw themselves as the party of
the oppressed standing up against the wealthy
and powerful and harkening back to the social
justice standard that was set by the prophet.
And this connection between religious faith
and social justice was extremely important
to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and also
to previous revolutions in Iran.
This is really crucial to understand because
many historians argue that the Iranian revolution
represents what the journalist Christian Caryl
called an “odd fusion of Islam and late-twentieth
century revolutionary politics.”
But actually, in the scheme of Iranian history,
its not so odd.
Because 1979 was not Iran’s first revolution.
The first major one was in 1906. It forced
the ruling Qajars to accept a constitution.
It created a parliament and supposedly some
limits on the king, and made Shia Islam the
official state religion, but it also protected
the rights of minorities in Iran.
It ultimately failed partly because the clergy
withdrew their support, partly because the
shah worked very actively against it, and
maybe most importantly, because the Russians
and the British worked to keep Persia weak so they
could continue to try to dominate the region.
Which reminds me that most people in Iran
are not Arabs, they are Persian.
And most people in Iran don’t speak Arabic,
they speak Farsi, or as we often call it in
English, Persian.
So after WWI European rivalries really heated
up because of the discovery of oil in the
Middle East. The British established the Anglo
Iranian Oil Company – which would later
come to be known as BP.
They also extracted a bunch of concessions
from the Iranian government in addition to
extracting lots of oil.
And they helped to engineer a change in dynasty
by supporting military commander Reza Khan
in his coup in February 1921.
Reza Khan became Reza Shah and then he attempted
to turn Persia, which he re-named Iran in
1935, into a modern, secular, western-style
state kind of like Turkey was under Ataturk.
But Reza Shah is perhaps best remembered for
his over the top dictatorial repression, which
turned the clergy against him.
Okay, so during World War II Reza Shah abdicated
and his young son Mohammad Reza Shah became
the leader of Iran. Which he remained, mostly,
until 1979 when he definitely stopped being
the leader of Iran.
So after World War II, the British allowed
greater popular participation in Iran’s
government. The main party to benefit from this
openness was Tudeh, the Iranian communist party.
Mohammed Mosaddegh was elected prime minister
in 1951 and led the parliament to nationalize
Iran’s oil industry, and that was the end
of the democratic experiment.
Now most history books say that in 1953 the
British and the CIA engineered a coup to remove
Mosaddegh from office.
And that is quite possibly true. It is definitely
true that we tried to engineer a coup.
It’s also true that Mosaddegh quit and fled
Iran following demonstrations against him.
But we also know that the Shia clergy encouraged
those demonstrations.
That’s a bit of a weird decision for the
Clergy, considering that Shia Islam traditionally
takes a radical stance against oppression.
But it’s important to remember that Mosaddegh
was supported by the Tudeh party and they
were communists.
Nationalization of the oil industry was one
thing, but a further shift toward communism
might mean appropriation of the land that
supported the clergy, maybe even a rejection
of religion altogether.
So now we’ve seen two occasions where the
Shia clergy support helped facilitate change.
Right, in 1906 and again in 1953.
So, let’s flash ahead to 1979. The Shah
was definitely an autocrat, and he employed
a ruthless secret police called the SAVAK
to stifle dissent.
In 1975, the Shah abolished Iran’s two political
parties and replaced them with one party the
Resurgence party. You’ll never guess who
was resurging - the Shah.
There was a huge round of censorship and arrests
and torture of political prisoners signaling
that autocracy was in Iran to stay.
But before those events in 1975, say between
1962 and 1975, by most economic and social
measures Iran saw huge improvements.
In 1963, the Shah had tried to institute what
he called a White Revolution – top-down
modernization led by the monarchy, and in
many ways he was successful, especially in
improving industry and education.
Oil revenues rose from $555 million in 1964
to $20 billion in 1976.
And the Shah’s government invested a lot
of that money in infrastructure and education.
The population grew and infant mortality fell.
A new professional middle class arose.
But the White Revolution wasn’t universally
popular. For instance, it was opposed by one
particular Shia cleric - the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini.
Khomeini spoke out against the White Revolution
from the religious center of Iran, Qom.
One of his main complaints was that the reforms
would grant more rights to women, including
the right to vote, but he also attacked the
government for, quote:
“the rigging of elections and other constitutional
abuses, neglect of the poor and the sale of
oil to Israel.”
And in general, Khomeini felt that a king’s
power was inherently un-Islamic and that Shia
tradition was to fight that power.
That noted about Khomeini, the 1979 revolution
didn’t start out to create an Islamic state.
At first it was a pretty typical uprising
by dissatisfied Iranians to overthrow a government
that they perceived as corrupt and unresponsive
to their needs.
In spite of, or arguably because of, oil-fueled
economic growth, many Iranians weren’t enjoying
economic success. The universities were turning
out more graduates than there were jobs and
the mechanization of agriculture had the predictable
result of displacing farmers who moved to cities.
Especially the capital city of Tehran where
there weren’t nearly enough jobs for the
number of people.
So, I think it’s unfair to say that a majority
of the demonstrators who took to the streets
in late 1978 were motivated by a fundamentalist
vision of Islam. They were dissatisfied with
economic inequality and political repression
and a corrupt regime.
So why do we generally remember the 1979 revolution
as having been motivated by Shia Islam. Well,
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
So the initial demonstrations did begin after
an Iranian newspaper on January 7, 1978 published
an article that was critical of Khomeini.
By the way, at the time he was living in Paris.
These initial demonstrations were pretty small,
but when the government police and army forces
starting firing on demonstrators, killing
some of them, the protests grew. Each time
marchers protested against the violent treatment
of demonstrators, the government would crack
down, and their violent reaction would spur
more demonstrations. There was also a lot
of criticism of the west tied up in the revolution.
According to one woman who participated:
“American lifestyles had come to be imposed
as an ideal, the ultimate goal. Americanism
was the model. American popular culture – books,
magazines, film – had swept over our country
like a flood...We found ourselves wondering
‘Is there any room for our own culture?’”
The Shah never understood why so many people
were protesting against him; he thought that
they were communists, or being supported by
the British. He also thought that merely bringing
prosperity would be enough to keep him in
power.
It wasn’t. On January 16, 1979 he left Iran.
He eventually ended up in the U.S., which
had unfortunate consequences for diplomatic
relations between the U.S. and Iran.
But the point here is that the first part
of the Iranian revolution was relatively peaceful
protests followed by a government crackdown,
more protests that eventually led to the collapse
of the monarchy, and that looks kind of familiar,
especially if you’ve studied, like, the
French or Russian or even the American Revolutions.
And most historians argue these protests weren’t
about Islam, but rather, “The discontent
over living conditions, pay cuts, and the
threat of unemployment fused with the general
disillusionment and anger with the regime.”
The government that eventually replaced the
monarchy was the second, and in many ways
much more revolutionary revolution.
Thanks Thought Bubble. So the new Islamic
Republic of Iran was based on Khomeini’s
idea about what an Islamic government should
be, a principle he called velayat-e faqih.
Mainly it was that a sharia law scholar, would
have ultimate authority, because he was more
knowledgeable than anyone about law and justice.
There would be a legislature and a president
and a prime minister, but any of their decisions
could be overturned by the supreme ruler who
from 1979 until his death was Khomeini.
Now, if democracy is only about holding elections,
then the new Iran was a democracy. I mean,
Iran has elections, both for president and
for the parliament.
And for the record, despite what Khomeini
might have thought in the ‘60s, women can
vote in Iran and they do. They also serve
in the parliament and the president’s cabinet.
And in the referendum on whether to create
an Islamic Republic of Iran, the vast majority
of Iranians in a free and open vote, voted
“yes.”
Now governance in Iran is extremely complicated,
too complicated for one Crash Course video.
But in once sense at least, Iran is definitely
not a democracy.
The ultimate authority, written into the constitution,
is not the will of the people but god, who
is represented by the supreme religious leader.
And the actions of the Islamic Republic, especially
in the early chaotic days of 1979 but also
many times since, don’t conform to most
ideas of effective democracy.
Like one of the first things that Khomeini
did to shore up his support was to create
the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah
to defend the revolution against coup attempts.
Although initially there were opposition parties,
their activities were curtailed by the new
“revolutionary courts” that applied sharia
law in a particularly harsh fashion.
Like it’s estimated that by October 1979,
several hundred people had been executed.
And under the new constitution, Khomeini was
given extensive power. I mean, he could appoint
the heads of the armed services, and the Revolutionary
Guard and the national TV and radio stations.
He also approved the candidates for presidential
elections and appointed six of the twelve
members of the Guardian Council that approved
legislation from the parliament before it became law.
So structurally Iran’s government looked
kind of like other governments, but as Michael
Axworthy points out it was different because,
quote, “above and beyond stood the faqih,
with the power and the responsibility to intervene
directly in the name of Islam; indeed with
powers greater than those given to most monarchs
in constitutional monarchies.”
By 1979, Iran already had a long history of
clerical involvement in protest and dynamic
change, but it also had a long history of
pushing for constitutions and liberty.
The current end result is the Islamic Republic
of Iran, but it’s worth remembering that
both those threads of history are still part
of Iranian life.
Like we saw that in 2009 and 2010 with the
so-called Green Revolution where there were
huge protests after an Iranian election. Those
protests involved young people arguing for
more rights and liberties.. But they were also led
by, and encouraged by, reformist Shia clerics.
In the U.S. we mostly remember the 1979 Iranian
Revolution for its burning of American flags
and taking of hostages in the American Embassy.
That belonged more to the second phase of
the revolution, the chaotic period when the
Islamic republic was being born.
Life in the Islamic Republic of Iran remains
highly repressive. I mean, for instance, Iran
still executes a very high percentage of criminals.
But it’s inaccurate to say that Iran is
merely a dictatorship, or that it’s merely
repressive. And one of the challenges for
people in the West trying to understand Iran
is that we have to disentangle the various
aspects of the revolution rather than simply
relying on the images that have defined it
for us.
I hope this episode can help a little. You
can find more resources in the links below.
Thanks for watching.
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