Abstract
This chapter examines historical, socio-economic and political factors that led to the revolution of 1979 in Iran and its aftermath, especially in terms of women’s loss of legal/social rights. The chapter includes references to the Iran/Iraq War in which one million young men died—a war that is hardly mentioned in the West. It also provides a background of over 100 years of Iranians’ struggle for freedom and establishing the rule of law, shadowed by difficulties in maintaining democracy even when modica of democracy were achieved. The chapter explores policies of the Islamic Republic as well as aspects of the problem of blending Islam and republicanism and the effect of fundamentalistic government on Iranians’ lives.
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Notes
- 1.
The historian Touraj Daryaee (2012) argues that Iran’s pre-Islamic past, the Achaemenid dynasty of 550–330 bc or the Sassanid dynasty of 224–651 ad, when Iran was the most powerful empire in the region, is little studied in the West. He highlights physical and mental activities introduced to the world by Iran in late antiquity, such as the sport polo, and the games chess and backgammon.
- 2.
The Iranian plateau is larger than the size of Britain, France, Spain and Germany combined.
- 3.
The other top issues are: socio-economic, infrastructure and political managements (Mamudi 2013).
- 4.
The USA had imposed sanctions on Iran since the American hostage-taking episode in Tehran, in November 1979. Throughout the 39 years since then, the intensity and strength of the sanctions have varied based on the political relations between the two countries (see Clawson 2010 for more detail).
- 5.
In Shia Islam, twelve Imams who are the descendants of the prophet Mohammad are held in high religious regard as Mohammad’s spiritual and political successors. The twelfth Imam who ‘disappeared’ and is ‘Hidden’ is expected, like Jesus, to emerge in time, to bring peace and justice to the world.
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Sekechi, M. (2018). Historical Context: The Iranian Revolutions of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries and the Struggle for Freedom. In: Iranians in London. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79023-7_2
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