Pictory

Literacy statistics

Can you provide levels of literacy in Iran for as many years back as possible?
Much obliged

John Carpenter: Haven't You Had Enough?

You must be a masochist. Even after I have schooled you and exposed you for the multiple personality charletan you clearly are, you come back for more punishment.

Well, since you insist, here is today's lesson:

(I typed this very slowly because I know John can't read fast, nor can he keep his lips from moving when he does so)_____________________________________________________________

Republic:  government with an emphasis on liberty, rule of law, popular sovereignty and the civic virtue practiced by citizens.

It always stands in opposition to aristocracy, oligarchy, and dictatorship. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government.

John Adams:, “They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.”  (Nor mollahs).

The Pahlavis and Human Rights in Iran 1925-1979

With the arrival of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, human rights declined in Iran. Political prisoners were imprisoned, poilitcal opponents and erstwhile allies were executed.
See:
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_P...

Reza Shah's son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi continued in his father's footsteps.

Same cite noted above.

The Pahlavis had a terrible human rights history.

The Pahlavis, a Mazandarani villager family did not know what human rights is.

Reza Pahlavi was not educated.

Mohammad Reza was not very educated either.

What does Microsoft Encarta say about the Pahlavi dynasty? Microsoft encarta by the way, is owned by Microsoft, Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world owns Microsoft. The following is what Microsoft Encarta's encyclopedia online writes about the Pahlavi dictatorship:

The 1906 constitution remained law until 1979, but after 1925 it was ignored in practice by the Pahlavi dynasty shahs, who created a highly centralized government over which they ruled as virtual dictators. Beginning in the early 1950s, popular disaffection with arbitrary rule increased gradually, culminating in the 1979 Islamic revolution. This revolution replaced the monarchy with a republican form of government guided by the principles of Shia Islam.

See:
//encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567300_8/Ir...

Please re-read the last sentence of the Encarta piece I have posted here.

This revolution replaced the monarchy with a republican form of government guided by the principles of Shia Islam.

The word "republican" means that the Iranian people were represented.

What does that mean?

That Iran was worse off during the Pahlavi dynasty than it is today.

If that is true then the Pahlavis were real idiots.

I can't believe that anyone in his right mind would defend the rule of the Pahlavis.

Failed?

Even if one thinks that WR (White Revolution) failed, its failure has not been anywhere as devastating and lasting as the failure of FR (Fraudulent Revolution) of 1979.

Good Point Mamad

Good arguments even if I don't entirely agree on the last points regarding the failure in literary rate. Much was to be done in this regards but the number of schools and universities constructed during that era was impressive. I do need to check the statistics but part of the consenquences of the WR was that it led to an exodus from villiages to the city. It was too rapid a pace and explains some of the side effects like the poor suburbs in Southern Tehran. I am not certain that the WR was particularly an idea of the Kennedy adminstration. It seemed a subtle and intelligent way for the monarch to create support amongst the people as a Liberal monarch who cared for his people. One can think it was manipulative others that is was better  seeing a King do this than rule as most Oriental despots that preceded him.

As far as  Repression is concerned it is true by the mid sixties when  Colonel Nassiri replaced the much respected General Hassan Pakravan

However in the first years and particularly during the first revolts spearheaded by Khomeiny in 1963, Pakravan tried to keep a firm grip on eventual excess and wrong doings of the Secret Services throughout his tenure (1961-1965). He allowed inspections of the Red Cross for instance and he was determinent in saving Khomeiny's life asking the Shah to pardon him end send him to exile rather than executing him for defying the Crown.

Pakravan was ironically executed by Khomeiny after the revolution :

See Below ( From Wikipedia):

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Pakravan

He was not allowed to have access to a lawyer and the charges filed against him were vague. Given the fact that he was retired at the time of the revolution his execution seemed all the more unjust. It is well-documented fact (confirmed by many Iranian officials, including the late Shah, in his memoirs) that Pakravan was a key in convincing the Shah to commute a death sentence passed on Khomeini in 1963 for his role in the 1963 riots into exile. Khomeini was first sent to Turkey, and then to Iraq, where he stayed until his expulsion to France in 1978.

In her memoirs, Mrs. Pakravan provides details of the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of her husband by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. General Pakravan was taken from his house to an unknown destination. When his son tried to contact him, he was told that the general was not arrested at all. He is the guest of the ayatollah. But in fact he was imprisoned shortly after his arrest.

According to a fellow inmate, a few days before his execution, General Pakravan had smiled and said,

It’s funny. I’ve never lived in such conditions even in the army in such complete denuement [destitution]. I know what’s going to happen to me. It will be the machine gun, but I’ve never felt so [peaceful].

White Revolution was to prevent another revolution

In the 1950s and early 1960s peasants and land reform, or lack thereof, were the leading driving force for the leftist movements in Central and South America. The Kennedy administration was worried about a similar phenomenon in Iran. At the same time, although the 1953 coup had made all the leftist groups illegal in Iran, and their leaders had either been jailed, killed, or exiled, the left was still strong. In fact, it was the huge influence of the leftist movements in Central and South America that gave rise to the Islamic leftist Mojahedin Khalgh establishment in 1965, and secular leftist Fedaaeen Khagh in 1970.

Thus, the Shah, pressured strongly by the Kennedy adsministration, decided to pre-empt a leftist movement by his so-called White Revolution. Another motivation for the Shah was to root out the influence of big landlords and the fuedals of whom he was afraid, and create an industrial base which would, however, be dominated by assembly (montage) lines given to him by the US and other Western corporations, rather than any true industrial capacity for production (with one exception: the steel industry which was, however, built by the Soviet Union).

Did the WR succeed?

Parham already explained succintly why it did not. It added to the urban friction, created a huge underclass on the outskirts of large cities, and
unhappy population. Then, the hyperinflation of 1975-1977, caused by the Shah's wishes to spend rapidly the windfall from the oil boom to develop Iran, made the situation only worse.

I add to what Parham said by saying that the Shah simultaneously increased the political repression, and eliminated the secular National Front and the moderate Islamic group, the Freedom Movement of Mahdi Bazargan/Yadollah Sahabi/Mahmoud Taleghani, which was in fact an offshoot of the NF. So, put together what Parham said with the political repression, and we get the Revolution of 1979. The WR was intended to prevent a revolution and the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty, but it failed.

There was, in my opinion, one positive outcome of the WR: women got the right to vote, and to participate actively in the affairs of the society. That was positive. But, in terms of helping the peasants, raising the literary rate, or other goals, the WR failed.

It was an old idea

The ideas for land reform and profit sharing for workers were all proposed by tudeh and mossadegh years ago. His land reform had one thing in mind and that was to weaken and break the religious charities who were the biggest landlords in Iran.

How effective it was...

You wanna know how good it was?

May be you should ask the liberated women, those who could not go to school a generation before, and those who could go to school and prosper a generation later.

Maybe those villages that had no access to health care and education "at all" a generation before, and had "some" access to either a generation later.

Maybe those villager who worked hard for their masters a generation before, and some "few" of them who succeeded in elevating their standard of living a generation later.

As usual, anti-shahis want to paint everything black and white, and consider anything in-between as black.

Had we had no white revolution, we would have looked like afghanistan today with mullas behaving like taleban. It is the surviving impacts of the white revolution that has placed mullas on some leash and under some pressure.

And who cares about who was the architect? If it worked, at least partially, so be it. Would you not drive a car or fly a plane because its architect was a westerner?

Shahanshah Aryamehr

When I told my Asian frineds about  "White revolution", they were shocked by the fact that Shah of Iran was so benevolent and opne-minded. 

Please bear in mind that criticizing something is always easy, but alos consider that the White Revolution was a big breakthrough in Iranian Society. This achievment is the reason why even today Iran is so differnet from its neighbours.

VIVA IRAN! 

Can-Ce-R

Cancer is not personal... it is strictly business...

No.

Shah would have died of cancer anyways in 1980. White or red revolution has had no impact on his condition.

There Will Be Blood

Had he waged a red revolution instead of white one the majesty would have been still rocking at the age of 90 as the king of kings while his son waiting in line with white hairs propping up all over his body at par with Prince Charles...

Did you notice the election ballots at time 1:54

One thing that caught my eyes was an election sequence in this film.

If you fast forward to 1:54, you will see it. There are stacks of ballot forms that voters are supposed to pick up and a few steps away drop them in the ballot boxes. But the ballots are clearly divided into 2 stacks of "agree" and "disagree"  

(موافق و مخالف).

Although I remember how the Pahlavi regime ran things and wouldn't need a film like this to learn about it, but nevertheless this is a reminder of how Pahlavi implemented his "democracy"!   The voting was supposed to be free, fair and secret so eveyone can vote their opinion without the fear of intimidation!  But as you can see clearly in this film and as I can remember, they had ways of intimidating people into voting a certain way! Obviously everyone standing around the ballot forms would see which stack you're picking your ballot from!!

The same type of techniques, including intimidation atmosphere and pre-screening & filtering of candidates by the Guardian Council

(شورای نگهبان), 

has tainted the Islamic Republic elections since day one as well!  So, these 2 regimes are really no different when you look closely. There is a dictator at the top whose word is unquestionable. And there is tainted and watered down elections to give the illusion of democracy! And then there is the herd mentality and intimidation techniques that put down and discourage new ideas and objections to the king's (or supereme leader's) decree!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that both regimes share the same eventuality! The difference is that the end of Islamic Republic will be the end of religious politics and possibly even the open practice of religion in Iran for a long time!

The was no substance to

The was no substance to "White Revolution". It was all meant to push Iran into the gates of "Great Civilization" (darvazehaye tamaddon bozorg). Unfortunately, Shah's vision of great civilization was to copy western lifestyle.
The expression says: kalaghe khast rah raftane Kabk ro yad begeere, rah raftan khodesh ham yadesh raft.

Definitely, he understood that freedom, democracy and modernization had substantial conflict of interest with his dictatorship/kingdom.

If he paid a little attention to our people, culture and heritage rather than basing his support on western lifestyle and masters, I think he would have succeeded to have a powerfull

At this juncture in time -

At this juncture in time - after all that has happened- can we not LEARN and move forward to improve, each and everyone of us from the inside?
Do we think we are the only nation that
has had to endure such catastrophe.
Others have overcome such disasters, shouldn't we?
... starting by: "let me see what I CAN DO"?

Check your sources, DK

...
Elwell-Sutton, L. P. "Reza Shah the Great: Founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty." In Iran under the Pahlavis, edited by George Lenczowski. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1978.

There were many Western apologists of Reza Shah, most of them called him "the great" check your sources before making normative statements!

Great recipe in the hands of incompetent!

While the idea of the While Revolution was noble, whether it is was invented by the Shah himself (which I doubt), Kennedy, or Amini, it miserably failed to produce the intended outcome in practice. Despite all the propaganda and hoopla, the reform eventually created a scrambled society in which the majority of population was dissatisfied and lost, even the "liberated" peasants as described by Parham eloquently. But why such a great concept did not work? The answer is perhaps there was no faith in it by the regime itself as the recipe was dictated by foreigners in the first place. And of course, greed and mismanagement are always enemy number one.

While all the comments posted here are respectful, I find that by Parham the most reasonable. The ideas expressed by Kadivar and M.D. fall in the same category but on opposite ends of the spectrum.

N'importe Quoi maleknasri M.D.

Good Counter arguments Parham Jan even if I don't quite agree but as far as maleknasri M.D. is concerned he needs a Doctor ...

Oh but it seems he is one ! The Westeners don't even consider Reza Shah as Great ! Iranians However do even to this day even to the admission of the Islamic Republic. They even kept the name Iran which they could have easily substituted as they did with our Sun and Lion Flag.

Shows how unobjective you are M.D. ...

The White Revolution was actually one .........

.......of the major reasons why there was an Islamic revolution later. I mean also Reza shah, for westerns the Greate, has had a greate part by the motivating the Iranian Nation to pull through their Islamic Revolution. However the late shah did the bigger part of the work. I mean if it were no KASHFE HEJAB, if Iranians had not experienced the White Revolution, if the shah were satisfied with his SALTANAT may be Iranians would have never achieved what they enjoy today: Being the master in their own home, being the keeper of rules and law in their Waters, being self sufficient in Medizin, in Food, in culture, dance, music, technics and in producing whtaever they need for their daily life by themselves, sciences and and and. I can say: Thank you Resa shah, thank you late shah. The latter can be sure his white revolution which was for most Iranians actually TAHHAVO VA ENGHELAB will be memorized by Iranians untill reappearing of mahdi(s). However one should also take into account that what these two respectable kings did, they did it with the help and in order of strangers. The Islamic Revolution was but made in self management of Iranians. Greeting

The White Revolution was

The White Revolution was actually one of the major reasons why there was an Islamic revolution later, or better, why the revolution turned "Islamic" later on.

The land reforms that were imposed were implemented in such a way that they didn't leave any other way for the new landowners (the ex "ra'yat") than to sell their parcels of land and flock to the cities, mostly to Teheran. One piece of land didn't have access to water, the one that had access to water didn't have much land to irrigate, and so on. This led the peasants to sell their land back in order to leave for the cities. This is the same crowd that was the motor behind the massive demonstrations that took place later in 1978-79, as it hadn't found what it thought it would in the big city either.

It's also true that Kennedy had 'strongly suggested' reforms to the Shah, who was at first unwilling to go ahead with much of the idea (and perhaps he was right), but it was Amini who convinced him he should go ahead with the reforms. Amini then commissioned a certain Arsanjani to come up with the land reform plans, and the plans were rushed into action without much analysis; but then perhaps also typical of a country that's not too familiar with the word "reform" in its true sense. The rest is history.

Best Thing He did

We can criticize the Shah for many things but not the White Revolution.

Whether he did it for his own glory or that of his countrymen and women the result was a constructive step towards a better future and living for the majority of Iranians at the time. EVERYONE Benefited from this except the Mullah's and the old Aristocracy.

Unfortunately the Shah's major shortcoming and fatal mistake was the creation of the Rastakhiz party in the mid 70's that put an end to his political credibility and only fed the staunchest critics of the monarchy or anyone who had personal grudges against he Pahlavi's. Some Old crumbling Qajar arsitocracy or intellectuals became communist activists just to bash the Pahlavi's they hated and the clergy used every pretext to show the Shah in a negative light in their preaches in the mosques. Normal they all had lost their lands and privaledges ...

To criticize the White Revolution is ridiculous cause it was the only logical thing to do at the time and it benefitted everyone. Had mossadeg won he would have done more or less the same thing. Too bad that the spirit of this Revolution was betrayed by the same person who started it and that is the Shah himself. I don't think it was wise to have created the Rastakhiz Party as he did which put an end to the constitutional nature of the monarchy and only benefitted in creating a poisonous political atmosphere and encouraged Ass Kissing ministers and political oppurtunism in the late 70's. And yet I think that most of these Ass Kissing Ministers ( Hoveyda Included) were not only competent but also deeply patriotic and true civil servants. The problem was that the Captain of the Boat, That is the Shah was not the same man he was in the late 50's and throughout the 60's up to his coronation and that is A Positive Role model and over all one of the Best Kings Iran had in comparison to all the corrupt Qajar Kings that preceded him. But by the 70's the Only Positive Role Model in our Kingdom was and Still is the Shahbanou. She saved and made up for much of the shortcomings of the last Dynasty thanks to her unfatiguable dedication to her compatriots and genuine care for them. Even at the Height of the Revolution most people Loved the Queen despite their scorns against the Shah himself.

I think that in restrospect the White Revolution remains an incredibly bold, Just and overall positive political and social move for Iran and helped it enter the 20th century and catch up on the West. It had some far reaching legacies that have even ramifications in Iranian society to this day particularly in regard to civil participation and the role of women in society even if it is less apparent in the latter case and that women rights have faced a major setback eversince the Islamic revolution of 1979. After all Shirine Ebadi is a fruit of the White Revolution. She was the Very First Female Judge in Iran under the Pahlavi Dynasty. She lost that position after the revolution and became only a Lawyer, which did not stop her to win the Nobel Prize.

History has its Ironies ... All the more A reason to learn it and learn From It !

Us

How great would it have been if we just evolved?

Imposed reform

The "white Revolution" was designed and imposed on Shah by the Kennedy administration. It was an attempt to counter the Soviet influence in Iran through its stooge, the Toodeh Party.

Thank God they are gone

Falling kissing his shoes.
The whole freaking world was around him or them.
No body in the new world who we are and where we are, the great Persia and greater Persian.

Today, same shit under different agenda and bag of tricks.