The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran - Hardcover

Wright, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375406395 ISBN 13: 9780375406393

Publisher: Knopf, 2000

Synopsis

"The Last Great Revolution is written with clarity and insight about Iran's tumultuous twenty-year Islamic revolution. Robin Wright speaks authoritatively about the Iranian republic's evolution, from the convulsive, vindictive early years of he revolution to the current uncertainties over experimentation with Islamic democracy. Her book is a valuable contribtion to our understanding of contemporary Iranian society and the possible directions this very important country make take in the future."
— Senator Richard G. Lugar, Foreign Relations Committee

Robin Wright, the acclaimed Mideast expert and foreign correspondent, returns to Iran, which she has visited more frequently than has any other American since the fall of the shah, to give us a portrait of the revolution — a generation after Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to end 2,500 years of monarchy.

She shows us how the Iranian revolution has taken on even greater importance since Khomeini's death, and how it transformed Iranian society as well as Islam. She describes the revolutions within the revolution that have resulted in a movement as radical in the world of Islam as Luther's Reformation was in the Christian world — empowering women, modernizing social traditions, creating a fiesty, independent cinema and arts industry and giving birth to a new generation that is redefining Iran's political agenda.

Wright makes abundantly clear why she believes the Iranian revolution will stand along with the French and the Russian as one of the three innovative revolutions — and the last great revolution — of the Modern Era.

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From the Inside Flap

The Last Great Revolution</b> is written with clarity and insight about Iran's tumultuous twenty-year Islamic revolution. Robin Wright speaks authoritatively about the Iranian republic's evolution, from the convulsive, vindictive early years of he revolution to the current uncertainties over experimentation with Islamic democracy. Her book is a valuable contribtion to our understanding of contemporary Iranian society and the possible directions this very important country make take in the future."<br>― Senator Richard G. Lugar, Foreign Relations Committee<br><br>Robin Wright, the acclaimed Mideast expert and foreign correspondent, returns to Iran, which she has visited more frequently than has any other American since the fall of the shah, to give us a portrait of the revolution ― a generation after Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to end 2,500 years of monarchy.<br><br>She shows us how the Iranian revolution has taken on even greater importance since Khomeini'

Reviews

Few Western journalists are more familiar with postrevolutionary Iran than Wright (In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade, etc.). Wright first traveled to Iran as a young reporter in 1973 and has made dozens of excursions to the country since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Going beneath the veil, as it were, of contemporary Iran, Wright reveals several cultural trends that have occurred inside the political revolution itself and argues that these "revolutions within the revolution" will be lasting. She shows not just how Islam has impacted Iran but how the people of Iran have impacted Islam, liberalizing it and setting in motion changes that will be as far-reaching for Islam as the Reformation was for Christianity. Wright paints a fascinating portrait of a complex society in which women--despite headscarves--enjoy considerable empowerment in the workplace and politics, in which the arts thrive and there is greater religious tolerance than many readers will have supposed (Iranian Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians enjoy their own reserved seats in Parliament). Wright argues that the results of all these combined religious, political and cultural trends will eventually mark Iran's as the last great revolution of the modern era, on a par with the French and Russian revolutions. Wright's combination of reportorial immediacy and historical perspective makes her book the most accessible guide yet to a country where the battle between modernity and tradition is heating up. Illus. not seen by PW. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A timely assessment of Iran by the Western reporter perhaps best-equipped to make it. Wright, who in Sacred Rage (1985) traced the rise of militant Islam, and in In the Name of God (1989) covered the first decade of the Khomeini revolution, intended to make a human journey inside 20 years of revolution. Much of her material reflects that purpose: interviews about the cultural revolution, descriptions of local geography, and excellent reporting on the ambivalence of a theocracy to love, marriage, and sex (to entrench the revolution, the age of marriage in females was reduced from 15 to 9; but then, to deal with a population spiraling out of control, extraordinarily frank birth control guidance was decreed). In truth, however, she came very close to covering a new revolution. The demonstrations of July, 1999, were, she notes, ``the biggest and boldest challenge to an Iranian government since the revolution.'' Only the firmness of the reactionary clergy and the continued loyalty of the army saved the regime. Nor is the challenge over. Given a deteriorating economic situation, up to 40 percent inflation, unemployment at 25 percent, the clergy widely unpopular, elections due early next year, and many of the most obscurantist groups facing re-election, the situation could surely change again. Wright concludes that the ``Islamic republic is not likely to survive in its current formalthough its ruthless use of power to screen out hostile candidates, its draconian thought-crime laws, and its death squads would seem to conflict with her broader theory that the Iranians have taken bigger steps in defining a modern Islamic democracy (or at least posed fewer obstacles to that prospect) than any other Muslim country. But this book is still far and away the most balanced, thoughtful, and comprehensive overview of a strategic and important country. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

For Americans whose enduring memories of Iran are of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the hostage crisis, it may seem odd to characterize what's happening in Iran as a great revolution, but Wright gives a fascinating account of the changes in that nation in the past 20 years. A journalist who has covered Iran during this period, Wright analyzes the stages of the revolution and the use of religion in the push for political power. She examines the unique blend of Islamic religion and European laws that Iran continues to employ. She provides insights into Iranian leaders--from Khomeini to Rafsanjani to Khatami--and the social, political, and religious forces that formed each man and his ideas. Wright talks to journalists, educators, politicians, entertainers, and others to present a picture of the cultural and political changes in Iran: the softening of cultural restrictions, the empowerment of women, and the modernization of industry and the economy. Vanessa Bush

This is a highly engaging book about the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 and its transformative impact on Iranian society. Written by an American journalist who has covered Iran for the past 20 years, the book offers unique insights into the complexities of Iranian society and culture that will be both informative and entertaining for American readers whose views of Iran are, typically, distorted by stereotypes and misperceptions. Wright, whose previous book on Iran (In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade) covered the first ten years of the Islamic Republic, seeks to explain both major and nuanced changes that have taken place in Iran during the second decade of the revolutionary period. Wide-ranging, the book covers such issues as Islamic reformism, voices of dissent, and love and marriage. This well-written and highly readable book is recommended for public libraries.
-Nader Entessar, Spring Hill Coll., Mobile, AL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the dusty highway south from bustling Tehran, an enormous gold dome rises importantly across the horizon. Heat from the surrounding desert makes it shiver like a mirage, even in winter. Four spiny minarets quiver rhythmically alongside it.

The most ornate shrine in Iran -- and one of the largest monuments ever constructed in the Muslim world over the past thirteen centuries -- was built in record time above the burial site of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after he died abruptly from a heart attack in 1989. Disgruntled Iranians complained at the time that its cost was greater than the annual budget of Tehran, a city of some 13 million people. Iran's devout boasted that it was finer than both the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the prophet Mohammad's tomb in Medina, Islam's two holiest sites. Their message was implicit.

The trip to Khomeini's tomb and the nearby Paradise of Zahra has always served as a barometer of Iran's revolution. I've stopped there on every visit. The last time was almost twenty years after the revolution -- and a decade after the ayatollah's death -- when I sat in the back seat of a boxy white Paykan taxi, a warm wind threatening to blow off the big scarf that hid my hair and a tape of the Spice Girls booming from the taxi's tape deck.

En route, my old friend Lily Sadeghi and I made plans to see a Molière farce that night at one of Tehran's new cultural centers. We regretted having missed a local production of Les Misérables, in Persian, that had just closed after a six-month run.

"We probably wouldn't have gotten in anyway," Lily said. "It was very popular. It was always sold out."

Then we laughed about all the American tourists who had started coming to Iran again. Another group had just checked into the Laleh Hotel, the former Intercontinental renamed for the tulip, a national symbol.

Until just a few months earlier, the Laleh and most other hotels had big signs emblazoned across lobby walls or on entrance walkways for visitors to tread on that declared, in English, "down with the usa." They'd been put up in the heady days of 1979 after the United States Embassy seizure, at the same time that Khomeini's pledge "America will face a severe defeat" was painted across the embassy's high brick wall.

But that morning, two decades after the revolution, I'd watched a group of American tourists assemble in the Laleh's redecorated lobby. They, too, were going to visit Khomeini's tomb.

Like the world around it, Iran has been -- and still is -- going through a transformation. Early passions have been replaced by a hard-earned pragmatism, produced in part by revolutionary excesses that backfired against the clerics and exhausted the population. Arrogance has given way to realism. The "government of God" is ceding to secular statecraft. The passage of time has also helped to restore perspective. The shift is visible even at the tomb of the soulful Imam [a term of reverence given a Shi'ite religious leader by popular consensus rather than by formal appointment or vote. Its use is rare] who in 1979 led a widely disparate movement that ended 2,500 years of monarchy and then, over the next decade, defined what would replace it.

The main chamber in the domed tomb is, indeed, magnificent. The foundation, walls and massive pillars are a polished white marble that reflects the light of chandeliers and gives the tomb an airy feeling. Persian carpets, all handwoven silks in richly textured designs denoting Iran's different provinces, adorn the floors.

In the center is a cage-like chamber of glass big enough to be a room. It is canopied in green, the color of Islam. Inside, the ayatollah lies under a six-foot-high block of marble, also covered by a green cloth. Next to the Imam, under a smaller block of marble, is his son Ahmad, who died in 1995. The official version is that Ahmad died of a heart attack, although the grapevine in conspiracy-crazed Iran claimed a variety of more sinister causes, each of which was fueled largely by the fact that Ahmad was only in his late forties.

The chamber's glass walls are covered with a silvery-metal grid, in no small part to prevent the large crowds that once assembled here from breaking through to the Imam's remains. The faithful still shudder at the memory of the chaos at Khomeini's funeral, when his shrouded body was uncovered and tossed around by mourners vying to get a last look or touch. On each side of the chamber, at eye level, is a slit through which to pass money. Rial notes used to be piled high inside around the edges. Inside the octagonal dome above Khomeini are somewhat incongruous stained-glass windows of giant red tulips with green stems crafted artistically in the simple modernistic style of New York City's "big apple." In Iran, the tulip is the symbol of martyrdom as well as the national flower.

For all its splendor, the tomb is now a place of unusual informality. Non-Muslims and foreigners are welcome; unlike in mosques, men and women mix freely together here. Out of either reverence or curiosity, almost everyone who enters heads first for Khomeini's chamber.

As I peered inside it, a small middle-aged woman next to me wept softly, reciting a prayer and touching the metal with rough hands stained with henna. Then, having paid her respects, she walked over to join a group having a picnic lunch.

Throughout the cavernous tomb, groups were spread across the carpets, eating or chatting, while children played tag or raced to slide across the marble floor in their stocking feet; two boys even kicked around a small soccer ball. Some loners, mainly but not exclusively men, were curled up against the wall napping.


Outside, on the vast plaza that surrounds the tomb, the atmosphere was quite social, almost festive. A row of outdoor cafés offered an assortment of sweet delicacies. On the other side of the plaza, souvenir kiosks sold T-shirts, beach towels, key rings, pinup posters and even large bamboo blinds featuring Khomeini's image, as well as cassette tapes of the ayatollah's last will and testament -- in Persian, English, French, German and Arabic.

"With a tranquil and confident heart, joyous spirit and conscience hopeful of God's grace, I leave you, sisters and brothers, and depart for the eternal abode," one poster proclaimed, quoting Khomeini, who is depicted ascending to heaven on a rainbow.

Judging from the purchases, T-shirts were clearly more popular than the Imam's last will and testament.

Like the crumpled rials around the grave, profits from memorabilia were being used to expand the complex. Construction was already under way on an addition designed to spread across some five thousand acres and include an Islamic studies university as well as a seminary, hotels for pilgrims and a shopping mall, all at a cost of at least $2.5 billion. The tomb will eventually become the center of a suburb, complete with its own metro stop.

For a weekend afternoon, the tomb was lightly populated -- roughly two hundred people in a facility that could hold several thousand. The count went up when a class of preteen girls, just old enough to don the headscarf and body cover of Islamic modesty, filed in with their teachers. The tea men at the outdoor café said the tomb still bustled at holidays and revolutionary anniversaries and during various pilgrimages.

"They keep coming and coming," said one, shaking his head, in a tone of curious disbelief that once might have been considered dangerously irreverent.

The last stop for many visitors before leaving the plaza is a large chunk of smoothed white stone that features an embossed bust of Khomeini. The image is almost translucent. That day, a few Japanese tourists and several Iranian schoolgirls were lined up to have their picture taken in front of it. With the Imam peering across their shoulders and the domed shrine in the background, the photo is the ultimate souvenir in the Islamic republic. It captures what even the most dogmatic clergy now concede is part of Iran's past.








The passions once evoked by Ayatollah Khomeini may have waned, even withered, as the tough realities of running a large country with a complex economy have taken precedence. But the idea behind the revolution led by the Imam still had historic importance two decades later -- perhaps in some ways even more than when it started.

Its significance also extended far beyond Iran, the Middle East, the broader Islamic world and even the twentieth century, for one simple reason: It is the last great revolution of the Modern Era.

The singular political theme of the Modern Era -- and particularly the twentieth century -- has been empowerment, or the spread of political, economic and social rights to the earth's farthest corners, to all its diverse ethnic groups, races, religions and, perhaps last of all, to both genders. Dozens of countries can claim revolutions in the name of empowerment since the English Revolution of the 1640s created a modern precedent. But fewer than a handful represented seminal turning points. They set the pace, defined goals, provided justification and, most important, introduced a viable new idiom of opposition later adapted or imitated elsewhere.

Two revolutions particularly shook political conventions by introducing new ideologies: In toppling the Bourbons of France, the Jacobins of the eighteenth century introduced equality and civil liberty as the basis of modern democracy. In the early twentieth century, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Romanovs in favor of classless egalitarianism.

The ideas that emerged from both revolutions in turn helped to topple monarchies and petty tyrannies worldwide and then defined the political spectrum that replaced them. The pace accelerated as demand for political participation spread after World War II. However misguided in application, the empowerment embodied in democracy and socialism inspired popular uprisings from China to ...

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0375406395
• ISBN 13: 9780375406393
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368