Iran's revolution, 20 years after

This is the first of two articles on the Iranian revolution by Sidhesh Kaul, a commentator on regional economic and political issues based in Jakarta.

JAKARTA (JP): Feb. 11, 1979 was the day when the Iranian army's Supreme Council, after two days of bloody clashes between government troops and pro-Khomeini demonstrators, declared neutrality in the crisis and ordered the troops back to the barracks.

The Bakhtiar government fell and the revolution led by the frail, 76-year-old cleric from Qom, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, emerged triumphant.

From 1956 to 1961 continuous discontent and sporadic strikes led to the "White Revolution", a series of economic and social reforms.

The "White Revolution" had a hidden agenda as well -- it was partly designed to reduce Islamic influence in society -- a fact deeply resented by the Ayatollah and the deeply religious Iranians at large.

The "White Revolution" also had land reform on the agenda, carried out in three stages until 1971, though these strengthened the landowners as an important pillar of the regime.

Yet economic growth and income disparity remained skewed. Hence, despite promises of fundamental reforms, the first large scale protests erupted in 1963 against the Shah's government.

The Shah reacted imperiously with increasingly brutal measures. His reckless modernization campaign, focussed on the purging of "decadent Islamic traditions" and his disdain for religious and cultural sensitivities, further alienated his regime.

Foreign policy also began to lean more towards the United States even whilst undercutting the Friendship Treaty with the erstwhile Soviet Union.

By the mid-1970s, over 50,000 tortured and maltreated opponents of the regime languished in state prisons. The fettered resentment reached volcanic proportions by the mid 1970s. Popular protests and strikes reached such heights in early 1979 that the Shah was forced into exile, leaving the country in the hands of a caretaker government led by the Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar.

The Ayatollah, in exile since 1963 when he denounced the Shah in a scathing speech at Qom as the "miserable wretch who violated his oath to defend Islam", then seized the opportunity to return triumphantly to Iran.

The theologists from Qom had won. They had won legitimacy to establish an Islamic theocracy in response to the Shah's alien western-style regime.

Iran now remains the world's only modern theocracy and the revolution continues in more ways than one. It is a bundle of contradictions as it experiments with greater freedoms, on popular impetus, within a theocratic framework.

Iran's revolution and its aftermath is a stark reminder for those who chose to ignore the importance of cultural factors as a parameter of national stability, as well as a warning to those who hold the view that revolution is the only way to reform.

Almost two decades have passed since the Iranian Revolution and it is time to take stock.

Some scholars argue that it would not be entirely correct to analyse the revolution in a purely religious framework or to label it as merely an "Islamic Revolution", as they tend to obscure other important reasons behind the movement.

The underlying socio-economic factors, the Shah's skewed policies and his almost blind obsession with programs oriented towards western-style growth models at the expense of socio- cultural sensitivities, contributed heavily to the revolution's momentum.

The ayatollahs and mullahs, who the Shah often referred to as "religious fanatics", merely served to funnel the popular upsurge. But to undervalue the role that Islam played in the revolution is to oversimplify the analysis.

Iran's population is predominantly Shiite and Iranians are sometimes referred to as the "Twelvers" because they venerate the 12 descendants of the Prophet Muhammad as the rightful spiritual heirs or "imams".

The first Imam was Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad. His claim to the caliphate of the Arab empire was usurped when he was assassinated by Uthman, a Sunni Muslim, of the Umayyad clan in the mid-seventh century, thus laying the foundations of the continuing deep schism between Sunni and Shiite Islam.

Ali's death is mourned by Shiites the world over as an appalling catastrophe, but even more significant is the killing of the Third Imam Hussein by the Umayyads.

Some scholars see Hussein's death as a redeeming sacrifice similar to Christ's crucifixion. Ashura, the day Hussein achieved martyrdom, is an important day for Shiites and the devout passionately mourn his death.

But the dramatization of the Hussein story has a more explicit political resonance than the Christian Easter. Imam Hussein's martyrdom symbolizes the wickedness of corrupt governments and the flourishing of evil since the golden age of the prophet. This belief is deeply embedded in the collective psyche of predominantly Shiite Iran.

The 12th Imam was Muhammad al Muntazar who is believed not to have died but to have disappeared. He has thus earned the title of the "Hidden Imam" who, belief has it, would return as the Mahdi (Messiah) to rid earth of oppression and tyranny and fill it with equity and justice.

It is then not difficult to believe that rising up against tyranny and oppression was an essential characteristic of the guts and sinews of Iran, and the gatherings at Ashura were the starting points for the revolution.

Iranian national consciousness is deeply wedded to Shiite Islam and when the masses perceived a threat to the nation's integrity symbolized by the Shah's injustice and oppression, political protest in religious terms was imminent.

Ayatollah Khomeini was able to harness this energy and garner support from all quarters of Iranian society.

The Ayatollah was a shrewd politician -- he carefully avoided direct criticism of the Left to avoid alienating the vast exploited working class, secular minded intellectuals and the popular Marxist guerrillas or Fedayeen, and argued for the restoration of the 1906 constitution right up to the time he came to power.

He was the right man at the right time. He was always referred to as "Imam Khomeini" and although it would have been blasphemous to draw a connection with the "Hidden Twelfth Imam" or "Mahdi", the title certainly gave him additional legitimacy and authority among the Shiite Iran.

Khomeini played up to the messianic expectations of the Iranians to the hilt.