Chapter 2

Iranian Cultural and Media Policy: From Constitutional to

Islamic Revolution

Constitutional Revolution and Redefinition of Cultural Identity

It was one of many interesting coincidences in Iranian contemporary history that

Mozaffar al-Din Shah (1853-1907), the fifth king of the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925), was the man who introduced two modern phenomena, one in the field of culture and the other in the field of politics, to Iranian society: the art of cinema that he passionately brought with him after his travel to Europe (1900), and the constitutional monarchy that he reluctantly accepted after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906). Although the first should have waited for next decades to be turned into a significant constituent of

Iranian cultural identity, the latter instantly required and implied a wide range of radical transformations in political and social life of masses, and thus gradually changed their forms of life and their cultural identities.

In the second half of 19*'^ century, following military encounters with Russia, and the consequent defeats and humiliating peace pacts for Iranian side, including partition of big parts of Mamaiek e Mahrouse ('well-preserved territories', a prestigious title for Iran as the Qajar establishment used to call it), there was a growing understanding of technical underdevelopment and necessity of economic progress and industrial improvement - the necessity that had become more visible especially after the arrival of new commercial companies and agents of European colonialist countries (mainly Britain and France) and their rivalry for exploiting the new-found sources in Iran. Moreover, in

47 their travels to Europe, several of the Qajar kings and their high officials had witnessed welfare and happiness of affluent western citizens and civilizations as well as efficient

and organized political systems, had realized the plight and poverty of their own

country; thus, they started to reform some parts of their administrations, and to initiate

and facilitate a process of modernization by establishing a new educational system -for

instance, Darolfonun (polytechnic college), the first modern institution of higher

learning, had been established by Amir Kabir (1807-52), the reformist chief minister of

the fourth Qajar King, Naser al-Din Shah (1831-96), in 1851. Meanwhile, the most

decisive role was played by a range of Iranian intellectuals and students who visited

Europe and - becoming familiar with modern societies, and being impressed with their

foundation and formation - raised their 'comparative consciousness': returning to their

homeland, this 'enlightened' Iranian elite tirelessly struggled to introduce new ideas of

modern statecraft and, more or less, 'civil society' to the Iranian people (not

surprisingly, in 1892, Naser al-Din Shah provisionally banned travel abroad except for

diplomatic missions, as he grew more conservative and suspicious of modern

development in the European style that, he truly believed, would lead to destruction of

his authority). (1)

After all, these rather coordinated efforts, with support of some parts of traditional

communities and several religious authorities (Ulama), culminated in a revolutionary

movement on the eve of 20^^ century in Iran. By relying on their conception of modern

nation-state, the revolutionaries struggled for reawakening of Iranian masses by way of

a radical change in Iranian political system, requested for ending the existing despotic

regime and transforming the old patrimonial monarchy into a new constitutional

monarchy and replacing arbitrary rule by rule of law, or autocracy by democracy.

Eventually, following many violent clashes and conflicts between progressive pro-

constitution forces and their regressive reactionary opponents, the attempts resulted in formation of the first national assembly (Majles) and the first Iranian constitution as the

'Fundamental Laws' of 1906. (2) Historically, especially after the Arab invasion and the

conquest of the Persian Empire in the middle of 7*^ century, religion had functioned as a

48 highly significant element in Iranian identity, had played a major role in Iranian forms of life. However, traditionally, institution of politics (government) had mostly remained independent of institution of religion (Islam); kings and princes had their own rights to do whatever they wanted by way of their administration, religious leaders did not have many things to do with political structure of the society - they, at their best, were supportive of the other's authority.

As a turning point, this autonomy or independence was modified since 16* century when the monarchs of the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722) established 'Shia Islam' as official religion of their kingdom, claimed to be 'God's shadow on earth', commanders of Muslims, protectors of Shia beliefs, keepers of the Koran, and legitimate descendants and lieutenants of the twelve Holy Imams of Shiism. Since then, religious authorities appeared as an increasingly powerful force that legitimized the political body of the society and the king at as its head. Still, they were not included in the political body itself, did not claim any administrative role for themselves; thus, the 'double patriarchy' was to be continued as they did support the king as the legitimate monarch who should be obeyed by all of Muslim subjects under his rule while the monarch officially and financially supported them in return.

The process continued till the constitutionalists tried to transform this relationship and thus to destroy the institution of religiously-confirmed monarchy in Iran, to make a modern 'State' out of the traditional government, in order to facilitate a process of tajaddod (modernity) which was considered as contemporary counterpart of tamaddon

(civilization). To make an alternative for legitimacy source of political power, they proposed a concept of 'Nation' which was supposed to provoke a sense of 'national identity' among the people who did not have a considerable concern about their own

'nationality' - interestingly, as one of their neologisms, the constitutionalists highlighted the word Mellat as a translation of 'Nation' while Mellat had been used as signifying

'Religion' in Persian literature for centuries. However, from Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzade

(1812-78), Mirza Malkam Khan (1833-1908), and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1853-96) to

49 Mirza Abd al-Rahim Talebof (1834-1910) and Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (1876-1956), the secular-nationalist activists and vanguards of constitutionalism (the idealist-humanist intellectuals, at home or in exile, who had a vision of an Iranian Utopia) were more or less aware of the decisive roles which were played by religious authorities in Iranian society as well as the important role of religion in typical Iranian life styles. Faithfully or not, they tried to translate vocabulary of liberal democracy into Islamic tradition, to be able to achieve support of Islamic authorities and religious people (i.e. the vast majority

of the society) as well. At any rate, it worked and, after several decades of intellectual

and social struggles, the constitutional revolution gained victory by establishment of

parliament and approval of constitution in December 1906.

First Constitution: Genealogy of an Unannounced Cultural Civil War

In the 1900s, although Iranian cinema may be said to have already begun with the filming of Mozaffar al-Din Shah's trip to Ostend, Belgium, as recorded on a newly

purchased camera by his court photographer, there was no visual mass media in Iran as elsewhere in the world: cinema was at its beginning and television had to wait for

decades to be born. Then, the main mass media were newspapers that had not yet found a massive audience in Iran: according to the Iranian constitutionalists, there was

no necessity to elaborate on the limits and the liberties of mass media in the form of a fundamental law. That is the reason why we do not find any articulation of media policy

in the first Iranian constitution. However, if we accept that constitutions, especially those that appeared after revolutions, have been expression of power relations rather than creation of them, 'Fundamental Laws' of 1906 and, more importantly, its

'Supplement' of 1907, have many things to say about the power structure in Iran, but

much less about the ideal structure in liberal constitutionalist's minds: the very contradiction was a dominant struggle for defining the Iranian identity, destined to be a crucial element in forthcoming Iranian cultural and media policies in the coming

decades.

50 Since Europe was exposed to the eyes of Iranian constitutionalists as the magnificent model of progress and prosperity, the main patterns for the first Iranian constitution were, admittedly, the European constitutions of Belgium, France, and Bulgaria

(historical experience of the three countries had certain similarities with actual and ideal power structure in Iran); but they witnessed a huge alteration in the process of adaptation, especially in the form of the 'Supplement' of 1907. The 'Fundamental Law' of 1906 had crucially confined itself to the institution of parliament, to articulate its legal position and its members' responsibilities, had avoided the statement of constitutional principles as such (the only important exception came about as an indirect indication to freedom of media speech, where it indicated in Article 13 that 'all newspapers, provided that their contents be not injurious to any one of the fundamental principles of the

Government or the Nation, are authorized and allowed to print and publish all matters advantageous to the public interest, such as the debates of the Assembly, and the opinions of the people on these debates. But if anyone, actuated by interested motives, shall print in the newspapers or in other publications anything contrary to what has been mentioned, or inspired by slander or calumny, he will render himself liable to cross-examination, judgment and punishment, according to law'). As a matter of fact, it was in the 'Supplement to the Fundamental Law' of 1907 that such principles were introduced and the main political-cultural struggle was surfaced in its constitutional battlefield.

As it was expected, since the first parliament was composed of both secular and clerical, radical and moderate, constitutionalists, intensive arguments were offered by them for and against contents of a supplement to the 'Fundamental Law'. In May 1907, Sheikh

Fazlollah Nouri (1843-1909), one of the most distinguished Ulama and Mojtahedin

(high-ranking Islamic authorities) of Tehran and a more conservative member of clerical faction in the parliament, firm and faithful in his efforts to bring the parliament under the control of conservative clerical faction, proposed an addition to the secular supplement requiring that all laws be reviewed by a council of five Mojtaheds before passage. There were some serious religious objections to several clauses of the

51 supplement which was proposed by secular fraction of intellectuals such as Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh (1878-1970): equality of all Iranians before the law regardless of their religious affiliation (Article 8); compulsory secular education for all, including women, and state control over the system of national education (Article 19); freedom of the press and opinion (Article 20).

Moreover, Articles 71 through 89 appeared as another challenge to clerical power by including the civil courts of justice and an appeals court supreme authority in the judiciary, although recognizing the Mojtahedin' authority in Sharia (Islamic law) matters. In such circumstances, Nouri seized upon these issues to wage a fierce campaign for his proposal for a council of Mojtahedin. In the middle of June 1907, Article 2 was added to the Supplement: it required the creation of a council of five Mojtaheds to review all laws before their passage. This council was to function until Judgment Day and the reappearance of the Mahdi (the twelfth Imam of Shia people as their actually absent saviour). Of course, such a 'Guardian Council' was not convened until after the 1979 revolution and Nouri, who later fought against the whole entity of Constitutionalism, was executed for treason to Constitutional Revolution - after Islamic Revolution, he was considered a shahid (martyr), a highway leading to Azadi (freedom) square of Tehran named after him, and was highly glorified for his fight against secular liberal democracy. Still, to add the overwhelming weight of 'religious identity' over 'national identity', in the 'Supplement' of 1907, Shiism was declared to be Iran's official religion; only Shia Muslims were to hold cabinet positions; the general executive could ban 'heretical' books, 'anti-religious' associations, and 'pernicious ideas'; and the legislature itself was not permitted to pass laws that conflicted with the Islamic law. (3)

By such reconciliation, the cultural war between Mashroue (religiously legitimatized) and Mashroute (constitutionally secularized) theory and practice provisionally came to the end: the 'Fundamental Law' of 1096 and its 'Supplement' of 1907 were recognized as Iranian constitution until Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, the war fire was not extinguished during this period but became increasingly warm and wild; each camp had

52 its own leaders in the elite and its own supporters in the main body of the society, their

'co-existence' tends to transform into 'intolerance'. iVIeanwhile, two major events epitomized and crystallized this continuing conflict. As a victory for the modernist camp,

Mohammad Reza Shah, the second and the last king of Pahlavi dynasty, proposed a program named 'White Revolution' in 1969: the proposal aimed to transform the structure of social relations, to enable more effective resource mobilization in the service of development and, thus, to bring about major changes for modernizing Iranian society, including land reforms program and abolishing feudalism, nationalization of forests and pasturelands, privatization of the government owned enterprises, profit sharing for industrial workers in private sector enterprises, extending the right to vote to women, formation of the literacy corps, formation of the health corps, free and compulsory education; the proposal was approved by voters in constitutional referendum in 1963. The other event. Islamic Revolution, was to reverse the direction and to be considered as great triumph of Moshroue over Mashroute, religious identity over national identity, in 1979.

In spite of ail enforced reconciliations and their subsequent contradictions, the first

Iranian Constitution could be considered as a, more or less, liberal fundamental law that could secure premises of civil society and citizens' social and individual liberties within a constitutional monarchy. Although, from a modernist point of view, it was not an ideal constitution, was progressive in its spirit and pragmatic in its body- it established three powers of a modern state (the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary) and, at least theoretically, ensured their independence, could guarantee a kind of secularism in the form of separation of religion and statecraft in a traditionally Islamic society.

Cinema and Society under Reza Shah Monarchy

In October 1925, the last king of the Qajar dynasty, Ahmad Shah (1898-1930) officially handed over the reins of power to Reza Shah (1878-1944), a former Russian-trained

53 Cossack Brigadier who had served as a powerful iVIinister of War, titled Sardar e Sepah

(Marshal of the Army), in the last years of the Qajar Dynasty, therefore the 'Pahlavi' dynasty was established in Iran - it was named after the ancient language dominant

under the Sassanids (the last great dynasty in ancient Iran which was ruined by the Arab

invasion). As a matter of fact, although Reza Shah had the possibility of creating the first

Iranian Republic, by a large parliamentary opposition (composed of both religious and

Qajar-oriented members) he failed to approve his proposal - opposing the king's

proposition for a secular form of governance, influential clerics insisted that their

politics was same as their religion, and their religions was same as their politics.

However, interestingly enough, the illiterate Reza Shah, who never visited a western

country, started a process of authoritative mandatory 'modernization' during his

monarchy with a certain focus on Iranian national interests, not on its Islamic traditions,

to implement secular reforms: he created the first modern centralized state in Iran

based on a Western model of civil society and social and economic development. (4) In a

nutshell, with an important exception (political freedom), his program was essentially

that formulated by the secular intelligentsia of the Constitutional period, and was rather

popular with the nationalist intellectual activists then - for this development, the model

Reza Shah had in his mind was Western society which he saw some of its realizations in

his only foreign trip to Kemal AtatiJrk's Turkey in 1934.

Then, on the one hand, he stressed on ancient Persian cultural heritage in a wide range

of activities: not only police headquarters, military command posts, and other

government buildings adorned with columns, lions rampant, and architectural forms

quoted the classic forms of Persepolis, but also Shahname (The Book of Kings) of

Ferdowsi (935-1020), the greatest Iranian epic poet, was popularized, for fostering the

myth of '2500 years' of glorious monarchy that was to be used and magnified by Reza

Shah's son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in his last years of kingship. By means of such

efforts, Reza Shah wanted to secularize the country and to push it further away from its

Islamic past - as early as 1925, he replaced the Muslim lunar calendar by the Iranian

54 solar calendar, and old Persian (Zoroastrian) nannes were applied for the new calendar

(later, Arabic-Islamic nannes of many provinces, cities, streets, civil services, and

bureaucratic titles were replaced by Persian names). On the other hand, although he

had abolished 'capitulatory rights' of the nineteenth century, which provided

extrajudicial privileges for foreigners (i.e. westerners), Reza Shah tended to admire the

West and to apply its achievements and improvements, crystallized in western way of

life. Therefore, alongside the substantial and infrastructural developments in many

necessary spheres, such as education, medical care, transportation, communication, and

urbanization, there were aggressive campaigns to alter and 'improve' Iranian cultural

identity and remove taints of 'backwardness' by way of changing their life styles,

including clothing styles: tribal and traditional costumes, baggy trousers and felt hats,

were exchanged for Western suits and fedora for men, and the veil {hejab) was banned

for women. (5)

Meanwhile, both as a manifestation of modern society and as an effective instrument

for introducing and establishing the new form of life, cinema was increasingly regarded

as an area to be administrated and extended. In fact, this approach had been started

since a few years before Reza Shah's reign, following the decline of religious resistance

against cinema as something morally offensive and impure - in 1904, Sheikh Fazlollah

Nouri had attended Iran's first public cinema in Tehran and it had to shut down after

one month of operation because of his proscription. (6) Nonetheless, in the last two

decades of the Qajar dynasty, from 1905 to 1925, the number of cinema halls gradually

increased, the first major media policy regarding to Iranian cinema was formed in 1923.

Then, a bill was passed by parliament, which included the following regulative measures

for film making in the country.

Among other regulations and recommendations, the first Iranian film policy had already

declared that: 'Article One: All those companies or individuals, be they foreign or native,

who wish to film in Iran, must first apply for a permit to the relevant police authorities,

and proceed to film under the direct supervision of the said authorities. Article Two: All

55 technical film apparatus must be impounded by the Customs & Excise Department until the successful issue of the film permit [...]; Article Four: After the completion of filming, all stock must be handed over to the Police authorities for inspection and the issue of the relevant export permits [...]; Article Seven: It is strictly forbidden to film, paint or sketch the following sites without relevant permits from both the police department and the Ministry of Culture: historical and religious buildings, roads, national parks, ports, cruise liners, factories and landscapes [...]; Article Ten: It is strictly forbidden to film, paint or sketch military installations and fortifications. Article Eleven: Filming, painting and sketching any subject deemed contrary to the interests and dignity of the nation is strictly forbidden.' (7)

Meanwhile, there were the less regulated laws for screening movies too. In 1925, only six days after Reza Shah came to power, the government issued a decree, implied:

'Henceforth, the new cinemas will screen the latest European methods of agriculture in the evenings.' (8) Obviously, the decree indicated that the new regime was highly aware of the new medium's power of persuasion and of visual influence, while the illiteracy rate at that time was over 80 percent in the whole country. Soon five cinemas were established in Tehran (their first screenings included popular adaptations like Torzan and AH Baba and the Forty Thieves of Baghdad), and a modern middle-class life form with western-styled cafes, theatres, restaurants, and bookstores were developed around them - a few years later, more than forty such cinema halls had opened up in other main cities as well. Simultaneously, other decrees were applied to administrate and regulate the process of screening for foreign films. The strict state observations and

Pahlavi propaganda through cinema were to the extent that, for example, in December

1926, a film titled Cyrus the Great and the Conquest of Babylon was screened at the

Grand Cinema in Tehran: the title of the movie was supposed to make an analogy between Achaemenid Cyrus the Great (d. 529 BC), the most prestigious King of ancient

Persia, and Reza Shah Pahlavi; ironically, Cyrus the Great and the Conquest of Babylon did not really exist: what was Shown at the Grand Cinema was some extracts from the

American silent movie Intolerance, directed by D. W. Griffith in 1916! (9)

56 In fact, the main body of laws concerning cinema was concentrated on political issues; there was no strict censorship on ethical issues - moreover, censorship was not based on a security matter, but arose as a cultural desire to remove traditional (mainly religious) obstacles impeding cultural modernization. However, in June 1930, following the publication of an article in the leading newspaper Ayene ye Iran [Iran Mirror), complaining about ethical issues of foreign films, encouraging the government to expand censorship to include not only political but also moral matters, the government presented a bill for ratification: 'As the town council is responsible for improving public morals and combating corruption, and as the direct control and regulation of all theatres, clubs, public musical recitals, garden parties, etc., is not practical, the government recommends the following bill for ratification: cinema managers are obliged to seek a screening permit prior to the film being shown [...] any part of the film that the council deems contrary to public decency and modesty will be edited out.' (10)

This 'Theatre and Film Exhibition Code' was approved and it required all owners of theatres to submit a copy of the movie to the related authorities before its screening: it was to be reviewed by a delegate from cultural authority and another from police; in case of their approval, the owners of theatres could receive the exhibition permission.

Although this Code concerned ethical issues, a second regulation in 1934 added political concerns to the first, and police gained more powers to censor any improper, thus unpermitted, scenes from movies. (11)

Despite all moral moderation in film regulations, it should be noted that, through the entire period of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the stress was on national culture as opposed to

Islamic heritage; it resulted for the first time in a symbolic separation of Iranian national identity and religious identity, to make an Iranian cultural identity characterized by national identity, not Islamic identity. Unlike the Safavid and Qajar monarchs, Reza Shah not only had not obtained his kingship legitimacy from the religious laws or the Islamic authorities (he was allegedly only a passionate patriot), but also faithfully regarded the

Islamic identity and the Muslim morality as the main obstacles on Iran's way of full- fledged modernization (westernization, secularization, urbanization, industrialization,

57 and so on): to make a modern nation-state, he tried to afford all requirements of a modern state - except for political freedom and people's free participation in political structure - but he needed to make a modern nation as well. Therefore, despite all his pretences of faithfulness to Islam and his attendances at religious gatherings (given the fact that many of the Ulama had welcomed his coming to power, seeing in him a source of salvation for Iran and Islam), he acutely pursued his modernization project which was actually in many ways in contradiction with old-aged Islamic tradition in Iran. As Abbas Milani, the historian and notable biographer of the second Pahlavi monarch, explains, 'Reza Shah, acting in a spirit much like that of AtatiJrk in Turkey, moved aggressively to limit the role and number of the clergy in Iran. From the time he took over in 1925 to the time he left the country in 1941, though the population had more than doubled, the number of mosques had been reduced by half - turning some to schools, cinemas, and, in one case, an opera house.' (12)

Meanwhile, Reza Shah's cultural policies did not result merely from whims of a blind ruler but met with the approval of certain parts of the population, and the very aim of his reformist agenda was to enhance and enlarge this segment against the traditionalist segment of the society. Of course, unlike religious tradition which was based on a long history of Islamic theory and practice, national identity was a totally new sense of Iranianness (being Iranian), not so comprehensive for Iranian subjects; indeed, even the very name of 'Iran' found a new usage for them, as a substitute name for a nation which had been recognized for a long time by the names of 'Persia' or 'Perse': 'Iran' was the name that replaced them by the order of Reza Shah in 1935, for Iranian people were composed of several ethnic groups, all of them allegedly 'Arian' (root word of Iran), not merely Persians (people inhibited in a part of greater Iran). Reza Shah tried to furnish the institutional setting for the development of a national culture by the creation of institutions of higher education, including Tehran University, together with museums, libraries, and other cultural endeavours and establishments such as state-sponsored archaeology and the 'Society for the Preservation of National Monuments'.

58 No doubt, one of constitutive elements of nationalism and of transition to modernity is affiliations with and attachments to communities larger than family, neighbourhood, tribe and even religion. But, to be a nation is much more than to have a united 'geography' as a common country: it needs a sense of solidarity which is usually composed of common language, common ethnicity, common race, common religion, common culture, and so on, they can together create a common 'historical' heritage and experience, or a time-space in which a group of people, composed of different communities, can live and survive. Ironically, given the diversity of languages and ethnicities that have historically constituted Iran as a whole, it seemed the only common element among Iranian people has been Islam as the religion that dominated the country since 14 centuries ago: even today, while much less than half of Iranian people have Farsi as their original language and the allegedly Persian as their ethnicity, official and non-official statistics recognize Islam as religion of about 99 percent of the total population - interestingly, Azeri ethnicity with its Turkic language includes 37.3 percent of the total population, while the corresponding number for Persian people who have Farsi as their mother tongue is only 35.92 percent. (13)

To tackle the dilemma, Reza Shah had a double approach. On the one hand, he stressed on pre-lslamic Iranian history, when the glorious Iranian Empire was in the hands of Iranian people who originally came from the mainland of the country and their old religion (Zoroastrianism) considered as a progressive one or, at least, did not seem as regressive and repressive as the Arabian Islam; on the other hand, he tried to institute and to develop a sense of national identity by propagating and imposing common elements of national identity, by means of different strategies, from recognition of Farsi as the national language of the country and understatement of ethnical diversities to introduction of modern costumes for the people. It was clear that the aim of these efforts and endeavours was to form a new life style that could be more appropriate to patriotic Iranian people (in 1939, in its most organized form, an establishment called 'Organization for the Cultivation of Thought' was created to develop the very nationalist ideals by means of various media like art performances and public lectures). Briefly, all

59 of his strategies were epitomized in a Pahlavi famous slogan: 'God, King, Homeland' - the word for 'God' was the Persian Khoda, not Arabic Allah which later appeared on the new flag of 'the Islamic Republic of Iran'.

It was also according to the very approach that the state began to support and to sponsor some costly cinematic projects. As a result, Dokhtar e Lor {Lor Girl), the first Iranian talkie, was made by Ardeshir Irani (Parsee from Pune and owner of Bombay's Imperial Film studio), in collaboration with Abdul-Hussein Sepanta, in India in 1933. Later on, helping Sepanta to pursue similar projects, the state commissioned Ardeshir Irani to produce the film Ferdowsi, to mark a national event (millennium celebration of the epic poet Ferdowsi held in 1934); however, Reza Shah personally reviewed and ratified Ferdowsi after its production, and a number of scenes, especially those which were related to presentation of king Mahmud of Ghazni, were cut or re-filmed by his order. Furthermore, Sepanta made three other movies related to Iranian historical and literary subjects: Shirin o Farhad (Shirin and Farhad, 1934), Chashmha ye Siah {Dark Eyes, 1936) and Leili o Majnun {Leili and Majnun, 1937) - these were filmed entirely in India as well, the first two with the help of Ardeshir Irani and Imperial Film Studio in Bombay, and the third one with the help of Bahman Irani in East India Film studio in Calcutta. (14)

Film Policy, Modernization, and Westernization in Second Pahlavi Period

Reza Shah did not remain in power to see the outcome of his endeavour: he was abdicated and sent to exile in 1941 - due to several reasons, including his latent sympathy with Nazi Germany and his clear desire to get rid of Russian and British disastrous interventions in Iranian affairs. Allied countries decided to intervene in the situation. Although Iran officially announced its impartiality, northern and southern parts and ports of the country were occupied by and Russian and British armies in September 1941. They forced Reza Shah to resign and to leave the kingship for his oldest son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During a 12 year period, from Mohammad Reza

60 substitution in 1941 to his re-stabilization with the help of a British- and American-aided coup in 1953, a rather free space appeared for mass media in Iran: on the one hand, the new Shah was too young to be a self-confident monarch in his early kingship and, on the other hand, as a well-educated and somewhat intellectual figure, he was eager to erase the memories of his father's dictatorship in people's minds - he tended to be the kind king who did not impose an 'authoritarian modernization,' but encouraged the people to become liberally a part of contemporary culture. However, although print media such as newspapers and magazines took the benefit from this liberal cultural and political policy, cinema did not have the same share. According to its nature - its youth, lack of a considerable historical experience and, especially, dependence on massive human and non-human resources for its production and exhibition - cinema could not feel free as much as other mass media in that exceptional period: it rather remained under state control and new restrictions were added to its previous limitations.

After the Allied invasion, exhibition of films came under the control and jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior Affairs, known as 'Exhibition Office'. Meanwhile, the 'Department of Fine Arts,' affiliated to the Ministry of Culture, established in 1949, was organized in order to administrate different fine arts, including films. These two state apparatuses were supposed to define the best way of conduct for both foreign and Iranian movies. In June 1950, the Ministry of Interior Affairs set out a rigid code of conduct for exhibition halls, film scripts, and film production, declaring that the following films should not be produced or displayed: 'Films in conflict with the foundations of Islam and the twelve Imam versions of Shiism; films in opposition to the constitutional monarchy, his Grace and his immediate family; Depictions of political turmoil in any country leading to the dethronement of the monarch; films that encourage political revolution with a view to changing the regime; films that promote beliefs and practices contrary to the law; any film where the criminal characters do not get punished; any prison riot leading to defeat of the military authorities; films that encourage workers, peasants, students and other classes to oppose the military, or engage in sabotage of factories or schools; films opposed to the nation's customs and

61 traditions; films that create disgust and despair in audiences; films depicting female nudity (defined as the presentation of naked breasts and private parts); films containing foul language or derision of local accents (especially during dubbing); films depicting a naked couple in bed prior to the act of lovemaking; films corrupting public morals and those containing gangster vocabulary; films that intensify ethnic and religious tensions within society.' (15)

Given the low rate of local film production in that period, it was clear that the main target of this code of conduct were foreign films although, one could not ignore the fact that, these restrictions were actually dissuasive preventions. The new monarch was on the way his father had in mind, he wanted to modernize the country by introduction and popularization of modern social and cultural phenomena (including cinema) and by concentration on Iran's pre-lslamic heritage as something relevant and pertinent to non- Islamic western modernity. However, he was also aware that such a plan needed to confront high resistance of the main body of traditional and religious society against secular modernization. Thus, consolidating his foundation of monarchy, he moderated his strategies in order not to arouse general discontent of religious society. This is the reason why we see such a vast consideration on Islamic identity in the code of conduct for films, paralleled with considerable concerns about consolidation of national interest and national identity. After all, the code was to be announced in a conservative country that mainly regarded cinema as a means for immoral, unauthorized, and non-religious pleasures, cinema-goers were considered as promiscuous people and, for a long time, women were not officially and socially allowed to attend at such impure events.

Interestingly, Haji Aqa, the Film Actor (1932), a pioneer silent movie and one of the earliest examples of Iranian cinema, made by Ovanes Ohanian, records the very transforming social, cultural, and political conditions of the modernizing Iran. The film story is an allegory of a traditional society in conflict with the modern art form: Haji Aqa is a deeply religious man, in a hard quarrel with his daughter and son-in-law who want to be film artists. In the course of narrative, the father-in-law is convinced of benefits of

62 cinema by his son-in-law's discussions and questions: 'In every other country, cinema plays a vital role in economic, ethical and literary development. Why shouldn't we have filmmakers of our own?' By the end of the movie, Haji Aqa affirms his daughter and son- in-law's artistic activity and even happily accepts to play a role in the forthcoming film! Hamid Reza Sadr, in his political history of Iranian cinema, suggests, 'As a cornerstone of Iranian cinema, Haji Aqa traces a transformation from one kind of Iran to another. The aim of the state was to reorganise its existing relationship with the religious infrastructure. The Islamic establishment had throughout the post-constitutional period exerted tremendous influence on the affairs of the state, nation and individual. But it had lost control over education, with the establishment of a national system in 1918. The Pahlavi dynasty accelerated this loss of power when the Ministry of Justice took over the administration of the judiciary. Religious courts and judges were replaced by secular ones in all spheres of the law except that of the family.' (16)

However, if the cultural conflict could be resolved so easily in the domain of a movie, it was pursued with much more difficulty in the much bigger scene of the society. To have the upper hand in the civil cultural war, Iranian state established a new apparatus named 'Ministry of Culture and Art' in 1964; its defined aim was 'to improve culture and art, and to maintain, to develop, and to introduce Iran's ancient heritage and ancient civilization'. The ministry organized and conducted five commissions for 'Theatre and Cinema,' 'National and International Music,' 'National Arts and Heritage,' 'Architecture,' and 'Painting and Caving' (17) - later, they were developed and rearranged as nine major General Administrations for 'Archaeology and Popular traditions,' 'Museums and Historic Monuments,' 'Libraries,' 'Cinematographic Affairs,' 'Artistic Education,' 'Artistic Creation,' 'Artistic Activities,' 'Audio-Visual Activities,' and 'Cultural Relations,' where the 'General Administration of Cinematographic Affairs' was responsible for contributing to development of cinematographic and photographic art by means of documentary films concerning the culture of Iran and disseminating knowledge of Iranian history, providing technical assistance for Iranian film producers and supervising the production of films and the showing of foreign films in the country. Yet, before the

63 responsibility of film policy-making was handed centrally over to the new ministry, the social and political scene of the country had witnessed major events and their subsequent outcomes.

One of the most decisive events was the election of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq (1882- 1967), the leader of a political party named 'National Front' and a former member of parliament, as the prime minister of Iran from April 1952 to August 1953. Admittedly, as a well-educated progressive politician, Mosaddeq suggested that kingship and premiership have their own independent rights which should be unified according to the nation's interests. In spite of all his nationalist attitudes, this prime minister's approach was simply unacceptable for Shah as he saw Mosaddeq as an inefficient, populist, and opportunist politician: he deposed Mosaddeq on 16 July 1952 only to be forced to reinstate him on 21 July 1952, by a massive support of citizens and religious authorities. However, the power struggle was not resolved until Shah left Iran in August 1953 and, by an allegedly CIA-led coup and a popular uprising in his absence, came back as an absolute monarch to Iran soon - Mosaddeq was tried by a military tribunal for his 'high treason' to king and nation, condemned to confinement, exile, and house arrest until his death. If we consider the oppositional fronts of nationalist and religious forces in society, Mosaddeq certainly was with the first, while his 'National Front' was mainly composed of insightful elite who wanted to bridge between progressive Islamic identity and national identity as two main necessary characteristics of Iranian cultural identity. (18)

However, on the one hand. Shah accredited himself as the only legitimized person for determining national strategies and for following modernizing plans and, on the other hand, Mosaddeq used to pursue a poor and naive approach to nationalism - most famously, he relentlessly nationalized Iranian oil industry and removed it from British control in 1952, while Shah was deeply eager to compromise and to keep western presence in the country to maintain his highness in leadership and to implant his own version of nationalism. At any rate, by removal of Mosaddeq, Shah renewed his kingship

64 and leadership: while he earlier tended to keep ruling the country as a constitutional king, later used to play the role of the despot who ordained by his arbitrary rule. Limitation of freedom of speech, including freedom of art expression, was one of the most visible effects of the second phase in his monarchy.

Meanwhile, as the number of cinematic productions increased and the film industry flourished during 1950s and 1960s, policy-making about film and cinema was still an ambiguous and temporal issue, politically dependent on actual situation of the society. Thus, despite the rigid state laws concerning conduct of film, and filmmakers, the new 'Commission for Theatre and Cinema' in the Ministry of Art and Culture did not set out to clear the very red lines of state censorship: it was up to the present government to discern and to determine the cases of transgression of cultural laws, and to decide if their possible punishment (mainly, deprivation of the exhibition permission) should be applied or not. For instance, although there were strict laws against screening erotic and violent scenes in cinemas, a growing number of Iranian cinematic productions ignored such a prohibition, many popular movies with such provocative scenes, the so-called genre of film Farsi (Iranificated fWms, or the B movies which were made to compete with Indian Bollywood), could receive the exhibition permission as well. (19)

However, a new censorship regulation, passed in July 1965, demonstrated how the approach had been altered and somehow moderated since June 1950, when the first code of conduct for exhibition halls, film scripts, and film productions was released. The new regulation considered the following films as unauthorized: 'Films containing one or more of the following features may be partially or totally banned: insulting monotheism, people of the holy books, prophets or the Imams; offending the scared religion of Islam, and its Shia variety; casting aspersions on other religious minorities in Iran; Insulting his Majesty the King and his glorious dynasty; encouraging rebellion and sedition against the government and the system of constitutional monarchy; offending civil or military authorities; offending friendly regimes, or casting aspersions on their national achievements, which may lead to diplomatic rows; promoting any belief system

65 contrary to the law; scenes involving assassination attempts on heads of state with a view to encourage sedition; scenes containing revolt and uprising against military authorities, which end with the victory of rebels; scenes that belittle our proud and sacred history and lower our standing either in historical terms or amongst present-day nations; promotion of corrupt and inhuman acts such as: betrayal, murder, espionage, adultery, homosexuality, theft and bribery (this is especially so when no positive moral conclusions can be drawn from their depiction); the victory of evil over good, inhumanity over humanity, immorality over morality, villainy over honour, in all its forms and manifestations whether explicit or implicit; the depiction of sexual relations for the purpose of fulfilling cheap lustful desires and attracting audiences; the naked display of parts of the body (male or female) that should remain veiled, in case public morality is compromised; films that encourage vulgarity; films that are misleading from a historical or geographical perspective, which no doubt leads to cultural deception; poor copies of original films that because of low audio-visual quality may cause frustration and irritation in the audience (in the case of educational and medical documentaries, the Board of Censors is hereby permitted to exercise discretion for the exhibition of special films, at restricted cinemas, and for an exclusive audience); satirical insults directed towards local dialects or provincial ethnicities (includes both Farsi and dubbed films); the usage of lewd and obscene language or the display of ruins, backward regions or ruffians in an attempt to lower our national prestige; scenes that may increase racial or ethnic tensions and whose purpose is to show one race as superior to others; scenes chronicling detailed murder or scenes where animals are killed sadistically and where their ill treatment may cause consternation in the audience (documentaries about slaughterhouses or laboratory experiments on vaccines or films related to hunting are entitled to special exhibition licence at the discretion of the Board of Censors); the use of valueless old film stock made with sulphur nitrate that could easily lead to accidental fire or the diffusion of poisonous gas during performances.' (20) Again, in spite of this extensive censorship regulation, what were actually considered unbearable were mainly assault to the royal regime and sympathy for communist

66 propaganda, while rigidity was declining against the display of violent and erotic themes. (21)

Yet, as global cinema was proving itself as an increasingly influential art form and a powerful culture creator, Iranian state investment in film industry highly increased to the extent that in Fourth Development Program (1968-72) more than 26 percent (i.e. the most) of total improvement budget of the Ministry of Art and Culture was appropriated to the cinematic affairs. (22) As one of its outcomes, by 1973, there was at least one cinema hall in most towns of over 20,000 inhabitants, and even in some regions in towns with over 5,000 inhabitants. This endeavour was supposed to be reinforced by creation of cinematic organizations such as 'Academy of Television and Cinema,' 'Farabi College of Dramatic Arts,' 'Organization for Development of Film Industry', and film festivals including 'Sepas Film Festival,' 'Tehran International Film Festival,' and 'Tehran International Children's Film Festival,' during 1960s and 1970s. Thus, alongside the negative approaches to the unacceptable film functions, the state cultural apparatuses positively tried to encourage young talented filmmakers to create 'proper' and 'progressive' movies for mass audience. Ironically, the double strategy of censorship-sponsorship was not always successful as, aside from few considerable productions, most of common projects which were produced by financial aids of the Ministry of Culture and Art, the National Iranian Radio and Television, and the Organization for Development of Film Industry - including the precious and prestigious movies such as Gav (The Cow, 1969) and Dayere ye Mina (The Cycle, 1975) by Dariush Mehrjui, Aramesh dar Hozour e Digaran (Tranquillity in the Presence of Others, 1970) by Naser Taghvai, and Malakut (The Kingdom of Heaven, 1976) by Khosrow Haritash - were caught in the hands of censorship and could not be timely and properly displayed. (23)

One may find the root of such an ambiguous film policy in the Shah's complicated taste in films. In his well-researched biography of the Shah, Abbas Milani shed light on the very ambivalent approach: 'On the one hand, when he heard that Ebrahim Golestan's documentary [Wave Coral, Stone, 1962] about the oil industry in Iran had won several

67 international prizes, he asked to see the film and the director. Golestan took the film to the Court with some trepidation, for the last line of the film was consciously ambiguous. It talked of the West taking Iran's oil and leaving the country with nothing but the foam left on the beach in the wake of a big wave. The Shah not only clearly understood the implied message in the phrase but as he talked with Golestan after the end of the private showing, he said, "so long as I am here I will not allow them to leave us only the foam." On the other hand, in the late 1960s, as the Shah was trying to improve Iran's image around the world, the acclaimed filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, whose Red Balloon had won many awards, was commissioned to make a short documentary on Iran. He made what some have called a "poetic praise" of the best in Iran's tradition and history. The film [The Lover's Wind, 1978] had emphasized older buildings and ancient monuments, and when the Shah saw it, he summarily dismissed it as having missed its mission. There are no dams and new buildings, he complained. Much to his consternation, Lamorisse was forced to re-edit the film and include footage of new buildings and Iran's modernizing military.' (24)

Meanwhile, as Milani narrates: 'Watching a film after dinner was by then a permanent part of the Shah's nightly program. He preferred light comedies - French comedians were amongst his favourites - and preferred Hollywood productions over somber and serious art films. Sometimes controversial films that had befuddled the censors but were deemed important were sent to the Court for the Shah and the Queen's final verdict. Occasionally the Queen tried to get the Shah to watch more serious films, particularly those made by Persian directors. One such film was Dariush Mehrjui's Dayere ye Mina, an unsparing look at the profitable traffic in the blood of Tehran's poor and addicted masses. The film had become controversial because Dr. Manouchehr Eqbal, the one-time prime minister and the perennial head of Iran's Medical Association, wanted the film banned because it offered a negative image of medicine in Iran. The Queen insisted that the Shah should see the film, and finally, on the night when it was brought to the Court, halfway through it the Shah angrily got up and marched out of the screening, arguing that these so-called intellectuals were only happy

68 when they looked at the dark side of life.' (25) On another occasion, talking about a movie produced by the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents (the state organization, headed by Lili Amir-Arjomand, a friend of the Queen, not only afforded children of the remote towns and villages access to books, but also sponsored and produced films for adolescents, including the first short movies made by Abbas Kiarostami); the Shah dismissed the film in question, saying, 'What the hell is a lyric film? What use does it have for an ill-intentioned man to make a film?' (26)

At any rate, in spite of all state censorships and sponsorship, an independent film industry gradually could form in the country, and a generation of young filmmakers created a range of aesthetically interesting movies that highlighted individual, social, and even political, problems of Iranian society - especially, in 1970s, they could introduce a new wave of Iranian cinema to national and international audiences. Interestingly, films as diverse as Gav (1969), Gheisar (1969) by Masud Kimiai, Aramesh dar Hozour e Digaran (1970), Cheshme (Spring, 1972) by Arbi Avanesian, Mogholha (Mongols, 1973) by Parviz Kimiavi, Asrar e Ganj e Dane yeJenni (Secrets of the Treasures of the Haunted Valley, 1974) by Ebrahim Golestan, Zir e Pust e Shab (Under the Night's Skin, 1974) by Feridun Gole, Pesar e Iran az Madar-ash Bi-ettela' ast (The Iranian Son Does Not Know about His Mother, 1976) by Feridun Rahnama, and Kalagh (The Crow, 1977) by Bahram Bayzai, represented the striking aspects and effects of the continual clash between two main constituents of Iranian cultural identity- religious identity and national identity, with all their different implications - as the ongoing cultural conflict between tradition and modernity.

Iranian Television: Introduction of a National Media

On 3 October 1958, while television was still out of access for many Asian countries and it took more than 7 years for India to have its first television transmitter, the first television transmitter was inaugurated in Iran. It was simply called 'Iranian Television',

69 although it could be received, at its first phase, only in Tehran (even after 10 years, it could cover only about 9 percent of the Iranian population). (27) Of course, from the very beginning, the introduction of this latest product of alien strangers was not without its own cultural difficulties. Soon, many religious and conservative people started to warn against a new wave of western obscenity, libertinism, and promiscuity which were allegedly in contradiction with Islamic tradition - interestingly, in more traditional families, women often kept their veils in front of TV sets: they thought if they can see a non-familiar man on the screen, he can see them as well! However, despite all serious cultural resistances against this new media, as it was predicted, citizens of the capital, especially more prosperous families, happily welcomed 'Iranian Television' to the extent that only one year after its inauguration the number of 'magic boxes' (TV sets) amounted to 30,000 in Tehran. (28)

Besides its new technological form, the 'Iranian Television' also opened a new phase in

Iranian history of state-owned or state-controlled mass media. Until then, it was the state that was the vanguard in introduction of new mass media (the first Iranian newspaper belonged to the government, the first Iranian film screening was arranged by the state officials, and the first Iranian radio channel was inaugurated by them);

however, inauguration of the first Iranian television channel was an outcome of a

private pursuit by Sabet Pasal (1904-90), an Iranian financier and owner of Pepsi Cola

company in Tehran, who had received the necessary permission through a bill in

parliament 3 months earlier. Of course, it was a short period in history of big media in

Iran, and the 'Iranian Television' doomed to be closed after about one decade: in a

society where the state needs to control mass media and takes them in its own hands as

cultural instruments to propagate and promote its authoritative-ideological agenda, no

independent mass media could survive for a long time.

Yet, as long as about half of the 'Iranian Television' programs was a replay of western TV

productions (mainly Hollywood movies and American soap operas) and the other half

included local productions like tele-theatres, music concerts, artistic varieties, and

70 commercial advertisements of western commodities, the Pahlavi regime could safely consider it as a private ally in its own public project (modernization-westernization of the country, and consolidation of its own camp in the cultural civil war). However, the state was totally willing to dictate its public policy, whenever it seemed necessary, through big private facilities. For example, when a year after inauguration of the 'Iranian Television', Iraqi state inaugurated a TV transmitter in Basra to influence and stimulate citizens of Khuzestan (an Iranian southern province which has the biggest oil reserves, and a part of its people comes from Arab territories and speak Arabic language), the Iranian state sponsored Pasal and helped him to inaugurate his second TV transmitter in Abadan (the capital of Khuzestan) on 29 February 1960, whereas big cities such as Isfahan and Shiraz lacked any access to television.

One year later, the American army, which had a vast military collaboration with the Iranian army, received the Iranian state permission to inaugurate its own TV channel, named the 'Television of the Armed Forces of the United States', in Tehran in 1961. Except for two short news programs, produced in Tehran, all of its programs were American productions (mostly entertaining ones), directly sent from the United States. Of course, its main target audiences were English-speaking foreigners who were living and working in the country (all programs were played in English, there was no Persian subtitles); thus, at its best, its audience hardly amounted to 5 percent of the total TV audiences in Iran. (29) Given this specialty, it enjoyed an absolute independence from the Iranian state policies; it did not even use the 'Royal Anthem' in the beginning of its daily show, while such a usage was mandatory for any film screening in Iran. Moreover, it did not follow Iranian (Islamic) calendar and, for example, did not stop its joyful musicals during religious mourning days - naturally, due to its English language and foreign audience, there was not a visible protest against the way it conducted its activity.

Although both the 'Iranian Television' and the 'Television of the Armed Forces of the United States' (the so-called 'American Television') and their west-oriented cultural

71 programs were basically in accordance with Pahlavi cultural public policies, it was finally felt necessary for the state to intervene directly in this new area of mass media and its mass audience: by 1963, only 5 years after introduction of television in Iran, there were more than 100,000 TV sets in the country and the rate of audience amounted to 1,000,000 (about 5 percent of the total population). (30) Then, soon after the establishment of the 'Educational Television', the 'National Television of Iran' inaugurated on 24 October 1966: its first program was the live broadcasting of Shah's 47'*^ birthday anniversary festival in a stadium in Tehran, and its second program included a political propaganda titled '47 Years of Imperial Life'.

Furthermore, the 'National Iranian Radio and Television' organization (NIRT) was established on 26 October 1966, to facilitate state investment and state control on big media; according to an organizational bulletin on 'Missions and Aims of Programs in the Network of National Iranian Radio and Television, its classified 'main missions' included '1. To guide the public opinions towards protection of the Iranian national interests (news and informational duties); 2. To raise consciousness and general knowledge of the Iranian people (educational and cultural duties); 3. To provide safe entertainments and to produce joy and happiness for radio audiences and television spectators (recreation and entertainment duties),' while it emphasized that the third mission was one of its 'principal, permanent, and continual missions' because although 'we did not merely want to entertain, we should certainly do that in order to be able to accomplish our other missions.' (31) Meanwhile, the organization that had acquired monopoly of broadcasting was directed by a general assembly composed of ministers of 'Information' and 'Finance and Post, Telegraph, and Telephone,' had an executive board composed of the Minister of Culture and Art, five other ministers and five representatives of the cultural scene, its head was to be confirmed and appointed by Shah - in Pahlavi period, the first and the last director-general of NIRT and a cousin of the royal queen Farah Diba, Reza Ghotbi, seemed as a moderate politician, enjoyed a relative independence in his career from 1967 to 1979.

72 By the same token, according to the law statute for establishment of NIRT, the 'Iranian Television' had to finish its activity after 12 years, transformed into channel 2 of NIRT in 1970 - although the law was to be applied for the 'American Television' as well, it officially ended its activity after 15 years in 1976: it was replaced by the 'NIRT International' that could successfully follow its pervious programs by the new Iranian agents and agenda. Thus, finally, mass media monopoly was consolidated, and it extended the state control on Television, as the most influential modern medium in contemporary Iran. By 1972, all the big cities which had the population more than 100,000, about 80 percent of the total urban population, and about 30 percent of the total rural population had the access to TV and could watch at least one TV channel in their homeland. Prior to 1967 television had covered about 2.1 million people; when NIRT began regular transmissions the coverage rose to 4.8 million, and by 1974 it had risen to more than 15 million, about half the total population; meanwhile, the number of TV sets amounted to 2,000,000, while 90 percent of the families owned a TV set watched it every day, each family, on an average, for 5 hours a day. (32)

To be sure, such a vast audience provided an unrivalled medium for cultural messages that state wanted to transfer through its cultural public policies. As long as radio and television could more rapidly, even though less lastingly, influence the mass audience, the cultural public policies tended to underestimate the long process of acculturation by educational system and more subtle ways for transforming the Iranian way of life; instead, they increasingly concentrated on easier of way of cultural injection by means of radio and television, to the extent that while Ministry of Art and Culture and NIRT had equal share in the state cultural budget (less than 1 percent of the total budget for Ministry of Art and Culture, NIRT, and other state-sponsored cultural organizations) by 1967, NIRT received a double share of the budget by 1977. Despite overall budget cuts in 1975-76, NIRT's total budget rose about 20 percent, and by 1975 National Iranian Radio and Television was second only to Japan in Asia in terms of the development of its broadcasting capabilities. (33) The high priority in the state development strategy and the large budget allocations allowed NIRT the use of the latest technologies, including

73 microwave delivery systems to overcome problems of mountainous terrain. Relying to the enhancements, NIRT was supposed to follow a more subtle way of cultural propaganda by producing or providing the amusing programs that could more indirectly impact the audiences and their life styles.

By 1975-76 radio covered almost the entire country, and 70 percent of the population had access to television. The prime importance attached to owning a television was so widespread that even the people in villages without electricity bought generators in order to be able to run a television; meanwhile, the number of radios had grown to more than 5 million sets. According to a content analysis of NIRT broadcasting in 1975, 65 percent of radio programs were dedicated to entertainment, 7.05 percent to glorification of Iranian political power, 3.06 percent to welfare plans, 2.03 percent to cult of Shah, 2.02 to the 'White Revolution' or the so-called 'Revolution of Shah and People' or 'Revolution of King and Nation', and only 0.08 percent to Islamic teachings, while the same numbers could be approximately applied for TV programs: 57.5 percent for entertainment, 15.5 percent for informative programs, 15 percent for instructive productions, 7 percent for cultural programs, and only 2 percent for religious ones. (34) Given the fact that the most of entertaining programs were either western productions or local non-Islamic (national-secular inspired) ones, one can obviously observe that how the mass media was applied in order to serve as a cultural operator of state policies, and as an influent ally in its struggle for winning the civil cultural war: in an opinion poll in 1972, 26.6 percent of interviewees valuated TV programs as very good, 50.8 percent as good, and 22.6 percent as somewhat good, while 77 percent requested for growth of entertaining programs and only 14.05 percent for growth of educational ones. (35)

However, it would be a simplistic view if one regards the cultural transformation as a one-way street. With its historical high compatibility and intensive instability, the Iranian cultural identity was not going to be completely absorbed in western televised modernity - in 1974 NIRT, in a document specifying the function of mass media in

74 national development, had listed its aims and assignments as 'to strengthen the bases of national unity and participatory democracy', 'to assist in the revitalization of the Iranian national culture', 'to sponsor artistic and cultural activities', 'to provide recreational programs tailored to the taste and preference of every major sector of Iranian society' (36). Yet, in spite of all state endeavours to glorify modern westernized 'national identity' which is coordinated with 'authentic Iranian culture' and 'Aryan identity' as the core of Iranian cultural identity, religious identity had a significant role to play. Islamic cultural resistance and its tangible threat was to the extent that, for example, a state announcement addressing private presses, issued on 7 April 1977, declared that 'news and reports related to the facts that "[Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto has agreed to apply Islamic law", "nightclubs, wine shops, and casinos are closed", and "Islamic ideology will rule in future Pakistan" should not be reflected and expressed in the news, reports, and analyses related to Pakistan, even though they are official speeches of Bhutto himself (37) - of course, public media like radio and television did not need to do it, as they were already under total state control as such. It was in this situation that only a replay of a movie in which a scene of harsh abortion of a naked woman was shown (Cries and Whispers, 1972) in 'Iranian National Television' in 1979 was enough for the discontent masses (who had already started to seek their 'Independence' and 'Freedom' in an 'Islamic' regime or republic) to seek its director's excommunication and to ban all Ingmar Bergman's movies in the course of their Islamic Revolution in 1979. (38)

On 4 February 1979, in his first press conference in Tehran, as a clear response to what was the usual state approach to mass media. Imam Khomeini declared that 'my opinion about radio and television and press is that they should be in service of people. States have no right of control [on them]. Till now, the Iranian state and the previous king acted against international laws, and we do not essentially recognize the very state, let alone its right to intervene in radio and television and press.' (39) One year later, the exiled dying king suggested that 'unfortunately, I came to know too late that Television, the greatest and the most important promotion-propaganda apparatus of the country, was actually infiltrated by the opponents, especially the Marxists-communists.' (40)

75 From Nation to Religion: Resurgence Party versus Revolutionary People

Dealing with the terms 'religious' and 'national' identities, one should be cautious about their implications: they should be carefully contextualized and historically understood and analyzed. One should always pay attention to the facts that Islam is essentially different from other great live religions of our time (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism), and the very Islam has recorded a different history in the form of Shiism in Iran. On the one hand, Islam is a maximalist religion, has a comprehensive and pervasive body of laws for conducting its believers - for their social and political life as much as for their individual affairs; it tended to cover both private and public spheres: above all, it was the only big religion that established a political unit and its prophet appeared as the head of the political body. On the other hand, as a minority oppressed and repressed by the Sunni majority, the Shia sect has historically functioned as an inventive instrument in the hands of the Iranians who were eager to resist the Arab invasion and their orthodox Islam - in other words, the 'Islamization' of Iran was matched by a corresponding 'Iranization' of Islam. Thus, paradoxically, the religious identity mounted to the main constituent of the Iranian national identity since the Arab invasion; it was strongly reinforced when the Safavid dynasty recognized Shiism as the official religion of the country, and utilized it as a political weapon against its hostile neighbour, the Sunni Ottoman Empire.

If one regards the Constitutional Revolution as the first decisive step on the way of secularization and mutual independence of religion and statecraft in Iranian post-Islamic history, one can understand why a vast resistance and rebellion was exercised by religious authorities against constitutionalism and its related ideals (the anger was embodied, for instance, in acts and speeches of Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri and other defenders of traditional monarchy). As it happened, the Constitutionalists gained victory and could reform the political structure of the country, introduced a rather secular and liberal parliamentary democracy in Iran. Nonetheless, the political success of the Constitutional Revolution did not match its social success: Iranian society had remained

76 deeply faithful to its religious tradition, and the war between secular minority and religious majority, between supporters of Mashroute (constitutional law) and defenders of Mashroue (religious law), was not going to be finished. The unannounced cultural civil war was going on while it was to be announced in new fields.

The 'tradition' that had identified with 'Shia Islam' for nearly four centuries was, like most of religions, so conservative in its approaches to modern phenomena, could not tolerate freedom of speech, equity of religion, equality of men and women, and so on; more importantly, in general, Islam had not passed any process of secularization until then and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution was the first such experience in the whole of Asia and Islamic world. Thus, in the post-Constitutional period, the Islamic tradition was stood against national modernization, and it was no surprise that a part of the cultural civil war was based on a struggle for defining the Iranian national identity that, in turn, implied redefinition of Iranian 'tradition'. Since nationalism, as a modern phenomenon, is based on a certain return to a nation's reformed historical tradition, both the Islamists and the secularists tried to stress on their favourite phases of Iranian history: the Islamists highlighted spiritual and material achievements of Islamic rule, especially since the Safavid dynasty, while the secularists glorified pre-lslam period and praised the less religious heritage of Islamic period as well. The Islamists regarded secularization as an archaism by way of westernization, and the secularists condemned the Islamists as the reactionary and regressive remnants of the Arab invasion: the cultural war, the conflict that was so determining for every aspect of Iranians' political, economic, and social life, could be epitomized as an enigma named 'Iranian identity'.

Meanwhile, under Reza Shah monarchy, secularization was mostly confined to the purification of the Persian language by its de-arabication, de-sacralization of some Islamic traditional laws such as veil and, more importantly, removal of religious clerics from educational and judiciary systems; the Islamic identity, however, fell under heavy attacks when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi began to pave his own way to a full-fledged westernization (of course, except for political modernization) by condemning a large

77 part of Islamic tradition as old superstition, and by means of social and economic reforms such as his White Revolution - most notably, the upcoming leader of Iranian

Islamists, Ayatollah Khomeini, started to protest against such endeavours through his

lectures against the White Revolution in June 1963, consequently was sent to exile, first to Iraq and then to France (later, the Islamic Republic considered this event as the

beginning of the Islamic Revolution).

At first, it seemed that the Shah, in comparison to his father, had a more moderated

idea of modernization in his mind and a more compromising approach in his practice -

for example, he replaced his father harsh hostility to the clerics by a cautious peace

treaty and, despite his insistence on 'liberation' and 'empowerment' of Iranian women,

he did not order for a mandatory 'non-veil' campaign. However, even the moderate

modernization was met by a strong resistance on behalf of the more conservative layers

of the society. Of course, the Shah could remove such limited protests by violent

repressions, especially by means of SAVAK (the Persian acronym for the State

Intelligence and Security Organization), established with American, British, and Israeli

assistances in 1957, resulted in a more effective monitoring and suppression of

opposition; but the cultural civil war could not be won by a militaristic approach: In

1960s and 1970s, nationalist modernization was pursued by economic industrialization,

development of urbanization, and introduction of western life styles, and it absorbed

many Iranians who considered their national identity as something more important than

their Islamic identity, or, at least, they could not see any problematic contradiction

between them.

In the cultural battlefield, such efforts were mainly directed and coordinated by 'The

Higher Council for Arts and Culture' which was set up by a special law in 1967,

established in same year with the organization for 'National Iranian Radio and

Television'. The Council was under the supreme presidency of the Shah and the

following were its members: the Minister of Culture and Art, the Minister of National

Education, the Minister of Information, the Minister of Science and Higher Education

78 and sixteen sociologists, economists, psychologists and artists, appointed for four years

by the royal decree. Officially, the Council's main function was to supervise

implementation of cultural policies and to coordinate activities of the different organizations responsible for carrying those policies into effect. Meanwhile, to carry its

cultural policies, the royal regime was not too harsh to the extent that a serious

disagreement arouses in the society that had still remained widely religious. Moreover, the Pahlavi's policy-makers (wrongly) believed that Islamic faith could function as a

strong enemy of Soviet communism and its Iranian proponents who were the main

opponents of the regime all over 1960s and first half of 1970s. Therefore, despite all its

ambitions, the regime was ready to retreat whenever it seemed necessary as temporary

tactics.

However, besides a perpetual sense of discontent among the more traditional layers of

the society, a new wave of intellectual discontent gradually and increasingly arose in the

more modernized and well-educated people who were concerned about the

consequences of liberal democracy and western modernization. Interestingly, two

apparently different camps of Iranian intellectuals, the atheist leftists and the reformist

Islamists, went hand in hand against their common enemy, western (economic and

cultural) imperialism, while the regime was so harsh to the first and so inflexible against

the latter. As an Illuminating example, in January 1974, in a live trial broadcast on

National Television, the Marxist journalist, poet, and communist activist Khosrow

Golsorkhi was charged along with eleven others for making an attempt on the lives of

the Shah, the queen, and the crown prince. In his self-defence, Golsorkhi condemned

the regime's liberal-bourgeois reforms and paralleled Marxism with Islam, claiming that

he was a 'Marxist-Leninist' who had first found 'social justice in the school of Islam, and

then reached socialism.' As a result, he and four others were sentenced to death, while

the remaining seven were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years to life

sentences.

79 More importantly, following the trial, the regime propaganda apparatuses launched a campaign against what they called 'Islamic Marxism'; they were ignorant of the fact that it was the 'Marxist Islam' that would function as the basis of a huge resurrection in near future: although the atheist leftists accompanied the Islamic Revolutionaries and even accepted Khomeini as their common spiritual leader, they were the reformist (Marxist, socialist) Islamists that played the main role in intellectual revolutionary scene, provided the theoretical premises for the Islamic Revolution, and legitimized it for the more modernized layers of the society in 1970s. From Dariush Shayegan (1935- ) to Jalal Al- e-Ahmad (1923-69) and Ali Shariati (1933-77), a range of oriental- and Islamic-minded intellectuals mourned the demise of Islamic life by poison of 'Westoxication' (infection and affliction by the West), invited people to the 'return to the roots' and the 'return to ourselves' and (inspired by triumph of third-world's movements in defying western powers and by uprising of students' movements in the very western countries) hoped a revolutionary state could radically change the situation in Iran too. In effect, their Islamic ideology was not basically different from the Marxists in so far as all defined Iran's primordial problem as dependency on the West with all its economic, social, and cultural implications. (41) Eventually, unlike few moderate liberal intellectuals, their revolutionary rhetoric, an Islamized version of works by existentialist philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger and anti-colonialist writers such as Aime Cesaire, Regis Debray, and Frantz Fanon, was vastly heard and spread in all academic spheres and, of course, beyond. (42)

Although Pahlavi administration and Shah himself were in no way indifferent to the intellectuals' attitudes, they failed to create an alliance of the secular liberal forces against the new-born Islamic fundamentalism; it happened to be a bitterly failed attempt to absorb the intellectual elite to their plan for modernizing the country under the leadership of a monarch who dreamt of a great Iranian nation and revival of its ancient glory. Given the censorship of books, movies, and arts due to the lack of freedom of speech, even Amir Abbas Hoveyda (1919-79), the well-educated liberal intellectual who served as the prime minister of Iran from 1965 to 1977, could not find

80 any strong ally among the Iranian intellectuals, and his execution by the Islamic regime did not arouse their protest at all. (43) Ironically enough, pupils of Seyed Hossein Nasr (a prominent Islamic philosopher who was appointed by Queen Farah Pahlavi as head of the 'Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy' and later became head of her royal office in 1970s), and of Ehsan Naraghi (a professor of sociology who prepared for the United Nations the first world-wide study on the 'Brain Drain' in 1960s, appointed by Farah Pahlavi as head of the 'Foundation for Iranian Culture') happened to become radical revolutionaries and occupied high posts in the Islamic Republic since 1979 - for example, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a Nasr's protege has been, among others, a parliament chairman, a deputy of Minister for Culture and Islamic Guidance, and a member of the 'Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution', three students of Naraghi - Abulhassan Banisadr, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, and Hassan Habibi - who received his support to go abroad and study in American and European universities held different posts as important as presidency, vice-presidency, ministry, and headship of the Organization of Voice and Vision (radio and television). (44) After all, the Islamist hidden happenings were the dangers that Shah underestimated and, as Farsoun and Mashayekhi declare in their introduction to Iran: Political Culture ir) the Islamic Republic (1992), 'instead actively pursued the destruction of secular opposition - a fatal and strategic political error that later came to haunt him.' (45)

Inattentive to, or ignorant of, such shortcomings, trying to find popularity among urban middle class and the young ambitious generation, the royal regime started to provide a kind of western welfare to the population by popularization of western consumer commodities which could be increasingly accessible across the country. The Shah hoped it could transform Iranian life styles and his own agenda could have the upper hand in the continuing cultural conflict over the proper Iranian cultural identity. Moreover, given the high growth of oil revenue in the 1970s, the regime could increase the budget for 'cultural' plans and arrange 'cultural' events such as 'Shiraz Festival of Culture and Art', held in the ruins of Persepolis, annually from 1968 to 1977, which brought together Iranian and international artists in music, dance, and theatre (from Yehudi Menuhin,

81 Ravi Shankar, and John Cage to Merce Cunninghann, Peter Brook, and Jerzy Grotowski), to glorify Iranian national heritage, to introduce modern western artistic achievennents, to create a flourishing cultural inter-national interaction, and to familiarize and reconcile with the forgotten face of Iranian cultural heritage: these were declared as the main aims of even more politically motivated events such as the royal festivals for the 2500^^ anniversary of Iranian Empire and the 50^^ anniversary of Pahlavi monarchy, held during

1971 to 1975. Also, cultural institutions such as 'Farah Pahlavi Foundation' were organized to promote cultural interactivities by proceedings like the establishment of

'Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art' (with a range of art works by artists including

Claude Monet, Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, George Grosz, Andy Warhol, and Jackson

Pollock) in 1977.

Yet, due to the traditional opposition of the Iranian conservative society against their avant-garde performance and, thus, low public attendance, these cultural events appealed only to a narrow minority, predominantly among the rich royalists, comprador bourgeoisie, landed classes, and military and bureaucratic oligarchy. After all, these avant-garde endeavours were made in the society that was increasingly absorbed in its conservative religion: 'A survey in 1976 found forty-eight publishers of religious books in

Tehran alone, of whom twenty-six had begun their activities during the 1965 to 1975 decade. Other indicators, such as the number of pilgrims to Mecca or visits and donations to religious shrines, support the assumption of the increased vitality of traditional religious sentiments' and religious associations had multiplied everywhere to the extent that, by 1974, 'there were over 12,300 religious associations in Tehran alone, most of which were formed after 1965.' (46) Ironically, as Milani explains, 'to realize his dream of using the clergy against his enemies, the Shah took two important steps. He helped to drastically increase the number of mosques in the country, and he made peace with the mullahs. During his tenure, the number of mosques increased to more than 55,000 (some say 75,000). The number of religious schools also witnessed a sharp rise, going from 154 to 214 in 1960. The rise in the second half of the Shah's rule was even greater.' (47) Inevitably, the Pahlavi cultural policies served mostly as fatal factors

82 in mobilizing Islamic opposition against the regime itself: all of the glorious festivals and their related luxurious foundations were no more than unholy beautifications and condemnable commercialization of culture that were doomed to disappear by way of an

Islamic Revolution which was to be unfolded over the course of a mere eighteen months of 1977 to 1979.

Furthermore, since most of the economic and cultural developments were confined to

Tehran, rest of the country could not vastly sympathize with what was going on the capital. As Ervand Abrahamian cites in A History of Modern Iran (2008), 'by the mid-

1970s, Tehran - with less than 20 percent of the country's population - had more than

68 percent of its civil servants; 82 percent of its registered companies; 50 percent of its manufacturing production; 66 percent of its university students; 50 percent of its doctors; 42 percent of its hospital beds; 40 percent of its cinema-going public; 70 percent of its travellers abroad; 72 percent of its printing presses; and 80 percent of its newspaper readers. One in ten of Tehran's residents had a car; elsewhere the figure was one in ninety.' (48) In other words, although the society was increasingly covered by media images of modern life styles and their cultural symbols such as local and global film stars and popular singers, and a western-like non-fanatic life form was going to spread across the country (to the extent that, for example, alcoholic liquor, which is a taboo according to the Islamic law, was freely served even in traditional teashops in rural areas in 1970s), there was an increasing sense of discontent among the masses who were deprived of privileges of Tehran-centred development, had not come to know about the modern form of life, and still traditionally concerned about their religious law

(for example, according to an academic survey by the 'Institute for Iranian

Communicative Sciences and Development' in 23 cities and 52 villages in 1977, 83 percent of the population practiced daily Islamic prayers, 75 percent - 60 percent of urban population and 86 percent of rural population -defended the Islamic veil for women, and about 20 percent - 27 percent of illiterate population 13 percent of undergraduate students - agreed with the execution of unfaithful women). (49)

83 Meanwhile, on 2 March 1975, as another political project which was to facilitate and accelerate the realization of the White Revolution and thus to include all aspects of

Iranian life styles, the Shah dissolved the two main state-sanctioned political parties,

Hezb e Mardom (People's Party) and Hezb e Iran e Novin (New Iran Party), and declared the establishment of Iran's new single party, Hezb e Rastakhiz (Resurgence Party), to hold a monopoly on political activities in the country - the few political parties that were able to continue functioning were forced to become parts of Rastakhiz. Soon, it was pointed out that all citizens had the duty both to vote in national elections and to join the Party, and that those reluctant to join would have the choice of either going to jail or leaving the country. The people, passionately or reluctantly, joined the Party to the extent that it acquired 7 million votes for the parliamentary election and enrolled almost all the members of Parliament in 1975. Likewise, it took over the ministries of

Labour, Education, Higher Education, Industry, Housing, Tourism, Health and Social

Welfare, Rural Cooperatives, and Art and Culture, and also the important state organizations such as National Iranian Radio and Television. (50)

The formation of the Resurgence Party and its procedure and performance had catastrophic consequences for the royal regime. On the one hand, it launched a large- scale 'anti-profiteerism' campaign to fight against economic corruption by monitoring the big private enterprises and to transform the traditional bazaar-based circulation of commodities into a modern market by founding big shopping centres and other initiatives: heavy punishment awaited those who were found guilty in both sections. The stress which was laid upon the campaign was to the extent that, in October 1975, the

Shah, referring to it as a 'cultural movement,' decreed that 'anti-profiteerism' be made the fourteenth principle of the White Revolution. Although one of its first victims was the founder of 'Iranian Television' and the owner of several companies and corporations, Sabet Pasal who had to flee from the country and to transfer his assets abroad as much as he could, the big capitalists were not in a big danger - after all, the

better part of economic interests was under the control of the organizations such as

'Pahlavi Foundation' which was established in 1958 as a tax-exempt charity; its first aim

84 was to manage the Reza Shah's landed estates, but later incorporated most of the assets of the Shah and his 64 family members: eventually, its assets amounted to $3

billion, with big shares in 207 companies active in such diverse fields as mining,

construction, automobile manufacturing, metal works, agro-industries, banking,

insurance, casinos, cabarets, grand hotels, and also considerable shares in international companies like Krupp and General Electric. (51)

In effect, the main victims of the new public policy were traditional-religious Bazaari

businessmen who had a strong relationship with the Islamic clerical establishment.

Besides, by forcing them to join not only the new 'Chambers of Guilds' but also the

'political' Party, it transformed a potential ally or, at least, a non-hostile observer, into

an active enemy of the royal regime. It seemed the technocratic regime - lacking a

spiritual inspiring ideology which could make people sacrifice their profane needs - had

forgotten that, in absence of political freedom, it was the social and economic freedom

that could keep the masses silent; the regime instead preferred to expand its public

policies to most of people's private pursuits. Thus, by antagonizing formerly apolitical

people due to its compulsory membership and ever-aggressive interference in their

economic and religious concerns, the party produced more dissatisfaction and

discontent, dramatically opposite to its original aim: while the party was supposed to

stabilize and consolidate the regime by mobilizing civil servants and self-employed

businessmen towards progressive reformations, it developed a social chaos and

removed the regime's few links with the traditional society, while such connections

were vital for a slow and gradual but effective and uninterrupted transition to

modernity - although, historically, Iran has never been colonized by a foreign country,

the wild westernization created among Iranian people a sense of being 'dependent'

nation to the extent that they included the 'independence' as their first demand in their

most popular revolutionary motto, 'Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic'

More importantly, on the other hand, the Resurgence Party carried out a heavy attack

on the Islamic traditional establishment. It proclaimed the Shah to be not only a political

85 but also a spiritual leader - in a booklet titled Philosophy of Iran's Revolution, the Party had announced that Shah 'is not just the political leader of Iran, he is in the first instance the teacher and spiritual guide, he is the helmsman who not only builds for his nation roads, bridges, dams, and underground canals, but also guides the spirit, thought, and hearts of his people.' (52) To establish his own spiritual authority by not Iranization of

Islam but nationalization of religion, the Shah ordered to control the Islamic authorities' social and financial affairs and to scrutinize other religious events and activities.

Furthermore, as though it was not enough for anguishing the religious society, the Party launched initiatives concerning women's rights (including the creation of a ministry for women's affairs, recruitment of women into the Literacy Corps, elevation of the marriageable age for women from fifteen to eighteen, expansion of birth control clinics and permission of abortion in the first twelve weeks, and so on) that were furiously dismissed by the leading Mojtaheds who issued fatwas declaring the Party to be against the holy principles of Islam. Khomeini, still in exile, suggested that the participation in the Party's activities was religiously forbidden, for it was designed to destroy not only the traditional bazaars and rural areas but also the totality of Iran and Islam. The protests, with a wide popular support, were so sever and widespread that even detention of many well-known clerics was not a real remedy.

After several decades of secular aggressive successful attacks on the religious camp, a heavy counter-attack by the Islamists had put the secularists in a defensive position: they not only had to find some plausible reasons for justifying their non-religious

novelties such as western social liberties, but also had to withdraw from their fundamental ideals of 'Iranian identity'. Therefore, as general discontent of despotic political system and, of course, economic deprivation and social injustice became increasingly tangible, not only Pahlavi cultural policies could not be effective, but also

made the regime retreat from its ideas of Aryan mythology. Great Civilization, and many other chauvinist and de-lslamizationist plans to the extent that it had to annual the new

Imperial calendar and reinstate the Islamic calendar, to limit the bars and nightclubs, and so on, in the final years of 1970s. The Shahanshah (King of Kings) was surrendering

86 to the Ayatollah (Sign of God), and glamour of Aryamehr (love and light of Aryans) was fading before grandeur of Imam (Islamic icon).

Neither Shah was absolutely against the religion, nor his version of secularism was anti- religious agenda - his book on the White Revolution, as an 'Iranian revolution, according to the Iranian spirit and costumes,' in addition to its many references to western thoughts and thinkers and ancient Iranian rites and rulers, included several references to 'superb teachings of Islam' and of Imams of Shiism as its proofs (53) - but the regime was forced to learn that secularist modernity is a matter of a comprehensive and full- fledged transition rather of a partial and single-minded imposition: the single-party system ended on 1 November 1978 as the Islamic Revolution gained ground, and it was too late. Although the White Revolution (and its modern rapid reformations under Hezb e Rastakhiz) had been designed to bring justice and welfare to masses and thus pre­ empt a Red Revolution, given the ever-increasing economic and cultural concerns, paved the way for the otherwise unnecessary Revolution that promised a religious Utopia.

The Pahlavi dystopia was far from such a promised moment: an 'uneven development' not only regarding to different parts of social life, but also to different parts of the country, had resulted in a polar Iranian society, where its source of solidarity was still old traditional ideas such as necessity of master-servant relationship of a (religious or ruling) leader and his followers. So, as the cultural civil war entered its determining phase, it was a religious leader who could, provisionally, win the war by way of his charismatic authority and influence on his massive believers, not a secular despot whose few followers were rushing to leave the country before his fall. The Shah left the country on 16 January, Khomeini entered Iran on 1 February (three million people were took the streets to greet him), and the Pahlavi monarchy, the so-called 'island of stability', was shaken and overthrown by the victorious Islamic Revolution on 11 February 1979. As long as its leader was an ardent enemy of Pahlavi dynasty who, citing and supporting an old slogan ('our politics is same as our religion, and our religions is same as our polities').

87 insisted that 'religion is not separated from polities', the most meaningful signification of the Islamic Revolution was domination of Mashroue (theocratic autocracy) over

Mashroute (constitutional democracy) and its victory in a violent phase of Iranian cultural civil w/ar - Khomeini's demonization of western superpower as 'Great Satan' swept the Shah's admiration of western modernity as Iran's way to 'Great Civilization.'

Likewise, Khomeini's anti-western and anti-modern messages could find a massive audience, so widespread that even the state control on, and the nationalist propaganda through, mass media could not keep the masses loyal to the royal family and its non-

Islamic regime: Khomeini had established himself as a medium more powerful than any state mass media, condemnation of western radio and television programs and warning against their non-Islamic contents and negative cultural effects were reiterated themes in his speeches and were strongly echoed by other preachers in their religious- revolutionary sermons. On 30 July 1977, a group of students from Pahlavi University of

Shiraz held a ceremony in a mosque to commemorate the fortieth day after Shariati's sudden death. Then, the students walked out, chanting 'Hail to Khomeini', launched the first political public demonstration in a series of demonstrations which led to the victory of the Islamic Revolution. Continuing their march, the students reached Cinema Capri, where a festival of American movies (including feature films like Ryan's Daughter, Funny

Lady, The Wild Wild West, Spartacus, Ben Hur and El Cid) was being held: they angrily displayed their hatred and violently broke the glass in the windows of the cinema. (53)

Yet another cinematic event waited to become the very beginning of the chain major demonstrations: on 19 August 1978 - the anniversary of the 1953 coup - Cinema Rex, a large theatre in the working-class district of Abadan which happened to be showing

Gavaznha (The Deer, 1975) by Kimiai, went up in flames, incinerating more than 400 lives. The state apparatuses attempted to place the blame on the religious revolutionaries and their Islamic authorities, but the public consensus held the regime responsible. Although, as Hamid Naficy, a historian of Iranian cinema, claimed

'testimonies and documents compiled after the fall of the Shah' revealed 'a clear link

88 between the arsonists and anti-Shah clerical leaders,' (55) the revolutionaries considered the event as a big aggressive offence by the 'bloodthirsty regime': it was a key event that triggered the Islamic Revolution, its following consequence functioned as the beginning of the massive demonstrations in the few months leading up to the domination of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Earlier, Massoud Behnoud, a popular journalist, praising the idea of 'freedom' and the

'popularity' of Khomeini, broadcast some photos of the Revolution's Leader for the first time in Iranian television on September 1979. It was the beginning of Revolutionary activities of NIRT staff: soon after a general strike of the National Iranian Radio and

Television personnel (at least 90 percent of its 3000 employees), the head of the organization had to resign and the NIRT declared its neutrality three months before the domination of the Islamic Revolution but actually supported the Islamic movement since then, while since several months earlier, as a way to express rage at the regime, the

Revolutionary demonstrators had started to burn exhibition halls to the extent that about 180 cinema halls (approximately 30 percent of the total theatres) across the country were set on fire during the Islamic Revolution in Iran (56): no other cultural construction of the Pahlavi regime was subject to such symbolic destruction.

Notes

1. For a revised evaluation of his monarchy, see Abbas Amanat, Pivot of the

Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831-1896 (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1997).

2. See Ervand Abrahamian, Iran betvi/een Tvt/o Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1983), and A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge

89 University Press, 2008); see also Touraj Atabaki, ed., Iran in the 2Cf*^ Century:

Historiograph)/ and Political Culture (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2009).

3. For a detailed account of this struggle, see Mangol Bayat, Iran's First Revolution:

Shiism and Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1991), esp. pp. 161-83; see also Said Amir Arjomand, 'Islam and

Constitutionalism since the Nineteenth Century: the Significance and

Peculiarities of Iran', in Said Amir Arjomand, ed., Constitutional Politics in Middle

East, with Special Reference to Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan (Portland:

Oxford and Portland Oregon, 2007), pp. 33-62.

4. For an overall view, see Stephanie Cronin, ed.. The Making of Modern Iran: State

and Society under Rizo [Reza] Shah, 1921-1941 (London and New York:

Routledge, 2003).

5. Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and AN Mohammadi, Small Media, Big

Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution (Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. 50. These endeavours, of course, were

confronted by strong resistance of traditionalist communities; for example, on

'Dress Code Law,' as Stephanie Cronin writes: 'The dress laws were welcomed by

the educated modern elements in the cities, who were in any case in the process

of adopting Western fashions, but were anathema to provincial clerical and tribal

elements, who felt their role and identity undermined, and to the poor

everywhere, who found the new sartorial requirements beyond their means and

who lacked any cultural understanding of the new styles of clothing': Stephanie

Cronin, 'Reform from Above, Resistance from Below: The New Order and its

Opponents in Iran, 1927-29,' in Touraj Atabaki, ed., The State and the Subaltern:

Modernization, Society and the State in Turkey and Iran (London and New York:

I.B.Tauris, 2007), p. 73. Also see Houchang Chehabi, 'Dress Codes for Men in

Turkey and Iran,' in Touraj Atabaki and Erik J. Zurcher, eds. Men of Order:

Authoritarian Modernisation under Ataturk and Reza Shah (London and New

York: I.B.Tauris, 2007), p. 209-37.

90 6. Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri, Lavayeh e Aqa Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri [Essays of the

Honoured Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri] (Tehran: Nashr e Tarikh e Iran, 1983), p. 49.

7. Hamid Reza Sadr, Iranian Cinema: A Political History (London and New York:

I.B.Tauris, 2006), pp. 21-22.

8. Ibid, p. 24.

9. Ibid, p. 14.

10. Ibid, p. 15.

11. Hessamoddin Ashena, Az Siasat ta Farhang: Siasatha ye Farhangi e Dowlat dar

Iran, 1304-1320 [From Politics to Culture: The State Cultural Policies in Iran,

1925-1941] (Tehran: Soroush Press, 2005), p. 176.

12. Abbas Milani, The Shah (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 100.

13. Alireza Asgharzadeh, Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Islamic

Fundamentalism, Aryan Racism, and Democratic Struggles (New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2007), p. 15. See also Mostafa Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation: The

Construction of National Identity (New York: Paragon House, 1993), and

Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and

Historiography (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). Also, for a more recent

related account see: Farideh Farhi, 'Crafting a National Identity amidst

Contentious Politics in Contemporary Iran' in Homa Katouzian and Hossein

Shahidi, eds, Iran in the 2f' Century: Politics, Economics and Conflict (London

and New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 13-27.

14. Sadr, Iranian Cinema, pp. 32-7.

15. Ibid, p. 66.

16. Ibid, p. 24.

17. Jalal Sattarie, Dar Bi-Dowlati e Farhang: Negahi be Barkhi Fa'aliatha ye Farhangi

va Honari dar Bazpasin Saiha ye Nezam e Pishin [The Unfortunateness of Culture:

A Review of Cultural and Artistic Activities in Shah Regime] (Tehran: Nashr e

Markaz, 2000), pp. 5, 8.

91 18. Besides Mosaddeq, the 'National Front' played more decisive roles in the future. One of h is successors, Shapour Bakhtiar (1915-91) was elected by the Shah as the last prime minister of Iran before the Islamic Revolution, but the revolutionaries refused to accept him: he fled to France before the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, was assassinated by agents of the Islamic Republic, in Paris, in 1991. Surprisingly, his successor, the first prime minister of the Islamic Republic, was Mehdi Bazargan (1907-95) - Bakhtiar's colleague in the National Front, who had served as the first Iranian head of the 'National Iranian Oil Company' under the administration of Mosaddeq, and pursued the same nationalist attitude under the name of 'Liberation Movement of Iran' in 1961: following the conquest of American embassy by the Khomeinist students in Tehran in 1979, he resigned after only few months since his premiership. After few years, by order of Khomeini, 'Liberation Movement' was banned and its members were excluded from political scene, recognized as unauthorized political persons. Today, survivors of this ideological combat are still active as the so-called 'National-Religious Forces', although they seem more weak and limited than ever.

19. Sadr, Iranian Cinema, p. 69.

20. Ibid, pp. 108-10. 21. Mehdi Mohsenian Rad, Iran dar Chahar Kahkeshan e Ertebati: Seyr e Tahavvol e Tarikh e Ertebatat dar Iran [Iran in Four Comn)unication Galaxies: A Historical Approach to the Evaluation of Communications in Iran, from Beginning to Present] (Tehran: Soroush Press, 2005), p. 1524.

22. Sattarie, Dar Bi-Dowlati e Farhang, p. 38. 23. Ibid, p. 158. The Cow received the exhibition permission only when the director put a disclaimer at the beginning of the film, explaining that it narrates a story that happened prior to Shah's monarchy. 24. Milani, The Shah, p. 348. 25. Ibid., p. 347

92 26. Ibid., p. 348.

27. Mohsenian Rad, Iran dar Chahar Kahkeshan e Ertebati, pp. 1487-8.

28. Ibid, p. 1484.

29. Ibid, pp. 1493-5.

30. Ibid, p. 1507.

31. Cited in Massoud Mehrabi, Tarikh e Cinema ye Iran: Az Aghaz to Sal e 1357 [The

History of Iranian Cinema: From the Beginning to 1979] (Tehran: 1984), p. 315.

32. Mohsenian Rad, Iran dar Chahar Kahkeshan e Ertebati, p. 1576; Sreberny-

IVIohammadi and Mohammadi, Small Media, Big Revolution, p. 66.

33. Sattarie, Dar Bi-Dowlati e Farhang, pp. 43-44; Sreberny-Mohammadi and

Mohammadi, Small Media, Big Revolution, p. 67.

34. Mohsenian Rad, Iran dar Chahar Kahkeshan e Ertebati, pp. 1583,1576-7.

35. Ibid, p. 1576.

36. Majid Tehranian, et a!.. Communications Policy for National Development

(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 3-4.

37. Mohsenian Rad, Iran dar Chahar Kahkeshan e Ertebati, p. 1592.

38. Sattarie, Dar Bi-Dowlati e Farhang, p, 189.

39. Kayhan Newspaper, 4 February 1979.

40. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Pasokh be Tarikh [Answer to History] (date and

location of publication are unknown), pp. 272-3.

41. See Mehrzad Boroujerdi, 'Gharbzadegi [Westoxication]: The Dominant

Intellectual Discourse of Pre- and Post-Revolutionary Iran,' in Samih K. Farsoun

and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, eds, Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic

(London and New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 20-38.

42. See Negin Nabavi, 'The Discourse of "Authentic Culture" in Iran in 1960s and

1970s,' in Negin Nabavi, ed.. Intellectual Trends in Twentieth-Century Iran: A

Critical Survey (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), pp. 91-108.

43. See Abbas Milani, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the

Iranian Revolution (Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 2000).

93 44. Concerning Nasr, see Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred: A

Conversation with Seyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought (Santa Barbara:

Praeger, 2010), pp. 69-72.

45. Samih K. Farsoun and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, 'Introduction: Iran's Political

Culture,' in Iran, p. 12.

46. Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 92.

47. Milani, r/7eS/7o/?, p. 100.

48. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 142.

49. Mohsenian Rad, Iran dar Chahar Kahkeshan e Ertebati, pp. 1592, 1608.

50. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, pp. 150-51.

51. Ibid, p. 127.

52. Ibid, p. 150. In fact, this is a quotation of the Danish scholar, Arthur Christensen

(1875-1945), who has considerable investigations and publications on Iranian

ancient history. The Shah himself had already quoted Christensen's idea in his

book on the White Revolution.

53. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Enqelab e Sefid [The White Revolution] (Tehran:

Pahlavi Royal Library, 1967), pp. 7-8, 26, 30, 40-1, 63, 69, 93, 114-15, 125-6, 167-

8.

54. All Reza Haghighi, 'Politics and Cinema in Post-Revolutionary Iran: An Uneasy

Relationship', in Richard Tapper, ed.. The New Iranian Cinema: Politics,

Representation and Identity (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2002), p. 110.

55. Hamid Naficy, 'Islamizing Film Culture: A Post-Khatami Update,' in The New

Iranian Cinema, p. 43.

56. Ibid, p. 47.

94