Iran As You Don't Know It

Adam Michnik, a Polish historian who helped to overthrow the Communists in Poland, once said: “Revolutions have two phases: first comes a struggle for freedom, then a struggle for power. The first makes the human spirit soar and brings out the best in people. The second unleashes the worst: envy, intrigue, greed, suspicion and the urge for revenge.”  .... and Iran followed this dictum. But now, it is being argued that its past stage two and is in a post revolutionary stage ... and this could best be described as the 'cynicism cycle'.

So here's some facts about modern Iran that may surprise you: they did me.

Iran's Nuclear Timeline .... Ticking Away.

•  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, led the revolution but seven of his 15 grandchildren have openly criticised the regime .... "Westoxification” (the title of a book by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, published in 1962), is rampant in the shopping malls that spring up despite the Western sanctions.

• Both Facebook and Twitter are officially 'banned', but Twitter is used by officials to put out statements and Facebook is the primary medium of communication for half the country’s youth

• Azad University, has over 100 campuses and 1.5m students as tertiary education levels boom.

Iranians The Best Educated In Region.

• Iran’s cabinet has more members with PhDs from American universities than that of America itself .... maybe not a surprise under Bush, but under the Obama regime.

• Iran’s scientific output has increased by 575% in the past decade.

• Iran publishes three times more books than all Arab nations combined ... excluding Koran's I suspect.

• Most Iranians access the Internet using virtual private networks (VPN) to bypass State censorship. So ubiquitous is this service that its made millionaires of backstreet providers. One example cited is a 21 yr old, who charges a dollar a month or $10 a year to his 80,000 clients. He pays the 'cyber-police' a few hundred dollars in bribes every few months to turn a blind eye.

• The fastest internet speeds in Iran are achieved near seminaries, since clerics preach online to few viewers but still get priority on fibre-optic cables .... but pornography, although strictly banned, apparently blazes a trail for freedom, as its the primary usage for the older user.

• Iranian GDP per person rose from $4,400 in 1993 to $13,200 last year (at purchasing-power parity), and they are by far and away the most prosperous of the large population countries in the region.

• After the revolution the birth rate soared, but as Iranians became more prosperous and more importantly women became educated, it started falling and now is below pre-revolution levels ... experts now put it at between 1.6 - 1.9 children per woman, and broadly in line with European rates. By comparison, in neighbouring Iraq it is 3.5 children per woman.

• By law all public buildings in Iran must have prayer rooms as you might expect. Yet officials have silenced many muezzins public calls to prayer to appease citizens angered by the noise.

• The state broadcaster used to interrupt football matches with live sermons at prayer time; now only a small prayer symbol appears in a corner of the screen. It is suggested that by forcing religion on people it has meant that they have become sick of being preached at, and have turned away. Possibly, privately the country is now 'Islamic' in much the same way that Italy is 'Catholic'.

• Misogyny is still organised and state sanctioned, with heads having to be covered and religious 'morality' police on the streets, but female students outnumber men by 2:1 at many Iranian universities. There are even calls for male education quotas to address the imbalance. 

• A recent survey of young adults by Iran’s parliament suggests that 80% of unmarried women have 'boyfriends' (with or without their parents knowledge).

• In Qom, Irans religious capital face veils used to be common among women, but were banned after three men wearing them entered a local school and groped the girls. 

So there you are. There are no absolute certainties in human societies, so just as the old Soviet block was a slowly melting without us noticing, the revolutionary regime in Iran is not a stagnant regime of complete religious jihadists .... there are changes going on that we in the West don't always see.

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions Continue Despite The Sanctions

I still don't want them to get a nuclear bomb though ....