DICTATORSHIP AND REVOLUTION Book Reviews

DICTATORSHIP AND REVOLUTION by Struan Stevenson Book Summary

As the Iranian people strive to defeat the medieval religious dictatorship of the mullahs in Iran, it is evermore imperative that we do not lose sight of the larger historical perspective in which this struggle has been shaped. The Iranian political landscape and society are imbued with memories of a 120-year struggle to achieve some form of democratic governance and open society that is so often taken for granted in countries with established democratic rule. This century-long effort has at times been waged against despotic Shahs (monarchs) and now against clerics claiming absolute theocratic rule.

Both the monarchy and the theocratic dictatorship deny universal human rights, claim authority as "Shadow of God" (the Shahs) or "Vicegerent of God" (clerical despots) on earth, consider the people to be immature and in need of guardians, and derive their legitimacy from sources other than the ballot box and democratic rule of law. Both have committed gross violations of human rights such as arbitrary detentions, summary trials, cruel and inhuman punishment, torture, and political executions. Both have effectively instituted one-party rule, denied pluralism, suppressed many segments of society, denied freedom of speech or association, prohibited a free press, and disenfranchised citizens. One has come to hold foreign interests above that of the nation in the case of the monarchy, and the other has abused the faith and religiosity of the people to plunder their wealth, to instigate hatred, sectarian violence, and foreign adventurism, under the rubric of religious war and expansion, to the detriment of the nation.

This book, comprised of 23 chapters, attempts to chronicle a concise history of the Pahlavi monarchs who were ousted by popular revolution in 1979, and the religious dictatorship that took its place after Ruhollah Khomeini usurped the leadership of the anti-monarchic revolution. The first three chapters delve into the illegitimate rise of the Pahlavi monarchs through brutal repression and foreign intervention and the years preceding the 1979 revolution. The next couple of chapters deal with how the clergy, with Khomeini at the forefront, tolerated and left intact by the Shah, contrary to the decimation of democratic forces, hijacked the revolution and thwarted its deals of freedom.

The monarchic remnants of the previous regime are unmasked in the next chapter and the resistance movement to the theocratic regime is described in the following chapter. The regime's destructive domestic and international policies are covered in chapters 9 to 17. The consequences of the regime's crimes and its appeasement by Western governments is discussed in chapters 18 and 19. The regime's concerted and vicious disinformation campaign against its opposition and its use of cyberwar are examined in chapters 20 and 21.

The last two chapters deal with the current national uprising in Iran and prospects for a democratic outcome. The 1979 revolution against the Pahlavi Shah started in January 1978 with the first bloody crackdown of demonstrations, and lasted for 13 months, culminating in the flight of the Shah and the overthrow of his regime. This revolution, after over four decades of organized resistance, is now in its fifth month at the time of writing with protesters calling for "Death to Khamenei", the supreme leader of the regime, and wholesale regime change, undaunted by the level of repression. This time around, the regime, having failed to decimate or eliminate the Iranian Resistance movement physically or politically, is facing its inevitable downfall at the hands of a popular uprising inspired by this decades-long resistance and the vision it presents for a free, democratic, pluralistic, nuclear-free Iran, with separation of religion and state. 

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