Iran is eroding. Across Iran today, the very foundations of the Islamic Republic are being openly challenged. Millions of Iranians have flooded the streets demanding not reform, but the toppling of the Islamic Republic. These protestors are spurred by economic grievances, societal repression, and violent response to peaceful protest. Sounds familiar? It should. These protesters, primarily students and other youth, call for similar change and echo the slogans that their ancestors used to topple the Iranian monarchy nearly half a century ago. Yet, this recent outrage at the clerical leadership raises a much deeper question: Are Iranians witnessing the birth of a second revolution, or is the country still living through the consequences of the 1979 revolution’s failures? To comprehend the mechanisms behind the contemporary unrest, one must analyze the Iranian political trajectory over the last century.
The year is 1953. Just 2 years prior, decades of Western domination over oil had come to an abrupt halt with an Iranian nationalization of the industry. Consequently, Mohammad Mossadegh, the Iranian leader responsible for this act, was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup and replaced with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Fast forward a decade, and the Shah enacts the White Revolution: a project aimed at rapid modernization that attempts to mold Iran into a Western-like state. This project brought economic success, although very unequally distributed, but also stripped many Iranians of traditional practices and attempted to limit clerical power within society. By 1978, tensions had never been higher. The coup and White Revolution frame the Shah as a ruler who is unconcerned with religion and is puppeted by Western interests rather than those of his own people. These factors were compounded with overt repression by the state secret police, the SAVAK, and perceived corruption of the Shah’s regime to create a formidable opposition.
Yet, the 1979 revolution was not originally a unified religious effort. The revolutionary coalition was composed of secular liberals, Islamic clericals, Marxists, and nationalists, while setting aside ideological goals in hopes of forcing the abdication of the Shah. For many protestors, this revolution marked an opportunity to create a republic that better represented the people. Through a campaign of massive and primarily peaceful uprisings, they succeeded. The Shah fled Iran in January of 1979, leaving behind a nation in chaos. Unfortunately, this chaos was greatly taken advantage of.
In the power vacuum that followed the Shah’s ousting, the broad revolutionary effort quickly crumbled. This disorganization allowed the clerical forces, led by Ruhollah Khomeini, to consolidate power. Khomeini molded the nation around the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, which granted Islamic clerics ultimate authority. To defend this order, Khomeini created institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the revolutionary courts. These served as a mechanism to brutally repress any dissent, resulting in many moderate members of the revolutionary coalition being imprisoned, executed, or banished. Through these injustices, the idyllic image of a free Iranian republic that motivated the Iranian people to overthrow the Shah slowly faded into obscurity.
However, the Islamic Republic’s policy of persecution expanded far beyond just political opponents, revealing how the revolution created a more authoritarian system rather than a freer one. The utopian vision of a revolutionary Iran crumbled as Khomeini mandated public veils for women, banned abortion, and publicly labeled Israel as“Iran’s greatest enemy”. The latter of this action invoked waves of anti-semitism that quickly spread across Iran. Joel Sach, a Jewish Iranian native and US refugee, recalls how the Islamic regime further “persecuted as the libel of “Zionist” was being applied to all Jews.” This hostility had immediate consequences, which Sach experienced first-hand. Joel was a brilliant student and even obtained the highest score on his magnet school entrance exam. However, his mother was informed that since “he was not muslim, he would not be accepted” to the school. Sach’s experience was not unique, but indicative of a broader system in which the state enforced ideological conformity across all sectors of society. For those Jewish individuals who remained, life became a daily performance of identity concealment and the forced acceptance of a second-class citizenship as the cost of staying in their homeland.
These patterns of oppression have calcified into the rigid social stratification that plagues Iran today. Access to healthcare, education, and social mobility is closely tied to ideological loyalty. But society in Iran is not merely divided by religious devotion, but also by gender and ethnicity. The ethnic minorities in Iran, such as the Kurds and Arabs, face disproportionate levels of poverty and political marginalization, while being stripped of opportunities, like Sach. Women are rigorously oppressed through second-class citizenship and compulsory hijab laws. The mistreatment of women in Iran exploded into the global consciousness with the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Mahsa was a 22-year-old woman visiting Tehran when she was arrested for violating compulsory hijab rules. She was arrested, then subsequently beaten and tortured in a police station before succumbing to her injuries in the Tehran hospital 3 days later. This barbaric act led to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, which saw massive widespread protests all over the country. This campaign relied heavily on imagery of women in Iran pre-1979 revolution, which included images of women wearing western clothing and out by themselves. Ultimately, these inequalities underscore how the current regime denies Iranians the very rights that they fought to obtain, while protest imagery of pre-revolution Iran emphasizes how current unrest is an ongoing effort to correct the inequality left unaddressed by the 1979 revolution.
Yet, despite these constant hardships, the spirit of the Iranian people remains unbroken. Joel Sach and countless other members of the 1979 diaspora embody this resilience beyond imagination. After arriving in the US with nothing, Joel received a full scholarship to UCLA before eventually becoming an MD, a profession that he still practices today. His story reflects not only personal resolve but also the broader determination of a displaced community that refused to be defined by persecution or loss. Through education, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to rebuilding their lives, individuals like Joel transformed adversity into opportunity, demonstrating that even in the aftermath of revolution and exile, identity, ambition, and hope can endure.
Ultimately, to characterize today’s social unrest as a “second revolution” is to misinterpret the movement’s origins. Iran is not experiencing a second revolution, but rather the resurfacing of issues pre-1979 revolution that were either unaddressed or compounded by the Islamic Republic. The original revolutionaries marched for true democracy, dignity, and most of all, the end of autocratic rule. Instead, they received a more authoritarian government that afforded its citizens even fewer rights than before. Therefore, the 1979 revolution must be understood as 2 different entities: the faction that hoped for genuine change and the clerical wing that corrupted this dream. So, those protesting today are merely renewing the original revolution that was stolen before it could fulfill its democratic promise. In this sense, the current movement is not a sequel to 1979 but its unfinished chapter. It is still the same struggle for freedom and representation, still unanswered, still urgent, and now carried forward by a generation unwilling to accept the revolution’s betrayal.
Featured Image: X @gghamari