Harvard Professor Answers Iranian History Questions | Tech Support | WIRED — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00The first thing to note about the
2. 0:01Iranian Revolution is that nobody saw it
3. 0:03coming. I'm Professor Tarek Masoud from
4. 0:05Harvard University. Let's answer your
5. 0:07questions from the internet. This is
6. 0:08Tech Support Iran.
7. 0:11>> [music]
8. 0:14>> Here's a question from Quora. Is Iran an
9. 0:17Arab country? If an Arab country is a
10. 0:20country where the majority of people
11. 0:21speak Arabic, then the answer is no. In
12. 0:25Iran, people don't speak Arabic, they
13. 0:27speak Persian. And Persian, even though
14. 0:30it's written with the Arabic script, and
15. 0:32so it would look like Arabic to somebody
16. 0:34who doesn't know the language, it's
17. 0:36actually an Indo-European language. And
18. 0:38so, there's lots of words in Persian
19. 0:40that might sound familiar to a Western
20. 0:42ear. Like the word for name is nam, the
21. 0:44word for cow is gav, the word for mother
22. 0:47is madar, father is pedar, brother is
23. 0:49baradar. Arabic is a Semitic language.
24. 0:52It's much more closely related to
25. 0:54Hebrew, which is spoken in Israel, or
26. 0:56Amharic, which is one of the languages
27. 0:58spoken in Ethiopia. So, Iranians aren't
28. 1:01Arabs. That said, there's obviously a
29. 1:04lot of traffic between the Arab world
30. 1:08and the Persian world. After all, they
31. 1:10practice Islam. Islam was brought to
32. 1:12them by the Arabs. The brand of Islam
33. 1:16that they practice, Shia Islam, one of
34. 1:19its core features is veneration of the
35. 1:22Prophet Muhammad and the belief that
36. 1:24descendants of the Prophet Muhammad have
37. 1:27infallible religious authority. They're
38. 1:30all Arabs. Many of the senior clerics,
39. 1:33like Khamenei or Khomeini, you notice
40. 1:36that they all wear black turbans. Those
41. 1:38black turbans signal descent, direct
42. 1:41descent, from the Prophet Muhammad. And
43. 1:44so, again, they are basically saying
44. 1:46we're descended from Arabs. And yet,
45. 1:49Persians tend to view Arabs as
46. 1:52unsophisticated,
47. 1:53as Bedouins. They have slurs for Arabs.
48. 1:57They call them lizard eaters. My Thai
49. 1:59has grasshoppers. They also call them
50. 2:01grasshopper eaters. Arabs also have
51. 2:04their negative stereotypes of Persians.
52. 2:07But here's the thing, many of the
53. 2:09historical personages that Arabs will
54. 2:11point to as examples of Arab
55. 2:13contributions to human civilization
56. 2:16actually are Persians. So for example,
57. 2:18there was a medieval mathematician named
58. 2:21Al-Khwarizmi who invented algebra. The
59. 2:24word for algorithm comes from his name.
60. 2:26And you'll often hear Arabs say, "We
61. 2:28invented algebra. We invented the
62. 2:29algorithm." He was a Persian. The
63. 2:31founder of modern medicine, Avicenna,
64. 2:34also a Persian. In fact, the greatest
65. 2:37Arab grammarian was a guy named
66. 2:40Sibawayh. This is a guy who codifies
67. 2:42Arab grammar in the 8th century, also a
68. 2:45Persian. So Iran is not an Arab country,
69. 2:48but it has definitely experienced
70. 2:49serious Arab influences, just like the
71. 2:52Arabs have experienced serious Iranian
72. 2:55Persian influences. Okay Sandwich 7208
73. 2:58asks, "How did Iran become an Islamic
74. 3:00country in the first place?" If the
75. 3:02question is, "When did Iran become a
76. 3:04Muslim country that practices Islam?"
77. 3:06Well, that really starts with the Arab
78. 3:08conquest of Persia in the 7th century
79. 3:11AD. Before the Islamic conquest, Iran
80. 3:14was a Zoroastrian country. They
81. 3:16practiced a kind of monotheistic
82. 3:18religion in which fire and the sun
83. 3:21appear as very central elements in their
84. 3:23rituals. And they ultimately converted
85. 3:26to Islam over the following centuries,
86. 3:28but they still retain a lot of
87. 3:30Zoroastrian traditions. For example, one
88. 3:32of the biggest holidays in Iran is
89. 3:34Nowruz, which is the start of spring,
90. 3:37which is absolutely something that comes
91. 3:38from Zoroastrianism. Right before that,
92. 3:40they have a celebration called
93. 3:42Chaharshanbe Suri, where they leap over
94. 3:44fire in the hope of extracting the
95. 3:47strength from the fire and giving to the
96. 3:49fire their ailments, infirmities, and
97. 3:52weaknesses. In fact, there are still
98. 3:54Zoroastrians today. They're called
99. 3:56Parsis. Many of them live in South Asia.
100. 3:59The most famous Parsi, by the way, was
101. 4:01Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of
102. 4:02Queen. If your question is, "When did
103. 4:05Iran become the Islamic Republic?" Well,
104. 4:09that happened in 1979 with a revolution
105. 4:12against the king of Iran at that time,
106. 4:14an American client, Mohammad Reza Shah
107. 4:17Pahlavi. And that was a revolution that
108. 4:20was ultimately led by this man,
109. 4:22Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. And he
110. 4:25basically was the man who came up with
111. 4:27the entirety of the political system
112. 4:30that governs Iran today. And it's a
113. 4:31political system that has at its top a
114. 4:34senior religious leader. Some would call
115. 4:37it a theocracy. Senior positions are
116. 4:40held by Islamic clerics. Day-to-day life
117. 4:43on the streets is mandated to conform to
118. 4:46a particularly conservative
119. 4:48understanding of Islam. So, if you're a
120. 4:50woman in Iran, you have to dress
121. 4:52Islamically. If you like to party, well,
122. 4:55you're out of luck in Iran. You have to
123. 4:57conform to what are considered to be
124. 4:59Islamic standards of behavior.
125. 5:01Aggravating our 131 asks, "What's going
126. 5:05on with Iran's flag?" So, this is Iran's
127. 5:09current flag. Three colors. The green
128. 5:11represents Islam, the religion. White
129. 5:14represents purity. Red represents the
130. 5:17blood of the martyrs. And this is the
131. 5:20pre-revolutionary Iranian flag. Same
132. 5:23colors, but you have this device in the
133. 5:26middle, which is the lion with the sword
134. 5:28and the sun behind it. And that's really
135. 5:30a symbol of Persian identity, of royal
136. 5:33power. The sun represents
137. 5:35Zoroastrianism. The Iranian flag after
138. 5:381978 was adapted. They got rid of the
139. 5:42lion and the sun, and they replaced it
140. 5:44with this kind of stylized tulip, which
141. 5:47in Persian culture is very important. It
142. 5:49kind of represents martyrdom. You have
143. 5:51the sword that represents the nation. It
144. 5:54also looks like a stylized form of the
145. 5:58name of God, Allah. The other difference
146. 6:01is that you have here the words Allahu
147. 6:04Akbar, God is great. There's 22 of them,
148. 6:08and that symbolizes the date of the
149. 6:10revolution, which is the 22nd day of the
150. 6:13month of Bahman, which is a month in the
151. 6:15Persian calendar. Now, today, you'll
152. 6:18often see people waving this
153. 6:21pre-revolutionary flag. It's kind of
154. 6:23like an act of rebellion against the
155. 6:26Islamic Republic. Jedi Blight asks,
156. 6:29"Just how liberal {slash} progressive
157. 6:31was Iran prior to the 1979 Revolution?"
158. 6:35Prior to the 1979 Revolution, Iran was
159. 6:38run by a king who was trying to make
160. 6:43Iran, which was at that time a
161. 6:45conservative society, more liberal and
162. 6:47more Western. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
163. 6:50was the second Shah or king in the
164. 6:53so-called Pahlavi dynasty. The first was
165. 6:56his father, who did a military coup
166. 6:58against the previous Shah in the 1920s.
167. 7:01He got a little too cozy with the Nazis,
168. 7:04so the British overthrew him and
169. 7:06installed his son in his place in 1941,
170. 7:09and his son engaged in all kinds of
171. 7:12reforms, particularly as they related to
172. 7:14the rights of women, the role of Islam
173. 7:17in society. He was trying to make the
174. 7:19society more secular and more Western.
175. 7:22You'll often see photographs of women
176. 7:24before the revolution dressed in mini
177. 7:26skirts or looking the way that a very
178. 7:29modern Western women look, and that
179. 7:32certainly was the case for a certain
180. 7:34segment of the Iranian population, but
181. 7:37again, the vast majority of the people
182. 7:39in that country were conservative. Some
183. 7:41people tend to present the Shah as a
184. 7:43modern and progressive leader. And there
185. 7:45certainly were elements of
186. 7:47progressiveness in his program, but
187. 7:49you've also got to remember this was a
188. 7:51leader who was authoritarian. Iran was
189. 7:54not a place where there was freedom of
190. 7:56speech. Iran was not a place where there
191. 7:58was democracy or respect for human
192. 8:00rights. And that of course generated
193. 8:03some of the backlash that ultimately led
194. 8:05to the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
195. 8:07Yogurt Closet Open 3567 asks, is Iran
196. 8:12the only Middle Eastern country whose
197. 8:14modern borders were not created by
198. 8:16colonial powers? Great question, Yogurt
199. 8:19Closet Open. Let's look at a map. This
200. 8:22is a map of the Middle East and some of
201. 8:25South Asia. And the first thing that you
202. 8:27notice when you look at Middle Eastern
203. 8:29countries like Iraq, Syria, and Jordan,
204. 8:32the borders between them are very
205. 8:35straight. That's because these are
206. 8:37countries that emerged after the end of
207. 8:39World War I, after the Ottoman Empire
208. 8:42was dissolved and the British and the
209. 8:44French took over. And basically they're
210. 8:46the ones who drew these borders
211. 8:48essentially with rulers and pens. Iran
212. 8:50was never part of the Ottoman Empire.
213. 8:52The way that Iran's borders were worked
214. 8:54out was basically through fighting wars.
215. 8:57Iran fought a series of wars with the
216. 8:59Ottoman Empire that determined its
217. 9:02western border. It fought wars with the
218. 9:04Russian Empire that essentially
219. 9:06determined its northern border. Its
220. 9:08eastern borders were also mainly, but
221. 9:11not totally, determined in wars with
222. 9:13British India and with Herat in
223. 9:16Afghanistan. These borders here are a
224. 9:18little straighter because they actually
225. 9:20were drawn by British mediators in the
226. 9:2319th century. But essentially because
227. 9:26Iran was an independent state, in fact
228. 9:30it's one of the founding states of the
229. 9:31League of Nations, its borders came
230. 9:34about in a different way from the
231. 9:36standard Middle Eastern country where
232. 9:38the colonial powers drew all the
233. 9:40borders. This is from the No Stupid
234. 9:42Questions subreddit from F A R A N D
235. 9:46Lahey. Why did the Iranian Revolution
236. 9:49happen? Well, the first thing to note
237. 9:50about the Iranian Revolution is that
238. 9:52nobody saw it coming. The American
239. 9:54president at the time, Jimmy Carter,
240. 9:56actually visited Iran in 1977 and
241. 9:59toasted it as an island of stability in
242. 10:02a troubled region of the world. But they
243. 10:04say hindsight is 20/20 and today there
244. 10:07are a lot of factors that people point
245. 10:09to as having led to the Iranian
246. 10:11Revolution. The first is that the regime
247. 10:13of the Shah was pretty repressive. He
248. 10:16relied on his secret police to keep
249. 10:18order, dissent was not tolerated, people
250. 10:21were sent into exile and tortured. In
251. 10:23fact, the person who ends up leading the
252. 10:25Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah
253. 10:27Khomeini, was a guy who was exiled
254. 10:29because of his opposition to the Shah in
255. 10:30the 1960s.
256. 10:32Another factor is that people felt that
257. 10:34the Shah was extremely wasteful with the
258. 10:38country's resources. In 1971, he threw a
259. 10:41lavish party that by some accounts cost
260. 10:44almost 20 million dollars. The Guinness
261. 10:47Book of World Records said that the
262. 10:49banquet for that celebration was the
263. 10:51longest banquet ever in recorded
264. 10:54history. And so, Iranians looked at
265. 10:56something like that and they felt that
266. 10:57their country's wealth was being
267. 10:59squandered. And then, the Shah's
268. 11:01reforms, the liberalizing reforms, had
269. 11:04really made him a lot of enemies in his
270. 11:07country. He was also, by the end of
271. 11:09this, very sick. He had cancer, his son
272. 11:12was not yet of age, and his wife, the
273. 11:15Shahbanu, was not terribly popular.
274. 11:18Another reason for some of the
275. 11:20discontent that bubbled up and caused
276. 11:21the Iranian Revolution was a decline in
277. 11:24oil prices that was caused by Saudi
278. 11:26overproduction. And that caused some
279. 11:28serious economic distress in Iran. All
280. 11:31of these factors made it possible for
281. 11:33protesters to see some weaknesses in the
282. 11:36regime and to take to the streets in the
283. 11:39hope of bringing it down. And the
284. 11:40conditions ultimately ended up being
285. 11:42ripe for a charismatic leader like
286. 11:45Khomeini to take over and ride it into
287. 11:48power and establish the Islamic
288. 11:50Republic. Curry MVP2 asks, "The son of
289. 11:53Iran's last Shah is rallying protesters,
290. 11:56but do Iranians really want another
291. 11:58king?" So, this is the pretender to the
292. 12:02Iranian throne, a man named Reza
293. 12:04Pahlavi, and he is the son of Mohammad
294. 12:08Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was overthrown in
295. 12:111979. Now, today in some of the protests
296. 12:14that are happening on the streets in
297. 12:16Iran, or at least that were happening
298. 12:18before the bombing campaign, people
299. 12:20absolutely were chanting his name
300. 12:22saying, "Pahlavi will return." But, it's
301. 12:24an open question as to whether that
302. 12:26means they really want this guy back or
303. 12:29they just want to taunt the regime by
304. 12:30saying, "That hated dynasty that we
305. 12:33overthrew is preferable to us than you
306. 12:36are." He hasn't been in the country for
307. 12:3947 years. So, there's a serious question
308. 12:41as to whether Reza Shah actually has the
309. 12:43wherewithal to govern Iran should the
310. 12:47regime fall. Iran is made up of 40%
311. 12:51ethnic minorities. Think people like
312. 12:54Azeris, who speak Turkish, Kurds,
313. 12:57there's a small Arab minority in Iran,
314. 12:59and those people don't look fondly on
315. 13:03the time of the Shah. They think of the
316. 13:04Shah as having been a kind of Persian
317. 13:06supremacist who suppressed their
318. 13:08expression of their non-Persian
319. 13:11identities. So, they're not really
320. 13:13yearning for a restoration of the
321. 13:16so-called Peacock Throne. So, those are
322. 13:18all the questions we have for today.
323. 13:20Thank you for watching TechSupport Iran.