For now, the Iranian regime has managed to regain the upper hand over protestors who disputed the results of the June 2009 presidential election as well as the continued hold on power of the mullahs. Morality squads venture forth once more to police the cosmopolitan, the fashionable and the uninhibited in the name of religion. Too much globalization, it seems, threatens the hold on power of the fundamentalist Shiite leadership of Iran. The theocratic state views individualism and diversity as irreligious manifestations and as the embodiment of pro-Western political threats.
Yet the fundamentalists are trapped in a losing battle. Their views were shaped by negative reactions to rapid Westernization under the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A majority of Iran’s current population, which was born after the 1979 revolution, now chafes under the obscurantist yoke. The regime, which is eager to participate in and even influence the modern world, has failed to keep secular influences at bay. Globalization has reached Iran and is here to stay.
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