Iranians of the 1979 Revolution

This regime is not what they had in mind!

Mahsa Amini!
We know her name. Tragically, there are many more names like hers… many more Mahsa Aminis.

We have seen images and watched videos of brave Iranian women, and men, protest in the streets of Iran. Although we experience it from the safety of our homes, far away from the brutality of Iran’s regime, it is still daunting to watch a young Iranian woman take off her hijab in public, cut her hair in protest and chant against Iran’s Supreme Leader, its president and the Islamic Republic as a whole. What will happen to her? Will she be arrested? Will she become another Mahsa Amini?

We don’t know if these protests will lead to a revolution. But we do know how the movements of the 1970s and street protests in 1978 culminated in the 1979 Revolution. And in this episode, we learn a lot more about the people who brought about that cataclysmic revolution that changed everything… for the people of Iran.

My guest, Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi, will take us through this history and also discuss her forthcoming book, which is tentatively titled The Intimate Lives of a Revolution: Iran 1979.

We talk about the Constitutional Revolution, which wasn’t called a revolution in its own time (1905–11), and compare it…