Children of Paradise

The 1979 Iranian revolution traces its origins to Western colonialism. 

The 1979 revolution had its roots in Iran’s colonial history. For decades, Britain and the United States took Iran’s oil and installed leaders amenable to foreign interests. Political repression and economic inequality were rampant.

There was a brief window of relative freedom under a British-installed king, Mohammad Reza Shah, in the 1950s. The thaw allowed reformer Mohammad Mossadegh to achieve the office of prime minister and make significant headway toward his goals of restoring Iranian control of its oil resources and implementing rule of law. However, in 1953, America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed a coup against Mossadegh over fears about his supposed communist leanings. Mohammad Reza Shah became much more tyrannical after this experience, and repression redoubled.

Revolutionaries hoped to craft a uniquely Iranian state. 

Meanwhile, resistance was quietly fomenting. As a teacher in the Iranian countryside, poet Samad Behrangi saw firsthand how divided Iran was between the Westernized urban elites and the rural poor...