Word: nationalizes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Thus the Shi'ite leaders felt threatened when the Shah set out to create a Western-style nation in the 20th century mold. He called his campaign the White (for bloodless) Revolution. Later it was renamed the Shah-People's Revolution, but changing the name did not prevent the inevitable clash of cultures...
...Gambling, prostitution and pornography are all viewed as typical manifestations of modernism. The Shah's widespread curtailment of civil liberties, freedom of the press and political assembly are looked upon as only further evidence of his determination to deprive the Shi'ites of their power and to transform the nation into a secular state...
...Says one dissident lawyer: "We have not been allowed to form political parties. We have no newspapers of our own. But the religious leaders have a built-in communications system. They easily reach the masses through their weekly sermons in the mosques and their network of mullahs throughout the nation. That is why so many nonreligious elements cloak their opposition in the mantle of religion...
...with economic and cultural development. But Iran's unique society, so influenced by its religious structure and rooted for centuries in a different world, simply could not adjust to such radical change. The Shah failed to realize that the dramatic alterations he envisioned for the economic advance of his nation required the development of an acceptable political system. He concentrated on the army and the institutions that related to executive power. He ruled as an absolute monarch - no matter how worthy his goals - and depended on repressive measures to keep disparate forces in line while he and the technocrats proceeded...
...hopeful sign that in recent months the Shah has begun to make visible reforms in the political and human rights affairs of the nation. He fired the head of SAVAK, who had been identified with that agency's most notorious terror tactics, freed a number of prisoners, and promised to allow dissidents to be tried in civilian rather than military courts. But some specialists in the region blame those small liberalizing measures for the present turmoil. Says one: "Many Iranians took these changes as a sign that the Shah was weakening and responded with almost total cynicism...