Iran, a country with a history of 4,000 years of civilization, can also be called an ancient civilization. During the boom of the Silk Road, the Persian Empire controlled almost half of the Silk Road, which became an important link between the East and the West.
Although Persia was conquered by the Arabs and Zoroastrianism was replaced by Islam, the flame of Persian civilization has never been extinguished, and it is only now that Iran has been shaped to this day.
In fact, from some perspectives, Iran is like a "mirror" of China, and if you understand Iran, you can understand China.
Iran and China: Similar Historical and Modern Challenges As ancient civilizations, Iran and China share a common history and unique culture. However, they have all faced the onslaught of Western countries and need to re-establish their identity with their own countries and cultures.
They have even tried to change their destiny through Westernization. The Pahlavi dynasty, established in 1925, is a manifestation of this, and it is similar to the Chinese in many ways.
Now, many people miss China** and think that it represents freedom and romance. However, history cannot be changed, we can only look forward and find new paths for the development of our country and culture.
However, even in the ** period, the traverser could not guarantee that he would be able to become a young master and miss of the upper class celebrities, in fact, the life of the commoners and even the poor at that time was very difficult, just like the Pahlavi dynasty.
There are many Irans of the Pahlavi dynasty circulating on the Internet, and people will miss Iran of that period when they look at them. Iran in the 70s was one of the richest countries in the world, and they were real Middle Eastern tycoons, and they were not soft when it came to buying F-14s.
In 1971, to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the birth of the Persian Empire, the Pahlavi dynasty held a grand ceremony, building 1,000 kilometers of roads and castles for dignitaries, and erecting 37 kilometers of silk tents in the desert.
Although the Iranian people in ** seem to be rich, fashionable and open-minded, what is revealed behind ** is the ** of Iranian society as a whole. Prosperity is the exclusive preserve of Tehran and other large city elites, and most of society's resources are concentrated in a handful of cities.
For example, Tehran, which accounts for less than 15 percent of the country's population, has more than half of the country's doctors; In Tehran, for example, an average of every 10 people own a car.
In rural areas, more than half of Iran's population is illiterate, while more than 70% of the country's population lives in rural areas, earning barely enough money to make ends meet, and even children have to work outside the home to support their families.
This is reminiscent of the fragmented China ** in the past, when the upper class enjoyed most of the social resources and the highest treatment, while the vast number of rural people lived in hardship.
Iranian society, in the conflict of Western value systems and traditional cultures, faces problems similar to those of our country. The Pahlavi dynasty adopted a policy of total westernization, flattered the United States, and became the "best man" of the United States in the Middle East.
Western ideology and popular culture are extremely prevalent in the upper echelons of Iran. After the White Revolution, Iran established new laws that completely separated religion from the judiciary, introduced secular education, and abolished traditional Islamic customs such as women's headscarves.
The beliefs of the people at the bottom are deeply rooted, and the afterglow of the Persian Empire, the traditions of Islam, and the constraints of the Qur'an and Sharia law constitute the order of their lives.
Although these customs may be incomprehensible to outsiders, they are deeply convinced and have long been accustomed to the religious practice of women wearing the veil. This has led to an intensification of conflict in Iranian society.
In other countries, a similar situation occurs. For example, during the ** period, some people strongly advocated total westernization, believing that China's traditional culture was backward.
They believe that only by fully adopting the Western value system and culture can the country be strong. There are even proposals to abolish Chinese characters and replace them with pinyin, which is undoubtedly a fierce conflict between the Western value system and traditional culture.
The development of Iranian society is not influenced solely by cultural factors, but also by various national policies. In particular, the liberal economic policy in the economic field has led to a tidal wave of foreign goods, especially agricultural products, which has had a serious impact on Iran's agricultural production and has greatly affected the lives of the vast rural population.
This series of changes made Iranian society more **, which eventually led to a revolution by the people at the bottom who overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty. This road seems to have many similarities with the road we have walked, but what is even more unexpected is that when Iranians feel that life is difficult, they often look back on the Pahlavi period that they call the "** era", but they never seem to have considered what the living conditions of the people at the bottom were like in that era.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran ushered in a new era, but the development of modernization made it difficult for Iran to return to tradition. Iran has an urbanization rate of 75%, and highly educated people yearn for an open era.
This makes Iran different from countries that have never been fully Westernized and secularized, and makes Iran appear "tangled". Despite the fact that Iran's constitution provides for Sharia law and that the morality police check women's headscarves and behavior, Iran can no longer act entirely in accordance with tradition.
Although Iranian women have hijab rules, many women's hijabs are more like scarves and are only symbolically worn when needed, and the morality police are not too strict.
After all, as long as there is a turban-like decoration on the head, it will not be subject to too much blame. In fact, Iran still retains the Persian tradition of favoring daughters, and Iranian women are generally superior to Arab countries in terms of education, employment, and personal development.
In Iran, restrictions on women may be more reflected in aspects such as dress and interaction between men and women. There is data to prove this.
In order to maintain a balance in the number of male and female university students, Iran briefly implemented a "quota system for university students", which limited the enrollment of female students to 50 per cent in some majors. However, this provision was soon repealed due to the ** of women.
Since then, the proportion of female university students in Iran has been as high as 64 per cent, and men are clearly unable to compete with women in this regard. Although Iran is a country that clearly defines itself as a theocratic country, with a majority of its citizens professing Islam, it has an even higher urbanization rate than China and is able to industrialize independently.
Iran is capable of producing not only steel, non-ferrous metals and automobiles, but also heavy-haul trains, bullet trains and 300,000-ton cruise ships, and even the "Airmobile" suicide drone that appeared on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield is also Iran's masterpiece.
Iran, a secular and open country, has a literacy rate of over 90 percent and an internet penetration rate of 80 percent, and nearly 1 million college students graduate each year, surpassing the proportion of Chinese university students.
However, this is very different from the traditional impression of Iran. The country is facing the same problems that we have today, such as the contradiction between the supply and demand of college graduates and jobs.
The data shows that Iran has nearly 9570,000 college graduates are unemployed, and the unemployment rate is as high as 136 per cent, of which 40 per cent of the total number of unemployed university students are unemployed.
Moreover, Iranian women are under even greater pressure in the wave of unemployment, with the unemployment rate of female college students even exceeding the average at 228%。
The unemployment rate reveals the hidden disharmony in society, which is at the root of large-scale ** movements in Iran's history, such as the campaign against women wearing headscarves. For Iran, this internal reform is part of its uniqueness, because the light of Persian civilization never fades, and the total westernization of the Pahlavi dynasty could shake Iran's foundations.
If Iran wants to become a great power and rejuvenate the country, it must preserve its past and religion, and overly radical secularization and modernization may provoke a backlash from conservatives and endanger the country's stability.
That is why Iran has stuck to its unique approach to incremental reforms, embracing the suggestions of the population but rejecting extreme measures. This kind of intelligent reform may originate from Iran, an ancient civilization, and understanding Iran may allow us to understand ourselves more deeply.