Voices Of The Middle East And North Africa

It was February 11th, 1979, after a few moments of silence on Radio Tehran's broadcast, the voice of Jamshid Adili goes "In sedaaye enghelaab-e mardom-e Iran ast" -- "This is the voice of the Revolution of the Iranian people." He went on to repeat the announcement as if he was trying to reassure the audience that the revolution had brought an end to monarchy in Iran. The streets became flooded with euphoric people celebrating the triumph of the revolution and the end of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule and the Pahlavi Dynasty. The victory was the culmination of 18 months of demonstrations, bloody clashes, massive industrial actions, a general strike and three days of armed confrontation between the revolutionaries and the most loyal forces of the Shah. But why did Iran of the 1970s, with its well-off middle class, massive military might and powerful international allies, experience a revolution? And what were the origins of the revolution? The 1979 revolution has come to be known as the “Islamic Revolution” beca