1. This quotation is a tribute not only to Mark Twain's wry humor but also to the late Daniel Lerner who quoted it first at the beginning of his book, The Passing of Traditional Society (Chicago: The Free Press, 1958).Google Scholar Lerner was one of the first not only to recognize the importance of communication in the process of modernization, but also one of the earliest to acknowledge the shortcomings of some of his own views. See the interview with Daniel Lerner by Jahandary, Khosrow, Communication and Development Review 1 (Summer-Autumn 1977).Google Scholar

2. The extent of the alienation of the elite from the mass revealed itself in the debates of the late ‘70s on how to alleviate urban traffic jams. Prince Gholam Reza, who owned shares in an airplane assembly plant in Isfahan, admonished the harassed city commuters to fly their own private planes. This was reminiscent of Marie Antoinette's remark at the peak of the French Revolution: “If there isn't enough bread, let them eat cake.”

3. The two most important documents to consult on the two rival ideologies are, of course, the shah's short book on Tammadon-e Bozorg (The Great Civilization) and Ayatollah Khomeini's lecture notes delivered in Najaf on Velayat-e Faqih (The Trusteeship of the Jurist), published under a variety of different titles: Hokumat-e Islami (The Islamic Government), Nameh'i az Imam (A Letter from the Imam), etc.

4. The themes in this paragraph are developed more fully elsewhere by Tehranian, “The Curse of Modernity: The Dialectics of Communication and Modernization,” International Social Science Journal 32, No. 2 (1980).Google Scholar Peter Berger is one of the first and the few who has paid particular attention to the human costs of modernization; see especially, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (London: Penguin Books, 1973)Google Scholar and Pyramids of Sacrifice: Political Ethics and Social Change (London: Penguin Books, 1974).Google Scholar

5. Marvin Zonis, “The Political and Social Systems of Iran in the Year 1990,” unpublished paper, December 1977.

6. Those interviewed included Ayatollah Shari'atmadari (the de facto center of liberal hopes in the post-revolutionary period), Ayatollah Mottahari (a leading religious ideologue and chairman of the Revolutionary Council until his assassination in 1979), Ayatollah Nuri (leader of the Black Friday movement of September 1978), and Falsafi (the fiery preacher who has survived all changes of regimes during the past 30 years). Despite differences of nuances in their views, there was considerable unanimity of grievance among them.

7. George Ball seems to be far closer to the truth than Henry Kissinger in their opposing interpretations of the United States role in the shah's downfall; see The Economist (London), February 10 and 17, 1979 issues. By giving the shah an option to purchase unlimited military hardware, the Nixon administration whetted the shah's appetite to play a regional superpower role in the Middle East to the detriment of Iran's domestic development needs. However, the Carter administration's human rights policy also undermined the shah's sense of security without giving him the benefit of a sense of direction. In the end, it was a test of wills between a fundamentally weak and insecure monarch, culturally and politically alienated from his people, and a strong and determined charismatic leader who knew that sooner or later the armed forces would respond positively to his irresistible appeals of peace and fraternity. Nevertheless, history may remember the shah, as well as Bakhtiyar, kindly for having facilitated a relatively peaceful transition to the new order.

8. This film has been released in the West under the title of “The Cycle.”

9. See Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle and Mahlouji, Maryam, “News from Nowhere: Foreign News in the Iranian Press,” Communications and Development Review 2, No. 2 (Summer 1978), pp. 19–22.Google Scholar Once censorship was somewhat lifted from the press in the fall of 1978, domestic news dominated and circulations increased from 50,000 to over 1 million. For a comparison of the pre- and post-revolutionary communication indicators, see Tehranian, Socio-Economic and Communication Indicators and Development Planning: A Case Study of Iran (Paris: UNESCO, 1981).Google Scholar

10. Estimates for the number of mullahs show a wide variation because there are no accurate statistics and no way of defining precisely who is or is not a bona fide Shi'ite cleric. This has become the case particularly in the aftermath of the revolution by the appearance of a large group of instant ayatollahs and hojjatolislams as well as lower-rank clerics who have reassumed clerical robes.

11. For Ayatollah Khomeini's theological positions, consult his Towzih al-Masa'el (Elucidation of Problems). For his political views, see Velayat-e Faqih, op. cit. Ali Shari'ati's overall view of Islam is best expressed in his Islam-shenasi (Islamology). His influence is, however, due primarily to his many short polemical writings characterized by moving rhetoric, see especially his Shi'a Alavi va Shi'a Safavi (the Alavid and the Safavid Shi'isms) and Thar(Blood).

12. Ali Shari'ati and the Hosayniyeh Ershad movement clearly threatened some of the more conservative members of the ulama. As a lay theologian, educated in sociology at the Sorbonne, Shari'ati did not command the same authority that a bona fide ayatollah would. The government thus used the occasion of a split in the ulama's ranks on this issue to suppress the movement. Shari'ati's extraordinary popularity, particularly among the university students, continued, however, unabated. His sudden and suspicious death in London after his release from prison, gave him the image of a martyr. In the processions of the fall of 1978, his portrait was displayed second only to that of Ayatollah Khomeini.

13. For an interesting, though somewhat exaggerated, commentary on the role of the bazaar in the upheavals, see Don A. Schanche, “Iran's Bazaars Reveal Power,” International Herald Tribune, January 16, 1979, p. 1. The article claims an annual disbursement of some $320 million from the bazaar to the ulama.

14. For an enthusiastic and perceptive interpretation, see Edward Mortimer, “Iran: The Greatest Revolution since 1917,” Spectator, February 17, 1979 and its sequel, “Fedayin Threat to Khomeini,” Spectator,. February 24, 1979.

15. de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, Vols. 1-2, translated by Reeve, Henry (London: Saunders § Otley, 1835-1840).Google Scholar For an elaboration of the arguments in this paragraph, see Tehranian, , “The Fetish of Identity: Communications Revolution and Fundamentalist Revivals,” Media Asia 8, No. 1 (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar