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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
After the Revolution of 1979, the composition of the middle
class was no different from what it had been under the monarchy.
There were several identifiable social groups, including
entrepreneurs, bazaar merchants, professionals, managers of private
and nationalized concerns, the higher grades of the civil service,
teachers, medium-scale landowners, military officers, and the
junior ranks of the Shia clergy. Some middle- class groups
apparently had more access to political power than they had had
before the Revolution because the new political elite had been
recruited primarily from the middle class.
Prior to the Revolution, the middle class was divided between
those possessed of a Western education, who had a secular outlook,
and those suspicious of Western education, who valued a role for
religion in both public and private life. In general, the more
secularly oriented tended to be found among those employed in the
bureaucracy, the professions, and the universities, while the more
religiously oriented were concentrated among bazaar merchants and
the clergy. Among entrepreneurs and especially primary and
secondary school teachers, the secular and religious points of view
may have had roughly equal numbers of proponents. Since the
Revolution, these two outlooks have been in contention. The
religious outlook has dominated politics and society, but it
appears that the secular middle class has resented laws and
regulations that were perceived as interfering with personal
liberties.
The middle class was divided by other issues as well. Before
the Revolution, an extremely high value had been placed upon
obtaining a foreign education. The new political elite, however,
regarded a foreign education with suspicion; accordingly, many
members of the middle class who were educated abroad have been
required to undergo special Islamic indoctrination courses to
retain their jobs. In some cases, refusal to conform to religiously
prescribed dress and behavior codes has resulted in the loss of
government jobs. As a result of these tensions, thousands of
Western-educated Iranians have emigrated since 1979.
Data as of December 1987
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