Economic development; challenges of the Islamic Revolution

Basically modernization requires economic growth, but this growth may or may not be based on industrialization. In any case economy is the most important effective sphere in the modernization process. Structural changes mainly target the economy and manipulation of its components can lead to urbanization growth, class transformation, increase of expectations level and changes in consumption patterns.
Following these developments, urbanization growth, development of communications, education level and other things can be seen too. Increase of expectations will also impose many challenges to the community.

Culture, a challenge worthy of reflection

Undoubtedly with regard to what was mentioned, cultural factors are the main purposes and they are vulnerable to structural changes occurring in society. Varied statistics, surveys and studies also acknowledge this point about Iran and along with this issue, we should mention another important phenomenon that is in recent years maker Government (in the years after the war due to excessive focus on economic issues) paid less attention to cultural issues, and perhaps culture especially in the last years of reconstruction was forgotten. The process, however, was also normal to some extent (due to the fact that immediately after the war, the period of natural suppress of the physical demands of persons ruled other matters and inevitably it needed to meet the economic needs of society) and imposed specific cultural atmosphere on the country over time.
During the mentioned years by change of consumption patterns and the formation of a new economic class with growing social awareness led to revolutionary ideals to be forgotten and value symbols and achievements to be discarded. Officials' involvement with economics, welfare-seeking of close people to the government, the use of political interests and other factors were among phenomena that made culture operation of system to face serious troubles. However, the media and communication technologies such as satellite, video, etc. imposed cultures of society more than ever and lack of cultural strategy, not trying to culture-building practices via radio, television, cinema, literature and lack of logical coherence in functions of cultural organizations have caused culture to be dysfunctional. It should be noted that during the war, even without any cultural production, an atmosphere based on religious teachings and erudite role of Imam and the continuity of the revolutionary atmosphere had made the ruling culture a positive trend. But the trend completely stopped in the era of dominance of economic thinking.
The other side of the coin is culture sociology. The truth is that our society has seen several types of developments. According to statistics in 1355, on the eve of the Islamic revolution in Iran, our society was almost illiterate and semi-urban society. This means that only 47.5 percent of the population was literate in Aban 1355 and only 47 percent of the population lived in cities. The results of the 1375 census of the whole country found that nearly 80 percent of the population of 6 years old ones and older ones are literate are and literacy in urban areas was 86 percent and in rural areas was about 70 percent; in the two decades the ratio of literate women changed from 36 percent to over 74 percent and it is over 82 percent for urban women. The overall population of the studying people of country which was 7/152/370 million people in year 1357-58 changed to 19/423/401 million people in 1375 and in fact it was increase 266 percent.
Arrival of university educated one to executive and legislative branches of the country, written and unwritten media penetration, class mobility, enhance of social status, political power of traditional groups, confidence and other things are among factor that have a direct impact on literacy in our society.
On the other hand, population growth and the growth of births at the beginning of the revolution that led to "aggregate" population in the 70's, according to the specific revolutionary conditions of the country and the need for awareness and lack of generation gap was quite understandable that the continuation of the cultural policy of revolution depends on the transfer of concepts to new generation, but the speed of structural developments did not give such an opportunity to culture makers of society. Although the new generation came to the scene quickly, its presence was never understood. This led to sudden changes in public opinion and the majority of new thought (along with literacy and intellectuals population growth) was shaped on new issues such as the modernization of religious, civic values and other things. New generation created new ideas and carries them with him. This young population is affected by many factors and has reached a relative self-esteem and therefore requires new cultural needs!
The transition from negative individualism to positive individualism, referring to the intellect, negating the consequential behavior, autonomy, diversity are examples of self-believing of the generation that will certainly require specific cultural context to continue to grow.
The results of some surveys about cultural challenges are quite remarkable:
According to the survey done by Majlis Research Center from the perspective of people in 1376 about current needs of Iran, following requirements were derived:
1. Increase of freedom of expression in the press
2. The formation of councils and parties
3. Lack of censorship from national media
4. Freedom of Satellite
In the last option, there is a direct relationship between increasing literacy and freedom of satellite. While illiterates had 3/37 percent demand for the release satellite, 4/56 percent of university educated ones and 5.22percent of diplomas had demand for these options. The interesting point in this survey is that the above figures had little difference between urban and rural areas. This is due to homogenization of general cultural space affected by structural changes.
Studies prove this hypothesis. In this field, we can rely on extracted reference in the study of some institutions after the Second of Khordad and some academic research, such as the book "Conflict and Development" by doctor Faramarz Rafipour that in this paper we only noted their names.
Results of measurements and deep look into the evolving society suggest that the demand for change and accumulation of new cultural lessons is quite apparent: the demand for replacement of value hierarchies, new and modern readings from cultural foundations and representing a hold face of religion are among the factors that can be considered as serious challenge in the field of culture in the future.
It is worth noting that the above-mentioned cultural challenges do not necessarily desire to negative change and will not. Although some new cultural teachings do not match with what is called as value system, we can use them as an "opportunity".

Policy; the second most important challenge of the Islamic Revolution

A series of structural changes in the political developments will have a more effective role. Young people, presence of women in social activities, community awareness and willingness to change to meet the new demands are of the factors which influenced the political power structure, and this trend will continue. Politics with the election of President Khatami in the June 76 showed that basic changes have occurred in the process of structural transformation. Although we believe that believing in the civil concepts in privacy of policy such as law, freedom of expression, the formation of political parties and intermediaries were manifested along with the Islamic Revolution, the interregnum era after the revolution was delayed because of war and revolutionary implications.
But since the mid-70s onwards, we see the impact of structural changes occurring after the Islamic Revolution. In this process large demands entered the system, and decision-making centers moved toward institutionalization and tendency to reveal political activities was increased. Social forces, whether those who had a role in the Islamic Revolution and were in margin of power or the new generation were "identical" toward current conditions and the desire for political participation increased.
young generation had grown up in a special political education atmosphere; promises, political mobilization for the defense of religion and property, uncertain job prospects and other things were characteristics of the type of political education of this generation that along with an idealized model of the Islamic Revolution had forced the spirit of peaceful protest upon the generation, and this process provided national resolve for political participation to make change.
In my opinion, the above conditions as well as accelerating factors such as disappearing the atmosphere of war, the rule of culture of consumerism, increasing communication with the outside world, the rule not being strict on social issues, liquidity growth in society and consequently the formation of new classes by intensive characteristics, urbanization growth and distribution of facilities across the country are of those factors that were strongly imposed on society an led to the June 76 elections to be considered a surprising event.
At the same time, "demand of change" is what is shown as challenge in the political arena. A look at the events of the first two years of Khatami's government shows that in front of such profound transformations, still a part of the government shows prevention response and shows resistance in face of new demands which have society emergence and presence. The resistance to institutionalization of society could be areas of active social interaction and at its worst condition, it will create non-peaceful protests. These issues should be considered important alongside economic challenges and actively influx of young people into society. In fact " cooperation seeking" to the younger generation is as a "right" and "duty"; today's young are representatives of a generation that great wave of academic education had he raised their expectations and their index of hope for the future went to zero and likely unemployment caused to find a solution for themselves so that first of all to secretly start mental effort for change and second, they moved their intellectual image and value idea towards a direction to be prepared for change. In such conditions, naturally institutionalization of society can be the best way to handle the diverse demands and settlement of civil society can be way out of political crisis.
The next process is politicization of women. The majority of women, especially women of middle and lower classes became highly politicized in the structural transformation and political mobilization and they have come to the scene. Many women before the renovation were an oppressed group and were not involved in political processes of society, and basically they did not have marked pattern of political behavior, but the importance of working women and its impact on the family budget in conditions of economic crisis and increasing literacy of the people had given them confidence that they could easily participate in the political process and paly their role and they would have been considered as important social stratum in political calculations in the future.