Two weeks after the ceasefire that halted the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran, regional tensions remain high, and domestic reverberations within Iran continue to unfold. While the conflict briefly united a politically fragmented society, it also exposed deep structural fissures. Most Iranians rejected foreign intervention, reaffirming a longstanding scepticism rooted in historical memory and national experience. Although critical of the current system, most of them seemed to agree that meaningful and sustainable transformation could only emerge from within. At the root of this position lie at least three crucial factors. First, Iranians share a strong memory of what foreign interventions meant for their history. The 1953’s CIA-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mosaddegh, along with earlier Russian and British interference, has left deep marks on Iran’s collective memory.
Second, there are concerns towards top-down policies that do not take into account the specificities of national context. Reza Shah’s (the father of the last Shah) attempt to modernize Iranian society by forbidding the hijab in public forced many women from traditional backgrounds to retreat from public life. Paradoxically, the post-revolutionary Islamization of public spaces has, in some cases, favored their access, leading to their empowerment. Despite financial hardships and repressions, Iranian society has undergone significant transformations over the past four decades that must be acknowledged in any fair assessment of its present condition. Third, the heightened tensions – socioeconomic, political-ideological, and ethnic – that are emerging within the society risk leading to a state of internal war. Such a scenario might have destabilizing consequences not only for Iran but for the entire Middle East.
Post-Revolutionary Social Mobility
Iran’s post-1979 revolution era ushered in profound social and demographic transformations. While the new state’s narrative relied heavily on the Islamization of society, this came hand in hand with an emphasis on social justice – meant in socio-economic terms. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the state played a central role in promoting social welfare, and access to education and healthcare. Perhaps the revolution’s greatest achievement was the expansion of educational opportunities, especially for women and rural families and family planning. Literacy rate rose from 37 percent in 1976 to 86 percent in 2016 – a much faster increase than the global average, which rose from 66 percent to 86 percent over the same years (World Bank). University enrollment followed a similar trajectory, increasing from just 3 percent in 1971 to 72 percent in 2015, compared to a global rise from 10 percent to 37 percent. This had radical consequences for a demographically young society: nearly 60 percent of Iran’s population is below the age of 39. For a time, this created a sense of progress and inclusion, but also changed the visions and expectations of society.
The new “religious” layout of public policies and spaces succeeded in reaching even the poorest and more traditional families, who had been more suspicious of the Shah’s 1960s “white revolution.” For the first time, many traditional families felt comfortable allowing their daughters to attend university, join gyms and cultural centers, or even pursue studies in Tehran – now perceived as free from Western influence. This change created a new social base of educated empowered youth – and women in particular – who began to challenge previous patriarchal social structures – particularly upon returning to their home communities. By 2005, women made up 65 percent of university students in Iran, surpassing their male counterparts. In a sense, the widespread 2022 protests following Mahsa Amini’s death were also the results of those transformations.
These developments also laid the groundwork for a lively cultural scene, despite financial hardships and censorship. Iranian cinema, led by directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Jafar Panahi, has gained worldwide recognition. Mainstream cultural tastes are shifting from a thirst for Westernization toward a more nuanced blend of Iranian heritage and global influences. Since the late 1990s, the contemporary art scene has reached a new spurt, with over 80 galleries active in Tehran alone. More than 40 performances are staged daily in theaters in the capital, not including the underground scene. This year, a re-interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy was staged in Teheran. Publishing houses flourished. In the many book clubs, participants would engage with contemporary Iranian authors and artists as well as Italo Calvino, and the latest New Yorker novelists. The expansion of these cultural networks has grown often parallel to state-sponsored cultural centers. Censorship in the printed media is overcome by the success of podcasts, telegram channels and other alternative media.
Importantly, these cultural spaces are not confined to elite northern districts; they thrive in the heart of the city, neighborhoods such as Karimkhan e Iranshahr, remote from the posh areas, are drawing people across class lines. While cultural life is most concentrated in the capital, similar developments are underway also in smaller cities such as Isfahan, Shiraz, Kashan, and Qazvin.
Even the approach towards religion has changed. While most of Muslim-majority societies have witnessed a process of Islamization since the 1970s – a trend not unique to Islam but part of a broader global religious resurgence noted by scholars such as Peter Berger and Jürgen Habermas – Iran presents a countercurrent. Four decades of clerical rule might have succeeded in establishing the state’s vision of religion over one section of society; but this has come at the expenses of losing the majority: while some have grown even hostile to religion, others have embarked in more spiritual and individualized forms of religiosity questioning the role of religion in politics and public life. Among those who maintain their religiosity, discussions over religion and feminism, modernity, pluralism have become mainstream; not only in the capital (where Islamic feminism is discussed also in publicly sponsored universities such as Teheran University) but also in centers such as Qum, one of the main centers of Shi’a Islam and perhaps the religious capital of Iran.
Fragmented Society: Rising inequalities, Political tensions, Ethnicities
Yet, despite these radical transformations, socioeconomic inequality in Iran has widened dramatically over the past few decades. Since the late 1990s, the country experienced growing economic liberalization, a weakening of welfare policies, and the entrenchment of a new elite. After an initial reshuffling of society, the gap between the new rich and the poor – exacerbated by corruption, international sanctions, and state mismanagement – has become one of the most visible and painful fault lines in Iranian society. Inflation reached 44.6 percent in 2023, according to the World Bank, and has worsened ever since.
Today, while education remains widely accessible, its role in guaranteeing social mobility has diminished. Many educated Iranians face unemployment or underemployment, while wealthier families rely on private connections to secure jobs and economic advantage. As a result, the revolutionary promise of a more just society appears increasingly unfulfilled, with social discontent rising, particularly among younger generations who feel excluded from the benefits enjoyed by the post-revolutionary elite.
The accumulated frustration builds up into an anger towards the authorities and the system, but also towards the new wealthy elite, often associated with a “westernized” extravaganza of pool parties and luxury cars (as displayed on the “Rich kids of Tehran” Instagram page.) Ironically, the authorities’ own narrative draws on this resentment, even as the line between power and privilege remains blurred.
Compounding this is the political and ideological schism between supporters of the authorities and its detractors. Movements such as the 2009 Green Movement, the 2017 protests, and the 2022 uprising after Mahsa Amini’s death have all faced harsh repression. However, they demonstrated how dissent is alive, cutting across social classes and generations. Although public sphere might be more controlled compared to Khatami’s era, acts of resistance have spread in everyday life. Today, women without veils are a common sight in Tehran and many smaller cities – something unthinkable just a few years ago.
The Challenge of Unity and Dissent from Within
Yet, the state faces a unique challenge: the most potent voices of dissent are emerging not from exile or foreign-funded opposition, but from within its own system – from university graduates, from women raised under the Islamic Republic, even from the families of senior clerics and politicians. It was Ayatollah Khamenei’s own sister who published an open letter during the 2022 protests condemning Iran’s supreme leader’s protest crackdowns. Far from a monolithic power structure, indeed, post-revolutionary Iran has witnessed a continuous process of fractionalization and marginalization of groups and actors in power, whereas actors internal to the system (sometimes within the same families in power) have become dissenting voices either internal (such as the case with Khatami, Rafsanjani) or imprisoned and exiled (Mousavi, Soroush, Kadivar, among others).
Still, the fractured nature of this dissent – from liberal seculars to moderate reformists to disillusioned clergy – makes cohesive political organization difficult. This fragmentation creates a paradox: while the current system is losing legitimacy in the eyes of many Iranians, an abrupt regime change, unsupported by a coherent alternative, could plunge the country into chaos.
Adding to this complexity is the country’s ethnic heterogeneity, marked by distinct historical grievances and political demands, heightened by the current context. These divisions – often marginalized or suppressed by the central government – hinder the formation of a unified political front. Persians comprise about 61 percent of the population, with significant minorities including Azerbaijanis (16 percent), Kurds (10 percent), Lurs (6 percent), Arabs, Baloch, and other Turkic groups (7 percent).
The path ahead
In the midst of the recent war, a group of exiled reformist intellectuals issued a joint declaration suggesting five points for the “immediate rescue of Iran”: ceasefire; direct negotiations with the U.S; flexibility on uranium enrichment; shifts in state policy including releasing political prisoners and guaranteeing press freedom; and referendum on Constitutional Reform.
The reality might be more challenging that what the signatories hoped for. The ceasefire remains fragile, while the conflict has sharpened internal polarization, including over nuclear policy and engagement with the West. Heightened security concerns may justify increased repression and surveillance. Simultaneously, economic instability and wartime uncertainty are compounding public hardship, deepening societal tensions.
Despite all these challenges, meaningful, lasting change in Iran cannot be forced from the outside. It must be nurtured from within, through economic, cultural, social, and political evolution and this requires time. Iran’s people have displayed remarkable resilience: years of revolution, Iran-Iraq war, protests, sanctions have strengthened the endurance of the population. On the day after ceasefire was announced, offices and shops re-opened, theatres restarted, research groups resumed working. Each protest has led to harsh repression but has moved farther the line of authorities’ control; and perhaps the more enduring change is silently taking place in the everyday life acts of resistance. This resilience, the social transformations that have taken place, and the risk of escalation of internal tensions are among the reasons why change must come from within society itself – gradual and organic. A rushed or foreign-imposed transition risks not liberation but collapse and fragmentation. This would be detrimental not only for the Iranian population, but also – as Afghanistan and Iraq have taught us – for the region and the world.
Cover photo: People hold flags of Iran and Hezbollah as well as posters of Supreme Leader Khamenei as Iranians take to the streets in the downtown Enghelab (Revolution) Square in Tehran, Iran on June 24, 2025, to celebrate the ceasefire after a 12-day war with Israel. (Photo by Negar / Middle East Images via AFP)
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