Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
PhD Student in Political Science, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran (Corresponding Author)
3
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to compare the political thought of the first and fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution regarding the initial ideals of the revolution (independence, freedom, social justice) and seeks to answer the question of what differences have arisen in the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution regarding the initial ideals of the revolution (independence, freedom, and social justice) compared to the first generation? Karl Mannheim's theoretical framework was used. The research method of this research is quantitative in that in order to obtain the attitude of the first generation of the revolution, it went to the newspapers of 1978 and 1979 and examined the contents of those newspapers A questionnaire was prepared and surveyed to obtain the attitudes of the fourth generation. Finally, the data obtained from newspapers and available data were analyzed The results of the survey analysis were compared. The research findings show that the attitude of the fourth generation of the revolution towards the initial ideals of the revolution (independence - freedom - social justice) has changed and they have been more demanding that the government pay attention to the people of Iranian society than to other societies, and they have been demanding freedom of expression and the creation of social justice.
Introduction
The generation gap is a phenomenon that occurs in every society in proportion to inevitable social and cultural changes. According to some experts, the generation gap is beneficial and leads to the progress of society, but in societies in transition, the situation is different Thus, because the new values and norms that grow in the new generation are not compatible with traditional beliefs, the field of values becomes a center of instability and crisis Based on research conducted on the generation gap in Iran during the 1990s and 2000s, it can be said that as we get closer to the last years of the 2000s, the value-cultural gaps between the younger generation and adults have increased. And in the 90s, the value and cultural gaps are increasing. The generation gap is worrying because it is deeply linked to the identity crisis. The word generation in a general sense means a group of people who live in the same period and share a common world at the same time It is applied (jajarm.1377:188) Elsewhere, a generation is defined as: a group of people born within a certain time interval and distinguished from each other by specific historical situations and interests at the individual and systemic levels (Rahimi,1390 :188) The term "generation gap" is understood to mean a natural difference in beliefs, values, and norms between generations (Sarokhani and Sedaghati fard ,1388:13) In Oxford Culture, the concept of generation gap is defined as a difference in the attitudes or behavior of young people and older people that results in a lack of mutual understanding between them. According to most theorists, the intellectual and structural changes resulting from modernization lead to a decrease in the legitimacy of traditional reference groups, the independence and individualism of young people, the tendency towards freedom of action, etc. These changes ultimately lead to the formation of a new generation with an identity completely independent of previous generations. This article uses Mannheim's theoretical framework. According to Mannheim, late adolescence is the formative years during which individual perspectives on politics and society at large are formed, and it is only at this point in the life cycle that a vivid and new encounter with the socio-political world occurs that will rarely be repeated in the individual's later life history. Based on Mannheim's theoretical assumptions, a generation that is formed in the course of shared historical action and experience and continues through collective consciousness and memory is a specific source for the value identity of individuals. In this approach, a generation is considered as a group that is linked to a specific awareness of categories such as welfare, justice, insecurity, exploitation, etc., and in the minds of its general population, there is an ideal concept of the aforementioned categories, and accordingly, it has a specific mental preparation and behavior that is often different from previous generations. In Mannheim's view, human society normally undergoes gradual and invisible but fundamental and serious changes, resulting in the emergence of generations with new ideas and thoughts. Given that Iran is a society in transition and the generation gap in it can turn into an identity crisis, extensive research is needed to measure people's attitudes and understand what changes have taken place in people's thoughts, ideas, and attitudes.
In Iran, research and surveys have been conducted for several years to measure people's attitudes, including a study under the title "Awareness, Attitudes, and Social and Cultural Behaviors in Iran" conducted by Manouchehr Mohseni in 1995. The aim of this research was to understand the cultural developments in society. Also, three waves of research have been conducted under the title "Values and Attitudes of Iranians", the first wave of which was conducted in 1999 by Abdolali Rezaei, the second wave in 2003 by Mohsen Goodarzi, and the third wave in 2015 by Mohammad Reza Javadi Yeganeh. The aim of all these researchers was to examine the changes that have occurred in the attitudes of the people in society. In these studies, issues such as social values (moral values, social problems, religion, politics), sense of justice, sense of freedom and security, religiosity and political beliefs, and political preferences have been studied. However, due to confidentiality or some other considerations, the text of these studies has not yet been published for public use, so we were unable to mention any of them here. Watching the protests of January 2017 raised the question in my mind: What changes may have occurred in the attitudes of the people in society who have taken up such protests? What are their demands from the government? Are their demands from the government the same as what their parents wanted in 1979? Who participated in the demonstrations and protests during that time? What were their ideals that enabled them to oust the Shah? Of course, we should not forget that our society is not homogeneous and that people in society live in it with different perspectives, and that people's opinions differ from city to city, from small city to big city, and so on. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether the fourth generation youth still believe in the initial ideals of the revolution or not. The question of this study is what change has occurred in the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution towards the initial ideals of the revolution (independence, freedom and social justice)? Our statistical population for this work is the youth aged 18 to 29 in Shiraz, of which 384 of these youth have been randomly selected and assessed. The research method used in this thesis is a quantitative method, in that in order to reach the attitude of the first generation of the revolution in the field of initial ideals, documents and newspapers of the first years of the revolution were examined, and questionnaires were designed and surveyed to examine the attitude of the fourth generation of the revolution.
Research method
In this study, a quantitative research method was used, in which documents, books, speeches, and newspaper articles from the early days of the revolution that are available in the context of the Islamic Revolution are first studied, and discourse analysis is performed on them to understand what the initial ideals of the revolution were. Because the first generation of the revolution is not currently available to measure their attitudes through a survey, and because their attitudes about the ideals of the revolution were relevant to that time, one way to understand the attitudes of the first generation of the revolution is to use newspapers that were printed and published at that time, In this study, Kayhan newspaper was used and due to the large volume of information and the difficulty of examining and analyzing it, one year was selected as a sample. October 1978 to October 1979 were selected and a few days were randomly selected from each month and the contents of those few days in the month were studied and recorded. The recording was done in such a way that the researcher read the newspaper contents and noted down any contents that matched the questions in the questionnaire prepared for the survey of the fourth generation of the revolution and finally compared the answers that the fourth generation of the revolution gave to the survey questions with the contents written in the newspaper, which included resolutions, speeches, slogans, etc.This is a comparison of the attitudes of the first generation of the revolution, and through this, it can be seen whether the attitudes of the fourth generation of the revolution have changed compared to the attitudes of the first generation of the revolution. A questionnaire is prepared to reach the attitudes of the fourth generation In which we collect data using a questionnaire with indirect questions asked to young people born between 1987 and 1999. To verify the research, first 20 questionnaires were asked as a pilot to young people aged 18 to 29 and the answers they gave were examined to see if these questions were sufficient to confirm the research questions or not. The results obtained from this pilot showed that these questions were sufficient as intended by the author and then the main survey stage of the research was conducted. After collecting the data, we coded them and entered them into the SPSS software and analyzed the results obtained from it. The analysis in this section is as follows: we have a series of questions in the questionnaire that are independent variables such as age, gender, education, economic status, and occupation. They are measured relative to the dependent variable, which is the questionnaire questions. Through this, we can understand what age, gender, education level, economic status, and occupation people have regarding the questions raised in the questionnaire. After obtaining their opinions, we reach conclusions as to whether there is a meaningful relationship between age and gender and their opinions about the initial ideals of the revolution. Finally, we compare these opinions with the content analysis that we have obtained from the newspapers of 1978 and 1979 to find out whether there have been any changes in the attitude of the fourth generation of the revolution towards the first generation.
Discussion
The thinking of the fourth generation of the revolution has changed compared to the first generation regarding their preference for prioritizing the government, such that the first generation of the revolution believes more in prioritizing independence and freedom, and the fourth generation believes more in freedom and social justice.
In the discussion of social justice, there has been no change in the thinking of the fourth generation of the revolution regarding the elimination of discrimination against minorities (ethnic, linguistic, religious), elimination of gender discrimination, elimination of employment and occupational discrimination, gender discrimination, elimination of economic discrimination, elimination of employment and occupational discrimination, and elimination of employment and occupational discrimination, elimination of economic discrimination, elimination of discrimination against minorities. Only regarding the elimination of economic discrimination, elimination of discrimination against minorities (ethnic, linguistic, religious), and elimination of gender discrimination, there has been a change in the thinking of the fourth generation. This generation believes in eliminating economic discrimination, eliminating discrimination against minorities (ethnic, linguistic, religious), and eliminating gender discrimination, but the first generation of the revolution did not emphasize this issue.
In the Fourth Revolution, there has been a change in the understanding of the word freedom, such that the first generation of the Revolution understood freedom as more political freedom (associations, parties, political activity) and the fourth generation of the Revolution understood freedom as more freedom of thought and expression. However, there has been no change in the understanding of social freedom (personal status, clothing, occupation) and government freedoms (what the government considers expedient to do).
A change has been made in the thinking of the fourth generation of the revolution, such that the first generation of the revolution considers the expansion of political and social freedom in society as their most important patriotic and professional duty, while the fourth generation of the revolution considers the realization of social justice and the prosecution of rent-seekers as their most important patriotic and professional duty.
Conclusion
The generation gap is one of the most important issues in today's world, which if not addressed can have detrimental consequences in any society. Our society is no exception to this rule, and if it does not pay attention to the differences that have arisen between the new and previous generations, it will encounter problems that can be very costly. One of the ways to find out the types of gaps that have arisen between different generations is through research, especially field research, because this method involves direct and face-to-face contact with people and their opinions on the issues in question are asked. Accordingly, in this research, the author has surveyed individuals and the political thought of the fourth generation of the revolution to see what differences have been created with the thought of the previous generation, the first generation of the revolution. In order to access the political thought of the first generation of the revolution, since this generation was not available, the author went to the newspapers of 1978 and 1979 to access the political thought of that generation. Among the newspapers of those years, Kayhan newspaper has been selected and its text has been analyzed.The results obtained from the analysis of Kayhan newspaper and also the results obtained from the survey of the fourth generation of the revolution show that there has been a change in the political thinking of the fourth generation of the revolution in the context of the main slogan of the revolution, namely independence - freedom and social justice, so that the first generation of the revolution believes more in establishing and strengthening the Islamic Republic system and independence, and the fourth generation believes more in freedom and social justice. Therefore, it can be said that there is a significant relationship between the generation of individuals and their opinion on the main slogan of the revolution, namely independence, freedom, and social justice. The first generation believes in the great influence of the government and political elites in the Islamic Republic system, and the fourth generation believes in the little influence of the government and political elites in the Islamic Republic system. Therefore, the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran towards social justice (jobs, housing) has changed compared to the first generation of the revolution. The first generation of the revolution believes more in focusing on oppressed countries and communities such as Palestine and Lebanon, and the fourth generation of the revolution believes in focusing on the country and society of Iran. Therefore, the hypothesis that the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran towards independence (relationship with other countries) has changed compared to the first generation of the revolution is confirmed. The first generation of the revolution believes more in giving priority to independence and freedom, and the fourth generation believes more in freedom and social justice. Therefore, it can be said that the hypothesis that the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran towards independence (relationship with other countries) has changed compared to the first generation of the revolution is confirmed. In the discussion of social justice, the fourth generation of the revolution's thinking on eliminating discrimination against minorities (ethnic, linguistic, religious) - eliminating gender discrimination - eliminating employment and occupational discrimination, gender discrimination - eliminating economic discrimination - eliminating employment and occupational discrimination and eliminating employment and occupational discrimination - eliminating economic discrimination - eliminating discrimination against minorities has not changed. Only on eliminating economic discrimination - eliminating discrimination against minorities (ethnic, linguistic, religious) - eliminating gender discrimination has there been a change in the thinking of the fourth generation. This generation believes in eliminating economic discrimination - eliminating discrimination against minorities (ethnic, linguistic, religious) - eliminating gender discrimination, but the first generation of the revolution did not emphasize this issue. The attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran towards social justice (jobs, housing) has changed compared to the first generation of the revolution. It is confirmed. The first generation of the revolution is more freedom, political freedom (society - parties - political activity) and the fourth generation of the revolution's understanding of more freedom is freedom of thought and expression. However, in the understanding of social freedom (personal status - clothing - job), government freedoms (what the government considers expedient to act on), there has been no change in the thinking of the first and fourth generations of the revolution. Therefore, the hypothesis that the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran towards freedom (speech, sexual) has changed compared to the first generation of the revolution. It is confirmed. The first generation of the revolution considers its most important patriotic and professional duty to emphasize and express the expansion of political and social freedom in society, and the fourth generation of the revolution considers its most important patriotic and professional duty to emphasize and emphasize the realization of social justice and the trial of rent-seekers. Therefore, the attitude of the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran towards social justice (job, housing) has changed compared to the first generation of the revolution. It is confirmed.
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