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Nearly all of the world’s people, who are overwhelmingly wage laborers and peasants, endure oppression. Of course, societies vary considerably in both the degree and openness of this oppression. Sweden is no doubt a less repressive nation than is the United States, and the latter is less coercive than is Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, the lot in life of most persons is to be subjected to the control, in one way or another, of a minority of their fellow human beings. Ordinarily, we suffer abuse in silence, fearful of what might happen to us if we protest or not able to pinpoint exactly who or what is making us miserable. However, sometimes the power of the minority breaks down. It may suddenly lose legitimacy, or it may be defeated by an organized struggle. Then all hell can break loose. The grievances held in check for so long are brought into the open, and the multitude demands that they be addressed. Violence is not uncommon in such circumstances. When China’s peasants helped the Chinese Communists defeat their landlord exploiters, and when it was no longer possible for their former superiors to punish them, they took sometimes horrible vengeance against the land owners who for centuries had treated them little better than animals. Iran is a tyrannical society. It is organized theocratically, run by religious zealots, who use their power, backed by armed might (regular military forces and special militias dedicated personally to the religious elite), religious authority, and the prestige they have inherited from their role in the overthrow of the Shah, the long war with Iraq, and defiance of the United States and its allies, to elicit or compel obedience from the worker and peasant majority. Unions are illegal; women are especially oppressed; government spies and morality police keep a strict watch over personal behavior; media are tightly controlled and sometimes blocked; and certain groups are favored economically—notably the Revolutionary Guards—to keep their loyalty.
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