She must have known she had it coming. As the 40th anniversary of the revolution of 1979 nears, Masoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, posted a triumphant tweet. As part of her celebration of the revolution, Ebtekar poured scorn at the monarchs of Iran in the 20th century “who came to power with foreign support, stood against their people, spread tyranny and ended up dying abroad.” She contrasted these kings to who, she claimed, “spread democracy and stood against autocracy and world domination.”
The revolution’s legacy divides, but an ever-increasing large number of them share contempt for their rulers, ie men and women like Ebtekar who founded the Islamic Republic in the aftermath of the revolution. Ebtekar often receives especially bold responses due to her prominent role as a spokesperson for the group of young revolutionaries who raided the US embassy in November 1979 and took American diplomats hostage, thereby changing the course of the revolution — and of history.
