When Rights Become the Shah’s Gifts

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How Does the “Generous Ruler, Ungrateful People” Narrative Whitewash Authoritarianism?

Iraj Abedini, Psychologist and Researcher in Political Psychology

October 2026 | Aban 1405

Infographic on rights, authoritarianism, political repression, and the transition from subjects to citizens in Iran

Nearly half a century has passed since the fall of the Pahlavi dictatorship. Yet in some political discourse and images circulated on social media, the deposed Shah is recast as a generous savior, while the society that rose against him is portrayed as ungrateful and deceived. How should we understand this reconstruction of the past? How does suffering under the current government sometimes lead to the whitewashing of earlier authoritarian rule, rather than strengthening demands for freedom and limits on power?

One important explanation concerns the role that the crimes, repression, and discrimination of the mullahs’ regime play in shifting the basis of comparison. When the present is marked by deprivation and humiliation, and the future appears uncertain, the past can acquire an idealized glow in the memory of sections of society. Selectively presented images of prosperity, social freedoms, and life before the revolution may become detached from their historical context and replace a comprehensive account of that period. For a generation that did not experience those years, this past may be less a memory than a narrative constructed from photographs, films, family stories, and political propaganda. This is a hypothesis about what makes such narratives appealing, not a claim about the motives of all supporters or the prevalence of this tendency.

Research on collective nostalgia also suggests that a perceived disruption in collective identity can be associated with longing for the past.[6] In the Iranian context, we might ask whether a sense of having lost one’s country, dignity, and future leads some audiences to seek refuge in an image in which everything before a historical rupture was desirable. Such a narrative overlooks the gap between “We are exhausted by the present” and “Therefore, the past was legitimate.” Yet present suffering does not, in itself, establish the legitimacy of past rulers.

This comparison also conceals an important historical issue: religious rule did not emerge from a vacuum. The closure of political space under the Pahlavis and the suppression of independent activity, alongside the continued existence of religious networks, were among the conditions that contributed to the organizational and discursive advantage of clerical forces during the revolutionary crisis. In his research on the clergy, Michael Fischer explains that restrictions on open, secular political discourse under the Pahlavi monarchy helped increase the influence of religious language and the clergy’s political leverage.[7] Some of the conditions that enabled religious despotism to gain power must therefore also be sought in the relationships and policies of the preceding order.

This connection does not mean that the Shah deliberately created the Islamic Republic, that all clerics enjoyed freedom, or that the establishment of religious rule was inevitable. Khomeini and his associates exercised their own agency and bore responsibility for seizing power and repressing opponents. The point is that the Pahlavi government cannot simply be presented as the blameless alternative to an order whose growth was partly enabled by conditions that developed under Pahlavi rule itself. Nor can people’s opposition to the monarchy be equated with their consent to everything that happened after the revolution.

From this perspective, whitewashing the past by invoking the crimes of the present involves two simultaneous omissions: it sets aside the historical reasons for opposition to the Shah, and it obscures how the previous power structure restricted opportunities for independent alternatives to develop. The result is a closed binary, as though Iranians could choose only between two forms of despotism. Demands for freedom, the rule of law, and accountability disappear within this binary.

The “generous ruler, ungrateful people” narrative is one condensed expression of this reconstruction. Rather than examining the past, it turns public services into the ruler’s personal possessions and protest into a moral failing on the part of the people.

In one propaganda image, Mohammad Reza Shah is seated in a chair beside a series of recurring statements: “He gave the farmer land; the farmer became a guerrilla,” “He gave women an identity; they became anarchists,” and “He gave workers shares; they became communists.” The same pattern continues with artists, Muslims, students, and minorities. In this narrative, the ruler always gives, and society always responds with ingratitude.

Beyond praising a historical figure, this short text presents a particular conception of the relationship between power and the people: the ruler is the source of benefits, and the people are recipients of his favors. Protest, the assertion of rights, and independent political choice become signs of disloyalty. The central question is how such a narrative is constructed and what it conceals.

Rights or Gifts?

The key to understanding the image is the verb “gave.” Women’s identity, minority rights, educational opportunities, and workers’ share in the economy are all attributed to the ruler’s personal generosity. This language blurs the distinction between public resources and the ruler’s private property, while marginalizing the contributions of society, institutions, collective labor, and demands for change.

The phrase “He gave women an identity” is particularly revealing. Women possess identity and dignity before any government decree. A government may expand their rights and opportunities through legal reform, and evaluating those policies is necessary. But a government’s role in changing the law does not make it the creator of women’s identity. Equal rights for minorities are likewise not a debt society owes the ruler; they are an obligation the political order owes its citizens.

When a right becomes a favor, the rights-holder becomes an indebted recipient. Gratitude then becomes the principal expectation. Demands for accountability appear insolent, and political opposition becomes a failure to remember the ruler’s kindness.

A Return to the Relationship Between Subject and Sovereign

This logic bears directly on one of the fundamental questions of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution: the transfer of power from personal will to constraining rules and institutions. Despite its historical limitations and compromises, the constitutional framework established ministerial responsibility to parliament and provided for votes of no confidence. These arrangements were important to the transition from autocracy to limited monarchy.[1]

Within such a framework, the government must explain what it has done with public resources and authority. In the paternalistic narrative, the positions of questioner and respondent are reversed: the people must explain why they failed to remain obedient despite the ruler’s services.

An educational scholarship is not a contract of political loyalty. Nor do social reforms deprive their beneficiaries of the right to protest. Even if every claim about a government’s services were true, those claims would not establish a right to unlimited rule or immunity from criticism.

Here the distinction between citizen and subject becomes clear: a citizen may support one policy while opposing another policy of the same government. In a logic that keeps people in the position of subjects, receiving a service is supposed to translate into obedience.

The Faultless Ruler and the Blameworthy Society

In the image under discussion, no failure or mistake is attributed to the ruler. He bestows land, recognition, rights, and opportunities; social groups respond with deviance and hostility. This one-sided distribution of virtue and blame shields the leader from critical scrutiny.

If a government is imagined as desirable, its downfall requires an explanation. One easy answer is to blame the people: they failed to appreciate it, were deceived, or were unworthy of their ruler. Questions about the structure of power, political freedom, and the causes of discontent are consequently replaced by accusations against society.

In political psychology, motivated reasoning can help explain this process. Research by Taber and Lodge showed that people may more readily accept arguments consistent with their political beliefs while responding more critically and defensively to opposing arguments.[2] Applying this finding here is an analytical interpretation; one image cannot reveal the motives of everyone who shares it.

Nevertheless, the structure of the narrative is clear: achievements are personalized, while failures are transferred to society. Under this standard, the idealized image of the leader becomes almost impossible to disprove.

Labels That Replace History

“Communist,” “anarchist,” “Tudeh Party member,” “Marxist,” “terrorist,” and “separatist” appear side by side in this image. These terms are not equivalent: some refer to ideas or political affiliations, while others imply allegations about specific conduct. Placing them together erases distinctions and constructs a uniform image of threat out of diverse groups.

Nothing is said about workers’ demands, students’ protests, women’s experiences, or minorities’ claims. Labeling replaces listening. Nor is it clear who benefited from the alleged policies, how many people were involved, under what circumstances, or whether those same people subsequently joined the political tendencies mentioned. Broad claims are linked together without evidence or a valid causal connection.

More importantly, even a person’s actual affiliation with a political movement does not extinguish their human rights. Judgments about individual conduct must be specific and evidence-based; the name of an ideology cannot substitute for proof of a crime or justification for punishment.

Development Does Not Absolve Repression

It is possible to examine a period’s economic and social achievements while also demanding answers about human rights violations. These inquiries do not contradict one another. The problem begins when real or alleged services become a means of silencing discussion of repression.

Amnesty International’s reports on pre-revolutionary Iran, including documents concerning torture during the 1970s and its December 1978 statement, addressed torture and the treatment of prisoners by SAVAK and police personnel.[3] Questions about repression therefore cannot simply be dismissed as opposition propaganda.

No school erases a prison from history, and no development project extinguishes the right to justice of torture survivors and the families of those killed. Development must be assessed through its own indicators, and responsibility for repression through the relevant evidence. Combining the two to grant absolution turns moral judgment into a balance sheet of credits and debits.

The same principle applies to comparisons between governments. The crimes of the mullahs’ regime do not legitimize repression under the Shah. Today’s suffering does not invalidate yesterday’s suffering.

Moral Disengagement and the Defense of a Favored Ruler

Albert Bandura explains how people can selectively disengage their moral restraints: they may justify harm through a worthy goal, give it a gentler name, compare it with more severe violence, or shift responsibility onto those who have been harmed.[4]

Statements such as “It was necessary for security,” “Others did worse,” or “They brought it on themselves” are hypothetical examples of this reasoning. The image contains no explicit call for torture. However, portraying the government as benevolent and its opponents as ungrateful and dangerous can create more favorable conditions for justifying action against them.

The decisive ethical question is this: do we condemn torture, or only the torturer on the opposing side? If the same act changes from a crime into a necessity when the government’s name changes, our standard is no longer human dignity; it is political loyalty.

The Banality of Evil and the Suspension of Questioning

Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” also allows us to raise a related question: how can formulaic language and an inability to judge independently obstruct moral engagement with human actions? In reflecting on Eichmann, Arendt made the relationship between thinking, conscience, and judgment a central concern.[5]

Using this concept does not authorize equating a political supporter with a perpetrator of crimes. Nor are all apologists merely thoughtless or uninformed; distortion can be deliberate and purposeful. Nevertheless, Arendt’s question matters when examining the language of whitewashing: have ready-made phrases excused us from thinking about the meaning of the actions we defend?

When evidence of repression is met with the repeated assertion “He built the country,” we must ask what connection that statement has to responsibility for torture. A slogan can close a discussion without providing an answer.

The Responsibility of Sharing and Resistance to Whitewashing

Those who circulate such material do not all have the same motives. Emotional attachment, lack of information, group belonging, and deliberate propaganda are different possibilities. A single repost cannot support a psychological diagnosis or a definitive judgment about all of a person’s beliefs. But we can question the content being shared and the person’s response to evidence.

Effective criticism must identify which right has been turned into a favor, which group has been accused without evidence, and which responsibility has been lifted from the ruler. It must also bring into the account the voices of those whose experiences have no place in images of grandeur and power. A society’s history cannot be written solely from the palace’s perspective.

Countering this narrative does not require denying every achievement. It requires exposing the false connection between service and obedience: a government may provide services, but citizens retain the right to oppose it; a ruler may succeed in one area, but must remain accountable in others.

The danger of the “generous ruler, ungrateful people” narrative lies in reviving the expectation that society should exchange its freedom for gratitude. Such a narrative condemns dissent before hearing it and absolves power before holding it accountable.

The country is not the ruler’s private property, people’s rights are not his gifts, and public service does not confer ownership over society’s future. Commitment to freedom begins where no ruler, including the ruler we favor, is exempt from scrutiny and accountability.