Control and Continuity (1990s)
From Revolutionary Violence to Permanent Fear — The Birth of Two Irans
By the 1990s, the violence of the revolution had grown quieter. But it had not disappeared. It had changed form.
What had once been visible—executions, purges, revolutionary courts—no longer needed to present itself in the same way. It had already done its work. The memory of it lingered, shaping behaviour long after the events themselves had receded from view. What emerged in its place was something more enduring: a system that no longer needed to shout, because it had already taught people how to remain silent.
Iran entered a new phase—not of chaos, but of control; not of revolution, but of permanence. And within that permanence, something profound took shape: the quiet division of the country into two parallel realities, existing side by side yet rarely allowed to meet.
From Fear to Structure
The 1980s had established the rules through shock. The 1990s ensured that those rules would endure.
The system no longer required mass executions at the same scale, nor did it depend on constant displays of force. It had already reshaped behaviour, already defined the boundaries of risk. What followed was a transition from visible coercion to embedded control.
Surveillance expanded, not always in dramatic forms, but through systems that observed, recorded, and reminded. Institutions became instruments not only of governance, but of regulation. Punishment became selective rather than widespread, applied in ways that reinforced boundaries without destabilising the whole.
And above all, there was memory—the quiet inheritance of what had already occurred. This is how fear matures. It no longer needs to be constant; it only needs to be remembered. The state had learned that control is most effective when it becomes internal, when individuals begin to regulate themselves in anticipation of consequences that may never need to be enacted again.
The Architecture of Permanent Power
The endurance of the system was not accidental. It was constructed—layer by layer, institution by institution—until it became difficult to separate governance from control.
At the centre of this architecture stood institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij. These were not merely security bodies tasked with responding to moments of unrest. They became integral to the functioning of the state itself.
Their influence extended into politics, shaping decision-making processes. It entered the economy, embedding itself in infrastructure and industry. It reached into society, regulating behaviour and reinforcing norms at the level of daily life. The IRGC operated at the scale of the state, while the Basij moved through the texture of society—neighbourhoods, schools, universities—present not only in moments of crisis, but in ordinary routines.
This diffusion of power is what gave the system its durability. Authority was not concentrated solely at the top; it was distributed through mechanisms of enforcement, woven into the structures that people encountered every day.
Two Irans — Public and Private
It is in this period that one of the most defining features of post-revolutionary Iran took shape. The country did not become a unified society under ideology. It became two.
There was a public Iran, visible and regulated. Behaviour was controlled, dress codes enforced, speech monitored. Conformity was not only expected; it was performed.
And there was a private Iran, quieter but no less real. Within homes and among trusted circles, conversations continued, memories were preserved, and cultural life found ways to endure beneath the surface. Music, language, humour, and belief adapted rather than disappeared.
People learned to exist within both realities. To speak one language outside, and another within. To perform compliance in public, while retaining identity in private. This dual existence was not a temporary adjustment. It became a condition of survival, a way of navigating a system that required outward agreement but could not fully erase inward difference.
The Regulation of the Everyday
Control in this decade extended beyond politics into the most personal aspects of life. Clothing was not simply a matter of choice; it became a visible marker of adherence. Behaviour in public space was shaped by expectation and observation. Interactions between men and women were structured, defined, and monitored. Cultural expression—what could be said, shown, or shared—was filtered through an ideological lens.
These were not isolated rules. They formed an environment.
And regulation at this level does something deeper than restrict. It reshapes identity. It conditions behaviour until the line between choice and expectation becomes blurred. It narrows the space in which individuality can be expressed without consequence.
This is not governance in the conventional sense. It is a form of social engineering—subtle in its persistence, powerful in its cumulative effect.
Silence as a Form of Order
In earlier decades, opposition had been visible, even when suppressed. In the 1990s, it became more careful.
People did not cease to think. They ceased to speak openly. Journalists wrote within constraints, choosing words with precision and caution. Writers turned to metaphor, embedding meaning beneath layers of interpretation. Families spoke more quietly, aware of the boundaries that could not always be seen, but were always understood.
The boundary did not need to be announced. It existed as a shared awareness.
And when a boundary is invisible, it becomes more powerful. It is not resisted directly; it is internalised. It shapes behaviour not through force, but through anticipation.
The Press and the Illusion of Movement
The press became one of the few spaces where pressure occasionally surfaced. Newspapers would open limited spaces for discussion, test the boundaries of expression, and publish cautiously within what appeared to be a shifting landscape.
But the pattern remained consistent. Publications that moved too far were restricted or shut down. New ones emerged, often with similar constraints. The cycle repeated—opening, testing, closing.
This was not random. It was structured.
Openness was permitted to a degree, enough to suggest movement, enough to absorb some pressure. But closure followed when necessary, reinforcing the limits of that movement. The result was an illusion of change within a system that remained fundamentally fixed.
The Weight of What Is Remembered
Perhaps the most powerful force of the decade was not visible at all. It was carried within families, passed from one generation to the next.
Memories of executions, of disappearances, of imprisonment did not vanish with time. They became part of the unspoken fabric of life. They shaped how parents spoke to their children, what questions were asked or avoided, what risks were considered acceptable.
This is how a system extends itself beyond its immediate reach. Not only through institutions, but through memory. Not only through enforcement, but through inheritance.
Fear, once experienced, does not need to be repeated constantly. It is transmitted, adapted, and absorbed.
Stability Without Resolution
By the end of the 1990s, Iran appeared stable. There were no large-scale upheavals, no visible ruptures comparable to the previous decade. The system functioned. Daily life continued. Institutions operated with consistency.
But this stability came with conditions. Expression was limited. Participation was controlled. Identity was constrained within defined boundaries. The system had achieved continuity, but it had not resolved the tensions embedded within it.
The relationship between authority and society remained unsettled. Ideology and lived experience did not fully align. Control existed, but it did not eliminate the underlying differences it sought to manage.
What Accumulates in Silence
What makes this decade significant is not what erupted, but what accumulated.
Dissatisfaction did not disappear. Identity did not dissolve. Memory did not fade. Instead, these forces moved inward, away from public expression and into private space. And when pressure moves inward, it does not weaken. It concentrates.
This concentration is not immediately visible. It does not announce itself. But it alters the conditions under which a society exists. It prepares the ground for future expression, even if that expression remains, for a time, unspoken.
After Exile — The Quiet Expansion of the Gap
The 1990s were not marked by visible crisis. They were defined by internalisation.
People learned how to live within limits, how to divide their lives between what could be shown and what must be hidden, how to carry memory quietly without allowing it to disappear. Adaptation became a form of endurance.
Yet beneath that adaptation, something remained unresolved. A distance persisted between what Iran was becoming and what many Iranians believed it could be. This gap was not always articulated, but it was felt—in expectation, in memory, in comparison.
And that gap did not close.
It widened—silently, steadily—until a new generation, shaped by this inheritance, would begin to bring it back into the open.
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