Black Friday 1978

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by tpksstories

by tpksstories

Black Friday (Persian: جمعهسیاه, romanized: Jom'e-ye Siyāh) is the name given to anincident occurring on 8 September 1978 (17 Shahrivar 1357 in theIranian calendar) in Iran, in which 64, or at least 100 people wereshot dead and 205 injured by the Pahlavi military in Jaleh Square(Persian: میدان ژاله, romanized:Meydān-e Jāleh) in Tehran. According to the military historianSpencer C. Tucker, 94 were killed on Black Friday, consisting of 64protesters and 30 government security forces. The deaths weredescribed as the pivotal event in the Iranian Revolution that endedany "hope for compromise" between the protestmovement and regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Background

As protests against the Shah's rulecontinued during the spring and the summer of 1978, the Iraniangovernment declared martial law. On 8 September, thousands gatheredin Tehran's Jaleh Square for a religious demonstration, unaware thatthe government had declared martial law a day earlier.

Massacre

A crowd of the protesters had gatheredin Jaleh square, Tehran, who were surrounded by the army. Thegathering was shot at indiscriminately by the army leading to deathof numerous people.

Aftermath

Black Friday is thought to have markedthe point of no return for the revolution, and it led to theabolition of Iran's monarchy less than a year later. It is alsobelieved that Black Friday played a crucial role in furtherradicalizing the protest movement, uniting the opposition to the Shahand mobilized the masses. The incident is described by historianErvand Abrahamian as "a sea of blood between the shah and thepeople." Initially, opposition and western journalistsclaimed that the Iranian army had massacred thousands of protesters. The clerical leadership announced that "thousands have beenmassacred by Zionist troops". According to the historianAbbas Amanat:

The clerical activists, backed bythe Qom marja's, capitalized on the Jaleh Square massacre to paintthe regime as brutal and illegitimate. Aided by a rumor-mongeringmachine that became fully operational in the absence of reliablemedia and news reporting, the number of casualties, the "martyrs"on the path of Islam, was inflated to thousands, and the troops whoopened fire on them were labeled as Israeli mercenaries who werebrought in to crush the revolution.

The events triggered protests thatcontinued for another four months. The day after Black Friday,Amir-Abbas Hoveyda resigned as minister of court for unrelatedreasons.

A general strike in October shut downthe petroleum industry that was essential to the administration'ssurvival, "sealing the Shah's fate". Thecontinuation of protests ultimately led to Shah leaving Iran inJanuary 1979, clearing the way for the Iranian Revolution, led byAyatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Legacy

Initially, Western media and oppositionreported "15,000 dead and wounded", but Iraniangovernment officials reported that 86 people had died in Tehran inthe whole day. French social theorist Michel Foucault first reportedthat 2,000 to 3,000 people had died in the Jaleh Square, and he laterraised that number to 4,000. Johann Beukes, author of Foucault inIran, 1978–1979, notes that "Foucault seems to have adheredto this exaggerated death count at Djaleh Square, propagated by therevolting masses themselves. Thousands were wounded, but the deathtoll unlikely accounted to more than hundred casualties".

The BBC's correspondent in Iran, AndrewWhitley, reported that hundreds had died.

According to the military historianSpencer C. Tucker, 94 were killed on Black Friday, consisting of 64protesters and 30 government security forces. According to theIranologist Richard Foltz, 64 protesters died at Jaleh Square.

According to Emadeddin Baghi, a formerresearcher at the Martyrs Foundation (Bonyad Shahid, part of thecurrent Iranian government, which compensates families of victims)hired "to make sense of the data" on those killed onBlack Friday, 64 were killed in Jaleh Square on Black Friday, withtwo females: one woman and a young girl. On the same day in otherparts of the capital, 24 people died in clashes with martial lawforces, with one female, making the total casualties on the same dayto 88 deaths. Another source puts the Martyrs Foundation tabulationof dead at 84 during that day.

The square's name was later changed tothe Square of Martyrs (Maidan-e Shohada) by the Islamic republic.

Since the 2000s, some former Pahlavidynasty politicians have suggested greater ambiguity in thesituation, in particular the presence of Palestinian guerrillas inIran, who they believe were agitators.

In art

In 1978 shortly after the massacre, theIranian musician Hossein Alizadeh set Siavash Kasraie's poem aboutthe event to music. Mohammad Reza Shajarian sang the piece "JālehKhun Shod" (Jaleh [Square] became bloody).

In English

Nastaran Akhavan, one of the survivors,wrote the book Spared about the event. The book explains how theauthor was forced into a massive wave of thousands of angryprotesters, who were later massacred by the Shah's military. The 2016adventure video game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday is based on theevent. The game is directed by Navid Khonsari, who was a child at thetime of the revolution and admitted he did not have a realistic viewof what was taking place. Khonsari described creating the game as"[wanting] people to feel the passion and the elation ofbeing in the revolution – of feeling that you could possibly make achange."