\u201cSociety appears to me changed a lot. Very different,\u201d Limbert said. \u201cIf you look at the government, the ruling apparatus, it\u2019s been remarkable, it\u2019s basically stayed the same. The same little men\u2019s club, elite men\u2019s club has run the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the literacy rate. When we were there, it was about 50 percent. Now it\u2019s well over\u2026 ninety five, ninety six.\u201d<\/p>\n
Literacy has been one of the biggest structural changes in Iranian life. <\/p>\n
In 1976, 48.8 percent of people aged 10 to 49 were literate. By 2021, that figure had reached 97.1 percent. The literacy gap between men and women dropped from 23.4 percent to 6 percent.<\/p>\n
Limbert served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran and spent 14 months as a hostage after the US Embassy was seized in November 1979. Nine of those months were in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a narrative out there that we were treated well, but we were not. Fourteen months I was there; nine months I was in solitary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archival video online shows a striking exchange inside the embassy compound in 1979: Limbert speaking directly with Ali Khamenei who was a senior official in the new government and is now Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader.<\/p>\n
Limbert greets Khamenei and makes a wry remark about Iranian hospitality, saying that in Iran \u201ceven when a guest insists, he must go, he is told \u2018no, no, you must stay.\u2019\u201d It was his polite way of saying he wanted to leave, delivered through the cultural language of taarof, the elaborate politeness that shapes everyday interactions.<\/p>\n
‘Back of beyond’<\/p>\n
Limbert first traveled to Iran in 1962, later returned as a Peace Corps volunteer and as an instructor at Pahlavi University in Shiraz. He speaks Persian and earned all his degrees from Harvard University.<\/p>\n
While the ruling structure of the Islamic Republic is still dominated by the same generation that took power in 1979, Iranian society itself, Limbert says, has changed in profound ways.<\/p>\n
Limbert said the most dramatic change is visible far from Tehran, in places that once felt remote and forgotten.<\/p>\n
\u201cYasuj was the back of beyond\u2026 now there\u2019s a university there. Darab in Fars\u2026 it was a dead town. There was nobody there. Now there\u2019s a university there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He praised the creative boom that has emerged under pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cCulture is amazing. Look at the films that are coming out of Iran\u2026 look at the creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recent scenes from inside Iran capture this contrast vividly. A marathon in the Persian Gulf island of Kish took place on Friday with more than 5,000 runners. Footage shows most female runners without hijab \u2014 a sight that would have been unthinkable decades ago.<\/p>\n
Yet these images exist alongside something darker. <\/p>\n
Authorities have executed over 1000 people thus far in 2025, the highest number of yearly executions in Iran according to Amnesty International. This includes political detainees, ethnic minorities and protesters. Human rights groups report intensified repression, mass arrests and new surveillance campaigns.<\/p>\n
And while society has modernized, the ruling system has barely moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took power in \u201979, and they\u2019ve held it ever since. They or their followers are still around,” said Limbert. <\/p>\n
For Limbert, Iran is moving in two directions at once. \u201cIt\u2019s going in both directions at the same time.\u201d He does not predict collapse, but he questions endurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it can last forever. But I don\u2019t know how long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSociety appears to me changed a lot. Very different,\u201d Limbert said. \u201cIf you look at the government, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,16609,108026,108023,108020,108021,108024,108018,108022,108019,108025,5107,111,139,69,73377],"class_list":{"0":"post-171286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-and-china","12":"tag-iran-covid","13":"tag-iran-economy","14":"tag-iran-government","15":"tag-iran-media-iran-and-the-united-states","16":"tag-iran-news","17":"tag-iran-nuclear","18":"tag-iran-politics","19":"tag-iran-us","20":"tag-middle-east","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-us-sanctions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}