How do Belief Systems affect a country's political system and culture?

Religion has been closely linked with political events throughout history. As Religion is such a powerful force that drives so many people, politicians have used it to control society. There have been so many revolutions and wars that have been linked with religion that we can easily say that belief systems affect a country's political and cultural systems. People's actions are basically controlled by what they believe in. It is their actions that define their political leaders. A clear example is the Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 it is also referred to as the Islamic revolution. It started because the Iranian people began to feel a western influence that controlled their leader. They felt that the Iranian principles were being left behind, so the revolution started and at the end Iran became a theocratic constitution. Theocratic means that a God is recognized as the supreme civil ruler. We clearly see that religion influences the politic system especially in these types of governments.

There is a movie that shows how religion affects a country in this case Iran, "Persepolis" shows the life of an Iranian family during the Islamic revolution, it is very interesting to see how the protagonist, Marjane, expresses her feelings blatantly since the beginning and that is what causes her to be sent abroad in order not to be arrested. We see how the Islamic fundamentalists kill people, torture, and do what they want with the country. This movie also helps us see how religion has been used by people, in many cases politicians, to do whatever they want under the name of their religion. We observe in the movie that most people start having many doubts about their beliefs because these religious fundamentalists mud the name of their religion.

Religion has a history of having been bound to politics. During Adolph Hitler's regime, Jews were greatly persecuted and mass massacred, during the crusades this was true as well. Religion is a power and has the consequences of being one, we have two ways of seeing religion, as something spiritual and something more profound, the right concept, or a mean of controlling people and having a lot of power.

In Bolivia for example, Catholicism is the official religion, and the government asks the church for support many times. The government can't go against the church, they know that religion has a lot of power so they don't take that risk. When they do, they have to take it back or change their opinion, if not the government might fail. Each country also follows the calendar of their religion, for example Christian countries have Christian holidays while other countries with other official religions follow other holidays. Religion is part of life, and it goes together with everything else. It is a really strong influencing subject, our main decisions are controlled by our beliefs, and as everyone is different, we might not always agree. We see the influence of religion not only in political and cultural issues but in everything in our lifes.