Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0178/01783.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 24KB | 401 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01783}
$Pretitle{268}
$Title{Iran
Chapter 2A.   The Society and Its Environment}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eric Hooglund}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{iran
population
government
refugees
major
million
census
cities
percent
since}
$Date{1987}
$Log{Bas-Relief*0178301.scf
}
Country:     Iran
Book:        Iran, A Country Study
Author:      Eric Hooglund
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 2A.   The Society and Its Environment

[See Bas-Relief: Two men who came to pay tribute to Darius, c. 500 B.C., at
Persepolis.]

     Iran has been experiencing significant social changes since the 1979 Islamic
Revolution that overthrew the monarchy. Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi
Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Revolution, and his supporters, who were
organized in the Islamic Republican Party (IRP), were determined to
desecularize Iranian society. They envisaged the destruction of the royal
regime as a prelude to the creation of an Islamic society whose laws and
values were derived from the Quran and religious texts sacred to Shia (see
Glossary) Islam. The flight into foreign exile of the royal family and most of
the prerevolutionary political elite, and the imprisonment or cooptation of
those who chose to remain, effectively enabled the Shia Islamic clergy (see
Glossary) to take over governmental institutions and to use the power and
authority of the central government to implement programs designed to
accomplish this goal.

    The creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 resulted in the
destruction of the power and influence of the predominantly secular and
Western-oriented political elite that had ruled Iran since the early part of
the twentieth century. The new political elite that emerged was composed of
Shia clergymen and lay technocrats of middle-class origins. The major
consequence of their programs has been cultural, that is, the desecularization
of public life in Iran. By 1987 this new political elite had not adopted
policies that would have caused any major restructuring of the country's
economy. While there has been controversy regarding the appropriate role of
the government in regulating the national economy, the overall philosophy of
this new political elite has been that private property is respected and
protected under Islam.

    The establishment of an "ideal" religious society has been impeded by
foreign war. Iran became involved in a protracted war with its neighbor, Iraq,
in September 1980, when the latter country invaded Iran's oil-rich
southwestern province of Khuzestan. This conflict has meant a total war for
Iran. By 1987 at least 200,000 Iranians had been killed and another 350,000 to
500,000 wounded. At any one time, 600,000 men were under arms. Property
destruction, including the complete leveling of one major city, several towns,
and scores of villages, as well as extensive damage to industrial
infrastructure and residential neighborhoods of other urban areas, was
estimated at billions of dollars. The war also created the need to provide for
as many as 1.5 million persons who had become refugees; to ration a wide
variety of foodstuffs; to retool most major industries for the production of
war-related goods; and to expend a substantial proportion of government
resources, including revenues from the sale of petroleum, on the war effort.

    Although the war with Iraq has imposed extraordinary burdens on the
economy and society, the government of the Republic has continued its efforts
to recast society according to religiously prescribed behavioral codes. These
policies have resulted in a significant enhancement of the role that the
mosque plays in society. The Shia clergy have become the major political
actors not only at the national level but also at the local level, where the
chief cleric in each town has assumed the functions of a de facto district
governor (see Local Government, ch. 4). Thus, local mosques, in addition to
fulfilling their traditional roles as places for prayer, have become primary
sources of social services that formerly were obtained from various government
ministries. Mosques also have become one of the principal institutions for
enforcing the observance of public morals.

    All the major cultural and social groups in Iran have been affected by the
changes resulting from the establishment of the Republic. The secularized,
Western-educated, upper and middle classes of the prerevolutionary period have
been frequent targets of criticism by the clergy and lay political leaders,
who have accused them of "immoral life- styles." These secular groups have
tended to resent the laws that regulate individual behavior. In particular,
they dislike hejab (see Glossary), the dress codes that require women to be
covered in public except for their faces and hands, and the prohibition of all
alcoholic beverages. Members of these classes, who predominated in the upper
levels of the civil service and in the professions, have also been compelled
to undergo "re-education classes" in Islam to retain their positions.

    In contrast, the religious middle class, generally identified as the
bazaar class, has tended to support the laws the secularized groups disliked
because these laws reflect the ideal life-style that the bazaar traditionally
has tried to follow. Similarly, the lower classes in both urban and rural
areas have not necessarily tended to perceive laws regulating behavior as
intrusions because the religious sanctions have for the most part merely
reinforced the values of their generally conservative life-styles.

Geography

    Iran is one of the world's most mountainous countries. Its mountains have
helped to shape both the political and the economic history of the country for
several centuries. The mountains enclose several broad basins, or plateaus, on
which major agricultural and urban settlements are located. Until the
twentieth century, when major highways and railroads were constructed through
the mountains to connect the population centers, these basins tended to be
relatively isolated from one another. Typically, one major town dominated each
basin, and there were complex economic relationships between the town and the
hundreds of villages that surrounded it. In the higher elevations of the
mountains rimming the basins, tribally organized groups practiced
transhumance, moving with their herds of sheep and goats between traditionally
established summer and winter pastures. There are no major river systems in
the country, and historically transportation was by means of caravans that
followed routes traversing gaps and passes in the mountains. The mountains
also impeded easy access to the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.

    With an area of 1,648,000 square kilometers, Iran ranks sixteenth in size
among the countries of the world. Iran is about one-fifth the size of the
continental United States, or slightly larger than the combined area of the
contiguous states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and
Idaho.

    Located in southwestern Asia, Iran shares its entire northern border with
the Soviet Union. This border extends for more then 2,000 kilometers,
including nearly 650 kilometers of water along the southern shore of the
Caspian Sea. Iran's western borders are with Turkey in the north and Iraq in
the south, terminating at the Shatt al Arab (which Iranians call the Arvand
Rud). The Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman littorals form the entire
1,770-kilometer southern border. To the east lie Afghanistan on the north and
Pakistan on the south. Iran's diagonal distance from Azarbaijan in the
northwest to Baluchestan va Sistan in the southeast is approximately 2,333
kilometers.

Topography

    Iran consists of rugged, mountainous rims surrounding high interior
basins. The main mountain chain is the Zagros Mountains, a series of parallel
ridges interspersed with plains that bisect the country from northwest to
southeast. Many peaks in the Zagros exceed 3,000 meters above sea l