Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0178/01785.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 32KB | 514 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01785}
$Pretitle{268}
$Title{Iran
Chapter 2C.   Structure of Society}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eric Hooglund}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{political
elite
government
class
bazaar
revolution
urban
land
workers
tribes}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Iran
Book:        Iran, A Country Study
Author:      Eric Hooglund
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 2C.   Structure of Society

    Iranians have a very strong sense of class structure. In the past they
referred to their society as being divided into tiers, or tabagheh, which were
identified by numbers: the first tier corresponded to the upper classes; the
second, to the middle classes; and the third, to the lower classes. Under the
influence of revolutionary ideology, society is now perceived as being divided
into the wealthy, a term generally prefixed with negative adjectives; the
middle classes; and the mostazafin, a term that literally means disinherited.
In reality, Iranian society has always been more complex than a three-tier
division implies because each of the three broad classes is subdivided into
several social groups. These divisions have existed in both urban and rural
areas.

Urban Society

    Historically, towns in Iran have been administrative, commercial, and
manufacturing centers. The traditional political elite consisted of families
whose wealth was derived from land and/or trade and from which were recruited
the official representatives of the central government. In larger cities,
these families could trace their power and influence back several generations.
Influential families were also found among the Shia clergy in the largest
cities. The middle stratum included merchants and owners of artisan workshops.

    The lowest class of urban society included the artisans, laborers, and
providers of personal services, such as barbers, bath attendants, shoemakers,
tailors, and servants. Most of these, especially the artisans, who were
organized into trade associations or guilds, worked in the covered bazaars of
the towns.

    The urban bazaar historically has been the heart of the Iranian town. In
virtually all towns the bazaar is a covered street, or series of streets and
alleyways, lined with small shops grouped by service or product. One part of
the bazaar contains the shops of cloth and apparel dealers; another section
those of carpet makers and merchants; and still another, the workshops of
artisans making goods of copper, brass, or other metals, leather, cotton, and
wool. In small towns the bazaar might be the equivalent of a narrow,
block-long street; in the largest cities, such as Tehran, Esfahan, Mashhad,
Tabriz, and Shiraz, the bazaar is a warren of streets that contains
warehouses, restaurants, baths, mosques, schools, and gardens in addition to
hundreds and hundreds of shops.

    The modernization policies of the Pahlavi shahs both preserved and
transformed all of these aspects of urban society. This process also led to
the rapid growth of the urban population. The extension of central government
authority throughout the country fostered the expansion of administrative
apparatuses in all major provincial centers. By the 1970s, such cities were
sites not just of the principal political and security offices but also of the
local branches of diverse government offices such as education, justice,
taxation, and telecommunications.

    The establishment of modern factories displaced the numerous artisan
workshops. Parts of old bazaars were destroyed to create wide streets.
Merchants were encouraged to locate retail shops along these new streets
rather than in the bazaars. Many of the stores that opened to meet the
increased demand for commerce and services from the rapidly expanding urban
population were in the new streets. The political elite in the last years of
the Pahlavi dynasty spoke of the bazaars as symbols of backwardness and
advanced plans to replace some of them with modern shopping malls.

The Urban Political Elite

    Prior to the Revolution of 1979, the political elite of the towns
consisted of the shah and his family and court in Tehran and the
representatives of the monarchy in the provincial towns. These representatives
included provincial governors and city mayors, all of whom were appointed by
Tehran; high-level government officials; high- ranking military officers; the
wealthiest industrialists and financiers; the most prominent merchants; and
the best known professionals in law, medicine, and education. The highest
ranks of the Shia clergy--the clerics who had obtained the status of
ayatollah--were no longer considered part of the national elite by the
mid-1970s, although this social group had been very important in the elite
from the seventeenth to the mid- twentieth century.

    The Revolution of 1979 swept aside this old elite. Although the old
political elite was not physically removed, albeit many of its members
voluntarily or involuntarily went into exile, it was stripped of its political
power. The new elite consisted first and foremost of the higher ranks of the
Shia clergy. The most important administrative, military, and security
positions were filled by lay politicians who supported the rule of the clergy.
The majority of the lay political elite had their origins in the
prerevolutionary middle class, especially the bazaar families (see Political
Dynamics, ch. 4).

The Bazaar

    Opposing the political elite through much of the twentieth century has
been the bazaar, an important political, economic, and social force in Iran
since at least the time of the Qajar dynasty. The Pahlavi shahs viewed the
bazaar as an impediment to the modern society that they wished to create and
sought to enact policies that would erode the bazaar's importance. They were
aware that the alliance of the mercantile and artisan forces of the bazaar
with the Shia clergy posed a serious threat to royal government, as occurred
in 1890 and again during the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-07. The
emergence of such an alliance in the period from 1923 to 1924 is believed by
many scholars to have convinced Reza Shah not to establish a republic, as
Ataturk had done in Turkey, but to establish a new dynasty based upon his
family.

    Reza Shah recognized the potential power of the bazaar, and he was
apparently determined to control it. As his secularization programs had
adversely affected the clergy, many of his economic reforms hurt the bazaar.
His son also sought to control the influence of the bazaar. As a consequence,
the bazaar remained a locus of opposition to both Pahlavi shahs. During 1978
the bazaar spearheaded the strikes that paralyzed some sectors of the economy
and provided support for the political actions of the Shia clergy. In essence,
the feared alliance of the bazaar and clergy had once again come to play a
pivotal role in effecting political change in Iran.

    The Republic has been much more solicitous of the bazaar than was the
Pahlavi dynasty. Several of the early economic programs implemented by the
governments of the Republic have benefited the interests of the bazaar;
nevertheless, the complexities of managing an economy under the impact of a
total war have also forced the central government to adopt economic policies
that the bazaar has opposed. Generally, the government leaders have favored
varying degrees of state regulation over such economic issues as the pricing
of basic commodities and foreign trade, while entrepreneurs, bazaar merchants,
and some prominent clergy have opposed such restrictions. These economic
issues have been among the main reasons for the emergence of two contentious
factions among the political elite (see The Consolidation of Theocracy, ch.
4).

Social Class in Contemporary Iran

    Prior to the Revolution of 1979, political connections were considered a
key measure of one's social status. In other words, the amount of access that
one was perceived to have to the highest levels of decision making was the