The Ethnic Question in Iran Author(s): Kaveh Bayat Source: Middle East Report, No. 237 (Winter, 2005), pp. 42-45 Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30042475 . Accessed: 02/10/2011 17:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Middle East Research and Information Project is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle East Report. http://www.jstor.org The Ethnic Question in Iran Kaveh Bayat A cafe in Kurdistanprovince, Iran, in the 19808. MICHELSETBOUN/CORBIS ran is not a Persianmonolith, as it is often portrayed.Ow- Out of this mix of linguistic and religious groups, how- ing to wavesof migrationand foreigninvasion over its long ever, only a few have been designated as "minority" or I history, the Iranianplateau has become home to a diverse "ethnic."These are the Azeris, the Turkish-speakingShi'a in assortment of people speaking a range of languagesand ad- the northwestern province of Azerbaijan; the Sunni Turk- hering to numerouscreeds. The "Iranian"languages spoken in men of the northeast; the mostly Sunni Kurds; the Arabs Iraninclude Persian,Kurdish, Luri, Gilaki, Mazandarani,Tat of Khuzestan; and the Baluch of the southeastern province and Talish. But there are also Turkiclanguages such as Azeri of Sistan and Baluchistan. The diversity of the rest of the and Turkmen,and Semitic languagessuch as Arabic,Hebrew Iranianpopulation is usually ignored in "ethnic"inventories and Assyrian.Likewise, Iranian citizens profess many different of the country. Apart from a few tribal groups, everyone else religiousbeliefs, including the dominant Shi'i Islam, but also is lumped together in the vague category of "Persian." Sunni Islam and severalkinds of Christianity. In comparison with other multi-ethnic states in the re- gion, however,Iran's national identity has been coherent and Kaveh Bayat is an independentresearcher working in Iran. stable. Through British and Russian occupation, the Shah's 42 MIDDLEEAST REPORT 237 WINTER2005 authoritarian rule Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, Turkmen and Baluch were not indif- and the tumult of ferent to the new ethno-nationalist movements across Iran's the 1979 revolu- borders, but they did not take root at this time. tion, there have Nationalist agitation among the Kurdishtribes of the for- been revolts orga- mer Ottoman Empire grew up in opposition to the creation nized along eth- of a republic in Turkey strongly identified with Turkish na- nic lines, but these tionalism. In the southern parts of the Kurdish region, the have not bedeviled efforts of British officials to fashion a purely Arab entity in the state as much as Mesopotamia lent a nationalist disposition to the Kurdish their counterparts resistancein Iraqand contributed to a sense of Kurdishness.1 in Turkey and Iraq. "Azeri"identity originated in the attempts of a number of That history, along Caucasian Muslim intellectuals to formulate a concept of with the essen- national identity.Assisted by decisiveideological and military tially non-ethnic support from the Young Turks, by the end of World War I character of many these efforts bore fruit and a new state called Azerbaijanwas "ethnic" grievances established in the Caucasus.2 under the post-rev- On the other side of the hill, so to speak, the Kurdish olutionary Islamic parts of Iran and the Turkish-speaking province of Azer- Republic, might baijan did not go through this process of ethnic or national tempt one to con- identity formation. The creation of a modern, highly cen- clude that Irandoes tralizedstate by Reza Shah Pahlavidid encounter widespread not face an ethnic resistance from traditional leaders in the provinces, almost problem. This is all of whom had their power base among the "ethnic"groups. not exactly right. But none of these conflicts assumed a distinct ethnic ex- Under the Is- pression.3 The Kurdish tribal leaders of Iran were aware of lamic Republic, developments abroad, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, and a and particularlyin handful of Kurdish activists tried to promote a trans-tribal recentyears, ethnic solidarity, but to little avail.4The tribal nature of Kurdish politics have gained identity held fast. The fate of Azeri identity in Iran was a new salience. The no different. The swift reincorporation of the Republic of Islamic universal- Azerbaijan into the Soviet orbit by the Bolsheviks in the ism of the revolu- early 1920Scurtailed the furtherdevelopment of nationalism tionaries undercut there, and there had been little time for it to reverberatein the dominance of Iranian Azerbaijan.5 Iranian national- World War II brought upheavals.Reza Shah was deposed ism. More recently, and exiled by invading British and Soviet forces in 1941, the greater press leaving the country seething with resentment. While pov- freedoms permit- erty, famine and Reza Shah's arbitraryrule were the main ted at the height of cause, some provincial elites also resented the previous Iran'sreformist mo- regime's promotion of a narrowly defined Iranian identity ment of 1997-20oo4 that neglected the country's ethnic, linguistic and religious allowed for more public expression of ethnic identities and diversity.6But the formation of ethnic identity still required demands. How these demands will fare today, with the in- an external stimulus. definite suspension of reform under the hardline presidency The end of World War II provided it, as the Leninist of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and with Iran'sincreased inter- concept of the "rightof nations to self-determination"came national isolation, is an open and worrisome question. to guide Moscow's foreign policy. The Red Army, which oc- cupied the northern half of Iran, imported a large mission BorderPolitics of experts from Soviet Azerbaijan and started to promote a sense of Azeri nationalism.7 A similar strategy-though The torrent of separatist nationalist aspirations unleashed on a much smaller scale-was initiated in the Kurdish ar- by World War I did not affect Iran nearly as much as it eas of occupied Iran.8This policy climaxed in the creation did the Ottoman Empire and Czarist Russia. With its long of autonomous governments in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan tradition of statehood and deeply rooted sense of national in I945, under the guise of"liberating the Kurds and the identity, Iran managed to preserve its territorial integrity. Azeris from the oppression of the Persians."After extensive MIDDLEEAST REPORT 237 * WINTER2005 43 negotiations between Tehranand Moscow, and owing partly solid base later on. The new regime's attempts to promote to the firm stand of the United States, the Soviets with- Islamicuniversalism dealt a heavy blow to bulwarksof Iranian drew their troops, and it did not take long for their puppet identity-particularly Iraniannationalism. Besides symbolic governments to disintegrate. But the Soviet monopoly on acts such as dropping the Iranian national insignia of the ethnic politics in Iran remained intact; the "rightof nations lion and the sun, and attempts by hardlinersto destroy such to self-determination" provided the ideological framework, historical sites as Persepolis, the new regime also undertook while Moscow continued to support the remnants of the a general revision of Iranianhistory. The history of Iran, par- nationalist movements.9 ticularly the pre-Islamicera, was condemned as an unending In view of the decisive role of external support for such cycle of repression and subjugation, while building blocks movements, pre-revolutionaryIran normally sought a "dip- of modern Iranian nationalism such as secular education lomatic"solution for occasionalethnic problems. In the early were denounced as "Pahlaviploys." In the process, the idea 193os, Iran, Iraq and Turkey came to a general agreement to of Persian as a "national" language binding together the different ethnic groups of Iran was also branded a "Pahlavi ploy,"and came under sustained criticism from ethnic activ- ists. As a result, it was not only a new set of Islamic values that vied to replace Iranian nationalism, but a multitude of The regime's Islamic universalism local and ethnic identities as well.'3 A number of external dealt a heavy blow to bulwarks of developments have hastened this process:the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, the reemergence of an Iranian identity-particularlyIra- independent Republic of Azerbaijan, and the creation of a nian nationalism-in the Kurdish safe haven in Iraq, particularlyin the aftermath of process the US-led invasion. encouraging ethnic identity. Another inadvertent consequence of the Islamic Repub- lic's promotion of an ardent Shi'i identity was a backlash in the Sunni areas of Iran. In Azerbaijan, and among Shi'i Arabs of Khuzestan and the Shi'i Kurds of Kermanshah, Bi- refrain from manipulating ethnic and tribal groups against jar and Qorveh, this new emphasis did serve to strengthen each other. As a result, the Turkish government reined in a sense of communal unity, but at the same time it alien- pan-Turkish agitation, while the Iranian did their best to ated the Sunni Kurds, Baluch and Turkmen. Alongside the contain Kurdish nationalism, which had designated the increasing pull toward Iraqi Kurdistan among the Sunni Arabs and the Turks as its main adversaries.10After its I958 Kurds, in regions such as Baluchistan, this resentment has coup, Iraqadopted a more radicalattitude toward its eastern provided a breeding ground for Sunni fundamentalism with neighbor, promoting pan-Arabsentiment among the Arabs clear links to the "Wahhabi"madrasas of Pakistan.