Études rurales 184 | 2009 La tribu à l'heure de la globalisation Tribe and state in Iran and Afghanistan: an Update Tribu et État en Iran et en Afghanistan : une mise à jour Richard Tapper Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/etudesrurales/10461 DOI : 10.4000/etudesrurales.10461 ISSN : 1777-537X Éditeur Éditions de l’EHESS Édition imprimée Date de publication : 7 avril 2009 Pagination : 33-46 Référence électronique Richard Tapper, « Tribe and state in Iran and Afghanistan: an Update », Études rurales [En ligne], 184 | 2009, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2011, consulté le 21 septembre 2021. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/etudesrurales/10461 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesrurales.10461 © Tous droits réservés TRIBE AND STATE IN IRAN Richard Tapper AND AFGHANISTAN: AN UPDATE Iran and Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th cen- turies, the time was now ripe for stock-taking and generalization, and an attempt at system- atic comparison within a historical perspec- tive, both between Afghanistan and Iran and also with other areas of the world. By the time of the conference political upheavals in both countries had given the topic added interest and contemporary relevance. There had been the sort of tribal resurgence that so often in the past had accompanied such upheavals. Among the initial problems N SUMMER 1979, the late David Brooks faced by the new Islamic Republic of Iran and I convened a conference in London was resistance on the part of regional, ethnic on the theme of ‘Tribe and state in Iran and tribal minorities. Within the country, sub- I stantial numbers of pastoral nomads settled and Afghanistan, 1800-1980’. Each of us had conducted ethnographic fieldwork during the over the previous decades had resumed their 1960s in one of the major tribal groups in former way of life, and tribal leaders long used Iran, David among the Bakhtiari and myself to exile in the West had been welcomed back. among the Shahsevan, and we had both made In Afghanistan, following the socialist coup in extended studies of the histories of these April 1978, successive governments had failed groups. In 1970-1972, I had also worked with to win popular support, and an insurgency of Durrani tribes people in northern Afghanistan. Islamic and tribal elements was spreading. The idea for the conference was born in Tehran in late 1977, as we discussed our reac- Tribes, Nomads, Pastoralism and the State tions to the Festival and Seminar on Popular In planning the conference, we were aware Traditions that we had just attended in Isfahan. of two major questions that would need to be The tribes had featured prominently in the addressed: the definition of ‘tribe’, and whether Festival, and it was clear that the Iranian gov- tribes could be defined or even discussed ernment now considered them to be ‘safe’ apart from the state – we had both partici- enough to promote as cultural curiosities, as pated in debates over tribe-state relations, a tourist attraction as well as grist to the eth- and were convinced that – at least in these nographers’ mill. It was no longer mentioned two countries – any discussion of the nature that some tribes had once posed a political of either tribe or state, now or in the past, threat to the state. David and I felt that, in must include a discussion of the relationship view of the considerable amount of research between them. that had been done over the last two decades The old anthropological question, ‘What is on the ethnography and history of the tribes of a tribe?’ could not be avoided: there was Études rurales, juillet-décembre 2009, 184 : 33-46 911372 DE02 16-02-10 11:02:37 Imprimerie CHIRAT page 33 Richard Tapper ... 34 considerable diversity of opinion, both among entrenched in both academic and administra- anthropologists and historians, and among tive discourses in many parts of the Middle those studying Iran and Afghanistan, not to East, is of ‘tribe’ as the political and socio- mention their subjects, as to what constituted cultural dimension of pastoral nomadism, such a ‘tribe’. Moreover, standard anthropological that the category of ‘the tribes’ is convention- notions of ‘tribe’ bore little relation to the ally synonymous with ‘the nomads’. 2 But groups so labeled in these two countries, or there is nothing in either pastoralism as a sys- indeed to the Middle East generally. The clas- tem of production or nomadism as a mobile sical model of tribal society in the Middle way of living that necessarily leads to organi- East, conforming with Durkheim’s notion zation in tribes, whether defined politically in of ‘mechanical solidarity’, was of egalitarian terms of territory and chiefship, or culturally descent groups. This criterion best fits Arab in terms of common descent. tribal societies, where genealogies are partic- Numerous observers have noted how the ularly extensive; a classic example is the Rwala, geography and ecology of most Middle East- a ‘tribe’ of some 250,000 souls, though some ern countries favour pastoral nomadism. The even larger non-Arab groups such as the terrain and climate made large areas unculti- Bakhtiari (500,000) of Iran or the Durrani vable under preindustrial conditions, and suit- Pashtuns (over 2 million) of Afghanistan have able only for seasonal grazing; and as only a been called ‘tribes’ on the same grounds. small proportion of such pasture could be Many proponents of this view would deny the used by village-based livestock, vast ranges term ‘tribe’ to any group without a descent of steppe, semi-desert and mountain were left ideology. to be exploited by nomadic pastoralists. Such Others, however, saw tribes as essen- nomads until very recently numbered tens of tially territorially distinct political groups and millions, and almost all were organized politi- expected them to be led by chiefs; they applied cally into tribes under chiefs. Equally, tribes the term ‘tribe’ to almost equally large groups that lacked unifying descent ideologies and 1. Other writers (such as myself), however, are unwil- were heterogeneous in origins and composi- ling to take either extreme position, and refer to these tion, such as the Qashqa’i, the Khamseh or larger groups (whatever their apparent basis) as ‘confe- the Shahsevan in Iran. At this level of major deracies’, locating ‘tribes’ at a lower level of political cultural-political groups of 100,000 or more structure, that of first or second order components, people, then, there was disagreement as to numbering at most some thousands of individuals. whether the term ‘tribe’ is applicable on the Such tribes commonly (but still by no means always) combine territorial and political unity under a chief with grounds of culture (a descent ideology) or an ideology of common descent. political structure (chiefship and/or political- 1 2. This notion is held by numerous historians and other territorial unity). writers, who also assume tribes to be descent groups, Another notion that is no part of standard often borrowing from anthropology the term ‘segmen- anthropological definitions but is strongly tary lineage’. See my comments [Tapper 1990]. 911372 DE02 16-02-10 11:02:37 Imprimerie CHIRAT page 34 Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan: An Update ... (defined in political terms) have commonly Explaining Variation in Tribal Organization 35 also had a pastoral economic base and led a The conference amply justified our hopes for nomadic way of life. a diversity of perspectives and fruitful discus- But an insistence that tribes in the Middle sion. In the long ‘Introduction’ to the resultant East were necessarily pastoral nomads, orga- volume I drew some comparative conclusions nized in descent groups, ignores major tribal based on a reading of the papers in the light groups in Anatolia, Iran, Afghanistan and of developments in Afghanistan and Iran since indeed several Arab countries, which often the conference. 3 included both settled cultivators and pastoral In both Iran and Afghanistan, tribal groups nomads and were complex and heterogeneous had been notorious as makers and breakers of in composition. Thus, most of the Pashtuns of kings, and dynasties of tribal origins had ruled Afghanistan are (and have always been) farm- both countries until well into the 20th century. ers or traders, with little or no leaning to pas- Both states had ‘tribal problems’; and the toralism or nomadism, and well-known groups tribes in each had ‘state problems’. Histori- in Iran such as the Qashqa’i, Bakhtiari, Kurds, cally, tribes and states formed a single sys- Baluch, Turkmen and Shahsevan have been at tem: until recently, no state was without tribal least partly settled agriculturalists. Of course, elements, no tribe existed without relations to by conventional anthropological definitions, at least one state. many of these groups were not tribes at all, Empirical tribal groups in Afghanistan and but ‘chiefdoms’, or even ‘protostates’. Iran conformed to no single pattern of organi- Any coincidence between nomads and zation. None of the following were universal tribes (whether descent-based, or led by chiefs) features: pastoral economy, nomadic or semi- was not so much a causal relation as a func- nomadic movements, descent group organiza- tion of relations of both with central states. tion, centralized chiefship, egalitarian ideol- Settled state administrations intent on regis- ogy. Nor did conventional images of tribes tering and taxing the inhabitants of territories conform to a single stereotype. Afghan tribes which they claimed to control have classically were renowned as hardy, independent, war- had ambivalent attitudes to both tribespeople, like mountain villagers, farming barren fields, with their personal allegiance to each other or and rigorous if not fanatical in their devotion to chiefs, and nomads, with their shifting resi- to Islam.