Iran: Tradition and Slow Change:

...After the Shah's return to power, the various strands of political opposition were cut down...

...At present, the only tribal area in the news is Kurdistan, where noisy efforts are being made to keep the Kurds happy so that they will not support a separatist movement originating in Iraq...

...In their own lives, however, most people act the way they think everybody else acts...

...The unrest which exists certainly does not pose any serious threat at the moment, but if major political upheavals were to occur in Teheran or in the provincial cities, the tribes might well reappear as a disruptive element...

...The normal reaction to authority in the more backward parts of the countryside has been submission or flight, rather than rebellion...

...His is still a magic name in Iran: a learned man...

...Clan loyalties are more potent among the nomad tribesmen, who are on the move with their flocks much of the time and live a life organized in a quasi-military fashion...

...They are reputed to entertain a deep hatred for landlords in general, but organized opposition is not part of their pattern...

...the proto-Communist movement behind the Tudeh party...

...Those who are unable to go abroad to study must end their formal education and start out in their careers feeling thwarted...

...The settled tribesmen, who work the land, are as obedient to their landlords as the country's other villagers...

...Meanwhile, the economic boom of the last couple of years has started an inflationary rise in prices...

...There have been several stories, too, of investment projects being disrupted in order to keep the schedule for a public dedication ceremony...

...Although the peasants are normally antagonistic to landlords, the settled tribesman's loyalties to the tribal leader who is the landlord in his tribal area may prove stronger than his own selfinterest...

...These young men constitute Iran's most discontented element: They are eager for progress and reform, they are disgusted with a society long suffering from corruption and nepotism and now permeated with agents of the security police, and they feel personally frustrated in their efforts to make a place for themselves...

...and (4) a growing middle class-landowners, merchants, educated men and Army officers-which includes the ruling group and the politically conscious...

...The Shah, in reply, has admitted publicly that the country needs new electoral laws but he insists that his control over the voters' selection is designed solely to insure that no Communists are elected...

...The followers of Mossadegh included many of the educated young men, many of the anti-British majority of the population and nationalists in all walks of life...

...The problem of Azerbaijani separatism lies not so much in any lack of identification with the country as in the relative stagnation which the region has experienced since World War II...

...But that also requires other facilities (management supervision, financing, capital, seed, protection from the gendarmerie) which are now supplied by the landlord and without which the immediate result of land reform might be a drop in production...

...Hitherto, the Iranian peasant has experienced no organization except at the command of his landlord or in the Army, and he has never shown any sign of revolt...

...Since the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953, political life in Iran has been relatively quiescent...

...Since the 1958 coup in bordering Iraq, the Government has increased expenditures in Kurdistan, while maintaining an implicit threat of repression by force...

...No opposition figure with the appeal of Mossadegh is visible anywhere on the horizon...

...Apparently because the threat of Russian occupation or of a recurrence of post-war Sovietsponsored local rule remains great, private enterprise has not been expanding in Azerbaijan and there has been an exodus of talent and capital to Teheran...

...At the same time, the Government has incurred local wrath by concentrating its development efforts and expenditures in other areas...

...Only if the general malaise among the educated younger generation spreads to the younger Army officers and coincides with their personal ambitions is the military likely to become active...

...Chances are pretty good that successful and rapid growth at the center and in other urban areas, even if the rest of the country remains in a backwash, will forestall political discontent by absorbing the persons and energies of the bright young men...

...and the conservatives backing the Shah through the Army...

...For example, the recipients of redistributed land are being led to expect greatly improved living standards, which can be achieved only through increased production...

...It is clear that a cohesive minority nationality group exists, with its own language and customs, a religion (Sunni) different from that of the majority of Iranians (Shii), and ties to fellow tribesmen in neighboring lands...

...Perhaps the most stabilizing force in Iran is the economic boom which the country is now enjoying...

...the obstreperous reactionary movement of the Mullah Kashani...

...the other, in some way related to the first, is the inflation threatened by over-expansion in many directions...

...Nevertheless, they are still on the fringes of the ruling group and are still the beneficiaries of their fathers' positions...

...A few days later, a group of leaders of the Nationalist Front party, which, in part, is made up of former Mossadegh supporters and underground Communists from the outlawed Tudeh party, protested the closing of their headquarters by the Government security police...

...One is the waste and inefficiency in parts of the program...

...H. M. Lubchansky is a specialist inMiddle East economic affairs who recently made an extended tour of Iran...

...With virtually no schools in the villages (the national rate of illiteracy is close to 90 per cent), education is also an urban monopoly...

...Thus far it has been effective in scotching all plots against the regime, but it also has blundered in "discovering" any number of plots which never existed...

...The Shah, for example, retains the power to veto the seating of any of the 200 representatives who will be elected...

...Added to the general malaise at the present time is a reaction to the omnipresence of the Sazeman Amniat Va Atellat Keshvar (SAVAK), the Security and Information Organization of the Nation...

...it consists largely of porters, casual workers, domestic servants and those unemployed not yet assimilated into the growing cities...

...Though much of the conscious and articulate discontent is to be found in Teheran among the underpaid or unemployed bright young men, most of the areas of economic expansion-construction, investment, industrialization, education-are in Teheran and the towns, too...

...Today a blanket of political stability, held down by the Army and the SAVAK, lies over Iran, This stability could be upset by another military coup, but the chances of such a coup taking place are small...

...Kashani seems to have been bought off...

...There is only one full-scale university in Iran, the University of Teheran, which is physically limited to only 8-10,000 students...

...Even if some increase in production occurs, it is likely to be smaller than necessary...

...Yet Iran has always been a federation of nations with, often as not, a dynasty from one of the minority (i.e., non-Persian) nationalities ruling from Teheran or some other city...

...Many Mossadegh supporters also were jailed, but most have been released by now...

...The tribes inhabiting the fringes of the Iranian plateau include both settled villagers and nomad herdsmen who differ from each other in economic interest, in mentality and to some extent in social organization...

...above all, the man who succeeded in kicking the British out of Iran-even if he almost ruined the country in the process...

...The tribes have a history of revolt and disturbance which continued until quite recently, and they have been used both by foreign powers (particularly the British and the Germans) and by domestic political figures...

...Ironically, the Government of Iran, in an attempt to allay the ideological discontent of the bright young men, has launched a land reform program that is creating a new class-an awakened peasantry, which may sow the seeds of trouble...

...If they are absorbed, the dissident potentialities of the peripheral groups will remain latentand relatively unimportant...

...Thus, tribal leaders may be in a position to protest redistribution of their lands by rousing against the Government the very people who would benefit from the reallotment...

...True, neither Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser nor Iraq's Abdel Karim Kassim were visible before they pulled off their coups, but there seems to be a firmer base to the national political life in Iran than in Egypt or in Iraq...

...The different levels of tribal society are joined by family and clan ties which create a structure of loyalties transcending the pattern for the rest of Iran's population...

...Even more serious, however, is the existence of widespread bureaucratic corruption which results in some expenditures being rendered unproductive by distortions of an initially coherent plan...

...In addition, however, the Tudeh undoubtedly had real support among the urban proletariat...

...Construction has been going on at a rapid rate (even if almost 90 per cent of it is in Teheran), and small-scale industrialization is expanding...

...A close look at the potential sources of opposition to the Shah, however, reveals that they are neither very powerful nor very active...

...The peasantry, in both Persianand Turkic-speaking areas, is by tradition economically and politically docile...

...The general atmosphere which this breeds is demoralizing and disturbing to those who consider themselves enlightened...

...The visitor to Teheran quickly becomes aware of strong verbal opposition to the Government...

...Now, however, with the limited experience and greater promise of land redistribution, with the creation of a network of community development and agricultural extension services, the peasantry is on the verge of obtaining a measure of selfrespect and a degree of rising expectation...

...Iranian political life revolves around four major social groups: (1) an inert peasantry which constitutes the bulk of the population...

...IRAN: Tradition and Slow Change By H. M. Lubchansky Political disturbances in Teheran during the current national elections for the Majlis (lower house of Parliament) have renewed speculation about the stability of the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi...

...At present the Army is well off, is in a position of prestige and power, and is therefore hardly likely to be interested in upsetting the status quo...

...But the tribal areas in the Zagros are closed to the casual tourist (for his own protection of course), and there are stories of minor Army raids still being necessary to disarm tribesmen before they get out of control...

...The tremendous increase in urban educational facilities in Iran in recent years has produced high school graduating classes of some 20,000 a year, only 10 per cent of whom are able to enter the University...

...One can only guess at the extent of separatist feeling in an area like Kurdistan...

...The election disturbances were fairly mild: The night before balloting began in the capital, about 1,000 students at Teheran University staged an overnight demonstration on the campus, calling for "free elections...

...Concentration of political and economic life in Teheran and the towns also has its brighter side...

...The Tudeh organization was outlawed...

...The talk of greater land redistribution, which in the present political context is limited to lands held by absentee landlords and includes promise of compensation (rather than of expropriation), is likewise encouraging: It has had some effect in pushing a number of the present landholders into industrial activity, and in forcing the sons of others to take a personal interest in managing their lands...

...But despite these real or potential destabilizing elements, both the traditional and recent oppositions to the Shah have been scattered...

...A proper 20th-century inflation that gets out of hand could do much to offset the stability promised to Iran by actual and prospective economic growth...

...It is through the cities that new technical, social and political ideas enter Iran, and it is in the cities that the educated sons of the ruling groups pick up ideas for political and social change...

...In this sense the Tudeh was a hangover from the wartime Russian occupation of northern Iran...

...Poverty-stricken, ignorant, diseased and exploited, the peasants have accepted their lot over the centuries...

...The Shah and the royal family participate as private individuals in large-scale business enterprises, a fact which may at times strongly influence decisions on how and where to spend development funds...

...There is, in fact, considerable danger that the money being pushed into the economy by public and private investment will far outrun the volume of goods being made available...

...The bulk of society, which operates outside the Western framework of commercial honesty-from the ruling class, which is corrupt on a large scale, to the bottom of the pile, which is corrupt on a small scalenevertheless stands in awe and admiration of political figures who do act within such a framework...

...On a more abstract political level, there is a peculiar dichotomy between the models Iranians admire and the way they themselves behave...

...Another danger of land reform is that it may cause tribal unrest in areas such as those settled by the Kurds or the Turcomans...

...One of the obvious elements of waste in both public and private investment is the disposition to build expensive and imposing edifices in Teheran...

...Finally, two disturbing features stand out in the Government's allimportant economic development program and the present boom in private enterprise...

...Azerbaijan, on the other hand, has in the past been well integrated into the economic and political life of Iran...

...One of the reasons for Mossadegh's tremendous political appeal was that he could not be corrupted by money...

...The Mullah Kashani was a black figure in Iranian politics, a loud-mouthed purveyor of religious passions operating through a crowd of gangsters...

...Although its character is certain to change in expanding industrial and commercial centers like Teheran and Isfahan, "the street" still has no distinct political character...

...3) a growing urban proletariat, partly tied to the villages but subject to a variety of influences that do not penetrate to the villages...

...But the granting of real political freedom has been very gradual...

...Private investment has been expanding so rapidly that there has even been repatriation of capital to Iran from abroad instead of a flight to the safe but low rates of return in Switzerland...

...The urban proletariat, except in Abadan with its huge oil refineries, is not yet primarily an industrial proletariat...

...Although there are difficulties besetting economic development in this technologically backward country, rapid growth is at present a reality...

...2) tribal groups, both settled and nomad, who are distinctly different from the mass of the peasantry...

...The Tudeh party included many of the same types who were followers of Mossadegh-anti-British nationalists and discontented young men-but who were impressed by the claims of Soviet ideology and Soviet methods as the only way out of the impasse of Iranian economic and political life...

...In the great effervescence of the Mossadegh period, four strong political forces operated in the urban areas and in the Majlis: the antiBritish nationalist movement of Mossadegh...

...Since the Shah's return to power in 1953, after the Army ouster of Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran has embarked on a program of extensive economic development, land reform and increased governmental services to the country's largely impoverished population of 20 million...

...thousands of its members were jailed and hundreds were executed...

...Movement back and forth across the IranIraq border continues as it has throughout the centuries, only now the persons and families who move are acclaimed as refugees upon arrival on the opposite side of the border...

...The village remains the key social unit and there is little to link one village to another...

...High Government officials may make decisions according to the amount of graft involved, while petty officials, such as the police, take bribes because their regular salaries are exceedingly low...

...In many instances, of course, the availability of higher educational facilities would merely postpone the moment of fundamental frustration to the time when the new graduates would go out into the real world of Iran to discover that the society and the economy cannot absorb them on the terms they have been led to expect...

...It is little more than a mob available to any political group or figure willing to pay for it...

...Personal frustration for the young people is especially apparent in the case of higher education...

...The middle class lives in the cities and there uses its wits, its money and the mob for political ends, making politics in Iran an urban phenomenon...

...It remains to be seen whether improvement of social services will suffice to make the Kurds more loyal to Teheran...

...This may result in economic and social progress, but it may even more quickly result in political problems...

...So long as the areas predominantly inhabited by one of the minority nationalities participate in any economic development enjoyed by the Persian areas, therefore, and so long as leading individuals among the minority groups are absorbed into the political and economic life of the nation and the capital, the federate ties probably will be stronger than separatist strains...

...a man of personal integrity and financial honesty...