International Herald Tribune, France
June 2 2006
Iran’s volatile ethnic mix
By Brenda Shaffer International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2006
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts Several northwestern cities in Iran have
recently been rocked by demonstrations and riots by ethnic
Azerbaijani citizens. They were protesting a cartoon published in an
official government newspaper that depicted the Azerbaijani minority
as a cockroach and instructed people to deny it food until it learns
to speak Persian.
Last Sunday, thousands of Iranian Azerbaijanis gathered outside
Parliament in Tehran to chant in their native Turkic language and
demand the rights to operate schools in their own language. As his
police forces heavy-handedly dispersed the demonstrators, Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised the loyalty of the
Azerbaijani citizens and thanked them for “supporting the Islamic
Revolution.”
The massive Azerbaijani response to the cartoon is the latest in a
string of ethnically based protests and violence that have occurred
in Iran this year, highlighting the country’s multiethnic nature,
which is little appreciated in the West. Fully half of Iran’s
population is non-Persian.
Western policy makers need to take into account the fact that ethnic
politics influences Iran’s foreign policy choices and will be a
factor in the current regime’s future stability.
Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Baluch are concentrated on
Iran’s peripheries, sharing ties with people in neighboring
Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The
presence of relatively large groups of ethnic minorities directly
across the border from ethnic majorities in neighboring states
significantly affects Tehran’s bilateral relations with its
neighbors.
Since ethnic Azerbaijanis make up a third of Iran’s population, for
example, Tehran is fearful that neighboring Azerbaijan could become a
source of irredentism for its own Azerbaijani population. It has
therefore supported Armenia in its war with Azerbaijan over the
disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh, even though Azerbaijan and
Iran are among the few states with a Shiite Muslim majority.
Encouraged by the gains of their ethnic fellows in neighboring
states, such as the Kurds and Turkmen who are playing a primary role
in the new Iraqi government’s political process, many of Iran’s
minorities have been demanding their rights recently.
In the last six months, at least 30 people have died and hundreds
have been arrested in scores of violent confrontations between
government forces and Kurds, who make up close to 10 percent of the
population of Iran.
The Arab-populated provinces in Iran’s southwest have experienced a
large number of terrorist attacks in the last year, and in recent
months the government has arrested and killed scores of people in the
region. And for many years, the Baluch-populated regions bordering
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been a danger zone for Iran’s security
forces, more than 20 of whom were killed there last month.
While Tehran likes to portray itself as the champion of the world’s
downtrodden Muslims, it denies its mostly Muslim ethnic minorities
the most basic rights, such as the right to operate schools, and
enforces extreme limitations on newspapers and other media that use
languages other than Persian. The Special Representative of the UN
Commission on Human Rights has stated that “there can be no doubt
that the treatment of minorities in Iran does not meet the norms set
out in the Declaration on Minorities or in the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.”
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, cross-border ties between
ethnic minorities in Iran and post-Soviet neighboring states have
increased significantly. Much of this cooperation concerns trade,
education and science and takes place directly between provinces in
Iran and neighboring states, thus circumventing Tehran.
Representatives of Iran’s ethnic groups are also beginning to look
toward the United States and other countries.
Tehran discredits these movements by labeling them secessionist. Many
of Iran’s reformists view implementation of full democracy in the
state half- heartedly – they know that this will lead to demands to
grant full cultural and language rights to ethnic minorities, which
is a development that they prefer to avoid. But promotion of cultural
and language rights does not necessarily lead to secession and can
sometimes contribute to the stability of the state. In Iran, most
ethnic groups seeking expansion of their cultural rights view
themselves as Iranian citizens and seek to change Tehran’s policies,
not Iran’s borders.
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has blamed the United States
for instigating the Azerbaijani demonstrations, even though
Washington has not attempted to play the ethnic card to destabilize
Iran. No external force can create a grassroots demand for rights
unless people actually feel a sense of alienation and deprivation.
External factors do, however, have a role to play: Many members of
Iran’s ethnic minorities feel empowered by what they view as Tehran’s
increasing isolation and vulnerability because of the international
confrontation over the Iranian nuclear program.
Western policy makers should consider the response of ethnic
minorities when assessing regime stability in Iran. Policy toward
Iran should include strategies to deal with the political demands of
Iranian ethnic groups – demands that are only likely to grow.
Brenda Shaffer, research director at the Caspian Studies Project at
Harvard University, is the author of “Borders and Brethren: Iran and
the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity.”
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts Several northwestern cities in Iran have
recently been rocked by demonstrations and riots by ethnic
Azerbaijani citizens. They were protesting a cartoon published in an
official government newspaper that depicted the Azerbaijani minority
as a cockroach and instructed people to deny it food until it learns
to speak Persian.
Last Sunday, thousands of Iranian Azerbaijanis gathered outside
Parliament in Tehran to chant in their native Turkic language and
demand the rights to operate schools in their own language. As his
police forces heavy-handedly dispersed the demonstrators, Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised the loyalty of the
Azerbaijani citizens and thanked them for “supporting the Islamic
Revolution.”
The massive Azerbaijani response to the cartoon is the latest in a
string of ethnically based protests and violence that have occurred
in Iran this year, highlighting the country’s multiethnic nature,
which is little appreciated in the West. Fully half of Iran’s
population is non-Persian.
Western policy makers need to take into account the fact that ethnic
politics influences Iran’s foreign policy choices and will be a
factor in the current regime’s future stability.
Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Baluch are concentrated on
Iran’s peripheries, sharing ties with people in neighboring
Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The
presence of relatively large groups of ethnic minorities directly
across the border from ethnic majorities in neighboring states
significantly affects Tehran’s bilateral relations with its
neighbors.
Since ethnic Azerbaijanis make up a third of Iran’s population, for
example, Tehran is fearful that neighboring Azerbaijan could become a
source of irredentism for its own Azerbaijani population. It has
therefore supported Armenia in its war with Azerbaijan over the
disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh, even though Azerbaijan and
Iran are among the few states with a Shiite Muslim majority.
Encouraged by the gains of their ethnic fellows in neighboring
states, such as the Kurds and Turkmen who are playing a primary role
in the new Iraqi government’s political process, many of Iran’s
minorities have been demanding their rights recently.
In the last six months, at least 30 people have died and hundreds
have been arrested in scores of violent confrontations between
government forces and Kurds, who make up close to 10 percent of the
population of Iran.
The Arab-populated provinces in Iran’s southwest have experienced a
large number of terrorist attacks in the last year, and in recent
months the government has arrested and killed scores of people in the
region. And for many years, the Baluch-populated regions bordering
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been a danger zone for Iran’s security
forces, more than 20 of whom were killed there last month.
While Tehran likes to portray itself as the champion of the world’s
downtrodden Muslims, it denies its mostly Muslim ethnic minorities
the most basic rights, such as the right to operate schools, and
enforces extreme limitations on newspapers and other media that use
languages other than Persian. The Special Representative of the UN
Commission on Human Rights has stated that “there can be no doubt
that the treatment of minorities in Iran does not meet the norms set
out in the Declaration on Minorities or in the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.”
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, cross-border ties between
ethnic minorities in Iran and post-Soviet neighboring states have
increased significantly. Much of this cooperation concerns trade,
education and science and takes place directly between provinces in
Iran and neighboring states, thus circumventing Tehran.
Representatives of Iran’s ethnic groups are also beginning to look
toward the United States and other countries.
Tehran discredits these movements by labeling them secessionist. Many
of Iran’s reformists view implementation of full democracy in the
state half- heartedly – they know that this will lead to demands to
grant full cultural and language rights to ethnic minorities, which
is a development that they prefer to avoid. But promotion of cultural
and language rights does not necessarily lead to secession and can
sometimes contribute to the stability of the state. In Iran, most
ethnic groups seeking expansion of their cultural rights view
themselves as Iranian citizens and seek to change Tehran’s policies,
not Iran’s borders.
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has blamed the United States
for instigating the Azerbaijani demonstrations, even though
Washington has not attempted to play the ethnic card to destabilize
Iran. No external force can create a grassroots demand for rights
unless people actually feel a sense of alienation and deprivation.
External factors do, however, have a role to play: Many members of
Iran’s ethnic minorities feel empowered by what they view as Tehran’s
increasing isolation and vulnerability because of the international
confrontation over the Iranian nuclear program.
Western policy makers should consider the response of ethnic
minorities when assessing regime stability in Iran. Policy toward
Iran should include strategies to deal with the political demands of
Iranian ethnic groups – demands that are only likely to grow.
Brenda Shaffer, research director at the Caspian Studies Project at
Harvard University, is the author of “Borders and Brethren: Iran and
the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
