All against the Shah
Roger Stevens
The roots of the current unrest in Iran are complex and, by today's fashions, unusual.
Disorders due neither to the conflict of two religions (as in Northern Ireland or the Lebanon) nor to race, which are neither directed primarily against 'imperialism' nor inspired mainly by left-wing agitators, and which have nothing to do with the ArabIsraeli problem are, in the climate of the Seventies, not easy to grasp or to assess.
Relations between Church and State, between the religious hierarchy or ulema and the monarchy, provide the key to present happenings. Similar clashes have occurred at intervals in the past. They are explicable in terms of the peculiar position of Islam in Iran, for which there are three main reasons. First, Iran has a long and honourable tradition which stretches back to before the coming of Islam; for about twelve centuries Zoroastrianism was the state religion. Secondly, the Ashari Shi'a faith is a minority faith within Islam. It has been the national religion only since 1500: orthodox Sunnis and Sufi mystics have subsisted to provide a kind of irritant, if not a serious threat, to the official faith. Thirdly, throughout these last five hundred years there has been a constant struggle on the part of the ulema to maintain its somewhat insecure position in a monarchy which in the past has claimed to be the successor of the Prophet and which, particularly since the Twenties, has acquired many of the powerful trappings and attributes of the modern state. Historically speaking, the most effective — often the only — challenge to the absolute power of the monarchy has come from the ulema; they do not aspire to rule but claim the right to guide, and to ensure that monarchs conform, both personally and politically, to Islamic principles as interpreted by themselves.
Behind this formal facade there is a struggle for power or even survival. Strong Pahlavi governments have inevitably eroded the influence of the ulema. Reza Shah made a direct assault on their religious practices and banned the veil; after his departure, they regained some lost ground.
Under the present Shah, the process of erosion has been gradual and indirect, but more far-reaching. The literacy campaign, the growth of state education and the beginning of state social services have pared their educational and social role.
The Shah's claims for his 'white revolution' have created a kind of rival ideology: the ulema have seen pre-Islamic Iran extolled in the Cyrus celebrations of 1971 and in the new calendar; religious toler ance, especially towards the breakaway Baha'i sect, whom they do not recognise, has offended their principles; growing international contacts, prosperity based on oil wealth, rapid industrialisation and urbanisation — all have produced results which they can view only with dismay.
Both monarchy and ulema have long had a considerable hold on the people; neither institution should be underrated. The monarchy has much the longer tradition and perhaps deeper roots: today it has a positive policy, can claim significant material achievements, and is backed by all the paraphernalia of state, including an army which has been well cared for and has hitherto shown itself loyal. The appeal of the ulema to a people still deeply religious is primarily moral and emotional: it is not easy to discern their practical aims and their opposition) is fed by conflicting elements.
Today the opposition group closest to the ulema is that of the bazaar merchants, whose livelihood has been adversely affected by the government's economic policies. There are the constitutionalists who look back nostalgically to the days, before World War One, when democratic institutions, still nominally functioning today, were wrested from a decrepit and decaying dynasty. There are disaffected landowners still smarting under land reforms, and middle class intellectuals who feel deprived of opportunities to participate in, or even criticise the workings of, government. There are students and others who abhor both the principle and the style of an authoritarian state; and there are families whose sons or brothers have suffered at, or disappeared in, the hands of a ruthless internal security organisation.
There are some who feel that Iran's rapid economic development, especially in the last few years, has been mismanaged; there are others who dislike the inconvenience, the disturbance, and the lowering in the quality of life in some respects, which this development has brought in its train. But this does not add up to a coherent opposition; and none of these groups would be out on the streets by themselves, were it not for the impetus given to vocal demonstration by the ulema. Such demonstrations moreover are a recurrent phenomenon. While in general the Iranians are a gentlemannered, easy-going people who have often been described as submissive to authority, they are prone to periodic outbursts of mass emotion, collective violence and xenophobia which in the past have often died down as quickly as they have flared up.
Many outside observers, as well as many Iranians, have their particular grievances against the Shah, whose human imperfections have of late been more widely publicised outside Iran than his political achievements. There is a strong temptation to imagine that the present unrest is directed against one's own particular grievance and to think of the demonstrations in romantic terms, as a kind of crusade against corruption or mismanagement, against tyranny in general or the notorious SAVAK in particular. This is gross oversimplification; the whole truth is much more complicated.
It would be rash at this stage to predict the outcome of the present discontents. Their range is so wide that, if some were satisfied, others would be exacerbated. Thanks to his supreme position, the Shah personally is a natural focus for discontent: in some cases the only common ground between opposition groups is resentment against the Shah and his policies. But this does not extend in the same way to the Empress Farah, nor does it mean that the traditional respect and awe in which the institution of the monarchy is held have been dissipated. Moreover, in the past, the Shah has shown skill in emergency at summoning up and bringing into play those deep reserves of loyalty to the throne which go back to Cyrus. But the task of reconciliation, even if it can be achieved, will not be easy this time.
The interest of the West in the outcome of the conflict needs no emphasis. But it must also be said that, if so disparate and disunited an opposition — however justified some of its elements are in their protests — were to prevail, the substance of progress in material welfare achieved in recent years would be largely lost, while any moral or spiritual gain for the Iranian people might prove no more than a shadow.
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