Houchang Chehabi explained the dual society in Iran along modern/traditional segments of the society. Accordingly The modernisation of Reza Shah and his son transformed the old equilibrium in the Iranian polity and caused a division based on the lifestyle, employment status, education and ideologies, all of which have been the cause and the effect of the traditional/modern dual society.
At the height of the Shah’s rule in the 1970s, at the top of the modern segment were the entrepreneurs who maintained close contact with international capitalism and who were often closely connected with the Shah’s court; the upper echelons of the government apparatus; and the highest leadership of the army. The middle stratum consisted of government employees, professionals, academics. One cannot really talk about a “lower class” among the members of the modern segment, but teachers, and intellectuals who returned from Europe or America in the 1970s only to find that their salaries could hardly pay the rent of a small apartment, were an economically disadvantaged group, especially since their desired patterns of consumption reflected their membership in the modern segment. Perhaps one could also include in this segment the oil- workers of southern Iran, among whom the … At that time the leading traditional figures were the richest Bazaar merchants and some industrialists whose roots were in the Bazaar. Below these were other tradesmen and lesser members of the Bazaar community. The lowest traditional social groups included peasants as well as urban workers, many of whom worked in the modern sector of the economy while retaining their traditional outlook. What integrated the various classes, rich and poor, was the clergy, another key element in the traditional segment.164
While the land reform of 1960s forced the big landowners to vanish as an influential class, the events that took place after the revaluation transformed the class structure and the cleavages in the Iranian society. For instance, if we look at the historical role of the Bazaaries in the Iranian society and polity and compare it with the current rule, we can safely conclude that this strata has lost its historical significance within the dynamism of power in the Iranian polity and society. If we take the Bazaaries in the crucial events of the last 150 years in Iran such as the tobacco strike, the constitutional revolution, the premiership of Mosaddegh, the 15th of Khordad revolt and finally the revolution of 1979, and then we compare it with the Bazaaries in today’s Iran we arrive at the striking conclusion that the role of Bazaaries as a pioneering strata capable of changing the course of history has come to an end.
164 Houchange Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah
In what follows I will explain how this happened, but more important than the reasons for this rearranging of the role of Bazaaries is the fact that Iranian society as a developing world society is fast changing. In order to be capable of constituting a functioning political party in Iran one must understand the new developments of the cleavage variations in Iran.
Most Bazaaries were very religious and their religious endowments constituted a major contribution to the cause of the revolution. In the 1970s, the shah was extremely unpopular among most Bazaaries. The introduction of modern chain retailers that were stealing the Bazaaries’ market and livelihood, and the frequent interference in the Bazaar’s way of commerce by sending young student inspectors to report hoarders and profiteers are two examples of the shah’s irresponsible actions toward the Bazaar. The Shah’s modernist policies and his little regard for the traditional and Islamic background of the Bazaar only worsened his already difficult relationship with the Bazaaries, who still remembered his aggressive reaction to the Bazaar protest against the white revolution and the arrest of Ayatollah Khomeini.165
According to Moaddel, “On the eve of the revolution, despite its relative decline under the late shah, the Bazaar controlled a third of imports and two-thirds of retail trade”.166However, after the
revolution the Islamic left started pushing for policies aimed at limiting the Bazaar and strengthening state supervision over all economic activity in the country. According to the Islamic republic’s constitution, the government became in control of all banks, major industries and mines, in addition to foreign commerce and import/export businesses, leaving only a small share of the market for the private sector.
However, these significant transformations of the economic policies in the new revolutionary state could not singly break the Bazaar and the Bazaaries. The Bazaar was not only a marketplace, but also a traditional institution that benefited from a high level of social capital and could easily mobilise grievances and aggregate demands. The Bazaar was not a mere guild that could mobilise only its own members; it was a public space that granted the Bazaari notables an easy daily access to large segments of the Iranian society. In addition to the Ulama, whose livelihood depended on the Bazaar, and the craft and crop producers who depended on the Bazaar for retailing and distribution to the customers who came regularly to the Bazaar for their usual shopping and socialisation, all were somehow situated in the Bazaar’s web of networking and all contributed to the increase of the surplus of social capital in the Bazaar.
165
Arang Keshavarzaian, Bazaar and State in Iran, Cambridge, Cambridge University, 2007.
166 Mansoor Moaddel, “Class Struggle in Post Revolutionary Iran”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.
To sum up, in 1979 and 1980, despite the hostile attitude of the Maktabi’s of IRP against the Bazaar, the Bazaar had still retained some power. The Bazaar at the beginning of the realm of Khomeini was by no means a homogenous religiously conservative institution. It is true that some Bazaaries joined the Motalefeh to prove their loyalty to the IRP, but President Banisadr, the Freedom Movement and the National Front also had their own supporters in the Bazaar. For example, Khomeini declared that strikes in the Bazaar were un-Islamic during Banisadr.167
However, after the ousting of Banisadr and the execution of two of the pro-Banisadr’s Bazaar notables, Dasmalci and Javaherian, the bulk of Bazaar has become depoliticised while a minority that was following the Motalefeh remained politically active. Avoiding politics and being consumed by profit-making and brokerage became the characteristic of most of Bazaaries. Since the ousting of Banisadr, the Bazaaries lost their weight as a significant heterogenic politicised strata in the Iranian society and have since failed to regain their position.168
Nowadays, more than 60 percent of the Iranian economy is controlled by the government, and 10- 15 percent by the bonyads.169 Subsequently only 25-30 percent of the economy is left for the private sector. It is true that elements of Motalefeh have been controlling the disinherited bonyad and Iran’s chamber of commerce. However, this could hardly be counted as a proof of the Bazaar’s strength since these elements have distanced themselves from the traditional Bazaar and look more like modern capitalists. The fact is that both the economic and political power of the Bazaar has reduced dramatically in recent years.
The Bazaaries now don’t have the same status they enjoyed at the eve of the revolution. The cleavage map in Iran has changed dramatically since the revolution of 1979 and is still fast evolving. However, the diminishing role of the Bazaar in the Iranian polity is only one example of the changing society.
167
Keshavarzian, Bazaar and State in Iran, pp. 254.
168 Keshavarzian, Bazaar and State in Iran, pp. 254-255. 169 The Economist, Saturday, 18 January 2003, p. 11.
According to Mattei Dogan, the Lipset and Rokans’ theory of “frozen cleavage”170
is not valid for today’s democracies. He argues that the cleavage map of these societies has changed several times since WW2 and in many democracies religion and ethnicity became a more decisive factor in voters alignment than class and other horizontal cleavages.
Contemporary pluralist democracies are complex societies characterized by many cleavages. Their equilibrium is founded on the criss-crossing of economic, social, religious and cultural cleavages. There are two types of cleavages. Vertical cleavages divide society according to cultural criteria, such as religion, language, ethnicity and social memory. Horizontal cleavages relate to economic and social layers, such as social class, income, level of education, urban or rural environment, type of job, etc.171