[MUSIC] In this week's video, I'd like to talk to you about my own home country Iran, and the Shia international, it is called so, the Shia minorities outside of Iran with whom Iran keeps a particular relationship. One of the things that will strike any observer of Iran is the number of contrasts, of dualisms that exists and that are quite startling. The first probably is the startling contrast between old and new. It's at the same time a very, very old civilization, and a fairly new state, with a very young population. You have a dualism between ethnic and linguistic groups that are different, so you have the majority Iranians and lots of minorities. But notably there's no religious divide. They see the dualism between a weak state and abundant rentier income and the political and social ambitions that fuels, something that we had already just seen with respect to the Gulf countries. You see this dualism between civility and barbarity. The very old, very polite, very refined culture and language. And at the same time, an extremely brutal and extremely bloody recent past, both in the wars, but also in terms of domestic repression, both under the Shah and under the Islamic Republic. And also in the 19th century. So this dualism between civility and enormous barbarity is something that strikes the observer. And finally, there is an dualism between inspection and engagement between the self image and the self, let's call it, almost an obsession. That Iran with its own past, with its own development. At the same time, and its an attempt to isolate itself. And the same time its, its proselytizing nature, its attempt to engage with the world, particularly now in the years of the revolution, to export the revolution. So these dualisms, they all strike the observer, and it's something that we would like to explore, as this, this week unfolds. The first thing perhaps that is on the minds of certainly Iranians themselves but also of most observers from the outside is the very old state tradition that Iran has. Like many other countries in the developing south, Iran actually looks back to a very long and proud imperial past. Here we see a picture of Persepolis, the old imperial capital close to the city of Shiraz, which is remarkably well preserved as you can see here in the, some of the bas reliefs. And it's a past that is very much in the forefront of people's daily self image and daily memories. Here you see, for example, one of the, the winged phoenixes that exist in Persepolis and you can see it's the symbol of the national airline has been taken directly from there. it's, and this is not an isolated event. You see references to the imperial past almost daily. You see often shops that have names going, you know, Persepolis Takht-e Jamshid, showing the images of the imperial soldiers I just showed you. You see people wearing jewelry with this type of imagery. So it's something that is very much in the forefront of peoples' self image as Iranians. At the same time, Iran has a very proud history, also during the Islamic period. It contributed heavily to the, particularly the Abbasid caliphate, to the political development of the Islamic state, to the cultural development of a distinctly Islamic culture and that's another thing that's very much on the forefront of Iranians' self perception. It used to be much larger than present day Iran. Here we see an image of Bukhara in today Central Asia. Here is a picture of Samarkand. And this is a picture of Khiva. All of these cities have been long lost to initially, the Russian empire and the now independent republics. But if you go there people still speak Persian. It's the Persian culture is still very much in evidence and, and the, many of the local inhabitants still feel attached to Persian culture. And this connection again is very much prevalent among people in Iran. And let's not forget that Tajikistan is Persian speaking, and there are very close cultural links here. And so there is this image that Iran is larger than the boundaries of Iran, without necessarily having iridentist claims, but it's this notion that the cultural space of Iran is much larger than just the nation of modern day Iran. At the same time, and that's also very much present in people's daily self image, is the painful realization that all these territories, all this great imperial past has been lost in the course of the last 200, 250 years in a series of disastrous wars. Here we see, Iranian or Persian soldiers in the, one of the campaigns against the Ottomans. Here we see Russian soldiers in the wars against the Persian empire in the 19th century, and this is an Iranian image showing feebly modernized Iranian troops fighting the superior Russian troops in the War of 1828. And we come to these wars in the next video, so don't worry about them right now. The thing you should remember now is that all these military engagements were absolutely disastrous. Both in terms of territorial loss, but also in terms of the social impact they had on the nation. And it's something that is felt acutely among people. And here I'd like you to remember what we discussed in the very first video of this week when I quoted Sadiq Al-Azm who said that the Arabs felt betrayed by history. That in a moment of temporary weakness that grandeur was stolen from them in a sense. That in the, in the marrow of their bones that they feel entitled to something larger, to a bigger more active, a subjective role in history. Where as now, they've been reduced to be mere objects of decisions taken elsewhere. So remember that sentiment from the first week and realize that it's exactly the same sentence, even more acutely felt in Iran. And that might give you an indication to the enormous emphasis the Iranian government, even the Revolutionary Government, that we have today, places on respect, on being treated as an equal in International affairs. Something that is very much prevalent in the nuclear negotiations to which we come later in this week. So keep it in mind that the sense of inferiority stemming from these disastrous foreign engagements. The loss of a previously dominant historic position translates into almost a siege mentality today, and that explains some of the peculiarities if not pathologies of modern day Iran's engagement with the rest of the world. One of the other observations that every casual visitors immediately makes when they come to Iran is the sheer moderniernity of life. You go to, you arrive in Tehran, or to any of the other large cities, and you're struck by how Western life is. Here we see an image from close to where my apartment in Tehran is, and close to Vanak Square. And there are skyscrapers, there's a metro, there's urban life that is not very much different from anywhere else in the world. And all the modern concerns that people have in urban metropolises are very much occupying people's daily lives so it's. And that is something that most visitors, particularly given the coverage of the Islamic Republic, don't expect to find when they go to Iran. So we have a very young, very well educated population that is acutely interested and aware of developments in the west. It's very pro-western in the way they, live, the way their professional ambitions are. And they're very interested in western developments, something that is quite different from popular perceptions among young people in the Arab world, for example. Yet, at the same time every casual visitor will also be stuck by the pervasive propaganda that is always harking, but normally harking back to the disastrous Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 88. Here we have an image in a small village, close to my family's farm, where they show, it's a very small village, maybe 500 people who live there. And these are all the martyrs, the war dead that this one little village gave, so it gives you an indication of the impact this war has had on the population. And the importance given to that war for the, legitimacy, and the self-image of the Islamic Republic. And we see these imageries of martyrs everywhere. This is an image from Shiraz, for example, with a, showing the alliance between the martyrs and the clergy. And at the same time, we see here very aggressive attempts by the government to propagate its particular social vision, and its particular governmental structure, something that we will come in the later videos when we explain the particular governmental structure of the Islamic Republic. So we have this dualism between a very modern, western-oriented urban life and a governmental self-image or propaganda that is in direct opposition to the West. At the same time here, it's important to see that there is a strong sense of popular religious allegiance to the Shia clergy, which is independent from the official interpretation. Here, we see a merchant in the bazaar of Islam that I met. And you can see here, he has images of some of the major Ayatollahs from Iraq. You know, as you can, we can identify Tola Hakim and, and Khoei, I believe is also there to see. So these are people that are independent, physically located somewhere else from the official clergy in Iran, and this is openly displayed. So there is, it's the way religion plays out is not as straight forward as it's often imagined by the west. At the same time we have images like this here. This is Philistine Square in Tehran on the left, where you see an image of Israel as sort of, whose heart has been cut out and you see. I don't know whether you can see it on the image well, the two protesting Palestinian youth throwing stones. So, it's a direct reference to the Intifada. And then here, the next, you see the social self-perception in the Islamic Republic. It's an image from the local bazar in Rafsanjan, where I come from. But, so there's a deliberate attempt at social engineering by the government. Imposing social norms that are Islamic, that are Puritanical, that are stabilizing, but at the same time, we see these images. Here on this image, you can't see it very well, but it's, there are two neon signs saying, by the same law firm, saying on the one hand, marriage and on the other one divorce, see on the next image it's close by, it's close to Vanak Square in Tehran, where I have an apartment. You can see here it's, it's marriage and divorce. it's something that, you, those of you who study Islamic law will know divorce is not, it's not a particular problem in Islamic law, it's not, marriage is not a, a sacrimony like it is in the Christian tradition. But the way divorce is now treated in the modern urban society in Iran is not very different from the way it is handled in North America or in Western Europe. We have very high prevalences of divorces. Women working in the, in the economy being increasingly financially independent and making themselves felt. And here, on that front, we see this this dualism between the self image, particularly with respect to women. But the the continuation of major reforms that the Islamic revolution could not or did not want to turn back, for example the female vote. The other dualism that is striking is the extremely shallow nature of the Islamic state. Here we see an imageof clergy at the Court of Nasser Shah. And this is in the 18th century. And we see right up to the mid or early 20th century, that the Iranian state is extremely shallow. It's a very, very weak institutionalization, an extremely small resource base, with an extremely small impact on the lives of its citizens. And all this and this is very similar to what we discussed last week with respect to the Gulf, and all this changes dramatically. With the enormous impact of oil income, that starts to come in, in the late 60s and then really explodes in the 70s, which fuels this ambition of the state and a very aggressive social engineering by the monarchy that is directly contributing to the Islamic republic. And here it's important to also realize that the diversity and the ethnic composition of the Iranian people. You have the majority of Iranians are Persians, who speak Persian. But you have very large numbers of ethnic minorities but in the periphery you have Azeris, you have Kurds, you have Lurs, you have Baluch, you have Arabs, you have Turkmen, and small minorities of Christian and Jews as well. And, as you can see on these images, there are, many of these minorities still live nomadic lives as we see here, this is from the Qashqai tribe on their annual movements with the, the flock to the mountains and back. And this is a large part of the society that continues to live very traditional agriculturally based lives. And that is compared to the urban, while in a thought compared but this is simultaneous with a very urban lifestyle in Tehran. Here we see an image from Northern Tehran and another image here from Northern Tehran. So you have to, you have this contemporaneity of things that don't really fit together. They are from different historical developmental stages, people whose living conditions have not changed very much in the last several 100 years and then people who live not very different from people who live in New York or in London or in Paris. And remember that these minorities there are located on the periphery of the country. So there's always an inherent vulnerability toward secessionist movements, and that's something that explains some of the pathologies, or the obsessions with maintaining central control in Iran. We will come back to this issue later. The thing that I'd already referred to is the weak nature of the state. The weak institutionalization of the state and that is even compared to the Ottoman Empire, or to the Egyptian state that we had already discussed in the last few weeks. The Ottoman Empire for all its weaknesses, and the Egyptian state for all its weaknesses, were vastly more institutionalized and vastly more modernized, and vastly more part of the interrelated modern economy, than Iran ever was in the 18th and 19th century, right up to the early 20th century. And all this changes now when oil wealth allows the monarchy, Reza Shah and particularly his son, he is Mohammad Reza Shah, to engage into an almost megalomaniac attempt to reassert themselves on the national sphere.. on the International Arena. Something perhaps best symbolized in this ill-fated 2,500 years anniversary of the reign of Kourosh the Great, the old, you know, trying to create an artificial link to the old Iranian. Or imperial empire. And this a clear exam, here you see an image from the festivities that the Shah celebrating in 71 to mark this artificial anniversary. And this is a clear example of a usable past, the artificial creation of a historical narrative. That we discussed with respect to the Saudi state, and try to remember the Nietzsche's notion of a usable past. That is directly relevant here. And it's against these ostentatious, wasteful, Western emulating ways of spending that the Islamic Revolution happened. It was one of the strong forces that gave it it's coherence and power. And it's, as we will discuss in the fourth and fifth video this week, it's one of the explanations for the strong social justice element in the Islamic Revolution, and in the Constitutional text that came to define it, but we see now in recent years that this has changed. We see now it's a phenomenon not dissimilar to the Chinese princelings. Where now the second and third generation of people who did the revolution, who profited handsomely in the revolution, are now showing a very ostentatious display of wealth, not very dissimilar to the way the Shah and his cronies were showing their wealth. Here we see an image of the, the Porsche dealership in Iran. But we have similar dealership by all the other luxury brands. And I saw my last trip to Iran, there's now, there's no sense of let's call it shame, or hiding your wealth anymore, as was practiced for the first 20, 25 years of the revolution. And I leave it to your imagination what the impact of this very large and growing diversity in wealth will have on a society, that claims to be committed to social justice and Islamic modesty. Again, the forces that fuel these type of displays of wealth and uses of wealth are the same, that we discussed last week , with respect to the Gulf. It's the, the rentier nature of the economy that is heavily dependent on oil. Here you see the distribution of Iran's exports that are again, just as we discussed with the Gulf Countries overwhelmingly geared towards oil and oil products. And the very, very tiny non oil sector. And this rentier nature is contributing to the the type of crony capitalism, that we now see in the late years of the Islamic republic. And, which is not dissimilar to what we saw under the period of the Shah. And it also allows the government to engage into, let's call it international adventurism. So its support of other movements around the world. Here we see. Nashrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah which is heavily dependent on Iranian financial and logistical support. And that's something that is, that would not be easily doable for a country that actually has to raise the revenue domestically from its population. The government is aware of this problem. Here we see a wall image in Tehran that actually says that, taxes are the, not dissimilar to what the IRS and the United States says. That taxes are the price you have to pay for civility, and basically encouraging people to pay their taxes. And this image shows a similar slogan saying that the state is responsible for providing the wherewithals for a good life. We come back to these two images later on, but keep in mind that the state is aware of the need to enlarge its ability to tax, but it so far has not been very successful in doing this. But at least its awareness of the problem is much greater than we see in some of the other rentier economies. That's to be kept in mind. The other thing that the other contrast, that strikes the the observer, is the domination of the Iranian economy, both by the state, that is not dissimilar to what we saw in the Gulf countries. But also as a peculiar phenomenon of the Islamic Republic. It's about a third of the economy is dominated by the foundations that are connected to the government, but like this foundation on the left is the Martyrs Foundation that takes care of the war wounded and their families and on the right, we see an image of one of the, the Shahids, the martyrs, who are constantly celebrated. So a large part of the economy is in the hands of these foundations who are run and operated by members of the revolutionary class, the people who made the revolution or their descendants. And the thing for us to remember now is that this overwhelming control of the Bonyads creates very large structural inefficiencies in the economy. And that's something that overall in an economy that otherwise is committed to capitalism and private ownership creates certain problems. And creates large opportunities for graft and corruption. So that's to be kept in mind. The other thing is the way ultimately with respect to economic problems, the way major commitments of Islam and Islamic law to which the state is otherwise committed cannot be be carried through. Here we see an image which is not at all unusual in Iran. By a local bank, in my hometown of Rafsanjan, advertising an interest rate of 21% that they are willing to pay for people who put deposits into the bank. So, if you actually borrow money from the banks, your interest rate is even higher. And this is 21%. And that's in a country where interest is prohibited. Because, as those of you might know Islamic law generally prohibits the taking of interest, but interest is regularly charged and as you can see charged at very high levels, which is, what do we expect in a country that has a high inflation? But, the point I'm trying to make here is this discrepancy between the self image, the self avowed moment of commitment and the reality as is forced upon state and society by economic realities. finally, or almost finally, is the problem we saw in 2009. The legitimacy, or much of the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic that, for all its faults, was widely perceived to exist. And it was widely perceived to be a government committed to national autonomy, if nothing else. That was dramatically challenged in the 2009 opposition to the election, that was widely perceived to be fraudulent. And here, I may make the, I come full circle to the other Arab upheavals that happened two years later. Here in this image we see on the left the protesters in Tahrir Square and on the right protesters in the 2009 green movement in Tehran. And it's important to see, that in many respects, Egypt and Tunisia and some of the other Arab countries are going through a process that Iran went through 30 years ago, when it had its own Islamic revolution. And what we see now, is to some extent the problems of a fundamentalist model of government, having to come to grips with the realities of actual governance and the realities of having to deliver on the social justice, on the Islamic promises that they made. And so far they have not been able and, actually some would say, have been unwilling to deliver. And here my friend Payam Akhavan, Professor of international law in Canada. He comments it quite correctly if he says, and I'm quoting..And the irony is that I was in Egypt in Tahrir Square in 2011 and I talked to people in the streets and it seemed that Egypt was closer to where Iran was 30 years ago, rather than where Iran was in 2009. So Iran today is unlike other places in the Middle East. It is in a post utopian phase of consciousness. And that's the element I'd like you to remember. It's this disillusionment with the utopian promises of a revolution that was truly popular. And that in many respects has now run its course. And that is, in a country that is coming to grips with its reduced geographical and economic and social position in a world, and where we see strong tendencies of people trying to move on and accept this reality. And make a space in the world for the country that exists today. Not the country as you see on this map as it used to be with its larger influences abroad. And, how Iran handles its relationships with its neighbors. How Iran handles its cultural claims, and most importantly, how these internal contradictions between the self image of the revolution, and the perception by the people will handle out. That is what we will discuss in this week. And I invite you to come back for the next video in which we talk about the imperial and colonial history right up to the late 19th century, that explains and helps you understand hopefully a little bit of the background for the weak institutional base on which we then enter in the 20th century, which we will discuss in the third video. [MUSIC]
