(Ahwazi friends had made an Arabic translation of the Rooz interview which metransparent published on February 12. Follow link).
Wearing Ethnic Clothes Does not Fool Minorities
Nader Irani
Yusef Azizi Bani Taraf is an Iranian journalist with a membership in the Association of Iranian Journalists and he is also a scholar on Iranian minority ethnic groups. In a recent conversation with Rooz, he expressed his belief that because of the violent events of the last five years in the Arab, Baluch, Kurdish, Turki, and Turkmen, regions of the country the forthcoming presidential elections will be different. To win the trust of the residents of these regions, the candidates competing for the presidency must present programs that would recognize the minimum minority rights of the people. Read on for the details.
Rooz (R): How do you view the level of participation of ethnic minority groups for the forthcoming presidential elections in June 2009?
Yusef Azizi Bani Taraf (YABT): Because of the economic problems, crackdowns, and limitations placed on parties and groups engaged in political, cultural and civil activities in recent years, we are witnessing growing discontent that could have a negative impact on the June presidential elections. This discontent has separated ethnic groups, women, workers, students, and intellectuals from the government and created a gap between them. In some of the earlier elections, particularly in the last one (ninth presidential elections that brought Mahmud Ahmadinejad into the presidency) we saw a drop in voters by millions. This issue has even alarmed state officials. So because of the violent events of the last five years in the Arab, Baluch, Kurdish, Turki, and Turkmen, regions of the country conditions for participating in the forthcoming presidential elections have somehow taken a reddish color which is different from the days prior to 1997 when conditions were more optimistic. Furthermore, actions that create pressure, executions and arrests are currently under way in such provinces as Sistan and Baluchistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. It is true that in Azerbaijan there are no violent activities in progress, but arrests and imprisonment of ethnic activists is a reality. This is the colorful image of the ethnic groups on the eve of the next presidential elections.
R: Under what conditions will the residents of these regions participate in the next presidential elections?
YABT: I think the situation of non-Persian Iranian ethnic groups, which constitute more than half the population of the country, is no different from the prevailing condition of other Iranian citizens. This means that if the elections are held in accordance with international standards, and they are competitive and fair, the chances of participation will improve otherwise the events of one or two earlier elections will be repeated. For example during the elections for the seventh president, we saw that a large group of Arabs, Baluchis, Kurds, Turks and Turkmen participated in the elections because there was some competition between reform and conservative candidates. In Khuzestan province, about 95 percent of Arabs voted for Khatami. This lead to a better atmosphere for cultural and some political activities for the minorities, which were not institutionalized, and with the coming of right wing hardliners everything was lost. During the reform period the promises of implementing article 15 of the constitution were not fulfilled and non-Persian Iranians continue to call for the implementation of these provisions and the use of local ethnic languages in education in elementary schooling.
R: What promises can the candidates provide to attract the ethnic population to participate in the elections? In other words, what are the demands of the residents of these regions?
YABT: There is not doubt that the historic dreams of Iran’s ethnic groups go beyond the provisions of article 15 of the constitution and includes the basic ethnic-national rights to that of self-determination. So the groups that are seeking the presidency must put forward plans that recognize some minimum rights – i.e. the rights of the minorities – and depart from the previous history of indifference. This is because the gap between the these ethnic groups and political groups who in the past claimed to provide their legal rights have only widened. Today, all these groups demand the fulfillment of articles 15 and 19 of the constitution and on top of that is the right to be educated in their own ethnic languages at the elementary schools, along with the Persian language. Today there are thousands of Kurdish, Baluchi, Arab, Turkish and Turkmen prisoners in prisons (and it appears that they constitute the majority of prisoners in the country). Political groups must make the release of these prisoners their top most promise as a way to win the support of the non-Persian groups.
R: Since these ethnic groups reside on the periphery of the country what is the importance of attracting them to vote in the elections?
YABT: These ethnic groups are not located only in the periphery and in fact are scattered throughout the country. For example Turks do not reside only the Azerbaijan provinces but also live in the provinces of Qazvin, Tehran, Qom, Hamedan, Isfahan, Fars (Qashqai Turks), Gorgan and even Khorasan. The same is the case with Kurds and Arabs and the Baluch. So it is important to attract them to vote and bring them into the process. But this is difficult to accomplish because of the crackdowns and unfulfilled promises.
R: If ethnic groups are failed to be encouraged to participate in the elections and their calls are not respected, what problems will this create for the country as a whole?
YABT: Basically free and competitive elections are an important element of democracy for any country and so if non-Persian ethnic groups refrain or cannot participate in the forthcoming presidential elections, the process of democratization will suffer in Iran. If the calls of the ethnic groups are ignored then we will witness greater radicalization by the extremist ethnic groups. In fact this is what had happened in the past. The dominance of hardliners in Majlis during the last 2 legislative terms and the presidency by a hardliner led to the suppression of ethnic groups leading to extremist by them. I do not mean the peaceful demonstrations of Arabs in Khuzestan or the Kurds in Kurdistan or Azerbaijan. Disregard for the calls of the ethnic groups can threaten medium and long term prospects of the national unity causes.
R: Which candidate do you think can win the support of the ethnic groups?
YABT: Hardliners have shown during their five-year rule that they have absolutely no respect for the calls of the non-Persian ethnic groups and basically engage in suppressive policies. In these recent years they have closed political parties, civil and cultural institutions, the media of these ethnic groups and in general have blocked all the peaceful channels of these groups. Even those groups that operate within the constrains of the law are now wanted by law and sent to prison with very heavy sentences. History will eventually pass its judgment against the rightwing extremists. They cannot fool ethnic groups by allowing them to wear their local clothes in Ahwaz or Kurdish dresses in Kurdistan, etc, which is what the current president has been doing and may continue to do. Reformers from inside the ruling regime too did make some promises and improved the conditions for cultural and civil activities for non-Persian ethnic groups, but because they lacked minimum and maximum programs regarding the rights of ethnic groups and disregard for the legal rights and calls of these groups and inaction against the extremists - whether Islamists or Persians – they did not accomplish anything. They did not even implement the provisions of the constitution. So 30 years after the victory of the revolution, articles 15 and 19 of the constitution have still not been implemented.
Today there are two growing conflicting tendencies among ethnic groups in Iran. One of them is among the Persians who are looking back into their roots through their literature etc, and the other is among non-Persians who are manifesting their identity by reverting to their ethnic roots. The compass of the previous president mostly took him to the former group so that he strived to win their support and made promises in this regard which was not liked by the Arabs, Kurds and Azeris. He should have really considered the feelings of both groups. If Khatami continues his old perspective in this regard, I doubt if he will win the support of the ethnic groups. This is because the level of awareness amongst these groups has risen. Despite the candidacy of such reformist personalities as Moin and Karubi during the elections for the ninth president in 2005, it was Mehr Alizadeh who got the most votes in the Turki resident regions of North Western Iran. And this was because of only one thing: his insistence on the implementation of article 15 of the constitution, while of course being an Azeri himself did help him as well. The opposite is true too, where Ali Shamkhani who despite being of Arab origin, could not win the votes of Arabs in Khuzestan province against Mohammad Khatami because unlike Alizadeh he refrained even from calling for the implementation of article 15 of the constitution which is of central importance to ethnic groups. And so Arabs preferred the non-Arab Khatami to an Arab and cast very few votes for Shamkhani. We should also note that there were also some boycotts of the elections because of calls made by some Kurdish groups. These calls were made by the elite and political groups and one should not rule that out for the future.