A suicide bombing near the Iran-Pakistan border killed at least 31 Iranian nationals, including senior Revolutionary Guard commanders.
The guessing is that the bombing was carried out by Sunni minority tribes. Whoever the culprit, here’s the lesson to remember: Iran is not a nation-state. It was built as a multiethnic empire, and even today Persian speakers make up only about half the population. (51% is the conventional estimate.)
Iran is much more Shiite (over 80% at least) than it is Persian. But it’s an interesting question to what extent Iran’s distinctive Shiism should be understood as an expression of Persian nationalism. If so, that too might enflame the resentment of non-Persians against the regime.
Shiism identifies the early Arab caliphs as the most evil villains in history, the murderers of the family of the prophet Muhammad. It rejects the supreme authority of the early, Arab-speaking, schools of Islamic law in favor of reinterpretation by later generations, Arab and non-Arab alike.
Shiism incorporates pre-Islamic customs and folkways into religious practice.
And while Shiism came late to Iran (it was introduced by the Safavid monarchs – themselves ironically Turkish speakers, not Persian), it spread amongst the population only after it had entirely vanished from almost everywhere in the Arab world.
Bernard Lewis taught us not to be distracted by lines on the map: national identity was weak in the Islamic world, religious identity strong. It may prove a very urgent question: Are the Persians the exception to the rule? And might this Persian exceptionalism irritate non-Persians to such an extent as actually to prove a liability and danger to the Iranian regime?
8 responses so far
1 ottovbvs // Oct 18, 2009 at 10:33 am
David, Iran is not a homogenous nation state? Where do you get these delusions from.
2 MFarmer // Oct 18, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I am coming to believe that religious matters in the Middle East disguise the intentions of those in power. I believe that the leaders in the Middle East, especially in Iran, are intent on old-fashioned imperialism fueled by common motivations — economic expansion and power. There is, no doubt, religious differences among the people in the region, but the bottom line is that Iran has designs on controlling the region, and power trumps religious factionalism. Everyone is a flexible believer when a loaded gun is pointed at your head.
3 sinz54 // Oct 18, 2009 at 2:18 pm
ottovbs:
Iran is not a homogeneous nation state.
Persians comprise only about half the population.
The remainder are:
Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/countrytemplate_ir.html
4 SFTor1 // Oct 18, 2009 at 2:46 pm
How about the United States? Is that a homogenous nation State? The United Kingdom? France?
How about Sweden? Really? Look it up.
I think there is a fair amount of unconscious racism hidden in the proposition that Iran is not a homogenous nation-state, in other words, like us.
5 sinz54 // Oct 18, 2009 at 3:26 pm
sftor1:
NO ONE ever claimed that the U.S. was a homogeneous nation state. Every schoolchild learns that we are not.
The point David Frum was trying to make, was strategic: Perhaps the non-Persians will destabilize the Persian regime in Tehran someday.
I wouldn’t count on it.
6 logonaut // Oct 18, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Mr. Frum,
Good journalistic practice demands that you cite the sources of your information. Citing a “conventional” estimate is about as responsible as citing “conventional” wisdom. Even assuming you were citing, say, the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html), it appears you have confused figures for ethnic groups with figures for languages in the following statement: “Persian speakers make up only about half the population. (51% is the conventional estimate.) Iran is much more Shiite (over 80% at least) than it is Persian.”
According to the Library of Congress Federal Research Division (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf), 65 percent of the Iranian population is ethnically Persian and at least 90 percent of Iranians are Shia. Furthermore, “Persian, the official language, is spoken as a mother tongue by at least 65 percent of the population and as a second language by a large proportion of the remaining 35 percent.”
You have materially misstated the ethnic and language divides in Iran to support a thesis which is itself flawed. Iran is no less a nation-state than the United States. You argue that Iran is unstable because it has the kind of population diversity that makes the U.S. a much-celebrated melting pot of people of different races and backgrounds. One might just as well argue that the U.S. was built as a “multiethnic empire.” I am mystified why you focus on ethnic, linguistic and religious differences as a source of instability in Iran rather than on the ideological and socio-economic differences that are so much more potent as an internal threat to the continuation of the current regime. Iran’s ethnic, linguistic and religious differences are no more destabilizing there than those same types of differences are destabilizing here in the U.S., unless you worry about, say, a Latino, Catholic, Spanish-speaking minority mounting a velvet revolution.
7 joedee1969 // Oct 19, 2009 at 7:39 am
I don’t think we know enough about these people. Lets just try to solve our big problem at home.This president.
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/10/how-obama-lost-reelection-for-the-presidency/
8 balconesfault // Oct 19, 2009 at 10:47 am
Iran, predictably, is blaming the radicals on the US.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_bombing
On one hand, classic projection from a country that seeds insurgency/terrorist groups throughout the region.
On the other, a great example of why the US was very wise not to publicly support the election protestors last summer – open support for them by our President or Government would have been the card the Iranians needed to crack back even harder against the movement.
I think we need to view everything that’s happening in Iran right now the way a policeman would approach a domestic violence situation – husband might be beating his wife, but if the cop turns his back on the wife while handcuffing husby, he’s likely to get a frying pan to the head from behind.
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