Street Politics

STREET POLITICS

STREET POLITICS Poor People's Movements in Iran

Asef Bayat

( :olurnhia lJnivcr. I

.

Tahriz (

.,.,~)

l..o1kdan

Zoorabad' IK.tradt

1197111

19791

(,,6

H.o

.\.1.1

41.1

4}.0

I<J.O

14·4

10.0

19.0

11.0

~.II

111.9

,...

11.0

JO.O

9.0

7-9

1y.o

J.S

100.0

100.0

6.0 100.0

100.0

6.1

Low·status ~mplnyrr

Fanner Crafnmen Tural

"·'

11.6

10.0

1.1 100.0

100.0

.'inurc·c>: Thr Iranian Crnlrr for Urban and Archit«'tural Studirs, Hashryrrti$b;,., d.lr Ira.., R~pm on rflaw 4· vol. 1, p. &6. 'llrduad from ..:.nrrrd data from tM umr r~pon.

such as begging. drug-dealing, and prostitution constitutN no more than a smalJ fra~tion of their activities. 11 For instance, a 1971 study of Tehran's several squatter settlements showed that over So percent of squatters were involved in unskilled or semiskilled jobs, induding construction. street vending. and low-paid government employment. They remained jobless on average between three to five monrhs of the year. while working hours brought to each household (with an averagt' number of 4.6 members) only Rls 4460 (about sixty dollars) a month. 14 Other surveys in the 1cnos confirmN the very high job insecuriry among the squatter poor. Slum dwellers seemed to have hight'r incomes and job !it'Curiry. 11 They werr also les..o; distant, geographically and socially. from mainstream urban life and were descended from oldt'r migrant generations. Many of them had b«n hom in the cities. These variations notwithstanding. by the late 1970s one could observe a sizable marginali~rd urban underclass, identified hy their geographical, social, and to a large extent economic exclusion from the formal mainstream urban life. While tht' bulk of the nt'w poor prrft'rrt'd the existing conditions of their life to their pan, ... vulnerability in everyday life remained the salirnt frarure of tht'ir collective rxisrencr-in St'Curing a placr to live and a subsistenct' job, in debt payment and in

maintaining their dignity (ablrou). The identity of this underdass was very much tied to their place of rt"Sidence. They evolved into a fairly distinct social entity-an identity articulated both by themselves and others. Slum dwellers carried their identities in the public discourse, not as much with reference to their poverty or work conditions as to their communities, which in the meantime connoted their particular social and economic conditions. Thus Na:.iabadi ur Mardum-1 jaa,adiyeh descri~d the social identity of the slum dwellers in Naziabad and Javadieh. On the othrr hand, squatters saw themselves and were chieOy viewed as z.aghehnishinan or aluunaknlshinan (literally senler!\ of shacks and shanties) with some regarding them as belonging to a "fourth class."'' The official language, however, generally referred to them as the mardum-i hashiyenishin, rC'!\idents of ciry margins. Others looked at the new poor through the eyes of denigration, pity, and poetry. The middle-dass use of demeaning words--amaleh and hammal-stressrd the urban pour's degraded status. Amaleh genrrally means "unskilled cunstru~1ion laborer" -im:identally the major occupation among the underdass. Yet its derogatory use presented the pour as a caste, making them conscious of their particular position in relation to others: "My daughter tells me" stated a squatter, When I go to school through this long and muddy road, my doths grt all dirty, and I really grt embarrat.K'd among my classmates. And the women uf thi• neighborhood are now Jingled out (m4'ruuf). When they go •hopping m other area., prople louk at them with disdain. Their apprarance •how• that they arr pour l{aqir). ••

In addition, the amage of the new poor has enterrd the movies, 1V programs, and critacalliterarure. Khosrow Golesorkhi's moving recitation, during his court trial, of his poem .. Under tM javadiyeh Bridge" expressed a sense of both pity and piety. •• Short stories by Samad Behrangui..' and Gholam Hussein Sa'cdi 41 focused chiefly on the misery of the underclass and their wretched life. Anomie and rootlessness among urban migranrs was a principal theme in Jalal Ale-ahmad's social criticisms.•: And Sa'edi's "Garbage Place" (Ashghaldouni), which became the movie Dayne-ye Mina, dralt with the social psychology of thr lumpm proletariat whosr lifr, according to Ali Akbar Akbari, did nut differ much from that of the "poor prtty-bourgroisir .. or the urban underdass.•• So in this prriod, althouKh thr nrw poor

became a parr of the public imagination, the image remained one of powerlessness. lr was not until after the Islamic Revolution that the poor were granted an element of agency, when the term mustaz'a(in began to dominate the public language. The following chapter discusses in detail the complexiry of this agency over the course of the Iranian Revolution.

Three The Disfranchised an4 the Islamic ~eTolutiona •Our ~eTolution an4 Theirs" This mommtnu~ J~lam11: RrvnlutJnn 15 m.XbtC"d tn thr dfons of this da-thr d.an of thr .Xprivrd, thr dan nf rhr guu.oJ,usbJII, thr sh.anty dwdkn, thr dan th;u j,ro~ht about rhr viL"tory of rhr l't'Vnlurion, and yrr did nM rl(p«t any rrward. -Ayatollah KhoriK"IIIi, 111 a lJiftCh tn a group of JCOWd Ktrlrn of ~ourh TC"hran' !iwnr to t'llinK labou luM1ked and orgamu against extt'rnal threats of eviction. In the occupied hotels the sburas assigned rooms to .. needy students" who came largely from the provincial towns. Normally t'ach room was given to two or mort' studt'nts ... for instanct', I used to livt' with my part'nts in Tehran," describt'd a studt'nt squattt'r, .. but I shared a room with a friend in the hotd." •• In lint' with tht'ir ideological commitment, rhe students oftrn took organizational work very seriously. Tht'y held largdy free and comperitivt' elt"Ctions for the sbura!i., and formed various ext'Cutive committees ro o~ratt' rhe daily livt's of the residt'nts. In

the Hotel Royal Garden they formed Committrcs to dral with residence, tranr.portation, cooperation with the employee!>, and ddensc. 1" '"The students, hoth boys and girls, mamtamrd order and di!M:iplinc, prote~-ring che Hmel by a cwenry-four·hour petrol of the hu1lding. "!" Most squatters came from poor migrant families who either could nut afford to pay rent or were living in tenu and shacks in other parts of the cines. In Dowlatabad the newwmers came from varioui poor communities of South Tehran, induding the almmaks (shackli) of Tehranpars, Tehranvila, Darvazehghar, Naz1abad, and M;udan-1 Sou!iih ... We used to live in a damp basement," !>aid a wumen squatter in Dowlat Abad, "I get terrified thmkmg that we m1ghr still be forced to return to that place. " 11 Residents in the squatters' l>ettlemenrs of Halab!iohahr in District l. in Tehran se1zrd the opportunity to upgrade thrir posmon, moving m to empty apartments and houses l<x:ated m Mahalle-ye ~raJ.lJ Not all the squatters came from poor backgrounds; nor were all desperately !itrlvmg fur a place to live. ~me relatively affluent developers and local bullies (/aat) also furthered their own interests. A revolutionary committee mnnber daii11C'd that wme of the squatters had already .. owned a home." They simply sold thelt' to others to make money.~' ~me uf them, he reponed, had esuped from pnsons during the revolutionary chao!io; they were now involved in gambling and drug dealing. !• Corruption at the level of the offic1als chemsclve!li also played a role. The Pasdaran Comm1tten, who were- in charge- of controllmg the ncighbnrh,xlds and were later to ass1gn expropriated apartments to the homele~. actually gave a number of homes away to their own relam·c-s, fnends, and "ideulugically correct" familie!io. 1 ' The mass of student squatters war. mostly from the provmc1al town!>; rhe1r complamcs about the1r accommodation problems m the rent-noturiUU!Io capnal city dared back tn many yearli before the revolution. Yet the logtc behind their mobih7..atlon had le~ to do with an immediate need for hou!>mg and mure w1th a desire ru nrgatr the opulence that they adm1red m private but turned againsr because rhey could hardly afford tn be part uf 1t. Fur leftists, a!> one leader pur it, .. the <Xcupauun of the hotel!!. wh1~h belonged to the large capitalisrs wa-. in a~cordam:c: with our political and 1dcolog1cal hnes. " 2• These radical mcasurn; al!ifl tit well wirh the strategy of the hardline l•lamic leade-rs uf putung pre~ure nn the moderate Prov1sional llovernment uf Mehdi Bazargan. The largely poliucal motive tas opposed to !>heer

need) of the students in taking over propenies was later reflected in their early eviction by the authorities. l.ife in the Occupied Dwellings Unlike the students. the poor began to cons.olidate their positions in the occupied residential blocks. Squatting fur them represented a lungawaited objective they could not afford to lose. Once they mov~ in, they began completing the unfinished apartments, putting up win· dows, glasses, and tiles. In Dowlatabad, each household spent some Rls .z.o,ooo ~U.S.S.z.8o at 1979 ex..:hange rate) to install doors and windows. The squatters divided the apanments, e;,~..:h famrly occupying a smgle room, and brought their chickens, goats and even their ..:ows into the settlements. r Within the na:upied huildmgs, the left-wing activists organized lit· erary and language dasses, held political and ideological meetmgs, and taught so..:ial skills to the youngsters. !N Upon squattmg, some men began opening thcrr busmessrs m the same neighborhoods, whether in the apanments, by the door, or in the street. Street butcher shop!!> were opened, poor grocery shops staned to operate, and the unemploy~ looked for JObs on ..:unstru..:tion sites. Yet most men mamtained their previous occupations, which required them to commute longer hours. Like their fathers, ..:hildren, too, had to cummute long hours to a trend thear previous schools. The problems of the squatters who had resided in the affluent pans of nonh Tehran :s«med even greater. They had to shop in the storrs of the affluent. Class tension remained another problem. In their gestures, Jokes, and day-to· day intera..:taons, the nch expensed their distaste over bcmg neighbors with the dispossessed mrgrant poor. !• None of these shurtcummgs, however, reduced the anraction of being the master of one's own dwelling. Thus the higgest challenge remained to protect the\t" homes from the fnr..:es of eviction. To thas end. some families made sure that a member of family stayed at home during the day. Some men who stayed behind tu prntL"Ct thear dwellings from the ev...:tron forces lust their Jobs, su It was mamly women who undertook the task of dealmg wath the authonties and defending the dwdlmg!l>. Maantaming the dwelhngs, however, required an nrganazed rl'sistance. Like the studrnts, thr poor \quarters in a numbrr of 'ommumurs wrnr as far as to ..:nnsritute mort' stru..:tured orgamzations: the shurar.,

electrd or appointed councals, reprrsrnred and organized mhahirants of a building, or many occupied blocks within a neighborhood. The shuras bore the responsibility of tackling rrnblem!'l that m1ghr irorar· dtzr the inhabitants security of tenure. Thry werr to upgrade the community, deal with day-to-day problems, maintain cleanliness, rrsolvr disputes, and administer cultural events. Morr immrdiatrly, they were to coordinate the relations of the communities with the outside world, indudmg hosrile neighbors and especially the original ownt'rs of the propt"rtirs."' Several local power centers had emerged, each claiming sole authority over rhe affairs of the neighborhoods, and all, by implication, were hostile to the organization of thr shuras. They ranged from the local Pasdaran Kommirre, tht' drrgymc:n, and thr local mosques rn thr office of tht' Construction Crusade and the local municirality. To countt'r the rhrc:ars and intrigues coming from these bodies, the organization of councils sc:emed vital. In a southwc:!ltrrn outskirt of Tehran, according to Bassri and Hourcadr, rhr four hundrt'd familit's that had rakrn ovt'r rhrrr hun· drrd and right apartments elrctt'd a lrfr-wing council in which women played an activr role. Thr hou~holds of t'ach "trrrt (lwuch~hl rlectrd thrrr rt'prrsrnrarivt's all togrrhrr, making a twrnty-onr-prrson grnrral assembly. Thr general assembly. in rum, rlrcrrd a five-membrr central council, which was to meet oncr a wrrk and was rt'sronsiblr for the decisions concerning thr rnrirr neighborhood. Once consolidated, thr council wc:nt so far as to create a coordinating council to organize all squatters at the lrvrl of the city of Tehran. It organized rallit's and callrd fnr a rent strike by poor tenants." In a srn!IC', the shura associations arrested to the "spatial solidarity .. among the inhahitann who camt' from different social, ethnic. and linguistic backgrounds but sharc:d nne imronant goal: protecting and upgrading the alrt'ady <x:cupit'd homes. 11 Our of this common interest and mechamcal solidarity, basrd uron what John E. Davis trrmrd domt'stic rroreny (land and buildings that art' u!it'd lor usable! for shelter), 11 grrw friendship and kinshir ties that further cemented thr local bond. Young adults within thr communitirs married; neighbon lookrd after each orher', children and watched onr another's hrlong· ings; and childrt'n playrd wnh tht'ir nt'W mates. INspire thts rejuvenated mood and the highly energt'tic local atmosphere, the sp«ter of the hrardt'd Pasdaran and the nightmare of eviction krpt haunting these housing rebrls. Knowingly or unknowingly,

rhey had violared a fundamental propeny righr rhar all the governmenrs in rhe posrrevolurion period were c.:ommirted to prorect. The confrontation between rhe squarters and the authorities rhus seemed unavoidable.

BrinR Evicted The 1-.:cupation nf residential buildings, homes, and hntds constituted one of rhe first challenges ro rhe new authorities m the re\•olutionary period. There had been other im:idenrs that defied the Islamic regime, such as nationalist rebellion!> in Kurdistan and Azarbaijan, the activities of the left-wing organizations, seizure nf farming land in the nunh, and the takeover of factones by the workers in must parts of tM country. Housing seizure!o, however, proved ro be a more acute crisis. In direct a~:tions such as factory takeovers, the government was confident rhat n could evenrually secure the ownership uf the enterprisn.'" These enterpnses would eventually belong either to the state or to the original owners; the most workers could do would he ro mamtain some degre-e of control uvcr the operation of the workplaces through the organizations of the fa'-·rory shuras. The situation with regard to the buildings was quite different. With a simple hinr of governmental r«ognition, the squarters would vinually usurp the occupied properties. There was no easy, short-term, and middle-of-the-road solution, especially since many unllmshed apanments, unlike the luxury villas and hotels, belonged legally to mdividuals such as 'iehoul teachers and the government employees for whom the previous regime had built homes as pan of their benefits. The new authorine\ were consequently caught up betwcoen rhreats of disorder and chaos, of losing their legitimacy as the .. servant!> of the d1spO!osessed," and of being irrelevant. On the other hand, the instability of the Islamic regime, with the intense power struggle ar the rop and the constant turnover of politicians, meant then~ was hardly a consistent policy to deal w1th the prublem. The Housmg foundauun along with a number of radkal derical leaden such as Khusruwshah&, Karrubi, and Beheshti, encouraged takeovers; the provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan opposed the action vehemently; the suhse~uent Rajaaii's cabmer tolerated it without, however, giving ir official recognition. Indeed, the authorities' response ru the squatting crisi~ during the firsr two years remained largely d«entralized; If wa~ handled mainly by the local power ernten, t>spec1ally tht> loul commirtcoes nr Pasdaran, and the local mullas

and their armed men centered in the local mosques. The committees' po!iition on the i~sue depended on which authorities they were following-sympathetic or critical. The radical clergy's sympathy for the squatters had in general the political aim of undermining the Provisional Government. Yet, since the squatters were mobilized generally by the radical left groups, the Pasdaran were quick to oppose the squatten on the ground that they were acting as the agents of the .. communist counterrevolution ... The success of the local Pasdaran in ending the occupation, and the extent of the !>qUarters' hold over rhe occupied properties depended on a balance of forces at both national ami lucallevrls. The power struggle at the top (between the li~rals and the radical drrgy) offered br~thing space to the ordinary citiz.rns in thrir mobilizatinnal dforts. This macro ~hism reflected itself at the localities, with groups allying with this or that govemmrntal tendrnq or personality. But thrre werr othrr playen on rhe local Jrvrl as wdl: rhr squartrrs, thrir lrftisr allirs, the local Pasdaran, local mosqurs and mulla!!o, and rhe owners of the occupied homes. In short, thr d~ree of the squatters' hold ovrr thr occupird proprrties varied a great deal. lr deprnded on how organizttd thry werr, how forceful the original ownrrs were, who the owners wrre (rithrr rhr old rlirr-s or ordinary prople), and which officials thr squatters resortrd to (sympathizttrs or opponents). This may explain why snmr squatters managed tu stay on; others lasted nvrr six years; and some, likr th~ in the occupied hotels, wrre rvicted aftrr a few w«ks. The ways in which the government and the Pa!idaran confronted the housing rrhrl-. varied considerably. They adopted different tactics that ranged from issuing strongly worded warnings, using religious verdk'ts publicly denouncing thC' .. un-lslamic" naturr of their actions, to divide-and-rule tacticr,, cutting water and electricity, arrests, and armed raids. Some, mainl)· srudrnts, lrft without much rrsistancr; others did su after nbtainmg compensation or a promise of alternative housing; many resisted and stayed on, though \ome agreed to pay some compensation to the government. Studrnrs were among the first ro vacate the hotels, largely nf their own frre will. lmmediatdy after thr seizure of the U.S. embassy by the militant muslim uudents (on Novrmhrr 4, 1979) many hotels were evacuated. Even prior to that event, ideological division within the organizing student bodies in the hotel!> had already underminrd the

viahiliry of long-t~rm occupation. Th~ students sympathizing with the Mujah~din argu~d for peacdul ~vacuation; th~y thought thes~ kinds of dir~ct actions would und~rmine th~ nasc~nt rrvolutionary r~im~·s position with th~ West. The Marxist students, m contrast, wanted to stay unl~s\ the government did something for th~ir housing conditions. In many hot~ls this division paralyzed the protective function of the shuras. 11 With th~ seizur~ of thro U.S. embassy, as a left-wing panicipant in one operation put it, '"the justification behind thro occupations lost its validity." In this situation, the "excuse of student housintt )for the occupation of the hotels) also shed its legitima'-""Y· ..... Although a number of the students retained some hotels (for instance, those in Takht-i Tawous and Karim Khan in Trohran) because the own~n ~re tawghoutres (opulent royalists), the politicaVid~ological logic of stud~nr squatting made- their occupation far less v1able-. The Situation with rhe poor squatters was quite diffe-rent. For them. squatting was not a political or ide-ological hattie hut simply a way to survive. (~fending their gains was VItal. And this alone would make their eviction difficult. As a squatter state-d: frnm

rh~ ~RJnmng.

I have !i;u:rafK-rd all uf my rhmgs on th1s revuluuun .

. . . I hav~ wid my urpc-r and TV lru pay for my cosbJ. Nnw I won't leav~ thl\ humr. Ynu ~C"C, w~ roo h;n~ rh~ nght to hve a hfe. II want ro tolthn!iC whn want us to leave thu, place: finr gn·e U5 a piau~ of our own.''

!iii)'

The squatters were mvariably denounc~d in public hy some religious authorities as .. counterrevolutionaries... "They are opponunists who hav~ taken advantage of the good will of the revolutinnary l~ad­ ership and th~ Provisional Government, .. declared Hojjat al-lslam Khansari, the leader of the committtt locat~d in Nizamabad. "They have ill~ally se1zed thnr apanmrnts, in the days when our combatant people wrr~ engaged in armed struggle )during the revolution)."'• for rh~ most pan, the religious authorities condromnrd th~ squatters and justified their eviction on reli~ous grounds. Upper echelon d~rgy, •uch as Ayatollahs Qomi and Mar'ashi, 1ssued fitu.1as ruhng that occupying homes was haram, unlslamic. In one specific case in Mashad. they ruled that the '"prayer of the Muslims in such hom~s are nor acceptable ... ,~ In rt'Sponse, squatters referft"d to earlier proclamations hy Khomcini on free housing and urban services. '"Dues the government not plan to provid~ housing for the mustaz'afi,?" asked a squat· ter of the authurttic-s who de-manded his eviction, "Wro have behaved

and thcar armN men centerN in the local mosques. The committ«s' position on the issue deprnded on which authorities they were followmg-sympatheric or criracal. The radical dcrgy's sympathy for the squatters had in gencnl the political aim of undermining the Provisional Government. Yet, since the squatters were mobilized generally by the radtcallrft groups, the Pawiaran were quick to oppose the squatters on the ground that they were acting as the agents of the .. communist counterrrvolution." The success of the local Pasdaran an ending the occupation, and the extent of the squatters' hold over the occupied proprrtirs deprnded on a balance of forces at both national and local levels. The power !itruggle at the top (~tween the liberals and the radical dergy) offered hreathing space to the ordinary citizens in their mnbililational efforts. Thas macro Khi!llm reflected if!lltlf at the localities, with groups allying with this or that governmental tendency or personality. But thcrc were other players on the lnc.-llrvel as well: the squarrers, thcir leftist allies, the lgime's position with the We'it. The Marxist students, m contrast, wanred to stay unless thr government did something for their housing conditions. In many hotels this division paralyud the protective function of the shuras. 11 With the seizure of the U.S. embassy, as a left-wing participant in one oprrarion put it, .. the justification hrhind the occupations lost its valid1ty... In this situation, the "excuse of studenr housing Ifor the occupation of the hotels I also shed its lrgirimacy. •leo Although a number of the students retained some hotels (for instance. those in Takht-i Tawous and Karim Khan in Tehran) ~ause the owners were tau•ghnut1es (opulent royalists), the poliricaVideological logic of student squatting made their occupation far less viable. The snuation w1th the poor squatter'i was quirr diffrf'C'nt. For them, "JUatting was nor a pnhtical or idrological battle hut simply a way to survive". Defending thrir gains was vital. And this alone would make thrir evu.:t1on difficult. As a squattrr stated: Frum the beginmng, I have ..a~nti~C'd allni my thmgs nn rhu. rC'voluuun . . . . I havr !>Old m)· ~.upt"r and TV lrn pa)' ior my .:mrs). Now I won'r lca\'e rh•'~ home. You sec, we IIKI have rhe nghr ro hvc a life. II wanr ro !kl)' roJ those whn want us rn lravc th1s pla,C': fint ~1vc U!ll a pla~C' nf uur ,. nwn.

The squatters wrrC' invariably denouncC'd in public by o;ome religious authorities as "counrerrevolut1onaraes." '"They are upportumsts who have takC'n advantage of the good will of the revolutionary IC'adership and the Provisional Government, .. declared Hojjat al-lslam Khansari, the leadC'r of the commtntt located m N1zamahad ... They have iJIC"gally seizt'd these apanments, in the days when our combatant people were engaged in armrd struggle !during the revolution!."'" Fur the most pan, the religious authorities condemned thr squatten and justified their C'Viction nn rrhgtous grounds. Upper C'ChC'Ion dergy. such a!"> Ayatollahs Qomi and Mar'ashi. 1ssued (itu•as ruling that occupying homes was haram, unlslam1c. In one specific casr in Mashad, thC'y ruled that the "prayer of the Muslims in such homes are nut at.·,:eptable. " 1• In rC'sponSC', squatters f'C'ferred tn C"arhC'r proclamations by Khomem1 on free housing and urban srrvtees... Does the government not plan to provide housing for the mustaz'a(in? .. askt'd a squatter of the authorities who demandC'd his eviction, .. We have behaved

exactly according to the government poliq..... , The1r resistance rhus grew nor simply from the moral «onomy of the poor, nor purely from their rauonal conviction. Rather. it repre~nred a moral politics on the pan of the rational poor. Ignoring such verdicts or antervcmtions, the squatters lrft the authonties with no other option but to take a'--r1on that at nmes had far-reachmg politiul consequence!!i. In Dowlatabad, in Tehran, the Pasdaran cur off running water in the public taps on the grounds that, according to a res1denr, "its use was announced to be baram !religiously prohibited I. " 41 Such pressures, however, faded to yield results. Following several warnings to the squatters ru vacate, the Pasdaran in one case raukd a squattt'rs' community at night. The settlers expressed their outrage at tht' assault by organizing a five-hundred-person angry demnnsrranon m front uf the Pasdaran headquant'rs, demanding the release of fin women who were arrnted. !K:uffles broke out and shoormgs followed, leading to the wnhdrawal of the Pasdaran. ·~ Five years passed, dunng wh1ch rime the Pa!Odaran patrolled, off and on, around the settlement, remindmg the squatters of their insecure positiOn. On February 1o, IIJ8 ~. the Pasdaran returned in full force to finish the evi"·tions. In response, thousands of the inhabuant!t of Dowlatabad stagC"d a demonstration. "The demonstrators hl~ked the Be'sar highway, and the strerts around the township, brmging the traffic to a halt." In the confrontations that followed, a large number of the squatter!!~ and IJasdaran were inJured. The secunty forces Withdrew once agam, onl~· to rerum rwo days later with the a1d of the paramilitary (gendarmel. They were confronted with fierce reMstance agam, and left. 41 This was the end nf the affair fur a nme. Squatter!!! made spec1al effnns to organize themselves more systemati~.":ally at the local level, often With the a1d of left-wing groups. They designed strategies to confront the security forces, to outline alternative solutions, and to negotiate With tht' authoritie•. In the township of Kianshahr, in South Tehran, after four years of unsuccessful ev1ction attempts, the sc:ttlers elected a number uf local leaders to appeal to a populist der~Q"man, Ayatollah Montazari. He referred them to the munic1pal authorities. Not being prepared to accept any responsibility, the latter in turn SUKSrsted the squatters present their case at the Friday prayer !it'rmons where mo1t officials, including the prime mmister, would be in attendance. In the me3ntime, an alre3dy-esrabhshed Council of the Apanment

(shura-ye apartimaan) invited people into the local mosque to di~uss the plan. They agreed that they would not leave the apartments and would take their ~ase to the Friday prayer session. One of the proposals pointed out that .. If these houses belong to police ~rsunnd, we are prepared to purchase them. The govem~nt may begin buildmg new apartments for the ~rsonnrl with our monthly payments. Otherwise, we demand the government to build suitable houses for us." The day of friday prayer arrived. The settlers presented their ~tition to the prime minister, who assured them that they could stay in the apart· ments until an appropriate law was enacted with regards to these pro~rties. One year later, however, the Pasdaran raided the community to force them out. The dwellers remained steadfast and the sccunty forces were once agam re~lled. While evictions continued in many spots in Tehran, due to its politICal sensitivity, thing!> appeared ealliler in provincial urban areas. In the holy city of Mashad, tht' government was able to end, albeit aftc.-r several unsuccessful attempts, the oc~.:upation of the apanments of Aabkouh, wh1ch had bttn taken over few days after the revolution. On December Jl., 1 980, wme fuur hundred armed ~uriry men raided the.- bu1ldmgs, and in one surpn~ move forced out some five hundred squatters. 44 The prevailing tactic of the authoriries c.:on~nsted of divide-and-rule. They would offer a segment of the squatters the promise of ahernanve housing or the c.:nnwlidatinn of their tenure, m exch;ange for repud1at· ing more uncompromising, especiall)· leftist, factionli."' Once the sh11ra members were divided, the snuatinn would be npe fur the security forces, backed by the lawsuit of the original owners, to exert pressure. Alternatively, through enforcing new eiC'\."tlons or creilting alrernative shuras, the government would eventually diminarr the disst'nting groups!" This tactic was reinforced especially after 198l. wht'n, followinK the suppression of rhe hherals, the Mu1ahedm, and the left. the regime began to consolidate it!>elf. Although apartment seizure sropprd, nic..-riuns lingered un for some years to c.:ome. Most apartment squatting lasted between two and six years. Only a fraction of the squatters were allowed to stay on. For the rest, forced evic.:t1ons eventually occ.:urred. The major problem was that the !iquatters had aimed at the wrong targets. Unlike their c.:ounterparrs in Punugal in 197 4 or in Briram in 1968-70, who aimed at forcing property uwnen (in Purtugal) ur local KUvernmems ru prnvide hnmn with

72

!ftl

ftOU51·~

ftiiiLS

reasonable rent, the Iranian squatters had 'ieized the properties of other citizens. •' Although some propenies Mlonged to the previous government, foreigners, or very rich landlords, many Mlonged ro the citizen~overnmrnt employers, teachers, or police personnel who were not cons1dered panicularly opulent. Some had not even completed their payments to the contractors. These Citizens were adamant to rrsecure their proprrtin. On the other hand, the government's promise of housing for the poor through the Fund 1 oo program initially created some hopr among the poor. The activities of the Jihad-• Sala,deKu• (the Construction Crusadel seemed initially a v1able grassroots solutmn. But rh~ measures were both limited and far off. •• Thesr shortcomings, together with the waring pnce of land and ~nt, a new wave of urban migration, and the relea~ of war rrfugee'i, therefore encouraged the poor to focus on the alternative strategy of 'ipontaneous settlements through the occupation of urban land. Taking over empty apanments and land around the cities represtnted a kry means by the poor rn survive homdessnns and the hardship of urban housing. The a"-rors also aimed at mastering their own ph~ical space and pract1cmg their autonomy by liberating rhem~lvn from the whims of landlords and government regulations. In this srnse, the squatter activities of the poor represent an extens1on of their daily practice mvolving the constant struggles for the redistribution of resources and the expansion of their autonomy. But what facilitated such practices at thi'i panu:ular jun"-rure was, apart from tht' urge for survival, a political space crt'ated by the revolution. Th1s political !!ipace opened up a nrw opportunity and granted a new chara"'ter to the squarten' practict', making it an exceptional measure. The nprriment of wtdrspread home takeover was the first its kind in Iran, and was not repeated in the postrevolutionary prriod. 49 Unlike the oc.:cupanon of hotd!!i hy student!!, home !!iquatting by the pour was nor intended as an ideological challenge against pnvare propeny. While rhr srudenh arrrompted to create a bitueer squatter movement by involving more panicipants, poor squatters werr wary of such measures. They prefcnrd more 'itlrnr, limited, small-scale operations. Thry knew that at nmrs of rncroachmrnt, visibility, solidarity and clamor, would he cnuntrrprodu""tive. Somr roven arrrmptrd to curtail thr extent of their activities. Yet when tht' challenging

moment of eviL"tion and rhus defense of their gains arrived, rhe poor did their best to extend their movement by advocating involvement, participation, and solidarity. Also, unlike the studenr takeovers, the squatter activities of the poor were not meant as a deliberate protest act1on to force the state to solve the housinR problem. Tht>ir measure was the solution to that problt>m. Whert'as squatting for tht' srudt>nts largely meanr a deliberate political action, for the poor it meant s1mply a living practice, a form of daily resistance and struggle to surv1vc: and improvt' life, to rt>distrsbute collecrivt' goods and win autonomy. Both groups, the students and the urban p<xn:, were involved m illegal aL-rs. Whereas Ideological bias justified the stucknts' action, the notion of nccessiry warranted that of the poor. As a squatter of the Nizamabad apartment blocks in South Tehran 6rmly stated: We: arc: must.J:'.JI- rtlust.Jz'.z{ in a rc:al SC"nse; othc-rwiM" we: wouldn't mudc- the- apanments m ~uch a manner ... We h.a\·e been tenants for a lung rime; h.t\"e had enormous hardships; a miKrable lik. All of our con· cern has t-ee-n to fee-d our children, and pay rent, whach in most caSt"!>, we- §Imply nJUid nor manage. Our ch1ldrt'n have ne-ver tas.tc-d any kind of fru1t throughout the year. Aftc:r the- strikes that brukt' the Shah's back-and ours as well!-our s1tuat10n gut worse; so that we ..:-ould hardly pay our rent, and make ends mm. So we had no cho1cc: but to rnon tn squanmg theK apanmenrs.'·•

lndet>d, tht' motives behind each group's actions influenced rhesr uurcume a great deal. Man)· students relinquished the <x:cupied hotels, especially after the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, when they reexammed their political muuves and found thesr action politically unsound. Bur the motive of the J)qUatter movement uf this sort, if It occurred under nonrevolutionary conditions .mdlor espe«n as une which questions bourge()ls legality and private prnperty. 11 The lraman ca~ was, however, quire different, since the emergent pohric.al space created by the revolution .and the initial suppun of the populist dergy justified to a considerable degree the squarrcors' cause. The rad1calism of rhe poor and that of the populist derg)· had a reinfurcmg effect upon each other. Maldistrihution and the sheer shortaRe of urban housing were

problems upon which the squatters had reflected, problems the govem~nt strove to address. However, With the government's inability to resolve the housing problem (discussed later), together with an almost total collapse in private investment m housing, the flooding of war refugees, and the new waves of rural migrants, basic dwelling continued to remam a ch1ef issue that galvamzed the social activism of disenfranchised groups. Ahhough the squatter movement made 1mportanr gains by allocat· ing homes among some poor families and by affecting public housing policy, it facrd its limitations before long. The time for organized and radical direct actions had come to an end. Activist support for the movement was curta1lrd by the advent of political repression. In addition, the short supply of usurpable homes and the subsequent legal complications of takeovers made the option nonviable. In short, the extraordinary ~:onditions that had given rise to the birth of the movement soon ~:arne to an end. The JXKlf needed to adopt a sustainable strategy to suit the subsequent penod of polit~~:al normalcy and stabilIty. They did so by returning to a strategy of indiv1dual and silent enuoachment. Qu1et squatting and illegal construction of thousands of plots of land in the back streets of the urban centers and beyond was Sttn as the most v1able wlunon. The following chapter spells out the dynamics of th1s movement.

Five Back-Street Politicsa Squatters and the State

I ha~r talkrd w many rr"drnh uf thn.C" 1hahrak~ j\t"ttlrmrnt\1. Apart from man)' v.·ho havt ~:umt from orht-r rnwn' and villagn, thC'rC' art al~l rhow who ~:omr from dtfkr· mr ITrhranl nr1ghhorhoods. I rn)'stlf wa1 ;a rconanr m ;a h0111C' lm Tt"hranl .... Bur rnl· •ud that I could not afford to pay rhco rt"nt. Ntgnflafluns wlfh rhr J.mdlord wrnr nuwhrrr ... So onco day a .:olkaKUr of mmr ~aid In me "Why don't you rakr a look at 1~ arr.n around Savrh Road.~ Wtll, I camt" hrrt and 'lt'nltd. Now, I am happy that at ltatt my fam1ly livr1 undrr a roof. -A !iqUoiRC'r m 'ia,·rh Road in Sourh Trhran'

Is is common among scholars to examine the politics of the poor in terms of a set of simple dichotomies-:onservativelradical, orientation to individual resistancelcolltttive a'-"tion, and adherence to primordial loyalties/civil associations/ The narratives of this chapter demonstrate the inadequacy of such dichotomies in uncovering the complex nature of the poor's politics. The disenfranstment in housing almost totally collapsed. The total number of humrs with ~rmlts huilr in 1981. (lUSt over 1 1,6oo units) wa!i. only nne-tenth of that rn 1979 (some 1&o,ooo homesl.~' To amehnratl' the s1tuat1nn. the govcrnment

81

aimed both ro ensure renting vacant accommodations and ro build low-cost dwellings. Rent mfora-mmr failed due to rh~ landlords' noncooperation, even though rhr measure was supported by draconian nate concrol over land and housinK rransa~-rions. On the other hand, dnpire rhe much publicisrd policy of home construction for the poor, and large sums of money ar the disposal of the Housing Foundation the rrsults werr Ins than impressive.l• By 198.1. the Foundation had distributed nor more than 1 1,000 plots of land ro low-income families m Tehran at a time when, according ro the Chirf justice, Ayatollah Moussavi-Ardahili, som~ 100,000 "homdrss families" were living in the capital.!' Rapid increase in the urban population played a key role in the urban housing crisis. Btrwrm 1976 and 1986 the urN!n population grrw by about 71 pen.-rnr, with an annual growth rare of S·S percent (from 15,715,000 to 16,991,000). Thr~ main factors contributed to this. First, the influx of 1. 5 milhon Iran-Iraq war refugees, many of whom were forced to live in makeshift housing and temporary tmts in the maJor urban arras. Second, by the mid-198os an estimated 1 million Afghan refugees had entered rhe country, many of them relocating in big cities s~h as Mashad, Zahedan, and an estimated 110,000 to 300,000 in Tehran. Finally, rural-urban migration played the biggest role. During the decade 1976 to 1986, over 1,115,000 rural penple left their homes to live and work in rhr cirirs-abour 1. s million to Greater Tehran. u The population of somr cities, such as Bakhtaran, morr than doubled. The early migrants rushrd to the h1g citirs expecting to harvest the fruit of the revolution-free housing, jobs, or high income. Many opportunist d~velopers also joined the bandwagon of the musta:'afin taking over urban land for rent or sale:!' rheK Sft'med insignificant, however, cnmparrd to the needy. Thousands of v11lagers camped in the big squares and thoroughfarrs of Tehran to gd their share of the free homes that radical clergy like Ayatollah Khosrowshahi had promised ro the mustaz'afin. l.arer migrants were pushed our of rhe rural areas largely by economic nrcrssiry. The rht'toric of rhe new lradcors with regard ro the high value of agriculture and rural developmenr in an Islamic Iran was rarely translated into practice. While rhe }1had-i Sa:andegui (Construction Crusade) carried out many development proJ«ts (in particular road constructlon and electricity supply), 11 the poor farmrrs' income from agriculture remainrd sluggish. In 1981 a

rural hou~hold earned Ins than half-44 pcrcent-tlf an urban family.1• A survey by the }ihad-i Saz.andep1 in 1984 on migration in the provinces of Hamadan and Isfahan showed that over Hs percent of the poor migrants had left their villagrs b«aw;e of low income, and inadequate water and land.~'n Hence sc;om; of pour villagers, war refugees and displaced people, against the wishes of the1r polincalleaders, chose to live in the cities to utilize the available ~rvicrs and opponunities. However, just as before the revolution, rhe high price of land and costly legal procedurn-sripulared in the dry plans-continued to exclude nor only th~ emigrants but also many low-mcome urhamtes from the formal housing market. Evm the formalized squatter communities, such as lslamshahr. began to create their own informal ~ttlements once city planning was put into df«t. 11 Thus somt' poor familit's managed to purcha~ plots of land outside tht' city hmits where they built their shelters illegally; some ~ttled in nearby villages with secure land holdings and buildings but lacking urban ~rvices. Many simply rook over pieces of public and legally obscure land, as far as possible out of public s1ght-behmd a hill, in a river bed, under big bridges, or our of town. C-ertainly the poor utihzed the existing political opportunity; yet they justified their unlawful actions by the moral princ1ple of necessity. While some resorted to .. land belongs to God," most reasoned forcefully thar .. chare-ii n~est," .. there is no other way out. " 11 In tht' end rhey shaped new cummunitin thar in some ways differed from their prerevolution counterpam. Tht' massive and rapid dislocation of migrant families with diverse origins marked the hybrid character of these communities: they contained more residents of urban origin, they were less communal and traditional in their social relations and institutions and contained a wider range of occupations. Shapin1 the Communities Having sa:ured a dwelling, the most urgent need for the settleB was ro uhtam water and electricity. later on came sewerage systems, refuse collection, chmcs, schools, roads, and cultural activities. To ensure these essentials, the poor utiliud ~If-help iniriam·es to organize collective campaigns, bur when these efforts did not yield results, they resorted to silent hut direct action. Once the gams were assured in this discreet fashion, the poor did evrrythmg rhry wuld collectivrl)· to

84

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PO~l!lCS

defend them. As the disenfranchised la1d funher daims, they consolidated the1r posnion and captured wider arenas of power. In 19Ho some 4H,ooo households remained without running water and 1H,Hoo wrre wuhout electricity in Trhran alone. By 1986 the number of famllie!i without running watt'r in thr urban areas of Tehran Prov1nce was rwicc that of six years earlier. In the same year ~ J 89 000 famihes in other caries lacked pi~d water. 11 In the new squatter cummunitin, dectricity was either nonexistent or had to be purchased from the small power grnt'rators that richer dwellers installed in cenain squatter communitin to cam an mcome. 14 Drinking water had to be supplied either from outdoor fountains or from ad hoc elevated rest"rvoirs that residents had conna.~ to the1r homes through plastic hosrs. Purchasing ranker water was also common; every day water tankers would drive into the hean of the slums, where they wrrc surrounded by women and children with buckers. Both the inadequacy as well as the cost of water and clccrri"ty• however. became a heavy burden. In 198J, 17,000 inhabitants of a poor ..:ommunity such as Shahrak-i Masoudich in South Tehran, or that on the nonh !foide ot Ayatollah Ka!>hani Boulevard, had ro pay as much as Rls 1,ooc:rRJs 1, .~oo fnr a rank of ponablc water rhat was hardly suit· able for drink mg. 11 Some spent as m&K:h as Rls 1,000 a week for unpurificd water that .. had causcd k1dney problems among the children."'"" An alternative was local cno~ration and self-help. Some commumtit's gut to~ther to dig deep wells. Thas method, however, d1d not always work due to the \hon supplies of equipment.'" The mfamous squatter community of Zoorabad, 40 kilometers cast of Tehran, was one 1uch commumry. Spread nut on the hillsides dominating the migrant city of Karad1. the settlement housed about ~6,ooo inhabitant!i in 1&J8o. •- Purch.asing water from water urners cost them up to trn nmn the cnst uf p1ped water tn which only 11 percent of the residrnh had acce ..... 1• D1ggmg deep wells and installing sewer p1pes proved extremdy ardunu!i. It was a tremendously hard job for women to carry heavy buckets nf water up the hills every day. The settlrrs, thereforr, turned to buymg tank water and storing it in aab-anbaars, underground water reservoirs con!ittructed nprcially for rhas purpose beneath their hnuses. 4" The aab-anbaars, however, harbored many !ions uf bactrna and d1~a~. A!> rhr bcnrfits of self-hrlp proved limned, rc!iidcnt!i rurncd rn lnul govemmcnr to demand proper urban amenities.

!ACE-STREET POLITICS

Many locals publiciled rhC'ir needs in the form of petitions and open letters to the authorities in the daily papers ... Khaniabad-i Nou lacks safe drinking water, .. wrote the settlers of the community in South Tehran. "We are buying water from a well that a few profiteers dug some rwenty years ago .... The water is full of calcium materials and salt ... The shun age of dean water has caused problems for the peo· pie in nbsen·ing their religious duties. •• The inhabitants of Shahrak-i Valiye'asr, in South Tehran, protested: "We are using underground water which is unhygenic and causes disease ... Now that this serrlemem has Iofficially! h«ome pan of the city of Tehran, we expect the honorable authorities to grant us a favor, the musta:'afin, by extending piped water to our community. " 42 The open lerters covered all aspects of local life, ranging from garbage collection {in Khaniabad-i Nou), pavement of roads (ln Afsariyeh)"', electricity, power-cuts (in Afsariyeh) 44 and food rationing. The pc=ople of lslamshahr complained: "Rice has been distributed only once in the last three months; and no eggs have ~en brought to the locality at all during the last five monrhs, .. demandin~ the authorities tn "come and end this situation herr .... , In rhe meantime people rook to the streets in demonstrations and sn-ms in front of government offil.:es and municipalities to pressure the authonties for result!!. In 1981 the women of Zoorabad, Karadj, following days of mob1lizat1on, fon;ed city officials to extend the dry's refuse collection nerwork to their communities. In the first year of the revolution, the women had organized them· selves in order to acquire running water for each house. They went to the Water Board of the city and .. refused to leave until they had been promised p1ped runnmg water to all households.,..,. Within rwo months, piped water gu•hed into the alleyways of a large part of the settlement. They had earlier campaigned, with the help of more educated women, to improve conditions in their local public bathhouse, whose owner had confined its usage to men only on the grounds that women would use a lot more water and take mo~ rime.•~ Indeed the struggle for piped water in th1s settlement continued until 19H~, when rhe growing (ommuniry n~ded e\·en more running water. That year the settlers managt"d tn obtain the ~onsent of the municipality ro extend the supply. Yet without waiting fur the initiative nf the bureaucracy, they themselves hegan to dig dnches and lay p1pes. In doing so, they offended nffi~:ials. In a hlood)• ~·onfrontarinn

85

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BACI-S!RBI! POLl!lCS

betwttn the people and the Pasdaran, some ~ttlers were arrrsted and a number inJured. u In 1984 in Arak, an mdustnal town m the ~enrral province, hundreds of squatters from Zoorabad mar~hed toward the town hall to demand running water. Rattling metal ~onrainers, they chanted: .. water, water, we are thirsty." The protrstC'rs were forced to retrC'at after the Pasdaran WC're ~nt to ~ontrol the situation. •• Women of Mehd1yeh in South Tehran (in June 1 y8s ), Shahrak-i Fardis m Karadj jm june J98.f), and rlsrwhere began similar s.trugg.IC'S in thr hope of developing their ~ommuniues. '" The rc5idcnrs of squaner areas an Trhran-KaradJ road demonstrated while chanting .. na sharqu1, na Rharbl: IW aabl, M barqul" (nrirhC'r ust nor West; neithC'r water, nor rla:tncity), sarustu::ally refernng to a govemment policy that ignored mtemal cri!iC!i, soch as urban problems, in favor of a senseless foreign policy rhetorK: that dogmatically reJected llelt with both the East and the West. When nmsy demonstrations proved insuffi~1ent, households began, individually or coll~"tlvely, to conna:t the1r homes to the main street water pipe or ro the ele~-rri~iry poln, at nmes by ingenious methods. The people of thr Hu§§rini neighborhood, in the southwest of Tehran, havmg annnprcd through the ncceDary formal ~hannrls ro secure running water, dc..:1ded in June 1984 to rake the matters into their own hand•. One night they secretly broke the main water p1pe in the strttt and conne~-red rhe1r already prepared p1pes. Although this brought the arrest of s1x parnctpants and a fine of Rls JOO,ooo, they managrd to mamtaan the illegal flow of \:ity water.'' In Khak-i Sefid, a settlement of 4,000 mhabnanh, the squatters a~quired cla:tricity hy do-it-yourself tact1~s ... We requested wJ many t1mn ro the M1msrry of Power to conna:t us; bur they didn't," stated a ~rtler... Now, ba:ausc we really needed clectri\:ity, the people cooperated with ea~h other to bring power into the communny. "' 1 Another zaghehmshin an Tehran had similar story... Whrn I umc to this place lin 198~1. things were bad. But then people colle~ted money to pave the roads. We got ela:triciry from the power pole!i. And as for water, we ourselves installed pipn from the main street water tap"; .. but we are still waiting for a s.chool and gardens."'' In 19H7 an extensive study of about fifty shantiC's with some H,ooo families in seven districu. of Tehran ~onduded that the majonty of these settlements utilized 1llegal runmng water and el~­ rne~ry, m wmt 'ases With the ta~::it agreemC'nt of the mum~ipaliry.,.

II

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,

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II

nJ HarmJt>h 7..olf.aghan,

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bouk ul photo , 'Irhran,

iaid. n South urh Tc hron . rtJ H nuJrh Zuliai}t n, lrhr.m, • bno ol rhot~ , t-hro~n,

A shantytown in RC".za l)t&h.ar&llma

uth Tehran, M rch 1980.

A hantytnwn in South T~hran, une I ~81. Rru lk&h tillnau

n intormal dwdlmg in Tc:hr.111, Nm·cmh r I 1179. Kt:"7>~

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I Khordad I II /june l 1979.

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ommunary in outh Tehr n, 1993.

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r..httrc tn Tr:hran &uar, March I !JSO. Reu Dt"ltb.a1illm:a

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halaar alleywa)·, Tehran, mid· l !#80 .

' rullah Ka ra•yan and t·um1dch Z !If Khan, Tthrt111,11 book ul phot.._ Te-hran, 137 I 1'194, p. 'i4,

" .ive u jobs and we wall gi e up trttt vendang. Main rain our li dihood and we hall gJV up endmg.• Union of trrrt vendor. Tehran, Drcember 1979. Rtu ~atillma

De~h tJllm x

IAOI-S!RIIf POLI!ICS

At time!i the skills of young volunterrs, mainly students and activi!tts, were also utilized for devdopment, education, and health purposes. Groups of young volunterrs established libraries, tutorial and literacy classes in neighborhoods." In 1 980 thr residents of thr Dowlatabad senlrment brought illegal light to their communit)' whm studmt a'"tiv1srs hooked their homes to power linn that passed over the senlrment. With the nrw drctricity came a communal place to receive guesrs, a mosqur, and a mobile clinic. •• Volunterr work in specialized firlds was even more prevalent. Many popular neighborhoods enjoyrd the assistance of doctors, nurses, and engineering studmrs. In the squatter areas of South Tehran (e.g., Arab gowds), a numbrr of medical units were set up, where over a hundred patimts were diagnosed daily for a meager Rls 30 (nearly U.S. So. s) each. In this community some 1,000 medical 61es were nrganiud. '" The spirit of voluntarism, however, tended to dimmish among the middle-clas.o; activists when revolutionary fervor began to subside and the police surveillance kept many youths from such activities. Unlike scattered :.aghehs huilt beforr the rrvolution, I found a number of squatter areas such as Khak-i ~fid or lslamshahr reasonably dean, green, and orderly, with wide paved strttts and alleyways, and siz.able one-story homes whose residrnts collectively self-managed the communities. In Khak-i ~fid, for instance, residents realized that .. the area did not have a plan and the srreets were all irregular. So we got an architect who did the job; and we helped to build the pavements.... Wr built our own mosque where rvery two weeks people go for rou'%r-khaPII." •• This appears to br the kind of community panic1pation that many in today Third World, mcluding the right and the left, favor. The right views self-help as reducing dependence on the state and its finanC"ial burden; community participation, in this sense, is hoped to consolidate the political systrm. for the left, community participation serves to raise the social consciousness and living standards of the poor, eventually producing social transformation. Bued upon Latin American rxperience, others conclude that community participation serves the interests of the state better than it serves the poor. 1 ~ The Iranian pattern deviated from the prrvailing models, first brcause, in thrir strugglrs the Iranian poor often combined mstitutional channels with direct actions, legal with illegal mrthods. On thr other hand, community participation was understood not simply as self-cost self-help but as com-

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munal activism that mcu"rd costs (in terms of pro~ny, profit, and power) to the state and the nch-m shon, others-cost self-help. In rhe case of Iran, as the ~overnment confronted extensive illegal land occupation and unpaid consumption of urban amenities, it felt that it would be bcner off integrating pans of the settlements to ensure both state control and com~nsarion for rhe use of collective services. As a resuh some squaner land11 in South Tehran were placed under au,qaf, which, although it tolerated seniC'rs, require-d thmt to pay some annual rent. In this way, the authorities recognized and extended urban services ro a number of poor settlements. The immediate problem, so far as the government was concerned, was that over-consumption of water and eleL'tricity mtailed lowering water pressure and daily power cuts, rhus causing widespread dissatisfa.:tion and protests. "'l For the settlers, on the other hand, the policy appeared to be a victory. Apan from securing the formal provision of city amenities, official recognition also greatly reduced thrir tenure insecuriues. Yet the involvement of the authorities wnthcted with t~ desut for autonomy and for life without state inttrference. Formalizing tht stttltmentl> meant undtrgning hureaucratic control and taxataon. Formal suhscript1on to water, e-lectricity, and refuse coll«tlon meant that the poor were obliged ro pay for the-se services, ar spec1fic times. The issun of payment, rimmg, and procedures were no lon~r negotiable. Although the poor had struggled to rxtend stK:h serVIces to their •llegal homes, they soon realized that they could not afford to pay the hills and play bureaucratic games.'' Some poor families ended up having services suspended due- to delays in payment (as in Distnct 16 in Tehran). Once again women made journeys to nearby mosques and neighborhoods to wash dishn and clothes, and resoned to oil lamps and burners instead of electrical power. The more persistent inhabitants rnoned to manipulating meters as their shon-term alternativr. In sum, ro develop their communities, the poor utilized their own mmat1ves and efforts. When the effects of self-help proved hmited, they pressed the government ro a1sisr them. Whtn the authorities resisted, the poor red1stnbuted collective goods to the1r own advantagr--~hat JS, they stole urbo~n infrastructure. Once gams wt're assured in this unlawful fashion, rhe poor coll«rively defended them, eventu· ally forcing rhe state to recognize the communirit'S in exchange for rhe1r integration into the formal structures. Thus the disenfranchised

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laid further cla1ms, consolidated their position, and secured wider ~on­ cessions. In the~ attempts, creating local asS<X:iations was pankularly significant, sm~e in their genuine forms, the associations represented a si~mficant ~ounterpomt to formal power. Associational Life In poor communnics, association and networking served in the short run a!> the nece!ltsary mechanism for mobilization and defense. Air hough the encroachments of the pc.x,r were, by and large, quiet and individual, there were issues concerning everyone that were beyond the capacity of individual households. Dealing with floods, police raids, paving roads, diggmg ditches, collectmg garb;~ge, setting local prices, and other undertakings needed the cooperation of all settlement members. In the long term autonomous life under a modern state also re~o~uired some kmd of lnul affiliation and identity, which often assumed an organi7.ational expression. Performing common cultural and religious rituals, resolving conflict!io, and providing mutual assistancc- were among the more salient examples. The assocaational life wa!'t one of primordial and civil extra-kinship. Two associations particularly stood out in the pour neighborhoods-the Neighborhood Councils (NCs), and the Local Consumer Cooperatives (l.CCs). The Neighborhood Counctls

The Neighborhood Coum:ils (NC!t)(Shura-ye Mahallat). or Neighborhood Committees (Kom1te-ye Mahallat) as some preferred to call them, were loosely structured local bodies that were formed, appointed, rleL"ted, or even self-designated in order ro protect, regulate, and upgrade local communities. Their function ranged from negotiating with the authonries for urban upgrading to resolving conflicts in the localities. The terms "committee" or '"coune~l" referred interdungeably both to the appomtedldected executive body and to the totality of the organization including the executive body, the constituency. and finally its activities. Along wath the Factory Commirtees (Shura-ye K~Jrgaranl, Peasant (Shura-ye Dehqanan), University (Shura-ye Daneshgah), and City Councils (Shur.J-ye Shahr) las in Kurdistan, for instance), and Pasdaran Committees (Kum1te-ye Pasdaran) m the early days following the insurre\."tion, the NCs consmuted the massive grassroors mobi-

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lization of the rrvolution. The~ organizations, along with other selfhelp activities, gavt an organized rxprrssion to popular mobilization; they exemplified the s~1al and c1vic (as oppo~ to purely political) aspect of the revolution. A whole range of NCs !iiiprang up in various lower-class neighborhoods. Some continued the activities of the Local Commuters that had emerged during the last phase of the revolution. Others were established after rhr insurrection. Apart from the general mood of mobilization dunng the postrevolutionary period, certain material reasons also stimulated their emergence. Confronting common cnses such as flooding or earthquakes in the localities often necessitated collective mollilizarion. The gowd communities of South Tehran were the \'ictims of frequent flooding due to their location some so meters llelow ground level (some places had 1 so stain). Any ramfall, flood, or sewage system failure would threaten almost rvrry household. Only the cooperation and coordination of all of housrholds was capablr of countering such disasrrrs. Protecting allryways from flood, securing personal llrlongings, and divertmg flood water from the community demande-d highly collective efforts. Although these crises and rhrir consequent social impact were periodic, they nrverthelrss implanted the \eeds of a nascent yet durable and stru'"-rurrd form of cooperation. Prior to thr rrvolurion, a numbrr of neighborhoods m the gowds formrd mformall~al associations. They rai~ funds and managed to construct stairways connecting the underground srnlemrnrs to the surfa..:r. Thry also succeeded in bringing communal water raps to their alleyways, and installrd drctricity polrs. Soon rlrctric light illuminated the narrow pa!isageways and before long found its way into homes as well. The graveyards of the poor surrounding thr area were transformed into picmc places With greenery and trres: 1 LcJCal mobilization a!iide, thr competition of various political groui)\ ovrr mob11i1Jng thr poor also contributed to the formation of the Nu. The advocacy of the radical left and Mujahrdin organi1.ation fur tht> idea of .. councilism" certainly played a significant role. Their sympathizers we~ involved directly in l~al mobilization, and their emphasis on thr adra of shura forced eventually the authorities to give legal unCtion to the 1dea. One important figure who pursued shuraism quite vehemt>nrly was a popular liberal clergyman, Ayatollah Talrghani, whose death in 1979

brought the concept into public discourse. Radio, lV, and the prmt media, not to mention public speeches, began to focus extensively on the merits of shuraism, and on how this notion originated with h;lam. Fur the must pan shuraism wa~~; conccwed of as some degree of popular partiCipation, but Its extent and mechanism rcmamed vague. Some even went so far as to propose restru'--rurmg the country's political system along the pnnciple of shuraism. The left 1010ed many others to support Taleghani who had called in April 1979 for the constitution of local aSMX"iations as well as city and regional councils.~' Sympathetic figures in the municipality followed suit and began implementing the idea from above. In the spring of 1980 the government of Isfahan, the second largest city in Iran, ruok up the initiative. Within a few month!i !iome 70 per· cent of the city was administered by the Neighborhood Committees. NCs elected the mayor and administered their locales. But the policy .:cased to function in thr summer of that year, when thr budget allocatrd by the Governorate was halted due to financial difficulties.,.. The city of Tehran followed Isfahan. Conditions of the war with Iraq had made the need for local admmistration and self-organization more urgrnr. People needed to get mobilizrd, remain vigilant, organize in self-defense committees, and participate in the local distribution of basic resources such as tood and medicine. Thr capital was div1ded into twenty distn'"'tS and 34 1 neighborhoods of 1 o,ooo people. Each constituency was to "appoint" five reprcsrntauvrs from among .. trust· worthy," "pious" (ba-taqwa) and "enthusiastic" people, who then needed to be approved by the imam of the local mosque. This restm:tive selection of shura members shows that the Islamic state perceived local organizations as an extension of itself. The early rnthusiasm and pretense of officials with regard to thr idra of councilism and decentralization was followed, before too long. by the monopoly of power and paternahstlc and selechve mnbihz.at1on of progovrrnment individuals. Councils were mcorporated into the Islamic Constitution, hut they w~r~ nor properl)· convened. It was a concesliaon to Taleghana and thr lrft, but on~e h~ died and rhe left was crushed, the prnmtsc was forgotten:' Despite the state's attempt to control local inauauves, peopl~ m certain neaghborhoods managed, With the cooperation of the volunteers, to establish genuine loul councils. The gowds of South Tehran, for instan~e. developed a highly act1ve shura, wh1ch came to be known as rhe Shura-y«' Aali-ye Eskan-

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r Gou,dnrshinan (Coun1.,l forth~ Rcsctd~m~nt of th~ Gowd in shun, th~ Counc1l of Rnenl~m~nt (CR).

P~opl~)

or

The Cmmcrl uf Re$eltlement

In

rh~ ~arfy

days of the spring of ay8o a group of young volunteers cam~ to rh~ gowd ~rtlemmrs to offer their hdp in improving rh~ conditions of lik in th~~ neighborhoods. A frw week~ later, on April 4, 1980, an drction was hdd, with the support of rhr radical mayor of Tehran, Muhammad Tavassoli, to fonn the Council of the gowdnishinan. Fifteen our of sixtttn gowd srrtlemrnts rook part in the elections, each srnding three d~lrgates to fonn the central council of the gowdnishman. A combination of two reprnentatives from the central council, two from the munkipaliry, and nne from the local Pasdaran Committee established the Shura-ye Aali-e Gowd, the supreme Council of the Gowds.""' Most of the d«rtd reprnentatives were local leaders who wrrr factory workers in nrarhy industries such as SAKA on Tehran Karadj Road. Although the CR aimed, in the short term, to improve the conditions of life in the gowds, its prime concern revolved around the r~srttlement of th~ 46,000 rnidents into more drcmt housing.'' With th~ hdp of th~ council and the cooperation of the central municipality, the srttlers, in particular the youth, establish~d a dime, a hussei,ieh (an ad hoc mosque), srvrral librari~s. and a soccer field. Fishaaris (strttt fountains) wrre erected; ~wage ditches (iouys) were dug, and the roads of fourteen sertfemmts wrrr fully pav~d.•• The council also set up mobile medical trams and clinics in th~ struts of South Tehran, providing general medical services and vaccination for infants."' Some cultural activities and sports facilities for youths were housed in the already occupied buildings of thr p~vious regime,"'' while the morally deviant rlem~nrs in the community, e.g., gamblers and drug dealers, we~ idmtified and isolated. Thr outbreak of war with Iraq in Sept~mhrr 1980, and the msuing threat of air raids broke nrw ground for th~ acrivitie!l of th~ CR and thr local poor. The CR and thr Mujahedin Organization in th~ gowds called for the creation of Local Resistancr Groups (LRG) to respond to the wartimr emrrgrncy situation. They were ro link their activities with the local people through insrrucrions on wall posters, pamphleteering, and assrmbli~ in thr local mosques. Although not entirdy successful, somr LRGs werr formed in South Tehran with the panici-

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pation of the youth. They identified local ~suurcn, especaally medical services and basic needs, for emergency purposes, formed vigtlante teams, enR3grd in military training, put up wall posters w&th information and war news, and provided mstructions regarding security and self-defense:• A young volunteer dt"SCn~d some of the functions of the LR(;s m Yakhchiabad squanrr settlement: Initially, we: began ralkmK to our l,~~,;al fuc:l-d1stnhunon bram:hes ahuut the prohlem of &he fuel shnrtaKe, and suggested 1mplc:mentmg a rationmg system. They acL:epred rhe !>uggc:snun. We rhc:n talked to the peoplc: ahout thr plan and they re&:c:lved it warmly and offered their conprratmn. To implement rhe plan, we dinded our nc:ighhnrhood, which i\ quire largt", mro smallrr zones. Then, wr took a crnsuo; of thr households within each wne. With the cooperation nf Basil IMohilization GroupiJ brothers, we plannrd tu 1ssue rannnmg cards to each household, so that thry ~·ould get their sharn on the aS!ilgned days. Th1s a1mrd to prevent long queues •nd hoarding. We now plan to aik the people ru provide Ui With some help so tlut we can hnng c:ach houKhold's sh.uc: of fuel tu their dtxtr stc.-~ .... About other ba~•c food stuff, we.- have alrc.-ady preparc.-d thing!> hke gram, eggs, ncc, '!Iugar, tea, and washmg powder, wh~eh we \Upply ru the people wuhuut makmg any profit. However, we'rr planning to ration theM' items as wrll 1n the future.' 1

Despite these activities, the CR considerrd its most important func· tion to ~ relocating the gowd residents. Some significant steps were taken. Thr CR was able to compensate the owners of over 6ve hundred run-down homes so that they could sdtlr in other areas; it also managed to rehouse another six hundred households in already occupied apartments .. , Some familirs needing immediate assistance were taken to rmergen'"-y headquarters until ~rmanent housing was available. '• The CR also combined irs policy of negotiations with the authorities with a morr militant tactic of local mobilization. When necessary, the CR staged srrret demonstrations so that local people could makr their ~mands ro thr aurhoririrs morr forcrfully. '' The activities of thr CR came to an end after a year and a half, in the midst nf growmg political rivalry and intolerance. At the beginning it samed that all the different local groupings-thr Komit~hs, the Mujahedin, thr leftist!! and the municipality-cooperated with one another on local issues. However, political and Ideological differencrs soon surfaced, and alliancrs gavr way to sectarianism both at the

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national and local levels. The Pasdaran Komit~hs, which oraginally emerged as a voluntary civk organization ~onsisting of youths with different political orientations, soon bec.:ame a vestige of the ruling Islamic Republican Pany. In early summer 1979, the Komitehs were "deansed" of those who refused to follow the IRP lmr. In Tehran alone, some 40,000 to so,ooo members of about r,soo Korl'lltebs were sent home. '• Many others had already left after becommg disenchanted with the monopolistic policies of their leaders. The Komitehs then hegan a sustamed campaign agamst the growing power of leftist5 and the Mujahedin. Thus the CR bec:ame the target of mounting pressure on the pan of the local Pasdaran Komlteh, which by now had become a parallel power in the community. Organized thugs supported by the local Revolutionary Guards attacked the headquarters of the CR; the Komiteh organized mass meetings to discredit the CR; and rumors spread accusing its members of bribery. Finally, materialsuppon to the council was suspended from both the municipality and, of course, the Kom1tehs. Not being able to cope with such a mounting pressure, all members of the CR jointly resigned on May 14, 1980 as a gesture of protest. A few months later the publication of Faryad-i Gowdnishin, a weekly journal of the Mujahedin, devoted to the gowd commumty, was suspended by the government. With this, the activities of one autonomous local organization came to an end. Bryond political pressure, internal problems also weakened the CR. Political organizations lent their suppon to localities not so much to promote people's welfare as to cultivate political suppon. For the Mujahedin, for example, thr "local Resistance ulls not only play an effective role, in the shon run, in alleviating war damages, but in the long run serve people's mobilization against impenalism ... ~On the other hand, the elitist nature of such activism made residents rely excessively on outside organizations, whose infighting ultimately undrrmined local mob1hzation. finally, the council was far from genuinely democratic institution; activists had only begun to experience panic1patory Mmocracy. To make a comparison, in postrevolutionary Ponugal, for mstance, the neighborhood commission was an elected body. Although activists spearheaded local organizations, ordinary people were extensively involved m decision-making. Local power lay m weekly general assemblies, with the votes cast by raising hands.'' In Iran formal polls were UJK:ommon and lines of power and respunsibil-

IAOI-S!WII! POLl!lCS

ities unclear. A!i regular, general meetings were rare, rumors more than ~orrect information reflected local politin, in tum, fueling sectarian ~onflict and rivalry. Ordinary people only hqcan to experaence modem pamcipatory democracy in these turbulmt times when the starr instituted its own brand. Working Within the System Like the Coun~il of Resettlement, many of the independent shuras were dismantled and their members were purged. With the stare-sponsored "new dectanns .. more proregame members were put in ~harge, and m many ways the neighborhood councils turned mto an exten!iu>n of the ruhng IRP. The poor had to adjust to the new phase of increasang politacal restriction and the absence of opposuion groups. They needed to work within and against the official apparatuses. Pauenr and perseverang, the poor struggled to gam from these paternalistic mstnurions as mu~h as they wuld by exploiting the pru-mustaz"afin discourse of the government to exert pressure on local authoritin. Ali autonomous and gra!isroots institutiom were gradually dasman· tied due tn political pressure and their own short~omings, the alternative government-!iponsored organizations, Mosque Asscx:iations (shura-ye masa;id) and Islamic Neighborhood Councils (INCs), rapidly filled the vacuum. They began to serve with more zeal and commitment, partially in order to demonstrate the efficacy of the alternative arrangements. The local Pasdaran Komites first tonk the initiative, involving proregime lcx:al individuals who thrn crntrrrd their activities in the local mosques.. Thrsr ll~al councils became increasingly active after the outbreak of the war with Iraq, when local popular mobilization beume a necessity. Thus the Mosque Associations were: engaged in mobilizing the local population for the war effort, dis· tributing scarce goods such as domestic apphances, and settling disputes. They were also charged with supervising and monnoring the rationing system involving ltK:al shops. The members of thne asSt~ia­ tions, in the meanrime, also a~ted as neighborhood watchdogs fur the ruling IRP. Hundreds of such associations functioned throughout the urban arras during the e1ghr-year war. Their main strength derived from their official status, which enabled them ro utilize guvt'rnmrnt rnuurcrs and political support. They coopt>ratt'd wirh the Governorate of Tehran (farmandari) to control the flow of rural mi~rants to tht' city, by con-

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trolhng the issuan&:e of ration cards within the localitaes. '• In 198 3, Mahdavi-Kani callrd upon the Mosque Associations to .. furnish the ground for the stability of the Islamic Republic. " 111' The weaknesses of the INCs, however, remained more acute. Corrup11on, inefficanu:y in the distribution of the basic needs, bureaucratic incompetence, and overlapping functions with other agencies (such as Kom1trh-ye lmdad-1 IIPUim), tarnished their ima~ Mfore their constituencies. 11 Yet, given rhe &:onditions of war, scarcity, and govern· menr intolerance of autonomous association, the situation at the local level would probably have h«n worse without the Mosque Associa· rions. With the war at a stalemate, and with the gradual relaxation of prnsure on the distribution system, thl' conjunctural role of the associatanns ~n to suhsade. By thl' rime the war was moving toward a resolution, rhr Mosque A!i.~ociarions were es..~nraally withering away. Controllrd by luult"litrs, rhear function in the postwar period was relegated largely ru ad hoc ceremonial al."tivitit"s. 11 Thr l.ocal Consumer Cooperatives

On May 1.4. 1980, a group of angry housewives from a lnwer-dass neighborhood, Gorgan Street, forcefully closed down the fruit market of the Maidan-i Sumaiych and the nearby storrs. Thr womrn's rrpeatrd complaints to both h-=alshopkeepers and the authorities over the hagh prices of fond had Mn ignored. When one woman protested rna fruit-sellrr about has high prices, other!"~ rallied behind hrr, expressmg their frustratJUn and angrr. A \treet demonstration of local reople soon fnllnwed, as housewives proceeded to dose down the market plact", one 'ihnp ;1hrr the other, by yanking down the mrtal gates (lrerltt'rt'h) of ea"-h store. The police reponed that the angry women wanted tn set the markrt on fire hut wc.-rc.- pe-rsuaded ro disperse nnly by an ammediate repricing of the K'KKis. The shops remained closed for the entire day."' l.ike hou!t.ing, fu,Kf constituted a special commodity, nne that thepoor viewed in moral terms. Whrn thr satisfaction of these basic nerds was left ru the whims of thr market alone, thr poor rrsisted and anempted tn suhvrn the market both by direct al.-rinn, as evidenced hy thr angry houK"wives, and hy institutional means, e.g., the &:nnsumer coorerativrs. Through 1.'-=al Consumer Conprratives (I.C:Cs), poor urbanites attempted tu secure easy acce-ss to inexpensive consumer goods by

removing gr~dy middle men. Earlier anemprs to set up consumer cooperatives had occurred during the few weeks before the insurrKtion (~« p. s.z.). After an initial decline immediately after the revolution, l.CCs resurfaced throughout lower-class and poor districts after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. By December 1979 the constitution recognized cooperatives as one of the three main economic uctors. In 1981 some 6o LCCs were set up in tM lower-class neighborhoods of Tehran. By 198s, 6oo,ooo Tehranies cooperated in SJO LCCs with a total capital of Rls 4,000 million. These cooperatives, along with those in the provincial cities, were placed under the supervision of the Central Organization of the Cooperatives, a govern~Mnt agency. 14 In general, the people themselves ran the cooperatives. In the more indepmdent experiences, a number of individuals, the .. constituent group, .. set up ad hoc cooperatives, inviting local people to purchase shares. The members subsequently elected executive committees (EC) and dissolved the constituent groups. The 1-:Cs then assumed the responsibility of managing the LCC in terms of purchasing, distribution, and book-k~ping. A group of observers (ba~resaN) were rrsponsiblr for monitoring the operation. 11 Middlemen were eliminated and the profit motive, when it existed, was only to cover the cost of hiring full-rime administrators .., Most of the LCCs, however, were dominated by local dires, the religious, community, and economically well-to-do leaders.·· For these leaders the LCCs served more as their personal propenies, at hest functioning as typical charities and at worst as a sour"-e of local prestige and access to the high officials. Instead of cooperatioN, a spirit of patnm~lism prevailed. During the revolution ideas of solidarity and selflessness constituted the spirit of voluntarism. After the revolution prindples of efficiency and prufn- motive eventually replacrd ideals of cooperation. As a result, sume cooperatives, ended their activitin. 11 Yet the lCCs did contribute to the poor's access to bask commodities in the difficult rimes of the scardty of consumrr goods, war-time economic conditions, and high-priced black market goods. In addition to subsidizing basic goods and implrmenting a rationing system, the government contributed to the lCCs by allocating 10 percrnt of the total domestic production and imponed goods direc:rly to the l.CCs to be distributed among members, with fixed prices and without profits. Moreover, the I.CCs furnished a veh1de through which common peo-

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pie were a"1ivated S«Xially and were directed onto a path of institution· buildin1. Nevertheless, when institutional channels such a!> LCCs were nonexistent or proved to be ineffective, the common people did nor heSitate to rake martrrs directly into the streets. Early plan• to remove sub1idic:s on bus fares provoked r1ots m Tehran and Muhad. Indeed, the postwar economic liberalization under President Rafsanjam Wit· nesscd w1dc:spread unrest on the pan of the urban poor in the early 1990s (!itt bc:lowl. The latest nfthesr riots in Apriii99S in lslamshar, a South Tehran squatter settlement, left at leur one dead, dozens mjured, and hundreds arrested. This three-day street protest was sparked by wme two hundred youths who dc:mandni bc:ner supplies of fresh water, as well as a decrease in the bus fare. h rapidly grew into a demonstration of _50,000 poor people: protesting against price rises for public transpon and fuel. The police used tear gas from helicopter units to disperse the crowd who attacked government buildings, banks, dcpanrncnt srores, gas stations, and busrs.~· As elsewhere, poor housewives were maJor actors m the: nreer politics that involved food priers and shonages. In contrast to occasional food riots and collective actions (e.g., the houscwJve!o of Maidan·i Somaiyeh and the lslamshahr riots), public nagging was employed as an everyday form of protest by ordinary pro· pie. It mvolvcd people cullectivdy voicing their complaints without the fear uf persecution an public places-in taxis, buses, bakery queues, grocery shops, and so on--in the form of loud conversations about state pohcJe!i mduding price!i, rent!i, war, shortages, and the like. l,ublic nagging represented an effr'-1ive me~.:hanism for expressing the public opimon nf ordinary men and women; 11 became an epidemic and Irrepressible !ltoun:e of dili.Stnt ... ' Squancn and the State In brief, squatters' struggles rook plact• in three main arenas: First, resistance ru existing hardship and aspiring tu a bc:rtt"r life. Thc:st wert" manifested m physical movement and migrannn and entailed a profound demographic change in the country. S«ond, struggln around the redistribution of public goods, induding land and urban colln:rive consumption. And third, attempts tn extend autonomy from the state, relying on local norms instead nf state lc:gi!tlarurc:!lt, traditional and a~cc:ssiblr mstitutions instead of modl'rn official arrangements. These

B~CI•S!!lB!

POLitiCS

snuggles, when cumulative, positioned the poor a!'l a counter-hegemonic fon;e against officialdom, il!> each practi~:e captured an arena of control from the state and en~:ruached on its power. These three areas accounted fur the mmt amponant sites uf contestation between the state and the marginal poor. Without intending to, the mustaz 'afin had become an enemy of the lslamM: state. How dad the Islamic state, as the government of the poor, respond to these snuggles? The earlier official r~ponses to squatters' al.'tions were characterized by competition, confusion, and contradi~:tion. Whereas prior to the lslamu: revolution the poor had remained vanually unnoticed (see chapter z.), after the revuluuun their mubalizataon became the subja:t of competition among over twenty official and unofficial groups and organilatlons working wnhin p«Kn neaghborhoods. The ruhng dergy, seekang a reliable SO\:ial bar.e, made the mustaz 'afin the champanns of struggle for Islam and the Islamic revolution. Wnhm tha!'l broad category, urban marginals, or kuuklmlshlnan (literally hut-dwellers, the destitutes), acquired a central pc,satiun. "This Islamic revolution as indebted to the efforts of thas class, the dass of shanty dwellers," declared Ayatollah Khomeim. ..Ther.e South Tehranies, these footbearers, as we call them, they are our masters lr,al•-nr'matl ... They were the ones who brought us to where we are.""' To the dismay of Pnme Mamster Mehdi Baz.argan, Khomcam declared only a few days after the revolution that .. everyone must have access ru land, this divine endowment," that .. no one must remain wathout a dwelling m this c.:nuntry," and that water and el«tricity should be supplied free of charge ru the pour:~ Bazargan, like l,re!ioident Bam Sadr and Muhammad Tavassoli, the mayor of T~hran, feared that such statemenr!> would unleash uncontrollable migration and urban disorder. They cillled instead for rural d~velopmenr and improvements in agnculturc, although they also favored the sdecti't·e upgrading of existing pour neighborhoods. In 1980 the Revnlutaonary Council di!tc:USf>C'd, without results, wa)'!io to repatraate tu the country· side some shanty dwellers, lake the inhabitanrs of the gowd in South T~hran.

In the meantime, as I ha't·e already d1scussed, the Office of Housing for the Dis.possessed led by Hassan Karruha and the: Housmg Foundation of Ayatollah Khosrowshahi, opted for radacal \:onfiscation and allo~ation of homes and land for the homeless. The major leftist groups supported these measures. The Pasdaran opposed the ~unfisc.:a-

99

tions, advocating the upgrading of poor communitin instead. Yet they prevented volunteer groups, an parricular Lcfri~t and Mujahedin orR3mzations, from undrrraking similar act1v1rks rherr." This rivalry in pracricr and opinions had significant implications for the housing S«tor and the status of squanrr'i. first, it offered new opportunities for the mobilization of the poor by encouraging them to make demands and funhrr legitimizing their direct acrion. On the other hand, a profound policy confusion with regard tu housing and land prevailed, rendering the systematic handling of homdrssness and povrrry impossible. Troubles rased slightly only when, in June 1980, Hassan Karrubi's Office was abolished and Ayatollah Khnsrnwshahi was K'nt off to he the ambassador in the Vatican.~ With the fall of the housing radicals, the government brought some legal and admini1trarivr order to the s«tor; its most impnnant single step was the promulgation of the Urban l.and l.aw whereby the Revolutionary Council nationalized and thu~ controlled mau•aat (unused) land and later baayer (previously usrd) lands in urban arras:' Nevrrrhrlrss, the government never formulated a consistent policy with regard to housing the poor. Even the new thinking, which advocated thr elimination of government responsibility by leaving rhr housing of the poor to themselves and to their '"savmgs,"' remained up in the air.'"' Indeed, throughout rhr 1 9Ros the prevailing policy combined five srrategin: selrcrive housing provisions, halting rural-urban migration, integratmg the informals, demolishing unlawful homes, and de facto tolerance .

.r;~l~clll'~ Provrs1uns The Housing Foundation continued to funct1nn with the aim of providing housing for the poor. In 1980, upon the invitation of the Foundation, more than 8oo,ooo people sent in applications for land or housing. The foundation claimed to grant about roo,ooo pints of land and .z.,JOO homes, most of rhrm in rural arras:' Yet following the IranIraq war, the bulk uf the foundation's activities were dira"ted to war reconsrrucunn, and its function was hmited to promoting self-help housing through mterest·frer loans and the provision of materials and technical assistance.~• In addition to thr Housing Foundation, the municipalities in the large cities dearcd a number of slums, relocating their residents ro more decent dwellings, or offered them aid and loans to build the1r own homes. The squaners of Khaniabad in South Tehran

were ro ~ relocated in about 1,ooo rwo-brdroom, 7 .z.-square-merer flats the government planned to construct,'" converting the srnlement to public parks and recreational facilities. Some of the communities, such as the notorious gowd settlements in South Tehran, have had symbolic significan~e for offkials as the embodiment of lstlz'af (poverty and misery), and thus were m~ompatible with the srlf-image of the lslami~ Republic as the government of the d1spossessed. Halting Migration, "111is Soci41

Catastroph~"

Yet the continuous flow of rural poor to the ~itirs m sear~h of a brner life diluted the effects of su~h pie~emeal measures. Whtle the regtme seemed to have succeeded in reducing the overall fertility rare, 11"' cityward mtgrarion remained a major problem. By 198 3 Iran had more peoplr in cutes ls.z..s percent) than in the countryside. Despitr the shortcomings, squatters were evidently happier in thr ~ity and were nor prepared to return to the country. 101 Whereas the poor viewed migration as a means to a better life, for the authorities it represented a .. social catastrophe," '''1 .. thr most important problem hrsidr the war,"'"' and .. a major threat tn thr revolution and the Islamic Republic." .... This was because the population flow was altering the urban order by bringing ahout communities, social groups, and social practices upon which the central authority would have littlt practical control. By 198 _\ when the ciryward migration was acceleraung, offi~ials frantically sought a solution. In ftbruary of that year, the mayor of Tehran, Habibi, plradN with Ayatollah Khomeim to dedare a •stare of emergency" terming the migration one of the most crucial political concerns of the day. The state mNia subsrqucnrly bqan a umpaign against the population drih; friday prayer traders were mobilized to discuss the vices of moving to cities and numerous seminars were organized ro address this .. major social problem." The dominant discoursr denounced migration as a social pathology that was infecting the whole of urban life. lr was responsible for .. land !ipe'-"Uiarion," .. unemployment," "parasitic oc~upations," .. drug dealing," .. diseasr," and urban unrnr, and was also .. destroylmgl social and lslami~ values."'"~ In their rum, migrants werr portrayed as the victims of this disorder. Hamshahri, the Tehran municipality daily, unknowingly invokN the spirit of Simmel, Park, and Wirth when it described rural migrants as '"those who wander aimlessly around in

102

BACI-S!ftll!

PO~l!lCS

the qu1cksand of the city ... these Vll-"fims of ignorance, naivete, and propaganda-they live a particular sort of life; they represent the men on the margin. " 11"' The anxiety over squatter expansion al110 perplexed the community of experts: the rural poor were shaking their epistemological order. These experts viewed migration as .. a phenomenon which is transforming the destiny of the cities, preKnting itself as an urban and political challenge.,.,,. The roots of the di10rder were to~ found pnmarily in the '"wrong policies nf the past regimr," notably in thr Land Reform prugram.•u• At nmrs the problem was even attributed to .. a calculated plot by our enemies who lure the vallagers into the cit1es." ''"' The m1grant poor were not aloof from this di~oursr. Their reaction was bitter; as sumr squatters put it: h is ndi~ulous that they lthe gm·ernmentJ are trraung us, the mus· ta:'a(in, like this, slandering us. They wnrr lm nrwspaprral that wr krC'p thr watrr taps runmng, that we wao;te water. Rut thrn we don't rvrn havr runmng water! Or that wr krrp nur ~tn oprn unnl vrry latr at mght, nr that our hoys rdutr gmng to mihtary serv1cr; whrre;u my own son 1s in the srrv1ce! A!i a maner of fact, rh1~ commumty is hrmg protected hy our own ba"l hoy1; the mumc1pahry hn done nothmg for thr sccumy of thts place.... '' th1s d1vmr and lslamu.: government nut supposrd to prote\.·t us, the lwulrhnuhm, the htuh•y,nllhm, the wrak?''''

Beyond the adeolngical campaign, the state also devised some con· measures to stop the population draft. Thr Mosque' Associations were anstructed to deny food ration card-. to migrant families. ThC' government also attempted to rrstril."t the purchase of homes or land by the migrants in citiC's by controlling all reiC'vant transactions.'" These legislative measures had little impact, howC'vrr, pr«isely hrcaus.r of the informal and autonomous way in which the P'K>r trnd to operate and subs1st ... These migrants s1mply need not and do not apply for any permits; as a matt~r of faL"t, they do not deal with us at all," thC' housing mimstC'r acknowledged. 'u In thC' long run the governm~nt aimed to improve agriculture and rural communities as necessary measures to deter ciryward migration. Thr Construction Crusade achieved considerable success in rural electrification and the construction of roads, which in practicr facilitated traveling to cities. Nevertheleu, urban bias remainrd the practical policy of thr Islamic govC'mment despite iu ruralist discoursr.' 11 c~Tte

IACI-S!WII!

PO~I!ICS

formal1vng the /nformals Given theSf' conditions, ft"w options remained nailable ru the government. One was to formalize or int~rate the illegal communities into the stare structure by rr\:ngnizing their status and incorporating them in urban colle'-"tive consumption. Th1s strategy would not only ensure popular support and state control nf the poor, it would also make residents pay for the services that they would otherwise tap informally. For the poor, informality served both as a means of coping and of livelihood, and as an end in it!>t'lf. In the Sl'ttlements the poor evaded the institutions uf the state and governed their own lives, tacirl)' rejeaing bureaucraq, taxation, the di!i(:ipline of time, and the regulation of spac.:e. Fur instance, over So percent of lslamshar inhabitants did nor set' any rolr for the municipality in regulating their cummunity. 114 And in the surrounding settlements, over half of rhr people avoidrd the stare hureaucracy.••• Instead, extending kinship through intercommunal marriages served ro expand cc,operarion and mutual responsibility. '"One nf the advantages of living here" said a resident of Aliabad, Kha7..aneh, .. is that I am next to my village fellows lh11mshahril. And since my work requires me: tn travel a lot, I always feel relieved that my family is secure among them ...... Others felt happy that "e,;eryone is related in here, and they help e;.u;h other our ...... The poor contested tht" dominant spatial policies and perceptions. They built their dwellings according to their own needs, taste, and resources (e.g., raising domestic animals), avoiding police control concerning how to appear or asSC'mble in public, and when to pay bills and return loans. For instance, when relocated to the apartments of the Shahrak-i Shoush, squatters of the gowd settlements built courtyards around their apartments by making the alleyways private domain and erecting a wall or fence around the apartments. A number of them returned to their old squattt"r dwellings. Some nf the settlers of Pol-i Mudinyat and Halabshahr of Tehran Pars, who had been given humes in new apartments, eventually moved and settled in uther squatter SC'trlements. 11 " The relocation pmje'-"t of Kouy-e Nnhom-i Ahan in South Tehran before the revolution had a !iimilar problem. Many squatters who had been relocated into the government housing either sold or rented out those homes and moved hack into shacks. In Bandar Abbas, the z.,soo-unit governmt"nt housing turned aftt"r a while into a spontaneous settlement primarily hecause such government housing patterns did not meet the needs of the pnor. 11 "

10,

104

BACI-i!WIIf POLlflCi Y~t integrating these- communill~!io was uu~:ial for the lslamil: stat~. The populist rrgim~ ~:ould hardly tol~rat~ div~r~>ity, let alone autonomy. It walt adamant abuut molding an obedient lslam1c umma-a con~:~pt totally in ~:onrrast with that uf the squatter settlements, which som~ officials viewed as butions uf lawlcring and arson, burning thC' city hall, thC' main library. several police !ltatinns." "By the evening the ciry was in the hands of the rioters, with the police and Islamic guards standing back and letting the crowd get on with it. •• '' .. The anny could not quieten the city, so thC' govC'rnment sent in units of basii (voluntary militia)" in the hope that thC'y could calm thC' crowd. 1 -.. Among the crowd were eight masked gunmen who IC'd the looting and attacks on the gnvernmC'nt buildings.••· In thC' C'nd thC' riot ldt ovC'r onC' hundred buildings and stores destroyed and thirry-fivr cars burnt, with an estimated total damage of Rls 1 o btl· lion. 1 •• Over thrrr hundred people were arrrsted, 1 '¥ six police officers wrre killed, and 4 riotrrs were hanged. GovernmC'nt offictals blamed

107

108

IAOI-StRII!

PO~ltlOS

the .. religious hard-liners ousted from the parliament," .. foreigners," .. opportunists." and the Mujahedin for the unrrst. 1411 While 1t is hkrly that some professional activists took part in the incidrnt, It srrms rvi· drnt that squattrr discontent lay at the core of rhe unrest. Following each attack, things seemed to go back to normality before long. In the Khak-i Sefid srtrlrmrnt, '"500n after thr departure of thr demolition agmts, people began to rebuild the1r homes oncr again ... Women helped their husbands in rrbuilding their dwrllings ... And I pursued my work on a srlf-help plumbing project to bring running watrr to the community. " 141 Despite the intensity of rhesr riots, they were not extraordinary pohtical events. Rather, they were the logical corollary to the politics of the squatter poor m their everyday lives, which maintamrd no line srparatmg srrugglr from life; they represented rhr vocal facer of the silrnt movrment of the poor, in the backstreets of the urban prriph· erirs, in pursuit of a brtter lifr. Given the resistance of the poor, it !iC'ems that the limited available opt1ons made a de facto tolerance of the mformal communJtJes an undedarrd state policy, leaving the task of drterrence to '"nature"- a recent mrthod rmployed by thr municipaliry of Trhran is the foresta· tion of vacant land around the city as a way to halt the creeping advance of the squatters. This measure ~presents the quirt rrsponR of the state to the quiet encroachmrnt of the homrlns. Indeed this policy, along with forceful rviction and rconomic exdusion, has to a large extrnt succ«drd. During the late 198os and rarly 1990s Tehran expe· rimcrd ourmigrat1on. However. the people driven from onr spot are likely to end up srtthng in diffrrent, usually more distant places. Not surprisingly, informal communities, as we saw rarher. spread at an unprrcrdrntrd rate nor within the big cit1rs but just outside their admmistrative boundaries, by turning hundreds of the nearby villages into low-income urban senlrments. ••; The silent movemmt of the poor in the backstr«ts of theu ms«ure communitirs is likely to continue. But if and when the captured gains are rh~atenrd, the silent movemrnt of the backsrreets is likely to tum into open and audible str«t action.

Six ~orkleaa

Revolut1onar1eaa The Movement 01' the Unemployed

The victory of the 1979 revolution resulted in a sudden and "unprecedented high level" of urban unemployment in Iran. 1 Hundreds of companies, businesses, and fa"'tories suspended their work. The owners and managers of these ventures, foreign and Iranian alike, had left the country months ~fore the insurrections of February 1o-11, 1979. Those who remained in the country shut down their enterpnses in the midst of chaos, waiting to see what ecnnom1c policy the new revolutionary government would pursue. Labor strikes, which escalated after Octo~r 1978, had almost crippled industry, large-scale services, and the government offices. Hardest hit was the construction sector. which resulted in hundreds of projects being abandoned mid-way. Cranes and tools stood idle on the lots of half-finished building complexes, and worksites remained deserted. In the end thousands of laborers who had withdrawn their labor for the victory of the revolution found themselves without JObs on us morrow. To these was added a new army of unemployed: those workmg in ideologically unfit occupations. Western-type restaurants, cafeterias, cabarets, liquor stores, red-light district theaters, and brothels were all dosed down, not only because they were incompatible with the Islamic Revolution but also ba:ause they were considered symbol\ of the drca-

drncr of the ancarn regime. In Tehran alone, an estimated J,ooo employers of such establishments lost their jobs.z The lottery ticket company was shut down entirely, laying off 100,000 low-income strrrt ticket sellers. The entry of about 1 so,ooo high school graduates, d1plomehs, gradually added a new weight to the army of the jobless. Thus in the very first year of the revolution, some 1. s million Iranians, 11 percent of the workforce, were out of work.' About s s percent of the Jobless, according to an official survey of Tehran unemployed, were laid off owing to closures; to percent were casual laborers who left their jobs because of low income and hardship; the rest were migrants and schoolwaduates who sought work for the first time. • In 'ihon, between 1. s to 1 million people lost their work within the few months of revolutionary events. The preceding two chapters have focuKd on the politics of the everyday life of ordinary people in their sphrre of living spacr. In this chapter. I shift my attention to the domain of wnrk. Herr, I shnw how thr ordinary unemployed utilized the revolutionary situation by rrsoning to colle~'tive action to demand jobs and maintenance. They Kt thr ground for the binh of a movrment of the unemployed in postrevolutionary Iran. The jobless were not a hrterogrnrous group. While factory workers and high sehoul graduates played the Jradang rolr in the movement, the amculataon of differing interests and discontent at the extraordinary conditions, brought many pour unemployed, casual laborers, and rural migrants into an audible and collective strrrt politics. In developang countries an unemployed movement t~t struggles for jobs and prote~'tion is extremely rare, despate high rates of visible and invisible joblessness. Family, kinship, patron-client relationships, and especially the informal sector provade essential mrc~nisms of protection and survival; in addition, the lack of orgamzation prevents sustained protest movements from developang. 1 In this chapter, I argue that what distinguished the Iranian case was a conjunctural aniculation of resources and pohtacal opponunity that underlay the movement. The resources included the creataon, after the revolution, of a mauiv~ and suddm loss of work, along with a revolutionary ideology among the jobless. The simultaneous suddnt decline in the standard of living and dampang of expectations generated a moral outrage. The movement was perceived as the contanuation of a broader revolutionary struMie. Expectataons among the poor and rhr unemployed had

WORKLISS

RBYOLU!IO.~RlBS

~n rai~d

dramatically; in addition, the.- int~nsr comprtitinn of thr ruling dergy and thr left opposition to gain thr suppon of thr poor funhrr h~ightrnrd nprctatinns. This ideological dimrnsion ~rvrd as thr c:nginr to th~ massin body of th~ joblrss, who utilized both the rxisting rdativ~ political frredom and the skills of mobilization they had lrarnrd during the re,·ulutiun.

The Onset Some.- three.- months prior to the.- victory of thr r~volutum, ovrr 1 .J.OOO or "project" workrrs in the city uf Abadan, a large oil pon city in the.- south, were madr rrdundant wh~n rhrir compani~ cea~d operations. The.- workrn had lost thrir jobs bur they considrrrd thrir situation of joblrssn~s insignificant comparrd to the rrvolutionary strugglrs around thrm. Even those who had maintained the1r JObs were on strike.-. Yrt for thr~ workers the.- extraordinary days of unity and sacrifice wer~ coming to an end. Thr revolution was rntrring into a new stag~ whrre groups and prrsonalitirs began revealing thrir true colors. The factionalism and strugadc for power amonK the new leadrrs was growing as thC' dericallead~rsh•p sraned rxhibiting irs inroiC'rancr of dis~nting political voices. As the days pas~. the~ workrrs began thinking about thrir precanous prr~nt and uncrnain future. During the.- unstrady prrmirrship of Shahpour Bakhtiar, the last prime ministt"r appointed by thC' Shah, a small number of tht"~ workers gathrrrd frrqUC'nrly in local trahousn to discuss thrir phght and decide.- on a cour~ of a..-rion to rakr. Out of rh~s~ and subSC'quC'nt mretings emrrgrd thr Syndicatt" of the Unemployrd Projr..-r Workrrs of Abadan (SUPWAI. This markrd the onset of collrctive actions taken by rhr unemployrd. Within five months campaigns succrssfully sa:urrd jobs and unrmpluymrnt ben~­ fits." Sevt"ral drmonstrations, all confrnntC'd by the Pasdaran, wrrr organiz~d to srcurr th~r objectives. Two months latC'r, on April •-~• 1979, as sodal strugglrs intensifird, somr four hundred laborrrs resont"d ro a sit-in in the syndicate.- hradquaners, thrratrning to go on a hungrr srrikt": An unemployed protrsr movemrnt was wdl undrrway in srvrral big ciri~ including Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, Ghazvin, Gachsaran, as well as in thr province of Kurdistan. In rhr capital city srveral laid-off and rxpelled worker groups (kargaran·i bikaar-shudeh) had initially been mobilized by the leftist organizations. Before.- long they came togt"thrr ~asonal

111

to form a loosely knit Organization of Unemployed and Seasonal Workers, which included laborers made redundant in manufacturing. construction, and orher industries.

Campaips in Tehran On Mar~h 1, 1979, a group of laid-off workers gathered in the Ministry of labor to publi~ize their plight. The labor minister, Dariush Foruhar, a liberal follower of Mosaddeq, spoke. Disappointed with his response, and due to their small num~r. the workers ended thear protest actaon by reading a resolution calling for job creation, a mttt· ing place for a syndicate organization, a forty-hour work w«k, and unemployment benefits. The group returned soon, better prepared and with over 1,000 members. Over the next rwo w«ks they visited the ministry more than five times. In the subsequent meetings rwo funher demands were made: that their organization be recognaz.ed, and that the naraonal radio and 1V broadcast their grievances." Facang mount· mg pressure in ats first few weeks in office, the Ministry of Labor decided to establish an .. unemployed loan fund ... The plan envisioned grannng loans of Rls 7,500 to Rls 9,000 (U.S.S11o-U.S.Sqo) per month for a maximum of six months. Workers between the age of twenty-five and sixty years who had paid social security for at least one year, would be eligible, • effectively excluding casual laborers and recent high school graduates. In the debate that followed, the unemployed turned down this concession, demanding that age and contribution to social security requirements be removed. They further insisted that the payments be based on fam· ily size and that the program be implemented and supervised by unemployed representatives. Most important, they called for the idea of "loans .. (vaam-i bdtaari) to be changed to "benefits" (baqq-1 bikaari). In the meeting. a laad-off employ« of Tehran bus services, Sh~rkat-i Vahid, echoed the concern of those who consadered the loan concept to be a sell-out for the working-class struggle as a whole: Wr arr rrprnrnrmg all nf rhr suffrrmg Iran tan workrrs. Our drmand is nor an mdividual drmand. llnfonunarrly. it was announcrd today that everybody gns onr thousand '"""'"s•~ and lcavn ... l11 it rrally fa1r to spoil thign beuu•e they did not ac..:epr my ..:hddrt'n m their nuf!>Cry. Now, Jth~ labor MmistryJ tell us '"take one thousand t11mam for the timC' being"! I have not paid my rent for thC' last "" months.; we hardly have: any food at home; my childrC'n

are Without dothn ... What ~an I dn With th1s one thousand t11mans? ~onsidrr my life situation.ll

So, I am relling you, I will nut leave th1s place unlesi they

While the hunger strike was underway, negotiations with the authorities continued. The strike leaders had sensed that the Provisional Gm·ernmenr was nor prepared to hal:k down. Some progovernment elements had hegun ro spread seeds of division. The loan offer undoubtedly fed into the di,·isinn hetwecn the political and nonpolitical lahorrrs. Adding tu thh,, sustaining a hunger strike against a governmenr that had just come out of a victorious revolution was not easy. On New Year's Day, March z.r, 1979, the Pasdaran hrnke into the compound, attacking the strikers and terrorizing them by continuously shooting in the air. 11 A number of hunger strikers passed out and were taken to hospitals; others were given glul:ose. H The strikC' leadrrs softC'nC'd their positions and eventually accepted the loan principle. The remaining differC'nces revolvrd only around the provisions of the lnan. A compromise was finally reached on March u, 1979. According to the agreement, each unemployed person was to he granted a monthly payment of Rls 9,oocr-Ris 1 z.,ooo, with an advanl:e payment of somr Rls ro,ooo. The conditionality of the payment was substantially modified. In addition, the unemployed succreded in having Khant--ye Kargar CHouse of Llbor) recognized as thrir organizational headquarters in Tchran. 1 '

The Escalation of Collective Actions The government hoped that the compromise would bring an end tn the protes~ nf the unemployed. Peace, however, nrver came in thr lifetimC' nf thC' Provisional GovC'mmC'nt. Both thC' govC'rnmC'nt and thC' unemployed knC'W that loans wert' not a solution tn thC' misC'ry uf johlessnC'Ss. The government madC' thr concession primarily tn pacify tht" jobIC'Ss crowd. Privatdy it assumC'd that the workers would nor pay hack the loans hut hoped that the measure would defusC' their protC'sts. Similarly, the unemployed and thC'ir ldt-wing leaders did nor consider the payment as a loan hut a!i a mere piecemC'al monetary gain. In addition, thC' Tehran agreement had left a lafKe number of casuallahorers and recent high sc:hool graduates out of its prnvisinns. !~The agret"ment ended the hunger strike in Tehran hur failed to halt the protest aL-rions of the unemployed in general. The campaign would go on.

Thr followmg three months saw an escalation in the protest move· ment of the jobless in different parts of the country. In some regions the organizations of the jobless flatly rej~"ted the Tehran compromise; others, notwithstanding theu desire tn obtain the loan, continurd the1r protests. In rhr meantime thr migrant poor and rhr schnolleavrrs nut covrred by rhr loan became even more aggressive. Thus, les!o rhan two weeks afrer the inirial agreement, on April 1, 1979, more rhan 3,000 jobless held an open meering in labor House, rhe outdoor loudspeakrn carrying rhe debates into the streets. The meeting condemned the loan plan once again and resoh•ed to continur the campatgn. An unemployed speaker angnly a:hoed the mood of the crowd: Sw~ar

by my consc~tn4~ I would havr nrvrr ac~rptrd t~ promasr of th~ flaborJ mma,rcr; would have 11C\'Cr agreed to be on lV cven to the point of lkath, af I had Knsrd that fendmg our hungrr \trikrl would lead to thas hopc"lelili 11tuanon. I would rathrr dae than face this •~tuataon .... Wr don't want a free ride, don't want chanty. Gave u11 work.~!·

The crowd suhsequenrly sraged a sit-in within rhe Mininry of justicr for five days. It ended only whrn the liberal justice Minister, Asadullahi, promised to rake the issue to the cabinet. He also facili· rated the unemployed's publicization of their grirvances on national radio and TV. 21 The Syndicate of the Unemployed Project Workers of Abadan focused its campaigns on consolidating its position and struggling to dislodge the rival Union of Workers and High-School Graduatrs that had been created by the local authorities to undermine the SUPWA. At the same rime it continued negotiating with local and national officials ro win conc.:nsions from the governmenr. Some rhrec weeks afrer the Tehran agreemenr, in the same region, the Unemployed Workers of Ahwaz and the Vicinity rejected the Labor Ministry's plan and demanded .. UnC'mployment benefits• instead.:• In thC' southeastern c1ty of Khorram Abad, only a few days after the Tehran agreement, hundreds of jobless laborers rook over the head· quarters of the Governorate demanding jobs, an unemployment fund, and a headquaners for their assemblies. The proresren were attacked by progovernment forces, espa:iall)· the Pasdaran of Komit~·ye Imam, violently assaulted, and fired upon.'" The unemployed in the industrial city of Ghazvin began their collective action by electing representatives to nC"gotiate with city authorities. Demoralised hy the response of the

WOII~KSS

IJYO~U!IO.AIIIS

authorities, who had askrd them to "wait for two months," they went on protest marches and later organizrd gatherings in local mosques to discuss their strategy. 11 In the northwestern Azari ~ity of Tabriz. on March z.8, hundreds of unemployed and laid-off workers staged a sit-in of several days on the premises of the Workers' Club. 11 Another group marched on Tabriz's radio and television station to force the authorities to publicizr thear graevances. Some two weeks earlier the jobless had already bern mobilized by left-wing actavisrs and had voiced their grievances in a number of gatherin~. One of the meetings issurd a resolution calling for an immediate return to work, the creation of an unemployed benefit fund, and the assignment of a permanent headquarten. 11 Similar sit-ins and protest marches took place in Shahr-i Kord and Sari during April and May. 14 In each city s~h protest actaons would often be prolonged primarily because the- authunties would rather rqt'l.'t the demands or delay their re-sponses to them. The violent reactaon of the sa:urity forc.-es resulted in further escalation of protests. The Union of the Unemployed Workers of Isfahan and Vicinity (UUWIV) established in March 1979, had also rejected the minister's loan provisions and made a number of other demands, giving the- officials two weeks to rnpond. When a favorable response did not come, some 7,000 unemployed and thdr sympathizers staged a protest dC'monsrrataon nn March .z.6, 1979. Thr}· ~arried slogans that read .. The burden of the revolution was on the- toilers, but the outcome has gone ro others."' The banners ~ailed for the govern· ment recognize the Council of the Unemployed Workers and their right to assemble.'~ The demonstrators were blocked hy the Pasdaran and h1t.bullahis who were carrying cluhs and knives. The governor rebuffed the demonstrators and Pasdaran arrested a number of organizers. In an effort to pur furthe-r pressure on the authuritiC's, another prote-st march of some 10,000 marcher5 gathered in front of Isfahan's House of Labor less than two weeks later to demand direct talks with the governor. The talks produced no tangible result, and the mar~hing continued. A rumor was spread accusing the demonstrators of intending to arra~k the police station. In the violent confrontations with the security forces that followed, one demonstrator, Na!lit'r Tawfiqian, was killed, eight others injured, and nearly three hundred detained.'" These collr-c.'tive prntests were not always in vain; at rimes desirable outcomes followed. In the Kurdish towns, for example, where thr- left

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and Kurdish nationalist organizations enjoyed mass support, the protests were more fierce and more successful. In the capital city of the Kurdistan Province, Mahabad, the employees of the power and water supply who had heen laid off during the revolution managed ro regain their jobs following a b1rter struggle. The Fedaii Organization appears to have played a crucial pan in this success and began appeals to jobless in other areas. F In another town, Sanandaj, following intense negotiations with various authoririn of the city, some temporary measures were taken to as!iist the jobless who numbered nearly 7,000, including the immediate employment of ~oo, payment of benefits to those laid off, and loans for others until they found reemployment. ta Toward the end of May 1979 the unemployed of Krrmanshah were mobih1.ed by young socialist activists. Recent h1gh school graduates, the unrmployed poo~ somr parrnu' groups, and othrr sympathizrrs Joined togrther in street demonstrations and sit-ins. They organized !'lOme of the largest protest marches in the c1ry, with thr participants in one demonstration reaching s.ooo. •• In one incident m May the demonstrators intended to launch a sitin in thr Governorate headquarters. Despitr opposition from the guards, the demonstrators broke the gate and seized the building for a few hours. This forced the governor, who had already flrd the buildmg. to return and listen to the crowd. The protesters agreed to end their sit-in only when the govc·mur assured them that he would seriously consider their demands. Before long, joint planning by the governor and the Union of the Unemployed, an elected body, resulted in the reopening of a house-building factory, which was able to rmploy 50me one hundred people. The plan al\n included jobs for another group of thC' unemployed at Kashmir Factory. ThC' remaining jobless were to be compensated between Rh; 7,ooo-Ris 1 s,ooo per month until they found work.4(1 Although the unemployed were mobihzed in almost every town whC're some workers had been laid off, thr movement remained dis· persrd and isolated fur the mo!it pan, but the protest actions of thC' unemployed culminated in a massive' show of unity and force on May Day 1979. Some soo,ooo people marched in the streets of Tehran, and many more in other provincial cities. The rally, organized by the Coordinating Council of May Day, a committee composc'd of various socialist and labor organizations, was thro biggest independent gathering of lower-class people in yean. Groups of mron and womC'n, parents

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and children marched hand-in-hand through the city's main streets chanting slogans. May Day was a show of the strength of the working dass, but even more so of the left. It was their forces who had been mobilized m such a massive numbers. Young male activists held hands along both edges of the march, creating a human chain in order to protect the demonstrators from the occasional assaults of organized thugs--the informal groupings under the protection of this or that powerful mullah. A number of stare organizations, such as Sepah-i Pasdaran, }rhad-1 Sa~and~gur jrhe Construction Crusade), and the Islamic Republinn Pany, also made statements on May Dayi some took pan in the marches. However, they focused more on the .. danger of Communism," the '"agents of the U.S." (referring to socialist activists), and Wahdat-i lome symbolic elements uf the traditional idea rt'main. Fur instance, the unC'mployed did organiZe sit-ins in •mch places as tht' headquarters of Workers' Syndicates or House of l.ahor, which were not intended to disrupt. Sim1larly, staging a sit-in m front of the Ministry nf Justice 'iignified a uy for justice in a morC' traditional srnsr. In '>pite of the.- large.- number of sit-ins, there i'i no C'vidC"nce of 'iuch direct a'tions 35 mob looting or rrnt riots. In Iran such actions historically result from 3 'iudden drop in income and a lack of alternative

!iources for survival. Rapad, massive, and unexpected unemployment may produce such phenomena in any country, as evidenced during rhe Depression in thr U.S .... In Iran, though, as in most drvdoping countries, people are better prepared to adopt survival strategies m a relatively short timr. Kinship, friendship, patronage, and especially infor· mal economic activities offer the most handy mechanisms. In Iran those who had alrrady been unemployed were equipped with coping techniqurs, and those who were laid off could partially rely on the support of their kin membrrs while searchmg for another job. Although it was qune limited, the unemployed also launched a fundraasmg campaagn. The contributions came largely from workmg people who had not lost their work. Significantly, the bazaar, a major source of funds during the revolution responded negatively. •· Unemployment loan~, however meager, providrd immediate relief. So long as the jobless believed they could gain ground through collective resistance, they refrained from limiting themsrlves to indavadualistic acts and survival strategirs. And so long as the unemployed poor lacked any institutional setting in whach they could rxercise direct action, such as workplace u~.:cupation, they needrd to resort to collective protest. Thas anterest in culla:tive activity, encouraged by the left· ist groups, paved thr way for some degree of associational activities among the jobless. Getting Orpnized The struggle uf the jobless was somewhat ..:hantic. For one thing, the unemployed did not constitute a homogenous group. They originated from different backgrounds, which gave them differrnt capacities for mobilization and ~.:ollectivr a~.:uun. A!io I have already pointrd out, threr main groups made up thr jobless population: laid-off and rxprllrd workers, recent graduates, and already jobless and casual laborers. No organizational link between them was cum:eivahle. Laidoff workers had largely worked in thr factunes or on construction sitrs. Whereas a cnmmon workplace gave: this group some basis fur communication, the other two groups were generally atomized and disprr~d. lacking t'Vt'n a ~.:ommon physical space. Within these categories, individuals met each other aCL:identally and nnly for a short whilr. Leaders of thr group!> wrre often chosen spontaneously without much drliberation or competition. At rime!> exciremrnr outweighed rational decisions and ukulatrd a~rinns. As une participant cnm-

mented, .. We had not decided to oc~upy the Labor Ministry; it just happened. We were only demonstrating in the stret'ts; chanting slogans; people got very rx~ited, and all of a sudden we found ourselves jumping over the fenas. " 4 M Nevenhrless, some degree of orgamz.ation and coordination could be observed. Two fa'-"tors played a key pan in th1s: simple necessity, and the role of mobilizers. Organtzallunal Nu~ssll)' Brfore all rise, before demonmatiuns and sit-ins, and instead of looting or rioting, the unemployed rehrd on the disposition of the new authorities. They initially prrfn-red to negotiate. Thi!li required that reprrsrntativrs be appointrd (u in the cities of Ghazvin, Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Krrmanshah). If nrgOliations did not bring a result, thry ma~ !liurr to maintain rome kind of communi~ation and network in order to continue their campaign. To achieve this, they needed first a place ro assemble and then recognition of their representatives by the authorities. Such recognitiOn, they believed, would !iC'rvr to protect them from the arbitrary assaults of the Pasdaran and others. These formal woupings of the unemployed workers were given different labels depending on the perception of the leaders. Among the most ~ommon names were shura (council), sandika (syndicate), and kaanun lcenter). Some groups went beyond merely appointing representatives, anrmpting instead to give a more durahiC' structure to their organizations. In Isfahan, when thr jobless realized that securing jobs was nut as easy a\ thr)· had initially thought, they began tn consolidate' their organization by involving thr unC'mplnyed workers of the ent1rr city and Its environ!i in the Union nf thC' Unemployed Worker!!. of Isfahan and the Vicinity. In Tehran, when thC' imtial negotiations with rhe Ministry of Labor failrd, jobless leaders gathered (on March -~)in the Hnusr of Labor to brgm plans for a more structured organization. This was followed by the formation of a Steering Committee of Casual/Seasonal Worker\ and (un March .u, 1979) official recognition of the House of Labor as theu permanent headquaners. The latter ~ame a significant institution for the laboring poor. Thr House of Labor was originally taken over quite spontaneously by thr unemployed. Its early meetings, open to all, revolved around diver5e rop1cs. Tht"SC general meC'tings were often hoth dynamic and

chaotic, drawing crowds of three to four hundred people. To remedy this problem, separate workshops were sometimes held. As political groups became more involved, some disciplinary standards were introduced: discussions became more organized, speakers more aniculate, and, simultaneously, ideological div1sions more pronounced. Speakers affiliated to a panicular political line were heckled by opponents and cheered by sympathizers. It was as if rhr huge slogans hanging on the background waii-.. The Only Solution for the Toilers is Unity and Organization" and "Workers' Democraq Is Limitless" -had lost their resonance. The debates introduced by militants tended ro center on such issues as .. democratic versus socialist revolution, .. and "economic versus political struggles," which seemed less relevant tn the da1ly concerns of the unemployed.~· Whatever the debates, official recognition of thr House of Labor signified a v'L"tnry for the labormg poor both in praL"tical and symbolic terms: It providrd a spac:r for their organizational activ1ties and a symbol nf their capac:iry for indrpendent c:ollective aL"tion. For many it was an intimate shelter: .. Some would spend the nights there; would bring fond and share with other fellow laborers. Othen spent their lu"':h break in the House, whilr discussing topics of mterrst. In this way so many simplr-minded lads experienced das.s solidarity. The House had practic:ally turned into a !K:houl for collective act1on ... sot The organized activities of the joblns wen~ nm limited to the House of Labor. however. A number of unemployed associations were also created. Unemployed workers in the oil and port city of Abadan, in southern Iran, developed a more elaborate organi7.ation known as the Syndicarr of Projectl~asonal Workers of Abadan (SPWA). As I discussed earlier, the embryo of the syndicate was formed weeks before the insurrection in the c:asual gatherings of laborers in the local trahouses (Bushehri-ha), where preparatory registering and campaigning began. These were followed by an assembly of a group of workers in the Oil Industry College, where they formed a steering committee (shura-ye muassess). The committee began recruiting members by using teahouses as their meeting points. At rh1s rime the priority was to obtam a permanent headquarten. Following intense negotiations and confrontations with city officials, they succeeded in getting the state-owned premises of the former Workers Union as their headquarters." They also registered rhe SPWA with the Komrtt--ye Imam, the lex:a I Pasdaran, and the office of rhe (Jovernorate .I! The SPWA man-

agrd ro organiu over 1 J,ooo unemployed workers from rwenty diffrrmt trades, with various skills and income levels.'' The steering com· mittee produced a set of by-laws based on the union experiences in postindrpendmcr Algeria, postrrvolution Nicaragua, and Iran during the 19401. The most pressing tasks comprised negotiations with employers to ~uirr them to reemploy the laid-off workers. They also included finding jobs for thr rest of its members and SC'Curing unem· ployment benrfirs."' In rhr long run, the SPWA aimed at establishing unions of unrmployrd workers m other provinces, and ulrimatrly creatmg a unified national union. lluring irs hfettme the SPWA won a number of concrssions through negotiations w1rh the Provisional Government, including reemployment of groups of workers and securing unemploymrnt loans. 11 A conflict arose berween thr SPWA and the authorities on the mrthod of aliir energies. Talk of ~rearing a national C(KJrdinating association ~arne by and large from left·wing a~"tivtsts ..., One crucial attrmpr was made tu link these individual campaigns in a national contrxr. On April13, 1979, delrgates from over rwrnty citit's and towns prhered in the House nf labor in Tehran. Their aim was to unify their stands and strategie~. to crearr eventually a nationwide orgamzation of the unempluyt'd. Delegates also discussed the conditions uf jobless people tn different pans of tht' country, especially the ramifications of a~~epting the unemployment loan.~• The meeting lastt'd three days, and no reponer was allowed tntu the met'tmg hall. A statemrnt issued at irs end instru~ted all unemplo~·ed masses in the country to stagr demonstrations on May r>ay 1979 and to direct their demands toward the government. Tht' rt'snlution warned that if the authontit's did nut respond posirivt'ly, thr national nrJtamzrrs .. will take harsher and more resolute measures to ensure that the Iranian working peoplt' will achtt've thetr just obJt'Ctl\'es. ""!

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lndred. the speed wtth which organizational effons were carried our was quire extraordinary. The Tehran Mrrting on April .Z.J. the climax of the organizational activity, came only rwo months after the revolution. ~ng up a StruL"tUrN association ohm constitutes the last stage of a umpaign. If mass action, spontaneous protests, and an unstructured mobilization have nor produced results, then a structured organi1.ation is requirni to ensure continuity. In Iran the line betwffn mass action and organizational work ~ttmed blurred. For one thing. people had just come out of a sua.:rssful revolution and were prepared to br mobilized. Second, the mobiliurs highly valued associationbuilding and considered it as a measure of success. The left especially msisred on organizational work, viewing institution-building as an essential element for creating a sustained working-da11s base for itself. Yet for the most pan these associations remained loosely structured, often serving only as ad hoc coordinating comminrcs to mobiliu the campaigns. They rarely employed any elaborate orgamzarional procedures or advcx:ated rlectoral campaigns and competition in appointing rt'prescntatives. Despite mrmsive t'ffons, lack of time did nor allow these organizations to develop and confront the rest of efficaq. The unemployed movement soon came to an abrupt halt.

The Demise The movement withered away as quickly as it had wme to life. May Day marked the climax of the collective action of the Jobless. The slowdown began gradually afterward, until its vinual demise by midautumn 1979. The war in Kurdistan in o;,ummer 1979 undermined the activities of the movement. During its clampdown on Kurdish nationalists, the government used rhe opportunity ro quell other dissent. Although a number of joble'is protest marches did take place their scope remained limited. On October 1, a crowd of •.soo jobles.o;, the sa:nnd march of its kind organiud withm a wrek, demonstrated out· side rhe prime minister's office. Pasdaran fired over their heads and the government warned of rough action against the protesters.'' In the dramatic atmosphere associated with the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran m November 1 979, the c;:oncems uf the unemployed were lost in the noisy campaign of "Islam against rhe Grear Saran." Indeed, on the very same day that the Muslim students dimhcd over the walls of rhe embaso;.y, a large group of unt'mployrd were marching in the streets nf the capital. But the desperate voic;:es of theSC' marchers were stifled

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by the nationalist outcry of the mass demonstrations that ~gan to unravel from the Embassy compound. Why did the movement disappear so rap1dly? First, political pressure intensified. Pr~overnment paramilitary organizations stepped up psychological and physical anacks, raiding and ransacking the headquarters of the johless. The leaders of the movement were stigmatized as "infidel communists," or "munafiqs" (hyaxx:rites), referring to the Mujahedin-i Khalq, a left Islamic group. Almost any sit-in hy the unemployed was assaulted violently by the armed Pasdaran, especially when the)' were convmced that the radical left and the Mujahedin were behind the rrouhles that they believed were aimed at undermining the revolution. Various anacks were reported in Tehran, Isfahan, Abadan, Ahwaz, Gachsaran, and Khorram Abad, most within the first two months after the victory of the revolution. In addition, worker gangs were set up hy employers to harass laid-off workers who voiced their protests, especially those calling on the government to rake over industry:• Friday prayer leaders would often denounce the unemployed activists as agents of a counterrevolution, provoking the praying crowd, often from lower-class backgrounds themselves, to anack and disrupt gatherings of the johlcss. The Islamic leaders were able to mobilize the poor against the poor. Whatn-er their differences. the various fal.'tions within the ruling elite all favored ending the unemployed protest. Radicals and conservatives, liberals and lslamists, all considered the activists as impatient opportunists who aimed at harvesting the fruits of the revolution before they were npe:' Second, an internal banle among the leaders, elipecially those with strong political convictions, further weakened the movement. Whereas Muslim activists along with nonpolitical workers tended to compromise for immediate gains, radical left leaders and .. political" workers insisted on prolonging the campaign, making it pan of a general struggle to undermine the Provisional Government... In addition, despite the anempts of the mobilizers to unite jobless graduates and unemployed lahorers, the rift between the two rmtained. Undoubtedly the left played a significant parr in publicizing the plight of the johless masses. It was particularly adamant that rhr movrment ~ radicalized and he given a distinctly political character. Most leftist puhlicatiom~:· especially those of the Maoist groups, known as ltbatt-i Sft'"""'· carried divt'rse reports on the struggles of the unemployed. They provided analyses of the causes of layoffs, often relating

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them to the "crisis of capitalism," followed by pr~riptions for how to combat Joblessness. One particular wec:kly, Ala1h1!-1 BIJraar1 lAgainst Unemployment) of the Razmandegan Organization:M was wdl known for raising these issues. A number of miluanr workers, such as Ali Adalatfam, Hassan lur, Asad, and others, mamly with Maoist tendencies, led the campaign in Tehran; their counterparts mobthud Job-sttkers in the provincial citirto. •• While the 1dea of helpmg out the poor was a prime mO[ive of the lt'h activists, they nevertheless utihzcd the campa1gn for their own political ends-first, to undermme the "hberal bourgeois" Provisional Government and, second, to build popular !iupport for the left. This meant that thr interests of the movement could in practice bt' sacn6crd to favor the political strategy of the individual socialist groups. Fmally, and perhaps most important, the exceptional conJUncture and condinons (I.e., sudden and mass1ve loss of work in a revolunonary snuatton) that had fostered the barth of the movement began gradually to be transformed. A number of the factories resumed operauons, rremploymg some of tht'ar labor force. Wuhin the farst six months of the revoluuon, some so prrcrnr of tndustrtes and small untts had returned to production."-' The labor-intemnve constru~"'tion ~tnr, wh~eh had prevtou!lly employed some one million laborers, still needed to be revived. To thts end, the provisional government extended Rls 11.,000 mtlhon credn to contractors to enable them to pay back wages and to rejuvenate the whole sector.'' Construction activ1tiN lx-gan to rise slowly m the sa:und half of 1 fJ79 as small and inrxprnstve housing units were built. ·1 By May 1979 some 1.1,000 jobs were creatrd m thn; S«ror:' On occasion laid-off workers took over their workplaces, appointing a shura to run them. At times they requested that the government appomr professional managers'" order to resume work. ·4 On May 6, 1979, for instance, ten workers at the Mrtusak factory attemptrd to rrgam their jobs by stagmg a sit-in m the factory. They continued their occupannn for twenty-tlvr days, after which they 1ssued a statement: '"z. s days sJt·m With four days hunger strikr! The result? ... Nothing!" "Whar could we do?," they went on. "There was only one way left. And that was: taking over the workshop, uprrating it by ourselves." So, "on Sunday 9 Ord1lx-hesht !May 1, 19791, we went into the work'ihop and. after repairmg th~ machmes and dividing responsibilities, began to produ'e and sell the product:oo. "'' S1milarly, laid-off workers

in Plastou Masourehkar reopenend their plant and resumed work.·~ While the~ ra'-"tics were effective in rrgaining jobs in some ca~. they were ineffective in many others. The former employres of such .. unlslamic" occupations as cabarets, nightclubs, and the lottery business, for example, had no chance of rrrmployment. Under intense pressure from the movement, the Ministry of Labor attempted to create some tt'mporary jobs, including public works such as road construction and planting trees in public plact's. Although Bazargan's government officially bannt'd any further starr sector employment, a number of new revolutionary inst1tunons (nahadha·ye lnq•lab1) such as Pasdaran Komitehs (Revolutionary Guards), jihad-1 Saundegu1 (Construction Crusade), Nlhut-1 Savad Aamu~i (Movement for Literacy), and Bonyad-i Masltan (Housing Foundation) nevertheless did absorb a good number of the jobless population. For instance, the Construction t:rusade, established in June 1979, had 31.7 centers in the country, employing 14,800 persons in 1979, with 4,700 voluntrrrs. ~ A small percentage of the z.oo,ooo lottery ticker sellers were hired by the local Pasdaran ld spact'S, and to help other vendors to do so as well. h was under the initiative of the political vendors that the rwo vendor associations, the Association of Srrret BookSellers (ASBS) and the Association of the Vendors of Fatemi Avenue were set up. Durmg thr first few months the ASBS gathered some rwo hundred vendors together. To prevent obstruction of thoroughfares, it advised irs members to place standard one-by-two-meter stalls on tM edges of the sidewalks. 11 But rhe municipality did nor seem to agree to such a proj~-r. The associations were dismantled during the first government attacks against the strttt vendors latror in rhe summer of '979· Ordinary Vendors Despite its salient pohtical pre~>ence, political vending was only a short·hved phenomenon and made up a small portiOn of the total street subsistence activitin. More important were rho~ ordinary vendors who continued their prerrvolunon business, as well as the many who joined them by thousands following the revolution. Thr newcomcn were composed of rural migrants. war refugrn, young Tehrani unemployed, and low-income state employers seeking a second ancome. While the politiCal vendors centered in more affluent areas, the typical street squatters spread out in the most heavily rraff1cked thoroughfares and big maidans such as Valiye'asre Street, Ma1dan-i lnqilab, Maidan-1 Imam Hussrin, Maidan-i Khomrini, Mawlavi Street, Maidan-i Shoush, Maidan-1 Azadi, Lalehzar, Istanbul, lmamzade Hasan, and in the vicinity of Park-i Shahr, as well as the

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neighborhoods in lower-class South Tehran. In 1980 over 1,8so stallholders were concentrated in Mosaddrq Avenue and 686 along lnqilab Street.:• Their means of tradmg ranged from simple carton boxes or tm plates to wagons, hanckarts, and kiosks. Many peddlers carried their merchandise in baskets that hung down from their necks. Thru business activities ranged from selling goods to providing services and producing objects. Their merchandise extended from fresh produce, old clothing. cigarettes, and washing powder to domestic appliances, car parts, medicine, stair bread, and their own bodirs. Some ingeniously traded phone coins, Xeroxed car application forms, and rationed gasoline coupons. Indeed. the wartime rationing of basic commodities boosted thrir busmess. as thrir genuinrly free market offrrrd almost anything restrictrd by the state. They produced and $Old food, kitchen appliances, and handicrafts. They offered entertainment, performing as magicians, rnacting passion plays. displaying animals. trlling fortunes. Or they remamed in silent despair next to their handcarts, waiting for somrone tn buy thrir muscle power. The morr desperate did almost any and everything that they thought would rn!llure their survival. This did not exdudr brgging. theft, drug-dealing. and prostitution.:• For these mrn and women, neither their underdog status nor the morality nf their enterprise hindered them so long as t~y made a living... Hawking is a disgrac:rfullabrrouri.til job. You see, I really get embarrassed whrn sometimes my relatives or friends pass by this placr. If they lthe gm·ernmcontl would prov1de for m)' livelihood, I would nevrr do this work. ":• This panorama of individuals, objects, and al."tlvities. this street culture, marked the social space of the street sidewalks, c:reating an imagr of a soc.:ial wholr that embodied a seemingly harmonious division of labor-beggars begged; shoppers and trilders bargained; the village traveler are from the cheap f,xxf stands; porters carried heavy loads; young men flirted. and belirvers broadcast loud religious chantings. Bur these busy thoroughfares b«ame so dogged with screaming rradrrs and street shoppers that moving through became a troublesome venture. It was as if this universe of hurrying individuals, shifting events, and constant noise had turned these streets of Tehran into a boundless macrocosm of 1ts great old bazaar. with 1ts densely packed linle shops and narrow alleyways !i«mingly filled with everyone and neryrhing. The street subsistence workers came from diverse social and reonomic backgrounds. Political vendors apart, the bulk nf them were

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urban youths without work, high school graduates who failed to grt into collegr or find office positions, war refugees, dasabled war veterans, luw-incmne state employees seeking SC'Cond jobs, and-the largest group thro~JKhour the 198o!i-rural magranrs. Some three-quaners of the vendors in Sharaz were magrants from other regions; one out of three was a war refugee.z. ~amalarly, the hulk (over 8o percent) of Tehrani street vendors originated from unskalled peasant migrants, most of whom (about 75 percent) became vendors for the 6nt tame after the revolution.u Many had migrated from the Turkish-speaking provincn of Azarbaijan, Zanjan, and Hamadan-rhe origin of many of the squatter settlers in South Tehran.z~ Vendors often embarked upon their new venture individually and quietly. Perceiving at as a natural way to make a living, they encroached on public spaces by rolling their pushcam around, spreading their #Nuaats, or sening up their stalls, often without being aware of the legal implications of their actions. Those who knew the laws jusnfied themselves hoth pnvately and publicly by referring to the moral principle of necessity. "I don't see this as unlawful. IBecause I only the needy and the poor do this job, nor the rich; only those who are embarrassed before their families because they cannot afford to provide for them-these do the street vending. Otherwise, they would have to rrson to theft and pickpocketing. " 111 But some viewed the strttts simply as public property. '"Look," they often argued "the authorities have not inherited the strerts; have rhey? It is nor their private property! They belong to all."'' To escape from pohce control, some became "invisiblr" by scattering to the less strategic locations. But once the vendors gained some drgrrr of securiry, stalls werr replaced by permanent kiosks. Secunty could be msured by the legitimacy of continual occupancy. Relatives and friends often offered advice on the quality of the '"spot," thr desirabiliry of the merchandise, police harassment, possibilities for bribes, and the like. The vendors alw thought about the cost-benefits of travel-peddling (dast-foroushl), srall-holding (basaati), or kimk-ownang (dalrkeb-daa,). Peddling offered versatility in finding customers and escaping police harassment, hut it required the physical fimess to walk long distances. Possessaon of baS~Wts in fixed locations in the busy thoroughfares was a highly competitive enterprise. Informal norms among the vendors regularrd who possessed which locatmn. Key money of crnain sites was calculated in terms of square

8!1111'1' IJBIJ.S

meter sidewalk tiles and the sires were at rimes traded for hundreds of dollars. 'l On occasion vending began and operated ~ollectively when groups nf relatives and village-mates would take over a public space, a maldan, or a vacant piece of land by hurriedly constructing stalls, kiosks, and booths to form collective markers. These group vendors often specialized in single commodities. In T~hran, for instance, a large numbc!r bought ust-d clothing and appliances from affluent homes and !iold thrrn in the poor southern districts. Most residents of the p from the central municipality, police, revolutionary committees, traffic, and a few othen.." Authorized by the attorney general, the CAOT instructed Its spa:ial agents to cv1ct the street vendors:• The CAOT created special antiobstru~:tinn squads, whiCh, in cooperation with the Pasdaran, replaced the street thug~. By May 1yH-4 ~ix mobile units were set up to provide surve1llan'e over the twenty-one distril.'ts of the capital city. Agents drove: around in their vans and pickup trucks; any 1llegal vendor they encounrered was evicted and his property confiscated. The merchandise might be returned or not, depending on certain procedure!>, indudmg the extent of illegality and the payment of hnC!.."-

Yet even th1s proved anadequate to contain the crisis. In September 198s, some eighteen months later, CAOT ba:ame the Committee for Conranuing Mobilization Against the Obstruction of Thoroughfares (CCMAOT) (Sitad-i Basij-r Paygu,; ''a Rll('-i Sadd-e Ma'bar). The change of name pointed to an emphasis on long and sweeping campaigm., with antiobstruction squads stationed permanently in the major trading l'x.:ations, induding the ma1dans of lnqilab and Ta1rish in the north, and those of Imam Hussein, Khorasan, Shnush, Rah-i Aahan. Gumrok, 1~th Khordad Avenue, Serah-i Azan, and streets off Lalehur, in the poor neighborhoods of South Tehran.~M In addnion to systemati~ institutumal mechanisms, many politicians resorted to rdig1ous leaders to eurt moral pressure on the vendors:• Urban migration, squatter ~ttlement, and street vending were discussai in friday prayers and local mosque sermons. Preachers often anstigated the1r audience into violent actions agaim-.t vendors. ·o The mayor of Orumieh procla1med that .. obstru~'tion and unemployment are haram lunac~eptableJ according tn sharr'a ... -. Attorney General, Ayatollah Muhammad Gilani requested Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fitwa, forbidding street vendors from •causing obstruction. ""1 The fitu•a was sought nor only to put moral pressure on the street vendors but also to silence the few officials who cast doubt on the viability of violent crackdowns. ' I The rewrt to violenl.7e pointed to the fact that institutional and mural pressure was having little practil.7al effect. The t'arly antivending pohc1es and actions were directed largely against the politl1.7al vending. On Mar~.7h 17, 1980, only nne month after the revolution, .. the Tehran central municipality mstructed all other districts to remove as soon as possrble all the recently erected stalls.''·· This was followed by harsher instructions. The warnings in part functioned as a green light to the informal street thugs, the h•z:.bullah•s, to get on with the dissenting vendors. Groups of thugs, often escorted by the Pasdaran, went around kicking down stalls and basaat!!t and confiscating merchandise and other belongings. ' I Subsequent scuffles and fistfights resulted in many injuries and deaths. In the first year of the revolution, demolitions tended tu he random, concentrated mainly in the streets around Tehran University, Mosaddeq (then Valiye'ahdl. and lnqilab avenur-s in the capital ciry. Large-scalr- violence also took place. The largest antivending operation in Tehran coincided with the first widnpread attt'mpt to quell tht' Kurdish autonomy movements in tht'

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late summer of 1980. In rhe late afternoon of one of rh~ days, I ventured to thr are.11 around Trhran Univrr.sity. Thr locality, oncr crlebrared for 1ts brisk and energetic feeling, had turned into a lonely and joyless arra. Pasdaran and the h•:bullahi thugs were patrolling on foot or in military jerps, driving victoriou!!ily up and down the deserted streen. The pavement and the streets resembled a battle zone, with piles of scatte~d newspaper sheets, ripped books, tom flyen, broken rabies, and wrecked vending stalls littering the ground. The occasional passers-by looked bewildered, rnigned, and silent; among them were local vendors who had returned with dismay, anguish, and anger to learn the fare of their spou;. Small-scale and random attacks, demolitions, and the removal of rhe street traders becamr an rveryday practice, one that continued through the late 198os. Almost any national crisis was used by the government to crack down on strttt entrrprises. On May l. 5, 198 1, in the midst of the clerical confrontation with Prestdenr Bani Sadr and rhe Mujahedin, a group of fifty h•:hullahls attacked the kiosk holden of Faremi Avenue in Tehran. The thugs turned on the stall holders, using iron dubs, knives, and similar objects. Some thirty kiosks and stalls were badly damaged or totally destroyed, and seven vendors were seriously mjured. The attacken returned the following day to finish off rhe remaining daltlub-daars, this time leaving ten to fiftttn wounded.·· There were similar, though nor as devastating attacks in the provincial citaes. Between 198l. and 1984 rhe authorities in Shiraz. Tabriz, Urumiyeh, Khorram Abad, Masjid Soleyman, Ghazvm, Langroud, Kirmanshah, and Karadj gave the go-ahead ro both Pasdaran and dub-wielders to dnrroy kiosks and remove rhe peddlers. Everyday survetllancr Sttmed to have a marked impa"-r in rrducing street activirirs. In April 1984 officials announced they had removed over 90 percent of the tl.O,ooo illegal vrndors and kiosk holden from the strttts of Tehran. "The remaindrr," they promised, "will be dealt with harshly in accordance with law. " 77 Some 1,86~ strttt cigarette sellers were arrestrd by july 198 ~ in Tehran alone. '• In the words of the mayor .. thr obstruction of thoroughfares which could have major social and political ramifications 1s on the verge of total resolution ... ~ Although street violence did force some vendors to retreat, the removal poliq in the capital affected mainly those centered in Maidan Azadi, the margins of Valiye'asr Avenue (a mator shopping center of the well-ro do), and lnqllab Avenue. Four years inro rhe campaigns a

STRBIT

RBIB~S

mood of resignation replaced the language of aggression. In March 19H ~ the mayor of Shiraz pleaded with the citizens ro .. offer us a solution. ooMtl In Tehran the head of the CCMAOT, Muhammad Malayeri, adtnowlcdged that .. our !demolition I a~nts are operating an the most difficult and dangerous conditions. Every day a num~r of them get ~atcn up and injured by the vendors, and aher a whale they get tired and worn down. "'" 1 !K>me vendors stood and defended their enterpnse; many owners of the less versatile kiosks moved to less noticeable locations; the more flexible peddlers took up a guernlla-typc ta""tic of resistance.

ResisrinR rhe Eviction Policy Vendu~

rnisted the evictaon policy in different ways. They organized demonstrations, withstood the eviction agents on the spot, took legal actanns, and publicized their plight in the press. The most endurmg method was the everyday guerrilla-type tactic of .. sell and run .., What determined these diverse tactics had to do with the differing types of \'ending and the changing political cm;umstances. Vendors did nor rely solely on informal association or active mobilization; these tactics were Ins usdul after the state repression ht-gan. The enduring factor was the operatum of "passi\'e networking" among vendors. Passive networking is the instantaneous and silent communication established among atomized individuals with common interests by virtue of a visihility rhar is facilitated through common space. Those individual vendors who worked in the same street and saw one another on a daily basis could develop latent communications merely by the fact of their common interest, even though they might not know or speak with nne another. When a common threat arrived, they came together spontaneously to act colla'tivdy. Demonstrations and sit·ins were organized largely by the political and immobile vendors. They took place in the early years of the postrevolution, 1979 to 1981, when this method of protest enjoyed a wide legitimacy. The vendors demonstrated either in order to hinder their forced removal or to publicize their plight and express their anger after an evict ann had already tx.:currrd. Thus, on December 1 6, 198 1, a small group of Tehrani vendor!t responded ro a demolition raid by assembling in front of the muni,ipaliry. A representative was sent to plead with the mayor, who pledged to provide them with a ~pace to set up an off-street market. Similarly, in Kirmanshah (Bakhtaran), somr ~treet

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threr hundred vrndors stagrd a march on the ciry hall to protest against an arrack by thr Pasdaran who two wreks earlier had destroyrd rhrir kiosks. They asked thr authorities to allow them to sell all thrir merchandise and e11tablish a ~rmanrnt off-strert market for them. The mayor agreed to borh their claims.. •l For most pan, howevrr, demonstrations rrmained isolated, smallscale, and loosely organized. They occurred mainly during 1979 and 1981, when a frrer political climate allowed left-wing activisrs to mobilizr strert dissent. They often encountered violent reactions. from thr Pasdaran, who considered such activitirs as a ploy to deltgitimize the revolution. A joint march organized by the Union of the Street Book-Srllers and rhe lin ion of the KitKk Holders of Mosaddrq Avenue in July 1980 was dealt with very harshly. h lasted a few days, involved marching to the presidential office and city hall, and resulted in many IDJunes and the killing of one demonstrator by the Pasdaran .. ' Because of their mobilizing role, political vendors were more s.usceptible to v1olenr reactions than othen. They were nor only defrnding their jobs, they were also exposing the government's violation of freedom of expression. While thrir forms of resistance tended to be more elaborate and loud, their successes proved limited. By the summer of 1981 rhe political vendors had been driven off the str~ts, leaving the ordinary vendors on their own, with some resoning to on-the-spot defense nf their enterprises. On December 1_s, 1985, CCMAOT squads, along with groups of Pasdaran, raided a fruit market located m the Falake·ye Dovvom-i Khazaneh, a pour neighborhood in South Tehran. They bt-gan to collect handcans, scalrs, and similar belongings, throwing fruits into the sewage dirchrs running through the market. ThC' vendors responded with their fists, inciting the Pasdaran to shoot intn the au. One can owner rracted by throwing a heavy scale" we1ght at the agents, knock· ing one down. ThC'y beat him up and dragged him to the Security Knmiteh. Reportedly, the women present defended the vendors, screaming at the agents and blaming the troubles on them. 14 Despite open resistance of this son, the outcome for the vendors was not always favorable. On-the-spot resistance cenainly made the removal poliq very costly and slow. In panicular, the involvement during each confrontation of scores of sympathi7~rs and passers-by would frustrate police o~rahons, leaving the agents embarrassed and indignant. Yet the vendors also felt the cost of their constant vigilance

and the msecuriry of everyday dashes with the demolition agents. One vending stronghold around Tehran University resisted the eviction policy until April 1990; despite their hitter resistance-eighty were detained-they were eventually driven off the streets by Pasdaran and by local shopkeepers. 11 The scattered narure of street work, the localized narure of their operation, and the fact of self-employment rendered a large-scale resistance (similar to that of the fa~"tory workers or the squatters) difficult. 1u the threat of demolition persisted, vendors had to think of alternative solutions. From mid- 1981 they turned to other forms of struggle. Some took legal action against the CCMAOT, bringing complaints to the courts, the Committee of Act 90 of the Majlis, the Presidential Office, the speaker of the Majlis, and the Administrative justice Court (Divan ldalat-i ldaari). Lawsuits piled up to the extent that the head of the CCMAOT expressed his frustration at the rime and energy they consumed ... Others resorted to a campaign of publicity and appeal in the press. The two major Tehran dailies, Enilaat and K.ayhan, carried letters of the vendors that comhmed cnes for justice with desperation and urgency. Ahmad lslam1, a vendor from the ~iry of Karadj wrote: For rhr last r1gh1ren yean, I have been making a living and !luproning my !lrven-memhcr family by !Idling daily parers in a kiosk. Bur wmr time a~o. thr munic1paliry in rhr c1ty of Karadj began to cullect rhr kiosk5 on the ground that thry obstructed thr public thoroughfare and rhry a~ doing this in thr conditions where thr cold winter i!i on its way. We, the newspaprn sellen, cannot do our busine!IS in the srrrers withour shelters. So, wr appeal to the honnrablr mayor rn allow us to carry on our work through this wmtrr. Otherwl!lt', we will have no recourse bur to .ray at hume ldmng nmhingl. •·

Rahim Rnaii, a peddler from Tehran, appealed: I am a (aludrb .. hawkrr. a trnant, and a breadwinner fur a fam1ly of 6ve. I would like to r~uest the honorable mayor to think of the famihes, of the vendors when he orden their eviction from the: str~ts. If they lthr munu:1pahryJ allocate us a market s1tc: anywhr~ in rhr City, wr w11l rrmovr our busmrn off the: strrrts promptl)' and wnhout any hesitation.'"

Alrhough these nonconfrontational campaigns prov~d effective in changing the attitude of some policy-makers, they failed to deter the immediate: danger of evi~"tiun. Thne struggles represented largely the

152

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tactics of th~ kiosk hold~n and 1mmobil~ v~ndors, who~ fix~d location had b«om~ a liability. The mdhod serv~ as r~ last an~mpt to which the kiosk holden could resort under the conditions of repression. ~ situation for thr mobile and more versatile vendon, howrver, seemed quit~ diff~rmt. To survive th~ 1mm~iat~ threat of removal, the more venatile and mobil~ vendors turned from an open confrontation to a war of amition through a hidden and everyday resistanct-. The fluidity of the operation of the basaatis, peddlers, hawk~rs, wagon holders, lorry keepers, and van owners made it possible for them to pack up their ~rchandise once rhe antiobstruction squads appeared, and to resume their operation as soon as the agents left the liCene. The pass1ve network, which is facilitated by mere visibility and proximity, as well as rhr a"-rive informal communication among the srraor vendors rendered this quirt form uf resistance h1ghly successful. The vendors often appointed a few peers to guard the vicimty of their work by informing the others of the arrival of eviction agents, hy shouting: "the agents are coming, run away. "'I() On many occasions even the immobile kiosk holders followed similar tactics. In the cuurse of the six months following their first removal in summer 1980 from Fatemi Avenue in Tehran, a group went back several rimes to bu1ld then stalls, after betng driven away each time. On one day in February 198 1 a number uf them returned and hurri~ly erected some seventy-five kiosks in a few hours. •• Ettilaat concluded that, givt•n this guerrilla-type campaign, the activities of the demolition squads '"have no outcome, except to waste time and energy."'J The antiobstru"-rion vans and trucks drove around in the srreets, supposedly clearing away the unauthorize-d v~ndors. But as soon as they mov~d away, "in a f~w minut~s. rverything get11 back ro normal as if nothing had happenN ... It appears that the Municipality is simply unable to do away with this highly rxtrnsive n~twork ... u A large number of the vendors individually w~nt .. invisible" by scan~ring to less noticeablr and less strategic pmitions. Some vendors stood by in strategic locations wh~rr they displayed not me-rchandise but a piece of cardboard that carried a list of pot~ntial items. Prospective customers would then be guided to hackstreers where the actual merchandise were stored. This method reduc~ the risk of I06ing capital by enhancing vendors' ability to confront the pohce.

S!WBI!

IBBB~S

To he more agile and mobile. vendors had to transform from kioskowning to stall-holding, push-can vending, and ro simply carrying cardboard signs. While this maneuver reduced vendors' active use of both public space and business conditions. it ensured thear continuing presence 10 the street economy and politics. ln the end, the antanbstruction operations did nor reduce the number nf the venden as mush as they redistributed them. The problem remained. In 1984 an Azari vendor, commenting on anrivending polici~. srated: '"I have been a vendor for the last twenty yean. Different governments have been trying to remove us since the time of ~neral Razmara l•9so-I9JII. But they couldn't. I think, this regime also won't he able to force us off the streets ...... As larr as April 1990 a new mayor of Tehran, Gholam Hussein Karbaschi, summed up the state of affairs. "The problem of vending and obstruction in rhr larxr cities, .. he stated, .. has always existed and will continue to persist. But the approach to this problem should nor be 'sil4di' !what the CCMAOT adoptedJ." He then disclosrd rhr new stratqy of the government to incorporate" thr more mobilr vendors by establishing off-street collective markets throughout thr city."' Having failed to end street activities, the aurhnrines decided to bring them under their own control. Incorporation, Diffusion, and Rack to the Streets? By rarly 1986 the authorities had acknowledged that street activities there to stay. Thrir hope that at least the "seasonal" street peddlen would return to their villages... also appeared to be a fantasy. It was waddy accepted that the remedy to this "disease" must he sought not in the cities but 10 the countryside, by tackling the development problems in the rural areas. The official press earned anides, repons, and debar~ on the predicament of street trade, wondering where these desperate people would go if and when the removal policy succeeded.~~ The question now was how to accommodate them without lening the situarion ro get enrirely out of hand. In October 198 s the Tehran municipality began a survey of street activities to adentify those '"who deserved tu continue their actavaties, .. mdudang the old, sick, and disabled, and those with at least ten years in the business. Lawful vendors were required ro get offidal permits, ru be issued by the Union of the Kiosk Holders and ke Traders of Tehran (UKHITI), whach cooperated with the CAOT. This method replaced an earlier policy whereby the '"deserving vendors" would were~

153

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have to apply through and ~ recommendrd by the local mosques."• According to the new d1recrives, strttt a~'tivihes were restrictrd to srllmg Rowers, fresh fruu 1uice, machine-made brrad, and foreign newspapers.... The rest, the unlawful kiosk holders and peddlers, were to br removrd within fony-eight hours. Municipality plans to construct formal street and off-str«r markers had been rntenamed, two yean earlier, to accommodate some ~o,ooo to 40,000 vendors and stall-holders in Tehran, placing them in such street markets as Tangeh Chaabeh m Vahye'asr Avmue; Saz.:aarche-ye z.z. Bahman in N1zamabad, which had about z.oo stalls; and similar umts in Maidan-i lnqilah, Naser Khosrow Street, and especially m districts m South Tehran.'!](' The plan barely got off the ground until thr early 19905. as street vending kept growing undererrrd.'u' With the comul8 to office of Karbasch1, a young, Western-educated mayor. im:orporation overcame confrontation. In the wmter of 1991., 'lnm flea markets began operating at different localities in the capatal city. 1'1z Each of these "rraditional markets," as they were called, was organized on a different day oft~ week. They accommodated up to three hundred vendors. The markets were located in places such as parkmK lots and blocked streets for a limited tame, and no fees were charged. In addition to professional vendors, households were also allowed to sell their used items, and a specaal market was set up for anisrs ro exhibit and trade their creatauns. Some thirty-five markets were planned to operate during 1991.. The vendors were encouraged to establish shuras with the elected representatives serving the general interests of the trade, negotiating with the authorities, and supervising the tagged prices. The shura issued a special I.D. card for the "commined" vendors, recognizing them as members of the lawful vending commumty. Government officials stared that their ob1ectives in sening up the markers were to C ~onsclous­ neu-> action t5 sull a mator preo:C"upauon of IOC'iology; for a review of the debates we Banuaz.azi, "Alounaknashman." JO. Sec Banuauc.a, • Alounakmshinan," pp. s9-6o; see also P1ran, "Alounaknashini dar Tehran." _, 1 • Ra~n rdcr. to the month of fasting when Ali, the lint Imam of thc Sha'irn was killed. Muha"""' 11 the month in whach HuSKan, Ali's wn, the ~eannh, f.la/1'11 At'am~/-i Gustareshi Mashagbd-1 Ka:lib; Plan and Budget Organization, Barrasi-yr limali-y~ Dalzluh-Ja.m Jar lr11bat ba lsht1ghal•·a 81/raa,; Fallah and Khamench, Barrasi·Y' f.;mali-y~ Dast-foroushan d.lr Trhro~n. A more seriuu• work is Tum Thompson'!!. "Prtt)' Traders in lr;iin. w Thompwm charactertu' petty tradcr!ii hy •a suhs1stem:e lrvd ilk:omr,· "an underdog statui, • •an absmce of innovation, low lrvd uf literacy. and a fragile MK:ial netWork"; seep . .z.6o. 9. Fur in•tan&:c:, in shon storie!!. by Gholam HusKin Sacdi (DanJil) and Samad Bchr.angui (But-u-Cbahar Sa"'at Jar Khab va Bidaari), and in Mrhrjoui's film (Dayf'r-yr Minai, vendon portrayed sympathetically r.till appear as Yi«=tim'i and pitiful. 10. The cum;ept "a4.""t1Vt' and pn!!.ive use• is also di~&:ussc:d in Us and Soly, "NeiRhborhuod ~K:ial Change in the \Vcr.t European Cities." 11. The operations of street vendors are documented in historh:al work' II.

7. 8!11B! IIIIL8

utles in the lAter Middl~ Age.s; Mar~us, The Middk but oN the be of Mudnnity; Abrahamian, lrfln BetweeN Two R.e110lut1011.1. u.. See d&X:umenl "E'Iaan-e Vezaral-c Nazmieh" (Oedararion by the M1nis1ry of Order) printed in Willem floor, "ln premiere• regln de police

such as Lapidus. Musl1m

urbane a Tehran," p. 174. 1 J· A study m 1974 showed that vendon in Tehran pa1d between Rls 10 and Rl• 1oo da1ly m hnbn to poli~e offi""Cn for their •llegal operahons; sec: Fo~ILth and Khameneh, BamJSI·Y' E,mal1-ye DdSI-{orotUhan dar Tehran, p. 1J. 14. The figure is drawn from Bahrmbeygui, Tmran: An Urban Analy.sl.s, p. 84. 1 s- Sec hr,ad•, "Barrasa-ye Bat.aar·• Kar," p. 76. 16. A..:~ording to off1c1al figures, the total number of urban tradmg enter· prasc1 with one workman was 414,000; of thcsc worknK"n, J 18,ooo wen petty 1raden, or lthordrh forou.sh; t.ee Ciuudarza, "VizhrJCUiha va Tahnvolat-i Bauar-i Kar dar Iran," p. 86. 17. Sec Mu,.,J,.J, no. 137, 1 J 6 }II y84, p. 1 J. 18. The Tehran Muna..:1pal•ry, c1tC\J m Ettll.wt, Farvardm 6, 136.111984. 19. Auummg 6o percent mamcd with three chddrrn and 40 pcr~t single. The ratio is drawn from a sample survey of urm vcndon in Shiraz and Tehran; Ke ~hrakha, "Eial va Payam.adha-yc Dasr-fnrnur.h1 (Tehrani," and Sheikh•, Elal 1-.1 Avamrl-1 Da.st-{uroushr (Sh11a:). 10. Sec fllllowt, Tir 4, 1 J6\IJ984. A Mimstry of Planning rrpon in 198S re.khcd a s1milar ..:ondus1un, st.armg rhar '"Informal a~rivitlr..-producrJvr or unproducnvc-will prnast m our 1101:1rty in full force." Sec Oancsh, "Elal va Avarnel-i Gosrarcsh-1 Mashaghcl-1 K.zib," p. )1. 11. Thru namn: Torab1, ~rdoub1, Mughadda••· lslah1, and Oskuuii; ICC Abazari, '"Donya-yc Bozorg-1 K.Jtab-furou•han·• Kouchak," pp. 4o-41. u. Abazari, 1bid. 1 J. Aya..degarr, u Tir 1 H 811 97Y. P· S· 14. ~Pian and Budget Orgamzataon, &lrrast-Y' l1nwl•·~ DaU.eh-d.Jarr d..r lrtlbat b.J l.sht•ghalt-a B1luwrr, p. 1 ). 1S- See f.ttli44t, Mchr 16 and 17, qfiJII914 for reports on bcging and drugs; scc csp«ially Khosrowkhavar, .. Nouvelle banlicuc ct marginalite." 16. lnrerv1ew with a srrcct knife-seller, Tehran, Ma1dan-1 Tatrish, 19YS· 17. from a sample of one hundred vendor• in the 'IIY of Shiraz; sec Shc,kbi, f.wl va lwam~l-• Dast-{omu.sh1 dar Sb"a:. 11. Baw:d upon a sample survey of one hundrC\1 stncr vendors in Tehran; sec Shctkha, ~EiaJ va Payamadha-yc Oast-forousha (dar Tehran). • A survey of lnq•wb-i Islam• earned out ten y~r~ earlier put the rural background of the vendors at 6o per~rnt; scc lnqilab-r lslam1, "Gozarcsh-i Tahqaqi Darban-yc l>aat-forou1han-i Tehran," Khord.ad 14 1H y/198o. 19. Sec Shr1kha, "Eial va Payamadha-yr Dasr-foroushi (dar Tehran)"; lnq•wb-1 f...swm1, "Gozarrsh-i Tahqiqi Oarbarr-yr Oasr-foroushan-i Tehran,"

195

196

7. I!WJI!

1111~1

Khordad 14, 1 H9l1980. A study in 1974 camr to similar conclusions conermine thr rthnic background of Tehran vendon. It concluded that the •maJority of vendors spread throuKhout the city lft'm to ~omr from Aurbaijan province, in parti~ular, areas around Ardabil, Ahar, Meshkin Shahr, and 10 on"; Re Fallah and Khameneh, BamUI-yr E1mali--,r Dast{ormtsha" dar Trlmlfl, p. r f· JO. lnkrvirw with a food vendor. Maidan-i Tajnsh, 1995. J 1. Starrmmr of vmdor in f.ni/Mt, ShahrJVar z.o, 1 J6JI19I4. J z.. See Jihad, "An Interview with the M.tyor of Tehran," Jihad 4• no. 6~ (Eifand 1 j6z.l198 J 1: r6./ihaJ is the publicatitHI of the ]lbad-1 S.tu~r~Jrpi, the Construction Crusade Organiurion. JJ. See Ha,.sbahn, "Bar.aar-i Sayyed Ismail," Dey~~~. IJ711199~. p. 5· H· In a similar action, a group of 1 z.o vendor~, all from a villattr near Malayer. ntabli1hed their ttalls collectively in Maidan-i Fawziyeh, but wrre removed by tfKo Pasdan. They then moved to another Maidan, Golha, but were harnsed by the rc-sadents who complained to the police. Eventually ev~"ted from there also, they ended up on a va~ant piea of land along Amirabad Avenue; KC' Ayarttkga,, Tir 16, I nll1980. H· See Sheik hi, "Eial va Payamadha-ye Datt-foroushi !dar Tehran," p. 69. Jf't. See Amarahmadi, Rr&IOINIIOII arul Econom1c Tran1111mr, p. 187. 11· Ibid., p. 1 Ill. Jl. Athari, "Faqr va lthtighal dar Iran," p. 76; see al10 Farjadi, "Barrasiyr Bazaar·i Kar," p. 69. J9· Interview with the mayor of Tehran, Habibi, in J•bad, no. 6~. Esfand lJ6Ur91J,p. 14. 40. Ac~ording to a survey, close to half of the vendors in Tehran c1ted street tradmg as an alternative ro unemployment; K'e Sheikhi, "Eial va Payamadha-ye Dast-foroushi (dar Tehrani," p. 68; see also Ayandt'lfilll, Tir 1~. 1 Hlh979, p. s. for mtrrvirwJ with the street vendon. 4 1. In Ayandrgan, J Ordibrhesht 1 J s 8/J 979. 41.. Prayer brads. 4 3. Set- Ayt;rrulrgan, Khordad 19, 1J s8/J 979· 44· See Sheik hi, "E.Ial va Payamadha-ye Dast-foroushi (dar Tehran)." A survry of lnqtlilb-t /sU,,, conducted in r980 est1marrd thar vrndors made a daily average eammg of Rls r.s~s J,OOO, wh1le abour lo prKmt of them earned Rls soo-Ris 1,000; ' " lnqilab-i Islam•, Khordad 14, I HYIJtJIO. Anothrr study provided an esnmated income of between Rls soo and Rls J,OOO a day for I 'Jill; see Plan and Budget Orpnization,Ba"asi-yr ITmali-yr Otllrltrh·dtwri dar lrtrbtlt ba lshhghal va Biluum, p. 14. Sheakhi's survey showed thar over half of the vmdon were between ten and thirty yean of age. some 11 prr~t below eighteen, and tome z.o percent over fony-five.

1. 8!111!

1111~8

45'· See j1bad 4, no. 6z.IEsfand q6z./1983l: 16. A schoolteacher earned about Rls 1,500 a day at that rune. 46. See Sheikhi, .. Eial va Payamadha-ye Oast-foroushi (dar Tehran). • A similar survey was conducrrd by the University of Shiraz for the city of Shiraz in 198 s. The general rftulrs seem ro be very sim1lar to rhar carrird our for Tehran. See Sheikhi, f.lal Vd Avam~l-1 Das1-(oro1Uh1. My interviews with ven· don suppon this. 4 7. In depth interviews with twenty street vendors In different pam of Tehran, 19'H· While in Sheikhi's survey the vast matority of vendors said they dislikrd their job due to irs low status, insecurity, and to the fear of police harassment, about thrrt' out of fivr !tarrd rhat they would continue worki"8 in trade 1f they had sufficient cap1ral; we p. 69. 48. Cited in Danesh, f.lalr'a A.vt~mrl-i Gostll,sb·t M.ashaghrl-1 Ka:tb, p. Z.9. 49· My inrervirws; we al10 interviews w11h street vendors and officials in A.ya,drga,, lir u., qs81t979. p. s; A.yt,drga,, Tsr z.s. IJJ8/scn9. p. ,. so. Sec A.yandega,., lir z.s, 1]JI/1979. p. S· s r. Interview With an old cheese vendor, Ma1dan-1 Tatrish, 199 s. sz.. See Enilaat, Khordad 17, IJ6z./191J; Enilaat,lir 4• IJ6JII914. B· In 1\-ya..drga,, Tir u, I HBI1979, p. S· 54· Sec F.n1laat, Mehr 13, q64/t9Bs. H· Nateq Nouri, Interior Minister in f.trilaat, Dey r8, r.J6311984; En1Lwt, Tir 4, 1J6JII9B4. s6. These urban sociologists range from George Simmd to Roben Park, Everett Stonequisr, and the rest of the Chiago School such •• louis Winh. 57· SfC' the very interesting Persian document in Floor, .. us premieres regln de police urbane a Teheran, • p. 174. sR. Floor. "The Market Police in Qajar Persia. • 59· For a perceptive daborarron of the issue of space as power see Foucault, Pou>er/K,owkdgr. For a more recent discuu1011, we Dav11, C.ty of QNart:. 6o. This fear of chaos can be amsrd m srate~nenrs by officials, for instance the Mrnilter of Interior, Natiq Nouri, in f.tttlaat, Dey rl, q6.J; sec also Enilaat, Tir 4, 136.Jir984. 61. Muhammad Malayeri, tht head of the CCMAOT in Ettilaat, Shahnvar ro, 1 J6tmlution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Bxp~rtce. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Amirahmad1, Houshang, and Ali Kiafar... Tehran: Growth and Contradictions... Journal of Planrting Educatimr and Research 6, no. 3 ( 1987). Amjad, Mohammad ... Rural Migrants, Islam, and Revolution in Iran." Social Mfwtments, Conflicts, and Chartge 16 ( 1993 ): H-S 1. F.ds., L. Kriesberg, M. Dohkowski, and I. Walliaman. Amraii, Sohbatnllah. Ba"asi-ye Moque'iyat-i litimaii-ye Sbohadaye lnqilab-i lslami: Shahrivar 1, 1 J r7-Bahman JO, 13 J7 (Social hackground of the martyrs of the Islamic revolution, August 13, 1978February 19, 1979 ). Unpublished Master's thesis, University of Tehran, 1981. Anonymous. rd. Bahsi Darba,-ye Marja'iyat va Ruhaniyat (A discussion about marja'iyat and the clergy). Tehran: publisher unknown, n.d. Arjomand, A. Said. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Ashraf, Ahmad. Iran: Imperialism, Class, and Modemit.ation from Above. Ph.D diss., New School for Social Research, 1971. - - -... The Roots of Emerging Dual Class Structure in Nine· reenth-Cenrury Iran." Iranian Studies 14, nos. 1-1 (Winter/Spring 1981 ). ---."Marateb-i ljrimaii dar Dowran-i Qajar" (Social status during the Qajar period). Kltab-i Aagah, no. 1, Tehran: lntisharat-i Aagah, 136o/Jy81. Athari, Kamal. "Faqr va lshtighal dar Iran" (Poveny and employment in Iran). f.nilaat-i Syassi-lqtisadi s. nos. 43-44 (137olt991). Bahrambeygui, H. Tehran: An Urban Analysis. Tehran: Sahab Book Institute, I'J77·

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Glossary

aab-aabaar. 'ard. OPFG.

abirouri:r.i. abirou. akhund.

alounaknishiaan. amaleh. anjuman. avaam-zadqui. awqaf. badbakhdaa.

bauati. basij.

bazrnan. bast-nishini.

ba-taqwa. bikaar-ahudeh. bimari-yc ijtimaii. bimari-yc mosrc'. biuz-o-bcfrou&h. Bonyad-i Mustaz'afin.

llnderttround warer reservoir. Honor (Arable). Organi1-ation of People Fedaii Guerrillas. Scandal, di!>grace. Honor. low-rJnking clergyman. Hur settlen. Constru\."tion worker. As~~ea.u1on.

Populism, followmg ordmary people. Endowments. Destitute. Stall-holding. Mobiliution, refen ro voluntary m1litia. Ohserven.. Sit·in. Pious. l-a1d off. Sc~eJal disease. Affiictmg disease. tand developer. lbe Foundation of the Oppressed.

218

GLOSSARY

dwe-ii neat. cbarllh-claari. dadpb-i zedd-i munkarar. dakkch-claari. darughch. dast-foroushi. dihllati. diplomch.

dootr va doihmaa.

facliha. fahthaa.

faludeh. faqir. faqir va hichareha.

f.n-alh.

6sud. fiabaari.

firwa. ROWd.

IJOWdnishin.

hammali. haqq-t bikaari. baram. barim.

huhiych. h•hiymiibini. buwuh. IKy'ar. · hikayat.

hizbullahi. imamudcb.

inqilab. lnqila~i lslami. iaqn-i hahiyc-ii.

is¥af. isciz'al. jihad-i Saazandcwai.

joaoubi. joay.

uThere ill no O(her way our". Pu!ih-un vcndintt. Ann-vi~e coun. Kiclik·holding. Traditional ninetc:c:nrh;;:cntury market police. Street vending. Of rural origin. High Khool graduate. Fnends and focli. Scandal (Arabic). Prmmunon. A kind of dncn. Poor. Poor and wretched. One who spread!> rhe urpns or &:ushions; 1anitur. Corruption. Strc-n fountain. Re-ligious verdi~-.. A !KlUth Tehran squatter distr~'t. Settler of the gowd. Portering, ~ing a porter. Uncmpluymnn bnlcfir. Religiously proscribe-d. Sacre-d. Marg~n.

urcrally, livang on the- rnargtn; squatter K"ttlcment. Islamic K"manary. Ck~asaonal religious K"rrnom, often ethnically bued. Tale!i. Member of progovernmenr informal group!i llet up after the- revolution in Iran. Saint. Rcvoluuon. Islamic Revolunon. Marginal man. (kcupation. Beang opprnscd. Conuruction Crusade. Southerner. Crc:c:k; refe-rs to !itrect ditch.

GLOSUJtt

kunun. Khane-~ Karpr. kb.rq-i mahdudch. Khan-i Scvwm.

kbUihailhin.

k01111itch. kouchcb.

koukhnillliua. lui.

............ mahallc . ...-.... 11111111atiq

al-ashwa 'yya.

mardam-i dar sahnch.

ma•h.a.ct-i kazib. ma~hqhcl-i aapli. Muharram.

mujahed. Mujahcdin-i Kbalq. mwudiq.

munkarat.

mustaz'afia. aa'mal cib?.

aahadha-yc inqilabi. pa1ban. Paldaran.

pcdar-i raajdaar. qachaqui. rowzc-kh1111i. ladd-i ma'bar. tandika. ur-i kouchch. ur-qufti.

tepahi-yc danah. shabrdari.

Cmrer. House of Labor. Out5ick municipal boundarin. The Third line ~rdemnR ro MaoittjUoups). Nunagrl'-"laltural rural stnlcr. Commin~ ~ rc~n ro postrevolutionary urhan security fon:el. Alleyway. Poor urban shantytown dwellers. Street bully. Nt>ighborhoods . NriJChborhood. A square. lnformaiKnlt>mcnn hn Egypt). lncrally, people on the sta~; rc~rs ro the street mobilization of tht' pt"uple loyal to thl' Islamic government. Fake occupations. ParasitiC: n.:c:upauons. Araboc month, during which Imam HusKm, RJ"andson nf the Prophet, wa111 k1lled. Warnor; here refton to members of thl' Mutahcdm-1 Khalq organ11.auon. An oppos1tional radical lslam1c organization m Iran. Literally •hypocrite"; used by the Islamic: government 1n Iran to refer ro the Mutahedin-1 Khalq. Ev1l doings. Downtrodden. •\lfhar should we do?" lf.gypr1an1. Rrvolutionary institutions. Low·ranked policeman. Rnoolutumary guards. The crowned father lrckrring to the Shah). llndrrgrnund, illegal. l~>lamJc preaching. ObstnM.'tion. Syndicate. lnrrrsa:nnn of alleyway and street. Key mtmey. Literaq· corps. Municipality.

219

220

Glo08U.ltl

sharbaa. shura. shura-yc muauc~~. Shuraba-ye Mallallaa. aa'ziych. ...,....yciCiiha. .........a. tabih. aawpouti.

.......... .........

......

um....

,.....,..; bikari. wahdar-i Ulameh.

zatlwh. uthdlaishini.

Sweet drinks. Cuu~il.

Steering comm.iltff.

Neighborhood Coundls. Pas•ion piay. Thirdo, 1 46, 1 5J.; during rn·oluuon, 51-51. political party nvalry, 4 J. political strat~tn, 40; ditmfranchi!N groups and, 8; dunng lsl.tmic Rnoolution, l9> mobilization and, J. 1: quin mcroachmmt and, 8; r~volutton and, 71; urhan poor and, JH polina of r~rn'l, 1o politics of the! poor, 1 s8-6o: du:hotom•~ and, 75: ar. rnoolurionary/passive dichotomy, 6 pohtll:s oft~ stat~. 159 poor oommuninn: conAicn in, 41.; Islamic Rnoolunon and, J 7 poor peopl~ ({aqrrt, l1; as offmsivr to donunan1 group.. 6: politiCal restrictions and, 9 s: political

thr~at to existing ordn, 6; rrtilt oppressors, 5> as victims, s-6 poor urhan shantytown dweller (lroulrb,.ulmr.:m), 38 populace t'C'TSMS th~ Authority, 1 5 popular or~nll.ations, s s-s6; for 'lquan~n. 41 population increases, urban un~m­ ploymrnt and, 19-10 populism (avcwm-~1), 4 J popuhst lll0dnnizat1on, in Third World countries, 1.0 populist rrgJIIlt', squatter settl~enrs and, 104 pon~rs (htJrrmral), JO, Jl., 139 posnnod~mist movem~nt, Brazilian harrio as, 11 poverty and m1sery {rstiz'af), 101 power: and politics, 44> and profit, 1 H: ~~as, 1 ~. 164, 197"59 power cmten, in occup~d huild-

mgs, 66, 6R

powrrlrssnt'SI, 9 prostitutes, 1 s. Jl protest movrmmts, 161; t'C'Tsus indiVIdual dtr~ action, 1o; strrn vendon and, 1so: unemployment and, 116 psrudomodrmizatton, in Iranian cities, 11 public spac~: contnt1 in, 15: st~• as, 19; uv of, 46, 1 }4-H pull and push factors, 19 pushcam, J-4. 1 ~ 8 Qomt, Ayatollah, 69 qutet encroachment, 7-1 o, 11, 4 5, s8. 6o, ·~7. J6o, 16\; history of, 19-11; unrmploymmt and, 1H Qum, demonstration in, \7 Rabat, informal commumtin in, 19 Rahanjam, Prnidmt, 98

Inn

Ramsar:, rrvolutionary comminrn In, p. rational choiCe theory, 6, 170n&~ Ray: bombinR of buildings m, 43; ahantytowns in, so; ~quaner settlement!. in, 30 Razmandrpn Organization, 1&8 Razmara, General, 1s3 redistribution: and autonomy, 1&; of goods, II; of rnources, n redistribution of pubh~ goods: as burden on statt, 1 5i ~quanen and, 98 redistribution of soctal ROOds, 10, 160 rrform movements, 160, 176n6 refuRccs, B~ religious beliefs, shared, &4-&~ religious issun: hornogmcous cultural and behavtoral patterns and. &4-&S; lslamac Revolution and, ]6; in poor communitln, 4 &; ~« also clergy

religiously prohibited (haram), 70 reli1iouascrmons ~rowu-lthtnt•l, in undrrdass neighborhoods, 43 relocanon protects. 103-4 rcpressift statt policies, s, 19, 163; mobilizaticm and, 2. 1 rcsiliri'ICe, and hardship, 44 rcsiatancc, 6 rrvolutionary comminca, 146; dur· in& revolution, s1 Rrvolutionary Guards, 12.9 revolution ~mqilab), ss Rnaich, revolutionary committee• in, s1 Rrza1i, Rahim, 1s r Reza Shah, 2.4, ]S, I]S-]6 rtots. 9, Jl-}9; bu1 fare suba1dies and, 9l; demolitions and, 1o6-l; sattlhrr communities and, I 1; in Tehran, 49-SO

rirual1, in shanrytowns, 42. romance of militance, 161 royalleadenhtp, 40 rural/backward (d1haat1l, 30 rural nugranrs, J, ~ rural parochialism and traditionalism, urban poor and, 10 rural-urban m1gratioo, 82., 95, 1}6; in Iran, 2.4; in Iranian cities. &J; pull and push factors and, &IJ; Tehran and, 2.6; unemployment and, IIJ-2.0, 14 1; urban unemployment and, 19-&0

sabolnan vn-JNI community solidarity, ss-s6 Sa'rdi, Gholam Huucin, Sanandat. unemployment in, 11I Santiqo, Chilr, 4 SAVAK, J7 Sayycda Zcynab, 3 Schuurman, Framo, 7 Schwrdler, jillian, 161 Scon,jamt'l,4, s-6 scctaraani•m. Neighborhood CoutKils and, 93-9 s Security Organizations, ss, 18yn1 1s Scifian, Engineer, 146 self-reaulation and autonomy, 12., I J, I J8 self-reliance, 160 Scndero Lumin010 (Pcrul, 41 sermons. ~e ethnic sermons; religious sermon• servants, JO servants of the d11poueued, 67 sewage ditch ~,lOti)'), 92. sexual modesty (hfl)'d), 1J shacks (aiONnaits), 4• 64 Shadshahr. SH ltlam1hahr shah as patron, 39-40 Shah of Iran: coup (195)), 37; dictatorship of, 4 2.; downfall of, 40;

'2.

229

no Inn Shah of lr•n ... tco11h!IWJ) "' also Muhammad Rcza Shah; Rna Shah Shahpour, revolutionary commimcs

an, s1 shahrak commurutia, 79 Shahrntani (mayor of Tehran), 49 Shahnar. ~quaner .ettlcmenta in, JO shanty .etdcmcntt (u~). 77, 87 shantytown~, 4, 11; in Tehran, 41; violent eradication of, 46-48 Shariab, Ali, 4J Sharif-lmami, Ja'far (prime minister), 49 Sbiraz: communaJ diffrrcntlabOII in, :1.4; .quanrr sndementaan, z.6; street vcndon an, 140, 146-49; violmt nadiaation in, 46 shuraiam, 90-91, 1 S4i JH also ~ighborhood Cou~:ila

11lmt rrvuluuon, 6o; sn .Uo quirt encroachment Saraz riots, 1 o6-l lit-ins (tabaSJMII), I Z.O, I :1.7-Z.I, 149 slum dwdlcrs, J, 1 r, :1.4; ancomc bel. of, .J 1 slum dwcllinp. dncribcd, 2.6-2.7 !dums, in Tehran, z.s-n S«aal c:hange, 1p, a6o; in Iran, :1.4-z.s; pohtical movements and, S; Sllfllfican~;e uf the Joc~JI and, Ji squanc,.· movements and, 6o; universal imagr of, 1 socaal forcn, 8, u, J6 socia I idcntiry, z. J, :1.4 Socialiam, Z.O, I I 9 aocial movemrnts, 6-7, a691111z.6-z.7; and MX;ial chanae, 4-s; uniiU aoc:aal change, a S7 MX;ial space, 14 s socaa.l transformation, 6-7 !101:10101)', 144

solidarity, H-s6, I .JS, I s9-60; in o.:a.p!Cd buildinp, 66 ~uth Africa: cnsis of lqirimaq• in, z.1 ; shacks and shantytowns in, 4 spontaneous habitation, • s-46, 167114 spontaneous IC'tdcmcnu, tolctance uf, 48 SPWA. SN Syndica~ of Pro,ect/Seaaonal Workers of Abadan squanen, z., 8, 1s. 16, z.4; employ· mcnt of, 41; evictions of, 68; home invasions and, 64; oa:upativns of, J 1; street vrnding and, 140 squaner ~ettlemcnts: recognition of, 49; in Tehran, z.s-n. z.B, • 74rrz.6 llqu&RIOI (llhghfll) Vft'llasit-ins, I &0 srabihzanon pqrams, in Third World counrries, zo stall-hoidiDBI~tl), 114,140 stalls, a.J6, 158 stanltica: rural-urban migration, IJ.-1 J; squancr community z.7, Z9, J 1; aqua ncr oa:upations, J 1; 1treet event dcath1 in Tehran, J9; Tehran population~, 77-799 uncmploymcru, 110; uncmploymcot in Tehran, 1 Hi unemployment in Third World countria, &O, 172.11S9i unemployment rarcs, 141 ~renng Comm1nre of Caiiual/Sraaonal Worken, 1 u stratqy sharins. I street demonstration•, 9, JI-J¥; onworks and. 1 7 street fountain '/ishaNI), 9J. Street pnp, Z. 1 street hawken, 14J litlftt politics: dacribcd, 15-19; government contro4 uf, 19; leRit·

••zn.

imization of, so; sid~walk v~n­ dnrs and, \ strrn subsast~IK~ activitin., 3. 1 1, I~.

Z.1, 1)4

srrrn substsrmc~ workers. 1S7 strttt thugs (br:bNIIabl), 1 14, 1 17, 146, 147 1trrn vmdang, 1 J4 1trrn vmdors, J,IJ--9, _lo, 1 .n-u. aliz. st~~ vaolmu, 148 structural adjusnncnt, 10 struetu~ of opportunities (Tarrow), 8 student actavism, J 7; srr also young actiVIStS student squanen, 64-tis, n; evtctions of, 68-69 suhaltcm groups, 9 Sultanabad, infonnal communatia an, Z.9 superordanat~ groups, 6 Sup~mc Council of tM Gowds (ShNra·y~ A41H Gowdl, 9Z. SUPWA. Sr~ Syndicate of the Un~mployrd Projn:t Workers of Abadan Suq EI-Gom'a an lmbaha, 3 survival strategiQ, s, 6, ? J., 16o Syndacate of Projn:t/Scasonal Worker of Abadan (SPWA), IJ.J-2.4 Syndic:atc of th~ lln~mployed Proj~