cratic Party' No doubt the inhabitants Carna 1l west Azerbaijan relieved to hear of this •Moslem brotherhood'. In early September, 46 Kurdish people the including four massacred by Islamic militia. Among the dead was Mullah Mahmoud, the village leader of Friday prayers, was found with a copy of the Koran by his side.
was made .on the Saddeg, clearly illustrate "equality' of national Guardian They deny "It is nearing the the , contains all the • Khomeini's property;
of political of of. the of and his of along Caspian sea.
struggle At. neighbouring the Caspian, linguistic also speak a variety of Turkic, live the strong Arabs form a majority in many of the towns and cities of Khuzestan, while almost one million Baluchis in south-east Iran come from the same grouping as the ten million Baluchis need Gilani, in the Gilan mountains near form large although they separate of these nationalities and linguistic groups to always latter WAS The overthrow of the dynasty and replacement by Reza Khan, first of the Pahlavis, was made possible by the state of disintegration which the The large regional movement among the Gilani led the British to sponsor Reza Khan's coup.
Similarly, the establishment of the autonomous republics in Kurdestan Azerbaijan after the Second first brought the full The sale of oll, the growth of and the geopolitical location of Iran in Asia meant that internal "stability' central control was important for imperialism as it was for the Shah himself. The political and military alliance between Iran and the USA was motivated by th to keep the lid on disparate population much as by external considerations. Persian National unity, however, was not maintained merely by outright repression, even it it rested on in the final analysis.
Pahlavis built up a whole ideological superstructure based on Persian chauvinism which permeated aspect of life in Iran. officials of the Pahlavi state were drawn exclusively from the Persian sections of society only about 17 per cent of top officials spoke a local language other than Persian.
Hand in hand with this went an attempt to purge the Persian language of foreign words- - especially Arabic and Turkish ones - - and to introduce a 'pure Persian' speech. This was transmitted to the national minorities through the paramilitary Health and Education Corps which went to the • 0 200 km villages as part of the land reforms of 1963 — ostensibly to promote literacy 200 miles representatives and welculare the constitution. autonomy the Kurdish for the Kurds' assaults nationalities the Abadan.
Islamic
peace' the their the the of Baluchistan and Sistan - only 1 per units the country are situated there - has driven many Baluchis to find seasonal work or jobs as casual labourers in other parts of Iran.
overthrow of the Shah has inevitably led to demands for national cultural rights the national groupings. In Khuzestan, the Arabs put forward a programme for positive discrimination to overcome the years of oppression. This included official recognition of Arabic as the first language of the Arab people, in the constituent assembly and on all local, regional national use of of revenue for development of Arab education and Khuzestan area, TOT incorporation of these demands into Autonomy Similar demands came from the Turkomeni people, who also pressed for a single Turkomeni province with governor-general. Local was equally demand of the Baluchis, and of the Kurdish people. The main slogan of Democratic Party 'Democracy for Iran — Autonomy The recent all-out war against the Kurds is merely the latest in a series of launched against the Islamic Guards naval torpedo boats were sent against Arabs in Khorramshahr alil Government troops and militia were sent to Turkomenistan to safeguard 'the While Khomeini claims to support the national liberation struggle of the Palestinians and denounces the racist regime in South Africa, he denies even existence of grievances among Iran's own oppressed nationalities. They are treated as Moslems first, Iranians second, and Kurds or Arabs The demands of the nationalities for cultural and national rights and for greater control over the affairs of own regions are democratic demands. But democratic rights and autonomy within a federal republic of Iran will not alone solve the problems facing them.
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Linguistic groups
PERSIAN TURKIC KURDISH BALUCHI ARABIC