UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO
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Marine Corps Intelligence Activity |
(U) Cultural Narratives and Symbolic Eras
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Roots of Bakhtiari and Lur: Nomadic Pastoralism
(U) The Bakhtiari people are mostly nomads who live in the central and southern Zagros mountain region southward from Lorestan Province to Khuzestan Province.
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(U) They do not claim one specific area as their year-round home. Their nomadic lifestyle keeps them in the lowlands for the winter; during the warm summer months, they travel with their animals to higher elevations. In addition to winter and summer pastures, there are also grazing areas to which they travel in the spring and autumn.
(U) Migration is an important part of their identity. Their lifestyle is full of adversity, especially when compared with the sedentary lifestyle of the farmers who also reside in this area. Loss of human and animal life is common during the periods of travel; the Bakhtiari expect deaths to occur.
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(U) The Lur are traditionally nomadic pastoralists. However, many Lur settled into agricultural lifestyles around the first part of the 20th century. Now, less than one-third of the tribe continues the nomadic lifestyle; the remaining two-thirds are year-round agriculturalists. These two parts of society interact frequently: the nomads become farmers at specific points throughout the year when they arrive with their flocks of sheep or goats to the lowland areas for grazing.
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Roots of Lur: The Glorious Age
(U) The Lur’s understanding of their history is different from what is documented in history books and travelers’ notes. In the 19th century, the Lur were largely settled, less nomadic than the Bakhtiari, and lived on inhospitable land, with barren terrain and rugged mountain slopes. Insecurity was the common theme in their lives and the tribes lived outside the control of the Iranian state.
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(U) The Lur are nostalgic about this era, which they consider their glorious age. They believe that in the past they lived harmoniously and their tribespeople were significantly better off than they are today. In their minds, the myth of the past is quite clear: the men were honest and brave, the nomads were rich and prosperous, and all tribes in Iran were free and strong. Because of their current poor standard of living, and because many feel trapped in a sedentary lifestyle in towns, the Lur people remain nostalgic for the past.
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Relationship with the British: Gaining a Powerful Patron
(U) The Bakhtiaris first engaged with western civilization when British adventurers arrived in western Iran in the mid-19th century. The Bakhtiari soon realized that the British were interested in their area and their people because of the Bakhtiari’s location between British India, which included present-day Pakistan, and the European continent. These early adventurers hoped to secure travel for rich and exotic goods from India to Europe.
(U) The Bakhtiari worked with the Westerners to develop their tribespeople’s resources and expand their influence, and the British paid more attention to their small tribe than to the central government in Tehran. The British believed that the Bakhtiari had more to offer to them because of the Bakhtiari’s established military strength. In the late 19th century, the British made arrangements with the khans to build a road by which merchants and goods traveled from India to Europe. When oil was struck on Bakhtiari land in the early 20th century, the British negotiated with the tribe to become a stockholder in their oil company and received oil at a substantially lower rate.
(U) The Bakhtiari became involved with the Constitutional Revolution in 1909 largely due to their involvement with the British. The Bakhtiari khans often turned to the British as an ally against the central government. This relationship ended, however, when the British supported Reza Shah's centralization program. The Bakhtiari interpret this as a betrayal.
(U) Today, the Bakhtiari lack a powerful patron. They look back on the years with their powerful ally wistfully and doubt that their group will ever be able to achieve such power and influence again.
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Constitutional Revolution: Bakhtiari Political Participation at the National Level
(U) The Bakhtiari tribes rarely united for a common cause. Yet in the early 20th century, the Bakhtiari, with 5,000 cavalry and other troops, traveled to Tehran and formed the main force behind what became known as the Constitutional Revolution.
(U) Soon after the Constitutional Revolution, the Bakhtiari lost their one chance to hold national political power. For their military support in the Revolution they received governorship of seven cities around northern Iran and the potential opportunity to later rule the throne. Yet this supremacy was fleeting and the traditional leadership of these areas opposed the new Bakhtiari governors. The Bakhtiari were soon pushed out of their leadership positions and returned home to western Iran.
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Reza Shah: Forced Settlement for Lur and Bakhtiari
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(U) In the early 20th century, Reza Shah imposed oppressive policies aimed to force the nomadic tribes to settle in towns. Luristan, where the Lur tribes lived, sits directly between Tehran and the Persian Gulf; a strategically important region. The Shah launched a campaign to subdue the nomadic tribes. The government took many prominent tribal leaders hostages and executed the kin of those who disobeyed. The tribes were forced to adopt a more settled lifestyle or risk having their tents destroyed.
(U) This era signified one of the complete breaks in relations between the administration in Tehran and the tribes. From the beginning of the reign of Reza Shah in 1925, cultural assimilation began to be a larger problem for the Bakhtiari. The new government, focused on modernizing their state, campaigned against all the tribes. The Shah believed that only poor states had nomads, and he was determined to either wipe them out or assimilate them. The Bakhtiari felt targeted because of their military and political strength; they had enough power to challenge his rule if they chose to do so.
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(U) The Bakhtiari and Lur both felt the weight of Reza Shah. He sought to destabilize the tribes by arresting and executing disobedient khans and replacing them with more pliant leadership. In this way, he hoped to impose a more settled life-style on the tribes and get them to abandon traditional dress and beards in favor of European-style dress. Some settlement did occur; however, when Reza Shah was deposed in 1941, the Bakhtiari returned to their nomadic lifestyle. The return to their traditional nomadic past was a retreat from the political chaos in Tehran. Some of the Lur returned to their nomadic ways while others remained settled in villages.
(U) Forced settlement failed as a policy even before Reza Shah abdicated the throne in 1941. The former nomads did not become successful farmers overnight, and returned to their nomadic roots as soon as they felt the pressure from Tehran ease. Because they were without the products their flocks traditionally provided, namely milk products, the harsh winter following their return to nomadic patterns took a heavy toll on their population.
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Land reforms of 1960s: Beginning the Shift From Nomadic to Settled Life
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(U) A second period of government encroachment began in the 1960s under Muhammed Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah. The tribes felt pressure and inducement to relocate and adopt a more settled lifestyle. Some tribesmen began working in the oil fields in Iran and Kuwait or in the urban construction sector. The shift further integrated the Bakhtiari into the national economy.
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(U) The Lur were more aggressive in taking advantage of the land reforms of the 1960s. Since they already had a mixed economy of herding and growing, they were quick to purchase the largest amount of land to which they were entitled. This period saw drastic alterations in the structures and value systems of the Lur tribes. Traditionally, the tribe had been loosely egalitaria, with little attention given to the accumulation of wealth or distribution of resources. Surplus food could not be saved and, therefore, was quickly divided among the group to prevent wasting scarce resources. Now, this surplus could be stored for future, private consumption and it was not shared. The government did not ensure equal shares of land for each family, and competition over the largest, best-watered, and most fertile areas of land began among the tribes. Status is now accumulated and assessed in economic terms, largely through land and wealth. Sharing resources among the tribe is no longer common.
Schwarz Kathryn(U) Effects of 1979 Revolution: Settlement
(U) After the 1979 revolution, the Bakhtiari faced further pressure to abandon nomadism. The revolutionary government established new tribal councils and institutions that did not reflect traditional organization. These new offices, including the Organization of Nomadic Peoples in Iran (ONPI), were mostly led by young men of tribal descent. In fact, the first director of ONPI was a young man of Bakhtiari descent. Among all tribes, stock-rearing was limited, cultivation of grazing land was forbidden, grain storage facilities were provided for the tribe, and roads, bridges, and telephones were built even in the most inaccessible areas. This carried certain aspects of modern civilization out to the once-distant mountain ranges.
(U) As the settled life became more attractive to the Bakhtiari, they began to establish residence in towns and villages. The Bakhtiari took some steps away from their traditional, nomadic past, but only due to direct government intervention. Whether this change is temporary or permanent remains to be seen.
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(U) The Lur were more settled in towns and already worked as farmers and shopkeepers. Despite the fact that in the 1980s, most Lurs over 40 were born as nomads, most now live a more certain, stable, comfortable settled life.
(U) The 1979 Revolution deeply influenced the Lur and Bakhtiari notions of tribal identity. The shift from nomadic pastoralism to traditional sedentary village life left settled tribespeople a foot in each world. On one hand, they remain nomads with a unique and, according to them, glorious past. On the other hand, they are now villagers whose jobs as shopkeepers and laborers define them. In addition to this, the tension between those who remain nomads and those who settle in villages complicate what it means to be a nomadic pastoralist in the 21st century.
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