Saturday, July 26, 2008

Article

Historical and Structural Reasons of the April Intifada
And the Disastrous Results of Eight Decades of Racist Policies


Written by Mohammad Nawaseri


Translated by Selma Ahwazi




This Article has been translated from Arabic to English and the original one was published on 12.05.2005. Mohammad Nawaseri, the author of this article, was a political activist who devoted his short life to Ahwaz and her Arab people. He was born in 1969 in Muhammara and lost his father at the age of 12. His father, Sharif, was executed by the hands of the Islamic Iranian Government shortly after his arrest and without having the chance of a trial. Despite the many difficulties Mohammad faced in his childhood he managed to finish his studies at high school and enter Allameh Tabatabaee University of Tehran at the field of Social Science. Meanwhile he was busy doing researches and writing about the humane issue of Ahwaz. For his political activities he was arrested two times for which he was not condemned. However, and due to the pressures from the Iranian Government which made the life difficult for him in Iran he eventually had to leave the country. He went to Holland and remained there to pass away in March 2007, very shortly after getting his residence permission. He passed away after a heart attack while writing another article about Ahwaz. Mohammad’s political background and his deep knowledge about Ahwaz and the situation of the Arab people of Ahwaz were very attributing to the progress of introducing Ahwaz case as a humane issue to the world. He was an important member and founder of Ahwazi parties such as Wifagh Party, The house of Arabs in Tehran, Arabic Nationalist Democratic Council in Ahwaz.



Part 1


Introduction

The “Intifada" of the Arab people of Ahwaz in April 2005 proved the validity of what has been held through hundreds of articles, researches, theses, conferences and meetings by most analysts and researchers in the fields of social and political sciences, from the different Iranian nations and from the Arab people of Ahwaz in recent years. Those intellectuals were unanimous on the historical existence of a structural disorder, and they agree that the only way to overcome such disorder is the creation of a new relationship between the centre and the ethnic regions, defining that relationship according to modern scientific basics, and modifying and changing the current disabling structure. As it stands, the existing relationship between the center and the different non-Persian Iranian nations is one which has its intellectual and methodological foundations inspired by the racist heritage (Ethnocentrism) of the Persian people and the Persian political and intellectual elite, including the famous representatives of this racist heritage, Firdausi’s Shahanameh and the westernized Persian intellectuals.

This discourse of this racist hostility against all that is non-Persian has been most hostile to the Arab people of Ahwaz to a point that in this country (Iran), an Arab is guilty until proven innocent. The Arabs are being marginalized and segregated in such a systematic and racist way that its prejudicial effect can be clearly seen in the different political, social, cultural and economic levels. For example, the broad geographical spread of the Arabs in Iran is due to the policy of uprooting a large segment of the people from their land and natural and historical roots.

However, there is no formal mention of all of the different nations of Iran, for the Iranian government names them as "tribes and clans" and not “nations” possessing all the elements and characteristics of a nation from history to common historical memory, geographical unity, language and culture. Notwithstanding, the fact is that Iran, due to its historical, geographical, and living composition, consists of religious communities and several main nations, hence a great ethnic mosaic
[1]. The population of these peoples consists of twenty-seven million Turks, seven million Kurds, five million Arabs, two million Balouches, a million and half Turkmens, seven million Lors, one million Gilakis, and Taleshi, Hazara, Tatar, Armenian, and Assyrian peoples. The number of Persians as one component of the Iranian state does not exceed seventeen million.
Following up on a relationship that spanned thousands of years, a kind of unwritten local federalism was built which established its roots in the depth of that relationship and its political, social, cultural and economic conditions. But that structure and that relationship changed at the beginning of the twentieth century and were replaced by a particular political format which was a distorted version of the central French experience known as the “nation state”. The French experience was separated from its content, and any form of practicing citizenship rights, democracy and participation in various areas was cancelled with the purpose of singling out the Persians as the only decision-makers in the modern government.


The factors that had an important and essential influence in the birth of the modern Iranian state might be listed as international variables and the new geostrategic conditions after the Bolshevik revolution, Zoroastrians of India and Iran, and the historical alliance between Shiite clerics, merchants, westernized intellectuals, and the Persian political and intellectual elites. The impact of this new format of the concept “Government” produced a new relationship that brought multiple problems for the non-Persian nations. Citizenship, language of the government, and the official rhetoric, cultural heritage, history, etc. were confined to the Persians, and no one was allowed to object to it. Accordingly, the newly established government adopted an oppressive systematized nationalistic policy, called the "people-making process”, to create a new concept of citizenship, and to found the tragic phenomenon of apartheid.

Under the impact of those oppressive and chauvinistic policies, comprehensive ethnic crises started and lasted for eight decades. They were initiated with the birth of the modern government in its uneven pace. However, with the development of the national feeling and awareness of the Iranian nations during the recent years, the crisis (national uprisings) adopted an upward movement and the nature and pattern of those comprehensive nationalist uprisings changed from positive struggle (armed) to negative (peaceful and civil).

Moreover, the demands of the Iranian nation and the Arab nation of Ahwaz evolved in recent decades, and a struggle was started for the restoration of their denied historical and human rights which had been usurped by one of the components of the Iranian government (Persians). A common perception was reached by most of the people and the intellectual and political elite of these nations, and it was the necessity of self-determination right away from the political, historical, social and cultural conditions which have been founded during those dark decades of the history of modern Iranian state. Self-determination is a right upon which what all international charters and treaties and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are based.

During the most of the historical stages, the Arab people of Ahwaz were particularly distinct with regard to the relationship which links the components of the Iranian state. Before the birth of modern Iran, that relationship for Ahwaz and its people was always in a fluctuating state in a way that over thousands of years, Ahwaz did not witness but short periods of political unity with governments and successive strains which gained the rule of Iran. Considering this point, among the rest of the components of the Iranian state, the region of Ahwaz is unique in this characteristic.

The policy applied by the Iranian government against those uprisings and ethnic crises, and against the demands that were raised as a natural consequence of those uprisings, was a racist and barbaric one, as the Iranian Government always and excessively used brutal force to suppress the uprisings of the Iranian nations and the Arab people of Ahwaz. There has always been unanimity between the Persian politicians and the intellectual and political elite, and between the government and the opposition that rises from one standard and one interpretation, that of protecting national security and preserving the unity of Iranian territory. This has been their excuse for using all those brutal and barbaric tactics in smashing the insulated peoples, thousands of whom were killed and wounded, and millions of whom were displaced forcibly during those eight dark decades.

In this context, and in order to address the ethnic crisis in Iran while ignoring all the international norms and laws, people like "Masha Allah Shamsolvaezin", the opposition journalist, and "Mosayeb Naimi" speak to Al-Jazeera satellite channel to argue and uncover the realities about the ethnic crisis in Ahwaz. At the same time, Mohsen Rezaee, who is known for his anti-Arab chauvinist inclinations, writes in his website “Bazatab” that the participants in this uprising (Intifada) were a group of gypsies who came from Iraq.

To prevent the recurrence of such massacres against the Iranian nations in general and the Arab people of Ahwaz in particular and to find solutions for the ethnic crisis one should interpret and analyze the uprisings of these nations
[2] in their historical and structural context, in order to define priorities for solving these ethnic contradictions. The onus is on the intellectual and political elites of the Iranian nations and the Arab nation of Ahwaz to enrich the theoretical and methodological foundations of the solutions to these paradoxes.

The most important reasons for cancelling the decentralization experiment in Iran and replacing it with a “nation state”

1. The idea of establishing a new nation-state in Iran, one which is based on the Persian race and draws its strength and political, economic and cultural merits from it, began with the historic defeat of the Qajarite government by Czarist Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and the disastrous results of those defeats that ended with the humiliating treaties of "Golestan" and "Turkmenchay." The pioneers of Persian chauvinist thought began presenting the contradictions of Qajarite (Azeri) government and the reasons behind its historic defeats and wrote prescriptions for solving those contradictions, and the outcome was books, articles and research which were all products of the imagination of those westernized educated people.

2. Westernized intellectuals and the Pioneers of the Persian Chauvinist thought: Among those intellectuals are: Jalal e Din Mirza, the author of the book "Nameye Khosrovan"
[3], Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh, author of "Maktoobate Kamal e Doleh"[4], in which he seeks the establishment of a new phase for the concept of “Government” and cancellation of all the historical pillars of the Iranian state, as well as the abolition of Islam through a comprehensive Iranian renaissance along the lines of European Renaissance, and a return to the history of Iran at the time of Sasanian and Achaemenid empire and the re-production of the political and cultural structures of those empires.[5]
Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh
Mirza Aghakhan Kermani is the one who, in his book "Aeeneye Sekandari" or "The History of Iran", gives guidelines on the development of the Persian nationalization plan, and creates a historical illusion for the Persian nationalists and chauvinists, deriving all of those historical illusions and errors from the Orientalists and the book “The History of Iran” written by the British diplomat “Sir John Malcolm”. In his book, he seeks to blame Arabs, Islam and the Islamic invasion of Iran for all those contradictions and problems of the Qajarite government, and incite the Persian community to revolt against Arabs and Islam, and take revenge from the Muslim Arab conquerors of Iran, and return to their clean Zoroastrian roots and restore the glory of Achaemenid kings.

There were also political and intellectual circles, which were established at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as the circle of Kazem Zadeh Iranshahr and Iranshahr Magazine in which racists like Taghi Zadeh and Poor Davood wrote. The magazine worked on promoting the ideas of the German philosopher Fichte and the French aristocrat Arthur De Gobineau of the pioneers of Nazism and Fascism in Europe. There was also the circle of "Anjoman Iran Javan" and Ayandeh magazine, which was led by Mahmoud Afshar who is known for his Persian chauvinist inclinations and was the godfather of the racist nationalist policies after Reza Shah gained the power in Iran. Those racist policies had a great impact on the Iranian nations in general and the Arab people of Ahwaz in particular. These two circles worked on promoting Hegel’s idea of “the historical nation” and emphasizing on the originality of the Persian people and their being a historical nation and, therefore, regarding the Persian nation as the only one that deserves life and evolution and that the other Iranian nations are spurious and non-historic and must be melted in the crucible of Persian culture through systematic racist policies like process of cultural alienation, ethnic cleansing, ethnocide, genocide, ethnic displacement, and etc. Consequently, research centers were founded to focus on the Arab people of Ahwaz and on other Iranian nations.

3. Bolshevik revolution and its geostrategic implications: The Bolshevik revolution and the collapse of the czarist rule had a deep impact on the geostrategic situation of the Iranian state in 1917. Prior to that resounding collapse, oil was discovered in Ahwaz, which led to an increasing importance of this region and the Iranian State, and was the initiation of a new level of relationship between the Ahwaz region and the central state. This new relationship which has been through many ups and downs throughout the history took its initiatory step in the Second Treaty of “Arz Rum” between Qajarite government and the Ottoman government. The relationship was strengthened by the Treaty of Sykes-Picot, which was menacing to the peoples of the Middle East. Considering the colonial interests of the great powers, especially after the collapse of the Ottoman government, these powers started forming a new geostrategic tendency, and so they planned to create a belt around the Bolshevik state to be expanded southward including Turkey and Iran, and eventually get access to the oil fields and the warm waters. That new geostrategic tendency was to establish two new similar central governments in Iran and Turkey serving the interests of the colonial powers at the expense of the constituent peoples of these two states. The two newly formed governments were similar in political format and orientations, and were the product of copying the Jacobean experiment of the French government. However, this experience has been distorted in such a way that the concepts of political participation, comprehensive citizenship, and democracy were abolished from the French version and were replaced by oppression, marginalization and abusive methods against the peoples living in these two states.

4. The Historic alliance between the Persian merchants, Shiite clerics and Persian nationalists: After the establishment of Safawi government which employed Shiite denomination for political purposes, a historic relationship between Shiite clerics and merchants and the Iranian government was formed. Iranian government gained its legitimacy from the clergy and was a supporter of their religion school
[6], and in contrast, the clergymen had a high position among the Iranian politicians. Moreover, the money coming from “khoms and zakat”[7] paid by the traders had an important role in the independence and strength of the clerics and their religion school. This mutual relationship between these parties continued until the beginning of the twentieth century. The Persian merchants had a dangerous role in that period, as, given their limited trading chances and their growing greed, they began expanding their trade towards other ethnic areas and employed this historic relationship to the disadvantage of the markets and the traders of the Iranian nations. Moreover, some of the clergymen alleged that Reza Shah is evangelical of the arrival of Imam Mahdi, and that his policies are in the service of the goals of the Supreme Shiite State, and therefore he must be absolutely free in the implementation of his new policies and orientations.

However, the relationship between the clergy and the Persian nationalists was tense at the beginning, but that relationship changed and soon improved to coordination between these parties in the formation of which Persian traders played an important role.

5. Zoroastrian men of policy and religion: Persia and Iran's historic past are of special consequence to the Zoroastrians in general and Iranian Zoroastrians in particular, as they consider that historic state as theirs and as the only place where they were able to establish their religious Government and its importance to them is similar to that of Palestine to the Jews.

Accordingly, they consider Islam as having been a barrier to achieving their ambitions after the collapse of the Sasanian at the hands of Arabs and Muslims; therefore and after that the Qajarite Government became weak, specifically in the days of Nasser e Din Shah, they started planning to recreate their alleged historical roots and to quest for the restoration and revival of Zoroastrian Achaemenian and Sasanian empires.

There was coordination between the Zoroastrian Iranians and Zoroastrian institutions in India. Among those institutions which played an important role in the subsequent developments in Iran are: "The institute of improving Zoroastrian’s situation in Iran"
[8], headed by Sardinshah Petit Baronet, "The Persians of Iran Charity Institution" and "The Persian Amelioration Fund”[9].

Amongst the Indian Zoroastrian people who played an important role in those developments are the representative of the Indian Zoroastrians in Iran and the diplomat of the East India Company Government, "Mankji Limji Hushang Hatria", known as Mankji, and Ardeshir Jei and Arbab Gio who were employees of the diplomatic service in the Government of East India Company. Ardeshir Jei had a special position for the British government, as well as for the French ambassador then, Comte De Gobineau
[10]. Two of the most important Iranian Zoroastrians are Arbab Jamshid and Arbab Kei Khosrow Shahrokh; the latter was the author of several books including "Aeene Mazdisti" and "Foroughe Mazdisti" which played an important role in the political developments in Iran at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Mankji Ardeshir Jei Arbab Jamshid
These Zoroastrian politicians had a certain strategy to revive Zoroastrianism and they were influenced by the works of the Zionist leaders who held their meetings under the chairmanship of "Theodor Herzl" in the city of Basel in Switzerland, which came to fruition in the "Balfour Declaration" in 1917, which led to the establishment of the Jewish entity. Most of these Zoroastrians were working for the British government of East India and, therefore, had a strong relationship with the colonial Britain. Their first step was persuading Nasser e Din Shah in order to give the Ahwaz region to these Zoroastrians for the purpose of establishing their desired historical entity, and the proposal of this plan was submitted by Mirza Aghakhan Kermani in his famous letter “Omran e Khuzestan" to Nasser e Din Shah
[11]. Those plans were continued in coordination with the British colonizers in order to achieve this historical dream of the Zoroastrians.
Mirza Aghakhan Kermani
The compilation of all these historical factors at the beginning of the twentieth century produced disastrous results for Iran as a state, as well as for the nations of Iran as Azeri Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens, and Balouches, etc. The outcome was the abolition of the experiment which was a result of the historical substantive evolution of the concept of Iranian state, replacing it with a distorted imitation of the French Jacobean State, to ensure the dominance of the Persian ethnic through political, economic, social and cultural structures. Therefore, the meaning of Iranian citizenship became Persian citizenship, the State Language became Persian, and the official culture became the Persian culture; anything against it meant rebellion, breach of the law, and a threat to the national security, for which a person, a group, or a nation may be punished equally. To ensure the continuation of this situation, the necessary axioms and mechanisms have been identified and further codification of laws has been done. Under the influence of European "Oriental" attitude, plans and strategies were developed that were essential to create a united Iranian nation on the scale of Persian nationalism. That is classifying the Iranian nations as linguistic minorities whose language and culture have changed due to geographical proximity and that the Iranian nations, as Azeri Turks, Kurds, Arabs, and others, are in the primary stages of social development and by the completion of these evolutionary phases will become Persians and will return to their ethnic and historical roots.

This discourse took a form of an axiom and an indisputable reality that can not be compromised or objected to and is the essential basis for the nationalist policies today. To distort the historical facts about the Iranian nations, a systematic process was followed which worked through school textbooks (the Turks and Arabs introduced as invaders) and academic education; moreover, there has been a strong effort to create a new situation for the composition of those nations through ethnic cleansing, ethnocide, genocide, confiscation of the lands and the displacement of Iranian nations of Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Turkmens and Balouches to the neighboring countries. The outcome of those policies was the displacement of millions of people, and killing and injuring of thousands. Due to the nature and objectives of the discourse components of this new racist central government which is against anything Arabic, these nationalist policies adopted a fascist and racist attitude towards anything that has to do with Arabism. Therefore, the results of these policies was the displacement of thousands of Arabs of Ahwaz to Iraq and other neighboring Arab countries, in addition to the confiscation of their lands and depriving them of their political, cultural and economic rights.



[1] Dr. Ali Al-Taee, The National Identity Crisis in Iran, Shadegan publication

[2] the latest Intifada of the Arab people of Ahwaz in 2005 can be brought as an example

[3] The Book of Kings
[4] The Writings of Kamale Doleh
[5] Fereidun Adamiat, “Andishe Haye (Ideas of) Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh”, Kharazmi Publication, Tehran 1349, p. 121

[6] Howzeye Elmiyye
[7] Kinds of Tax in Islamic rule
[8] Ebrahim Por Davud, Iranshah (The History of Immigration of Zoroastrians to India), Bi Na, Bambi, 1926, p. 25
[9] Arbab Kei Khosrow Shahrokh, The Notes of Arbab Kei Khosrow, edited by Jahangir Ushpedari, Bi Ta, Bi Na, 1335 Hijri, p. 37
[10] Rashid Shahmardan, Farzanegan e Zartoshti, Rasti Pubication (Periodical of Zoroastrian Youths Organization in Bambi), Tehran, 1330 Hijri, p.619
[11] Yahya Dolat Abadi, Hayate Yahya, first volume, 6th edition, Attar & Firdausi publication, Tehran, 1371 Hijri, p. 160

Monday, July 21, 2008

Saeed Hamadi Extradited to Iran

Unconfirmed reports out of Damascus inform us that Ahwazi activist and refugee Saeed Hamadi, arrested by Syrian security officials on 5 March 2008 as he was about to depart for resettlement to Denmark, was extradited to Iran this week. His current location and condition are unknown at this time. Typically following extradition, however, Ahwazi Arab activists are transferred to Ahwaz for interrogation and torture, then jailed with other political prisoners where they live under threat of execution. We hope for Saeed's sake that this will not be the case and that the news of his extradition is a mistake. Certainly, it is incomprehensible that Syria would betray its Arab brothers in such a reprehensible way. We call upon the world community to express its outrage and horror, and support Saeed's immediate release and safe transfer to Denmark. Our thoughts and prayers are with Saeed, and we stand beside him in support of safe refuge, protection from persecution, and basic human rights for all Ahwazi Arabs.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Faking Yazdgerd, Anti-Arab forgery

An expert's review of the two letters circulating the internet and emails for more than two years. the letters are said to be corresponded between Omar Khatab and Yazdgerd the third.

Khodadad Rezakhani
January 26, 2005

"The Letter of Yazdgerd III to Caliph Omar" is one of the many urban legends circulating the internet. I have personally seen four different versions of this letter, their tone and content differing from quite absurd and offensive to more believable and somehow historical. This text fits somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Article

Iran and Obscurities of the Demographic Distribution in Ahwaz

This article has been written by Mohammad Nawaseri in February 2007. Considering the importance of what this article contains it is translated from Arabic to English as another step to revealing the facts about Iranian policy regarding Al-Ahwaz.


Translated by Selma Ahwazi
2008.07.06


Of the most important achievements of mankind in the twentieth century, the period of modernism and postmodernism, is the irreversible demise of the great empires which were formed after the Renaissance in Europe and Asia on the ruins of the colonized nations.

Those empires colonized the lands and enslaved the people in the ugliest forms of exploitation and slavery. However, by the end of the age of invading artillery, the method which the newly established systems who inherited the remains of those empires applied in dealing with the indigenous people of the colonized lands was the systematic nationalist policies from ethnocide to cultural dispossession, mass displacement, and ethnic cleansing against these people.
The prime motive of those empires was the economic interest justified by political and religious ideologies sometimes or by human rights and ethical issues at other times as were the Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupation of Egypt and/or Russian and British occupations.

The Soviet Union which collapsed in the early nineties is another example of those empires. It was called the prison of peoples, and its essence was exactly that of previous empires. However, people were finally liberated from this great empire which was built on fire, blood, international conspiracies, and rampant lawlessness.

Yet another example of those bloody historical empires is the Iranian Persian Empire which, since its very first inception, has been founded on colonial expansion and economic exploitation of the neighboring nations. Of the devastating consequences of those ambitions it was Arabs who suffered mainly; and it was due to the geographical proximity, and the Persian heritage that carries a deep historical hatred against the Arab nation. However, the ideological basics of this empire, which is of the remnants of the colonial past, have changed a lot through the different stages of history. In a time of some previous Persian monarchies Persian race was the main ideological motive. For the Islamic Republic, however, the Safawi sectarianism and the Persian ethnic are the main motives. It should be reminded, of course, that the contemporary Persian Empire emerged as a result of the colonial complicity in the twenties of the last century and the geostrategic repercussions of the Bolshevik revolution in Czarist Russia then.
The first victim of the newly emerged Persian empire and its chauvinist attitude against the geographical proximity in general and the Arab neighbors in particular is the Arabian state, Arabistan (Al-Ahwaz), which was occupied on the 20th of April of 1925. Arab rule was abolished in this historically Arab region due to its geographical nature; as Al-Ahwaz is considered the Eastern Gateway of the Arabian lands.
The forces that helped caesarean of the Iranian empire - modern Persian- are the same forces that played a key role in undermining Arab rule in Ahwaz. One of them was the British Empire which had colonial ambitions in the Arab countries in that dark era of history.
Of other influential parties was the sectarian Safawi establishment men of which, such as Mirza Naeeni and Aboulhassan Isfahani, are famous for their contributing fatwas (religious opinions and rules). They played a key role in the preface to the occupation of Ahwaz. There were also politicians, intellectuals and the Zoroastrians of Iran and India who were working in the government of East India Company. People such as Ardeshir Chi and Arbab Keikhosrow as well as racist thinkers like Mahmud Afshar and Kazem Zadeh Iranshahr.
It is not a coincidence that these same parties played a key role in the occupation of Iraq in 2003, where the sectarian Safawi establishment is represented by men like Sistani and Hakim and other men of religion in Iran, and as before, Britain and her confederate, America, who is the most prominent heir to the British colonial past.
One of the most important historical factors that have led to the cooperation between Persian Empire and the Western colonial powers in the past and present, in spite of the ideological differences between them, is the historical hatred of both against Arab nation. Though enjoying strong military forces and a great civilization, Persian Empire was not lucky in her wars against the Arabs for the winner was always the Arabs. Arabs triumphed over the Persians in 310 AD and killed their king, Hormuz II. Moreover, they were victorious in their battle of Dhi Qar in the early seventh century AD, when several Arab tribes (from Iraq and Ahwaz), who were led by Bani Sheiban, allied against the Persians.

This battle was so important that the prophet Mohammad commented about it “Today Arabs won their rights from Persians and evened.”
In the battle of Qadisiya in 635 AD Arabs, led by Sa’ad bin Abi Waqqas, won again. They wiped out the Persian armies led by Rustam, while Na’man bin Moqren was their leader. And eventually, after winning the Nahawand battle, led by Hudhayfah ibn Alyaman in 642 AD, Arabs conquered Persia, and banned Zoroastrian religion there, and Persians admitted Islam as their religion eventually. Arabs were victorious in their several battles against Persians in the era of Moshashaeen, Arabian government of Ahwaz in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Another victory for Arabs happened in the era of Bani Ka’b in Ahwaz with the leadership of Sheikh Salman Al-Kaabi in the eighteenth century.

The security conditions and political history of the Arab nation in general and southern Iraq in particular, are the same circumstances which Ahwaz went through before the occupation in the twenties of the last century.
Blatant interference of the Iranian occupation which is represented by the Iranian security agencies[1] and the sectarian Safawi policies in various aspects of daily and/or political life is a preparation for uprooting this important and vital part of the body of the Arab nation and its natural extending with the ambition to attach it to the Iranian body. It was the same policy that paved the way for the occupation of Ahwaz, as this Arabian country was a rebel against the British and Persian and Osmani (Ottoman) empires up to the forties of the nineteenth century. After the Osmani’s broad attack in alliance with the Al-Montafaj Sheikhdom which led to the destruction of Muhammara, the capital of Ahwaz, Sheikh Jabir, sheikh of Ahwaz in that time, was forced eventually to request for help from the Qajarite government. The result was the second Ground Rum Treaty in 1847, which classified Ahwaz under the influence of the Iranian empire, compared with a waiver claim on Iran's claimed influence on some other areas such as the banner of Sinjar and Sulaymaniya. The religion factor played the main role in that treaty, which culminated in the colonial military occupation of Ahwaz in April 1925. Drawing her lessons from history, Iran exercises the same policy in order to single out Iraq and pounce upon it to exploit and plunder its wealth after that she lived and still lives for eight decades of occupation on the wealth of Ahwaz while denying Ahwaz’s citizens the most basic necessities of a free honorable life.

Systematic policy against Ahwazis

The policy of the Iranian regime towards different nations in Iran in general and Arab people of Ahwaz in particular -after the direct military occupation-, was and still is systematic at various levels. These racist inhumane policies aimed at the political, cultural, social and economic structures of this nation. Their objective is melting this people in the Persian crucible through obliterating their Arab identity, which is represented in the language and national culture, and eventually uprooting them of their Arabian roots and of the land they lived and took root in for thousands of years. Such policy was always systematized and applied by the political authority in Tehran.
This policy began with the occupation of Ahwaz, and Reza Shah Pahlavi put the first building blocks of it by granting the Arab’s lands to the military men of Persia, and the men of politics, administration and security. Moreover, he withdrew the ownership of the remaining lands from the Arab farmers and gave them to Natural Springs Foundation in order to facilitate the confiscation of those lands in the studied future steps. He also displaced hundreds of thousands of the farmers and citizens to the central parts of Iran, Iraq and the Gulf states.

This policy was continued by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the son, and it became even more brutal because of the Persian racial orientation and its hatred against Arabs. Through the land reform policy in the sixties of last century, specifically in 1963, and under the title of agrarian reform and white revolution, hundreds of thousands of agricultural lands were confiscated and then entitled to the Persian settlers. The first of these was the project of sugar canes, which inaugurated in that period on the ruins of dozens of Arab villages in Ahwaz.
Those criminal policies culminated after the arrival of the clergy to the power, specifically after the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The nature of the ideological composition of this government had the prominent role in the development of the vicious circle of this policy which comprises the terms of sectarian extremism, historical hatred, and the Persian racism and hostility against all that is Arabic.
The strategy of this policy was codified under the rubric of the demographic distribution under the circular issued by the Supreme National Security Council headed by Hashemi Rafsanjani, under the number 971 \ 2 b -3416 and the date 14. 04. 1371 Hijri- that is 1992.07.05- and also the circular issued by the Office of Mohammad Khatami as the General Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, number 27686 \ 12 and the date 01.05.1377 - that is 1998.07.23.

Results of some of those racist policies

- Confiscation of more than 70 thousand hectares of agricultural lands in areas such as Al-Shuaibia, Al-Minaw, Susa and northern parts of Ahwaz to the advantage of companies the most important of which are Iran Cultivation and Manufacture Company – Iran and America Cultivation and Manufacture Company - California Company, DezKar Company, Shell Company, Klassno Company and other American and Israeli companies during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah.
- After the success of the Iranian revolution, more than 135 thousand hectares of lands belonging to Ahwazi farmers in southern part of Ahwaz city and northern part of cities of Muhammara and Abbadan and on both sides of Karoun river have been confiscated. These lands are of the most fertile agricultural lands in Ahwaz, and they all were confiscated with the pretext of setting up the Sugar Canes Project, while the companies instituted on this project belong to the men of the Iranian government and the ruling denominational Safawi institution in Iran.
- Confiscation of 47 thousand hectares of Ahwazi Arabs’ lands for the purpose of setting up the project of the disabled of Iraq-Iran war in Jufair near to the Iraqi-Iranian borders.
- Confiscation of more than 25 thousand hectares of Arabs’ lands for the purpose of setting up the project of fish farms in south of the Ahwaz city. These lands were granted to the Persian settlers who were of the newcomers to the territory.
- Confiscation of more than 100 thousand hectares of lands in the east of the Huwaiza town extending to the north of Al-Muhammara city under the pretext of military maneuvers of the 92 Army, and very obviously the whole of that area is an agricultural land. Several Arab villages there were inhabited by thousands of Arabs who were finally displaced from their lands by force.
- Confiscations of thousands of hectares of agricultural land in cities of Al-Khafajiya, Al-Huwaiza and Al-Besitin under the pretext of developing the Azadegan oilfields which extend to the Majnoun oilfields in southern Iraq; Japanese companies oversee this project.
- Confiscation of more than 6 thousand hectares of agricultural land in the city of Susa, and granting them to the military men of the Revolutionary Guard and Ghods Forces. This project is called the settlement of the clergy in the north and northern-east of Ahwaz province. The confidential document of this project eventually leaked out. The document is called the Sardar Rasheed document; and Sardar Rasheed Is one of the senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and Ghods Forces.
- In addition, there is the entire demolition of Arabian areas and displacing thousands of Ahwazis under the systematic policy with the purpose of turning the demographic distribution in Ahwaz, such as the demolition of Sepidar neighborhood in the city of Ahwaz in 1998 and displacing the people of this district who are mostly of the lower economic class.[2]

- Beside the policy of land confiscation, a parallel policy against Ahwazis is being practiced by Iranian government which is not less vicious and racist than the former, and that is perverting the main river courses in Ahwaz such as Karoon, Al-Karkha, Al-Jarrahi and other rivers, and stealing the water and pumping it into central Persian areas such as Isfahan, Yazd, and Kerman for the purpose of irrigation. This happens while they deprive the Arab farmers of these waters and make their fight for living more difficult and more frustrating. Moreover, periodically they fabricate floods through the dams that have been constructed for this purpose, in order to demolish the infrastructure of Ahwazi villages, and consequently facilitate the displacement of Arab people and confiscation of their agricultural lands and demolition of Arabian villages and countryside of Ahwaz.

The purpose of all this is the displacement of the farmers from their villages and systematic destruction of their economy and their enrolment in suburban marginalized areas, that are called ”the Arab belt of poverty”; and then besiege of the Arab towns with Persian settlements and towns that have been established for this purpose and there are dozens of them, such as “Shirin Shahr” Settlement in the south of Ahwaz city, in the midst of the villages that have been destroyed for The Sugar Cane Project and fish farms. This settlement is designed for more than ninety thousand people as a first step to be widening. There is also the giant “Ramin” settlement in the north of Ahwaz city, which is built for more than one million settlers from the Persian newcomers to the Territory.

Marginalization of “the Arab belt of poverty” is a deliberate and planned process, where poverty, addiction, crime, and all kinds of structural imbalances at the level of cultural, social, and economic structures spread widely. Living on the margins of the society is a normal secretion of these inhuman policies. Of the most important implications of this policy are the environmental disasters, water pollution, increasing salinity in the land, environmental pollution and spread of infectious diseases, and all these complications are mentioned in the report submitted by ”Milan Kothari”, United Nations’ envoy to the province, less than three years ago. In this report he describes these policies as catastrophic for the indigenous Arab people of Ahwaz.


Escalating policy of confiscation and settlement

These criminal policies are escalating and being accelerated during the past fifteen years, and they were highly applied especially during the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami after that the crew of technocrats (the group of Kargozaran-e-Sazandegi) -with Persian tendencies and orientations- became the authority of development projects in Iran. During this period tens of thousands of hectares of fertile agricultural land in various towns of Ahwaz were confiscated, under the political plan known as “settlement demographic distribution”.
After coming of Ahmadinejad and his “Hojjati” crew to the rule, these policies peaked. This was especially after the outbreak of Intifada in 15th of April 2005 and it was a collective punishment of Ahwazis for their steering disobedience against the Iranian military occupation. The evidence of this is the starting of the confiscation of 30 thousand hectares of agricultural land in the cities of Ahwaz, Al-Khafajiya, and Al-Hindian (Al-Tamimia). This plan is mentioned in the assessment report issued by the Department of Fisheries in the territory.

This plan contains:
Beginning the second phase of the Ahwaz “Azadegan” project (NDC) which will eventually end up with the confiscation of 12400 hectares of Arabs’ lands. In the first phase of this project 25 thousand hectares of these lands were confiscated.
Beginning of a project in Al-Khafajiya which will cover ten thousand hectares of lands.
Shrimp breeding project that covers 8 thousand hectares in the east and west of the river “Zahra” in the city of al-Hindian (Al-Tamimia).
The establishment of ports in Bahrakan area of Al-Indian and Nahrolghasir River in Abbadan and more other ports in other spots. This has been known that these ports are not subject to the authority and control of the Ports Department; they are rather exploited and utilized by the Revolution Guards (Sepah e Pasdaran) for smuggling and circumventing the international resolutions against Iran in banning the importation of weapons. These ports are important because they are located near Iraq and the Gulf States.

The objectives of these policies

There are economic, historical, political, and security tendencies behind these systematic structural policies against the Arab people of Ahwaz.

With a closer look at the political map of Iran and its Arab neighbors, we notice that the lands that were confiscated in the north-west and west and south of Ahwaz are along the Iraqi and the Gulf States borders. The purpose, however, is to facilitate the process of Iranian intervention in the internal affairs of these countries away from the eyes of Ahwazis and to create a military logistical environment to provide protection and adequate supply for the Iran’s continuing interference in the affairs of these countries.
Moreover, emptying these areas, in which lie the largest fields of oil and gas, from Ahwazis as a first step, and titling them to the Persian settlers and newcomers as a step forward is Iran’s main policy in order to change the population composition of the Territory in favor of the Persians and the central government, as all the successive governments of Iran have maintained this policy since the formation of the Iranian state, or rather the modern Iranian empire, at the hands of Reza Khan.
Among these goals is also the dismemberment of the Arab people of Ahwaz and isolating and sieging them in their towns and villages and depriving them of any connection with the Arab world, through Iraq and the Arabian Gulf, which was naturally easy due to the strategic geographical position of Ahwaz.
And this explains the breadth of the policy of land confiscation and mass displacement which was stated in the document that was leaked out from the Office of Khatami. That document, with the accumulation of contradictions and with the overall conditions, caused the Intifada of the April 15th the result of which was hundreds of martyrs and wounded while thousands of people have been arrested and 12 people so far have been executed, and the list is growing[3].

This plan also included the areas in the north, the middle, the east and south of the territory. This is the most serious ever, and was disclosed by the document mentioned above, under the title of the industrial and commercial draft of Arvandan in the cities of Muhammara and Abbadan, for which reason hundreds of thousands of Ahwazi Arabs will be displaced from their towns and villages that fall within the scope of this large settlement project and so dozens of Ahwazi villages will be demolished.
In addition, there has been the displacement of more than 300000 Ahwazi citizens from the cities and countryside of Muhammara and Abbadan during the Iran-Iraq war who did not return to their villages which they had abandoned due to the destruction of infrastructure, lack of services, and spread of minefields in those areas and all are the remnants of the war. The Iranian government went to no action for clearing the minefields in order to prevent Arabs from returning to their villages and leaving their exile zones in northern and central Iran.
In conclusion, this must be emphasized that all these criminal policies, which are of course applicable to the concepts of mass displacement and ethnic cleansing and major crimes punishable by international law, are implemented before the eyes and ears of the Arab States and the international community who ignore the Ahwaz tragedy claiming that it is an Internal issue and is part of the concept of sovereignty.
Nevertheless, one who follows the events prudently is to note that Ahwaz was not Iranian ever, it is an Arabian land occupied with brutal force since 1925, and the most prominent evidence of this is the successive uprisings of its Arab citizens against the different Iranian governments during the last 83 years. Ahwaz is a region for which its Indigenous Arab people are fighting against the Iranian occupation authority. And this is what all Ahwazi national resistance parties are unanimous in, despite their various beliefs and different ideas. Accordingly, the need for Arab and international intervention in this regard is clear in order to tame this arrogant Persian monster and save the Arab people of Ahwaz from the policy of ethnic cleansing, and to stop the Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries under the pretext of sectarian Safawi Purism at one hand, and preserving the Persian vital interests and national security at the other hand. The aim behind this is hegemony, which is an integral part of the mentality of Persians, clericals they are or seculars.

[1] Iranian Intelligence, Sepah e Pasdaran (Ghods Army), and Iraqi security agencies which were formed in Iran, as Bader Forces. (translator’s note)
[2] Also, 25 houses in the Arab area of Hasir Abad in Ahwaz were destroyed in May of 2008.(translator’s note)
[3] Many more Ahwazi people have been executed since the time of this article.