The Qashqa'i Nomads of Iran (Part II): State-Supported Literacy and Ethnic Identity

Abstract

This is the second part of a two-part paper, based on some of my findings in the course of research undertaken in Iran over a period of twenty-four months (1993-1995). (1) On 6 September 1993, I began investigating a state-supported formal education programme provided to the Qashqa'i, a predominantly nomadic, pastoralist, Turkic-speaking2 Shia Muslim community of more than haft a million (Gharakhlou n.d.: 39), living in southwestern Iran. Much of these data were used to write a doctoral dissertation focusing upon Qashqa'i schoolteachers: the roles they played in the processes of formally educating Qashqa'i children, the ways they prepared their students for new roles within a transforming Iran, and the extent to which they enculturated them with values cherished by earlier generations. The Development of Formal Secular Education (amuzish-i jadid) for Nomads After the 1930s, several state-supported boarding schools were established for the children of nomads, and those attending these schools were mainly the offspring of tribal leaders (Sohrabi 1995: 31). Documents in the National Archives Organisation (saziman-i asnad-i milli) in Tehran suggest that these schools had multiple aims: to familiarise tribal children with city people and culture, to promote urbanised habits and behaviour, and to minimise further political threats by keeping potential elements of a political movement away from their power base (tribal society). Schools helped to discourage tribal leaders from turning against the state, for state officials could hold their children hostage. Educational Activities for Nomads in the 1940s Beginning in 1941 and until the coup d'etat of 1953, a relatively relaxed political atmosphere permitted free speech and expression. Qashqa'i tribal leaders and formally educated individuals expressed or demanded that state officials should treat Qashqa'i tribespeople like fellow Iranians and provide them with the services other Iranians received. One rapidly developing state service was formal education. Bahmanbaigi (1945) reiterated an idea first expressed in 1924 by a religious figure, Ayatollah Modarris, who mooted the concept of providing nomads with mobile schools (Sohrabi 1995: 51). In 1947, a major act on the part of state officials was the formation of a commission to examine the levels of literacy among nomads. Representatives from the ministries of education, war and home were this commission's members. They concluded that the forced settlement and disarmament of tribal people could not be a permanent solution to the political tensions that existed between tribes and the state. Instead, the commission suggested mobile and stationary schools, the improvement of Persian language skills among students, the teaching of `appropriate materials' through school textbooks, sending children of tribal leaders and gifted children of ordinary families to town and cities, and providing boarding schools for them (National Archives Organisation, Tehran; also see Sohrabi 1995: 52-54). These documents do not mention what the regime wanted politically in return for educating the tribal people. But given the context of existing tensions, one can discern in these documents that one official aim was to create in educated tribal youth a sense of nationality and loyalty towards the shah. They would in turn, it was assumed, influence their parents and kinspeople. All Iranians undergoing formal secular education were subjected to these policies. The role played by Mohammad Bahmanbaigi A rapid political change beginning in the early 1950s, and also involving Qashqa'i leaders, eventually reduced the political power of these leaders and provided an opportunity for formally educated Qashqa'i to emerge. Mohammad Bahmanbaigi arranged a private teacher for his kin in 1950 and then decided to expand his literacy project to the rest of the Qashqa'i tribespeople. In 1955-56, when he put forward his literacy plan to state officials in Fars province and then to high-ranking officials at the ministerial level, they did not at first approve it (personal interview, Bahmanbaigi, 1995; see also Kazimi 1990; Sohrabi 1995). …