Rasmus C Elling

Publication date: 2015 Document Version Early version, also known as pre-print Citation for published version (APA): Elling, R. C. (2015). On Lines and Fences: Labour, Community and Violence in an Oil City. In U. Freitag, N. Fuccaro, C. Ghrawi, & N. Lafi (Eds.), Urban Violence in the Middle East: Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation-State (pp. 197-221). New York: Berghahn Books. Space and place, Vol.. 14

Abadan is special. Or at least, it used to be special. Its urban and social fabric stands out from all other Iranians cities. Its inhabitants are unmistakably Abadani. How is that? If oil can create a city, can it also shape an identity? Abadan’s past status as an international city is central to stories of what it means to be an Abadani. Despite the injustice and inequality of the past, and despite Abadan’s rapid decline during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, Abadanis are still proud of their city and their history. That history is so deeply mired in the story of oil that it is impossible to tell the one without the other.

The story of modern Abadan cannot be understood without looking at the ways in which the oil industry and international interests have defined its social, cultural and economic life. This expert guide introduces some of the key features of the city past and present.

Historical analyses tend to agree that the Iranian Revolution was an overwhelmingly “urban” revolution. But how did the revolutionaries themselves see “the urban,” that is, the material, social, and ideological phenomena entangled with the processes of urbanization? In this chap- ter, I will explore how the arguably most prominent revolutionary Iranian socialist organization prior to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Organization of the Iranian People’s Fada’i Guerrillas (henceforth the Fada’i/s), engaged “the urban.” I examine a range of Fada’i materials from the end of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s that reflect the organization’s theory and action through four analytical points related to “the urban,” namely: (1) as a central feature of the organization’s historical context and profile; (2) as elements in the organization’s revolutionary theory and strategy; (3) as a setting and resource for its armed action; and (4) as a site for detection of revolutionary potential.

By uncovering and scrutinising the politics of labour during WWII in the world’s biggest oil refinery – located in the city of Abadan in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzistan – this article aims to strengthen our understanding of WWII in the Middle East generally and our understanding of the role of oil company power in Iran specifically. By analysing changes in and around the urban oil industry complex at Abadan, the present article will thus provide new insights into British imperial strategy in the context of the 1941–1946 British–Soviet occupation of Iran. We argue that the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company, in partial concert with British state and military actors and institutions, managed to turn threats and challenges arising from the war into opportunities for expanding power and experimenting with a new security regime that was designed to curb rising socialist and anti-colonial nationalist activism. This overlapping history of WWII, oil, labour and empire, then, is not only key to a fuller understanding of Iran, the Middle East and the world on the cusp of the Cold War but can also contribute to the historical analysis of energy imperialism.

Three approaches to portraying ethno-racial and national identity for Iran are common: a discretizing approach that groups and conflates ethnicity, language and geography; a civic-territorial conception of nationalism as supra-ethnic Iranian-ness; and an ethno-nationalist approach that criticizes the former for privileging a state-centered, Persian-Shiite majority’s culture and status. Instead of arbitrating between them, we propose a sociological approach that compares different forms of ethno-racial self-identification in modern Iran. Using the 2016 Iran Social Survey, which asks open-ended questions on ethno-racial self-identification, we find wide variation in how ethnic identity is expressed. On the one hand, the findings suggest that a sizable degree of mismatch exists, where concepts of ethnic groupness are confusing or not fully recognizable to many individuals. On the other hand, we also find that multi-ethnic self-identification is common, including across the ethno-racial boundaries often portrayed as closed and mutually exclusive groups in Western discussions on Iran.

The story of modern Abadan cannot be understood without looking at the ways in which the oil industry and international interests have defined
its social, cultural and economic life. This expert guide introduces some of the key features of the city past and present.

By using the heuristic device of transpatialization and the methodology of
urban cultural studies, this article argues that the 1922 serialized novel
Tehrān-e Makhuf (Dreadful Tehran) by Seyyed Mortaza Moshfeq-e Kazemi
(1902-1978), with its distinctly urban modes of imagination and production,
at once reflected and propelled a process that can be termed the
urbanization of the Iranian public. The article analyses the literary
techniques with which Moshfeq contributed to this process; the
circumstances and context in which the novel was produced; and the
ideological change reflected in the author and his work. The article thus
sheds light on a crucial stage in modern Iranian history by unravelling some
of the socio-spatial intertwinements that made that history.

Persian, like any other language, is laced with references to class, both blatant and subtle. With idioms and metaphors, Iranians can identify and situate others, and thus themselves, within hierarchies of social status and privilege, both real and imagined. Some class-related terms can be traced back to medieval times, whereas others are of modern vintage, the linguistic legacy of television shows, pop songs, social media memes or street vernacular. Every day, it seems, an infectious set of phrases appears that make yesterday’s seem embarrassingly antiquated.

... Qowmiyyat va qowm-garâ'i dar irân. Tehran: Nashr-e Ney. Ahmadi, Hamid. 2008. ... ILNA (news agency) 2007. '15 nafar be ettehâm-e towzi'-e shabnâme-hâ-ye gheyr-e qânuni dar ostân-e âzarbâyjân-e sharqi bâzdâsht shode-and', 22 May: ilna.ir. IRNA (news agency) 2006a. ...

... David Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 2001); Mehdi Moslem, Factional ... As another example, Naji states that one of the president's advisors, Sagha Biria, is 'on record as suggesting that Ahmadinejad ...

Ethnic politics is a serious domestic challenge in Iran. Non-Persian communities are mobilizing to claim their rights and to demand representation in a system that activists claim is biased against minorities and the peripheral regions. Yet the inner workings of contemporary Iranian ethnic politics are largely understudied. This article explores recent evolutions in the role that ethnicity, regionalism and tribalism plays in Iranian domestic politics. It focuses on how these interconnected factors figured in the 2013 presidential and local council elections in Iran in a particular province that has a history of ethnic tensions. Incidentally, these elections brought Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric, to power as president. Among his electoral promises was to end the securitization of the minority issue. This article illustrates some of the barriers to a transformative ethnic politics – barriers that political leaders will have to overcome to enact real change.

Abadan is special. Or at least, it used to be special.

Its urban and social fabric stands out from all other Iranians cities. Its inhabitants are unmistakably Abadani. How is that? If oil can create a city, can it also shape an identity?

Abadan’s past status as an international city is central to stories of what it means to be an Abadani. Despite the injustice and inequality of the past, and despite Abadan’s rapid decline during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, Abadanis are still proud of their city and their history. That history is so deeply mired in the story of oil that it is impossible to tell the one without the other.

What if oil is magic?

Sure, we are used to think of oil as a curse disguised as a blessing: as oil is extracted and refined, it turns into black gold for the few and misery for the many. Oil reeks of pollution and corrupt autocrats, it smothers democratic forces. Oil makes a nation addicted to non-renewable resources and dependent on a global market out of its control. Oil spoils nature, society and politics.

And yet the forgotten story of a city in Iran reminds us that oil can also be the stuff of imagination, bringing life to a place, making people dream and remember.

This is the story of a city that was brought into being by oil, almost killed by oil, and yet still understands itself through oil.

http://ajammc.com/2015/02/16/abadan-oil-city-dreams/

This chapter explores how urban histories of violence are reflected in language, whether in piercing words and clear images or in distorted allegories and muted allusions. It explores the intersection between the semantic categories of 'space' and 'violence' drawing on methodological issues emerging from the case studies presented in this volume, and on relevant theoretical literature. The chapter discusses the fluid and sometimes controversial boundaries between vocabularies employed in the historical sources and those used in historical research; between language about violence and language as violence; and between the numerous languages in which the historians in this volume have conducted their research.

"Contrary to the popular understanding of Iran as a Persian nation, half of the country's population consists of minorities, among whom there has been significant ethnic mobilization at crucial stages in Iranian history. One such stage is now: suppressed minority demands, identity claims, and debates on diversity have entered public discourse and politics. In 2005–2007, Iran was rocked by the most widespread ethnic unrest experienced in that country since the revolution. The same period was also marked by the re-emergence of nationalism. This interdisciplinary book takes a long-overdue step toward understanding these highly contentious issues.

REVIEWS
"Rasmus Christian Elling's wonderful book on Iran's major ethnic minorities is a unique and brilliant analysis of the changing role of these ethnic groups… The book is highly recommended for students and scholars of Iran and of ethnic and nationalist questions, and for all thoughtful Iranians."
- Nikki R. Keddie, Professor Emerita of History, UCLA, USA 

"In a challenging and well-researched book, Rasmus Christian Elling brings considerable theoretical sophistication to a subtle and acute analysis of the issue, focusing on four key minorities and their histories, particularly since the 1978-79 revolution… This important book, ground-breaking in Iranian Studies, is a major contribution to the political sociology of ethnicity, nationalism, and minority-state relations."
- Richard Tapper, Emeritus Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK 

"This excellent book provides an analytically powerful yet subtle study of competing processes and discourses that shape Iranian cultural diversity. This is a highly erudite and well-written work, built on years of meticulous empirical research. Indeed, Elling has written a wonderful book that will set the standard for the future scholarship in this field."
- Siniša Malešević, Senior Lecturer, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland 

"Rasmus Christian Elling has addressed the thorny issues of minorities, ethnicity, and national identity in post-revolutionary Iran with such dexterity and care that from now on this book will be on the reading list of any serious scholar examining these topics." - Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Associate Professor of Political Science, Syracuse University, USA"

This chapter challenges simplistic representations of the intercommunal violence that took place during the 1946 oil strike in Abadan, in the Iranian province of Khuzestan, as rooted either in primordial ethnic hatred or in an imperialist plot. The chapter reconstructs in detail several days of tensions and clashes, and places them within a historical context of coercive industrial urban development, labor activism, ethnic mobilization and global politics. Using oil company records, national archives and personal accounts, the focus of the analysis is the socio-spatial unit of the club as a place for socialization, a site of strife in the life of an oil city, and as a key political space with significance in the evolution of the modern Iranian nation state.

This is an abstract of a chapter in a forthcoming volume edited by Profs. Ulrike Freitag and Nelida Fuccaro (to be published 2014).

"In December 1942, unrest broke out in Abadan, arguably Iran’s first modern city and home to the world’s biggest oil refinery. Two scuffles in the bazaar provoked Iranians from the Ahmadabad neighbourhood to attack Indian labourers in the so-called ‘Indian Lines’ of the Bahmashir  neighbourhood. Although not as bloody or widespread as more well-studied occurrences of unrest in Abadan, I will argue that this ‘Bahmashir Incident’ represents an important case with which to understand the interconnectedness of oil, space and violence. As such, this chapter has two aims.

The first is to fill a gap in the existing literature on Abadan and the oil-producing province of Khuzestan in southwest Iran. This literature tends to focus on the struggles of the Iranian labour movement against the Anglo-Persian, later Anglo-Iranian, Oil Company (A.I.O.C., henceforth ‘the Company’), and specifically on the great oil strikes of 1929 and 1946 and the oil nationalisation movement of 1951.  In this literature, a very crucial element is normally either mentioned only in passing or simply neglected: imported Indian labour. Through material from, among other places, the underexplored British Petroleum Company archives, I will investigate the context of the event (the Bahmashir Incident) synchronically, and the history of a particular community (the Indians) diachronically.

Through these investigations, an alternative labour history of Abadan emerges, which, I will argue, can complement and challenge the existing literature.  Key Iranian leftist and nationalist accounts of Abadan’s history tend to cast all violence in the binary terms of a struggle between ‘the oppressor’ and ‘the oppressed’. This chapter will instead propose that since Abadan had multiple subaltern agencies, urban violence operated on several levels. The presence of Indians in Abadan’s labour hierarchy and social fabric challenges the idea of Abadan as a ‘dual city’,  and complicates simplistic interpretations of urban violence.

Secondly, by disentangling the web of interests spun between the Company, the British military and the diplomatic machinery, this chapter will nuance the notion, so often reiterated uncritically in Middle East Studies, of ‘The British’ as one single, cohesive actor. The Company drew on the colonial legacy of British imperialism, was protected by the British army, and was influenced by its major shareholder, the British government; yet, the Company was nonetheless an autonomous entity with a distinct mode of operation. In order to ‘see like an oil company’,  this chapter thus examines how World War II affected the Company in Abadan on the eve of victorious nationalist movements and the dissolution of the British Empire – events that eventually drove companies born in colonial settings into the present globalised world of neo-liberal corporate capitalism."