The Baluch is a nation; the Baluch economy and freedom disappeared soon after the occupation in 1928; many were killed physically by diseases, extrajudicial execution. Those who survived as corporate groups politically and socially marginalised from the new centres of power. Thus those who escaped the orbit of the Baluch communities are expected to distance themselves from their ethnic communities wherever possible.
preface
During the years 1807 and 1808, British India anticipated a threat from Bonaparte. The British government at home and abroad decided to take the necessary step to counter France's threat. British colonial Power in India instructed General Malcolm to make every possible effort to ascertain the nature and resources of Sindh, Baluchistan, and Persia through which the Bonaparte army could advance toward India.
Captain Christie and Lieutenant Henry Pottinger embarked on a boat
in Mumbai for Sommony port in Baluchistan.
Pottinger, in his memories during the tour of countries (Sindh,
Baluchistan, Persia), wrote that Kalat was the capital of all Baluchistan; he
also wrote about the boundaries of Baluchistan, which was recognised, by the
neighbours including, the Persian.
The Baluchistan boundaries in 1810 were as followed; To the south
was the Indian Ocean, northward Seistan and county of Afghans; westward the
province of Laristan (today Shiraz) and Kerman; to the eastward a part of
Sindh.
In 1892 Lord Curzon wrote; Baluchistan comprises the Godrosia, and
part of Drangina, of the ancients; and it is a significant illustration of the
shadows that have rarely lifted from this region and of the precarious
political existence which tills lately, they enjoyed.
We can hardly attribute to
the Persian monarch, the sea coast of Gedrosia or Makran, which extends along
the Indian Ocean from the cape of Jask to Gwadar.
He wrote; in the time of the
Alexandra and probably many years afterward, it was thinly inhabited by Baluch
people who know little arts, who acknowledge no master, and who were divided by
inhospitable desert from the rest of the world. It is extraordinary, but
nevertheless fact from the time of Alexandra march through Gedrosia and
Drangina and it shores we have no record of the visit of European to the
interior of Baluchistan until 1809.
In The Gloy of Shia, Ahmed
Din Khan argues that: now perhaps you do not know that owing to its desert, its
savage people, and its remoteness, Baluchistan had only recently been subdued
by victorious Shah Nasir-U-Din. As a consequence of conquest, as their
conqueror, and introducers of Persian civilization the Baluch hate the Persians.
They had rebelled and were besieging the
Persian governor in the forth of Bampur".
The glory of the Shia world by major p.m. sykes and Ahmad Din Khan;
1908,
The writer admits that the Persians were conquerors, and also they
dehumanise the Baluch naming them savages because the Baluch are not Shiite,
therefore they are not Muslim. Since they are not Persian, they are savages. On the other hand, for the last 93, we have not seen any record of civility in the
Persian or Shiite’s behaviours toward the Baluch and others. Iranian ruling
elites do not treat their women, prisoner, and refugees with dignity, do not
allow women to ride a bicycle, attend football matches, and do not tolerate
non-Persian, non-Shiite minorities. Humiliate refugees, none of these
behaviours considered civilised behaviours.
In 1918 report Captain Heston on the result of the Mekran border
mission report writes;
"Fresh stories spread every few weeks of preparations by the
Persian government to reassert their rules in Persian Baluchistan. We hear from
time to time that Bahram Khan Baranzai is preparing to come to terms with Nawab
Khan Bamari and Mirza Khan of Rudbar is named as joining them; the object of
the alliance is said to resist the Persians.
Without a doubt, Bahram Khan and others under the Persian threat
would prefer to retain their independence. Bahram Khan considers the Kuh-Bazman
being under his influence and will regard with suspicion any activity in that
direction and any attempt to tighter the cordon round him by the occupation of
Bam. "
Baluchistan, historically, has not been part of Persia, and according to
the oxford dictionary definition of a Colony;
“Colonisation, the Oxford English Dictionary describes colonisation as a
settlement in a new territory.
Colonisation is a body of people
who settle in a new locality and forming a community subject to or connected
with their parent state; The community so formed, consisting of the original
settler and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with
the parent state kept up.
A new locality may not be empty, and the process of forming a new
community might be somewhat unfair. Colonialism was not an identical process in
a different part of the world; it locked the original inhabitants and newcomers
into the most complex and traumatic relationships in human history.”
The process of forming an Iranian nation in Baluchistan necessarily
meant un-forming or reforming the Baluch as a nation already existed there and,
which involved a wide range of practices, including trade, plunder,
negotiation, warfare, genocide, enslavement, and rebellions. So colonialism is
defined as the conquest and control of other people’s land. Colonialism is not
merely the expansion of various European powers into Asia; it has been a
reoccurring and widespread feature of human history.
The Persian colonialism involved verities techniques and patterns of domination that penetrating deep into the Baluch society and involving
superficial contact with the Baluch; all of these produce the economic disparity that is necessary for the growth of Persian capital and industry. We
can say that without the Arab oil and Baluchistan mineral and strategic
positions Iran cannot survive as a viable state.
Persian has initially established and maintained power over the Baluch
through the gun guile, disease, and drug.
The Baluch is a nation; the Baluch economy and freedom disappeared soon
after the occupation in 1928; many were killed physically by diseases,
extrajudicial execution. Those who survived as corporate groups politically and
socially marginalised from the new centres of power. Thus those who escaped the
orbit of the Baluch communities are expected to distance themselves from their
ethnic communities wherever possible.
Baluchistan development,
Persian invaded Baluchistan in 1928; since then, they have forbidden the
Baluch culture suppressed the economy and language and reshaped the Baluch
political and social lives.
Tehran, the centre of colonial power, has not set up reservations camps;
instead, they turned the entire Baluchistan into a reservation camp and forced
the Baluch to do low-level jobs confined the Baluch to live into areas without
access to modern facilities.
Iranian are not only introduced all kinds of drugs to Baluch and
Baluchistan; they have also been using the Baluch as the drug transporters to
deliver revolutionary guards drugs all over the world.
Iranian government declared that the Baluchistan coast is open to
settlers. It is not the first attempt that Iranian has been replacing the
Baluch population with settlers' in Iranian occupied Baluchistan; it's the first mass settlement that is focused on one location to settle millions of
people from all over Iran and Chinese in a short period.
Baluchistan is a Persian colony
Colonialism is not only the expansion of various European powers
into Asia; it is widespread and has been a reoccurring feature of human
history. But Europeans ushered different kinds of colonial practices that
altered the whole globe in a way that those other colonials did not.
Roman, Genghis Khan, Aztec, Inca, Arab, and Turk colonialism or Empires
were pre-capitalist.
Since the invasion of 1928, Tehran elites were only interested in the
mineral resources and the strategic location of Baluchistan. The Persian has not
shown interest in the land before; the condition about to change, for the
worse, for the Baluch, the Chinese, and others have shown interest to invest
billions of dollars in Baluchistan, the Baluchistan land has become valuable.
"Internal Colonialism
Internal colonialism is how a country's dominant group exploits minority
groups for its economic advantage. The dominant group manipulates the social
institutions to suppress minorities and deny them full access to their
society's benefits. Slavery is an extreme example of internal colonialism, as
was the South African system of apartheid."
https://www.sociologyguide.com/socia_inequality_exclusion/internal-colonialism.php
The process of Persian internal colonization and techniques then used
against the Baluch;
Settlers' colonization in Baluchistan is one of many techniques used by
Iranians that aims to replace the Baluch with Persian. There is a demand for
land and the Baluch to be move from the land that foreign investors and Persian
settlers want.
The Persian and Chinese settlers' colonisation is different from
European; the European colonisers were extractives; their central aim was to
extract resources and labour. European colonisers in Asia did not show interest
in the land, whiles the Persian settlement in Baluchistan lasts forever,
indefinitely.
Genocide is indeed part of settlers' policy because it is a means
through that, remove The Baluch populations, which are the only thing stopping
them from getting the land.
There are many types of genocide. Iranian has been practicing all of
them.
-Physical genocide in which they slaughter the Baluch.
-Biological genocide in which removes and relocation, so they are no
longer on their ancestral land.
-cultural genocide is the removal of their culture through different
types of means, and assimilation is a big part of it.
Iranian have been eliminating pre-1928 Baluch history to deny the Baluch
rights on the land which they have living for millennia. They remove everything
obstacle, which is different from the Persian narrative, and prevent their
access to the Baluch land.
The Major, Western states annexed overseas colonies, also annexed
internal ones within their heartlands in their search for large markets and
cheap labour. Colonial development produces a cultural division of labour: a
system of stratification was created and superimposed on the ethnic line.
High-status occupations reserved for those of Metropolitan culture while those
of indigenous culture cluster at the bottom of the stratification system.
Consequences of the territorial expansion
Thus, the Persian and Shiite monopolise commerce, trade, and credit.
Bankers, managers, and entrepreneurs are recruited from the core when
commercial prospects emerge.
Thus, the Baluchistan economy becomes dependent on the state
markets and forced into complementary development to Tehran.
Tehran determines the movement of
labour and goods.
.
Persian have been reinforcing the Baluch economic dependencies to Tehran
through juridical, political, and military forces, there is a relative lack of
services, a lower standard of living, and a higher level of frustration,
measured by such indicators as the use of illegal drugs, lawlessness, and all kind
of violence, among the members of the Baluch society. There is national
discrimination based on language, religion, or other cultural forms. Thus the
aggregated economic differences between Shiite, non-Baluch, and Baluch are
linked to their cultural differences.
The Baluch desires independence from the situation increasingly regarded
as oppressive, and that this may account for current nationalistic culture rebirths.
It is not that Baluch is a failing nation; most often, the desire for independence is
created contemporaneously to legitimate demands for the present-day goal of
independence or the achievement of economic equality with the rest of the world.
Unfair waves of industrialisation in Iran created relatively
advanced core groups. These groups are trying to maintain the inequitable
distribution of wealth and power by allocating high-status roles solely to
members of their group. Thus, they assigned social roles based on objective
cultural distinctions and created a cultural division of labour based on
cultural differences.
Iran one-state, one language, and Persian capital have turned the
peripheral regions and Baluchistan into internal colonies with dependent,
stagnant economies and a cultural division of labour which assigned low-status
roles in the hierarchy to the Baluch. Cultural contact and industrialisation
have accentuated Baluchistan's dependency on the core. It has ensured the
persistence of cultural inequalities or peripheral sectionalism.
The bureaucratic state is responsible for the failure of regional
development and this hierarchy. The nature of the most modern, pluralistic
states and their origins are the conquests of their neighbouring areas. It
portrays the neglect outright exploitation of several outlying regions for the
benefit of the central.
The Baluch have experienced no economic change in nearly a
century. Their economy compares to other neighbouring groups has not altered
despite the revolutionary Iran claims.
Although the Baluch ethnic protest can emerge independently of economic
changes and economic factors operate independently of ethnic grievances.
The Baluch political movements for self-determination cannot be,
explained economically. It requires other consideration, more relevant factors.
The fact is that The Baluch populate a single, readily identifiable territory,
and hence suffer the disadvantages of that terrain, with its soil and climate,
situated on trade routes possession of valuable minerals strategic importance,
communication networks and the like. Hence the importance of the land for
nationalists the Baluchistan is linked with history in many subtle ways which,
become part of the Baluch cultural heritage and outlook.
Iranian has not shown much tolerance for cultural and political
diversity, and it is precisely that in Baluchistan, the ethnic movement has
flourished.
The Persian internal colonialism model does not do justice to the effect
of national sentiment among dominant ethnic communities today. The
state-sponsored nationalism has stirred the reactive nationalisms of peripheral
communities, which in turn have further crystallised the nationalist sentiment
among the dominant group.
These kinds of discriminations,
which may be more or less overt, and is often a political factor independent of
the economic framework has played a considerable part in the rise of several
ethnic movements today.
How do internal colonisations happen?
The internal colony has designed to describe the blurred line between
geographically close locations that different in terms of culture. Some factors
which separate Iranian from Baluch are language, religion, physical appearance,
and sexual behaviours. The main difference between European colonialism and
internal colonialism is the source of exploitation; in the European form of
colonisation, control came from outside the nation-state, while in internal
colonialism, it is coming from within the nation-state.
The Persian elites have created negative characters with negative
qualities about the Baluch.
The Iranian system of government set out to prevent developments in
Baluchistan; it is not because the Baluch people do not want it is a system of
the state management stopping it. Iranian dominant group and their
collaborators all over Iran collaborate, with each other, to ensure that they
maintain the state as it is and increases their wealth. The Persian and their
collaborators are also part of the global system; the state and the world financial system, international laws, international trade, and diplomacy only benefit
Persia and their collaborators and discriminate against the Baluch.
The state's education and global media are structured to serve the
interest of the core group in Iran. The entire system internally and globally
is structured to benefit Persian; this system does not develop an equal
opportunity for the ethnic groups, and this system promotes domination and
exploitation of the ethnic groups' homeland. Baluch and other ethnic groups
cannot develop in the system designed to prevent them from any development. The
government promotes under development in Baluchistan.
The formation of discourse, as operation tools;
The exercise of direct force as a means of social control is
untenable in continuing the Persian brutality in Baluchistan. Attributing
particular characteristics to Baluch people entrench division between the
Baluch and non-Baluch and also deny the Baluch access to state resources.
The Persian coloniser has always tried to mask the brutality
through claim to modernization. According to their claims, Baluch culture,
language, and way of life are backward; the Persian ways of life are modern and
progressive. The Baluch religion is a heretic, and the Persian religion is a
virtue.
The Persian master, in Baluchistan through political discourse, the
state's controlled education, and assimilation policies have blurred the
relation between master and slave in the occupied Baluchistan.
The Persians want to
generate historical, social conditions in which they like to legitimise the
occupation of Baluchistan; they want to involve the Baluch in discourse.
A specific way of seeing and representing the Baluch culture and
social differences in setting up state institutions of control is essential.
And this representation is not isolated from guns, drugs, diseases, and
unemployment.
The stereotypes of the bandit, Wahabi, drug-dealer is generated
through Persian education and media and tailed to the Persian policies.
The stereotypes have never been consistent over time; at the time
of the Persian monarch rule in Iran, the stereotypes were different from the current
Islamic regime.
The representing an image and stereotypes are an integral part of
Persian violence against the Baluch implemented through the state's media and
social discourse.
Discourse is not only about
speech. It is about practice embedded in the historical and cultural context of
cultural performance.
Mehrab D. Sarjov is a political activist, based in London
strive for an independent Baluchistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment