The Baluch inside Iran are suffering from all kinds of deprivations; wealth, income, employment and health, education, housing, comfort, political and cultural. Iran is governed by the Shiite theocracy that does not tolerate any kind of protest.
Iran is also governed by an extremely centralised political system. The Baluch are kept backward and lagging behind from the other regions in education, economy, health, life expectancy and jobs. There is no hope insight this situation will change for better for the Baluch soon. The Baluch deprivations are the product of the Persian centralised control, religion, cultural and linguistic discrimination against the non-Persian non Shiite Baluch.
The Baluch are disadvantaged and disabled in the competition for wealth, position and power compared with a Persian Shiite coloniser or a Zabuli Shiite inside Sistan and Baluchistan, South Khorasan, Kerman and Hormozgan where the Baluch land were separated from Baluchistan and annexed to the above provinces in order to turn the majority Baluch in minority in their own homeland.
The Persian occupation of Baluchistan and centralised system of government is responsible for the Baluch economic and social backwardness. The Baluch in Baluchistan can only reinstate their disadvantage through strong political organisations and mobilise the Baluch masses against the Persian occupation.
Colonisation and marginalisation,
Baluchistan accurately means the land of Baluch is strategically situated at the eastern edge of the Middle East, Baluchistan links the newly independent Central Asian States through Afghanistan with Iran, Indian subcontinent, the Gulf and Indian Ocean. Presently Baluchistan is divided into the three parts. A part of Baluchistan is under the Iranian occupation, another and the biggest part under Pakistan and less populated part is under Afghan sovereignty.
The Baluch are residing in their own historical home land. The Baluch situation in The Western Baluchistan is inevitable connected with an economic progress and investment in their region. Discrimination against the Baluch also reflects inequality between dominated Persian and non-Persian in the other regions within Iran.
Tehran is treating Baluchistan as a Persian colony, the Persian language and culture have been imposed on the Baluch population through Persian school and mass media. The executive places and industry in Baluchistan are reserved for the Persian and Shiite, while the Baluch and Sunni are pushed at the bottom of the Iranian class system. The credit, commerce and trade is monopolised by Persian. When trade opportunities emerged mangers, financers have been or will be recruited from the Persian and Shiite and the Baluch forced into subservient to the Persian and has become dependent to the Persian. The Baluch economic dependency to Persian economy is enforced by the police and court.
The discrimination on the basis of religion, language, culture is the Persian popular support in Iran. The total economic differences between the Baluch and Persian are linked to the cultural, linguistic and religious differences. Lack of jobs, discrimination lower standard of living, and frustration shows the high level of the drug addiction among the Baluch. Since the occupation of the Western Baluchistan the Persian did not permit the Baluch to cultivate their culture and improve the Baluchi literature, the Baluch regard this situation as oppressive by the state.
The rough industrialisation has created an advanced Persian region and backward Baluch region with different interests, the Persian are maintaining the unfair distribution of power and wealth by assigning the executive roles to Persian and Shiite. They have created a cultural division based on culture, religion and language in which individuals are assigned to roles on the basis of the culture and religious difference.
The Tehran centralised political system is unlikely to tolerate Iranian cultural, linguistic, and political diversity. The Persian quest for the total domination of the other ethnic groups inside Iran and quest for the religious domination outside Iran have stirred the marginalised Baluch and others. By colonising the Baluchistan the Persian have not done justice to the Persian. The overt discrimination may or may not independent from the economic factors but the cultural and religion discrimination is playing significant part in consolidating the Baluch national struggle for independence.
An independent Baluchistan can play a pivotal role in the south Asia,
There is an anarchy and religious madness in the Middle East and uncertainty in South Asia. Iran is the brain behind the Religion madness in the Middle East. Afghanistan is still in chaos, the central Asian countries and Afghanistan are land lock countries. The central Asian states were colonised by Russian communist party and cut off from the world. The Russian still claims that the central Asian states are its back yard. The Iranian has made the trade, free movement of labour and good very difficult for central Asian and Afghanistan. The central Asian countries lack of access to international free markets and free trade push these countries to Russian and Chinese sphere. The Baluch nation is a secular nation. The Baluch believe in free trade and market economy.
Baluchistan possesses its own natural resources in sufficient quantity, Baluchistan natural resources could sustain Baluchistan population and transfer the state into manufacturing and developed area of the world. An independence Baluchistan will ensure a large market for trade and investments. Baluchistan can meet economic and political criteria that can furnish stable state and the Baluch secular culture has a central role to play in the security and stabilities in geo-political relations.
Mehran sarjov is a Baluch political activist based in London and strives for an independent Baluchistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment