OF ALL the problems Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, perhaps the most pressing and the one that could break his position stagnation of the economy.
Things were going the revolutionary upheaval and months of strikes and disruption have made matters worse. Now. a quarter 11-million inflation is running at over 30 per cent, and shortages in I saw the crowds fighting outside a shop in Ramsar on the Caspian coast to get access to a shop selling soap powder, and the merchants of the bazaar who played such a role in putting Ayatollah Khomeini power beginning about me government s mernciency.
The sector least affected by inces nas been agriculture. villagers — who still make up half of Iran's 36-million strong population were at first reluctant to supporl Ayatollah Khomeini, because feared he would reverse the Shah's land reform programme. Agriculture Only in the last weeks of the Shah's rule did groups of younger men, often Hulelalle students coming back from the towns, actually voice open opposition. In the end, it was the local akhunds or religious officials who stepped in to take the place of the officials in whose hands village power had previously rested.
Agricultural output lagging far behind demand in recent 'years, but as a result of the lifting of badly before began, left tale in strong technicaseyces De being maintained.
because of into machinery. complain However the agricultural sector the The al. building sites. they revolutionary many firms are continuing and many ceased operating entirely. workers Anti-Khomeini running high had been there for the summer.
The regime price controls it is believed that this year's harvest will be considerably higher and farmers are said to be bringing back into cultivation land years. debatable whether this will last, as the provided by the of government in the past are no longer Oil output is down by one third to around 4 million barrels a day, but increased OPEC -prices revenue is up to around $25 billion and a considerable amount of this is believed to be lying unspent because of the paralysis of the governmental rest nonis faring badly.
Construction, which used to employ about one million people, is almost at a standstill and all around Tehran one see ladle cranes on abandoned believed be operating at about 40 per cent of prelevels, and although pay their employees despite the lack of production, unemployment is rising, service industries have sentiment the northern provinces of the country along the they Caspian coast where, as i saw myselt, the tourist industry has collapsed, as a resuit of the ban on mixed bathing high, and the shortage of money in the pockets of those who used to come makes considerable show of the fact that it is going to help the deprived, the mostazifin who were neglected by the Shah. So far, this has not gone beyond the rhetoric characteristic of the Third demagogic regimes.
According to the economics editor the pro-government Islamic Republic, the only concrete measure taken has been to provide electricity of under 100 kilowatts free of charge, and to make loans for housing construction available on a system whereby the government loans purchaser can put down.
Vacuous Beyond that, official spokesmen engage in vacuous talk about a new *Islamic Economics' based on religious concept of touhid or unity, but as the economics correspondent made clear, the ideal of a classless society is one towards which Iran has not yet begun to move. It is being used more to enjoin unity and non-conflict between existing classes rather than to restructure the social system inherited from the Shah.
Ayatollah Khomeini's appeals to the workers indicate, however, that he knows they could undermine him as broke the Shah, and taking no chances in the oil fields. Wages there, already have been doubled since the revolution, and although this supposed to be Ramadhan, Muslims fast during the day, canteens in the oil fields continue to serve lunch.
sprang up during the revolution itself have continued to operate, but they have fallen increasingly influence of the local akhunds or of the pro-Khomeini committees, and no wider trade union organisations, factories, have operation.
whom asked Khomeini might well sum up what a would-be lot of such thinking. Pointing to the portrait of the Shah on a banknote he said:
Shah brought picture on it. If Khomeini can do the same, he will survive, otherwise he will have to go.' the more overt resistance is that of social behaviour, meini and his followers are trying to impose a new religious model.
Alcohol, produced
Iran since long before it became a Muslim country, is now prohibited and what drink there is can only be bought on the black market. banned from the radio and TV, their songs are still sold in cassette form on the the streets, and after the first week of Ramadhan people in parts of Tehran were eating, drinking and smoking in public.
In my own when people on the street and in collective the taxis, I found that although most Iranians strongly in God and Islam, they do result attempts Many workers' committees that country.
the revolutionary and uniting different constitutional yet come into The observation of one fisherman about Ayatollah people are anxiously broke The us money with his Press An area of equal concern and of Ayatollah Kho- tors Ayatollah and drunk in Although women singers are now later this year.
Women conversations all unemployment believe women. not like the akhunds. Indeed, as a of Ayatollah Khomeini's set back the clock, anti-clericalism is growing in the Those most affected by the Islamic injunctions are members of minority religious sects and women. Although Christians (mainly Armenians), Jews coroastrians guarantees, all teel are feel uncomfortable in the new Islamic Republic and they have all been hit economically because they are mainly trading communities.
The Bahai, a heretical sect who Iranian isiam in the mid-19th century, are not given such recognition, and their main temple in the centre of Tehran has been turned into an Islamic educational centre.
Women face discrimination in a number of spheres. The demonstraMarch prevented Khomeini's government from making the Muslim headscarf, the hejab, or the black cloak, the chador, compulsory there and then Women in the centre and north of Tehran as well as in some provincial towns still dress freely, but they are always liable to harassment by gangs of young men, and there is a real possibility that Ayatollah Khomeini will try to enforce the hejab after the Islamic constitution comes into force judges have been removed, women's sports have been but banned, and the producer by the recession is falling unequall on Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 11
By Geoff Bell IN 1965, Brother Leonard of the National Union of Railwaymen told the Trades Union Congress:
I would like to point out that in lone part off the United Kingdom there is a very large majority which is treated second class although the United Kingdom has signed the European Social Charter the North-east for a job and to get it on merit does right not apply. I am asking the general trouble would follow, What kind of troops?
citizens, shame Is ol The counties apply part of the Irish English people were denied the right to work, the right to live? Naturally start. would İreland? Troops would be flown in. followed in Northern We can talk about Vietnam or South Africa, but everybody bows their head when you mention Northern Ireland because the your doorstep. delegate ended his speech by demanding 'get the British troops back'. But the suggestion that brialn and is roops ale In ally waj problem' suggestion that the TUC has gone out DAYS meaningless supported.
repeated general described traditions.