Shayan Ghajar

Hossein Shariatmadari, the chief editor of Kayhan News and a close personal confidant of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, lashed out at merchants in Tehran’s bazaar who supported strikes in the wake of proposed tax hikes. In a lengthy editorial July 19, Shariatmadari, who often acts as the unofficial mouthpiece of Ayatollah Khamenei, unleashed a myriad of moral and economic accusations against the bazaari merchants as well as an unlikely threat to replace the traditional bazaar with government-run stores.

Shariatmadari’s editorial is largely a dialogue (perhaps contrived) between the author and an unnamed “young man with a radiant countenance.” The young man asks Shariatmadari a series of leading questions that gradually portray the author’s, and therefore also the Supreme Leader’s, view of the bazaari merchants.

Shariatmadari starts with a conciliatory tone, saying that only some merchants are on strike, but soon veers into leftist sentiments decrying the avarice and decadence of the wealthy bazaar merchants repeatedly. The young man he spoke to exclaims, “Our money paid for these streets, while the wealthy merchants drive down them in their expensive cars without having to pay for them. Our money pays for the police services that guard the homes of the rich against thieves, even though our own homes are so destitute no thief would bother with them!” the youth complains. Shariatmadari largely sympathizes with this (probably fictitious) youth, though he also briefly says most bazaari merchants are pious and well-intentioned men who are unsure of what to believe during the tax hike crisis.

The conclusion is the most telling portion, as it denigrates the importance of the bazaari merchants in an attempt to shame them into compliance, as well as remind them that the government could make life for them difficult if it so decided. The youth points out that the merchants are not producers, just middle-men, and asks what would happen if they simply disappeared. Shariatmadari, after a brief moment to contemplate his answer, replies that probably nothing would happen. Shariatmadari’s choice of title for the piece also indicates this is the pinnacle of his argument: “What would happen? Nothing!”

The youth suggests that the government should establish marketplaces to sell the goods traditionally sold in the bazaar, thereby eliminating the middleman and keeping prices low. This suggestion is highly impractical, though it serves as a warning from the government to the bazaar that they are not immune to the the state’s interference, and could be marginalized if they are not tactful with their resistance to the tax hikes.

Shariatmadari’s indirect threat to replace the bazaar with state-run shops is implausible, yet simply weakening the bazaar rather than replacing it is both possible and, some analysts argue, a process already in motion since the 1980s, when massive state involvement in the economy began.

As many historians have pointed out, the clerics and bazaari merchants have been the major vehicles for change in all previous Iranian reform movements or revolutions, and if the bazaar is sidelined or occupied with ameliorating state pressures, it will reduce the likelihood of a any Green movement -bazaar alliance in the near future.