|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Extracts from :
'Political Characteristics of the Urban middle-Class and
Implications Thereof for United States policy':
A Report by the Deputy Director of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian affairs (Bowling),
United States Department of State, to the President.
(March 20, 1961).
There is clear evidence of the use of modernisation theory precepts and axioms in the analysis of the various socio-economic forces in Iran, by the State Department. As an instance, we can note the report to the President, by the Deputy Director of Greek, Turkish and Iranian Affairs in the Department of State-concerning the 'Political Characteristics of the Urban middle-Class and its Implications for American policy' in Iran (March 20, 1961).
"It is well known that individuals the world over tend to rationalise political behaviour which stems from deep emotional needs. This is particularly true with regard to extremist views aimed at radical changes in an existing society........The political reactions of the key elements of the Iranian middle class find their psychological roots in the fact that these people are partly Westernised and partly attached o their traditional culture. The result is an inability to adjust to society, and an inability to find security....At the same time, he ( presumably the archetypal urban middle class entity) is oppressed by feelings of inferiority....He is likewise, with only a few exceptions, quite incompetent by Western standards. There is enough of the traditional culture in him that is not able to work for the sake of the results.......
.......Our typical member of the urban middle class now becomes desperate. He becomes anxious and then angry. He cannot, as a normal human being, admit of his inadequacy to meet either system, much less the confused mixture of both which confronts him. He suspects that he is being persecuted and plotted against, and develops aggressive desires for revenge against "the system"...These desires are channelled, naturally, against both of the structures which form the underpinnings of his society......
......This class has, over the past ten years, shown itself to be ready at any time to put almost all other factors ahead of economic development for the nation. They have opposed infrastructure development and have instead demanded relatively non-productive amenities such as hospitals, colleges, asphalt streets, and urban water and sewage systems..."
The report then concludes its analysis by evaluating the impact of economic development on the Iranian middle class psyche:
"...an expanding economy and a high rate of investment, particularly in the private sector, (will) provide a) attractive outlets for the energies for the more intelligent and better-educated members of the class, and (b) obviate the dangers of mass urban unemployment. They do not effectively modify political and psychological attitudes, but they dilute the readiness of the urban population to take drastic action along the lines indicated by these attitudes."
Having thus characterised the Iranian 'urban middle class' as overwhelmingly incompetent, perennially angst and bereft of all things traditional and 'modern' (i.e. Western), the report reveals its main concerns when speculating on the potential ramifications of a political take-over by such elements:
"It is almost a certainty that any government responsive to the urban middle class would as a minimum be forced to withdraw from CENTO and initiate some kind of squeeze on the Consortium......
...in the international arena, such a government would be forced to display its opposition to Western interests in the Arab World, the Congo, the Far East, and other trouble spots....It is highly probable that, as another minimum, the U.S. military mission to Iran would be invited to leave...
.....The urban middle class has historically had no interest in or knowledge of financial realities. The degree of financial stability which has been maintained recently would almost certainly go overboard. One cannot imagine school teachers agreeing to postpone wage demands, for example, in view of esoteric and complicated financial factors, nor a government responsive to the urban middle class refusing to embark on a highly desirable hospital-building program because there was not enough money in the kitty....
.....The traditional upper classes, and the upper strata of the upper middle class as well, would probably be victimised in one way or another, ranging from confiscatory taxation to hanging. These policies would naturally quickly dry up the sources of capital formation for the private sector of the economy. Economic enterprises would turn toward the statist road, primarily because it is in the bureaucracy that the urban middle class is closest to having a vehicle through which it can institutionalise status and security for itself."
FN/Feb. 2000