The estimated present population of Baluch in Iran is about 4 to 5 million. Accurate data is not available. The Baluch is one of the few state-less nations in the contemporary world, and most of the Baluch dwells in Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. A large number of
Baluch live in the Diaspora, mainly in the Gulf States, with a small population in European countries.
Shiite ideology and Persian nationalism dominate Iran’s politics, economy, and security, and the country has a highly centralised Persian-dominated political system. The Baluch lags behind other regions in education, economy, health, life expectancy, and jobs.
The Baluch has no hope, and this situation will not improve. The Baluch deprivations are the product of Persian centralised control, religion, and cultural and linguistic discrimination against the non-Persian, non-Shiite Baluch.
The Baluch are disadvantaged in the competition for wealth and power compared with the Persian and Shiite settlers in Baluchistan (Sistan and Baluchistan province), South Khorasan, Kerman and Hormozgan.
The Baluch and Their historical homeland inside Iran have been divided and annexed to the above provinces to turn the Baluch majority artificially into a minority in their homeland.
The Baluch in Iranian-occupied Baluchistan (western Baluchistan) is subject to repeated Persian-Shiite policies of Persianzation, including the suppression of language rights. The State renamed towns and villages to erase the evidence of Baluch history and carried out settlement policies to swamp Baluchistan with Persian and Shiite settlers.
The majority of The world’s States are the source of security for their population. However, Iran’s stance against its Baluch population is one of threat.
Western Baluchistan was invaded in 1928 by the Iranians, who have since then openly used their coercive forces to subjugate the Baluch nation and identity.
Baluch dignity, property, society and way of life are not safe in Iran. Shiite judges oversee assassinations, summary justice and the hanging of people in groups in public. Social stigma and collective humiliation by arrogant Persian elites have driven the Baluch to desperation.
Natural, physical boundaries divided the Baluch from Persia in the past and protected the Baluch independent culture until 1928.
When contacts occur, they can involve dispute, threat, and sometimes invasion and conquest. State boundaries are artificial; no State, including Iran, was formed in heaven. Persian Shiite conquest has been imposing its will on the Baluch and others.
In States where civilised values exist, some fundamental social values are expected and upheld: Security, Freedom, Order, Justice, education, and health. These fundamental values are essential to society’s well-being and should be protected.
The Baluch culture, language, and religion are under threat from the Iranian Authorities. The Baluch plays no role in the security responsibilities of the State. The Iranian regime is aggressive and hostile to its neighbours. The Iranian ideology and institutions pose a threat to the region.
Civilised States vigorously uphold the freedom of their citizens. The Iranian State burdens the Baluch with military service and imposes taxation with limited service to their obligations. The Baloch instead receive from the State humiliation, heavy restrictions on the practice of their religion, no cultural rights, and no rights to equality.
There is no freedom to cultivate and preserve their language and culture. The Baluch are not adherents to Shia Islam and, therefore, in the eyes of Authorities, cannot be trusted to hold executive posts.
The State of Iran has never felt obliged to uphold the rights of equality to each of its various Ethnic National groups but instead establishes and maintains its coexistence and interaction based on a unilateral dominance.
It is common for the State to uphold the rule of law and maintain order based on humanitarian justice. Justice in Iran is not universally applied; instead, it is an interpretation of Shiite Mullahs, varying from one Shiite mullah to another.
The system of government in Iran is of a revolutionary nature that includes one segment and rejects another segment as it sees fit and is more than prepared to isolate one segment to demonise and subjugate or eliminate.
The State accuses the Baluch of being anti-revolutionary, British, American, Saudi and other Gulf States collaborators; by this attitude, they are, therefore, excluded from the Persian national wealth.
The Baluch believe the State of Iran has failed to provide them with minimal standards.
Iran is not “One Nation, One State” as Persians profess. Iran is a recognised territorial State. The consequences of the State’s failure to meet minimum standards, based on discrimination against Baluch and other non-Persian, should raise serious concern among intergovernmental and international organisations.
The State System is an institution. Iran is the consequence of the Persian Shiite conquest with the help of European colonisers. The State System is a social organisation constituted of many cultural groups. The Iranian Shiite majority threatens the Sunni minorities inside Iran and the Middle East.
Iran is a complex society with multiethnic territorial regions constituted of Turkish, Arab, Baluch, Kurd, Turkoman, and other religious minorities. All these nationalities within Iranian territory are sovereign by will and have rights to self-determination that the United Nations guarantees.
Iranian ethnonational groups have maintained their cultural and internal boundaries within Iran’s borders. For peace and prosperity to prevail, these ethnonational groups must keep their sovereignty and govern through legitimised means, institutions, and social contracts.
People join States or, in some cases, separate themselves from a State to protect their dignity. When the State of Iran violates Baluch dignity, they have the inalienable right to defend themselves from the powerful State that insists on discriminating against them based on their religion, language, culture, and colour and is occupying their land, denying them their God-given rights to live.
Iranian institutions are eroded and not capable of generating any hope for the future. The Iranian elite’s mindset is corrupt. Iran’s Centralised theological regime is the source of instability in the region right now and eventually the world. Although challenging, the ability to contain it now is much preferred and more manageable than leaving it for later. Some of us, at least within Iran, have realised that.
The only ray of hope for Iran and the region is to support national self-determination, which would create stability and predictability.
The Baluch envisioned a safer democratic region, believing democratic states resolve their differences through negotiation rather than violence and war. Democratic regions trade with each other and reduce border restrictions. The Baluchs suffer from border restrictions imposed on them, which will not create an interstate dependency between the masses and relieve tension. Genuine States see this interstate dependence as a source of income, creating real wealth and support for a liberal society.
The contemporary State of Iran has been a war-like State. It is the international community’s responsibility to search for permanent peace. The State of Iran senses that it is losing legitimacy and, eventually, control of parts of its territory to its non-Persian peoples. Persian and Shiite are insistent on holding them by use of force, the threat of which may be real or may not be accurate, but consequences are tangible in terms of loss of life and property.
It is time for the International Community to convey in the strongest terms that Iran is not Persia but a Territorial State with many nationalities, all with equal rights to those of the Persians; otherwise, failing to do so, the world will, before too long be witnessing yet another genocide inside Iran and war in the Middle East.
Mehrab. D. Sarjov is a Baluch political activist based in London who strived for an independent Baluchistan.