This is a caption

این یک عنوان است.

This is a caption.
Ali Kalai

It has been a long time. Maybe about two decades. Two decades since the sound of the peddler’s cart was a familiar sound in the streets of our cities. The peddler would enter, and people would gather around him, and he would provide everything they needed, from chicken to human lives. The sound of the salt and dry bread, or the buying of old items, or the cotton spinners with their tall tools, and the sound of the cotton being beaten for making mattresses and pillows and other necessary items for the people’s sleep and rest, would fill the ears of the locals like the sound of a harp.

Time passed. Slowly, the number of peddlers decreased. But the number of street vendors increased. Vendors who were also present during the time of the peddlers. But this time, they had been replaced by the all-powerful rulers of the streets. A story of the connection between these two, which goes back much further.

Until before the Constitutional Revolution, shopkeepers in the markets of Iran and in traditional passageways and bazaars each had a room and a name and a stall. Each had their own reputation and presence and livelihood. But alongside them, there were strangers who came to the cities for business or those who did not have enough money to buy a room, who always had the opportunity to earn a living. In the city square or next to the steps of the rooms, they spread out their small stalls and were busy selling their goods. Some of these vendors were from the city and were poor, buying a little but selling more in the small market. Generally, their prices were lower than the official stores, but whatever it was, it covered the expenses of the vendor’s family. Many of these vendors and also travelers in the cities were “koolis”.

However, with the constitutional revolution of the Iranian people, a new era begins and the lives of Iranians are transformed. The first municipal law, or “baladiyeh”, is drafted on 19 Khordad 1286 SH and it takes three years for the first baladiyeh to be established in the capital, Tehran, in 1289 SH. However, these baladiyehs faced legal issues and were unable to effectively manage the cities, leading to their dissolution in 1290 SH with the approval of the National Consultative Assembly. It wasn’t until the beginning of the Pahlavi dynasty that a total of 16 baladiyehs were established in Iran, after addressing their legal weaknesses.

But these districts had just found a new mission. The district had come to bring order and organization to the streets and to regulate the conditions. So the sales and shops and the state of the city had to be organized. But what couldn’t be organized were the hands of the salesmen. So the government’s confrontation with the salesmen began. A matter that continues to this day.

The cycle of peddlers began from villages. In the villages, there was neither a specific sales unit for goods nor did the owners of goods have a desire to use the official distribution network. The official distribution network meant middlemen and each had their own rights. But the peddlers did not only stay in the villages. They came to the cities and continued to sell their goods in the same style. However, it took time for a large portion of these peddlers to become street vendors in Iran during the first and second Pahlavi era, as well as the first two decades of the Islamic Republic. They settled in one place and found a way to make a living for themselves, and in a sense, took over a section of the street. Dr. Taghi Azad Armaki, an Iranian sociologist and professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tehran, explains the reasons for the transformation of peddlers into street vendors: “There were several determining

Today, street vendors are among the angry ones about the structure of municipalities and the formal order and governance of society. According to Article 55 of the Municipalities Law, they are considered as manifestations of obstruction and are dealt with accordingly. However, there was a time when this was a beloved job and perhaps a distraction for young people who wanted to learn the ropes of the job market.

Many teenagers born in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as those born in the early 1960s, must remember the summers of no school, when they would sell various goods such as lucky eggs, popcorn, and candy to make a little money from their parents, yesterday’s leftovers, or saved up school allowances. They earned a small income and although it didn’t cover any expenses, it showed the determination of the teenager who spent their summer not in idleness, but in economic work. Surely many readers, who were part of the middle class of Iranian society and experienced those days, can attest to the writer’s words – as the writer himself has done.

Despite facing harsh treatment and being hammered by the government, artists and athletes still do not have the courage to say that they have resorted to selling their time and talents to make a living. Kianoush Ayari, an Iranian writer and director, in his first encounter with earning money, resorted to selling his time and talents (3); or Reza Enayati, a valuable football player and goal scorer who played for Esteghlal Tehran for years, also resorted to selling his time and talents in Mashhad (4).

Let me give you another example. In 2013, in the city of Mahabad, a street vendor, who had received an education – yes, he had received an education – became a member of the Mahabad City Council. He, who had obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, declared in his campaign poster at the time: “I, Mohammad Chakool, announce my candidacy for the fourth term of the Mahabad City Council with empty hands but full of hope in God. After years of street vending, I declare to the honorable people that I am listing all my movable and immovable assets to prove my good intentions.” (5)

The peddler’s trade, in addition to being undesirable, was a badge of honor for the individual. Especially during the time after the victory of the revolution, having a history of peddling became a distinguishing characteristic for the new rulers, especially after the premiership of Rajai. When Mohammad Ali Ghazanfari, who the Fars News Agency calls a “revolutionary, Basiji, warrior, and veteran,” talks about Rajai, he mentions his memories of peddling with Mohammad Ali Rajai, the prime minister and later president of the Islamic Republic. Apparently, based on these memories, peddling had become a way to conceal or spread announcements.

According to the founder of the new system, the revolution was a revolution of the barefoot. It was supposed to bring prosperity to the people in this world and the hereafter. It was a revolution in which a part of its pedestrian system was made up of these marginalized and impoverished people, and street vending was one of the tools of their struggle and underground work. But after victory and especially after the war, the helmsman changed his policies. The crackdowns became more severe and the army of unemployed and poor became wider and wider. A responsible official at the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development reports that between the years 2005 and 2012, the population of Tehran decreased by ten percent, but the population of the outskirts of Tehran, which is now known as the new suburbs, doubled. (7) Another report also tells us that between the years 2007 and 2013, despite the growth of the job-seeking population in Iran, the number of jobs did not increase

Seeking employment but the number of jobs is fixed. The fixed number and the population of unemployed are growing. Their hands are short and the dates are on the palm tree.

But a part of this job-seeking population, especially when they cannot find work, resort to street vending. They sell on the streets to make ends meet, to not be dependent on anyone, and to live with dignity; an economic dignity rooted in their self-esteem. It is not easy to run from dawn till dusk, in the cold and heat, going back and forth between the city officials, shopkeepers, and countless other claimants and non-claimants, playing cat and mouse and selling goods to people, and returning home at night with a few coins. I remember around 1985, when I used to go to the Children’s Home and the Darvazeh Ghar Gate to serve, I saw a 15-year-old boy. One day, he came into the compound of the Children’s Home, angry. When I spoke to him, he told me about his marriage and how he had taken packages of paper tissues to sell in Aryashahr Square, Sadeghi

But the story of the street vendors does not end with crying. Suddenly, a group of Yunus Asakareh and dozens of Yunus Asakareh are found and they ask the officials with self-immolation and suicide, who will answer the hungry stomachs and homeless heads of their children if not this job?

In this struggle, the street vendors and this tragedy that has occurred, but the civil society allies are striving and if their voices were not heard, perhaps the voices of all these street vendors under oppression would not have been heard so easily. They have sent detailed letters with about 550 signatures, from university professors to street vendors, to the authorities (10) and have formed a campaign called “Support Street Vendors, Not Elimination” to help this vulnerable class of Iranian society. (11)

These activists have also tried to pull the feet of the Chamber of Commerce to the square. They want to recognize street vendors and try to organize this street vending by the presence of these street vendors and find a mechanism and structure. They are trying to bring the first accused in the harassment of street vendors, namely municipalities, to interact. And the mayor also speaks of compassion. The mayor of Tehran says, “We do not want to oppose street vendors and stop them because we understand the employment conditions and we understand that many families need this work.” But then Sardar, doctor, and pilot Qalibaf continues, “We do not want to cut off their bread (street vendors), but we want to organize them in a way that their sales should take place at a specific time and place with specific items” and also speaks of designating a day for presenting and selling street vendors. (12)

It is not clear whether the mayor of Tehran does not know or pretends not to know. Because specifying the time and place and determining the items and materials for the street vendors, who change their location based on market demand and location at different times of the year, is a nature of this work that resembles a joke more. And then this same municipality, whose mayor has been defeated several times in the presidential elections and returned to his mayoral position, would send forces with various names such as “Haramban, City Guard, Removal of Valid Obstacles, and Against This” to attack the street vendors and violently loot their belongings, leaving the poor vendors helpless and without any means to make a living.

Furthermore, the story of organization by the municipality, if it is supposed to be based on the background and history of other organizations, it is not our hope to bring evil to you! Because every organization and membership in any place and issue requires money and the right of this and that is returned to the hand of selling luck and in the end, whatever he earns must be poured into the stomach of the municipality, which looks at the whole city, from the streets to the houses and everything, with the eye of a city and then, of course, its government budget arrives on time!

The issue of street vendors in Tehran and Iran has turned into a chaotic problem, exacerbated by government interference. Unfortunately, the government does not recognize the independence of guilds, preventing them from organizing and negotiating with the municipality and government. This foundation, where all matters must be controlled, has left no room for independence for any individual or trade.

On the happy street, a fruit vendor is violently dragged on the night of Eid and confronts another vendor who has returned to the street where locals buy their fruits from vendors and are very satisfied with their encounter. Another vendor sets himself on fire in Tehran. (13) Confrontation, self-immolation, looting of property, and a thousand other tragedies. Today, the share of street vendors from security forces in Tehran and Iran is this. Authorities who claim to provide security from the West to the East!

Returns

1- For more information, visit the Ministry of Interior’s website, in the section on establishing municipalities.

2- “How and why did the street vending emerge?”; A conversation with Dr. Azad Ermaki, Donyaye Eghtesad newspaper, February 6, 2014.

3- R.K to Young Journalists Club

4- R.K to Mashregh News website

“Bilal Foroushi, who became the second member of the Mahabad City Council”, Mehr News Agency, 26 June 2013

The story of a struggle that was being waged with martyr Rajai, the Fars News Agency, 12 Bahman 1392.

7- Ranjipour, Ali, “The Crisis of Begging; My House is on Fire”, BBC Persian Website, 16 Esfand 1394.

8- Hashemkhani, Meysam, “Legalization of Street Vending is Necessary”, Shahr-e-Now Newspaper.

“Iran is in a golden opportunity of demographic window”; Interview with the President of the Iranian Population Association, Mehr News Agency, September 9, 2014.

10 – R.K to “Open Letter of Support for Street Vendors”, Another City Blog

11- Habibzadeh, Shokoufeh, “Multiple Victims, Street Pavement”, Sharq Newspaper, 24 February 2016.

12- Howgoyan, Hamid, “Tehran Municipality and Peddlers: Still on the Same Path”, Yekshahr website, June 27, 2015.

Details of the story of a street vendor’s self-immolation in Tehran, Tabnak, 11th of Esfand month, 1394.