The influence of the traders of the Iranian bazaar is tremendous, writes Mustafa El-Labbad On the way to south Tehran, in the bazaar off Imam Khomeini Square, a radio blasts out the afternoon news. This bazaar is the largest of the hundreds of markets in Iran; yet, it is unusually quiet. Everyone is listening to the news, and they are looking hopeful. , the European Union foreign affairs coordinator, has just arrived in town carrying an attractive offer intended to persuade Tehran to give up its uranium enrichment programme. When Iranians pronounce the EU official's name, they stress the last syllable and draw it out: "Solanaaa." It's the most commonly heard word in Iran these days. Everybody knows that if the European envoy fails in his mission, Iran will face grave consequences. The most likely outcome, people believe, will be United Nations-sponsored economic sanctions. The European offer that Solana will present to Iranian leaders will probably be Iran's last chance to avoid incurring the wrath of the Security Council. Throughout the entire Cold War period, the Security Council only imposed economic sanctions twice: against the apartheid regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia. Capitalising on its victory in the Cold War, however, the United States has employed its growing influence to push for Security Council resolutions that lash out against countries that refuse to toe the line with US policy. Since the early 1990s, Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia, Libya, Liberia, Angola, Rwanda and Sudan have all been caught in the crosshairs of economic sanctions. However, Washington has been markedly less successful in its campaign against Iran, for the simple reason that it failed to convince other countries to join the economic boycott it has sustained against Tehran since 1980. With the Iranian nuclear crisis, the Bush administration hoped its luck would change, but other international powers have continued to refuse to play along with its confrontational tactics. Hence the Solana visit. If this fails, however, Security Council members will undoubtedly begin deliberating over the type of sanctions that will best guarantee Iran to back down. Even before you enter that carefully designed structure, where the shops are laid out according to the type of merchandise they sell, you realise that the bazaar is more than just a place for the exchange of goods and services. The Persian word bazaar evokes an entire mode of commercial behaviour and organisation that has, and has always had, a profound impact on the social and political structure of Iran. Regardless of the changing epithets, philosophies and styles of government of Iran over the centuries since the Middle Ages, the bazaar has always been the most telling thermometre of their popularity and the most accurate barometre of the efficacy of their policies, economic and otherwise. The "health of the bazaar" has never been just about the welfare of the upper merchant classes. The interests of millions of Iranian wage-earners and their families are intrinsically linked to those of the merchants through a network of bonds that neither hundreds of years nor the cumulative developments in production methods have severed. As a result, even today's bazaar, with its traditional ties to industry, is a formidable force in contemporary Iran. Although any analysis of the political environment is necessarily fleeting in light of the constant flux of political alliances, the policies and rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran could never have evolved independently from the "interests of the bazaar". Legislators in revolutionary Iran have learnt the lessons of the major events in their country's recent history. The bazaar -- traditional, in terms of its domestic produce and its links to manufacture; modern, in terms of its role as an entry for foreign imports into the Iranian marketplace -- has supplied the impetus behind the political landmarks in Iran during the 20th century. It funded and supported the constitutional revolution of 1905 and the Islamic revolution of 1979, to a large measure in reaction to, respectively, the Qajari and Pahlavi authorities' kowtowing before the foreign- manufactured products that were swamping the Iranian market to the detriment of local trades and businesses. Little wonder, therefore, that customs tariffs and other protectionist measures have been symptomatic of Iranian economic policies since the revolution. It is a given in politics that the ruling order must represent the economic interests of certain sectors in society. In Iran, the standard of the bazaar has been visible behind the ruling order from the revolution to the present day. Today, you have chosen to visit the hand-woven carpet market in the bazaar. Iranian carpets form the second pillar, after oil, of the tower of Iranian national income. In addition to the order and cleanliness of the bazaar, you are struck by another characteristic: merchants do not call out their wares or try to lure you into their stalls as they do in the souks of Cairo, Damascus and even Istanbul. Nor is this just a tourist destination. The carpet market attracts Iranians from all walks of life. As you walk past row after row, you notice the shop-owners calmly unfurling their luxurious wares for customers to inspect. The value of carpets in the Tehran carpet bazaar alone are estimated at billions of dollars. An individual carpet is assessed on a number of factors: the quality of the wool or silk used, the quality of the dyes and the number of knots per square metre are among the most important. In a deluxe carpet, the number of knots per square metre can range from half a million to more than twice that many. The general design of the carpet, the intricacy of the pattern and the depth and harmony of the colours are also important in determining price. Iranian cities vie with one another in producing carpets. Each city has its own heritage of designs, materials and techniques and real experts will be able to tell you at a glance from which city a particular carpet comes. For example, pure silk carpets generally come from Qom and Nain; Isfahan and Tabriz are noted for their delicate woolen weaves and arabesque designs, which they call here "Islimi"; and in Kashan the preference is for various types of floral patterns that go by the name of "Abbasi." A two by three metre carpet can take anywhere from six months to a year and a half to weave. As a general rule, two people work on a single carpet and receive only between two and five dollars a day in pay. Traditionally, weaving in Iran was done by women. The more skillful and artistic a woman, the greater the dowry that could be asked for her hand in marriage, because she would be bringing a lasting source of income into her marital home. Unfortunately, the beautiful carpets also have a tragic, hidden side. The lucrative industry draws thousands of children from the Iranian countryside who are particularly vulnerable to pulmonary diseases caused by inhaling minute fibres in the course of the long hours spent sorting, combing and spinning the wool in order to turn out the delicate threads that are demanded for the finest and most intricate weaves. Carpet contractors purchase their wares from carpet designers who, in turn, divide their designs into separate segments which they distribute among different individual weavers. The purpose of this is to prevent copying and thereby safeguard the relative scarcity and higher price of the final product in the market. Contractors are also responsible for supplying the raw materials and the weaving equipment and for paying wages. On obtaining the type and quality of carpet he ordered and making the various payments required of him, a contractor sells the carpet to the merchants in the bazaar. Contractors are generally paid in cash and receive between a quarter and a third of what the carpet will ultimately sell for. The large disparity between what the merchant pays the contractor and the price he charges customers derives from, among other things, calculations regarding the relatively slow turnover of this type of stock. The "interests of the bazaar" comprise much more than livelihoods of the merchant and his supplier: they encompass the homes of the weavers, the workshops of the craftsmen who make the looms and other equipment and pervade deep into the countryside, where the sheep graze and the wool is shorn. The bazaar stands for an economic cycle involving millions of people. The merchant looks at you with beady eyes. He can tell from after a few moments of conversation with you whether you are interested in buying or just looking. Once he ascertains that you are in the market for a carpet, he starts taking you through samples of various makes and quality to find out how well you know the subject. Within a few minutes, he will have dexterously sifted through the neatly stacked piles of carpets, folding the top ones back so as to reveal a large portion of one of the carpets below. After gauging your attitude towards the pieces he has showed you, using a skill sharpened by years of experience and thousands of customers, he pulls out the one you like second best. With this spread out on the floor in front of you, he starts listing its many qualities, reminding you, of course, that in addition to its aesthetic value, the carpet in intrinsically valuable as an antique handmade article that will only appreciate over time, even as you use it. When you ask how much the carpet costs, so that you can use it as a benchmark when you ask the price of the carpet that you really want, the merchant invites you to have a seat and sends out for some tea. He knows exactly what is going on inside your head. From observing your eyes and gestures, he has you pegged. He exchanges a few pleasantries in your language, whatever it is, before getting down to business again. Eventually, you can no longer restrain yourself and you point out the carpet that you have your heart set on. Fighting to keep the gleam from his eyes, the merchant unfurls that carpet right in front of you in a way that throws it into relief and underscores its value. Be prepared, because now things are going to get serious. He starts high and you try to work his price down. At one point, you think you have him, that he will accept your offer: but then, with a technique as smooth and subtle as the silk in the carpet, he resumes the bargaining. Slowly, steadily, he lures you in. You up your bid. You try to hold your ground. A moment's pause, he frowns, shakes his head and rejects the slightly higher offer that only seconds ago you were sure he would accept. Then the haggling begins again. Magically, he keeps you hoping and despairing at the same time. One minute, you see that item that you have come to love and in which you have invested so much time negotiating, vanishing from your grasp. The next, you realise that your last defences before your upper spending ceiling are crumbling. Finally, when the merchant realises that your last offer is as much as you are possibly prepared to pay, he grudgingly agrees. And you feel grateful. After you settle up, you pick up your prize and prepare to leave. As he sees you out of the shop, a rueful smile plays on his face, as though he regretted having made that sale. You hasten your steps on your way out of the bazaar, just in case he changes his mind. In the street again, you hear the radio blaring out the evening news. Iranian officials reaffirm their country's right to enrich uranium, but they promise to study the European offer, announces the newscaster. You unconsciously pat your newly acquired carpet as you picture the European envoy trying to hammer out the last phase of a deal with Iran, and you shake your head and say, "Poor Solanaaa."
