Iran’s border politics; an inerasable stigma on Sheikh Saadi’s face

In early 1980s when Ayatollah Khomeini, the archetype and founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, found his newly established Islamic regime in need of cheap labor to undertake a series of new construction and development projects, with a typically persuasive religious tone, he said: “Islam has no border.” Khomeini’s proverbial catchword wrapped in a sacred aura of the old soft-spoken Ayatollah, who had made an unchallenging reputation among Shias of the region, won hearts and minds of tens of thousands young Afghan labors, enticing them to find their ways to Iran’s labor market.

Reality, however, was far more different than devious words of the old Ayatollah who then was thinking about one thing: cheap labor. The Afghan labors, who were working in return for cheap payment with no life insurances roused anger among Iran’s labor forces—mainly the country’s minority Kurds who were intentionally kept out of the ring of mainstream market economy and power. A conflict of interest persisted to continue between the Afghan workers and their Kurd counterparts but the regime turned a blind eye on the anger among the Kurd labors, simultaneously exploited work forces of the Afghan labors.