226 Between Private and Public
Mosque, is significant because it is located in the heart of the carpet
bazaar in Tehran, and as the name implies, its congregation is predomi-
nately Turkish-speaking Azeris, who constitute a very significant portion
of the carpet traders in Tehran.
The relative quiescence of the bazaar is not a result of its concession
to the regime. On the contrary, bazaaris have frequently voiced their dis-
satisfaction with government policies. The official guild magazine, Asnāf
[Guilds], devoted a special issue to listing the challenges facing the service
and commercial sectors due to recent government policies.^68 Bazaaris
have also increasingly shunned the calls of the hard-line Islamic associ-
ations, neither participating in their events nor voting for conservative
candidates.^69 In fact, during the 2001 presidential elections, many publicly
expressed their support for the reformist candidate Mohammad Khatami,
while flyers and posters for more so-called traditional candidates were
a rare sight. Several caravansaries hung large pictures of the incumbent
president, who is typically associated with the urban middle class, youth,
women, and prodemocracy circles. Some storeowners placed signs bear-
ing the slogans of the reformist party; one well known tea merchant
placed a large handwritten statement on his desk declaring that he will
vote for Khatami on election day. Thus, public and private spaces in the
bazaar were used to exhibit political sensibilities associated with reform.
ith a decline in shared social space and an increasingly hetero-W
geneous and delocalized set of commercial networks, it is not surprising
that collective action and mobilization against the state has been fleet-
ing and uncoordinated, resulting in isolated and typically unsuccessful
actions. That protests have been limited to individual cities is reflective of
the fragmented nature of value chains. The upshot of such relocalization
has been a general decline in the bazaaris’ sense of place and the ability of
space to engender group trust that is critical for social mobilization.
Conclusions
The Tehran bazaar remains in the shadow of the old clock tower, the
Shams al-‘Amareh. Yet the postrevolutionary state casts new shadows,
shadows that have allowed certain members of the bazaar to work directly