Word: bazaar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Just as Wall Street is the embodiment of America's financial industry, "the bazaar" stands for the mercantile and commercial interests that form a core constituency in Iran. Both are physical and metaphorical locations of power. Indeed, the bazaar, the center of Iranian economic life stretching back centuries, has been key to the country's political history. In January 1984, Ayatullah Khomeini addressed bazaar leaders and, while pressing for their support, flattered their importance by proclaiming, "If the bazaars are not in step with the Islamic Republic, the public will suffer defeat." So which way is the bazaar leaning...
...capital, the main bazaar is located smack in the middle of the city, between the wealthy to the north and the poorer southern neighborhoods - the pivot on which Iranian society revolves. And signs of discontent in the bazaar alleys could be seen months before the election. In October 2008, bazaaris closed down their shops in Tehran, Isfahan and other large cities for several days in objection to a new sales tax that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had implemented. It was the first general bazaar strike since the Islamic revolution, and the President quickly backed down and suspended...
...past, the sentiments of the bazaar were crucial. The story of the 1979 Islamic revolution cannot be told without recounting the numerous times bazaars in all major cities went on strike to protest the Shah's autocratic rule. The family networks of bazaaris as well as their business networks were so intertwined with the Shi'a clergy that Iran experts spoke of the "bazaar-mosque" alliance as the main reason for the toppling of the Pahlavi monarchy. But is that alliance still holding strong in the wake of the largest protests in Iran since 1979? Could opposition leader Mir-Hossein...
...fear it may be the bloodiest of all. But as the city waits, punk skateboarders show off their moves to the thump-thump of French electro at Enqelab Sports Complex. Groups of women in chadors amble by the fragrant booths of spice dealers at the city's famed Grand Bazaar. Young couples lounge in a coffee shop at Haft e-Tir, the epicenter of a quashed protest just last week...
...this is Sarawak, Malaysia - not Missouri. Belaga's Main Bazaar is a row of careworn early 20th century Chinese shophouses. Between the stores and the town's stone jetty stands a giant wooden hornbill, perched on a carved totem pole, missing a wing, paint peeling on its sun-bleached casque. From the kampung a couple of blocks away floats a muezzin's soulful maghrib, mingling in the twilight with the putter of Yamaha motors on the longboats crawling their way up the Batang Rajang, Malaysia's longest river. For hundreds of years, this was one of Sarawak's most vital...