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It has probably started from one email. One day, someone has noticed that in the recent issue of National Geographic's Atlas of the world, Arabian Gulf has been used in addition to Persian Gulf, in a parenthesis. He wrote an email to his friends. Since then, the email has travelled hundreds of kilometers around the globe. Recently, a group of Iranian intellectuals also reacted to the issue and signed a petition. The Iranian government banned National Geographic reporters and sales of the magazine until Atlas changes.
A year ago, I was involved in a similar case against one of the local newspapers in Toronto. Initially I thought that my Iranian friends would be very reluctant to do anything. Unlike my expectation, there was a large number of phone calls, emails and letters to the paper. They finally had to beg us to ask our friends not to call them anymore after ensuring us that they will never repeat their mistake!
My initial expectation of weak reaction from Iranians to this issue has come from comparison with other similar cases. We are never good in doing any collective action in order to defend our rights or protest for them. It is also hard to see Iranians united on anything. In addition to that, recently, we are all very busy with our individualistic life and care much less about what is going around us. So, what has really happened that everyone now is very concerned about the gulf story?
It is definitely the right thing to protest against the use of Arabian Gulf instead of Persian Gulf. However, in my opinion, Iranians’ reaction to this issue is disproportionate and with a high opportunity cost. It is totally reasonable if an Atlas mentions another name of Persian Gulf in a parenthesis since it is now -right or wrong- used by many countries. I would like to argue that what has happened, mostly reflects our Anti-Arab racism other than anything else. We tend to be very racist toward Arab people and think that we are superior to barbaric Arabs. How many times have you stressed to your friends that you are not Arab? This racist subconscious has played its role here. We cannot tolerate others calling what is Persian, Arab! It is sad to see that Iranians don’t do much for other things when they should, take a simple example of defending the women's right to go to stadiums in Iran. The only thing that we are sensitive and may react to is when our so-called national pride is hurt meaning that others think that Iranians are Arabs! It is no doubt that the reason Arabs are using the Arab gulf reflects their racism toward us, as well. Having said that, this war on names seems to be a mini-racial war, and I would like to question its benefit.
Another interesting aspect of this story for me is looking at the type of the protest. So far, it has all been email forwarding and petition signing, the kinds of things that generally take less than ten seconds to do. We are all again good at doing these things! However, when it comes to persistence and patience and devoting a bit more time, it is hard to find anybody!
It is worth to mention the similar story which took place a few months ago. It was said in the news that Iran has asked to get a observer seat in the Arab League, something very normal in international politics. Turkey had filed the same request. However, at the time, there was a widespread protest even among some Iranian scholars saying that we are losing our national identity! Something that wouldn’t have happened if Iran was seeking to join a union with some countries with white people, if possible, EU. I'd like to refer you to the article that Pedram wrote about it at the time.
In such a difficult time in history, Iranians and Arabs should all put aside their racist minds and look for more cooperation. In many aspects, we have a lot of things in common with Arab countries, especially the fact that we are all rich in oil. Our countries are located in the same strategic region and we are all facing some level of dictatorship. We have similar problems and opportunities. It is only through our friendship with Arabs that would guarantee the correct naming of the Persian gulf.
Dear Yaser,
I appreciate the view that all nations in general should rise above nationalist feelings and seek opportunities of global cooperation. However, I think in making this suggestion, you have failed to consider the historical background of this particular case, i.e. Iranians' resentment towards Arabs. I think the roots of this resentment, at least as far as Iranians are concerned, are more historical rather than racial.
You have also, it seems to me, provided an extremely oversimplified and idealistically far-fetched outlook for Persian-Arab cooperation. To avoid making a very long comment as usual, here I would just enumerate the propositions based on which I hope I will have a dicussion with you (or others) under this post:
1- The word "Arab" is sometimes too broad a term, politically, under which one might want to bring all those Arabic speaking countries. I propose a view which advocates cooperation with other countries based on merits and benefits without allowing for racial, or any other type of sensations to interfere with our assessment of benefits.
2- There is a clear distinction between politics and what is now known to be called "dialog among civiliations"; the former should solely be concerned with costs and benefits without caring for or necessitating any kind of deep freindship, whereas the latter is aimed at true friendship among people. I think you have somehow, and probably inadvertantly, mixed these two.
3- Sometimes, what you see or read in the news might be meant to serve a different purpose than what it seems. I am not a conspiracy theorist but the situation we are currently in (yes, I am refering to the nuclear case), requires nationalist sentiments and feelings to be at their highest; at least as far as the Islamic government is concerned. This gulf issue might not have been brought to everyone's attention by some good Samaritan concerned about our national heritage. Suffice it to say that after the deal made by Hassan Rohani et al. with the Europeans, and then the news of intensifed enrichments during the past few days, the Islamic government might be bracing for a possible political show-down which requires a high level of popular support. That can best, if not only, be achieved by awakening the nationalist feelings of the masses. Above all the people who could express an official view, including the foreign ministry's spokesman, last night, the Iranian TV showed a brief interview with Hassan Rohani about the Persian Gulf naming issue!
Mr Kerachian,
Badly written article, weak inferences, with sweeping touchy-feely and irrelevant bursts of emotion. Not up to your standard at all. As you mentioned, it is hard to mobilize Iranians for a cause. Now that they are actually doing something good, you are applying some pop-pscychoanalysis to deconstruct the national feelings.
There might be some antipathy toward Arabs in Iranians, but it is pretty mutual. The revisionist act on the part of Arabs (governments and the people alike) and their general enemity towrd Iranians does generate resistance and negative feelings.
Contrary to what you believe, only a stiff resistence would show them that we are serious about this business. There are times when you talk, there are times when you talk forcefully, and there are also times when you fight back.
Remember that maps with Persian Gulf printed as the name of this body of water are banned in Arab countries. Why we should not do the same?
dear Yasser
even for making a good relationship with arabs ( as you said "friendship") , we have to recognise & respect the cross lines of each other. what you say is reasonable & idealistic but does not work in the world of politic. there are some principes you can`t ignore even in friendship.
It is no secret to anyone that the issue of Identity (Muslim, Arab, Jewish , Kurdish, ..) has lead to lot of crises in the middle east. In this specific case whenever governments of Arab countries need Iran to back them we are their Muslim brothers and sisters but when they don't we are just non Arabs with our own made up version of Islam . So I think it is quite rational for us to look out for our own interests in the crises (they are not giving out “Halva” when it comes to politics) and not to mix it with emotion but we have to be careful to avoid clashes with cultures and increasing resentment in the area. It is not only morally wrong to do that but also no matter who is ruling the lands and what part of them as long as people live next to each other and share a lot, they better put up with each other as well
Dear Yasser,
I deeply regret that your piece is so unbalanced.
I do not know if this would sound encouraging to you or not, but I have done research on the amount of anti-Persian history that Arab children are being taught in North Africa, Hedjaz, Syria (yes even Syria!) and the PERSIAN GULF region Tazi states. I am confident using the word Tazi does not make you happy, forgive me for being so blatantly racist, I am following the footsteps of one of the early revivers of the Persian identity known as Ferdowsi of Tus, who by definition was not even Persian, but Iranic to be exact.
I do not think being anti-Arab in this sense is a bad thing.
Can anyone in one’s right mind anti-Russian and anti-German sentiments of the Polish people in the interwar period as racist? Yes, Iranians, and Iranics of modern time are increasingly supremacist, but this type of cultural supremacism has always been around and Arabs are equally, if not more, are guilty as well, if we want to apply your test! My contention is supported by the following:
Can you explain to me why even Palestinians during the Iran-Iraq war referred to us as "Ajami", why the term "Ajami" is still being used amongst the Tazi population of the Persian Gulf coast?
Please accept the fact the Iranian conversion to Shiism, perhaps mostly under the Safavids, caused Iranians a lot of grief. You had to, in all fairness, identified the causes of the Iranian grief against Arab Imperialism that almost all the time disguises itself in the expansion of Islam as the so-called religion of peace and equality! Troughtout the past 1400 years, it has been frequently used to massacre the Shiites and Iranians, which exactly happened in the late 1920s by the Wahabis in the form of such massacres in the Holy cities of Iraq! Is it just a coincident that Shiite and Ajami are often synonymous?
I WISH YOU HAD MENTIONED the Arab League's RACIST support for Iraq's invasion against Iran. Why do not you remind us that from 1927 to 1979, the Iraqi regimes of different kind violated the Iranian maritime and territorial borders by 86 times (I can cite you the source if you wish)?
On the face of it, and quite frankly with respect to origins of our people’s grievances, for a nation who has always been attacked by Arabs (except the Yemen invasion of Khosrow I), it is not a coincidence that we persisted in speaking Persian, and to your dismay we kept up with our Ancient Iranic traditions,… and the Syrians, and Egyptians do not! We resisted, and our idea of nationalism has been much older than any other people "of note"!
I would also remind you that the nuclear skirmishes between Iran and the West are of no relevance to your point. The causal relationship that you are pointing to is extremely slim, if not unfounded!
In short, your analysis is out of context and out of touch with the historical and political realities. In one sentence, it is a gross exaggeration of Iranic peoples’ anti-Arab sentiments.
I intend, time permitting, to write a succinct response to your post. After all, it seems someone has to speak up against all these "Semitic" types of nationalism that are causing so much conflict in our region, and yet there is no Persian/Iranic nationalism.
Eswin,
Just for the record, I think it was only me who mentioned the nuclear situation in the comments, not Yasser :-)
I would also like to ask you a question, if I may:
Theoretically speaking, what is your position with regard to nationalism in general and Iranian nationalism in particular ? If you were to have a say in how Iran's system of education should be, would you advocate the promotion of a nationalist spirit among the Iranian youth and why ?
Hmmm, Thank you Arash, this is one of the problems of reading webpages when you read them on a hand-held! I apologize for this blunder!
As to your question, I think I would leave it to my forthcoming post. I think you can insert a degree of cultural nationalism that shows how a nation intentionally preserves its cultural in the face of imperialist invasions that are not merely territorial but also cultural. Arabic invasion of Iran in the seventh century was such an invasion. Almody all Roman invasions intended to be both cultural and territorial.
The Iranian invasions, even the Sassanid ones that were the most assimilationist of all, failed to be assimilationist of the Arab ones. In fact, the Sassanids were more hostile to the paganism of many main Iranian plateau Iranic tribes than those of the adjancent regions.
Can we not teach a history that offers various narratives but emphasizes the persistence of the Iranic culture? Would this emphasis be tantamount to racism? Would it mean that a story of survival can always be used to antagonize a nation to the point that it forgets its diversity, eagnerness to embrace other alient cultures, and add to its richness wihtout accepting forceful cultural imperialism?
I think these are the questions that are upon us to tackle. The undertaking does require one to want to define the state a racially self-contained one, we are way beyond A.H. as far as I am concerned.
You may yourself want to tell us what you think about it. As you know from my previous posts on the Iranics' history, I think we have to start with that little needle from ourselves in teaching history and include our Iranic peoples' history in it squarely and fairly. This pre-requisite of fairness to include those who are historically our immediate relatives should also require us to re-examine our relationship with others. The unfortunate Arab hostility towards us, however, should not be exagerated, but our grievances, I would argue cannot be trivialized either. After all, the Shoobiyeh would not have risen from the ashes of the Sassanids if it were not because of the Arab racism of the Ummayed, and that history even Arabs do not deny as being Barbaric in terms of attempting to force Iranians to speak Arabic and giving up their culture completely. But to them, Islam was a one way bargain, and Persian or Iranics, were basically cheating!!!
What would you say to that? If we teach that we are telling our kids that they were Barbaric to us? If so, I would say so, after all, the Greeks have been teaching the same thing to their kids from more than Two Thousand years to their kids!
In the end, I think we can teach a more balanced history of Iranics in relation to others, but we cannot do so, if we are not teaching a balanced history of ourselves in the first place.
Dear Arash and everybody else, please forgive me for posting this again: I was writing on a handheld in a train and the result has been very confusing. The following is a more polished version what I exactly wanted to say in the previous post:
["Well, I read it;" you might say, "now let's close it!"]Hmmm, Thank you Arash, this is one of the problems of reading webpages when you read them on a hand-held! I apologize for this blunder!
As to your question, I think I would leave it to my forthcoming post. I think you can insert a degree of cultural nationalism that shows how a nation intentionally preserves its cultural in the face of imperialist invasions that are not merely territorial but also cultural. Arabic invasion of Iran in the seventh century was such an invasion. Almost all Roman invasions intended to be both cultural and territorial.
The Iranian invasions, even the Sassanid ones that were the most assimilationist of all, failed to be as assimilationist as the Arab ones. In fact, the Sassanids were more hostile to the paganism of many main Iranian plateau Iranic tribes than those of the adjacent regions.
Can we not teach a history that offers various narratives but emphasizes the persistence of the Iranic culture? Would this emphasis be tantamount to racism? Would it mean that a story of survival can always be used to antagonize a nation to the point that it forgets its diversity? Would we not pre-empt genocidal tendencies, if we remind our children of the eagerness of their ancestors to embrace other alien cultures? Would we not win historical scores in fairness if we remind our children that our ancestors show genuine enthusiasm to add certain traits of alien cultures enrich their own culture, but always resisted forceful cultural imperialism?
I think these are the questions that are upon us to tackle. The undertaking does not require one to want to define the state as a racially self-contained one! We are way beyond A.H. as far as I am concerned.
You may yourself want to tell us what you think about it. As you know, from my previous posts on the Iranics' history, I think we have to start with that little needle from ourselves in teaching history and include our Iranic peoples' history in the broader scholarship of Iranian history fairly and squarely.
This pre-requisite of fairness to include those who are historically our immediate relatives should also require us to re-examine our relationship with others.
The unfortunate Arab hostility towards us, however, should not be exagerated, but our grievances, I would argue, cannot be trivialized either. After all, the Shoobiyeh would not have risen from the ashes of the Sassanids if it were not because of the Arab racism of the Ummayed, and that history even Arabs do not deny as being Barbaric in terms of attempting to force Iranians to speak Arabic and giving up their culture completely. But to them, Islam was a one way bargain, and Persian or Iranics, were basically cheating!!!
What would you say to that? If we teach our children about the Barbarism that others committed, are really dehumanizing them, or are we teaching them that all humans have committed inhuman atrocities! If we are telling our kids that Arabs were Barbaric to us and are unfortunately still proud of it, are we being unfair? I think we have to teach our children, how Arabs are dehumanizing us in their history books, and yet we, in the name of Islam, are embracing them! I would still say that calling others as Barbaric in such contexts is not really racist, after all the Greeks have been teaching the same thing to their kids about us for more than Two Thousand years!
In the end, I think we need to teach a more balanced history of Iranics in relation to others, but we cannot do so, if we are not teaching a balanced history of ourselves in the first place.
Eswin,
In my opinion, you have used some historical facts to justify Iranian's racism toward Arabs. I, in my note, didn't care where this racism comes from or whether Arabs are also racists or not. This is not the point. The point is that we are racist and you seem to agree with that. You may say that this is not racism. I think it clearly is.
I have tried to address two points in my post. I) Where is all these collective action from?
II) What is the benefit?
My address to I) is that it is from our racist mind and to II) is that there is not much benefit. The solution I have mentioned at the end (friendship) which Arash critisized is not the key point of my post and I may be wrong about it. Just please someone tell me what is the benefit of spending all these time and energy on the Persion Gulf story? What do we get out of it? National pride? Who cares?
I think what is happening is that there is a wave of protest and many people are just in the wave without really rethinking the issue. Honestly, it is very unreasonable to ask National Geographic to not mention Arabian Gulf in the paranthesis.
Dear Yasser,
Thanks for clarifying, I think I certainly understood your point, and yet found it unbalanced in failing to address the origins of the reaction that you identified as "racist". This is not just my impression, a few others who bothered to email me about your post had felt the same way.
If it were not because of such a "minimalist approach that you have taken towards the origins issue, and the way you have exagerated it in terms of its causes and implications, i.e. as racist, why should I really bother considering a broader and "inclusive" response in the first place?
Why should I find your approach unbalanced? Why should I find your approach trivializing what many of us consider, and rightly so, as "the big deal of Iranian grievances" against Arab imperialism and their cultural expansionism in disguise of their own conception of "Eslameh Naabeh Mohammadi" (the Pure Islam of Mohammad)?
I am really sorry to say this but you are the one who is missing the whole point of the reaction, or rather what you identify as "overreaction" of Iranians!
It is a big deal! And the reaction is to be addressed in ways that are not "minimalistic" as yours is in terms of the origins, and in ways that are not also depicting it in the most exagerating of all ways that is the inappropriate terminology of racism!
There are other ways of explaining such reactions, such as the way the regime of Iran would like to depict Ancient Iran as some type of an advanced medieval age in which there was some type of cast system , and people of Iran were looking forward to the Muslim liberators to come and introduce to them ideals of equality and pursuit of science, along with two hundred years of exploiting Iranian peasants, raping their women, and sometimes young boys (as is the case of Khalid-i-bin-Walid)!!!!
Should I remind you, and proudly so, that a Persian Slave was the one who assassinated the Greatest of all Khalifs, Omar? And that we Iranics have been celebrating Omar-Koshaan for around 1,300 years??? And that we were the ones who changed the dynasty from Omayyed to Abassids? and that we were the ones who liberated ourselves in the Persons of Taher and the Safarids? OH, Yes, it is such a big deal and I am so proud that my Sakaa ancestors liberated our Proud Iranic Land!
This nationalism, I do not find racist! But I think there are other ways of explaining the reaction!
Maybe this "overreaction" also comes from the fact that Iranians are also fed up with a regime that has done nothing but to discredit their ancient identity by various measures, starting from banning many Persian names (such as Datis, Surena, Shahriar, and many others...) and replacing them with many Arabic names (such as Amaar, Meysam, Somayeh, and last but not least, Yasser)?
I am not going overboard if I call you an Arab apologist my friend, but certainly I would not go as far as calling you an "Arabist" my friend.
Your like-minded fellows who occupy various positions of power as the initiators of Islamic Unity are the ones who have to explain about their pro-Persian Gulf approach, as mentioned by Arash..., by the way do you remember how the newspaper "Islamic Republic" (Jomhooriyeh Eslami) criticized President Rafsanjani when he praised ancient Achamenids in the aftermath of his visit of Persepolis in 1991...where does this hate towards ancient Persia/Iran come from? Can it just be explained by saying that "because the Pahlavis loved ancient Iran and hated Arabs", the Islamic Repoublic should by default hate all ancient dynasties of Iran??.....
In the end, I am sorry to report to you that from what I hear from inside and outside of Iran, it is the Arab apologists like you who are culturally out of touch with their people's identity...and well, it could be good if some of them could be encouraged to change their names from Yasser and Amaar, to Mahatma, Bozorgmehr, and last but not least Bhuda...just for the sake of promoting our Good Old Universal Common Humanity beyond all Islam, Jedaism and Christianity!
["Well, I read it;" you might say, "now let's close it!"]This piece was so incoherent and meaningless that it is hard to even respond to it!
"However, in my opinion, Iranians’ reaction to this issue is disproportionate and with a high opportunity cost. It is totally reasonable if an Atlas mentions another name of Persian Gulf in a parenthesis since it is now -right or wrong- used by many countries. "
I'm sorry you are such an ignoramus in this issue.
The renaming of teh Perisn Gulf is a coordinated affair by Arab countries and has started quite recently. It is a FACT that 50 years ago no Arab country , officially, called this body of water anything but Persian Gulf as was the case everywhere else. So this is not an instance of different people of a region historically calling someplace by different names.
there are instances of that like the river in our border with Iraq that we call "Arvand Rood" and they call "Shatt a-Arab" and although some extremists on both sides insist on one over the other , Iranians in general have nothing much against it. (The ARABS however never aknowledge the Persian name). So there you go, where did our "RACISM" go, Yasser?
I second what Mohammad rightly expressed. In one case people act responsibly and there we have another wise guy trying to make himself "shirin" in the intellectual arena.
I can only epxress pity. I don't think more time is worth wasting on this topic.
Instead of such articles, join in creating the google bomb about this "Arabian" Gulf.
Read about it here:
Making a Google Bomb in this case
An explanation of what a google bomb is:
Google Bomb: Definition
And here is the link:
Arabian Gulf
I suggest we all link to this site, and any one who adds a comment from now on or writes an article add a link as well.
This is the address:
http://legofish.com/arabian_gulf.htm
The National Geographic map also points out that Iran is occupying Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb. I would suggest to the Iranian govt. to cease immediately this cruel and illegal occupation of Arab lands!
Dear Ron,
Indeed! LOL!
One of the many problems with the Middle East is the ongoing sectarian conflict (i.e. persian vs. arab; shia vs. sunni; tribes vs. tribes)-whether real or perceived, and the painful baggage of history. Learn how to live with your differences (let bygones be bygones) and cooperate with your immediate neighbours to the best of your ability despite the feeling that your efforts are not being reciprocrated. Remember, it is difficult to prosper in a chaotic neigbourhood.Going solo comes at an enormous price. Sooner or later you will break your back...
Dear Mada,
Your most precious comment, single handedly enlightened me. I will now pack my belongings and start a peace loving, humanitarian, all for one/one for all movement in a global scale. Let my name be lost in the course of history, yet let me trive on the joys I shall receive from the harmony and balance of the world, which would be the true fruit of my labours.
A few years from now I can see myslef helping the hungry and the sick kids in Rwanda, removing anti-personnel mines in Afghanistan, taking Persian food to my Arab neighbors, and dancing to "Give Peace a Chance" with Tibbetan monks.
Regarding to the use of the word occupying for the islands. National Geographic doesn't have a court itself. In all the maps, when there is a land dispute, they mention that a country has occupied it and the other claims for it. Occupy doesn't necessarily have a negative meaning. It means Iran is now there though UAI says they should be there.
Dear Mr Kerachian,
Politics generally works differently from the over simplified version of the world that many people want to create for themselves.
In case of Persian Gulf, the change of historical name implies aggressive and expantionist policies adopted by Arab governments. I list them for you:
1. If you cave in and say who cares, then the new name implies ownership by Arab countries. Hence the islands in the gulf naturally belong to Arab people and not Persians (i.e. Iranians). If Iran loses the three islands at the straight of Hormoz, it also loses a lot of leverage in international politics.
2. If the name is accepted, then it shows a level of national weakness and "who cares" attitude that you display that may be very encouraging for Arab separatists in Khuzistan. They have the goodwill and financial aid of Arab rulers in the UAE, Kuwait and even Syrians! The ultimate goal is to create a new Arab state covering the Iranian shore of Persian Gulf.
3. Losing these points (the name, historical supremacy, the islands, and the land on Iranian mainland) seriously weakens Iran's economy and international bargaining standing. Thus, fighting for this name is far more meaningful than loving our neighbors from hell (i.e. Arabs). Recent and ancient experience has shown Iranian people not to trust our western neighbors. Common sense generally has proved a better policy than some idealistic wishy-washy pipedream.
4. Please let me know what is worth fighting for? Just those issues considered kosher (or hallal :)) by the left leaning intellectuals?
It seems that you have a very limited understanding of issues related to politics and history, and your recent posts clarify this point. You could have done way better to ponder the criticisms levelled at your article and acknowledged that you are not entirely correct.
Regards.
Yaser,
See my comments below. No offense intended in the tone. I just tried to be sarcastic ;)
"It is also hard to see Iranians united on anything."
I keep hearing the same from Iranians. It is called diversity. Diversity is the necessary first step on the road to democracy. Next step is recognizing this diversity and respecting it instead of expecting everyone blending in one format (uniting).
"In addition to that, recently, we are all very busy with our individualistic life and care much less about what is going around us."
Caring less for what is going on around us? I agree with this part. As a starter, how many of us have tried to understand what is going on in the country where we live? How many of us know a little bit beyond the Middle East? How many of us know how a proper democratic system whether parliamentarian or else works? But instead all of us know in detail how the weirdly complex Iranian system work, a knowledge that in the end of the day benefits no one. As a casual research, take a look at the Iranian weblogs. How many Iranians look outside of their Iranian box and are interested in things that the rest of the world is interested in? We have buried our head in sand. Learning about non-Iranian stuff is not un-Iranian. It just makes us more concious of how damaging some of the things we hold dear are, and how common in the world some of things we think are holding us back are.
"reaction to this issue is disproportionate and with a high opportunity cost."
High opportunity cost? Can you explain what other opportunities we are missing out by protesting the improper use of Persian Gulf?
"I would like to argue that what has happened, mostly reflects our Anti-Arab racism other than anything else."
Wrong. You are simply generalizing too much here. I suggest you make a friend with a (hate to generalize also) Brit and look outside the Iranian box. Get close to him (if you are thick-skinned enough to get past their brutal sense of humour) and see what they could tell you about the French if put in the same situation.
NEWS FLASH!!! Iranians DO NOT call the Persian Gulf the "Persian Gulf"!
Iranians didn't name it "Persian Gulf" to begin with, if anything they should be asking National Geographic to name it "Khalij-e Fars" but that doesn't wash either because the Arabs have called it "Al-Khalij al Arabiyah" for just as long if not longer.
And since I am pretty sure the word Khalij is Arabic, then it would seem they have had the name longer than we have. What did we call it before the Arabs came?
The correct name should have been "Brainless Mafia". Here it goes genius:
1. Greeks and Romans called it Sinus Persicus (Persian Gulf) or Mer Persicum (Persian Sea).
2. Persian speakers called it "Darya-ye Pars" (ref. Naser Khosro's "Safar Nameh" and Sa'adi's Bustan)
3. Arabs called it "Al Khalij al Farsiyyah" up to 1960's. Look up any Arabic geographic book published in 1940s and 1950s. Then following Jamal Abdel Nasser (who had a personal rivalry with the Shah) and based on Pan Arab aspirations, they changed the name to Arabian Gulf. Even then, just those Arab states who were far enough had the balls to do that. Saudis and Iraqis used both terms well into late 60s. Remember that UAE, Kuwait, Qatar,... did not exist then, and Bahrain was still part of Iran.
4. Wide spread use of the term the Gulf and lately, Arabian Gulf inside and outside the region dates to 1980s and the resultant weakening of Iranian power due to the revolution and then the war with Saddam.
5. I suggest you keep very, very quiet. One thing that you don't have is a brain. Else, you would check your facts before posting something as idiotic as that.
Firstly, your article could be an insult to me and many fellow Iranians who care about this issue beyond your short-sighted racism-based analysis. Do you think yourself and (at least) all Iranian students outside Iran still have a blind prejudice against Arabs? Have you not ever met a decent Arab person in Canada or wherever you study? Have you not ever had a decent conversation with an educated Arab about these issues? The answer seems to be NO.
However, I didn't take it as an insult because the fact that you've publicly announced that you DON'T CARE means you actually DO CARE to make people believe you DON'T CARE, which is more of a cheesy show off than anything else.
Secondly, my clever friend, the word PERSIAN in "Persian Gulf" is NOT a reference to any race, but it's a reference that links the gulf to the country of IRAN as a political entity with a long history and distinct culture etc. Therefore unlike what you said this is not a matter of racism (nobody has wrongly or deliberately claimed we were Arabs), but it's a matter of national interest.
Thirdly, in this very rare occasion the Iranian people have found the chance to express their views and support a (national) cause without the fear of being jailed or interrogated or censured or watched by gov. agents, and now you call it "disproportionate with a high opportunity cost"?? You're on the wrong end of the highway baba jan.
Fourthly, to my greatest surprise you have even questioned the way this protest has been done! You've written: "it has all been e-mail forwarding and petition signing, the kinds of things that generally take less than ten seconds to do"! FYI we're living in the 21st century and the Internet has become the most important medium of communication. And yes, sending an e-mail and signing an electronic petition shouldn't take longer than ten seconds, otherwise you're using the wrong system! and again FYI it's much easier and cheaper and cleverer to distribute news electronically, comparing to old fashioned methods that normally take "more than 10 seconds"!
Fifthly, you seem to think tolerating violations of rights, cheating, dodgy name changes and likes of that is the prerequisite for peaceful negotiations between neighbouring countries in our troubled region. For one thing I'm very happy that you're just a student in Canada and not a key diplomat in our ministry of foreign affairs!
Last but not least, Arab politicians have been very clever to silently and slowly spread the use of the word "Arabian Gulf" for decades in their own regions. It's effect has been exactly similar to the effect we're seeking through the Google Bomb. They wanted to increase the number of resources that use the word 'Arabian Gulf' to convince likes of you to say "It is totally reasonable" and "right or wrong- used by many countries". One-Nil to the smart Arab politicians, they've managed to score a goal somewhere in our team (although you're not in Iran, but who cares!).
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King Jr"
Dear Friends, I am not writing this to challenge yasser or to disprove his points. You guys have already done a superb job in that. brilliant! simply brilliant. I can't add anything.
I am writing to tell you this.
I read your comments and was filled with joy that I am associated with such knowledgeable and smart people. I am proud of you! I am proud of being born a persian/Iranian. May god (call it ahura or allah) bless our country. May he help us bring the best of us to govern us. May he help us right the wrong that has been done to us for over 1500 years. The tragic, heartbreaking injustice that has been done to us. Any one who calls us "racist" or "ultra-nationalist" is doing us a great injustice.
Persians created the first empire where all cultures with different langauges and different races were truly tolerated. Cyrus was not called great becasue he killed more people like Alexander. History written by NON-PERSIANS proves he was the first and possibly the last emperor that was truly loved.
The way that iranians created and contributed to islamic culture & art and made it their own, shows clearly we are not intolerant.
I have talked to this Sunni arab from egypt.
Let me tell you what he told me.
"You are a Kafer because you celebrate nourooz" Says Taregh from egypt.
From talking to him, I reallized It is not us that hate them. It is them. Friends, a great portion of the arabic speaking countries, truly hate us for not abandoning our persian heritage.
I have read enough to know, we are going to get there. I have this faith that some day Iran is going to wake up, shake her shackles and chains off and be the talk of town. She will turn heads and she will shine again. I know she will, just as long as you guys are out there.
I thank you from the depth of my heart for being what you are. persians.
IRAN WILL LIVE.
What National Geographic did is 100% correct and if anything they would have been amiss not to do it. For whatever reasons there are millions of people and school kids that grow up in neighboring countries that have grown up knowing the one name "Arabian Gulf". Those kids deserve to be able to find it on a map just as much an Iranian child does. If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand how reference maps and all reference material work.
BTW, since the term “Arabian Gulf” (it does have a good ring to it, don’t you think?) has been used in the American Heritage dictionary maybe you could also start banning that and everything else that is published by Houghton Mifflin and DEMAND that they remove the term Arabian Gulf from their dictionaries.
As you said Mohammad, the Westerners named it the Persian Gulf and as far as I am concerned they can change it - or in this case augment it. If you were lobbying for the real Iranian name of it that is "Khalij-e Fars" then it would be different and only barely so. Why? Because it's THEIR map, and they can and should do what they want with it. If you are so proud then why don't you send one Iranian out of the 70 million or so to learn a bit of cartography and then have him come back to Iran, print a map of the World and name ALL of the water bodies in the World the "Persian this-and-that"? We Iranians are experts in taking credit and ownership of everything anyway.
Very interesting and informative BrainMafia, Thank you.
Now please shut up.
BrainMafia, that is if you take their action to be professionally oriented. The thing is, it is not. They don't label bodies of water according to various local names that exist for them. They do that to cities, like where Milano and Milan are both on the map. In essence, we see this as a political move, and so we have mobilized people to voice their counter opinion. Nobody is lynching NG editors in the street or burning their offices. Stop being a pain in the ass bro. And Iran already has a very good cartographic institution, thank you very much.
And for what it's worth, they also have a very ugly photo of Tehran in their city section. Some hezbol guy and a chador-clad gal riding on an old motorbike! Come on, that could be any Western Asian town! Contrast that with other cities where they often use a nice photo of a landmark or other.
Dear all
With all my respect to those who participate in this long debate about this subject, I think we still have much to do in this region rather than dispute.
However, the western sources are those whom wrote and draw the oldest maps of this region during the colonist era, and they are the same who are giving the names know,
For the sake of telling the truth at least in my opinion, the following comment may highlighted:
1- it's true that the most known name to the world is the Persian not Arabian.
2- also it's a fact that the gulf is part of Arabian sea that extended to the southern coast of Iran ,Pakistan and even part of India.
3- neglecting the number of countries shoring the gulf wither they are Arab or Persian ,we can't neglect other fact that the coast at the Arabian side are more longer when compare to opposite side .
4- part of the Iranian side is inhabited by Arabs known Arab Stan (Iranian name khozstan)
5- the one who control the gulf are the Americans ,so I suggest the name to be (American Gulf)
Thanks
American Gulf it is then. Poor American's haven't got a single body of water named after them. Let us just give it to them, we can always be proud of the Persian Cat, after all more than 70% of the cat is also water.
I like that. American Gulf. Now all we have to do is to get the Americans to ban and stop reading National Geographic until such date when both Pe...an Gulf and Ar...an Gulf have been replaced with American Gulf.
Hey, be nice to the Americans here. Every American knows this body of water is the Persian Gulf from the Gulf War in '91. Thank CNN for that.
Someone wrote:
"For whatever reasons there are millions of people and school kids that grow up in neighboring countries that have grown up knowing the one name "Arabian Gulf". Those kids deserve to be able to find it on a map just as much an Iranian child does. If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand how reference maps and all reference material work."
You know what? There are also millions of people and school kids who call English Channel 'La Manche'. These kids also deserve to be able to find their channel on National Geographic map. Why doesn't this esteemed magazine accomodate these kids' concern?
Juan Cole, an expert on Middle East, has an interesting comment about the Persian Gulf issue at
his weblog:
Informed Comment
His weblog is a must read for people who would like to keep track of what is happening in Iraq.
The kind of links you give shows your mentality and stances very clearly yahya. I'm just sorry.
WhoMan,
National Geographic does use "La Manche". But it does so in their French language publications. La Manche is the French name for the Channel. The "Persian Gulf" is NOT the Iranian name. Also, the French all have their own atlases and maps that they use and don't need to depend on others. You don't hear them complaining do you? I can hear your response now. "Why doesn’t National Geographic, the imperialistic, Zionist, Arab-loving, Iranian-hating tool of the West - publish in Farsi using all Iranian names?" The same reason they don’t publish in Yoruba – go figure it out.
Of course we Iranians - as always - want the Westerners do it for us, at their cost but at our specs! You don't like the way they do it, then do it yourself and stop whining. Simple.
BrainMafia, you keep changing your arguments. So it isn't about the poor school children? Afterall, those Arabs don't speak English as their first language anyways. They can get their own Arabic atlas and call it what they want. So there goes your point about proffesionalism. And, we are not objecting because NG isn't publishing Persian copies of its atlas, what are you smoking? For heavens sake, have you even seen the size of that thing? I don't even have a bookcase that big!
Brainless Mafioso,
If you insist on brown nosing Arabs, be Saddam's guest. No problem. They have a ton of losers in Iran who'd rather be Arab rather than proud Iranians. But the truth stands that you are not an informed, well read, or even intelligent person.
We have read your posts, and let's put it mildly, no one agreed with you. If so many people think what you say is not correct (all of them better informed than you), then chances are that you are wrong.
Please keep your ideas to yourself.
Thanks for your input and little tutorial on the European geography, BrainMafia.
Back to your comment, I think you are going too far here:
"Why doesn’t National Geographic, the imperialistic, Zionist, Arab-loving, Iranian-hating tool of the West - publish in Farsi using all Iranian names?"
and here:
"Of course we Iranians - as always - want the Westerners do it for us, at their cost but at our specs! You don't like the way they do it, then do it yourself and stop whining. Simple."
Who said we call National Geographic that way or we want them to do things for us that we fail to do???
They are not a bunch of drolls in the boonies spewing out some "specs" for fun. They count. So that's why it concerns me what they say and write about me and anything related to me. Why am I not concerned about what English Channel is called or Japan Sea for that matter? I don't even give it a rat ass unless someone sets me right in a proper and decent way.
Although I acknowledge that no one is giving an ant's ass also about how that gulf is called, I want to be that 'someone' else who tries to set things right about Persian Gulf.
What do you call someone who doesn't even raise a finger for what s/he thinks is right?
Is the name Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf? I say it is Persian Gulf and I am not even waving the flag. It is easy to search and find out this is the true name and it should stay that way and I have a good feeling it will stay that way. Does it matter? oooooooohhhhhhh yes it does. So by preserving the name of the Persian Gulf are we supposed to look like anti- Arab?. I don't think so and I know for sure I am not anti Arab or anti Jews or anti American for that matter. To turn against someone because of who they are is not my cup of tea and we have enough of that going on in the world , but to dislike someone because of what that person does is another matter and I can tell you that I have my own shit list. Don't we all? In order for you to qualify for a position in my shit list you have to do something that hurts my feelings, damages my bank account, damages my property, insults me or my religion and few other things some minor and some major. Nations have their own shit list and just like individuals they have some criteria before they enlist any nation there. Should Arab countries who tempt to call the Persian Gulf Arabian Gulf belong to our shit list? I would say that is a bit childish. You see we are neighbors and they have their houses we have ours; sometimes between neighbors some issues come up and both sides argue for their own interests and maybe even they go to court and somehow they resolve their differences but more often than not they don't become enemies just because one side lost the case in the court. This is one of the few good aspects of the civilized world. It is very practical too. After all none of these neighbors are going anywhere. Nobody is moving out so we might as well get along with each other. They say good fences make good neighbors and in this case the fence is the Persian Gulf. Our Arab neighbors have a lot in common with us when it comes to religion, culture and what have you. I am not even going to use a 19-20 century word and concept such as Imperialism to bemoan a 1400 year old event under the term of cultural imperialism, and act as a totally traumatized Iranian not to mention that the word Imperialism somehow doesn't sound like an Iranian word to me. To use a foreign word, a 19-20 century concept and apply it to a 1400 year old event somehow is an odd mix plus it would make Lenin jump in his grave; so I won't even go there.I can give examples of how similar we deal with the most important events of our lives, on how similar we enjoy the simple pleasures of our lives
["Well, I read it;" you might say, "now let's close it!"]All you have to do is watch the way we celebrate our happy events and mourn our sad ones. Just look at the way we conduct our funerals. Be it Iranians' Arabs' or Jews' funeral. Our funerals are very loud, and get progressively louder and they plateaue only when the participants start running low on energy. We, be it Iranians, Arabs or Jews like to make some horribly annoying noises at the funerals, we beat our chests and our heads. You won't see us wearing sunglasses in our funerals, the hell with those. We want the entire participants to see our tears and their sizes and more important how big they were, we want them to hear us and remember how loud we yelled and screamed; and then of course we are probably the only people on earth who like to charge at our deads as if we were attacking an enemy. Of course others, present there, wont let us to complete the attack and jump into the grave. In fact in almost every funeral of ours, be it Iranians, Arabs, Or Jews, there are some undeclared restraining crew. Their job is to stop any one from jumping and hugging the dead, from falling on the ground, from jumping into the grave. As a result of these restraining crew this charging at our dead has evolved to a great degree of sophistication. We know when to charge and they know when to jump and grab us, we sometimes try to fool this restraining crew. We pretend we are walking away from the grave because of so much grief and suddenly turn around and charge at the dead but again our restraining crew has evolved in their timing also. I mean so much similarity in one of the most important event in our lives and yet we like to say we are soooo different. Just look at when somebody gets sick and is hospitalized, tons of the relatives pour into that hospital room, the visits never stop, even distant relatives stop by and look horribly sad. In one of my visits to Iran, one of my cousins, Naser, had a sever pain in his stomach and they rushed him to the hospital. Before you know it my sister was there, my mother, my mother's sister and her daughters, my nieces and my brother in law, and then Naser's parents and his two sisters and their husbands, and of course Naser's friends and this dude who was Naser's best friend. There were so many people that every time nurses wanted to move Naser from one room to another or to another building for more tests, we wouldn't even wait for the stretcher, we would just lift and carry Naser on our hands..then my brother in law called two of his medical friends to get their asses there fast and they did; one of them was a doctor and the other one was a dentist!!. At the end it turned out Naser had had a gas attack, the kind of gas attack that you would get if you eat Aash and drink Soda , lots of Soda. So much fiasco for a gas attack of Naser ...all this in a time of war!!!.. Were we embarrassed?,heck no.... we had the feeling that we saved him from a definite death.!!..This story repeats every time one amongst us gets sick and is hospitalized, be it an Iranian, an Arab or a Jew. In Middle East, men kiss each other on the lips, on the cheeks,they hold hands walking in the parks,and...(this makes Middle East a perfect place, almost a heaven on earth for the in closet gays) ..some one not knowing the culture would think there must be lot of gays there and yet..this is our culture in our daily lives....Have you ever met an Israeli ? Specially a darker one? If you can melow down your prejudice and go easy on politics, sit down for a chat, for a cup of tea, a game of backgammon, you will be amazed how similar we are as if you just found your lost cousin. But every side wants to pretend that his shit doesn't stink and therefore he is better than the others, superior to the others.
I think we Iranians have a very legitimate bitch about the name of the Persian Gulf and should keep bitching about it to any one involved and fight for the preservation of that name and I am sure our Arab neighbors are sophisticated enough not to take this personal. Look we fought an 8 years of war with Saddam and his Baathi thugs. We, Iranians managed to kill and maim more Arabs than Israel has done in all its wars with Arabs. Iranians did all this without even invoking anti- Arab sentiment among the population and guess what...Arabs didn't take it personal. They were smart enough to see that Saddam had violated a simple but very basic and important rule of any neighborhood: You don't go where you ain't invited and he got his ass handed to him. They watched the war and listened to their rulers and kings and shieks telling them how Ajams are bad but as a whole they didn't fall for that. There were some among Iranians who were telling the public how these Tazis are bad and therefore...but Iranians as a whole didn't fall for that either. People on both sides are much smarter than many of us would like to give them credit. But this doesn't,t mean that whenever some issue comes up between us, we should either turn it into a full scale war and crush them or we should just trivialize it and let it go in order not to look anti- Arab. If conflict resolution is not done in a proper way, it seems to heat up the political atmosphere and that in turns brings out all sorts of kooks out of the woodwork be it anti-Ajam or anti-Tazi. So we create more problem by trying to be nice or appear nice. I can also say that Arabs have much more respect for us than we are willing to realize it. They know that in Iran , whether or not they make a good or bad decisions, those decisions are not emailed from the white house, with allllllllll the set backs that democracy and democratic process has had in Iran, they still watch the regular elections and see the presidents and parliaments come and go, they aslo see Hosni Mubarak , the Egyptian president has been there for the past 23 years (elected in a one candidate election!!), and he still is not done yet, they see the way media in Iran tears apart the president, the parliament members, the ministers...these things so common in Iran is a dream for many of these Arabs in our neighborhood, they see these and respect Iranians for that, they know that Iran has turned into a very educated nation, among 15 to 24 year olds, 96% of women and 98% of Iranian men are educated. They know that 60% of Iranian college and university students are women.. and above all they know that Iran has some nasty stuff that can throw it all the way to Israel if the need arises. There are many reasons they respect us for but some of us seem to be so good at missing the forest for a tree......The idea that who cares if it is called Persian or Arabian gulf, to me , is a bit too much of a happy-go-lucky mentality. You are allowed to have such a mentality if it is only your property and your belongings because after all it is your shop when you give it away. But when it comes to a national property and a national interest where it belongs to all of us, I like to have a junk yard dog mentality. I will guard that property with a zeal. You give a bad look to my property I will give you a stare that will put fear in your heart, you cross the line I will take a bit off your ear, you keep pressing, there are more bites coming and more vicious too, you press more, finally I will bury my sharp, long teeth in your throat and will squeeze the life out of you. This mentality will keep the thieves and bad guys away. It will avoid many of the problems from popping up in the first place. I like Arabs and I like Jews, but if there is a conflict I sure like to resolve it in a humane, civilized and a dignified way.
WhoMan,
That's sounds like an argument that Hitler would make.
heydarbaba,
Huh?
cat lover,
I love it.
WhoMan,
I know I am going too far, but THAT's what got a rise out of you!
heydarbaba,
Please refer to the "cat lover" post above for an example of succinct writing.
cat lover,
I thought it was 90%.
AIS,
Get a life. While on route, stop and pick up a brain - it will come in handy.
And finally,
What does Chomsky have to say about this?
http://i-cias.com/e.o/pers_glf.htm
I am liking "Americana Gulf." Aren't all bodies of water feminine?
"That's sounds like an argument that Hitler would make."
Do you even stop for a second to think what I mean before making comparison to Hitler?
WhoMan dude,
I am pulling your leg. Take it easy. It was a joke - not a good one obviously since you didn't get it - unless you have problems with the "dozAri" and in THAT case, it was pretty funny.
You guys got me thinking about how important these geographical names are. We've got this body of water near here called the Gulf of Mexico. Now I don't know why it shouldn't be called the Gulf of America. After all, a bunch of American states from Texas to Florida have alot of coastline on it. And any one of those states is worth two Mexicos (ask any American). Someday we'll want to claim all rights to everything there so we might as well lay claim to it now.
And there's this ocean that borders our west coast, the Pacific. From now on we should campaign to have it called the American Ocean. Better yet, the American Ocean #1, since we'll want to be calling the Atlantic Ocean American Ocean #2. And that Indian Ocean - why do the Indians get to name it? Let's call it the American Ocean #3. I know, I know. We don't have any land bordering it. Well, no matter... we will someday.
And did you guys know that when Americans planted our flag on the moon, we named it the American Moon? That's right. But it's fitting, since it's in the American Solar System.
BrainMafia,
A real joke is the one that you have to declare it as a joke!!!....next time before you tell a joke please declare it as a joke so we know it is really a joke and laugh at it as if we heard a joke eventhough if we didnt think it was a funny joke but since you declared it as a joke we laughed at it as if you didn't declare it as a joke and we heard a real funny hialrrrrrius joke i mean a joke is a joke but declaring it adds a little insurance to that joke and makes us laugh at it as a joke...now I am totally losing it....succinct enough for you chum? :)
I strongly agree with Yasser that this disproportionate reaction has to do with Racism. There is no doubt that the correct name is Persian Gulf and it has to stay that way but when I see the type of people and the type of language and methods that are used to protest against this forgery, I personally refrain from supporting that cause.
The google bomb thing, that someone excitingly brought up above, is one example of upright racism. It is a shame for educated iranians to have anything to do with that kind of behavior.
No, the end does not justify the means gentlemen. You may regain your lost pride by erasing the phrase 'arabian gulf' from the national geographic atlas, but you may have lost your manners in doing so.
Consuming the lost national pride of our ancestors as a medicine for our disasterous situation expired long ago in the last regime.
"I strongly agree with Yasser that this disproportionate reaction has to do with Racism."
Hajir, you may be able to help me, 'cause I never heard anything from Yaser back.
Why is it disproportionate? And why do you associate it to racism? I am serious. Maybe I don't read or hear what you read or hear. But wait a second it's got nothing to do with what you read or hear per se, 'cause you later went on:
"The google bomb thing, that someone excitingly brought up above, is one example of upright racism."
How is googlebomb is "upright racism"?
I took part in googlebomb too and I don't see it a bit racist.
"It is a shame for educated iranians to have anything to do with that kind of behavior ... Consuming the lost national pride of our ancestors as a medicine for our disasterous situation expired long ago in the last regime."
I have written tons of stuff at my weblog on how national pride is used as opium for masses to balance out the effects of other downers. Yet, I don't have any idea why you think googlebomb was mean.
Bottom line: To argue back that what I did was NOT mean or racist, first I have to know what makes you think that it was.
BTW, I think I love this discussion thread since it is like cheering for your sports team. In the end of the day, the result doesn't really affect anyone's life who is disinterested in the subject (billions of people out there) no matter how hard you scream and yell at the arena. And you are not talking about something that you are absolutely clueless at (like the future of Iran or Iran's nuclear activity).
Hi Hajir, where were you? Missed you, though you had some true surrogates, so your legacy was well defended, have no fear.
"The google bomb thing, that someone excitingly brought up above, is one example of upright racism."
Indeed!
in the line of what you and some others have said here and in the spirite of what Ron expressed earlier let us declare this loud and clear for the whole world to hear:
Down with Racists and Occupiers!
Idiots of the world, unite!
We hereby condemn any use of our recorded and principal literature in inappropriate and unauthorized circumstances, such as the previous comment. Possible suggestions:
"Come together, you idiots of the world!"
or
"Cooperate idiots of the world!"
Naaa, Honorable members of Marxists Inc., it doesn't have the same ring.
But honestly, as real Marxists, tell me why you think your motto is being used in inappropriate and unauthorized circumstances?
after all most of the real "workers" never really bothered with your olympian visions anyway. (damnation upon those petty lumpens!)
I was still follwoing the same noble principles and replaced one word with a more passing one that encompassed the wider range in the multi-culti postmodern world of the 21st Century.
What is wrong with you?! Today, the idiots of the world are faced with wider issues from the racists occupations of The Arabian Gulf and its islands like Abu musa and Kish,Or Khuzestan and Azarbaijan and Kurdistan by those "Persians", Gaza and the entire Palestine by those "Zionists"? The racist attacks on the Holy Establishment of the United Nations by those "Neocons"?
The racist occuping capitalist corporate invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Balkans, South Korea, the Oppressed Japanies, Germany, Italy, Viccy France (or todays France for that matter)...by those "Yankees", the eventual corrupt media based occupaion of our noble soviet motherland by the imperialists and the threat against North Korea....by those "Capitalists"....
Don't you see this revolting trend of racism and occupation anymore?
Have you also turned in to a club of petit-burgois?!
Be men, comrads! All your other idiot brothers need you around the globe!
Learn from your Islamist brothers!
They are keeping the tradition of resistance alive.
You are in this together.
Join hands ....
AIS,
Facts stay facts. Zionists did occupy palestine, americans did occupy Vietnam, Panama and Iraq, Saddam did occupy Kuwait, Arabs did occupy Iran, so on and so forth. Your eloquence in rediculing the cause of the oppressed people around the globe may be admired but don't forget that it's not you who change history; it's the hands and the words of those who seek change and fight for what they believe whether communist, muslim, capitalist, terrorist, etc, that make history.
So until another meeting my friend, preach on and give people here some of your wisdom. No thanks I prefer to be on the other side where the idiots are, if you are wise.
Seriously though, why is everyone so hot about the loss of the name? Every other time the subject has come up, there is a lot of affected disdain for the term "Persian." Why is no one advocating a google bomb for "Gulf of Iran," or a compromise like "Big Gulf?"
Hajir,
I seriously doubt one can "chosse" to side with idiots, usually they just do it as the result of nature or something.
AW,
in a place like the middle east, names are important. Iran's neighbours are not those of the US, like Canada or Mexico...ours are the Pakistanis and the Arabs (ie the pinnacles of morality and human civilisation). So forgive us (the racist persians among us anyway) for being a bit concerned about such actions.
I apologize to all pakistani and arabs who just read the above post. I just want them to know not all iranians are racist and intolerant and narrow minded as the above person.
I am happy to be a muslim; in my religion all humans are equal regardless of their race, language and origin of birth. If Islam had given me only this love and compassion towards humanity, it has given me enough. I bear witness that Islam is superior to nationalism and racism and God is superior to any nation or race.
I also apologize that in that Islam has been the source of inspiration for thousands many out there to commit honorary killings in Pakistan against women, keeping thousands of women in accused of unproven crime of adultery in jails. I also apologize that Pakistan committed so many crimes against humanity against fellow Bengalis in Bangladesh, including systematic raping, to the point that the infidel army of India had to come and save them.
Dear humanist, whatever you are, you are not good in history. Iranians also have committed a lot of crimes in their history. Nobody's hands is clean. Iranians are not angles, they are just humans like others and have had weaknesses along with positive things. Iranians had their civilization like other nations and that civilization failed just like other civilizations. We have good people and bad people just like any other nation. We have had good people like "insert here whoever you think was good" and bad people like 'bijeh' who assaulted and killed around 20 young kids. We are not special and we are not better than others nor are we worse than others.
And don't forget that the crinimals who are running Iran now are before anything iranians. That's true that they claim to be muslims but that doesn't make them non-iranian.
Dear Hajir,
Are you trying to argue constructively, or you just want to defend Islam? I am not advocating your opponents here, but it seems that you can always save your religion, by getting "the bad people" out of it. It won't help, because Islam still kills, and so does the US.
[I somewhat agree that] according to what you said above, anyone can be good or bad regardless of their religion, which is basically what many people have been trying to say since 4000 years ago.
However your notion of religion [as I have been following incognito, since your appearance in the comment section] is something extremely personal and in fact non religeous. There is no religion that has no social aspect, and there is almost no religion that does not tell/guide/advise/show you what to do. If you have a one on one personal relationship with God, good for you, but unfortunately that is not a religion, and certainly is not Islam, and for that matter if you only rely on your one on one relationship with God, and your rational/sensual judgement, you are not a Muslim, you are a mystic, and as a mystic with Islamic background, I would happily call you a Suphi.
In the discourse that is going on here, there have been many generalizations, which will and have hurt sides and are often incorrect factually, but typically when people talk about religions, such as Islam, what they have in mind is the social and non-mystical aspects of it, the culture associated with it. You might not like the people running the country calling themselves Muslims, and defending their crimes in the name of Islam, but the fact remains that many Muslims do consider what such "Muslims in Power" do as Islamic.
Dear Ased Hamze,
I disagree with drawing a line between mystic and non-mystic aspects of religion. I think religions, and Islam speceficlally, are multi dimensional and allow interpretation. There is no clergy in Islam, this means nobody and no group can ever claim to posess the essence of (official) Islam i.e. there is no official Islam. So if a person is against a reading of Islam, he should acknowledge the fact that he is against only that specefic reading of Islam not Islam as a whole.
As soon as you acknowledge the fact that not all of Islam kills, not all of the readings and understandings of Islam promote hatred and terrorism, not all of Islam is anti-women or anti-progress,... then we can have a dialogue. By declaring all of Islam evil you are only making the problem more complicated because the first group that is hurt by that declaration is the progressive muslims who believe in a merciful religion and trying hard to change the culture in Islam. What happens then is that the hardliners gain more support. This is not what we want as humans who want to live in peace on this earth.
It's rather simplistic and naive to attack Islam (the easiest thing, usually, is not the right or the useful thing to do). It's impossible to defeat Islam. What we can do is to understand it and understand those who practice it, be respectful to them and try to find common grounds on which we can base a friendship.
Dear Hajir,
["Well, I read it;" you might say, "now let's close it!"]After having read your posts, it is fair to say that I am a bit confused even though I do agree with many of the things you say. The followings are sources of some of my confusions:
1)Killing another human being is allowed in Islam under the right circumstances defined by the Book. Killing enemy combatant, some one who has, let say, invaded your country, capital punishment is allowed by Quran, but it says that it is better to forgive , however unlike Christianity it is not a must, forgiveness is an option. To say that not all Islam kills is not true in my opinion. As a Muslim I don't see any need to be apologetic about this aspect of Islam, after all we are living in a real world and not in a wonder land and Islam or any religion to be taken seriously by me better give me some SOLID PRINCIPLES on how to deal with the issues on this very REAL world and I am glad to say that Islam does offer those principles and not killing is not one of those. The fact is that Christianity preaches TURN THE OTHER CHEEK and yet the deadliest weapons on face of the earth are built by Christians (and communists). You don't need all thses deadliest weapons to turn the other cheek. To me this hypocrisy is only another real proof that Islam is more real and life oriented than Christianity.
2)Another thing that many Muslims seem to be defensive about is this "Islam a violent religion" cliche from the Islam phobics. If war and fighting and killing your invading enemy is violent , which is, Islam allows this and I don't need to be apologetic about it. This is something that even the international norm and international law allows. If these insurgents in Iraq don't kill the civilians , under international law, they have every bit of right to attack and kill the occupying soldier, I would say this is a very violent thing but is allowed in Islam and international norm and law.(this has nothing to do with whether you agree with those insurgents or not, something that I don't ) Why do I have to be defensive about this? Lets not forget that prophet Muhammad (PBUH) after becoming prophet, fought one war or one battle on average of every 23 days till he passed away. (Janghaye peyambar by Ali Shariati). To me Islam is a religion of Peace, peace inside me, peace among us humans ,and it gives me a great sense of harmony with my surroundings, be it nature or humans, but peace doesn't always mean absence of war. This is common sense. I like to add that I don't agree one bit with this Jihadists movement by Bin Laden Inc. It has been a major failure for Muslims who were fooled by it and it is hard to find justification for that in Quran.
3) I agree that there is no clergy in Islam if by clergy you mean some VASETEH between you and the God but I do believe in Olama, those learned people who are dedicated in learning and articulating the Islam. I rather listen to a learned person whose main task has been to study Islamic literature and different aspects of Islam than someone who simply reads Quran and Nahjulbalagheh and comes up with his/her own interpretations. A mulla, an akhond, has every bit of right to preach Islam as , say, Soroush, who is the leading figure of "there is no clergy in Islam". Mullas are more organized and more dedicated than non-mulla scholars and spend more time among masses and connect well with them ( which is natural). Non Mullas do as well when they do interact with common masses but their number is not very many. Shariati was a non mulla but he didn't just stay inside the universities, he also mixed with common people, in the Hossienieh Ershad, and other places as a result he was lot more popular and famous than many mullas in his time(who were not interacting with people) , Shariati's father was a non mulla and he was as popular and liked, but I don't see Soroush becoming popular (not that he doesn't have smart ideas , he is a very intelligent man). What some Mullas and non mullas( such as Bazargan) tried to do to Shariati is what many of the non mullas are trying to do to mullas now. At least this is the way I see it. At the time of Shariati, Mujahedine Khalghe Iran, whose leaders and many members were in jail at the time, threatened to kill him if he said anything against them, ( this is before Rajavi and his group went commercial), Bazargan denounced Shariati in a public letter, and many other so called Roshanfekr ha did the same.But many who came to his defense were the top mullas including Khamanei, Rafsanjani, Even Ayatollah Khomeini was asked to denounce Shariati and he did not. My point is that many of the opposition then was based on jealousy and I am afraid many of the opposition now is based on jealousy too. I know jealousy and human feelings'argument sounds ridiculous in analyzing social events, but lets not forget that Marx made some of his most bitter speeches against religion after church wouldn't mary him and his girl freind on religious grounds. I have been with some BIG GUYS and I have seen things and I have listened to some secret tapes of some of these big guys to know how these adults can act like 8 year olds. I have listened to a secret interview of Bazargan with Hamid Alghar, I was shocked to hear the man for whom I had so much respect during my youth years, could be consumed by so much jealousy , and could have such a low self esteem. I have listened to Ayatollah Shariatmadari's secret interview with Hamid Alghar. He was amazingly two faced, self centered, egotist and a pathological liar. I am very skeptical about the motif behind this "there is no clergy in Islam" movement.( I could be horribly wrong on this, it wouldn't be the first time...)
This is an interesting issue; thank you for posting about it.
Dear Hajir,
The way you deal with this issue, only saves Islam for you. Your Islam will not be defeated and it is always good and nice. This will not make the Islam "out there" any different or better. If you really believe in your vision and its universality, instead of keep saying the above, it is time to do something about it.
That is the problem I have had with the "different readings" interpretations of Islam, as mildly advocated by Soroush and Kadivar and more aggressively by Shabestari. The insistence on the personality and hermeneutics of religion is philosophically and artistically nice and inspiring, however it fails to help those who suffer from the other readings of the very same religion.
Having a dialogue in this sense, should not be in defense of Islam as a whole, but should be between the different readings of Islam. That is instead of defending your personal version of Islam against that of "enemies of Islam" you should defend it against other readinsg of Islam, which indeed kill, and kill a lot of innocent people.
We can talk about this more, but this has already become to divergent from the original topic of the post.
Who let the mullahs in?
the ones who sent Aalaahazrat to a permanent vacation.
Oh, it's not really that bad.
At least in the case of the "Buddy", we get exciting excerpts all the time from the world renowned and famous bestseller series "The Fantastic Stories of Heydar-Baba, The Adventurous Muslim 'Buddy'".
From titles like these:
"Heydar-Baba and the mysterious elections"
"Heydar-Baba the intrepid interviewer and his foolish colleagues"
"Heydar-Baba and the shocking 12-Step alcoholics' program revelations"
"Heydar-Baba and the challenge of the infidels"
"Heydar-Baba and the Radio-hosts conspiracy"
"Heydar-Baba and the adventure of the Abgoosht in Ramazan"
"Heydar-Baba and the case of the foolish film-maker"
"Heydar-Baba and the thieves of Jerusalem"
"Heydar-Baba and the adventures of Jenin"
"Heydar-Baba and the unbelievable misfortunes of Naser in hospital"
"Heydar-Baba and the ordeal of anti-Arab bigots"
"Heydar-Baba and the mystery of the secret tape of Bazargan"
.
.
.
And many many more to come!
As you know those books are very expensive nowadays and wildly coveted by the old and young.
We lucky bastards get to read the best parts of them continously and for free.
hey...this time you made me laugh...I never thought that would happen but ..never say never..as a matter of fact I am writing another one right now...I don't know what to name it yet...it is about evil things..I am tired of writing about good stuff..let me try the evil...but that cheese cake I just had is putting me to sleep. I have a good feeling you will read that one too...you r a type of mouse who just can't resist cheese...you lucky bastard...:)
All I can smell here is the heavy smell of sadistic guys!
Is this the way you people argue and support your arguments??
But after all...it is called 'free thoughts'!
Dear people of FToI,
I don't know whether ignoring commenters as you have done with my questions is customary;) but here is another comment.
I think I hadn't had the right exposure to the Iranians' reaction to the use of alternative name for Persian Gulf in some magazines. Now that I have seen some zealous bigotry on my weblog, I see the point to some of the comments made here. Back to those people:
You don’t have to be racist or over board to make a fair point. Gees. A guy once called religion the opium for masses, he didn’t have any idea about conspiracy theory.
I think a more rational view on this issue would be avoiding hypocracy and be more even-handed on the subject.
Every nation wants to have something after its name. I don’t see anything wrong with Arabs per se trying to flip the name of the Persian Gulf to something else. Iranians would do the same too.
Those of us who are stricklers of history and historical facts should be careful not to sound hypocritical here. There was once a river that for centuries was called Shat-al-arab. We started to call our half differently first and then started calling the whole river our way. Where were these history cops back then?
I don’t see anything wrong with westerners mincing Persian in the name of Persian Gulf either when they walk into our tribal war. That’s what we would do too when put in the same situation. You want to treat matters even-handedly and avoid to offend any one in these situations. Are all name used in the language of Persian based on history and historical facts? C'mon.
I think I read some smart ass saying somewhere that when a large group of people start using a word like 'ain't' no matter how grammarically wrong it is, dictionaries include them also. The same logic goes with National Geographic. S/he has a point.
All of that said, with the same logic that every party and group in this issue has a reason for doing what they are doing, Iranians should also explore all the ways possible to keep the Persian Gulf Persian. But it should be done in a cool-headed way not by implying that Iranians are a bunch of backward bigot stuck in their forgotten history. 'Az mast ke bar mast'!