“Iran is not Persia” by Oğuz Türk

Oğuz Türk

People of the country called “Iran” now, is not a homogeneous one. The common misconception about Iran is that of a Persia. Yet, what is Iran now, is not what was Persia previously. Obviously Persia would be areas that Persians would live or constitute a majority for a while. Even though the word Iran was in use in Persian and region’s literature sporadically, it never denoted a political entity, and always stayed as an unspecified geographical area. From 1938, it was that, the usurper of the Qajar crown, and self claimed shah, Reza Pahlavi asked the other nations to start using the name Iran instead of Persia. This was, of course by the advises of the intellectuals of the new wave of Arianism and Persian racism that was flourishing in the beginning of 1900s in the region, similar and parallel to Nazi ideology in Germany.

Unfortunately for the non-Persian majority of the region, almost exactly when the tools of mass information sharing, even though primitive in today’s scale, such as modern schools, mass production of books thanks to new machines of press, news papers, telegraph, telex telephone, radio, TV, were just starting to take foot in the region. This paradigm shift in the technology, in the region, doubled and tripled in strength by tools of mass transportation like trains, buses, and cars, and planes. All of these combined with the accord of pertinent world powers of that time, and billions of dollars of oil and gas revenue, gave a great momentum to development of a new, aggressive, revengeful, and racist ultra nationalism for Persians of the country left and inherited from Qajar empire.

In the last 100 years, the world know of Iran as the land of Persians, with 2500 years of Persian civilization, which was victim of Arab and Turco-Mongolian invasions, and source of oil, gas, cat and Persian rug. This is a complete false perception, based on fabricated and invented history books, fakes, falsehood, bribery, and thievery. Almost what the world knows about Iran, has roots in the bloody dollars of oil and gas, and unimaginable oppression by Iranian security forces, and multilayered secret services, both in the time of Shahs, and in the time of Mollahs.

After the collapse of the Qajar empire, and in the early of 1900s, Persians or Persian speaking population of the country which was called “Protected countries of Iran”, would not accede 20 percent. Now after almost 100 years, and after mass assimilation of non-Persians to Persians, based of Iranian government’s official documents, the Persian speaking population would border 30 percent. The rest would be South Azerbaijani Turks, Al Ahwazi Arabs, Turkmens, Baluchs, Qashqayi Turks, and many other non-Persian population of so called Iran.

All non-Persian majority people of Iran are suffering under great oppression by Iran-Persian centred state ideology of Iran. In the last 100 years, there was no decade that went without uprising against Iranian-Persian occupation and domination. In the last 100 years, the Persian dominance is standing upon blood of millions of South Azerbaijani Turks, Al Ahwazi Arabs, Turkmens, Qashqaies, Baluchs and others. Persian dominance is only achieved by mass arrests, tortures, destruction of land, families, exiles, killings, aerial bombardments, artificial deprivations and poverty in every aspect of human life, from intellectuals to freedom of using a mother tongue, to bread and clean water.

Persians too suffered. Persians, while enjoying their first class citizenship, while mocking and poking fun at the way non-Persian were trying to blend in and be Persianized, while enjoying artificial flourishing of their language, their culture, their made up history, and their glorified past being taught in the school as a official history texts, while all this was happening, they were dehumanized just like their non-Persian subjects. Persians are envied and hated by non-Persians in Iran. Their resources too, as a people are wasted on trying to create the great Iran, with all of the Persian past of so called and fabricated Sassanids or achaemenids, of Cyrus and Darius. Billions of dollars of resources of persians and non-Persians are spent, millions of Persians and non-Persians are perished in order to create and maintain a country that is not a one. “Iran is not Persian”. There can’t be any cohesiveness in the texture of the society in Iran, if the very and basic human and national rights of nations living in Iran are not recognized. Iran is falling apart, because it was never a centralized and persianized system to begin with. If such a remote possibility that could be considered for Iran, as federalism, full and final national rights of all peoples should be secured. But, the fact is that the recent borders of Iran is crossing just in the midst of nations living in the region. Persians are being almost in the center, with not much natural and energy resources are tapping and milking on South Azerbaijan, Al Ahwaz, and other non-Persians who have their brethren in other side of border. A brief look at the present map of Iran will reveal that Baluchs, Turkmens, Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, and others are just living divided by the artificial borders of Iran.

The time of big empires has come and gone. No nation should govern other nation, either by consent or by force. The time for Iran to let go of peoples has come. Iran is the prison of peoples. The time to demolish and break free has come. Non-Persian nations living under Iranian occupation want to govern themselves. Self determination and self governance is every nation’s right. International laws and norms support this right. The best alternative for Iran equipped with the most barbaric, archaic and apocalyptic ideologies of the world, Shia-Islam, is to understand, recognize, respect, and assist nations who want to break free from the prison called Iran.

Oğuz Türk