Iranian Azarbaijanis Eternally Remain Integral Compatriots in Shaping The History and Life of IRAN

IRANIAN AZARBAIJANIS ETERNALLY REMAIN INTEGRAL COMPATRIOTS IN SHAPING THE HISTORY AND LIFE OF IRAN

We the worldwide signatories herein comprised of educators, scholars, historians and all those with a basic knowledge of the historical perspective of South and Central Asia, and Asia Minor, do hereby express our grave concern over a recent move by shadowy individuals and financed centers with arteriole motives that are attempting to portray Iranian Azerbaijanis as victims of 'cultural' and 'linguistic' discrimination in Iran. The historical community regards this act as an affront to all Iranians including the Azarbaijanis of Iran. A petition circulating on the Internet on this topic deliberately misleads the reader into believing that the current regime in Iran, notwithstanding its rather poor human and democratic rights records as applied to the 70 million Iranians across the board, is selectively targeting one ethnic group for 'discrimination' when in fact a large number of grievances run widely across regional and political strata. Moreover, the aforementioned petition deliberately fails to address the powerful historical and contemporary influence and contributing position of Iranian Azarbaijanis in the political (both within Iran and the Diaspora), cultural, historical and commercial life of Iran.

Iran as a nation with great many diverse ethnicities since its inception of nearly three years ago has been a multilingual nation and all languages are equal. The inscriptions of Darius the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty (circa 325 BCE) are in four languages: Aramaic, Babylonian, Elamite and Old Persian. The Persian language has been a national vernacular employed by Iran's widely diverse ethnic and linguistic groups as a common cultural bond. The said petition also fails to address the fact that Azari-Turkish is freely spoken across Iran, especially in the capital Tehran where Iranians Azeris comprise the majority.

Finally, the failure of the petition is in its failing attempt to narrate issues in divisively ethnic terms (Group A is oppressing Group B) when in fact the issues stem from a complex myriad of political and economic factors that directly affect the entire spectrum of Iran's multivaried population. The petition has been carefully crafted to avoid its identification with separatist movements; however, this is contradicted by a quick study of its language and that of the SANAM movement website of Mr. Mahmoudali Chehreganli. The photographs of the website depict SANAM supporters flashing the Grey Wolf insignia, the official salute of the violently racist pan-Turanian Grey Wolf movement. Pan-Turanian groups are notorious in their attempts at re-narrating history and the fabrication of grievances to help further violent and divisive racialist motives. Protests against pan-Turanian attempts at historical revisionism in western universities and false accusations of human rights violations at world platforms such as the UN have been repeatedly lodged by Armenian and Greek academics over a number of years, as they grieve for their historical recognition of Armenian genocide and oppressive subjugation of the Greeks, respectively.

Any application of 'cultural genocide' on the Azerbaijanis would be fatally detrimental to the culture of Iran as much of what and who Iran is today is indebted to Azerbaijanis such as Sattar Khan, Bagher Khan, Shah Abbas or Shams Tabrizi. While the writers of the cited petition couch their language in the name of language rights and how Persian is being "imposed" on the Azeris, they conveniently fail to mention that Azerbaijan has been a key centre for the development of Persian language and literature, and in all likelihood the birth place of Zoroaster, the founder of the monotheistic Zoroastrian religion, for over several thousand years.


Respectfully submitted,

Dr. Kaveh Farrokh, Independent Historian Scholar
[email protected]
British Columbia