 Pure as a mutt
Was there ever a "pure" Iranian-ness that
belonged to a glorious past?
By Choob Dosar-Gohi
August 11, 2003
The Iranian
As a Tehran-born and bred Turk who
can barely speak Turkish but gets
nostalgic listening to Turkish songs, I found the three articles
(Azeri
Nationalism..., We
Deserve..., and Are
There Any Questions)
quite fascinating.
Let me clarify... My fascination wasn't because I got
in touch with my lost
"roots" after reading these articles, nor was I amazed
by the wealth of
information presented in them (and I am not being sarcastic).
I was fascinated, because I read these articles
only hours after having a
conversation with my long-lost cousin, whom I had the pleasure
to see in the
City of Angels, after many years of separation. Earlier today,
my also
Tehran-born and bred Turkish cousin had jokingly accused me of
not being Turkish
enough. Her playfully put reasons were simple: First, I and the
rest of my
siblings were born in Tehran; second, I refused to accept that
"we", Turks,
are smarter than the rest of Iranians! Third, I didn't find
Googoosh, our
fellow Turkish diva, to be my idol!
My beloved cousin expressed that most successful
Iranians are Turks.
After asking her what success meant, I learned that her definition
only
included people in sciences and business. While I did not want
to ruin our
reunion after many years of estrangement with my anti-essentialism,
I had to
remind her of our (often stereotyped in movies) fellow Turkish
construction workers who seem to be forgotten in "our" class-based
national (or dare I
say, ethnic) pride. "But," she smiled, "in general,
we are better, aren't
we now?"
This wasn't news to me. I have been hearing and
feeling this
"we are better"
mantra in its many forms and shapes from many fellow Iranians in
my
encounters in Irangeles for the past month of my temporary residence
here.
It wasn't too long ago that in a small party of educated
young Iranians, I
heard a pregnant woman say that she had to rethink the intended
name for her
unborn baby, because someone had informed her that the name she
had chosen
was common among Black Americans! ("I don't want my
kid to have a Black
name," she said with a facial expression that made her look
like she had
smelled something foul. God forbid! What an insult to the whole
"original Aryan" race would that be!)
It was only a week ago that I overheard an Iranian
business man yell at
someone on the phone during a business dispute. My jaw dropped
as our fellow
Iranian businessman told the other party that s/he is "nothing"
because s/he
is Chinese! His vulgar arrogance became even more pronounced
as he
threatened the person by yelling: "I'm stronger
than you! I'll make you go out of business. You're nothing!
I'm an
American!"
As a "good" Iranian woman, I kept
my mouth shut and stopped
myself from reminding my fellow compatriot that the history of
Chinese
immigration goes as far as the migration of Europeans to the
U.S., and that
he need not repeat the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act!
It was less than two weeks ago when a Khuzestani
spoke Arabic
to his friend in a shop in Westwood, a young Iranian man asked
with much
surprise, "mageh shomaa Irani neesteen?" This young
man didn't seem to
comprehend that one can be an Arab and an Iranian at the same time!
As a
cultural anthropologist who watches TV (a habit I would like
to call
"research" rather than "tanazzol-e farhangi!"),
everyday I hear the word,
"Arab-parast" thrown around like "noghl-o-nabaat" on
many satellite
television networks.
It was only yesterday that I was watching satellite
TV in my
favorite café in Westwood, when I heard a caller defame
Khomeini by
"revealing" that his father was an Indian. This "important
fact," which the
T.V. host repeated as if uncovering the reason behind all of Khomeini's
misconducts, proved to us, bewildered viewers, that Khomeini was
nobody!
(Whatever happened to critiquing one based on writings
and actions,
and not race or nationhood?)
And this brings me back to our three articles about
being Turk/Azeri/Iranian. While I enjoyed reading Salman Borhani's
account of
Azeris of modern Iran [Are
there any questions?], I was surprised that he failed to mention
Qajars in
his version of history. I wonder if one could effectively discuss
the
history of Azeris in modern Iran without exploring the tension
between
Pahlavi and Qajar dynasties. Borhani's point is well-taken
that the
emergence of modern nation-states and the centralization of government
changed the national imaginary, but his analysis seems to overlook
that it
was not just Persians who acted as the ruling class, as the Turk
Qajars also
ruled modern Iran.
Despite this criticism, I don't find Irani's response
to Borhani to be
anything more than blind nationalism. Baraitna Irani's critique
of Borhani,
while reminds us that there is a history prior to European colonialism
and
colonial encounters, is itself very selective in its narration.
What makes a
historical event for Irani, is the "Arab invasion," which
seems to have
contaminated a glorious and timeless all-Iranian past! So, while
Kurds,
Lurs, Azeris, Persians, etc. are included in Irani's version
of a
multicultural transhistorical nation, and while his token Azeris
are praised
as "purest Iranians," most Qumis are excluded and labeled
as non-Iranian
Arabs!
Was there ever a "pure" Iranian-ness that belonged
to a glorious past? What
if there was no such purity? What if our history of bastardry started
even
before Arabs attacked Iran? What if "we" were never
pure? Hasn't this
nostalgic desire to return to an imagined purity caused numerous
bloody
civil wars all over the world?
I am tired of seeing statutes, posters, calling
cards, television logos,
gold chains, book covers, restaurant menu covers, T-shirts, (you
name it,
I've seen it), with images of "ancient Persia!" Do
we not have a history
beyond and after this glorious past in which we seem to be frozen?
And
what is the point of looking for a pure origin? Why do we insist
on
selectively
forgetting huge parts of the history of Iran (call it the Persian
Empire if
you wish)? For how long are we going to "re-member" a
nation that is
"
pure" and at what cost? How far back in history do we dig
to conjure up an
ideal past? Where is the point where history begins and why? Who
is included
and who stays out of history?
There are those who write history. There are those
who live it. There are
those who forget it and remember it again, and then there are
those who have
no history.
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