 Hot water
The consensus among the international community
of scholars is to employ only the single legitimate historical name,
Persian Gulf
in all communications
David N. Rahni
December 10, 2004
iranian.com
National Geographic Society (NGS) has positioned itself as the
premier American learned organization dedicated to the "better" understanding
of world anthropology, geography, history and natural resources.
In the 2005-eighth edition-of its Almanac of World History and
Atlas of the World, this organization has made a unilateral and
potentially "illegal" attempt to amend the legally
and historically recognized nomenclatures of certain geographical
locations. Of particular note is the addition on their maps of
a new term - namely "Arabian Gulf" - which appears
in brackets and underneath the original, historical, legal and
internationally recognized name PERSIAN GULF.
Such a move has led
to immense reservations in the scholarly community, and an uproar
of protests worldwide, especially by the peoples of Iranian heritage
from both inside Iran and from the Diaspora, who consider the new
name as fictitious and thus illegal, politically motivated, financed
by third [Arab] parties" and thus basically scandalous. "We
try to retain our independent judgment and not be swayed by a response
from a group with a particular interest," National Geographic
Chief Cartographer Allen Carroll says.
In a statement on the society's
Web site, he defends the atlas yet promises to add "explanatory" and "clarifying
language" to future editions and on the Society's website.
National Geographic claims that for at least 15 locations on the
recently published maps, it uses secondary names for various regions
in parentheses to help persons looking for these names. The Society
has, however, no answer when asked why it stops at fifteen locations,
since there are many occupied or disputed territories with secondary
names.
Ironically, other cartographers and scholars who use maps
as professional tools are of a contrary opinion to the one promulgated
by the National Geographic Society. Instead, they are of the
strong opinion that the inclusion of such [secondary] names makes
for
a more convoluted and cumbersome work. Costing $142.00, the eighth
edition of the Atlas of the World is 416 pages long and contains
more than 140,000 place names. Over 15,000 cartographic changes
and updates were made in the course of creating this edition,
which was five years in the making.
Another criticism with potential legal ramification levied against
the National Geographic Society relates to their recent first time
inclusion of the term [occupied by Iran] which effectively questions
the Iranian sovereignty of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa
Islands. Furthermore, NGS has recently decided to substitute newly
coined "Arabic" names for two other Iranian islands
historically named Kish and Lavan.
Progress is being made as we speak, nevertheless. At the December
7 meeting of the National Geographic President John Fahey and the
Leadership of NIAC the National Iranian American Council for instance,
the Society made a few retractions and agreed on several "corrective" steps.
NIAC has followed up on over 5000 growing number of personalized
letters submitted directly to the Society Board by those in the
community concerned about the [legal and historical] abuse of the
Persian Gulf terminology.
Trita Parsi, the President of NIAC submitted
to Fahey a formal letter signed by 36 scholars on international
stature requesting the reversal of dual classification of the Persian
Gulf by National Geographic Society Board. "From here on
it was pledged the National Geographic will use the correct names
Kish and Lavan for the sovereign Iranian Islands, and the omission
of the term "occupied by Iran for the other sovereign Iranians
islands," Trita Parsi commented. The use of "dual names" for
the Persian Gulf was, however, deferred to subsequent meetings
for resolution.
A similar meeting was also held last Friday, when
Reza Pahlavi met with Fahey to communicate his succinct expectation
with respect to the sole use of the name, Persian Gulf. Although
some seriously talk of legal discourse, the community feels compelled
to exhaust all other means possible before they resort to this
last option.
Iran as depicted in Figure 2. is a non-Arab country of 70 million
population [an additional five millions in Diaspora] and five thousand
years in the making has 2,000 Km. of maritime border with the Persian
Gulf, in contrast to all the newly established sheikdoms and Arab
countries bordering the waterway with a population one-tenth of
that of the Iranians in the north. Persian cultural heritage is
distinct from the equally rich Arab cultural heritage.
MUNSTER, Sebastian. Tabvla Asiae VI. Basle, 1542, Latin
text. One of the earliest separate maps of
Arabia showing the land surrounding the Red Sea and Persian Gulf
including Saudi Arabia and parts of Egypt. >>> Larger
The consensus among the international community of scholars is
to employ only the single legitimate historical name, Persian Gulf
in all communications. This belief is based on the premise that
Persian Gulf is factually the name recorded and continuously used
in the regional literature, history, poetry and science at least
since Herodotus 2500 years ago referred to the body of water as
Sinvs Persicvs; with the advent of Latin as the language of choice
the name was written as Sinum Persicum (e.g., in the 1542 map shown
in Figure 3), and Golfo Persico (Golfo Persiano) by the Italian
marine expeditionary.
Many believe that the recently coined term "Arabian
Gulf" is a politically charged fallacy, which unnecessarily
opens up old wounds and a "Pandora's box" in
the region; In fact, the Society's decision might even lead
to political and/or military confrontations. The unilateral action
by the National Geographic Society is deemed as a direct challenge
to the Persian Gulf region's ancient history and civilization.
Recent and ancient historians (Greeks, Romans, Persians, Chinese,
Arabs, Turks, European including Italians, and Americans), the
United Nations, the U.S. Board of Geographical Names (BGN), the
U.S. Department of State (e.g., as recorded in the U.S. Gazette
1917) and practically all world organizations have consistently
employed the name, PERSIAN GULF.
The map of the Persian Gulf by Arab scholar Dr. Hassan
Ibrahim Hassan from his book "Political History of Islam" in
Arabic. Published by Hejazi Printing House, Cairo, 1935. >>> Larger
The newly fabricated name "Arabian Gulf" was coined
in the late 20th century by pan-Arab nationalists such as Saddam
Hossein, the deposed Iraqi President. This [incorrect] name is
now insisted upon and some believe is financed by the Sheikhs of
the United Arab Emirates (the UAE), an Arab-ruled, composite country
that came into being only in 1972 and is located on the southern
shores of the Persian Gulf.
Some believe the National Geographic
Society's decision to effect this name change, was prompted
after a recent meeting of its President and Sultan bin Mohammed
Al Qassimi, the Sheikh of Sharja-one of the seven Emirates. The
Sheikh was presumably introduced to the NGS Society's President
by Benjamin Ladner, the D.C. based President of American University
who himself has significant vested interest in seeking endowments
and support for satellite American University campuses in the
Persian Gulf Emirates.
A Saudi Arabian map from Map Art USA 1996. >>> Larger
Unfortunately, the years of ambivalence at best by the Government
in Iran since 1979 and its somewhat feeble isolationist foreign
policy, has further exacerbated the abuse of the name-Persian Gulf.
Another factor influencing the international stature of Iran, Iranians,
and anything Persian was the invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein
under the pretext of Arab nationalism and the miscalculation that
he could overrun Iran in less than a week.
While this symbolic
dispute over the name of the waterway is going on, its environmental
state is in jeopardy due to excessive exhaustion of its non-renewable
[oil, gas] resources and due to three wars in the past twenty
five years without any sustainable improvement of the socio-political
and economic status of the locals.
The misuse of the name of the Persian Gulf has, in recent years,
become more frequent. This is primarily due to British enterprises
which are heavily vested in the Emirate Sheikhdoms and use the
[fictitious] name or simply "the Gulf" in their correspondence.
The US official foreign policy as articulated through its State
Department refers to the waterway as the Persian Gulf. Recently,
however, certain components of the U.S. military units, especially
those stationed along the southern shores of the Persian Gulf,
have begun, to use the alternate in their communiqués to
appease [patronize] the local Sheikhs. Such [incorrect] language
has increasingly found its way back to the Pentagon.
After the publication of the World Atlas, many objections were
registered with the National Geographic Society. A petition has
been endorsed by nearly 100,000 signatories and is still actively
being signed. Objecting many of these also took the opportunity
to write expressing their own specific sentiments. Since a large
number of petitioners are subscribers and regard the National Geographic
Society with such high respect, it makes the Society's unilateral
decision more perplexing. Many have threatened to drop their membership
and withdraw use and support of the National Geographic Society
services.
A group of internationally renowned academicians submitted
an open letter to the Geographic President John Fahey, expressing
their full cooperation to for [damage control] and resolution of
the matter. In their letter, they stated, "We do hereby register
our grave concern and disappointment on the abuse of the new name
included which unless it is ameliorated immediately, would not
only undermine the credibility of NGS to which each of us have
contributed so substantively over the years, but that it would
also set a precedent for the world, which its adverse ramifications
will remain with us for the ensuing history." National Geographic
has also received tens of thousands of phone calls, internet, and
regular mail in protest over the past month.
The worldwide protest against the National Geographic Society's
inclusion of the new name continues to reverberate through international
media, including the BBC, Time, Reuters, VOA, and AP among many
others, that cover the event extensively.
 Notwithstanding the immense number of political differences among
Iranian factions, there has now emerged a spontaneous consensus
among the four million people of Persian/Iranian heritage in the
Diaspora [nearly one million in the U.S. alone], with their 70
million brethren inside Iran to reaffirm their commitment to safeguarding
with one unified voice their cultural heritage which includes the
Persian Gulf. After a period of indecisiveness, even the Government
in Iran was compelled to bar the National Geographic reporters
from entering Iran, and not allow the import and sale of the Society's
products including its renewed popular magazine.
Moreover, there
are rather substantial number of citizens in today's Arab
sheikdoms, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Iraq who are of Persian
heritage; for instance, in Bahrain, which was a sovereign province
of Iran until the early part of the 20th century, the Indigenous
majority are Persians. The Persians and the Arabs are two distinct
ethnicities with their own cultural heritage that must both be
preserved and mutually respected in their own rights. The most
significant Arab influence on Iran was the advent of Islam and
its Book, the Quran. Persian's architectural, literal, and
artistic expressions span from Taj Mahal in India to Al-Hambra
in Grenada in Spain through propagation of Islam.
Tehran Times, the Iran moderate English language daily
wrote in its November 27th issue: "The American institute
of National Geographic in an unprecedented move used the forged
name 'Arabian
Gulf' to designate 'Persian Gulf', as the Arab
littoral states of the Persian Gulf watched this plot unfold in
satisfaction
when Israel tried to change the name of Aqabah Bay into Iliad Bay
in a U.N. meeting in 1970, and representatives of 22 Arab countries
stood up in protest. They argued that Israel's proposal was racist
and that it contradicted all geographical and racial norms. In
the current case, Arab countries are apparently the beneficiaries
of this name-change. And they should answer the same question today:
Isn't changing the name of Persian Gulf against all racial and
geographic norms?"
The scientific community worldwide including tens of thousands
of Iranian American university professors, scholars and researchers,
anticipate an amicable resolution of the matter that is based on
fact, logic and international conventions; this should in turn
lead to their continued financial and scholarly support of the
National Geographic Society and its multifaceted endeavors. Otherwise
the National Geographic Society's credibility will be undermined,
many conclude.
When one looks back at modern Iranian history, there has been
hardly any other topic of concern that has so heatedly united all
Iranians and peoples of Iranian heritage than this threat to their
common cultural heritage. Some even anticipate legally and factually
based defense of the name of the Persian Gulf might facilitate
the independent home grown democratic reforms that Iran has been
struggling to sustain for sometime.
The map of the Persian Empire 450 BCE. >>> Larger
The Iranians and Persians are
proud of their past national heritage and recognize that they
can never claim and rightly so, a vast country like ruled by their
ancestors, the Archaemenid Dynasty of 2500 years as illustrated
in Figure 6., but that they would certainly aspire to preserve
their today's cultural heritage and territorial integrity
in the current millennium, while upholding the same magnitude
of
respect and admiration for other ethnicities heritage worldwide,
especially their Arab neighbors.
 About
New York-based reporter Dr.
Davood N. Rahni is a novice commentator on cultural
and political affairs. By profession, he is professor of chemistry,
environmental science and environmental
law. He also holds an adjunct professorship in dermatology and
remains prolific in diverse scholarly fields that include neuropsychopharmacology,
nano-engineering, forensics, in vivo biosensors and sustainable
development.
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Hot water
