The melting pot
Like the EU, our
region needs to think of an economic union and open trade routes
instead of sticking to futile and counterproductive racist ideas
Hirad Dinavari
June 8, 2005
iranian.com
In reply to Keyvan Valizadeh's "Turk
khodeti":
I am an Iranian-American who moved to the US in 1987.
I am also of Kurdish, Persian, Arab and Azeri/Turkish heritage.
I appreciate your article and am very very glad that you see how
Azeri Nationalists do not talk about the full picture. However
I am also very concerned by a number of things in your article.
No nationalist ideology, be it Persian, Azeri, Pan-Turanist,
Kurdish, Arab, Zionist, Armenian or Afghan will give you the full
picture. They are all wrong! I am glad you are reading history,
but please read objective history, avoid ideologs with an agenda
like Ahmad Kasravi. I am not saying he is wrong, or his research
is faulty, I am saying he uses history to push his Iranian nationalist
ideology. I am a history major and love the history of the Balkans,
Turkey, Caucasus (Ghafghaz), Iran, Iraq, the Arab world, Afghanistan,
Central Asia and India. I have lived in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India and Turkey.
From the Bay of Bengal to the Balkans, the people of
this region are far more similar than different. Please do not
use racist 19th century European concepts of race like Aryans,
Turkic and Arab peoples in terms of racial groups... The people
of this region are mixed and can not be defined in terms of pure
racial groups. These false division are modern, due to the creation
of nation states and mostly linguistic, NOT cultural or racial.
Let me explain...
I will give you a modern example. I have lived in the US since
1986, today I feel American and Iranian. Can you honestly think
that when the Ughuz Turks came from Inner Asia, back in the 11th
century and settled in Central Asia, Afghanistan and all over Iran
and Turkey, that they did not develop an attachment to their new
homelands? Many Turkic speaking peoples have come through Iran,
some settling in Iran others moving west.
By the time of the Saljuk period in the 13th century and later
during the following Mongol and Turkic dynasties that ruled Iran,
all these new dynasties of Turkic origins identified themselves
as Moslems and as part of the existing Persian culture that they
had settled into, for the most part they did not impose Turkish
or Mongolian language or religion on Iran, but rather became Iranianized
themselves. Just as today in the US and Canada, many people are
American and Canadian but some are White, others, Black, others
Asian, others Hispanic etc... But everyone is American or Canadian
regardless, and there is a common culture besides the various diverse
sub-group cultures.
And similarly the people in Iran who today come from the culturally
Azerbaijani provinces regardless of their blood lines, be they
of Iranian racial stock (Talysh, Tat etc..), of Turkic, Assyrian,
Armenian, Kurdish, Persian and or Caucasus origins, they are all
partners in Azeri culture and identity with Azeri culture and many
know Azeri Turkish in addition to the languages that they speak
at home, they all share the region they live in and they all are
also part of the Iranian family regardless of ethnicity and religion.
Similarly in the Republic of Azerbaijan, in addition to the majority
Turkic Azeri population in Baku, people of Russian, Armenian, Lezgin,
Avar, Talyshi, Kurdish, Tati, Tatar, Daghistani, Chechen and so
on are all Azeri citizens belonging to Baku and Azerbaijan. The
answer is inclusiveness, regardless of ethnicity, religion, language
and ideology.
Our region, during its golden age was multi-ethnic with cities
such as Sarajevo, Sofia, Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Damascus,
Baghdad, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Baku, Isfahan, Mash-had, Samarkand,
Balkh, Kabul, Delhi and Agra, all had multi ethnic and religious
communities with various quarters of the city belonging to various
groups.
Being homogenous breads ignorance, racism, xenophobia (look at
Japan) and mixed metropolitan societies thrive and advance. What
have we gained today as separate nation states focusing on mythical
and falsely fashioned ideas of Serbian, Greek, Arab, Turkish, Persian,
Armenian, Azeri, Kurdish, Afghan, Tajik and Uzbek racial purity
and nationalism? Nothing but war, ethnic cleansing, ignorance and
blind hate.
Azeris regardless of what ever ethnic origin that
they are, be it Turkic, Persian or other Iranian speaking groups,
are and will always be part of the Iranian family and they do not
have to feel any less just because they do not speak an "Iranian" tongue,
Azeris are Iranian and they have contributed immensely to Iran
and its vibrancy.
Additionally I hope we all look at our surroundings, as a Persian
speaker I can speak to an Afghan and a Tajik person and we all
can understand each other fairly well, but when it comes to music,
food and culture, I find that as an Iranian Kurd raised in the
culture of 1970's Tehran, I am closer to Assyrians, or Armenians,
Azerbaijanis, Turks and Iraqis even though I can not speak, Aramaic,
Arabic, Armenian and Azeri/Turkish.
Similarly Afghans share a lot more culturally with a Pakistanis
and a Indians and Tajiks are very similar to Uzbeks. The goal should
be to teach and learn Arabic, Aramaic(Ashuri), Greek, Azeri/Turkish,
Armenian, Kurdish, Persian and Pashto. We are all racially mixed
and have been from the time of Cyrus the great, look at all the
diverse ethnic groups represented in Persapolis. Like the EU, our
region needs to think of an economic union and open trade routes
instead of sticking to futile and counterproductive racist ideas
of racial purity and nationalism in the part of the world known
for being a melting pot since time immemorial.
About
Hirad Dinavari is reference librarian in Washington DC.
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