Savalan

Contraire, my not so bright VPK, in order to unite the populace

you need to be attentive and actauly listen to their demands and needs. And not act as their self-appointed guardian, who knows whats best for them, and imposing your own will on them.

As you mentioned you've been in the US for some 30 years (I've been abroad for almost the same length,may be a bit more), but that's no excuse to overlook all the protests we have  had in Iran all these past 31 yearas of IR for exactly this reason: the ability to speak your mother tongue. Now, what part of that is so hard to understand?

VPK,is someone forcing you to type nonsense,or is it by volition

How the  phuk you get the idea that I'm suggesting we should adopt English in Iran as official language of Iran? Why do you have to reduce everything to your low level of discourse?

We have Persian as the offical language of Iran, at the same time we could and will ( in a free Iran) adopt as many local languages and dialects as we'll deem necessary.

And exactly wtf do you know about non-Persian litreature of Iran, can you read, write or speak Azari, Arabic, Balouchi, Kurdi,... And who told you these languages don't have works of litreature and art?

This most stupid, retarded, obtuse "binary division " of everything is a true indication of a dogmatic, ideological "mind." Why can't we teach Persian and other local languages at the same time? Because your cramped imagination can't take that much diversity?

Multi Lingual

Why do I never hear the actual "minorities" complain. It is always some intellectual with too much free time. The people in Iran are doing their thing. If they want to speak Lori they do. They do not make a big stink about it; just speak.

However our intellectuals are always finding things to complain about. This is anti-productive. They go and try to convince "minorities" that they should be unhappy. They try to divide them according to false lines. Then try to fish out of muddy waters. 

VPK

Multicultural nations

also need a language to communicate in. For example India uses English. Now why the heck would Iran want to use a non Persian language!

Canada has got its separetist issues thanks to its multi-lingualism. 

US has got very strong "English Only" movements. I live in the US and I know. The Spanish speakers are at a huge disadvantage in the job market. You really do not get considered for good jobs unless you know English and know it well. Multilingual teaching has been what has kept many Latino people down. I know people want to help them by using Spanish. But my observation of 30 years in USA is it has not helped them. All the successful Latino Americans I know are fluent in English.

Switzerland is one nation that actually works. However I say Iran is not Switzerland.

Plus languages like: French; German and Spanish are pretty widely known. We have to be honest that Balouchi, Kurdish and Lori do not hold the same statue. Neither does Turkish specially the one used in Azarbayejan which is not same as Turkey.

Not to mention the wealth of literature that is in Persian.  Now why  you want to deprive people from Hafez; Ferdowsi amnd many more? No Persian means no Shabe Sher! 

Facts about multi-cultularism and multi-lingual countries:

India, by far the world's largest democracy has English as its official language ( English for them being a heritage of colonilaism of course), and also various regional languages and dialects as the respective locality deems necessary.

In Canda you have regions that are bi-lingual ( French, English) and as far as I  can see it hasn't diminished their growth, coherence or civility.

Within US you have areas and regions of the country that have all the official forms in English, and also Spanish,Creol,...

In Switzerland they have at least four active languages, although one of them [I forget which one] is seriously on decline due to demographics and low birth rates.

I have a feeling there are many other positive examples we could add to this. What's even more important and substantial than whether to adopt a regional language or not, is the mentality behind it.

Are our actions directed by  genuine sentiments of solidarity, commonality, and cohesion? Or domination and authoritarianism?

Mash Ghanbar

All i said was they should be allowed to speak their own native languages. 

Great so we are all in agreement. I find Kurdish a fine language and am learning it now!

VPK

1- yes we do.

2- Not relevant to the discussion here. But it is your opinion and i respect it nontheless

3- I never made such claim. All i said was they should be allowed to speak their own native languages. Because they do it anyways. whether we like it or not!

AO Jaan

So, et me get this straight.  You want the people in Kordestan to go
through school being educated in Kurdish, while people in Baluchestan go through school being educated in Baluchi?  Is that correct?  So, when two people from these two places end up working at a research
facility, let's say in Mashhad, they can't understand each other.  Is
that what you're advocating?  Is that a practical, forward moving
option in your opinion?  if so, then I guess there's no sense in
discussing the matter any further.

Well said. I agree totally with you on this. No nation or even group could function this way. How are people supposed to work together if they don't have a common language? Maybe they should all learn English !!! I am joking. The obvious common one is Persian.

Thank God even the Mollahs have enough sense not to do this. The only ones crazy enough to advocate this seem to be the Marxists. But then nothing seems to insane for them.

Mash Ghanbar

Of course iti s hard to set up business in IRI. No question and it has got worse. We agree over this. OK?

My point was that the Marxists were complaining during Shah also. They said just exactly what they say now. That tells me they are using the "economic" thing as an excuse. Their real desire is to set up a Marxists state. There *all* the things will be done by government. In their mind it is either government or nothing. That is my dispute. 

Regarding language: AO already said it. People in Iran speak many languages. No one is stoppoing them from doing so. Please site me an example of "nationalists" or anyone stopping someone from speaking whatever language they want. 

AO Pay attention

Baba to dige ki hasti!!! You have a tendency to intentionally twist words and change the subject.

NO NO NO. should this not be obvious? I am sayin One god damn language for all, in schools, for government related affairs and buisnesses, and Yes for research facilities, for everyone and all. While we still speak our own native tongues, which is something that is so inseparable and so vital to local communities. In how many more ways do you want me to break it down for you????

The rest was just you assuming things so i am not gonna dignify.

Mash ghanbar

Various ethnicities have the Inalienable right to exercise their cultural customs and linguistic norms, Without having to explain themselves, while moving along the with the mainstream trends of their larger society. This is what actually leads to greater understanding and whet will be a huge step toward attaining a democratic society.

Agreed.  So, who is "stopping" the minorities in Iran from speaking their language (as you said in your comment before)?

And here:

 Saying we want to keep and preserve our native language does not necessarily mean that we want to see it spoken in our schools

So, et me get this straight.  You want the people in Kordestan to go through school being educated in Kurdish, while people in Baluchestan go through school being educated in Baluchi?  Is that correct?  So, when two people from these two places end up working at a research facility, let's say in Mashhad, they can't understand each other.  Is that what you're advocating?  Is that a practical, forward moving option in your opinion?  if so, then I guess there's no sense in discussing the matter any further.   

AO and VPK

who is stopping the minorities in Iran from speaking their own language? Having a unified educational language is not the same as "stopping" minorities from speaking their language.   

The what is with all the Complaining and making the case for it? If it Alllright by you, then just let it be.

VPK jan

I am not disputing the notion that people should stand up for themselves and take charge, You don't seem to be getting that idea. I am sure Your friend did this and Sad afareen to him , But in the political and economical cliamte that we have in iran today, You do not see many like him being able to succeed. That is my point. So to just say why don't people go ahead and do it, sound so far-fetched given the limitations.

The handout mentality has nothing to do with what we are dealing in irantoday and i am not even putting out a defense for that. As you admit, It was a far more feasible and more amicable climate back then, With less Reshve khari than now,. Can youvirtually say that for today's iran? Should i just go and just grab a land and get cracking?WHom should i say has sent me, VPK?:))

Nation needs one language , but you can not take the right speaking local dilect away. They won't let you. that is all i am saying. You are preaching to the choir as ususal. Don't be putting me on the spot without grasping what i am saying first bro:))

Unbeleiveable

That the ones who scream of Unity and Progressiveness and advancing the country, and democracy as our final destination, Given the opportunity, they will be the first ones to denounce the essence of our nationality and deny outright the existence of people belonging tovarious ethnic backgrounds, and using that as an excuse to lay their own agenda out, in the mose despicable manner.

Only goes to show the height of their arrogance. Not a damn thing more.

AO,

Don't muddy the water here now. Saying we want to keep and preserve our native language does not necessarily mean that we want to see it spoken in our schools. It should be so obvious for anyone tobe able to make the distinction between a national official language and locally spoken dilects. It is the same thing in every country in the world. Even when you go Irland you see people speak Gailic, Yet they whole heartedly accept english as their official , language of buisness and education. Did you even wonder how they got through schools over there? Does that make them Advocates of Separatist agenda? Heck no.

Various ethnicities have the Inalienable right to exercise their cultural customs and linguistic norms, Without having to explain themselves, while moving along the with the mainstream trends of their larger society. This is what actually leads to greater understanding and whet will be a huge step toward attaining a democratic society.

Everyone is for a unified Iran, including Khomeini and Shah, the

question is: how is this unification to be acheived? Through coercion, and force or through mutual-respect, and mutual-aid?

I could be wrong but in my most humble opinion I think if we provide the widest possible feedom for the population at large, UNCONDITIONAL POLITICAL FREEDOM, our goal of a truly free Iran will be realized. That's all.  

Mash Ghanbar

FYI: A friend of mine was married in the USA. His American wife divorced him in 2000. He said hell with it and moved back to Iran. He started a factory and built a business. It was hard as the sanctions did not help. But he did it.

The mentality of handouts is so ingrained in some people now. Why is farming or making rugs such an idealistic idea. I know the economy is shit in Iran thanks to IRI. However the same people were demanding handouts from the Shah. At that time it was much more possible to build a business. My family did it. In fact the hand-me thinking was one reason people fell for Khomeini. Sure he was gonna give them free electricity and homes. As long as people want others to fix their problems they will suffer.

Regarding a language a nation needs one single language. All the people need to know it or they will not advance. If you got to get  a job you need to speak the language. How do societies work if everyone speaks a different tongue.

If you have a better idea I am all ears.  

The point is that ethnic jokes are part of life

and you, me and everyone else should live with it.  My family is from a village in the Fars province.  The village next door (an hour's donkey ride) has jokes about us.  We have the same about them.  They call us dumb, we call them dumb.  We laugh it off.  It's part of life.  

Why does "growing up" have to be on non-Persians account?

And include insulting them in every chance we get?

Of course you have ethnic jokes from all over the world. Yes it is a global phenomenon. But we're not talking about the globe, but Iran and its political culture.

You casual attitude about insulting non-Persians is an indication of how we've all internalized such a dis-respectful disposition. It's not about the thickness of one's skin but how are we to unite all against our oppressors, through mutual respect, and mutual aid, or through  maintaining a Persian-chuvanist, "Tehranis know it all" attitude.

Pointing out to the issue of structural dis-function between the center and regions in Iran, the actual source of all these problems: cultural discrimination, economic mal-development,.. is pointing to the font of the problem. This is not changing the topic, or avoiding the issue, just pointing out to the long standing underlying contributing factors. Class dismissed.

Now you

are to your name calling. I know, when logic fails use name calling. True to the Marxist ideology.

I said nothing about "Persians" rather said we are all Iranians. We have ethnic groups sure. There are Kurds and Lors and so on. But they are not "national" in the sense that they do not belong to other nations. They belong to Iran and Iran belongs to them. 

Regarding Aryan: that has nothing to do with Nazi and goes back 3000 years or more. I am not sure how much Aryan I have. I know my maternal grandmother was from Azarbayejan and spoke Turkish. So what I am still Iranian and so was she.

You see being Iranian has nothing to do with race: it has to do with your heart. I am Iranian at heart and do not care if I have Aryan or not in me. Nor do any Iranians I know. However the commies are using Aryan as a "straw man" to sow division.

They also come up with other crap like "minority" and "multikulti". More division. Minority is just a code word for whining and demands.  I do not consider myself a minority neither in Iran or in USA ; it works very well.

Repeat: for the think headed I repeat! Iranian is not a race. No one is putting any race above others. It is about love of Iran and her culture; language so on. I speak Persian because that is our language. Not because it is Aryan. I want a unified Iran.

mash ghanbar

who is stopping the minorities in Iran from speaking their own language? Having a unified educational language is not the same as "stopping" minorities from speaking their language.   

VPK jan Ye chizi begoo ke Begonjeh akheh!!

As for Hoshang's rants. I told him: people must take care of themselves. You don't go to government for progress. Rather try to keep government out of your hair. If some region wants to set up a rug factory or raise cows or fruit fine. If you want to open a plastic factory then do it. Do not expect the government to chew your food for you. I am sorry if this goes against communist philosophy. By whining about discrimination won't get you anywhere. Also insisting on using a dozen different languages does no good.

Regardless of whose rants it was or was not you were replyingto, What you are proposing is so out of whack. seems like you have this idealistic image in your mind that people allover the world have this abundant freedom to step up to the plate and just take over and start any project , in the process of become Prosperous! So you are saying that anyone in iran in any given region wants to Start an enterprise should Just feel free to do so right? Natarseen right? Bereen jelo havatono daram az inja??  As if it has totally escaped your mind that there are two widely different Gov. systems at work in Iran and The rest of the world and they can just "do it then"!!

Insisting on being able to speak your own language does not say one word about Being a whiner, and unlike what your perceive does so much good.

VPK,not only you have a wack " pen-name" and avatar, the content

of your "argument" is even wackier. So, we have no national minorities in Iran. Even Shah and Khomeini in their stupidity wouldn't go this far as to DENY the existence of non-Persians in Iran. But you do, so that would make you worse than both Shah and Khominie, you must be real proud. Oh, I forgot the source of your racial pride goes back to your " Aryan" race. Now, the closet Nazi jumps out. Such purist racial filth could only exist in your demented insecure mind. in real world, we've never had pure Arayans, other than those few years with your buddy Adolph, and even then it was more criminal fantasy that anything else.

As far as the Left's relation with Saddam, his airforce attacked Komola's H.Q. twice, during the Iran-Iraq War, with chemical weapons. Only because of our principaled stance against the war. Keep eating sugar as they say in Persian, on the  house.

And about "jokes"

grow the f**k up everybody, and grow a thick skin.  People tell jokes about each other in every country on the planet.  Haven't you heard  Polish, Italian, Jewish, etc. jokes in the U.S.?  

Don't be so "nazok naranji."  It's not worth tearing the country up over jokes.   

Hum I

am getting it now. This whole blog was about Azarbayejan. Now that  AO debunks that BS Hoshang wants to change the subject.

There is no such thing as national minority in Iran. We are all Iranian. If you don't like it tough. Hoshang you don't sound like you even want to be Iranian. You got your chance! Maybe you already have another citizenship; use it. You prove Marxists are worse than Mollahs.

Houshang, what do you mean they can't speak their language?

This statement is absurd:

 ike ALL OTHER NATIONAL MONORITIES in Iran, can't speak their native tongue,

I grew up in Abadan, and everyone in my neighborhood spoke Arabic.  The Iranian TV and radio had Arabic channels for them (before and after the revolution), and you couldn't run your daily affairs in Abadan and Khorramshahr if you didn't speak basic Arabic (which my parents quickly learned after moving to Abadan).

I've had Baluch and Kurd friends as well, who spoke their native language.   

Have you ever been to Azarbaijan?  I Have.  we went there for a wedding, and no one spoke Persian.  I don't know how these people got through school there.  Streets, shops, everything.  Everyone spoke Turkish.  

Are you talking about schools?  Where in the world do you see a modern nation where education for various ethnic groups is in their native language?  This will be a disaster.  The country needs to have a unified educational language so that people could communicate together for the country's advancement, especially in today's "flat" world.  

Again, all this is nothing but separatist propaganda, devoid of any truth or basis in reality. 

past 1000 years, 95% of Iran's rulers have been Turkish, includi

No wonder Iran has been suffering so much for the past 1000 years. When we had nice Aryan Persians running things there was greatness and good for all. Now with the Turks running things we went to sh**t. By God it is time Persians took over.

As for Hoshang's rants. I told him: people must take care of themselves. You don't go to government for progress. Rather try to keep government out of your hair. If some region wants to set up a rug factory or raise cows or fruit fine. If you want to open a plastic factory then do it. Do not expect the government to chew your food for you. I am sorry if this goes against communist philosophy. By whining about discrimination won't get you anywhere. Also insisting on using a dozen different languages does no good.

The whole "independence" thing is real stupid. You get nothing out of a lot of mini regions. All great nations are united. The Mongols would have never killed so many of us had we been united. The Arabs would not have taken Iran if we were united. 

In fact it was unity that did save Iran from Saddam. This while the Marxists whiners were siding with Saddam. So much for loyalty of the Marxists.  They did not seem to worried about Kurds.

To AO, agha jan : I'm trying to point out to some of our

long-term, large-scale, structrual problems we have in Iran, and you reduce the debate to lack of prosecution against Azaris in Iran!

Of course, Azaris have a very special and unique place in Iranian history and culture, althought they, like ALL OTHER NATIONAL MONORITIES in Iran, can't speak their native tongue, they are probably the most assimilated non-Persian minority in Iran.

What's "instutional" in our chuvanism against Turks, Arabs, Kurds,...all non-Persians is our insulting depictionof them in our jokes ( a sin that  I myself am guilty of, as anyone else) and generally in out " Tehrani, holier than thou" attitude. Just take a look at this site itself.

We are not condemend to live in perpetual dis-functionality, we could, and will maintain national unity, and the geographical integrity of Iran, by respecting and tolerating all sub-cultures, and guaranteeing the rights of all minorities, ethnic, religious, linguistic, sexual,... in Iran.

A majority that does not uphold, defend and guarantee the rights of the minorities, DOES NOT DESRVE TO BE A MAJORITY, As simple as that!  

Houshang, perhaps you can answer this question

now that our resident Aliev / Dick Cheney / Brenda Schafer worshiping "blogger" does not.  How could there possibly be institutional racism and discrimination against Iranian Turks when for the past 1000 years, 95% of Iran's rulers have been Turkish, including today's Ali Khameni (see my list below)? Doesn't that evidence imply that Persians the actual oppressed ethnic group in Iran?  This is kind of like Sunnis in Iraq under the Ba'ath regime complaining that they are an oppressed minority--on a much larger scale, though, since the Turkish rule of Iran has been going on for a 100 years when the Ba'ath rule was for less than a century.    

But let's hear it.  What's the answer? 

As for the rest of you crackpot hyper nationalist, not a single

one of you has commented yet on the fact that in Iran, ( at least for the past 100 years) we have had an unequal, repeat an unequal relationship between the center and the other areas of the country. Are we condemned to live indis-functionality?

And why all you supposed "Persians" are so insecure about autonomy for other ethnicities in Iran? Like it or not that's exactly what coming next, democracy for Iran, autonomy for whoever wishes to have it. And if you don't like it, you could always stay outside the country, as you have been for the past 30 years.

Come to think of it after Shah, and Khomeini we all could do without chuvanist, crazed, insecure "Persians." Funniest part is that most of you either can't speak or write Persian, and in the rare case that you do, it's at a grade school level!

Jojeh Morgh, you call for massive military intervention in Iran,

by foriegn armies, practically begging them to invade Iran, and the Kurds want to destroy the country?

You call for " tergeted assasination" of people in Iran, and the Kurds are terrorist?

You have repeatedly called for "execution" of your opponents [ stupidity of it is that you say you're against capital punishment , but not for the people you don't like!], and the Kurds are violent people?

Take a look in the mirror, and you'll see the real war-mongering, terroist, viloent element.

Even the U.S has one official language

Even in the u.s federalism isn't used. You have to speak English in schools and everyday life as your first language to get around or succed. same goes in Iran. You either speak Persian or go kill yourself, cause no Iranian cares about your seperatist barkings. You can keep on crying.

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"They are not afraid of the ideology alone, but of the detemination and will of the men behind it"

 "I'd rather be hated for w