Me: Many say that if Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a reported Azeri, how can racism still exist in Iran? And the same could be said about Mir-Hussein Mousavi, the “unofficial leader” of current opposition movement in Iran, who happens to be an Azeri. How can you explain this?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: The supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s father was an Azeri from the city of Khameneh, but his mother is Persian and he himself was born in the Persian city of Mashhad. A few weeks ago, on the occasion of The Mother’s Day in Iran, a group of children and adolescents were visiting him. And in this visit he talked about his own childhood, his upbringing, and his parents, identifying his mother as a Persian and a “Hafez-Shenas” (someone well-versed in Hafez, the great Persian poet). So his mother tongue is Farsi but he has picked up some Azeri words from his Azerbaijani father which he occasionally blabbers–for the sheer purpose of demagoguery– when he visits Azerbaijani cities or when Azerbaijanis visit him. Interestingly enough, the leader of current opposition movement, Mir-Hussein Mousavi, too, is an Azeri-Turk, born in the Azerbaijani town of Khameneh and migrated with his family to the capital city of Tehran at the age of 12. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to assume that, in the context of Iranian politics, ethnic lineage plays any role in disturbing Iran’s dominant national identity as modeled on the identity of the Persian ethnic group.

People like Mousavi and Khamenei are assimilated Azerbaijanis to whom the local Azeri vernacular refers as “Manqurt”: i.e., someone who has forsaken his/her own roots and embraced the identity of the dominant to the exclusion of his/her former identity. Put differently, a “Manqurt” is someone who assumes someone else’s identity and at the same time fights against the “former” community from which he or she has originally come. As such, it would be a mistake to presume that Mousavi’s ascendency to power will bring about any improvement in the condition of his Azerbaijani community, just as the role of Khamenei as the supreme leader has not done so. If anything, the dominant Persian group uses the examples of individuals like Khamenei and Mousavi to deny the existence of racial/ethnic discrimination in the country, employing these assimilated figures as decoys to masquerade its domination of non-Persian communities.

Conversely, the elite and assimilated members of non-Persian communities whole-heartedly support the dominant group and its racist/exclusionary policies vis-à-vis the marginalized communities. These “Manqurts” include elite members of parliament, heads of local and provincial apparatuses of government, mayors, governorates, university presidents, local educational authorities, heads of police stations and military units, and so on and so forth. In terms of representing the rights of local communities, the “Manqurts” not only fully support the repression of human/ethnic/linguistic rights of their community members, they even go farther than the central government’s oppressive policies in an attempt to show their loyalty to the state which in turn guarantees their positions of power and privilege. This process could be viewed in recent Iranian election, where the choice between the Persian candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Azeri candidate Mir-Hussein Mousavi, to Iran’s Azeri population was clearly a choice between Scylla and Charybdis.

Me: Does Racism exist among Iranians outside of Iran?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: Yes, it does and its degree depends on their socialization, their age, etc. Usually, it is not that prevalent among younger generations particularly if they grow up in multi-racial environments. However, it is more rampant among the older generation who has come with its cultural and linguistic baggage from the old country. Among members of this group- many of them highly educated- you’ll see a lot of references to Aryan race, Aryan blood, superior civilization, superior language, and that sort of things. Anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism and anti-Turkism are also very prevalent among them.

Particularly, in recent years we have witnessed the emergence in Iranian Diaspora of a group of hooligans and, if you will, intellectual thugs, who run around and blatantly attack whoever talks of Iran’s Azerbaijani or Turkic population, a population which numbers over 20 million. Whoever defends the rights of this particular community, even the scholars who do objective research on the situation of this community in Iran, and even those members of the community who self-identify as Azerbaijani-Turks are attacked by these racist thugs who, using various pseudonyms, label these individuals as “pan-Turkist” and so forth. In my book, Iran and the Challenge of Diversity, I have given some samples of racist literature produced in Iranian Diaspora.

Me: Let us turn to your book then. When was it written and what is it about? Can you explain its core arguments?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: My book Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Aryanist Racism, Islamic Fundamentalism, and Democratic Struggles, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in the summer of 2007. Basically, the book explores a number of important questions such as: How is the racist order produced, maintained, and perpetuated in contemporary Iran? How do the acts of othering, misrepresentation, and racism take place through works of literature, history, religion, and other textual/discursive means? What role does language play throughout the processes of ‘otherization,’ foreignization, cultural annihilation, and assimilation in contemporary Iran? What are the ramifications of Aryanist racism for Iran’s non-Persian ethnic groups? How do the victims of this racism engage in acts of resistance against the ongoing racial/ethnic oppression? What role can the intellectuals, scholars, social activists, and the education system play in helping to eliminate racism in Iranian society?

The book, then, seeks to establish the existence of racism and its detrimental ramifications for social, political, economic, and educational developments in Iran. It examines the role of Europe, and the West in general, in the origination and development of modern racism in Iran. It also explores possible mechanisms, ways, and sites through which racism can be eliminated in Iran, for instance through empowering the marginalized languages; providing space for the expression of indigenous histories; reforming the education system, etc. In so doing, the book deconstructs the dominant Euro-centric ideas of nation, nationalism, nation-statism and Aryanism in an Iranian context. It implicates the dominant members of Farsi-speaking community in their capacity as writers, poets, and intellectuals in producing, reproducing, and maintaining unequal ethnic, cultural, and linguistic relations in the country. At the same time, it provides a space for marginalized communities in Iran to articulate their condition through their own voices, in their own languages, and by way of their own literatures, as opposed to being exclusively represented through the dominant Persian language and literature. It redefines and rearticulates the question of citizenship based on equal cultural, linguistic, and human rights of each citizen, each collectivity, and each community. This rearticulation challenges the dominant notion of citizenship, which has granted the ownership of the country to certain group(s) based on their ‘Aryan-ness.’

Me: What was some of the backlash you have received as a result of your work and your book? Have you yourself experienced any direct racism?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: Well, to expose Aryanist racism in Iran, to talk about ethnic, linguistic and cultural rights for the non-Persian communities, these are taboo topics among Iranians, regardless of whether they are inside Iran or in Iranian Diaspora outside, and regardless of whether they are a part of the current Islamic regime or a part of its opposition. This is an act of daring, a speaking of truth to power. And when you do that, the power reacts. This reaction takes many forms, from the blocking of your publications in Iran-related and Middle East-related academic journals to attacking you in conferences and seminars to threats of getting you expelled from your job and so on and so forth.

Recently a progressive Canada-based Persian newspaper named Shahrvand interviewed me on the events leading to the tenth election and its aftermath in Iran. In response to one of the questions, I compared the current political regime in Iran to the Apartheid system in South Africa and said that, in order to defeat the current fascistic regime in Iran, we Iranians could learn a lot from the struggle of South Africans as well as from the Civil Rights Movement in America. Soon after the interview was published, I received a threatening email from an “academic,” asking me, among other things, “How dare you compare the Aryan race of Iran to Black Africans?” The email concluded that if I had a single drop of Aryan blood in me, I wouldn’t disgrace “the Aryan nation of Iran” by suggesting that they should learn from “Black Africans.”

I suspect this email was coming from a group who has published a 300-plus page monologue to refute and reject my “false book.” Published on a well-known racist website, this monologue starts by an epigraph in Persian, depicting me as a “Mongol demon” with a Dracula face and long nails, “blood constantly dripping from his fingernails”… I think you can imagine how the rest of this brilliant critique unfolds. Suffice it to say that the only connection between my work and this “review” is my name that the anonymous authors remember to throw in every now and then. Other scholars such as Dr Reza Baraheni, Dr Brenda Shaffer, Dr Zia Sadrul-Ashrafi and courageous Azerbaijani human rights activists such as Ms. Fakhteh zamani have been regular victims of this group.

This group even managed to pressure the editors of “Ethnologue,” an international website pertaining to world’s languages, to reduce the size of Iran’s Azeri population from about 23.5 million to 11 million, and this, despite the warning that many scholars and human rights activists from the Azerbaijani community had given to the Ethnologue editors regarding this group. In an open letter to Ethnologue, these scholars complained about the aggressiveness of some ultra-nationalist Iranians abroad and expressed their hope “that the editors and researchers of Ethnologue will not cave in to various ultranationalist bullying, and will not allow Ethnologue’s scholarly reputation to be tarnished by ideologically motivated hyperboles.” Despite this, their prediction came through in Ethnologue’s latest issue: a whopping 12 million reduction in the number of Azeri-Turks in Iran!

Me: What in your opinion is the solution? Do you have any policy recommendations for government structure?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: I think we have to expose this racism and bring awareness to the world community about it, like the things that you guys are doing and ADAPP is doing. This is a first major step. In the course of recent elections, the government authorities emphatically made it clear that in the Islamic Republic of Iran “issues pertaining to ethnic minorities are considered a matter of national security” to the extent that even the regime’s own majles/parliament could not have any say on these issues. What this means is that in Iran, ethnic minority related issues are dealt with by the regime’s security agents. They are not even considered as normal social and political issues–let alone as human rights issues. Thus, we cannot expect much from the Islamic regime in this regard.

Me: What would Iran look like without racism?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: We have to remember that, what “blood” was for German Nazism, “language” is for Iranian racism. So I will leave you with this thought: when I see that millions of children belonging to Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Baluchi, Turkmen, Arab, Lur, Bakhtyari, Gilani and other communities have schools in their own languages, that will be a good sign towards the creation of an Iran without racism.

Me: Thank you very much Dr. Asgharzadeh. Your words have been insightful and inspiring.

Dr. Asgharzadeh

Dr. Asgharzadeh

Earlier in my blog posts, I mentioned that I regretted not giving adequate coverage on civil rights and racism in Iran. Being that my own personal experiences are quite limited to the Persian community outside of Iran, I decided to go to an expert, if not the foremost expert on racism in Iran against Azerbaijanis, Dr. Alireza Asgharzadeh.

Dr. Asgharzadeh holds a holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and currently a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at York University, Toronto, Canada. His areas of concentration and research include Globalization, Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern Cultures and Societies, Social Theory, the Sociology of Education, and Social Inequality, among others.  His work has been published in various journals, including: Middle East Review of International Affairs, Journal of Studies in International Education, Canadian and International Education, Language and Education, Journal of Educational Thought, Journal of Post-Colonial Education, Journal of African Studies, Anthropology and Education Quarterly.  His most recent book is Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Aryanist Racism, Islamic Fundamentalism, and Democratic Struggles (This happens to be the book that I mentioned earlier that I was reading. I highly suggest it). He is also co-author of Schooling and Difference in Africa: Democratic Challenges in a Contemporary Context, and co-editor of Diasporic Ruptures: Globality, Migrancy,  and Expressions of Identity (in two volumes).  I’ve had the pleasure to talk to Dr. Asgharzadeh a few times and must note that he is truly an inspiring person and one of the most brilliant people that I have had ever met. Since he currently teaches in Toronto, I couldn’t get a chance to do a video interview, however I was able to communicate with him through e-mail. Since it’s quite long, I’ve broken it down. Here’s part 1 of our interview:

Me: First, if you would please introduce yourself, your profession, work and your background.

Dr Asgharzadeh: Generally, I consider myself a universal subject who has multiple identities and occupies multiple social and geographical locations: a world citizen, a Canadian, an Azerbaijani, an Iranian, a Turk, an Azeri-Canadian… As a young student I participated in Iran’s 1978-79 revolution. This revolution did not only transform the socio-political order in the country (for better or worse), it also fundamentally changed the way members of my generation thought about a variety of social, political, and cultural issues. I was simply fascinated by how ordinary people could bring down the most powerful institutions like the monarchy and the state in a society. Hence my interest in politics, social sciences, philosophy, etc. I have been passionately pursuing these interests ever since, and more academically since my arrival in Canada, from the late 1980s. I have studied political science, philosophy and sociology throughout my mature life, and now am teaching different aspects of these subjects at York University and the University of Toronto.

Me: Dr. Asgharzadeh, please describe the nature of racism in Iran, its history and who it affects.  Is racism in Iran an institution, or is it simply a societal flaw? Does racism serve as a tool of control?

Dr. Asgharzadeh: Well, in a nutshell, it all goes back to this Orientalist scholar named Sir William Jones and the observation that he made in 1786 regarding the affinity among various European languages, the Sanskrit and what he called in passing “the Old Persian.” In this brief speech to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Jones brought a fresh insight to the questions concerning the ancestral language of peoples of Europe and their original homeland, sparking a debate that eventually culminated in the creation of Comparative Linguistics and the Aryanist/Indo-Europeanist enterprise. This of course opened the floodgates for numerous European scholars, historians and philologists to try and establish a connection between White Europeans and the ancient East. Using mainly linguistic signs and traits, some of these scholars identified central Asia, some India, and some Iran as the original homeland of the white Nordic race, which later on came to be constructed as the infamous ‘Aryan race.’ A side from intellectual curiosity, the main objective for many Orientalists was to move ‘the white race’ as far away from Semitic races and Biblical traditions as possible. In Europe this enterprise reached its logical conclusion in fascism and Hitler’s Nazism. After Nazism, the Europeans became disillusioned with the entire enterprise of the so-called ‘Aryan race.’ Irrespective of this, the fascination with this illusory race continued in a different fashion in places like Iran and to some extent India, where certain groups saw an enormous opportunity in attaching themselves to this so-called ‘Aryan race’ and in identifying themselves as “Aryans.”

I should emphasize that William Jones and many of his contemporaries did not intend to purposely promote racism, anti-Semitism or fascism through their scholarship. They simply believed that they were engaged in scholarly research on Orient and the Orientals. The German scholar Max Muller had a major role in digging out the term “Arya” from ancient Sanskrit texts and redefining it, quite intentionally and erroneously, as a racial concept, as the name of a racial group. But he too came to his senses and quite vigorously repudiated this earlier conviction of his in 1888. Here is what he said in a book titled Biographies of words and the home of the Aryas:

“To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar.” (1888, p. 120)

However, the Iranian elite, scholars and government were not ready to give up on this notion of “Aryan race” so easily, even after the fall of Nazism and Fascism in Europe. They built up on Max Muller and others’ earlier definitions and refashioned a definition of Arya as a purely racial group, building a whole new literature on “Aryan race” and how the true Iranians were carriers of this “superior race’s” not only language and culture but also genes and blood. This racist ideology, of course, had serious ramifications for Iran’s non-Persian and non-Indo-European communities, namely the Turks and the Semites (Arabs and Jews) along with others.

As you can imagine, this Iranian version of racialization was quite oxymoronic in the sense that in terms of skin color and physiology, the supposedly non-Aryan Turks and Semites had more resemblance to Hitler’s white-skinned, blue-eyed and blond-haired Aryans than the original Persians whom Hitler would probably classify under “the brown race” category. This simple discrepancy, however, did not stop our Persian Aryanists from advancing the strongest claims to “the superior Aryan race.” Logically, they didn’t (because they couldn’t) emphasize too heavily on “blood” and “skin color” the way Hitler did; they, however, placed a greater emphasis on “Persian language” and history–as if other people had no history and no language! In the Iranian reconstruction of Aryanist racism, then, the emphasis on “language” replaced the Nazist and Hitlerite emphasis on “blood” and “genes.”

In 1934, the Reza Shah government officially changed the name of the country from Mamalik-e Mahrouseh (protected countries) to Iran and defined it as “the land of Aryans.” Simultaneously the Persian ethnic group was singled out as the most authentic representative of these Aryans where the language of this group was seen as an Aryan- and hence superior- language, which was in turn translated into the banning of non-Persian languages from schools and government apparatuses. It is important to note that the term “Persia” was an Orientalist construct and has never been used by diverse ethnic groups to refer either to themselves or their country, neither historically nor currently.

In today’s Iran, just as throughout history, only the Persian ethnic group calls itself Persian. Irrespective of this, the Orientalist scholarship abroad still insists on calling all residents of Iran Persian, which is a clear case of epistemic violence against non-Persian communities. Anyway, this notion of fixed Aryan/Persian identity has been imposed on Iran with no consideration for diversity, social dynamism and historical evolution. This process still continues and the non-Persian communities are left with no choice except to adopt this “superior Aryan” identity by leaving behind their supposedly “savage and barbaric” heritage. This racism is reinforced through the education system, the media, as well as official and non-official literature produced in Persian language. In contemporary Iran then, Aryanism and Aryanization constitute the core of Iranian racism. We should also note that since 1979, Khomeinism and Shi’ist fundamentalism have been added to the existing Aryanist racism.

Me: Aside from the government, what kind of racism exists within Iranian society? You could use academic or anecdotal evidence.

Dr. Asgharzadeh: Basically, all sorts of racism(s) exist/s in this society, from systemic to individualistic, cultural, linguistic, internalized, scientific and academic. For instance, lately there has been a lot of fuss about this presumably marvellous Iranian biologist who has apparently done DNA testing in a British university on the Azeri Turks, the Anatolian Turks and the Persians and has “successfully proven” that the Azerbaijani-Turks are not genetically related to the Anatolian Turks but are (genetically) almost the same as the Aryan Persians! They have been talking about this for the past couple of years and we are all anxiously waiting to see when the results of these “path-breaking experiments” are going to be published and in what esteemed scientific journal! I for one, am very interested in seeing the kind of research methodology, the size of research population, and the kind of terminologies and their definitions (e.g., race, racism, etc) that are used by this brilliant scientist. As you can imagine, the dominant group in Iran constructs all these hyperbolic racist discourses to deny one basic human right to over 20 million Turks in Iran: Education in their own natural language.

One of the activists recently pointed out that Ethnologue had changed it’s figures:

http://www.ethnologue.com/15/show_country.asp?name=IR

On the above link, Ethnologue shows Azerbaijanis at 23.5 million in Iran. This is the former entry.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IR

The above link is the current page which shows roughly 11.2 million.

Last week I wrote about the arrest of Said Matinpour.Well today we are receiving word that a few Azerbaijani activists organized to show their respects to Said Matinpour’s mother and father. When they called and text messaged each other, the Intelligence Ministry tapped their lines.

After visiting Matinpour’s parents, Ettelaat (as they are known within Iran) went to arrest the activists. Those arrested were Rauf Taheri (he is officially missing but it is highly probably that he is detained), Riza Abbasi and Ahmad Midadi. Intelligence officials also detained Matinpour’s parents for allowing Azerbaijani activists to enter their home. This is the foul and despicable behavior that is the control apparatus of the Iranian state.

Kurdistan

I am getting word from my own sources that 2 people died in Sanandaj two nights ago, which is in the Kurdish area of Iran.  I will continue to update this as I receive more information.

So I’m sorry for the delay of this blog. I know a lot of you are starving for information from Iran right now. First off, I’d like to say that I can’t believe that I am a part of this amazing opportunity during a time like this. It has truly been inspiring to see how social media and advocacy is changing the rules for Iran. History in the making I encourage everyone to hop on Twitter and check out some of the news feeds. I am in awe of the resilience of young Iranians who are not afraid to spread news and information even at the risk of their own safety. The crackdown, however, is starting to take a bit of an emotional toll on me, though I will try to stay objective for this blog.

So, as you can imagine this week has been absolutely nuts. I have had quite a bit of work. ADAPP has been writing reports of incidents as they have been coming in, but it has been extremely hard to gather information. The Iranian government has been filtering many internet sites and our usual methods of communication have been blocked (I can’t really explain what they are) so we’ve been trying to find alternate methods to avoid the filters. But for roughly 2 days, we haven’t been able to get any information from the Azerbaijani provinces of Iran. All the news that is coming out in the media thus far has been from the predominantly Persian areas of Iran (Tehran, Ishfahan etc.). There have been absolutely no reporting on Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Baluchis, Semitic Peoples, Afghanis, Turcomens, Qashqai and Ahwazi Arabs. All of the information and reports that ADAPP has tried to send to Radio Farda and VOA Persian have been rejected because in Azerbaijan, the protests have been coupled with Azerbaijani rights demonstrations. Apparently the Persian-run media does not like that.

That being said, I do have some information to spread. Let me just start by saying that while there were protests in Iranian Azerbaijan, they were slow to start and spread. Many Azerbaijani rights groups were very apathetic about the election protests over the weekend. Azerbaijanis are still scarred from the crackdown of the May 2006 (in the future, I plan on dedicating an entire post to this) cartoon protests. Scores were killed in 2006 and roughly 10,000 were arrested and some tortured, all while the reformists were publicly supporting the crackdown. Seemingly, however more and more Azerbaijanis are beginning to take to the streets. Their cause is, however unique. Their chants have been coupled with Azerbaijani rights slogans. Here is an amateur video taken on a cell phone on June 13 in the city of Urmia: Protests in Urmia, Iran. In the video, residents of Urmia are chanting (in Azerbaijani Turkish) “Azerbaijan yatmiyib, Musevini atmiyib” losely translating to “Azerbaijan is not asleep, it has not abandoned Musavi“. Other videos show Azerbaijanis chanting “Azerbaijan is not asleep, it has not abandoned its own son”. This is especially powerful because Musavi is an Azerbaijani Turk himself and this shows the Azerbaijani support behind Musavi despite the government insisting that Azerbaijanis overwhelmingly voted for Ahmadinejad.

Here are images from Urmia:

The bottom row shows images from Tabriz University from Sunday. In Tabriz, over the weekend the government was expecting mass protests so they sent police, militias and Revolutionary Guard to patrol Tabriz University and the town. The first picture shows Tabrizi police and the subsequent 2 pictures are images of protests in Tabriz University. As you can see Tabriz was fairly quiet over the weekend compared to Tehran. Unfortunately, this meant that police were prepared to quell protests. Yesterday I received word that in the beginning of the week as protests grew in size in Tabriz University, police and revolutionary guards brutally beat and suppressed them. I don’t have images but I was told there were literally puddles of blood across campus. Some police, RGs, and militia members are running around in plain clothing beating students and activists. Look at this smug (**insert expletive here**).

jerk

Brutal repression also occurred in Urmia, Iran the past few days. Yesterday I received word that they had arrested 300 protesters and sent them to Urmia prison. Of those 300, prison guards were separating those with backgrounds in Azerbaijani activism. Activists were literally shoved into a minibus and driven to an undisclosed location. It is my belief that they were sent to a Ministry of Intelligence detention facility. God only knows what will become of them. We have also confirmed that 2 have died in the Urmia protests.

I don’t have any word from Ardabil or Khamaneh Musavi’s hometown or any other city with a majority population of Iranian Azerbaijanis. If anyone gets any word on what’s going on in these places, please let us know!!

There is still absolutely no word on the dozens that were arrested before Friday’s election. Many Azerbaijani activists have been taken by the Ministry of Intelligence (Etilaat) and are most likely being tortured, which is pretty normal. They are not allowed to get in contact with their families and nobody is aware of a trial date, their whereabouts or their health conditions. University Professor Alireza Farshi, who I have grown to admire, is one of them. His wife and family know absolutely nothing about his condition. He was arrested on May 22.

On a side note (I know this is not really relevant), I am hearing rumors that former Iranian President and current head of the Assembly of Experts, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is actively trying to call an emergency meeting of the 86-member government body. The Assembly is responsible for the election and supervision of the Supreme Leader. Rafsanjani, a very prominent and RICH (and possibly very corrupt) mullah, has been at odds with the Supreme Leader Khamanei and has called for the transformation of Iran to a more pragmatic and open country. He and his reformist camp have been growing in power in recent years. He put his backing behind Presidential candidate Musavi. It is rumored that Rafsanjani might call for a special meeting of the Assembly of Experts to call a vote to oust Khamanei. You didn’t hear it from me.

I love Vancouver! While I did arrive during a heat wave, I don’t mind it much because D.C. is usually much hotter. So, I’ve been walking everywhere. I got a bus pass for the month and I’ve been using it to explore the city. It is gorgeous. The city is nestled near a mountain range and an inlet. My housing situation is great and my director Fakhteh Zamani is a truly inspiring person and is incredibly dedicated to her work. But more about me and Canada will come later. 

I must first apologize for the length of this blog but I need to discuss what I am learning and doing.

So far, the only substantial work that I have done this week (besides this blog) has been to search for possible foundations and trusts that can fund ADAPP’s work and I have drafted a letter of inquiry for one foundation. I’ve never had any experience with grantwriting, but we shall see how it goes. Hopefully, we can secure some grants for Fakhteh’s work because most of the organization’s funding has come from donations and Fakhteh’s own pocket, so it is unsustainable. 

I’ve spent the rest of my time learning about the organization, the plight of the Azerbaijanis in Iran and the complexity of Iranian politics. I have also been practicing my Azerbaijani and I must say that I really have a lot to learn. I’ve gotten a chance to speak with Azerbaijanis that have studied in Azerbaijan proper and I’ve gained first hand experience as to how rich their language is compared to ours in South Azerbaijan. I really now understand how deprived South Azerbaijanis feel.  If all of this sounds new to you, let me give you some facts about Azerbaijanis in Iran so you can understand why I am here. 

Firstly, we need to understand that Iran is not a homogeneous society and houses many people of many faiths and identities.

Azerbaijanis are a Turkic people that are effectively separated between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran. They number about 7 million in Azerbaijan proper and a whopping estimated 30 million in Iran but share the same culture and language. While they have had a long history with various Iranian peoples, they are distinguished by their own history, culture and Turkic language. The nation was split during the Russo-Persian wars and various cities were handed over to Russia in the Golestan Peace Treaty in 1813 and again in 1828. So one set of Azerbaijanis shared Iran’s destiny and the other shared Russian and Soviet destiny. Well, at least up until 1991. When the Soviet Union fell, North Azerbaijanis received their own state and were able to flourish culturally. When this happened, South Azerbaijanis gradually became more active in advocating language rights (if you like, ask me about the theory of relative deprivation). Azerbaijanis became more fed up with the racism in Iranian society as they watched their brethren flourish. Actually, it was explained to me that the education system is the exact opposite of the western system. Racist mentality grows in higher education institutions, weird huh? 

(Currently I’m reading Iran and the Challenge of Diversity by Alireza Asgharzadeh and Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity which are provide a great backdrop to this issue, check them out!)

So the movement exploded in May 2006, when an Iranian newspaper published a cartoon comparing Azerbaijanis to cockroaches. 

iran_azeri_cartoon-11

Another series of protests erupted last month when an internet video emerged showing former President Mohammed Khatami making insulting jokes about the Azerbaijani people on May 16. Protests again ensued in the cities of Tabriz, Urmia and Tehran. On May 22, a group of protesters interrupted a government-sponsored fitness walk in Tabriz. Many were taken away screaming “Turk dilinde madrese” which translates to “Turkish language schools”. This video shows an example of one activist Alireza Farshi, who was taken into ministry of intelligence custody for advocating linguistic rights. He is currently being held in government custody with no word of a trial date. His wife and family are unaware of his whereabouts and health. He is at risk of torture. Oh and it is estimated that roughly 100 Azerbaijani activists were detained in the May 22 protests alone.

But it’s not all complete doom and gloom. The Azerbaijani people are gaining some momentum. It seems that the minority card has been steadily becoming more important in the upcoming election. Former prime minister (Iran abolished this position after the constitutional reforms of the late 80s) Mir Hossein Mousvai, himself and ethnic Azerbaijani, toured Tabriz and Urmia (the city that I was born in) on May 25 and 26 to appeal to the Azerbaijani people. At one point in his speech in Urmia, he began to speak Azerbaijani and the crowd went wild. He also screamed “ Yashasin Azerbaijan”  which sort of translates to long live Azerbaijan. The following picture is of Azerbaijani activists holding up a sign which says “Turkish language schools” during Mousavi’s speech in Urmia.

mousavi

Even current president Ahmadinejad joined the bandwagon. On a June 7^th speech in Tabriz, Ahmadinejad reportedly claimed that he spoke fluent Azerbaijani and said that the language was “one of the best and most complete languages”… go figure. Yea, so appealing to minorities is quite new to Iranian politics. While this is still all rhetoric, I’m pretty optimistic about the future.

So this week, I will be working to get news about political prisoners out in the open to the English-speaking world. I have thus far made a facebook fan site, group and causes page. Please join them and ask all of your friends to join.