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.

Said Matinpour

Said Matinpour

This week I wanted to draw to your attention the case of Said Matinpour, who yesterday July 11, was arrested and taken to Evin Prison to serve out his prison sentence of 8 years. Last year Matinpour was convicted of “anti-regime propaganda” and “maintaining links with foreigners”. His case was included in an article in Reporters without Borders. The following is our press release which we are about to post to the website:

Said is at imminent risk of extreme torture and ill-treatment at Evin Prison. He was treated very harshly during his first prison term, which was in temporary detention in the custody of the Ministry of Intelligence. In 2007, Said Matinpour was very active in the city of Zanjan promoting Azerbaijani culture and rights. He wrote for a journal and maintained a series of blogs about human rights. Matinpour noticed that a lot of the city was becoming quite “Persianized” and in an attempt to maintain his culture and language, he actively promoted Azerbaijani music and literature. The Islamic Republic took note of this and didn’t like it very much. He became quite active after taking an all-expenses paid January 2007 trip to a conference in Turkey, which discussed the rights and culture of Turkic peoples around the world. When he came back, his passport and papers was confiscated at the border, but he was free to go.

Six months later in May 2007, the government decided that he was a threat to the regime and the Ministry of Intelligence detained him in Evin prison for 278 days. Unlike much of the Western world, the intelligence ministry can hold you for an undetermined amount of time until they decide it’s time for your trial. In February 2008, his family posted bail of 5 million Toman, which amounts to roughly 540,000 dollars (his family didn’t have the money so they singed over their property to the courts).  During those 278 days he was in temporary detention, though, he faced grueling conditions. For example, his written work was confiscated by the government, shredded and shoved in his mouth repeatedly as prison guards beat him. He told one of ADAPP’s activists that sometimes about 10 people would beat him senseless. He also said that they repeatedly put some kind of drug in his food that made him frail and weak. When he was on the drug, his vision became very blurry and he’d lose his memory. I am not sure what the purpose of the drug was but it sounds to me that it might have lowered his inhibitions to talk more freely about his activity. Here are some links to Amnesty International’s reports on Matinpour: Amnesty 1, Amnesty 2, Amnesty 3

Metinpour and his wife

Metinpour and his wife

In May 2008, he went to trial and in June 2008 he was convicted with anti-regime propaganda and maintaining links with foreigners, but he appealed. It took until about 3-4 months ago for him to receive a reply for his appeal, which was denied. (Reporters Without Borders claims this to be last month but apparently they’re wrong) The judge summoned him on July 11, which is when he was transferred to Evin to carry out his sentence.

I’m guessing that if his treatment was that harsh to begin with, what’s his real term going to be like? Sometimes I can’t comprehend the bravery of these individuals who continue to do what they do after being beaten repeatedly in prison. Anyway, I am hoping that we can quickly put out a Take Action notice so that we are able to send masses of letters to the Iranian government calling for Matinpour’s release.  I am calling on all of you who are reading this to help. I will let you all know details soon. Many of the Azerbaijani activists that I’ve been talking to have been extremely angered by Matinpour’s arrest. A lot of them consider him a hero and a dear friend.

Protests for Uighurs

This week, ADAPP was invited to participate in protests today at 2 PM in front of the Art Gallery in Vancouver. The Protests will be from the Uighur Community in response to the the conflict between Han Chinese and Uighurs and the brutal crackdown on Uighur protests by the Chinese governement. For Azerbaijani activists, the situation in Xinjiang province, also known as East Turkestan among the Uighur community, is a dear one. They view Uighurs as Turkic bretheren who are struggling for the same rights against an oppressive government. Many of ADAPP members, including myself, have been posting on the situation of Uighurs during the past week. I can even understand about 20-30% of their language since it is Turkic. To get an idea of the hatred that exists in that society, HERE is a video that was sent to ADAPP of what appears to be Han Chinese brutally beating ethnic Uighrs. I will warn you though, the video is extremely graphic and not for the faint of heart.

Reflections on the week

I wanted to quickly draw your attention to two matters of the Azerbaijani community in Iran. Firstly,  July 3 was supposed to be annual gathering at Babek Castle, which is a yearly celebration of Azerbaijani hero Babak. Babak became famous for holding off the northwest of Persia from the Arab conquests of the region in the 8th century CE. Thus Azerbaijan became the last Persian region to fall to the Arab conquests. Although Wikipedia claims that he was Persian, his parents were Azerbaijani. Anyway, well there was no gathering. Since 2005, every year there have been scores of police to patrol the area and arrest those who go to worship the Azerbaijani hero. Essentially, Babek Castle is closed down on July 2-3, which is during the time of the annual gathering.

Another thing that I wanted to address was that I had been reading on Twitter that there were protests in Azerbaijani areas on July 9 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 18 Tir student movement. As many of you are aware, in 1999, there was a massive student movement throughout much of Iran where students protested the regime. The crackdown was brutal, many were arrested, and many of those who participated were attacked by police in the night, who cut the protesters’ faces. Tabriz University (in Iranian Azerbaijan) did participate in the protests in 1999. This year, however, Azerbaijan remained silent. Many of those student protesters in 1999 moved on to becoming Azerbaijani rights activists from what I can gather. Now, students in universities of Iranian Azerbaijan are more willing to participate in the Azerbaijani movement than anything else.

Thanks for reading and I apologize for the length!

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.

Although I haven’t left for Vancouver yet, I’ve been quite busy here in D.C. working for ADAPP, my partner organization. Let me first start by introducing the Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran (ADAPP) and what I will be doing for them.  ADAPP is a minority rights organization based in Vancouver, Canada whose principal purpose is to raise awareness of the maltreatment of Azerbaijanis vying for cultural and linguistic rights. It was founded by Fakhteh Zamani, an ethnic Azerbaijani who has experienced firsthand the dehumanizing system of institutional racism that exists within Iranian society. Through an ingenious system, the organization monitors and reports on those who have been detained by the government (and sometimes tortured and killed) for protesting in favor of the right to use their native tongues in schools and in public. This summer, I will help Mrs. Zamani by keeping in touch with her various international contacts to update the website on new developments on the treatment of Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijani political prisoners in Iran. I will also assist her in her fight to expose this situation to the Canadian Parliament, U.S. Congress, the United Nations, western media and other forums in the western world. In my free time, I will be blogging about my experiences so that you all at home can see what I’m doing and know that your donations are actually being used appropriately. 

Even though I’m still in D.C., Fakhteh has given me the honor to work with her directly upon my appointment as an Advocacy Fellow. So far, I have helped her write a small biography of her organization for distribution at a conference and have summarized a speech she gave to the Canadian Parliament, which was posted on the ADAPP website. I have also been in contact with ADAPP members in Azerbaijan and Turkey through Yahoo messenger and since I am a native Azerbaijani speaker, communication has been quite easy. Recently they have given me some information regarding a video that has emerged on YouTube showing former president Khatami belittling the Azerbaijani community. I was able to write a press release concerning this issue and the resulting protests the ensued in the cities of Tabriz, Urmia and Tehran (more information on this issue can be found on the ADAPP website).

Fakhteh gave me an assignment, to which I was particularly proud to do. She was invited to speak at a forum called “Voices” at the Durban Review Conference on April 23. The forum was sponsored by the UN High Commission on Human Rights and took place in Geneva, Switzerland at the UN. I’m sure some of you remember that the conference gained international attention when some of the attendees partook in a walk-out during a speech that was being given by the current Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Anyway, I had the pleasure to of writing Fakhteh’s speech. She was very pleased as it was received very well and sparked the attention of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.

I am very excited to begin my work in Vancouver. I know that I will have a very challenging and rewarding experience working for ADAPP and I hope that my work can truly affect the conditions to which Azerbaijani political prisoners are subjected. I know that I have my work cut out for me.

Azerbaijanis take to the streets to demand equal rights.