Iran’s Cartoon Crisis The latest cartoon crisis exploded in Iran. Several demonstrations are being held in Iran, the representative of a racist culture against the Azeris and other ethnic groups.

Turkish jokes are degraded and called “her” by that Persian culture that has been striving to erase the Turkish image in the social subconscious for hundreds of years. “Her” means donkey. As someone who first turned the thesis, “Turkey cannot become Iran” into a book, I also talked about the Turkish image in daily life in my book, “Two countries Two Revolutions Turkey-Iran,” that was published in 1990. While talking about jokes belittling and degrading to Turks, they would turn to me and make a correction “Not for the Istanbul Turks but for those living here”! I saw families banned from speaking Turkish at home in order to prevent their children from speaking Persian with an accent. A butcher expressed his hatred for Turks with a dirty pun: I do not look in the mirror for fear of seeing a “tuh” on my face. The word “tuh” means both hair as well as Turk. The Persians would tell me that the Azeris decrease their quality. Iran underestimating all its neighbors loves neither Arabs nor Turks. Not only the Azeris live in Iran, an ethnic bundle, there are also the Kurds, Baluchs, Turkmen, Lor Turks, Gilaks, Mazandarans, Arabs and Armenians. Several languages, cultures and sects live together. The Azeris constitute the largest ethnic group with a population of more than 30 million. Until 1925, there was a structure that can be called a traditional confederation system, independent of Iran’s internal affairs. It was the Pahlavi regime that discouraged ethnic groups from enjoying their language, tradition, culture and identity. The Pahlavi regime established its sovereignty on a single culture and a single language. “Everybody has to study with the Persian identity,” he said. The assimilation policy implemented by the Shah regime and continued by the revolutionary governments has reached this day. The sad manifestation of the racist viewpoint exploded with the cartoon crisis. The understanding of a Persian minority, that perceives the Turks as cockroaches, gives lessons to other people but does not practice what it preaches. The fact that Pahlavi believed he descended from the same race as the Germans, and took sides with the Germans in the war, as Arya-i Mahr (sun of the Aryan race), proved costly. However, even today, Germany has huge investments in Iran. They have developed trade ties considerably. This Persian mythological belief, of staying close to the German Constitution and describing themselves according to race, is widespread in Iran. The belief that the Persian culture is the oldest civilization and has the most perfect language also contributes to racism. Unfortunately, Iran has exported this belief to Turkey as well and I have heard many intellectuals say they cannot find the Persian richness in Turkish. Of course, this is an attitude not different from those speaking English among themselves. Their view is that Turkish is not a language as rich and sophisticated as English. They ignore the fact that English, which is an imperial language, enriched itself without removing the foreign words it derived from other cultures. Prejudice and racism always go hand in hand. Language education and its spread occupy very important places in Iran’s state policy. They have continuous political interests towards Persian-speaking countries such as Tajikistan and Afghanistan. They can easily move from interests to pressures as well. They support philology departments at universities, give them economic aid, award the good students scholarships and educate them in Iran. A language-based identity program is always operating. Writing history and describing historical events with anachronistic readings and analyses are valid even for the most classical texts. Avesta or Ferdowsi’s Shahname can be given as examples. “Populism cannot be separated from a legend. Populism is folk-like and it is not patriotism. A person can be both a patriot and cosmopolite at the same time. However, a populist is inevitably a kind of nationalist. A patriot does not exclude a person from another nation he knows and has lived with side by side in a community for years. As for a populist, he feels suspicious towards everyone outside his tribe. The nationalist does not only feel suspicious towards foreigners but also towards people within his nation he feels do not agree with him,” J. Lucaks says. We can see this in Zionists and in those who perpetuate Tashnak nationalism and also in German nationalism. Racist attacks can easily take place even before the upcoming soccer fiesta kicks off. May 30, 2006 Hi Dear, I am an Iranian journalist and read your essay. First of all tell me whats your aim to write this? second you should know this problem originates from another things. You dont want Kurds separete from your country . But you have to know they are not same race. Turks(Azeri),Kurds,lors,Baluches,Gilaks and etc are same race:Arian.You sure any persian dont intend make stupid Turks and anothers .Also you should know more Turkey jokes made by Azeris. Best Hormetli Nevval khanim, Thank you for writing the article! Best of all, Adil Baguirov Miss NEVVAL SEVINDI Hello I red your article: “Iran’s Cartoon Crisis” on Zaman. About Azari in Iran: %18 until %20 we have Azari. That means 12 000 000 until 14 000 000 million pouple Azari living in Iran. not 30 000 000 milion!! Perhaps you take informaition from Pan Turk in Iran! bicause even CIA sed: population Azari in Iran is about %24 people of Countery. of course we think That is exaggeration! If you want Know more ebout Azari and Iran you can see here: My weblog www.hastieiran.blogfa.com Dear Nevval, I’ve just read your article about the cartoon issue in Iran, something you choose to call a crisis. http://www.zaman.com/?bl=columnists&alt=&trh=20060531&hn=33568 Being born in Iran, I do admit that many of the so called “Turk jokes” are just too much and offending, but calling Persians racist because of that is not right. As the second largest minority in Iran, Azeris have had a very important position in Iran for centuries. No one is banned from speaking Turkish at home, you must have been misinformed. You have also been misinformed about the number of Azeris in Iran as 30 million is not 25% of the population in Iran. It’s true that Persians do not love their Arab or Turkish neighbours, but not loving them does not necessarily mean hating them. You should ask yourself what made all those armenians settle in Iran, I am sure you get my point. Perhaps in a second article you can add some weight to your arguments by describing the ideal situation of the Kurdish minority in your country. /Al Necal Ms. sevindi, i find it interesting that if you replace the word “iran” with “turkey” in your article, it would give you a precise picture of turkey today! thank you for informing your readers that persian is “the most perfect language”. maybe you think so but its the first time i hear that! how dare you attribute the comment of that butcher to the psyche of the entire nation. as if a racist comment by one American regarding blacks or of one turk in reference to kurds should represent the thinking of the whole country. my mother deposited a few thousand dollars in a turkish bank in istanbul during the war between iran and iraq. several years later when she returned and wanted to withdraw from that account there was only $250 left in it and she realized someone at the turkish bank swindled the money. she reported this to the bank officers and they claimed she was responsible for the with drawls and as a matter of fact they insisted that she had withdrawn from that account recently to purchase an airline ticket to izmir. at the end when they realized the impecuniosity of the situation, they said it will be investigated. they are still investigating. its been more than ten years now! would it be fair to portray all turks as thieves because of this embarrassing and shameful treatment of my mother. i don’t think so. you are very unfair ms. sevindi. i find it quite fascinating how similar the two cultures are. good day madam, shahab türkler ve farslar Basit bir mantıkla düşünelim. bizim akrabalarımız kimdir. annemiz, babamızı, kardeşlerimizi, dayıları, amcalar, teyzeler ve diğerler. insanı özelliklerimizi zayıf değilse akraba bağlarımızı korur. akrabalarıyla ilişkilerimizi pozitif olanların diğer insanlarlada ilikilerde güçlüdür.gelelim aslı konuya irani toplulukların( ermenler,farslar,osetler, tatlar,tacikler) dünyada türk topluluklarından sosyal ve fizik antropolojik açısından daha yakın bir kavim yok. 2500 yıldır ortak bir havuzda kaynışmış iki güçlü kavim arasındaki fark iskandinvanyalı halklar ile latinlar arasındaki farkdan daha azdır. aryen ırk teoreleri ve diğer ırk teorleri zayıf fakat görünüşte güçlü olanların uydurduğu masallardır.farsça ve türkçe çok ayrı dili ailesinden fakat şöyle bir gerçek var. fars ve türk toplulukları arasında kelimeler değişmeden öte anadiller değiştirmiştir. iranı klan türkleştiği gibi, türki bir klan iranlaşması normaldir.ve bana göre kürtler gibi iki kavimin kaynaşmasından etnik topluklar oluşmuştur.semerkant, taşkent ilk kurucuları kim. iki türkmen aşiretin arasındakı gerilim, türkler ile farslar arasındaki daha az değildir. ayhanakinci@yahoo.com You conveniently ignored the policies of the Turkish government toward the Kurds. Are they not called “Mountain Turks”? How about the Armenian Holocaust which is still not aknowledged by the Turkish government? Study your own history before judging other people. Babak Far Dear sevindi hanom please forgive me not writing in your turkish language. i am an azarbaijani turk and not familiar perfectly with istanbul turkisi. so i am writing in english First of all I want to thank you for a topic which was not covered by foreign media. Regarding the protest and uprising in Tabriz and all azarbaijan as you have mentioned, the Iranian Turk, whom you inTurkey call azari, I want to add that: The Fars in Iran are fearing about unification of Turks. Including Iranian Turks turkey azarbaijan or having close relations with them. So since Pahlavi they have forced assimilation of Turk. Just now none of state controlled media do not use the word of turk for 40 million of Iranian turks and call them as azari , even they do not accept that the people living in Tabriz are speaking Turkish , but they say that they are using azari language. They are afraid of using Turk and Turkish. In response to this assimilation in recent uprising in Tabriz and azarbaijan, the people put on fire the bank of Parsian and are demanding that the pars hotel in Tabriz should change his name, some people wanted to put in fire the Shah name which is emphasizing to the strength of fars towards to Turans (Turks). But this event was a good lesson to dictators Name was withheld for fear of arrest thousands of azarbaijani turks have been arrested in last week!!!!1 was the Pahlavi regime that discouraged ethnic groups from enjoying their language, tradition, culture and identity. The Pahlavi regime established its sovereignty on a single culture and a single language. “Everybody has to study with the Persian identity,” he said. Well what can i say wasnt at the same time the raceist Kemal Ataturk began his policy of assimilation in so called Turkey before Reza Pahlavi,in a country with many diffrent races and peoples and today you can see the result of taht policy not only in Iran but also in Turkey,Iraq and Balkans.You can not force peoples to deny themselves motre than 80 years the racist kemalis tride to force the kurds to be turks just like the persian do with the azeris,do they succed?off course not even one little tribe in the anmazon has pride. Regards Alan Dyako Sulaymania South Kurdistan rose-mary.blomkvist@tele2.se Dear Miss. Neeval I find your articles very interested! I think, when people get tired of the endless battle between governments and the Islamic powers, they will accept the Turkish secular solution at the end! An excellent value for future secualr system could be council of experts gathering every 10 years to draw the general policy in economics, policy and social on secular rules then keep any government in that circle even if it was lead by an Islamic party… As an expret, what do you think? Sincerely, Aiman Yunes