Are there any Persians in Iran?

He is confused between Iranian and Persian. A confusion initiated by the "West" and then encouraged by the invading Arabs and their doctrine. Iranian includes Persians, Azeris, Baluchis Lurs Kords etc. However not all those residing in Iran are necessarily Iranians. For example most people from Qum are remnants of Arab Shia' who fled the Caliphs.

For his information Azeris, are one of the purest Iranians there is. What he calls Azeri Nationalism that President Truman and then Shah put an end to, was nothing but a Soviet (Communist) plot to absorb the Iranian Azeris into the part which the previous Russian dictators had truncated. Azeri Nationalism is Iranian Nationalism.

Our best and brightest have been Azeris. Has he heard of Sataar Khaan and Baagher Khaan? Did they fight so heroically for Azeri Nationalism or the Iranian one? Does this young student, Salman, know that the most nationalistic Iranian individuals and movements have been from Azerbaijan, not in the name of Azeri people, as he so ignorantly refers to them, but in the name of the entire Iranian people? He should research and do the rest of his graduate work, not from the suspect sources of the "West", but the more authentic Iranian sources. But I suspect that his Farsi is so bad that he can only read English.

The reason most Iranian insist on Persian is because that is the ancient language of the Iranian people. It was not from Fars that Farsi (Persian) was saved but the equally significant part of Iran, Greater Khorasan, that did it (heard of Ferdosi?) Most renowned Iranian (many of whom are Azeris) writers, philosophers, mathematicians, poets, astronomers and savants in general, not to forget medical scientists wrote their work in Farsi (Persian).

During the Arab dominance, in their efforts to annihilate Iranian and Iranian thoughts, Farsi and Iranians were ridiculed and scholars were forced to write in Arabic. Attempts, then as now, were made to separate what our young scholar mistakenly call "ethnic" groups to divide the ever present Iranian Unity.

Just because some speak in a different dialect, does not make them "ethnic". He is obviously under the influence of the concept of "ethnic" groups as exist and apply to many of us here in the United States (Even here we are all American with no ethnic inspirations - but proud of our ethnicity, as they are in all of Iran).

Our young friend is so much under the Euro-Centrism world that he forgets that all that he says about Persians apply equally to say the French, or Britons. Until quite recently (Blair time) "Devolution" was not encouraged even in the "modern" Britain. English was promoted in favor of Gaelic Welsh or Irish. In Iran until recently also, we discouraged other languages ignorantly fearing it may encourage separation. Now that the idea is discarded as nonsense, different languages are permitted to the benefit of the Greater Iran.

Oslonor Comments:
According to this article, there are no Persians in Iran and Persian is only a language. Also According to "research" by the same people in the University of Chicago, all Iranians are Azeri Turks. That is Persians have disappeared without a trace from Iran's history. Persian is just the language otherwise there is some kind of Azeri Turk Iranian race and there are no ethnic groups in Iran. There is no need to refute this kind of nonsense!!!!!

Pan Azerism: How to defend the Azeri Turk regime in Tehran

To: Policy makers-foreign affairs -
IRANIAN AZARBAIJANIS ETERNALLY REMAIN INTEGRAL COMPATRIOTS IN SHAPING THE HISTORY AND LIFE OF IRAN

We the worldwide signatories herein comprised of educators, scholars, historians and all those with a basic knowledge of the historical perspective of South and Central Asia, and Asia Minor, do hereby express our grave concern over a recent move by shadowy individuals and financed centers with arteriole motives that are attempting to portray Iranian Azerbaijanis as victims of 'cultural' and 'linguistic' discrimination in Iran. The historical community regards this act as an affront to all Iranians including the Azarbaijanis of Iran. A petition circulating on the Internet on this topic deliberately misleads the reader into believing that the current regime in Iran, notwithstanding its rather poor human and democratic rights records as applied to the 70 million Iranians across the board, is selectively targeting one ethnic group for 'discrimination' when in fact a large number of grievances run widely across regional and political strata. Moreover, the aforementioned petition deliberately fails to address the powerful historical and contemporary influence and contributing position of Iranian Azarbaijanis in the political (both within Iran and the Diaspora), cultural, historical and commercial life of Iran.

Iran as a nation with great many diverse ethnicities since its inception of nearly three years ago has been a multilingual nation and all languages are equal. The inscriptions of Darius the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty (circa 325 BCE) are in four languages: Aramaic, Babylonian, Elamite and Old Persian. The Persian language has been a national vernacular employed by Iran's widely diverse ethnic and linguistic groups as a common cultural bond. The said petition also fails to address the fact that Azari-Turkish is freely spoken across Iran, especially in the capital Tehran where Iranians Azeris comprise the majority.

Finally, the failure of the petition is in its failing attempt to narrate issues in divisively ethnic terms (Group A is oppressing Group B) when in fact the issues stem from a complex myriad of political and economic factors that directly affect the entire spectrum of Iran's multivaried population. The petition has been carefully crafted to avoid its identification with separatist movements; however, this is contradicted by a quick study of its language and that of the SANAM movement website of Mr. Mahmoudali Chehreganli. The photographs of the website depict SANAM supporters flashing the Grey Wolf insignia, the official salute of the violently racist pan-Turanian Grey Wolf movement. Pan-Turanian groups are notorious in their attempts at re-narrating history and the fabrication of grievances to help further violent and divisive racialist motives. Protests against pan-Turanian attempts at historical revisionism in western universities and false accusations of human rights violations at world platforms such as the UN have been repeatedly lodged by Armenian and Greek academics over a number of years, as they grieve for their historical recognition of Armenian genocide and oppressive subjugation of the Greeks, respectively.

Any application of 'cultural genocide' on the Azerbaijanis would be fatally detrimental to the culture of Iran as much of what and who Iran is today is indebted to Azerbaijanis such as Sattar Khan, Bagher Khan, Shah Abbas or Shams Tabrizi. While the writers of the cited petition couch their language in the name of language rights and how Persian is being "imposed" on the Azeris, they conveniently fail to mention that Azerbaijan has been a key centre for the development of Persian language and literature, and in all likelihood the birth place of Zoroaster, the founder of the monotheistic Zoroastrian religion, for over several thousand years.

Respectfully submitted,

Dr. Kaveh Farrokh, Independent Historian Scholar
Manuvera@aol.com
British Columbia

Sincerely,