TURKISH ALLERGY OF IRAN CONTINUES
Ali reza H
Iranian government has been targeting the
language and the religion of the Iranian Turks, who are one
of the most fundamental elements of the country,
continuously for approximately 100 years. The Persians who
are dominant in Iran never gave up their policy against the
Turks. This stance of the Persians creates a serious
discomfort among the Southern Azerbaijanis. The comic strip
crisis happened on May 2006 showed the power of the Iranian
Turks to the Chauvinist Persian government of Iran in one
sense. It is understood from the latest developments in Iran
that the lesson was not learnt from those incidents, the
pressure on the Southern Azerbaijani people continue and the
“logophobia” that bothers the Iranian government became more
chronic.
For example the Iranian government has
been trying to prevent the use of elements like symbol,
sign, picture that reflects being a Turk. The Iranian
government removed the picture of “Dade Ghorghut” that was
hung on the Music Revsen Association which belongs to the
Iranian Azerbaijanis in Tabriz. The prohibition on the
picture was removed after The Association declared that
“Dade Ghorghut” is a folk poet who is historically
important.
The policy of changing a thousand
year-old Turkish names of the places into Persian fictitious
ones, which began at the time of Shah Reza Pahlavi,
continues in the same way today. The target of this policy
is as always “the Turkish language”. The Iranian government
changed the name of the “Agach” street in Tabriz into
“Drakht” and “Qari” bridge into “Pirzen”. While the
officials of the Iranian State claimed that they changed
only the names not the meaning to increase the reactions,
implementations took place in a manner not to catch the
attention of the public and on a different time basis.
Another example set on this issue is the city of “Sulduz”.
Sulduz is a real Turkish name but the Iranian government has
been using Persian “Naghadeh” instead of Sulduz that had
been used for centuries. Although the people of the city of
Sulduz collected many signatures many times to make an
application to the Iranian government no step have been
taken. Iranian Turks have been resisting this Persian
imperialism by putting the real Turkish names of the cities
beside the Persian ones on the papers and magazines that
they publish.
The Iranian government not only deals
with the names of the cities but also the Turkish signboards
in the southern Azerbaijani cities such as Tabriz. The
police have been removing the names of the work places that
were named after the Turkish heroes like Sattar Khan, Bagher
Khan, Sheikh Mohammad in the Eastern Azerbaijani State. With
the decision taken on September 7 by the Ministry of Trade
and Commerce, the Iranian government further banned the use
of Turkish in the labels of the goods that are manufactured
in the Southern Azerbaijani region where the Iranian Turks
are a majority.
The point where this assimilation policy
reached was the effort to present contributions and services
of Sahryar to the Persian literature instead of presenting
how accomplished he was in using the Turkish language with
his Turkish identity as a “Southern Azerbaijani literary
monument” on a TV program which was broadcasted in the
commemoration of Sahryar who is a great Turkish poet.
The Iranian government, who reacts so
much against the Turkish language and the Turkish, continues
to target the Iranian Turks and mistreat them. Due to the
anniversary of the crisis of the comic strip the Ministry of
Intelligence have been continuing their pressure against the
Turkish nationalist groups they started on last May, as of
today, in Western Azerbaijani, Eastern Azerbaijani and
Ardabil states, where the Iranians Turks are a majority. In
this regard, homes of active South Azerbaijanis, who are the
target of the Iranian government, are called and invited to
the police station and have been warned in a harsh manner
against not to take part in activities. Moreover, they have
been trying to take a written statement from the Iranian
Turks stating that they will not take part in similar
protest activities again. Those who do not take these
warnings into consideration and who do not sign a written
statement are taken into custody for 20 days. Within this
period Turks are physically and psychologically tortured and
are forced to sign a written statement.
