User:Orartu/Anti-Azerbaijani agitations in Iran

The Anti-Azerbaijani agitations in Iran are a series of agitations that happened in the Azerbaijani inhabited regions of Iran during different periods.

Background
The Azerbaijani Turks are the largest ethno-linguistic minority in Iran. In 2003, they comprised an estimated 24% of country's total population.

According to Gheisarri, the articles 15 and 19 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran provide for equal cultural rights of ethnic minorities, in practice, these rights have seldom been implemented. Iran's ethnic Azeris, along with Kurds and Arabs, complained about political and economic discrimination. According to Rabo and Utas:"There is in fact, a considerable publication (book, newspaper, etc.) taking place in the two largest minority languages in the Azerbaijani language and Kurdish, and in the academic year 2004-05 B.A. programmes in the Azerbaijani language and literature (in Tabriz) and in the Kurdish language and literature (in Sanandaj) are offered in Iran for the very first time".

Agitations in Pahlavi period
In summer of 1950,Mostofi governor of Azerbaijan, forcibly and without any attention to the needs of region's people and thinking about food supply of cities bought cereal of Azerbaijan with low price and carried them to Tehran.In winter, the city of Tabriz and other cities plagued by hunger and remained without food.Inevitably,they brought Gorgan's rotten grain,the wholly owned to private property of Reza Khan, to Tabriz and other cities and sold to poor people with high price.Because bread of these wheat was rotten and inedible and at the same time expensive and scarce,thousands of destitute people became sick or died from hunger".

Cultural agitations
In period of Pahlavi dynasty, speaking Azerbaijani language was banned. Mohseni and Zoghi,two culture Persian presidents of Azerbaijan province, in Pahlavi period had put penalty box for speaking Azerbaijani language.

Mohammad-Ali Foroughi, prime minister of Iran in Pahlavi period, performed intentional and grudging persinization and assimilation of Azerbaijani people of Iran: "Iran's neighborhood with Turkey, Caucasia and Turkmenistan in North and North western regions, which their inhabitants are entirely Turks,is dangerous... Best thing for unifying Iran is to spread Persian education.But this Persinization must not be tangible for them".

In order to change mother tongue, culture and identity of Azerbaijani people,the Zanjani author Javad Shayk Ol Eslami in Pahlavi dynasty,declared that, the children of Azerbaijani families must be taken from their families and given to Persian families.

Changing Azerbaijani names of geografical regions in Iran, especially in the predominantly Azerbaijani regions  was performed to exterminate Azerbaijani culture and history.

According to Javad Heyat, burning Azerbaijani books in Pahlavi dynasty was another inhumane crime against Azerbaijani culture and language. . However, according to Tadeusz Swietochowski .:“As it turned out, the Soviets had to recognize that their ideas on Iran were premature. The issue of Iranian Azerbaijan became one of the opening skirmishes of the Cold War, and, largely under the Western powers' pressure, Soviet forces withdrew in 1946. The autonomous republic collapsed soon afterward, and the members of the Democratic Party took refuge in the Soviet Union, fleeing Iranian revenge.. In Tabriz, the crowds that had just recently applauded the autonomous republic were now greeting the returning Iranian troops, and Azerbaijani students publicly burned their native-language textbooks. The mass of the population was obviously not ready even for a regional self-government so long as it smacked of separatism”.

Humiliation of Azerbaiani people of Iran is another cultural agitation against them.

Mostofi for humiliation of Azerbaijani people has said:"Azerbaijanis are Turks.They have eaten hay and have taken constitution,now they eat straw and burgeon Iran". Mohseni culture chief of Azerbaijan province for humiliation of Azerbaijani people has said:"Anyone who speaks Azerbaijani language, hit him with donkey tethered and fasten him to the manger".

Speaking of the treatment of ethnic Azerbaijani (Turkic) background of some of the Persian-speaking intelligentsia, exiled Azerbaijani-Iranian novelist, poet and critic, Reza Baraheni, wrote:

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Contrarian viewpoint
Shireen Hunter believes that :Yet the pattern of the population movement indicates that it was the Turkic incursions that changed the ethnic and linguistic character of this region. Thus, it was the indigenous Iranian peoples who were linguistically colonized as a result of Turkic invasions.>

Role of Iranian Azeri intellectuals in modern Iranian Nationalism
On the eve of World War I, pan-Turkist propaganda focused on the Turkic-speaking lands of Iran, Caucusus and Central Asia.Touraj Atabaki, “Recasting Oneself, Rejecting the Other: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001. Actual Quote: "As far as Iran is concerned, it is widely argued that Iranian nationalism was born as a state ideology in the Reza Shah era, based on philological nationalism and as a result of his innovative success in creating a modern nation-state in Iran. However, what is often neglected is that Iranian nationalism has its roots in the political upheavals of the nineteenth century and the disintegration immediately following the Constitutional revolution of 1905– 9. It was during this period that Iranism gradually took shape as a defensive discourse for constructing a bounded territorial entity – the ‘pure Iran’ standing against all others. Consequently, over time there emerged among the country’s intelligentsia a political xenophobia which contributed to the formation of Iranian defensive nationalism. It is noteworthy that, contrary to what one might expect, many of the leading agents of the construction of an Iranian bounded territorial entity came from non Persian-speaking ethnic minorities, and the foremost were the Azerbaijanis, rather than the nation’s titular ethnic group, the Persians.

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In the middle of April 1918, the Ottoman army invaded Azerbaijan for the second time.

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Contrary to their expectations, however, the Ottomans did not achieve impressive success in Azerbaijan. Although the province remained under quasi-occupation by Ottoman troops for months, attempting to win endorsement for pan-Turkism ended in failure.

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The most important political development affecting the Middle East at the beginning of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Ottoman and the Russian empires. The idea of a greater homeland for all Turks was propagated by pan-Turkism, which was adopted almost at once as a main ideological pillar by the Committee of Union and Progress and somewhat later by other political caucuses in what remained of the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of World War I, pan-Turkist propaganda focused chiefly on the Turkic-speaking peoples of the southern Caucasus, in Iranian Azerbaijan and Turkistan in Central Asia, with the ultimate purpose of persuading them all to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and to join the new pan-Turkic homeland. Interestingly, it was this latter appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis which, contrary to pan-Turkist intentions, caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the most vociferous advocates of Iran’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. If in Europe ‘romantic nationalism responded to the damage likely to be caused by modernism by providing a new and larger sense of belonging, an all-encompassing totality, which brought about new social ties, identity and meaning, and a new sense of history from one’s origin on to an illustrious future’,(42) in Iran after the Constitutional movement romantic nationalism was adopted by the Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the irredentist policies threatening the country’s territorial integrity. In their view, assuring territorial integrity was a necessary first step on the road to establishing the rule of law in society and a competent modern state which would safeguard collective as well as individual rights. It was within this context that their political loyalty outweighed their other ethnic or regional affinities. The failure of the Democrats in the arena of Iranian politics after the Constitutional movement and the start of modern state-building paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group’s cultural nationalism. Whereas the adoption of integrationist policies preserved Iran’s geographic integrity and provided the majority of Iranians with a secure and firm national identity, the blatant ignoring of other demands of the Constitutional movement, such as the call for formation of society based on law and order, left the country still searching for a political identity." The ultimate purpose was to persuade these populations to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and join the new pan-Turkic homeland.  It was the latter appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis, which, contrary to Pan-Turkist intentions, caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the strongest advocates of the territorial integrity of Iran.  After the constitutional revolution in Iran, a romantic nationalism was adopted by Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the pan-Turkist irredentist policies threatening Iran’s territorial integrity. It was during this period that Iranism and linguistic homogenization policies were proposed as a defensive nature against all others. Contrary to what one might expect, foremost among innovating this defensive nationalism were Iranian Azerbaijanis. They viewed that assuring the territorial integrity of the country was the first step in building a society based on law and a modern state. Through this framework, their political loyalty outweighed their ethnic and regional affiliations. The adoption of these integrationist policies paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group’s cultural nationalism.

WWII and Soviet intervention
In 1945, Soviet troops moved into Iranian Azerbaijan and a short lived Soviet-backed puppet regime by the name of "Azerbaijan People's Government" was founded through direct order of the Soviet leadership. The regime was led by Mir Jafar Pishevari. However, the Soviet soon realized their idea was premature, the mass of population did not support separatism; under largely Western pressure, the Soviet troops withdrew which resulted in the quick collapse of their client state.

Ethnic status in Iran
Generally, Azeris in Iran were regarded as "a well integrated linguistic minority" by academics prior to Iran's Islamic Revolution. Despite friction, Azeris in Iran came to be well represented at all levels of, "political, military, and intellectual hierarchies, as well as the religious hierarchy.". In addition, the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, is half Azerbaijani. .   In contrast to the claims of de-facto discrimination of some Azerbaijanis in Iran, the government claims that its policy in the past 30 years has been one of pan-Islamism, which is based on a common Islamic religion of which diverse ethnic groups may be part, and which does not favor or repress any particular ethnicity, including the Persian majority. Persian language is thus merely used as the lingua franca of the country, which helps maintain Iran's traditional centralized model of government. More recently, the Azeri language and culture starts being taught and studied at university level in Iran, and there appears to exist publications of books, newspapers and apparently, regional radio broadcasts too in the language.

Furthermore, Article 15 of Iran's constitution reads:
 * "The use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian."

According to Professor. Nikki R. Keddie of UCLA: One can purchase newspapers, books, music tapes, and videos in Azerbaijani Turkish and Kurdish, and there are radio and television stations in ethnic areas that broadcast news and entertainment programs in even more languages.

Azeri nationalism has oscillated since the Islamic revolution and recently escalated into riots over the publication in May 2006 of a cartoon that many Azeris found offensive. The cartoon was drawn by Mana Neyestani, who was fired along with his editor as a result of the controversy.

Despite sporadic problems, Azeris are an intrinsic community within Iran. Currently, the living conditions of Azeris in Iran closely resemble that of Persians: The life styles of urban Azeri do not differ from those of Persians, and there is considerable intermarriage among the upper classes in cities of mixed populations. Similarly, customs among Azeri villagers do not appear to differ markedly from those of Persian villagers. Azeris in Iran remain quite conservative in comparison to most Azeris in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Nonetheless, since the Republic of Azerbaijan's independence in 1991, there has been renewed interest and contact between Azeris on both sides of the border. Andrew Burke writes: Azeri are famously active in commerce and in bazaars all over Iran their voluble voices can be heard. Older Azeri men where the traditional wool hat and their music and dances have become part of the mainstream culture. Azeris are well integrated and many Azeri Iranians are prominent in Persian literature, politics and clerical world. According to Bulent Gokay: The Northern part of Iran, that used to be called Azerbaijan, is inhabited by 17 million Azeris. This population has been traditionally well integrated with the multi-ethnic Iranian state. Richard Thomas, Roger East, and Alan John Day state: The 15–20 million Azeri Turks living in northern Iran, ethnically identical to Azeris, have embraced Shia Islam and are well integrated into Iranian society According Michael P. Croissant: Although Iran's fifteen-million Azeri population is well integrated into Iranian society and has shown little desire to secede, Tehran has nonetheless shown extreme concern with prospects of the rise of sentiments calling for union between the two Azerbaijans.

While Iranian Azeris may seek greater cultural rights, few Iranian Azeris display separatist tendencies. Extensive reporting by Afshin Molavi, an Iranian Azeri scholar, in the three major Azeri provinces of Iran, as well as among Iranian Azeris in Tehran, found that irredentist or unificationist sentiment was not widely held among Iranian Azeris. Few people framed their genuine political, social and economic frustration – feelings that are shared by the majority of Iranians – within an ethnic context.

According to another Iranian Azeri scholar Dr. Hassan Javadi – a Tabriz-born, Cambridge-educated scholar of Azerbaijani literature and professor of Persian, Azerbaijani and English literature at George Washington University – Iranian Azeris have more important matters on their mind than cultural rights. "Iran’s Azeri community, like the rest of the country, is engaged in the movement for reform and democracy," Javadi told the Central Asia Caucasus Institute crowd, adding that separatist groups represent "fringe thinking." He also told EurasiaNet: "I get no sense that these cultural issues outweigh national ones, nor do I have any sense that there is widespread talk of secession."