From: arash@sunee.waterloo.edu (Arash Jahangir)
Subject: Re:    Farid confused about Arash and Azerbaijan!
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 04:19:15 GMT


Farid, I am really opposed to private conversation that are of no interest to
others on the net.  As such this is going to be my last response to you, since
you are making this too much of a one-to-one discussion.

In article <92100.192854FHM100F@ODUVM.BITNET> FARID <FHM100F@ODUVM.BITNET> writes:
>Dear Arash:
>
>Does it hurt to acknowledge the right of people to teach their language to
>their kids in their land?

This is the kind of thing that makes me call you a separatist.  For your
information that is OUR land i.e it belongs to ALL Iranians.

> This is a very basic right. Convince yourself about
>this. If you need help, just talk to anyone with an IQ a bit higher than room
>temperature. That should help you.

Well I am talking to you and if your statement holds any truth, you must have
an IQ lower than room temperature since I have not been convinced that what 
you purpose is the best for every one in Iran.  {off the record, don't be
offended "klookh andAz rA pAdAsh sang ast".  But you can insult me all you
want from now on, I won't answer you back since I hate that kind of stuff,
especially in public.}

>Does it suit your intentions well to call me separatist and Fars hater? Have I
>ever said anything to back your empty words on this?

You never explicitly said it, but your tone and your phrasings makes me wonder.
Zogros at least clearly said what he wanted and where he stood.  I respect him
for that though I think the road he has chosen will leave kurds much worse off
that they are now.  You on the other hand never directly say anything, but in
practice behave it.

>We acknowledge the right of all people to speak, read and write their language.
>If Lors would like to practice this right, power to them. Why does this bother
>you?
>What do you have against people practing their mother language?

People are practicing it.  To my knowledge there are no rules against speaking
Azari, Lori, Kurdi, or anything else accross the country.

>Trying to turn Azeris agains Azeris is a dirty one, it would not work simply
>because what we say is in the interest of everyone in Iran. Think about it.
>

You are twisting my words.  Just what did I say that can turn Azaries against
each other?  Anyone who has read my postings knows that I consider Azaries as
Iranians and as such I would do my best to prevent them from turning against
each other.

I called you separatist in my first, and second, and third postings.  I clearly
stated that my reason for such is that I precieve your behaviour to be that of
a separatist.  Namely that you seem to emphasize regional differences over
national similarities.  If you are not a separatist, all you needed to do was
to say so and I would have appologized for my misjudgment.  Of course I would
have still disagreed with you, but our discussion would have been different.
As it stands, 3 postings later, you still haven't said what exactly you believe
in and how is it that you take it upon yourself to represent the entire Azari
population.  Although I absolutely disagree with Zogros, I was impressed with
his honesty and openness.  So how about?  Why don't you tell us what is your
vision of Iran and how it should be and how you think it's been. Now since it 
seems that you are saying that you are after the best for Iran, I am going to 
give you the benefit of the doubt and assume for now that you are neither a 
separatist nor a Parsi hater (be honest now, are you ?).

As you've asked, I am trying to think about it and see how your purposal is 
best for the country.  To beging with I think that the contents of what is 
taught in schools is far more important than the language they are being 
taught in.  So my first question to you is that do you agree with a unified
teaching of social sciences such as history, and so on or not?  In particular
I'd like to know if you want to know if you would somehow treat history based
on which ethenic background the religious, political, and other important 
historical figures have rised, or not.

The next question is why do you think that your purposal is in the best of the
country?  Iran is a very vast land mass.  There are a number of different 
dialects around the country (I am not even talking about Azari now) that vary
so much, people of one part do not understand the local dialect of other parts.
Now in all this time, people have always managed to keep their local dialect.
It is simply impossible to remove a language/dialect from a region, while the
majority of people in that region speak that language.  Now if you have reasons
that somehow the government is encouraging mass migration to Azarbaijan from 
say the east end of the country, then I will agree that your language is under
attack and you need to protect it.  But as it stands, milions of Azaries, such
as yourself, have no difficulty speaking Azari.  In fact, even the ones who 
were born and raised outside Azarbaijan, say in Tehran for example, have no
difficulty speaking Azary.  So I don't buy it that your language is under 
attack and you need to protect it.

Next, the problem is (and this is the main issue in my openion), that if we 
stop teaching a unified dialect accross the country (and I don't really care
which one of many dialects/languages) then because our political borders do
not correspond to our natural borders, the border provinces (which by the way
make the very majority of Iran both in terms of population and land mass) will
find themselves closer to our neighbouring countries (especially with a little
help from our nice neighbours) than with our own provinces at the other end of
the country.  Sistan for example, has a large portion of it in Pakistan.  The
particular dialect they speak there is well understood untill half way through
Southern Pakistan.  If they won't speak a language understood by you, and you
won't speak something they can't understand, then convince me that they won't
feel closer to their friends over the Pakistan border than to you.  We have 
far too many different dialects to expect that we can teach everybody all of 
them.  Anyways that's all I was going to say.  I'd like to hear your answers,
but if you turn it into a private war I won't respond to you.

Arash