Geo-linguistics

To: Retort
Via: DM

Gulf renamed in aversion to 'Persian'
K Darbandi
Asia Times Online
27 x 07

"In some parts of the world, the nation state, on which the existing
international system was based, is either giving up its traditional
aspects, like in Europe, or as in the Middle East, where it was never
really fully established, it is no longer the defining element." 
- Henry Kissinger, June 2007

Various branches of the United States armed forces have issued directives
to their members to use the "Arabian Gulf" when operating in the area.
This is claimed to be due to increased cooperation with Arab states of the
Persian Gulf, but also to follow local laws that ban the use of "Persian
Gulf". In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which consists of seven emirates
- Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm
al-Quwain, public use of the name "Persian Gulf" is illegal.

The nationalistic sensibilities of the UAE's ruling families do not go
much beyond waging this nominal jihad. The name of the body of water is
most important to Arab nationalism, but what is actually in the water
apparently is not a matter of national concern: the UAE ports host more US
Navy ships than any other port outside the US [1].

In this federation of hereditary sheikhdoms, referred to by the US
government as a "constitutional republic", only 15-20% of the population
are considered locals and enjoy some form of social security and public
services, and there is no electoral system to express the "national" will
of the privileged citizens.

The nation is practically absent in the nationalism of the sheikhs. The
military branch of US government, however, does not have any operational
directives on how to deal with the total absence of even a Saudi-style
electoral process in this Arab host nation. The UAE hosts, for example,
the Air Warfare Center, established in 2003 by the US, along with Britain
and France, to serve as a regional training center for all Gulf
Cooperation Council countries.

American universities in the region have also dropped references to
"Persian Gulf" in their teaching materials. [2] While these institutions
have shown immeasurable flexibility in adapting to the sensibilities of
their hosts, they are totally silent to the plight of the majority of
people living in the UAE: the other 80% or so who make the economic wheels
turn and who are considered so alien to the identity of this Arab "nation"
that they cannot stay in the country after retirement age without a job,
and they are officially labeled "deportable aliens" by the UAE government.

Once there is nothing left to extract from these migrant slaves, their
prematurely aged and worn-out bodies will be shipped back to India,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka to be secured by the non-existent social safety
nets of their countries of origin. While the UAE, thanks to the maps
created by the British, has the second highest gross domestic product per
capita in the world, its million-plus guest-slaves are grossly underpaid
as they are held hostage, their passports in the hands of their Arab
employers. [3]

American universities in the region, affiliated with major universities in
the patron-state, turn out engineers and managers for the biggest
construction boom in the world currently underway in the UAE, but have not
said or done much for the labor force that is employed in the construction
industry. [4]

By law, teachers in UAE public schools are prohibited from uttering the
phrase "Persian Gulf" in classrooms, so as to keep the mind of the Arab
children on their "national" identity, which traces its roots back to
1971; historical maps of the Gulf are vandalized to erase the "Persian"
word, and school children are deprived of original depictions and
documents.

The UAE, posing as a leader in Arab national identity, had been a British
protectorate since 1850s, and was previously called the "Pirate Coast" by
the protector, for it was the den of pirates attacking trading ships of
the East India Company passing through the Strait of Hormuz. It never
fought any war of independence, but through back-door dealings was granted
independence by the British in 1971, along with its army of
British-educated officers.

This artificial meta-bazaar is also host to an unnatural society: there is
less than one female to every two males. The US State Department refers to
the UAE as a "modern, developed country".

The UAE is an exceptional example of gender inequality and barbaric
economic exploitation; it's one of the last states in the world devoid of
an electoral system, and it's a point of entry for US military expansion
in the Gulf.

Since the Gulf War of 1991, Jebel Ali port in Dubai has become crucial to
US naval operations in the Gulf; it is the safest liberty port in the
region and the only harbor in the Gulf deep enough to berth an aircraft
carrier. [5] And the showcase UAE army, originated by the British-educated
top brass, is a major financial lubricator of the military industy in the
United States. [6]

US policy towards this super-wealthy stain of inequality and inhumanity is
clear from the manner in which US institutions, from its military to its
universities, play the naming game.

The gulf of 'little-big sheikhs'
The 19th century German dialectician-philosopher, F W Hegel, was familiar
with the grapplings and spiritual struggles of 13th century Muslim poet
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi: the infinite struggles of the mind to settle
the tension of contradictions in the resolution of the unity [7]. In one
of his essays, he showed how erroneous thinking is abstract thinking, and
it is indeed the way most people are driven to think. [8]

The prevalent utterances on both sides of the Gulf naming game, to some
racist, to others nationalistic, are manifestations of this common,
demagogic, abstract thinking: to distract people of the region from
thinking in real and concrete terms. So let's raise the question again: Is
this an "Arabian" or a "Persian" Gulf? To get real, let's ask: What is the
real character of this Gulf? Let's turn the naming game from abstraction
to concreteness, flip it on its head and then play.

Why don't we call it the "Hindu Gulf", or the "Gulf of The Unknown
Worker"? Let's pay respects to the millions of South Asian enslaved
workers in the UAE and other members of Gulf Cooperation Council [9];
who's going to recognize them when their drained corpses are vomited back
to the sub-continent?

Let's call it "Gulf of Central Command", or simply the "Gulf of America".
Let's recognize the reality of the complete occupation of this invaded
body of water by the 100-plus warships and missile-armed nuclear
submarines, the bases and the Air Warfare School. But then, the old
British name for the UAE was Pirate Coast, so how about "Gulf of Captain
Hook"? In this way, American children's culture is memorialized as well.

Playing the inverted naming game, thinking of the Filipino domestic
workers raped by Arab desert princes, and evoking an Iranian suggestion,
"Islamic Gulf", and using a Koranic term, let's call it: "Gulf of a
Thousand and One Kaniz [10]"! It is exotic, real and Islamic.

OK, give me back my "deported aliens" and I will bury my unknown and
numerous dead in the Indian subcontinent; I promise I won't ship my little
children to ride in your camel races any more; I am sorry to have sent my
daughters to work in this wretched cheap whorehouse - call it what you
want - I will heal her wounds in my village back in the Philippines if she
ever makes it back. I did not know ... but I have now figured it out: you
are big for us and little for the Americans: let's call it "Gulf of
Little-Big Sheikhs"!

But who inverted the reality and invented this naming game? Is the Persian
chauvinist playing the game too? Be warned that if you don't play it, you
are faced with reality: and then you just might scream in rage from the
bottom of your guts, and like the Gulf itself throw up dead dolphins and
whale corpses to the shores, or you might, for a rare, realistic glimpse,
see this "Filthy Pool of Toxins":
Iranian officials and Iranians in general are very sensitive about the
term "Persian Gulf" as the official and recognized name for the waterway
separating Iran and the Arabian peninsula. They are upset when Arab states
or journals do not cite it as such - particularly when the term "Arab
Gulf" is used. And yet a far smaller number of Iranians appear concerned
that human activities could turn that object of national pride and
diplomatic contention into a filthy pool of toxins. [11]

They said it ...
Transcript of the Charlie Rose Show for the US Public Broadcasting Service
of June 15, 2007, with guests Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger and
Brent Scowcroft [12]:

Henry Kissinger: We're at a moment when the international system is in a
period of change like we haven't seen for several hundred years. In some
parts of the world, the nation state, on which the existing international
system was based, is either giving up its traditional aspects, like in
Europe, or as in the Middle East, where it was never really fully
established, it is no longer the defining element. So in those two parts
of the world, there is tremendous adjustment in traditional concepts.

Scowcroft: Just to add what Henry said in historical terms. Perhaps the
most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle
East and in Central Asia.

Brzezinski: I call that the global Balkans, because in some ways, it's
similar to the European Balkans, which were internally conflicted.

Scowcroft: Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of
non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world ... It's a - it's a
world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and
there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal
with them. I think it is less policy oriented than Zbig indicated. I think
it's more systemic. And now these - these peoples are trying to discover
who they are. Their boundaries are artificial. Their historical
relationships are very different from what they are - they're trying to
discover who they are and to whom they belong.

Epilogue
This September, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi's 800 birthday anniversary was
celebrated in several cultures and by peoples of various backgrounds and
beliefs, separated by national boundaries across the "Global Balkans",
from Dushanbe to Damascus, and from Tehran to Tashkent.

Rumi, of Tajik origins, was born in Balkh in today's Afghanistan and died
a Persian immigrant in Konia, in today's Turkey. He adored a man called
Shams, from Tabriz, in the Iranian province of Azerbaijan; he founded and
followed a distinct interpretation of Islamic theology, the religion
originated in the Arabian Peninsula. His appraisal of the Arab
contribution was unprejudiced by teachings of Indian and Greek thinkers.
His philosophical articulations were heavily influenced by Attar from
Neishapour, from Khorosan province; he studied in Baghdad and taught in
Damascus, and settled and died in Eastern Ruman territories, in western
Turkey.

He was neither Sunni, neither Shi'ite. He was not Iranian, Tajik, Turkish
or Arab. He was all and none in one. Homeless and torn to shreds by the
barbaric Mongol invasion, long before nation states were ever conceived,
he lived the dialectical negation of the future nation state: he sketched
a new union, from Balkh to Basra, and from Hamadan to Herat by walking
through the ocean of devastation and ruins, teaching the meaninglessness
of names, and the eternal grace of unity and oneness.

Kissinger believes that the nation state "was never established ... and is
no longer the defining element in the Middle East". Scowcroft thinks:
"Their boundaries are artificial. Their historical relationships are very
different from what they are - they're trying to discover who they are and
to whom they belong"; and "Zbig" thinks of Rumi country as "global
Balkans, because in some ways, it's similar to the European Balkans, which
were internally conflicted ..."

Let me ask you this: Who started the naming game? Do you want to play? Be
a whirling dervish and turn it upside-down!

Notes
1. "UAE ports host more US navy ships than any port outside the United
States. The UAE provides outstanding support for the US Navy at the ports
of Jebel Ali - which is managed by DP World - and Fujairah and for the US
Air Force at al Dhafra Air Base (tankers and surveillance and
reconnaissance aircraft). The UAE also hosts the UAE Air Warfare Center,
the leading fighter training center in the Middle East." (US Government:
Office of the Press Secretary, February 22, 2006)
2. American University of Sharjah, founded by a ruling emir and Texas A&M,
is one example.
3. Discrimination in the workplace is common, prospective employers will
specify religion, nationality (and even regional origin in some cases) and
also specify the gender of required candidates within job advertisements.
It is very common to have different pay scales depending on nationality
and gender. There are positive discrimination policies in place also that
require certain roles to be filled by UAE nationals.
4. Nearly 80% of the UAE's population are foreigners, and foreigners
account for 90% of the workforce in the private sector, including domestic
workers. As of May 2006, according to the Ministry of Labor, there were
2,738,000 migrant workers in the country. The UAE's economic growth has
attracted large domestic and foreign investments and the current
construction boom is one of the largest in the world. Exploitation of
migrant construction workers by employers, especially low-skilled workers
in small firms, is particularly severe. Immigration sponsorship laws that
grant employers extraordinary power over the lives of migrant workers are
in part responsible for the continuing problem. Abuses against migrant
workers include non-payment of wages, extended working hours without
overtime compensation, unsafe working environments resulting in deaths and
injuries, squalid living conditions in labor camps, and withholding of
passports and travel documents.
5. Fujairah, which faces the Indian Ocean and is connected to the Gulf
coast by a modern road, would be critical to American operations were the
Strait of Hormuz closed off. In addition, US warplanes fly out of UAE air
bases on support missions for Operation Southern Watch over Iraq, and it
has prepositioned materiel on UAE soil.
6. The Trucial Oman Scouts, long the symbol of public order on the coast
and commanded by British officers, were turned over to the UAE as its
defense forces in 1971. The UAE armed forces, consisting of 48,800 troops,
are headquartered in Abu Dhabi and are primarily responsible for the
defense of the seven emirates.
7. For an excellent article on Hegel's opinion on Rumi's thought, refer
to: Cyrus Bina, M Vaziri: "On the Dialectic of Rumi's Discourse."
8. Three Essays, 1793-1795, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1984.
9. Formed in 1981, it includes all Gulf states having shores except Iran
and Iraq.
10. "Kaniz", an Arabic term for female slaves, sited in the Koran. The
male term for the Islamic slave is "Gholam".
11. Vahid Sepehri: Iran: Spill, dolphin deaths spark alarm at Persian Gulf
pollution. Payvand's Iran News, April 2007.
12. Brzezinski served as US national security advisor to president Jimmy
Carter from 1977 to 1981. Kissinger served (1969-1977)as national security
advisor and later concurrently as secretary of state in the Richard Nixon
administration and as secretary of state in Gerald Ford's administration.
Scowcroft was national security advisor under presidents Ford and George H
W Bush.

K Darbandi is an independent Iranian-American scientist and a former
member of the Islamic Republic opposition.