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SPEAKING
FREELY
Gulf renamed in aversion to
'Persian'
By K Darbandi
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
"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
Continued 1
2
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