Mastodawn

#Iranians are PERSIAN not ARABS.
This toot was sponsored by my Iranian Canadian photographer friend - who is tired of people not knowing who #Persians are & ignorant of their ancient, ancestral & cultural histories.

Sorry - I forgot to add -> My friend says he has never spoken Arabic but understands some of it from learning from Arabs who were displaced from nearby countries. He told me that Persians speak Farsi. Many are also educated on speaking & reading English.

#MiddleEast #GlobalSouth #Cultures #Iran

minor additional irritation, way too many of the people who don't/won't know this go ON about their devotion to ancient Greek and Roman history

I mean, we were pretty sure they weren't reading carefully anyway

@PhoenixSerenity

Ms. Que Banh Mar 13

@clew I promised my friend that I'd honour his request to do a #PSA post about Iranians being Persian. I don't break promises 💗

Bruno Girin Mar 13

@PhoenixSerenity and the main reason they get confused is that Persian uses the Arabic alphabet with extra letters. A bit like English and French using the same alphabet: knowing one doesn't mean you know the other.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 13

@brunogirin Many of my Indigenous friends here say just because they speak English, it doesn't mean they've abandoned their own languages/cultures. They're still distinct with their native sovereignty. With their own languages too.

@PhoenixSerenity
Persian history is absolutely fascinating.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 13

@scandigonian It truly is! Very deep, rich & ancient culture/society. Highly educated!

Robin Barton Mar 13

@PhoenixSerenity Huge difference between the two so thank you for pointing that out

Ms. Que Banh Mar 13

@Robo105 You're welcome. I had to be educated by my Iranian friend. I'm glad he educated me & corrected my prior errors.

Ari "Two Sheds" Jackson Mar 13

@PhoenixSerenity 100%! A deeply historic, deeply fascinating, educated culture.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 13

@arisummerland Not a peoples or society that should be annihilated by foreign devils, that's for sure.

Ari "Two Sheds" Jackson Mar 13

@PhoenixSerenity 2000%!

@PhoenixSerenity careful, that sounds rather Palavist. It's a way of saying someone isn't Iranian "they're Arab, not Persian" or "they're Indian not Persian", when most of Persia's leaders did not come from inside modern day Iran.

The argument is that Persians are Aryans and the Mullahs are Arabs. It's literally Iranian fascism, and what the Palavists are heavily into.

Novara Media did a great interview with an Iranian poet over this stuff yesterday

Ms. Que Banh Mar 15

@sortius From how my Iranian Canadian friend explained things, it had zero fascism feels involved, for him, personally. Him & his family(some who are still in Iran) call themselves Persians/Iranians - they self identify as both & they still speak Farsi daily here. His family has ancient Persian roots & how he explained it was that Iranians have reclaimed the Persian word to empower themselves. He says the human beauty of Iran is because they're diverse, with citizens from many different cultures/religions/languages. His ancestral family's roots have feet that go back to times before the Muslim faith was spread to their lands. He was telling me that after Babylonian empire, a Persian king freed all people who were imprisoned & had a public decree for all of them to return to their homelands & to practice their chosen religions, freely.
I don't know enough about Iran/Persia. I'm trying to learn more, from Iranians in my life. I do know my friend hates what's happened to his homelands/peoples. His elders had suffered under both the Shah & Ayatolla corrupted rulers.

@PhoenixSerenity just remember, the diaspora is made up of many groups. It's why I don't just listen to one set of people, least of all the ones trying to divide Arab, Persian, Afghan, Indian, etc. Depending on how far you go back, Judaism arose within the borders of Persia, so this isn't a religious thing, it's a nationalist purity thing.

One of the criticisms of Khamenei from the Pahlavists is that "he was born in Iraq, so he's not Persian", playing that purity card.

It's cultural supremacy, and whether they can get lyrical about roots or their desires, there's no place for that anywhere

Ms. Que Banh Mar 15

@sortius I know. We have a lot of diaspora Iranians here & not all of them agree. Same with other POC diaspora. I listen to a lot of different voices of displaced POC folks here. I don't necessarily agree with all of them. I'm trying to learn from others with similar war displacement life experiences.

@PhoenixSerenity yeh, I'd compare it to the Vietnamese diasporas.

Not only are there different political leanings, but different ethnic groups and religions. It's why I never assume someone's a flag waving communist, or disgruntled capitalist, or anywhere between. Especially first/second gen, purely because their views on Vietnam are experienced via a familial lens

Ms. Que Banh Mar 15

@sortius Somewhat but not always true. It's the same with many other POC displaced by generations of war experiences. I'm very connected to POC diaspora folks here. For our family, it was viewed from both a familial lens & wider geopolitical lens - because we had several highly educated family members before US terrorists murdered a lot of them. They saw bigger, global picture perspectives, beyond familial ties.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 15

@sortius There's a pretty large group of mixed Iranians on Vancouver Island.
My friend isn't religious. Some of his family are religious but even within their large family - there's different religions practiced.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 15

@sortius For myself, I tend to be very quiet when other diaspora POC are sharing their own lived experiences because part of being committed to learning from others is knowing when to be quiet & when to speak. I don't need to agree with what I'm hearing, to sit & be quietly respectful, when others are sharing some very traumatic lived experiences.
This is how my parents taught me to learn from others.

Anarchic Teapot ⚧️Mar 13

@PhoenixSerenity And at least one of their descendants was arguable the greatest rock singer of all time.

Niko Trimmel Mar 14

@PhoenixSerenity ethnolingualistically, I believe that it is the other way around: Persians are part of the Iranian/Iranic peoples.

In Iran, most of the population are Persians but there are also other Iranian peoples within the country, like the Luri/Lurs and the Kurds.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 15

@nitrml My friend said one of the things he misses most about Iran was how multiple ethnicities/cultures/religions had coexisted for a long time. Him & his family consider longtime displaced folks, from many other areas, as equal citizens of Iran.
I believe he just wanted to express that his family has ancient, distinctive, Persian roots & they don't want all of it to be buried/completely forgotten. I can understand that.