ISLAMIC REPUBLE OF IRAN FALSE FROM THE START: 1/4: Iran is More Than Persia: Ethnic Politics in Iran Hardcover – by Brenda Shaffer
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/helicopter-iranian-presidents-convoy-accident-says-strate-tv-2024-05-19/
https://www.amazon.com/Iran-More-Than-Persia-Politics/dp/311079621X
Iran is More than Persia: Ethnic Politics in Iran analyses Iranian politics from a unique perspective, one that focuses on the relations between the Persian-dominated Iranian state and the country's ethnic minorities. The book explores the stability of the ruling regime in light of the challenges that multiethnicity brings. Persians comprise less than half of the population of Iran and more than 40 percent of Iranians lack fluency in the Persian language. An overwhelming majority of non-Persian groups inhabit most of Iran's border regions; as such the book explores Iran's foreign policy toward neighboring states that share co-ethnic populations. Iran's ethnic minorities inhabit the state's poorest provinces and the country's growing environmental and water supply challenges hit the ethnic minority provinces harder than the Persian center, adding an ominous ethnic character to what are often presented as purely environmental or economic challenges. The book further examines the potential impact of ethnic based unrest in Khuzestan on Iran's oil production, Iran's main oil producing region. Drawing on a rich assortment of primary data and interviews, this book offers unparalled insights into ethnic politics in Iran. It will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates, researchers and professionals interested in the Middle East, international relations, and ethnic studies.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:10.3 | Iran is more than Persia, a new book from Professor Brenda Schaefer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. |
| 0:18.7 | Ethnic politics in Iran. |
| 0:26.9 | Iran is a bad actor, part of the axis that is now attacking Ukraine. |
| 0:34.3 | However, Iran is a state that emerges from the 20th century, here in the 21st century, |
| 0:37.0 | with much paradox. And Professor Schaefer's book introduces us to some |
| 0:41.5 | aspects of those paradoxes uh brenda a very good evening to thank you for this persianness |
| 0:48.6 | and the farsi language are presumed this far away from ir Iran to be the language of the whole country |
| 0:56.9 | and the culture of the whole country. Your book makes it very quickly obvious that that is not the |
| 1:03.3 | case, that the Persianness is perhaps 50 percent, but the languages are as United Nations as we could ask. The ethnic minorities, each of them |
| 1:16.2 | have distinct profiles. They come from far away. Some have different religions than Shia. |
| 1:23.4 | Some have the religions of the area. All of this is in play all the time in Iran. So I want to begin |
| 1:30.7 | with the largest of the ethnic minorities, the Azerbaijani's, the Azaris. They are associated with |
| 1:37.5 | the northwest of Iran. Who are the Azerbaijani Iranians today? And how do they think of themselves? |
| 1:44.7 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:46.2 | Good evening, John. |
| 1:47.2 | You know, we use the terms Iran and Persia interchangeably for, you know, for a couple hundred years. |
| 1:54.4 | But actually, as you said, you said correctly, you know, Iran is something very different than just the Persian group. That would be |
| 2:02.0 | like calling the British English or calling all the, you know, the Soviets, Russians. And, you know, |
| 2:06.8 | when the Soviet Union broke up, we discovered it was a whole mosaic of peoples and peoples with |
| 2:11.5 | different aspirations. But actually, you know, you started asking about the Azerbaijani Turks in Iran. |
| 2:18.3 | Up until the 20th century, Iran was always a Turk-O-Iranian empire with the political leadership |
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