April 20, 2005: Unrest continues among the Arab population along the Iraqi border. Iran is actually a multi-ethnic empire, with a core of ethnic Iranians surrounded by other minorities.
| Medes, Persians, Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Sumerians, Moabites, Naphtalites, Hittites, Luwians, the occasional Samoan, that sort of people... |
North of the Arabs are Kurds and Turks (Azeris). In Western Iran there are Afghans and Baluchis. These minorities comprise over a third of the population. The Arab minority, however, is special, as they sit on top of most of Iran's oil.
| I'm starting to come to the conclusion that Arabs actually ooze the oil they sell us. They only pretend to drill for it. Nobody else consistently lives on top of the stuff... |
Saddam Hussein thought these Arabs would would rise in rebellion when invading Iraqi troops entered the area in 1980. "Hey, Mahmoud! Let's rise up against our Mede and Persian masters and install the bloody-handed dictator next door into power!"
"Oh, good idea, Ahmed!" |
Didn't happen. But the Arab-Iranians do maintain their culture, and the Iranian majority has never been happy with this.
"Ardeshir! Those ignorant Arabs just hung a couple dozen of their fellow citizens!"
"So? Us Medes and Persians do that all the time!"
"Yeah, but they tied all the knots left-handed!"
"Damn them! They must be killed!" |
The current unrest was caused by government efforts to control Arab language press. A lot of this censorship is not just being hard on Arab media, but the continuing efforts of the Islamic conservatives to stamp out dissident media. There is no press freedom in Iran, and hasn't been any for over two decades. Iran is blaming foreign media, and, of course, the United States, for the unrest. Al Jazeera operations in Iran have been shut down, and other foreign media threatened.
| Right. Al-Jizzles. They're Merkin agents. Everybody knows that. |
The growing unrest among Arab-Iranians is, of course, partly due to the outbreak of democracy in neighboring Iraq. For the past two years, Arab-Iranians have watched with growing envy as Shia Arabs across the border gain more power over their own affairs. |