of the politics of naming - Persian vs. Arabian Gulf
Wow. I did not realize how long it's been since my last post. sorry. I've been super busy with job applications. So, if any of my readers still exist, here's something that's come up in the last few days that I have been pondering
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Hope those are coming along well!
The Arabian/Persian Gulf thing is amusing. The controversy started off in the 60s, when Nasser decided to Arabize it (or so Dr. O said). If the Gulf 'belongs' to someone, uninformed outsiders would expect the stuff in it (islands, oil) to belong the same entity. Hence the long and bitter struggle about nomenclature. National Geographic certainly aren't the only ones to run afoul of people in the region. If you want to keep looking up the subject, there are stories involving Ahmadinejad and the Emir of Qatar, as well as British cartographers swayed by oil money.
Both terms are so laden with Orientalist history and British colonial involvement in the regionReally? The Iranians claim ancient Greek maps support their claims, and as mentioned above, the Arab side's version comes down to Nasser, at least based on what I know. So while they'd probably refer to British maps or whatever, I'm not sure the terms are Orientalist. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong if ( ... )
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Me too. I believe the Persian Gulf is the more popular term but I wouldn't mind a growth in the use of Arabian Gulf because I think it reflects the current realities rather than the region's history. (The Persians used to rule Oman, formed a majority of the inhabitants (or at least its descendants) in Bahrain and though my Imperial Persian history is sketchy for the other Gulf states, maintained some degree of influence over them throughout the course of history. Until the British arrived of course.)
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-tina
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