Memo for Google: It's called "Persian Gulf"

The power of technology has been the biggest enemy of authoritarian regimes. Iranians' only means of contact with the outside world throughout the sixteen years that I lived there used to be the state-run TV news and BBC Persian radio, which has a notoriously poor quality because of the Iranian government's tendency to create interfering radio waves. But in the twenty-first century, the internet with website block removers and illegal satellite TVs have enabled Iranians to read the New York Times on their monitor screens in Tehran and watch Oprah Winfrey and the coverage of America's elections at night with their families.

So this past weekend, I decided to sit back and enjoy some of the benefits of technology by opening up Google Earth. I particularly wanted to zoom in and see how many illegal satellites I could locate on Iranians' rooftops. But as I was glancing over the southern part of the country, I noticed something so extraordinary that it made me instantly forget what I was looking for; there they were, two words written on the Persian Gulf's body of water: "Arabian Gulf." I could not believe my eyes. There it was the gulf with a completely new name out of nowhere and based on not a single legitimate history of geography book.

Convinced that fellow Iranians who have noticed this must be completely outraged, I opened another technology tool that I use to spot trends: Facebook! I figured if Persians are as outraged as I was, there must already be a group made to express that outrage. To little surprise, my search yielded over twenty different groups, three of which claimed over 2,000 members each, all with the sole purpose of emphasizing what has always been a geographical fact: the name of the body of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula has always been Persian Gulf. What I also noticed was that one of the multi-thousand-member groups aimed to collect signatures for a petition that calls on Google to stop renaming Persian Gulf based on no historical or international precedent. As this article is published, the petition has been signed by 53,353 people.

Some people may be interested in getting into a geographical debate on what should the Gulf really be called. Some may try to debate on whether Persians or Arabs have a bigger claim over the name. We can have the same debate over the Gulf of Mexico. While such a discussion is legitimate, that's not what I'm interested in discussing here. What I do have a problem with is that a company like Google can misuse its power, influence and popular reach to spread hurtful misinformation about matters as sensitive as this in direct contradiction to the historical and geographical consensus.

Ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Persians have found their 7,000-year-old unique culture and heritage under assault by a band of mullahs who have been shoving Sharia law and Arabic words and culture down their throats. Throughout this time, Iranians have watched as their country has take a vertical dive from being one of the greatest and most respected countries in the region to a rogue state with no unified identity or respect on the world stage. In light of this short tragic history, all most Persians have been left with is the Iran map on their walls and the belief in their hearts that one day, they will preserve their Persian identity and dignity in the world.

In that context, Persian Gulf has come to mean a whole lot more than just a name used to refer to a puddle of water. It has become a symbol of everything that Iranians have been left with to remind them of who they used to be. Changing the name Persian Gulf would be equivalent to taking away what little water one may have left away from him as he thirsts to death in the middle of a desert.

The United Nations has repeatedly recognized the name of this body of water as the "Persian Gulf" and asked all member nations to use the same name. In 2006, the U.N. reiterated its belief in "Persian Gulf" - as opposed to anything else, even including "The Gulf" - as the only appropriate name to be used to refer to this body of water. And in the same year, U.N.'s Group of Experts on Geographical Names issued a paper titled "Historical, Geographical and Legal Validity of the Name: PERSIAN GULF (PDF)," in which they emphasized the correct name and notably wrote, "any change, destruction, or alteration of the names registered in historical deeds and maps is like the destruction of ancient works and is considered as an improper action. Therefore, the names of geographical features profiting from a unique historical identity, should not be utilized as political instruments in reaching a political, tribal, and racial objective, or in any clash with national interests and other's values."

I find it deeply disheartening that Google finds it acceptable to go out of its way to rename Persian Gulf without understanding the deeply hurtful impact that such an action can have on the Iranians who are holding on to the memory of their Persian identity and history that they see slipping away little by little every single day. This action by Google is not as outrageous as its decision in 2006 to comply with the Chinese government's demand and censor its internet search service in China in order to get access to its market. But when it comes to Google's significant hold on search engine and virtual globe technologies, it is important to highlight what a wide reaching effect little pieces of misinformation can have in shaking the feeling of security and identity of tens of millions of people throughout the world.

It's my hope that Google will listen to the voices of tens of thousands of people, acknowledge the significance of unilaterally changing the name of an entire body of water in direct inconsistency with the international consensus and begin to call it what it has always been called: Persian Gulf.

United Nations secretariat's decision on the naming dispute A French Map, dated 1740

Comments

[fussygorilla]

O.K. Sam. Your response has forced me to write again though I did not plan to. Your misguided points need to be answered. Here they are:
1. You admit there has been "some progress" in Iran but "not at the rate of the pre-Revolution".
If by "progress" to refer to shallow, plastic, appearance of changes that had taken place by bling imitation of America's worst, they you are right. You were obviously not born then to know and have probably heard it from the beneficiaries of that corrupt system where less than 1% of the population owned 98% of the wealth, the rest living in dire poverty and consider it progress.
2. you say Iran having so much oil, still has to import oil for its use. True. Iran has no refineries and has built a few, despite sanctions, has several contract with foreign companies to build more to process and refine it. How many refineries were built in the Pahlavi era in the 1970's when the oil money was flowing in?
3. you claim Iran is not independent and has only changed dependency from U.S. to Russia and China. Iran was a client state of the U.S. with China and Russia, it is equal give and take and so is with many other states (unlike Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Arab states).
4. you state that university education is propaganda and students must study the Qur'an to graduate. Students in Pahlavi era had to study the Shah's "White Revolution" to graduate and the rest of it was such low quality that you cannot name scientific and medical achievements of young Iranians then to compare with those of today.
5. As to women. I am a woman and despise the compulsory hijab but if you even knew about the achievements and successes of Iranian women, (except those who like you mistakenly think women in U.S. are equal to men and have all the rights) you would also be proud of them. Ashraf Pahlavi was the symbol of modern and progressive women of Iran then. What a farce that was! Women have to sit on the back section of city buses in Tehran. I preferred that because Iranian men are egotistic, oversexed, and filthy to sit next to.
6. You falsely claim girls and boys cannot talk to eachother or will be arrested? What the hell are you talking about? Girls and boys who go to college or work in offices go out, sit together, and absolutely talk to eachother. Please, don't distort.
7. You guess I am an Iranian. I am an Iranian born but American educated and professional who lived in U.S. and taught at a university in U.S. for 50 years (your grandmother age). I know Iran but better yet, I know America for what it is. There, the so-called constitutional rights are a fabrication of the wealthy for the wealthy. Is there really a "freedom fof speech"? is there "democracy"? Just look at the Presidential and Congressional elections and who and how one becomes a candidate and gets elected. Total hypocrcy of corporate-run money-controlled system and you have been brainwashed to think that it is so great a democracy? You did not live long enough in Iran to know, you have not lived long enogh in U.S. to know either. I am sure your bosses like you for whatever you do for what you say.

[SamSedaei - Huffpost Blogger]

You respond to all of my points by saying it was worse under the shah. Well, that's a pretty darn low standard and I am no monarchist or Shah sympathizer. But you are in the minority for thinking people have it better now than they did under the shah, and you know it. I don't know how long it has been since you've been to Iran, but the rosy picture you draw about Iran is extremely inaccurate and out of touch with reality, regardless of how old you are. I know you're frustrated about the U.S. and Israel pushing Iran around; I am too and anyone who has read my articles knows that I'm a big critic of the Bush administration as well as Israel. No secret; they're pathetic.

But a little humility on the part of Iranians will go a long way. You can make all the excuses you want for all the horrible and accurate things that I mentioned about Iran; but progress is never made by making excuses for those problems. There is not a single rational person who has lived in Iran and the United States who believes the level of equality for women is similar in the United States and Iran. Women are never stoned for adultry in the United States and gays aren't executed here for being who they are. But I'm not going to do this dance with you and try to convince you that seas are blue and stars shine. So you can have the last word.

[fussygorilla]

Hey Sam. Good try! By decrying the use of the Arab Gulf instead of its legitimate name, the Persian Gulf, you distract the readers from your long paragraph about how Iran has an awful government where the people dream of change of the rulers and the system. Hogwash! Iran has, during at least the last 18 years, made tremendous progress in all areas of development and all that without the assistance of foreigners like America. How can you in good conscience ignore the great changes in the cities and most of all in the countryside where all villages have electricity, running safe water, roads, and government purchasing of the farmers' products. How can you ignore the fact that the number of universities and their students have multiplied thousand fold and the number of females are 60-70% of of students at universities (contrast 20-30% in U.S.). I admit there is a lot more to be done especially in the jobs and inflation areas and that women's forced hijab is (in my opinion) wrong but the fact is there are thousands of women doctors, lawyers, business executives, and leaders in all fields that never before existed. And of course, the nuclear power acheivement of Iranian scientists IN SPITE OF AMERICAN SANCTIONS!
You are obviously writing to please your American readers who are totally (except a handful of well-educated ones) ignorant about Iran. I am embarrassed for you.

[SamSedaei - Huffpost Blogger]

Iran has made some progress at a much slower rate than it did before the revolution. And they have not become more independent from "foreigners" but switched independence from America to Russia and China. They produce so much oil and they still have to import refined oil and use hundreds of billions of dollars in the process. The number of students have gone up, but the education is filled with anti-western propaganda instead of any sort of non-biased academic approach aimed at promoting free thinking, women are treated as second class citizens and are forced to wear Islamic clothes and sit in the back of the class and students in all majors have to take a test on Qoran to get their degree. Cities have grown, but they are filled with clogged streets, gender-based segregated buses with women forced to sit in the back of buses and religious cops roaming around and taking young girls and boys off the streets because they dare to talk with one another without being married. I don't care as much about the fact that there are female lawyers as the fact that a woman's testimony in a court is worth HALF that of an illiterate man in Iran because of sexism that has been built into the Islamic legal system in Iran. Iranians have nothing to pat themselves on the back so hard for.

You sound like a proud Iranian, and that's good. But I think Iranians have overestimated and have been over proud of themselves for too long. It's time to show some humility instead of making a hollow case for why Iran is such a great place to live. It is far from it, and if you lived there as long as I did, you know that all too well. You want Iran to be great? work for it. We aren't there yet.

[OliverTwist]

So what is the reason given by Google and others (?) for renaming the Persian Gulf?

It seems wrong.

It's not the same as a company renaming itself from the "Anglo Persion Oil Company" to "British Petroleum" to "BP".

[jdm58]

Considering how many Americans, young and old, can not name states,capitals, or bodies of water in their OWN country, let alone anywhere else, I can imagine how this careless mistake was made. Hopefully Google will make a speedy fix, and send a prudent apology. It is doubtful they had any ill will in mind.

[fussygorilla]

jdm58: Not so. It is not a careless mistake. It is and has been for a long time a British-inspired policy in order to satisfy their Arab client states in the Persian Gulf region. Just listen to the BBC. They always refer to it as "the Gulf" as if there is no name for it. Google is just like the other American mass media, falling into the trap of anti-Iranian trap.

[BeeOplentee]

Google probably wants some tit for tat: That is, they will allow Iran to adopt their old name, Persia, as a trade-off for keeping the "Arabian Gulf" as the official name for that body of water..

[jvarga]

"I find it deeply disheartening that Google finds it acceptable to go out of its way to rename Persian Gulf without understanding the deeply hurtful impact that such an action can have on the Iranians who are holding on to the memory of their Persian identity and history that they see slipping away little by little every single day."

Has anyone actually tried to get a response from Google about this? Or since they're a big bad corporation are we just going to assume they're evil incarnate, every action they take is designed to dehumanize the world's population, and who abuse their power in such curious methods as renaming a body of water.

I would actually be interested to hear what they have to say prior to their being strung up and hanged like a deposed dictator.

[Vurz]

I am appalled that Google would do this. What's next? Renaming France "Freedom" so all those 'Freedom Fries' people won't feel so stupid? I will be signing one of those petitions.