The Conflict Of The Independent Republic Of Azerbaijan

I have been wanting to broaden my knowledge and experiences beyond Latin America and Azerbaijan presents the type of non-Euro centric opportunity I desire. During my graduate studies, I am focusing on post-Soviet countries and Azerbaijan to present a fascinating case study. The country and its people have flourished compared to other former-Soviet states, with Baku developing into a world-class city. Azerbaijani is also spoken in Iran and Dagestan, and I want to learn more about these countries and how the language shapes their citizens’ lives.

The reformation of the country of Iran toward Islam caused turmoil among the people because the drastic changes forced on the people were not easily accepted. One of the major changes is that

This type of suffering also occurred in 1722 with the Afghan tribesmen and yet again during the late eighteenth century and lasted until 1925. The Qajars, a Turkic tribe that was established near the Caspian Sea, conquered Iran this time. The kings who ruled under the Qajar Empire also were mainly responsible for the country’s poverty and resistance to modernity. The only difference between the Qajars and the Arabs is that now the people of Iran were not going to sit back and let these kings give foreigner powers the right to their country. The Qajars had “lost their right to rule, their farr. Armed with Shiite principle that endows the ordinary citizen with inherent power to overthrow despotism…Iranians rebelled in a way their forefathers never had” (28).

The complexity of America’s relationship with Iran increased steadily beginning in 1908, when Iran struck oil. The Shah, the king or emperor of Iran, after taking the place of his young predecessor Reza Shah Pahlavi with the help of the CIA, led Iran into a period of extreme wealth and prosperity, the likes of which the Iranian people had never experienced. However, with the growth of wealth in Iran came the growth of Iranian resentment towards the West, specifically the United States. The Iranian’s resented the uneven distribution of wealth that they felt existed and the United State’s influence in “westernizing” their society. In 1963, this growing hatred led to a conflict with the Islamic clergy. The conflict was quickly settled by the Shah, but he was unaware that this dispute was the beginning

The Modernization efforts undertaken by the leadership of Iran and Turkey after World War I share numerous similarities across ideological, and social lines. Both countries shared and benefitted from strong social identities, and resistance to outside influence. While these countries were unified using comparable methods, they were also exploited to further the individual goals of both countries? respective leaders.

As Michael Axworthy states on the back cover of his book, A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind, Iran is a “land of contradictions”. As this is true these contradictions is what makes Iran, Iran. Iran today is looked as the pinnacle of the Islamic faith in the form of a Government structure. Since 1979, Iran has been known as the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iran will continue being an Islamic Republic for centuries to come. Iran has a rich history of intellectuals and scholars. Iran is known for its vibrant culture that dates back longer than the Western Ideals were even conceived. However Axworthy asks a question about Iran and its impact on the world’s history and the current events that we see in Iran today, Axworthy asks “Is Iran an aggressive power, or a victim?” This statement is a true paradox, can Iran be the next Nazi Germany, the next Soviet Union or the next Great Islamic Caliphate or is Iran just fighting to keep its culture alive from a vast array of attacks from foreign entities and internal struggles.

There are many ways in which Iranian cultural expectations are different from the western cultural expectations. They are different in regards to citizens’ rights and gender norms.

This is a comical approach as Iran strives in wanting to compare its modern nation to the ancient Persian Empire. The ancient Persian Empire however, was diverse in almost every way. The Persian

This was one reverse too far, for Iran's young “cherish a packet of grievances, ranging from the acute shortage of jobs to the social restrictions that ban most boy- and-girl outings. Restrictive though it is, the system allows discussion of these complaints, and many niggling rules have been quietly eased since Mr. Khatami took over” (Anonymous Iran's second revolution? 13). It was, however, after the police and their allies, the Islamist bully-boy militia, raided the dormitories in Tehran University, where they killed at least one student and probably more, that the shout for change began to penetrate “out-of-bounds areas. The students started to call for fundamental reforms, questioning the legitimacy of clerical control” (Anonymous Iran's second revolution? 13). They even went so far as to challenge the sacrosanct heart of Iran's Islamist edifice, the ultimate authority of the “supreme leader.”

The emergence of the Islamic Republic in late 1970’s Iran demonstrates how middle class Iranian people purged themselves of the Pahlavi Dynasty in an effort to continue down a more righteous and egalitarian path. As a result, the country underwent a complete social upheaval and in its place grew an overtly oppressive regime based in theoretical omnipotence. In response to this regime, the very structure of political and social life was shaken and fundamentally transformed as religion and politics became inexorable. As a result, gender roles and the battle between public and private life were redrawn. Using various primary and secondary sources I will show how the Revolution shaped secular middle class Iranians. Further, I will show how the

Iranians deeply value their social and cultural traditions. The Persian revolution formed the basis through which the country evolved and foundation upon which its empires were established. The Islamic regime practiced by the country formed the basis through which the country’s sophisticated institutions were built. Shah seemed to champion for secularization and westernization (Axworthy,

moving from Iran to Austria and how her ideologies change in response to the Islamic

However, the ideas had already spread throughout the Iranian people and religious protesting escalated continuously. People’s ideas of recreating a religious based government persisted to an unstoppable level. Khomeini, whom many protesters felt to be a hero, said in a speech in 1979, “Do not try to westernize everything you have! Look at the West, and see who the people are in the West that present themselves as champions of human rights and what their aims are. Is it human rights they really care about, or the rights of the superpowers? What they really want to secure are the rights of the superpowers. Our jurists should not follow or imitate them” (Ayatollah Khomeini: speech on the uprising of Khurdad 15, 2010). Based on this quote, the “voice” of the protesting Iranians was that westernization was not a good thing because the west does not care for human rights and freedoms of the lesser powers in the world and that the way to change for the better is to impose the Islamic values that already existed into society. In January of 1979, the Shah fled the country under the pressure of the people and Khomeini returned to Iran to be greeted as a hero (Bentley & Ziegler, n.d., p. 1117). Fighting erupted between Khomeini’s supporters and remaining military officials and on the eleventh of February the government fell. On the first of April, Khomeini proclaimed the beginning of the new Islamic republic (Islamic

A quarter to a third of the population of Tehran comprises of migrants of Azerbaijani inception and their first or second era relatives. The Azerbaijani minority 's impression of the central government in Tehran and of Persians as the dominant ethnic group in Iran are straightforwardly identified with their own verifiable experience of conjunction with the Persians. Phonetic and religious affiliations and their advancement inside of the Iranian setting assume an especially essential part here. The Azerbaijanis of Iran speak a Turkic dialect which is a piece of the Oghuz dialect group. Apart from a rather large number of lexical borrowings from Persian and Arabic, their dialect is indistinguishable to the dialect of the supposed Northern (Soviet or Caucasian) Azerbaijanis. It is similar to the dialect spoken in Turkey. The two dialects Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkish are commonly intelligible. The dialects are normally spoken among Azerbaijanis occupying northwestern Iran, however Azerbaijani Turkish is banned at all levels in the country-inconsistent with Iran 's constitution. The boycott occurs in all levels of the educational system and applies to direction in the Turkish dialect, as well as to teaching that dialect as a subject. Consequently, for instance, at the University of Tabriz, where seven different dialects are taught, the local dialect of the larger part of understudies may not be taught (Aweworthy, 2008).

Although Martin van Bruinessen in his essay “Ehmedi Xani’s Mem u Zin” concludes that that Xani himself was probably not a nationalist in the way academics understand it today, for his poem was written in the 1700s. Nevertheless, it does not dilute his importance to nationalist Kurds within the last hundred years (41). The Kurdish pride that Xani portrays in the poem through his writing it in Kurdish and its calls for Kurdish supremacy certainly aroused the religious and nationalist sentiments of those studying in the lodges and madrasas. In addition, other sources that circulated among these Kurdish schools including the 19th century Kurdish nationalist poet, Haji Qadri Koyi, who wrote poetry similar to that of Xani’s in the Sorani dialect, as well as the early writings of Said Nursi, a 20th century Kurdish rights activist who later abandoned his Kurdish roots and founded the very popular Nurcu Islamic movement in Turkey (Bruinessen, Mullas 48-9). For the Muslim Kurds living in the rising era of nationalism, Islam and Kurdishness were fused, inseparable of one another.