What is in a Name: Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Sea of Salaf, Gulf of Mexico, New Mexico…..
At some point years ago my school textbooks banned use of the term “Persian” for it, and my teachers would get angry if anyone used it. It had become blasphemy with the ascendance of Arab nationalism, which in my hometown took on a virulent excessive form: perhaps it was the desire to please and impress those who were, at the time, seen as more cultured than new were (they weren’t really, as it turned out).
Which puzzled me: this blatant rewriting of history. Even in the old days, where access to outside information was very limited, I had some access to books and magazines, thanks largely to my loving father who gave me a weekly allowance especially for the few available books and magazines, even in those hard times. Very few kids, even of those who were much better off, got that. It was part of his desire for me to be ‘educated’. We also had school libraries (we did not have censorship in Kuwait in those simpler days, even though we had small libraries. You see, in those days we had no Salafis, they were all penned across the border to the south and southwest of us).
I knew that the name “Persian Gulf” is a direct translation of the Latin term “Sinus Persicus”, also “Mare Persicum”, used by the Romans since before Christ, since before Caesar. My inquisitive mind also sought other sources.
I saw documents, contracts and treaties where Arab governments, including shaikhs and kings of the Gulf countries, had signed right below the term “Persian Gulf” with foreign powers, mainly Great Britain. Later, I saw copies of the same documents in books, where the term “Persian” before “Gulf” had been hastily and clumsily blacked over and “Arab” inserted. Often the censor apparently got tired, sleepy, or drunk, and he let slip one or two of the original “Persian Gulfs” after he had erased a few others in the same book.
So, the proper name is the “Persian Gulf”, just as the proper name for the sea to the south of it is the “Arabian Sea”, and beyond that the “Indian Ocean”. BY the way, the Pakistanis do not dispute the “Arabian” or “Indian” parts. I bet some fundies in the Middle East would love to change the “Indian Ocean” to the “Sea of Salaf”.
It is not for the love of Iran’s theocratic mullahs, nor was it for the love of Iran’s autocratic shah earlier. I love(d) them no more than I have loved other oligarchs and despots. If anyone tries to tamper with the name “Arabian Sea” I would oppose that too. I’d do it not for the Arab kings, shaikhs, and assorted tribal polygamist oligarchs, but because it is right: history should be respected.
Just as the Gulf of Mexico has remained Mexican in name, and New Mexico has not been changed to New Tennessee (what a horrible prospect, but better than New James Polk).
But then again, it is sometimes good for rulers and oligarchs to create diversions.
Cheers
mhg
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