Heydar Bayat — July 2, 2021
 |
| Babek Fort |
Babek is one of the most contested figures in our history. Persians regard him as a symbol of resistance against the Arabs, someone who fought to restore the dignity lost through earlier defeats. Turks, meanwhile, portray him as a symbol of devotion to Azerbaijan whose sole aim was its advancement. There are also differing views concerning his ethnicity and beliefs. Nasser Pourpirar apparently maintained that neither Babek nor Babek Castle ever existed in Iran.
For me personally, Babek’s political, religious, and ethnic identity is not important. The path remains open both for historians to conduct research and for mythmakers to invent historical tales. The essential point is that, between 1996 and 2006, the Turkish identity movement succeeded in presenting a narrative of Babek and his struggle that anti-Turk forces—with their hundreds of public and private institutions in Iran and the West—could neither defeat nor silence.
A generation had decided that, this time, it would narrate its own past and present—and it succeeded. For me, the story of the Babek Castle gatherings represents a moment when a new generation of Turks placed its own imprint upon its history, and did so successfully.