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| Dr. Alireza Asgharzadeh |
Academic institutions recognize only one race for all humans, and that is the “human race.”
On Sunday, February 22, 2009, the Foundation for the Language and Culture of Azerbaijan in Iran-Canada organized a program titled “Language, Identity, and Human Rights” to commemorate International Mother Language Day. They invited Dr. Alireza Asgharzadeh, an Azerbaijani-Canadian sociologist and researcher, and a professor at York University, to give a lecture on this topic.
Dr. Asgharzadeh began his remarks by congratulating everyone on International Mother Language Day and stated that to better understand the relationship between language and identity, it is essential to first examine the nature and identity of language itself. After outlining the religious, Platonic, and Aristotelian views on language, he analyzed modern and postmodern perspectives, discussing the views and works of the famous linguist from the 19th and 20th centuries, Ferdinand de Saussure, on one hand, and the theories of the great 20th-century anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss on the other. He then compared the structuralist theories of Saussure and Lévi-Strauss with the post-structuralist theories of Jacques Derrida.
Continuing his remarks, Asgharzadeh examined the relationship between language and identity from a post-structuralist perspective and analyzed how language, from its inception, has not only been intertwined with power and politics but also acts as a bearer of power relations and a factor of social inequality. Tendencies that attempt to present a non-political and “neutral” face of language, or view language merely as a “means of communication,” are rooted in the “privileged positions” of those holding these beliefs and reflect the power relations that exist in society. The post-structuralist view desacralizes language, stripping it of sanctity, purity, and absoluteness, and analyzes it as an exclusionary and oppressive factor. In fact, the deconstruction proposed by Jacques Derrida is an ongoing and comprehensive struggle to reveal the oppressive and exclusionary nature hidden within the structure of language.
In the next section, Dr. Asgharzadeh addressed the concept of identity, describing it as a linguistic product that acts as a fundamental element of language and is subject to all the impurities, instabilities, and pluralities that language itself encompasses. He stated that post-structuralism rejects essentialist and substantialist views of identity because these identities are defined and expressed through language. When language itself possesses a non-pure, non-static, non-absolute, and non-eternal nature, how can the identity defined through that language be fixed, pure, and absolute?
The discussion then shifted to the topic of human rights and the discourse of "identity politics" in Azerbaijan. The speaker emphasized that proponents of the theory of "identity politics" must familiarize themselves with modern discussions about identity and its limitations. Otherwise, there is a risk that the just struggle of the Azerbaijani people for their human and collective rights will be presented to the global community as an undemocratic and non-modern struggle.
Many questions were raised regarding human rights and the current struggle of the people of Azerbaijan, which were addressed and answered by the speaker. Among these was a recent discussion among Azerbaijanis about the concept of "pan-Turkism." Dr. Asgharzadeh stated that today, any seven-year-old child who wishes to be educated in their mother tongue, Azerbaijani Turkish, is accused of pan-Turkism by the regime of the Islamic Republic as well as by fervent Iranian nationalism. In such conditions, terms like pan-Turkism and pan-Turanism naturally lose their analytical and clarifying power. For this reason, such discussions should be examined from a broader perspective of "democratic discourse." For example, strengthening the fight against racism, combating colonialism and exploitation (whether foreign, domestic, cultural, intellectual, etc.), and collaborating and uniting with other oppressed groups and peoples (women, students, workers, religious, sexual, national, and ethnic minorities) fall under the category of human rights struggles and democratic discourse. Conversely, promoting hate and derogatory literature, reinforcing essentialism, racism, and religious and ethnic fundamentalism are considered non-democratic actions and discourse. Based on such criteria, we should assess the democratic nature of individuals and groups and determine our own path of struggle.
During the question and answer session, as always, the hot topics of language, nation, and people were raised: Are we Azerbaijanis? Or Turks? Or Azerbaijani? In response to this question, Dr. Asgharzadeh emphasized the words "flexibility and adaptability," explaining that this issue can vary depending on different conditions and environments. For instance, in today's environment in Iran, we emphasize our Turkish identity more because our Turkish identity has long been subjected to humiliation and insult by a racist regime. On the other hand, in environments outside of Iran, terms like Azerbaijani or Azeri are more commonly used, as these terms more clearly and completely express our spatial and geographical identity than the term Turkish does (in most languages around the world, "Turk" is interpreted as "someone from Turkey").
Regarding the relationship between language and race and the existence or non-existence of a race called "Aryan," Asgharzadeh emphasized that from a scientific and biological perspective, there is no such thing as Aryan race, Turkic race, Arab race, and so on. Such classifications are discourse-linguistic concepts and are subject to power relations both within the language itself and in society. A sociological understanding of "race" is a linguistic/cultural/political/social understanding and has no relation to the science of biogenetics. The question arises: while scientific communities in the contemporary world believe in the futility of the existence of a race called Aryan and the invalidity of any essentialist or substantialist interpretations of "race," why should we Azerbaijanis spend our time debating whether our "race" is Aryan or non-Aryan? Scientific communities recognize only one race for all humans: the "human race."
In response to a question from the audience, the speaker stated that the hypothesis of the Turks of Azerbaijan being Aryan is a racist and ethnocentric notion designed with the intent to infringe upon the human rights of Azerbaijani Turks. Proponents of this racist theory believe that if this theory becomes established, Azerbaijanis will revert to their so-called "Aryan" identity and discard their current Turkish identity like an old pair of shoes. Experts know that this is sociologically, anthropologically, historically, and culturally impossible. Just as religious fundamentalism cannot return to the "Medina of the Prophet" in the era of the Prophet, we Azerbaijanis will also be unable to return, under any circumstances, to the "utopia of the Aryan race" from two thousand years ago. Proponents of the Aryan race theory must understand that, assuming “Aryan race and language” individuals lived in Azerbaijan a thousand years ago, we contemporary Azerbaijanis are the natural heirs and bearers of the genetic signs and cultural legacies of those people. The present-day Turks of Azerbaijan are the direct products of historical, geographical, ethnic, and cultural-social processes in the region of Azerbaijan. Therefore, those who are concerned about the "Azerbaijanis of a thousand years ago" must respect the human and collective rights of contemporary Turks in Azerbaijan because "these Azerbaijanis" are also the natural bearers of the cultural-genetic signs of "those Azerbaijanis."
Link to the original text: https://shahrvand.com/archives/3602