4 ms·
Naming is more political than one would imagine. It has only a little to do with actual history. As a fun example: I grew up calling a water body near my home
by vowelless 8y ago
Naming is more political than one would imagine. It has only a little to do with actual history.
As a fun example: I grew up calling a water body near my home country as Khaleej Al Arabi. The "Arabian gulf".
It's only when I came to the US that I realised people around the world, thanks to an effective campaign by the Persians, call that same waterbody the Persian Gulf.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute
Edit: actually, turns out it was the Arab nationalism that preferred to adopt "Arabian gulf" in the 1960s. Turns out I was sold Arab propaganda even after being told about the globally recognized name, that it was a Persian campaign.
- lainga 8y agoCan you give some more details about the Persian campaign that the propaganda you had absorbed discussed?
- vowelless 8y agoIt's been more than 10 years now, but I recall a friend of mine (Arab but living in America for a while) showing me websites and Google bombs that propped up content to change the perception that the name was not Arabian gulf but Persian Gulf. It was linked to Persian technologists who wanted to change this perception. A funny example of this was that in America, if you googled "Arabian gulf", the top result was a fake old school Internet Explorer 404 page with the title "Error: Gulf not found. You may be looking for Persian Gulf" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220437752/figure/fig1/AS:282405396074496@1444342101097/The-top-result-for-Arabian-Gulf.png https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220437752/figure/fi... Propaganda might be a strong word. It was more that some Arabs I knew in the west believed that Persians were trying to change the name, and not that the Arabs were the ones who actually changed it in the 60s. I was googling around now, I didn't realize Trump also used Arabian gulf recently: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4983604/donald-trump-iran-deal-tehran-decertify https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4983604/dona... It's a hot button topic!
- structclass 8y agoDo you actually believe in al jazeera?
- dang 8y agoWe've banned this account for using HN for flamewar (in this case, apparently nationalistic flamewar). Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tropo 8y ago"Arabian Gulf" is ambiguous. It could mean the Persian Gulf, or it could mean the Red Sea.