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Anti-Iranianism

Anti-Iranianism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

• Note for closing admin. This AfD was listed on the Iranian Wikipedians' notice board by User:Zereshk. Jayjg 20:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

That's the defined purpose of the "notice" "board": To inform editors of articles in need of attention, cleanup, sourcing, etc.--Zereshk 20:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If that were the real reason, it would have been listed there weeks ago. Jayjg 20:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually it was, and many times. Take a look at the article's history. It has been listed before. Example, July 20th, 2006, it's been listed, and nopt by me.--Zereshk 20:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Despite what the real reason may be (or have been), I don't think it is inappropriate to get comments from the individuals who contributed to this article and who may be more involved with and/or knowledgeabe about the topic. Black Falcon 20:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This article was previously nominated for deletion as Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Anti-Persianism by Arabsand was kept. Black Falcon 20:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is, first and foremost, Original Research. It compiles a list of harsh words or negative actions taken towards Persians, the nation of Persia before it became Iran, and the Iranian government and defines them as "anti-Iranianism." There is no question that racial prejudice against Persians or other Iranians exists, and it deserves an article. The problem is that this article lumps several different topics (anti-Persian sentiments in the ancient world, actions taken by governments against historical Persia, disputes between the US and Iran, anti-Persianism in the Arab world) and lumps them under the heading "anti-Iranianism." The term "anti-Iranianism" is a neologism. If you exclude wikipedia forks and websites referencing wikipedia there are only 365 google hits on the phrase "anti-Iranianism" of which only 150 are unique. Anti-Persianism only gets about 200 ghits without wikipedia , and "anti-Persian sentiment" only about 40 . Only six books in the Google books database contain the words "anti-Iranianism" and only two scholarly articles use the term. . By comparison, a well-established concept such as anti-semitism gets over 2 million google results. Furthermore, the article itself is highly POV. The section on the united states, for example, defines diplomatic actions such as denying visas as anti-Iranianism without any kind of sourcing to suggest that they are. (Not to mention the fact that the content is almost exactly duplicated at United States-Iran relations. It is also highly-POV to lump actions taken against a government together with racism towards an ethnic group (Persians), but this article makes absolutely no distinction between the two. I recently removed a photograph of a US Army poster with the words "IRAN... you're next" and a picture of Uncle Sam holding a wrench from the article. Although presented as an official US Army poster, the image was, of course, ripped off from a WW2 James Montgomery Flagg poster which originally referred to Japan. This kind of flagrant POV violation is rampant in this article. GabrielF 18:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually "Anti-Iranianism" in Persian language gives 17,000 hits for ایرانی ستیزی and 25,000 hits for ایران ستیزی.--Zereshk 20:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong and Speedy Keep: The article is well-referenced and "anti-Iranianism" or "anti-Iranian sentiments" are used in numerous scholarly books. There are thusands of google hits about the subject and Misplaced Pages conatins dozens of similar articles about other anti-ethnic and anti-national terms such as Anti-Arabism, Anti-Turkism, Anti-Armenianism, Anti-Hellenism, Anti-Irishism, Anti-Italianism, Anti-Japanese sentiment and...you can find the complete list at List of anti-ethnic and anti-national terms. --Mardavich 18:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Only the first of your three links works for me. Yes, there are books that use the phrase "anti-Iranian", but is it "anti-Iranian" in the sense described in this article? If the government of Azerbaijan is politically opposed to the government of Iran is that the same thing as racism against Persians? It is OR to link the two together without a scholarly work doing so. GabrielF 18:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, possibly rename, cleanup - First, a clarification, the term "anti-Iranianism" would refer to the actions taken against the country of Iran or persons of Iranian nationality, but not persons of Persian descent (that's anti-Persianism). I do agree, however, that lumping anti-Iranianism and anti-Persianism together is inappropriate. In response to your criticisms:

1. Violating WP:NOR - how so? Please explain (the article provides a great many sources).
2. Non-notability - I don't think the comparison with anti-Semitism is appropriate as I'm sure its use exceeds all other forms of anti-"Group"ism (with the possibly exception of anti-Americanism).
3. Violating WP:NPOV - Even if the article is kept, the section on the US should probably be removed in its entirety and replaced with a brief summary and a link to the United States-Iran relations article. Moreover, much of the article (excluding the US section) is about anti-Persianism. Perhaps the article would benefit from being renamed to anti-Persianism and edited to reflect this new title. -- Black Falcon 18:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• OR - The OR comes from taking many separate concepts (anti-Persian sentiments in the ancient world, actions taken against Persia by various governments, actions taken against Iran by various governments, anti-Persian sentiment in the Arab world) and lumping them together under a new concept that is not used by scholars. I agree that an article about racism against Persians is acceptable and I agree that an article on US-Iran relations is acceptable, but putting them all together under what is essentially a neologism is not acceptable. GabrielF 19:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• So, then, we are (essentially) in agreement (with the possible exception that I still think the article ought to be worked on and not deleted). I think the OR element would be removed if a distinction was drawn between anti-Persianism in reference to the Persian people, anti-Persianism in reference to the Persian government, anti-Iranianism in reference to the Iranian people, and anti-Iranianism in reference to the Iranian government. In order to fit with the Anti-Arabism, Anti-Turkism, etc. articles, the article should include only anti-Persianism and anti-Iranianism against the Persian and Iranian peoples, respectively. Although the two groups are not the same, I think the fact that many (including most Westerners) equate the two groups justifies their inclusion in one article at least for now (ideally, they would be separate articles about hostility to Persian ethnics and Iranian nationals). Black Falcon 19:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I could support keeping parts of the article if it was called something like Racial prejudice against Persians and Iranians and only dealt with that topic. The problem is that the events and quotes in this article are generally cited, but I don't see a source that really defines the concept of anti-Iranianism or anti-Persianism and gives its history. In the case of prejudice against minorities in the west and even in the ancient world, there are many notable historical works that identify what the prejudice is, how it is defined, what its history is, etc. Those works can then be debated by other scholars. In this case we're doing that work ourselves and that is OR. If the article is rewritten so that it is based on scholarly work about anti-Persianism and not an original synthesis of historical events that identifies people as anti-Persian than the article is okay. Otherwise, I think we're outside the domain of an encyclopedia. Regardless, the political stuff (Bush Sr. not apologizing for shooting down a plane, the US denying visas, a legal dispute about Persian antiquities, etc. etc.) must be removed from this article. It is highly, highly POV. GabrielF 19:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, I posted in response to your unrevised comment. I do agree that most of the political section should be removed (in fact, I will take a look right after I submit this comment). I am not really familiar with the scholarly dialogue and can therefore suggest this: Delete the blatantly POV sections and cleanup the remainder of the article through a discussion on the talk page. If after some time these issues have not been resolved and constructive dialogue on the talk page has ceased, nominate the article for AfD once more. What do you think? Black Falcon 19:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• This would be an acceptable solution for me. Particularly controversial cases could be discussed on the article's talk page. However, the cleanup needs to be done carefully. For example, Russian occupation of Persian territories is really not anti-Persianism. However, other cases should be kept (or at least discussed). For example, the photo with the poster stating "Deport all Iranians" or a statement like "Nuke Iran" are aimed at both the state and the people. I think such cases should be included (but again, this is a matter for the talk page). So, (assuming, of course, you and the remaining contributors to this AfD agree) how do we go about doing this? I don't know if it's proper Wikiquette to rename/hugely modify a page during an AfD (although if it survives completely unchanged, I will be bold and do it myself). Black Falcon 19:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Also, maybe the current title should be kept and a statement added at the beginning about what the article will and will not include. I'm not opposed to renaming if a good (and ideally 'shortish') title can be found. Black Falcon 19:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Notability Even without the comparison to anti-semitism, you would expect that the topic of a wikipedia article would be, especially one as controversial as this, would generate some scholarly interest and discussion. However, I was shocked at how little I found about the concept of Anti-Iranianism. GabrielF 19:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• See my comment below re:Notability. Black Falcon 20:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• By the way, by cleanup I mean deleting at least 2/3 of the article. It is useless (and also POV) to classify every criticism of or military action against Persia or Iran as anti-Iranianism (not just in the US section). Black Falcon 19:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, every military action against Iran has not been listed. Youd be surprised at how many times Iran has been invaded. And this is not "criticism", nor is this, or this or this. Now if all these said "Fuck the Jews", we would be quick to list them as examples of existing "anti-semitism", wouldnt we now.--Zereshk 19:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• I realize that every action has not been listed; I was trying to make a point. I do agree that anti-Iranianism and anti-Persianism exists (see my comments above, including the example on "Nuke Iran"), but think the article should address them in the context of hostility to the Iranian and Persian peoples, and not the Iranian and Persian governments. Also, whereas "Fuck the Jews" is anti-Semitic, "fuck Israel" is not (at least not necessarily). Likewise, "fuck Iranians" is anti-Iranian (people) whereas "fuck Iran" is not (at least not necessarily). I still favor keep and cleanup. Black Falcon 19:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• I disagree with your second point that any criticism of Jews would be included on wikipedia. We do have notability standards and I would be absolutely opposed to including a discussion of non-notable idiot attack websites on wikipedia. Notable anti-semitism should be discussed, but nukeiran.com has an alexa rank of about 3,000,000. Perhaps there's a larger point here. If the best examples of anti-Iranianism you can come up with are a couple of non-notable webpostings, should we really have a 90k article on the topic? GabrielF 20:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Also note that while I do think the topic is encyclopedia-worthy (and should be kept), much of it currently reads like History of hostile interactions between Iran and other states. Anti-Iranianism against the Iranian state is also very real, but that should belong in the individual country relations articles (US-Iran, Iraq-Iran, Russia-Iran, etc.). I don't believe the content of the article is useless or bad (in fact, I think they are quite well-sourced and should be available on other pages on WP); just that it is inappropriate to put it all together and especially to put it under this title. Black Falcon 20:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per GabrielF. Even by Misplaced Pages standards this article is extraordinarily WP:POV and WP:OR. Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 19:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep or merge and major cleanupI think the material contained within the article is notable although I believe it violates NPOV in some respects. Listing cities "likely to be attacked by the US" is a good example. Surely this could be worded differently.--IRelayer 19:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong and Speedy Keep: Per Mardavich. Surena 19:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Mardavich.--Sa.vakilian 19:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

CommentThis article was nominated to deletion please look at the former discussions too.--Sa.vakilian 19:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, of course, per GabrielF and Morton devonshire. Misplaced Pages is not the place for invented victimhoods and neologisms. Jayjg 19:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong and Speedy keep. First, I think the proposing of deletion of this article is highly politically motivated. Secondly, "Persia" IS Iran: It is the official name of the country prior to 1935. Thirdly, calling the article things like "POV fork", "soapbox", or "neogism" is completely unfounded; that's the very reason why nearly 100 sources are given to back up every inch of the article. And finally, Google is not a scholarly or scientific measure of what does and what does not exist, by any means. Google only quantifies the number of links to a page by other ranked websites, mostly commercial. Take for example the article Zayandeh Rud civilization. It exists NOWHERE on google, except for WP and the links given there. So does it not exist? In fact it does. Similar here. Anti-Iranianism does exist and it is VERY REAL.--Zereshk 19:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Where to start. First of all, this qualifies as original research, second of all, it isn't notable as an academic subject and finally, this looks like a pov fork attempt. Guy Montag 19:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

With such strong referencing of the article, it's a bit difficult to call it "original research".--Zereshk 19:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Original research is often well-referenced; that's how just about every PhD thesis is written. However, while that's fine for PhD theses, it's forbidden in Misplaced Pages. Jayjg 19:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

PHD theses actually count as sources according to WP rules.--Zereshk 20:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

How is that relevant? The article is not a PhD thesis, and Misplaced Pages doesn't allow original research! Jayjg 20:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems you didnt follow the logic. Regardless, if it was "original research" it wouldnt be listed by Persian google on 42,000 hits.--Zereshk 20:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - As per Zereshk, Mardavich, and Black Falcon. How are there articles such as Iran international crisis, yet this should get deleted?Azerbaijani 19:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The current title is a neologism and most of the content is original research. Maybe something like Anti-Persian sentiment may work, but it will be a different article. Beit Or 19:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Millions of Iranians are not Persians.-- Ευπάτωρ 19:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Almost completely OR. --jpgordon 19:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Original research. SlimVirgin 19:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep I find it very notable. Anti-Iranianism is rampant in the world, especially these days. I have hear this term used on CNN alone several times. The pov (if any) should be toned down but the article is extremely notable.-- Ευπάτωρ 19:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per GabrielF: Google-hits-based OR. Undoubtedly, there are other OR-based failures like eg. Anti-Irishism; however, that's a reason for clean-up or AfDs, not for emulation. --tickle me 19:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Per nom.--MONGO 20:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment:Notability - a Google count is not always the best indicator of notability. However, there is a large number of hits for anti-Iranian and anti-Persian (essentially dropping the "ism"s). The article is however quite POV (not a reason for deletion) and should be cleaned up. What does anti-Iranianism refer to: hostility against the people or the state? If the former, most of the political history should go. If the latter, then the article is POV: the history of a state's conflicts with other states is a matter for the History of Iran or History of Persia articles. Black Falcon 20:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The article makes it seem as if Islamic Republic = Iran; thus, opposition to the regime is opposition to Iranians which is false.--Patchouli 20:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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