Bugun
2010-11-18 01:36:54 UTC
Mr Joseph S. BlatterPresident, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
September 3rd, 2010
Dear Mr Blatter,
As a number of Azerbaijani and Iranian scholars, journalists, professionals and human rights activists, we would like to submit this letter to you as a formal complaint in regard to a series of blatant acts of racism that have been taking place in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s football stadiums against the Azerbaijani team of Tractor-Sazi (Tiraxtur) and its supporters-- and by a qualifying extension, against Iran’s more than twenty million Turkic citizens. We hope that you will recognize the urgency of this matter and will take necessary action as stipulated in FIFA’s anti-racist policies, particularly Article 26 pertaining to Safety Regulations and Article 58 pertaining to FIFA Disciplinary Code. The following constitutes the basis of our complaint and will provide you some crucial information regarding the above mentioned acts of racism as well as the context within which they have taken place.
Tiraxtur: The Azerbaijani Team
The Azerbaijani football team of Tractor-Sazi, better known as Tiraxtur, was founded in 1970 through the sponsorship of famous Tabriz Tractor-making industrial unit. From the very beginning Tiraxtur demonstrated exceptional sportsmanship and professionalism that placed it amongst the most favoured football teams in Iran. In a short period of time, the team was able to win the hearts and minds of the people of Tabriz, and when in recent months it excelled to the level of Iran’s super league teams, Tiraxtur captivated the entire Azerbaijan and the vast majority of Iran’s Turkic community. As such, tens of thousands of enthusiastic Tiraxtur supporters fill up the stadiums whenever there is a match between Tiraxtur and other teams. Understandably, the Tiraxtur supporters come from all over Azerbaijan and other Turkic populated areas of Iran who speak Azeri-Turkic as their natural mother language. Consequently, Azeri-Turkic becomes the dominant language of support and encouragement in these stadiums. It is the language that most intimately expresses Tiraxtur supporters’ feelings of joy, happiness and spiritual elation. And this poses a major challenge to the practice of official racism in Iran where Farsi (the language of Persian ethnic group) is the hegemonic official and national language of an extremely diverse population. The use of Azeri-Turkic in stadiums challenges the official status of Farsi as the dominant language of the country. As an officially unacknowledged and banned language, the Azeri-Turkic destabilizes Iran’s entire racist establishment which functions on a variety of official, cultural, collective and individual levels. The use of Azerbaijan’s stigmatized ‘unofficial’ language in football stadiums defies Persian racism and invokes retaliatory responses from both the government and members of the dominant Persian group. This begs several questions: Is it contrary to FIFA procedures to support one’s team in one’s own natural mother language? Where does it say that the ban imposed on Azeri language in schools and government offices ought to be extended to football stadiums? Shouldn’t FIFA take a transparent stance against this despicable act of linguistic racism?
Racism against Tiraxtur and Its Supporters
Azerbaijani Turks have been targets of racist attacks in Iranian cities of Boushehr, Isfahan, Kerman, and in the capital city of Tehran during the football matches that took place in these cities over the past few months. In the football stadiums of these major cities, racist slogans were shouted incessantly against Tiraxtur and its Azerbaijani/Turkic supporters. These slogans depicted Azerbaijani-Turks as subhuman “donkeys” who were not equal to Persians but constituted a category below ‘normal human beings.’ In these racist attacks, the use of the term ‘donkey’ serves to dehumanize the Azerbaijani-Turks, violate their dignity and break their spirit.