
Climate unrest made the rush of heat slow down as it approached the Gulf. It is getting hot and humid, the sun would shine as explicitly as it shines, right over the blazing shores and over the shoulders of the fishermen.
The rush of merchants and tourists, oil tankers and politicians doesn’t change the delicious calm of the region. When you talk of the Gulf, you can’t stop being romantic, you would know that if you smoke your waterpipe by its shores.
To us Iranians it is “The Persian Gulf”, we say the history shows in her accounts how Persian it is. On the other side of the Gulf it is called “The Arab Gulf”, that is the dominant language on the other side, and the number of Arab countries around the Gulf suggests that even if Persian, it is too tightly surrounded by Arab countries. As a Persian student who have studies in Arab countries as well, I am not surprised by the name of “Arab Gulf” which was in the text books of the schools I attended. I was later not surprised to see both Gulf and Oman sea be called “The Arabian Seas” on maps, and as an Iranian I am not surprised to see how Iranian react to their “Ever Persian Gulf” being called the Arab Gulf.
Despite all the issues that accompany the re-emerging of this disputation on the surface as the elections in all the countries around are in process, I see how the lives of people living in the region unaffected.
The Arab Gulf countries had been good to the mass migration of Persian speaking people who did not feel secure socially or financially or culturally. Iranians have their schools and universities open and boosting in the Arab Gulf countries. This shows that these countries are culturally stable, that they do not find opening of a couple of schools a threat to their culture. However on the other side of the Gulf, where Iran spreads its skirt of terrain over the northern shores of the Gulf, it is not the same story. Persian Language is the standard language of the country and I have not heard of any other school being functional, mediating the courses in any other language but Persian, though Iran is a combination of many different ethnic groups who have their own language, and Persian is not their first language.
Before the Iran and Iraq war there was a single Arabic medium school in the Khoozestan province, that school was closed never to be re-opened after the war. The fact is many people in the southern provinces of Iran are Arab Iranians and Arabic is their first language, but they do not have a direct access to Arabic education. They will need to pass the same courses planned for the Persian speaking students of high school.
Some time back I met this lady of Arab origin who had academic education in the Persian speaking universities. She was an Iranian Arab lady native to “Gulf”. She was talking about the schools where Persian speaking teachers would teach them Arabic and tell them they did not speak Arabic right!
She thought her country was not doing her – as an Iranian ethnic Arab – justice, she thought if she had a chance to have a bilingual education as she grew up and made it to the university, so that her Arabic would be polished and upgraded, she could have served her country much better than the ones who were Persian speaking and learnt Arabic as a second language.
What I am trying to talk about is the necessity of pushing aside this game of “Golf over the Gulf” and trying to consider the cultural problems, the social problems that the beautiful people of this region have, trying to find out how the Persian speaking and the Arabic speaking people of the Gulf. The problems of ethnicities and the dominant cultures and what is being compromised in between really needs to be addressed.
As to myself, I am reviving the Arabic I learnt back in the schools, it is pleasant talking to the young children, they correct my language, and they teach me more. I would have loved that in all countries around the Gulf, including ours, we open institutions that would preserve and upgrade the language and culture Middle East at large, meanwhile I can open a kindergarten and enjoy playing with “Gubbah”, that is what a ball is called in the Arab dialect spoken where I live.

Esra'a (Bahrain)
Fatima (Saudi Arabia)
Mira (UAE)
Kawthar (Sudan)
Wameeth (Iraq)
Karim (Egypt/Lebanon)
Lord Kavi (Iran)
Adel Alhilmi (Yemen/UAE)
Yara (Kuwait)
Ibn Yousof (Afghanistan)
Vahal (Kurdistan)
Tasnim (Libya)
Ali Dahmash (Jordan)
Tamara (Syria/UAE)
Ramzy (Palestine)
Eva (Israel)
Huma Imtiaz (Pakistan)
Nadia (Tunisia)
Youssef (Morocco) 











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My friend, how Sad it is to see and Iranian call the Persian Gulf other that its only name the Persian Gulf. How unfortunate is that because you saw other names for the Persian gulf in some Arab books you have been Arabized just because you got used to it. History is fact and the world call it the Persian Gulf. If there is somebody calling this region by any other name it is because of politics. Call it by its name or don’t call yourself Iranian, because you are an Arabized-Iranian, so call you self Arab and be Arab. It is not about race, It is about culture, we all are humans with different culture. you are free to choose but don’t try to change facts of the history for others!!!!!! Remember ,Only Persian Gulf. if you went to school you must be enough educated (if well) to know that. May be you choose a very bad school.