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The New York Times needs to hire geography bee contestants

dysm

The above map accompanies an article titled Imagining a Remapped Middle East. Do you notice something off? I do. Here’s a list of the provinces of Iraq. Do you notice any that end in -stans? No. Here’s why, -stan:

The suffix -stan (Persian: ـستان‎ -stān) is Persian for “place of”[1] or “country”.[2]

The suffix also appears in the names of many regions, especially in Central and South Asia, but also in the Caucasus and Russia; areas where significant amounts of Persian culture were spread or adopted. The suffix is also used more generally, as in Persian and Urdu rigestân (ریگستان) “place of sand, desert”, Pakistan “land of the pure” and golestan (گلستان) “place of flowers, garden”, Hindi devasthan (“place of devas, temple”), etc.

It’s obviously Indo-Iranian; note Rajasthan. Therefore it is bizarre to label a region as “Wahhabistan“. To make it clear for readers “Wahhabistan” is in Saudi Arabia, which is an Arab land, and Arabs don’t use any such suffix. The usage of that suffix connotes areas of Persianate cultural hegemony, which has often included non-Persian regions such as Turkestan and Hindustan (i.e., the Turkic and Indian cultural domains). But not Arab ones. There is a term “Arabistan”, but it means “land of the Arabs” in Persian. Wahhabistan, Shiitestan, and Sunnistan might make sense if the cartographer was Iranian. But that seems strange in an American publication, to be presenting an Iranian-centric worldview. Then again, mainstream publications have a problem with remembering that Iran is not an Arab country, so perhaps they tasked an Iranian with coming up with the labels.

The main reason I point this out is not to catch people in picayune details, but observe how shallow and superficial a grasp of facts is in much of the media establishment which is attempting to inform and enlighten the public. The reality is that the establishment is full of bullshit artists. Beware. If these people can’t even best 12 year old contestants for the geography bee, do you think they can inform you reasonably about world affairs?

(of course to be fair to The New York Times 99% of people who talk about foreign policy seem to be bullshit artists with a tenuous grasp of history and geography)

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