Confrontation of the Azerbaijan-Centered Turk Thinking System
with the Iran-Centered Persian Thinking System
Umud Duzgun
Introduction
The systems and methods of human thought profoundly influence the formation of individual and collective behavior. Extensive psychological research has been conducted on the diversity and mechanisms of human cognition, yielding numerous scientific perspectives on the methods and systems of individual and group thinking. Considering these various cognitive systems, this article investigates the ideological structure, political nature, methodologies, and characteristics of the Iran-centered thinking system over the past century. It critically examines the severe political repercussions of this system on non-Persian peoples—particularly the Azerbaijani Turks—and contrasts it with the Azerbaijan-centered thinking system. Finally, it underscores the necessity for the revival and consolidation of the Azerbaijan-centered thinking system (hereafter referred to as the Azerbaijan-Centered Turk Thought System) within the collective consciousness of the South Azerbaijani Turks.¹
The Azerbaijani Turk nation, with a millennium of statehood rooted in a shared collective memory, possesses a distinctive cognitive system of its own. Historically, the Azerbaijan-centered thinking system prevailed across various scales within Azerbaijani lands and territories inhabited by Azerbaijan Turks. However, following the English-backed coup of Seyyed Zia and Reza Mirpanj in 1920 (1299 Hijri Shamsi) and the consequent fall of the Turkic Qajar dynasty, the British government, through its mercenary agents—principally the Persian elite and the so-called mankurts (traitorous collaborators)—implemented a premeditated project aimed at restructuring sovereignty in Iran. This endeavor succeeded in supplanting the Azerbaijan-centered thinking system (Turkish majority) with the Iran-centered thinking system (Persian minority).
To entrench this system, the Persian minority government—hostile to the Turkic political elite—pursued a comprehensive policy of eradicating Turkish political influence, promoting the Iran-centered (Persian) cognitive framework, banning the Turkish language, imposing Persian, distorting history, destroying cultural and historical artifacts related to the Azerbaijani Turkic empire, and implementing other discriminatory measures. These actions inflicted profound damage on the Azerbaijan-centered (Turk) thinking system. Therefore, an understanding of the Iran-centered (Persian) thinking system’s nature is essential to grasp the depth and ramifications of this issue.
The Nature of the Iran-Centered (Persian) Thinking System
The Iran-centered thinking system is fundamentally racist and fascist in nature. It is founded on an extremist form of Persian nationalism intertwined with the Shiite Shu’ubiyya ideology. This system operates through racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, identity eradication, cultural and linguistic genocide, forced demographic changes, assimilation, and unification of non-Persian peoples. Its ultimate objective is the revival of a mythic ancient Persian empire and the establishment of an imagined global hegemony.
This ideology also draws from the discredited Nazi notion of Aryan racial superiority, territorial imperialism, and Persian cultural and linguistic chauvinism. Over the past century, backed by foreign colonial powers, this ideology has been systematically implemented by the Persian minority regime ruling Iran under the guise of national unity, encapsulated in slogans such as “one country, one nation, one identity, and one language.” This ideological framework goes by various names, including Pan-Iranism, Pan-Persianism, the Iran-Shahr school, and is propagated by factions across the political spectrum—right, left, and national-religious alike—all espousing the same fascist, racist Persian doctrines. These factions perpetuate their agenda through systematic lies, distortion, and falsification of history.²
Methods and Characteristics of the Iran-Centered (Persian) Thinking System
Imposition of Racist Theories:
The system fabricates artificial identities for the Azerbaijani Turks by falsifying historical and linguistic facts. It propagates the narrative that Azerbaijani Turks are not truly Turks but Aryans who originally spoke Persian, later “corrupted” by Mongol influence. It insists that their language was not Turkish but a derivative of ancient Persian or Azeri, denying their Turkish ethnic identity. This fabricated ideology is disseminated through educational institutions and mass media.Institutionalized Second- and Third-Class Citizenship:
The system enforces systemic discrimination by monopolizing wealth, political power, and key governmental positions within the Persian minority elite, systematically excluding Turks from decision-making roles and portraying them as foreign migrants from Mongolia.Denial of Persian Ethnicity:
Though a minority, Persians assert ethnic superiority by denying the existence of a distinct Persian ethnicity, instead coining the inclusive “Iranian” identity to subsume all ethnicities under Persian cultural hegemony.Ethnic Hatred and Stereotyping:
Turks are derogatorily depicted as uncivilized invaders and servants of Persians, indebted to Persian rule for their civilization.Denial of Turkish Identity:
The Azerbaijani Turks’ identity is denied, reduced to one among many minor tribes within Iran, positioned only as border guardians with no legitimate political status.Imposition of Persian Identity:
The system enforces the Indian-Tajik (Dari-Persian) identity upon the population under the false umbrella of a shared “Iranian” identity.Imposition of the Dari-Persian Language:
The sterile, heavily Arabicized Dari-Persian language—over 80% of its vocabulary is non-Persian—is imposed as the official language.Systematic Imposition of Persian Culture:
Persian-specific customs, holidays, and rituals (e.g., Uncle Nowruz, Omar Killing Day, Sizdeh Bedar), as well as Persian music and dance forms falsely labeled “Iranian,” are imposed on non-Persians.Institutionalized Humiliation of Turkish Culture:
The Turkish language and culture are demeaned in official Persian media through mockery, denigration in literature, poetry, films, cartoons, and television, and by attributing inferior roles to Turkic characters.Destruction or Appropriation of Turkish Historical and Cultural Heritage:
Architectural, scientific, and artistic legacies of the Turkish peoples are either destroyed or appropriated under Persian authorship. Traditional Turkish melodies, dances, customs, proverbs, carpet art, and cuisine are plagiarized and falsely claimed as Persian or Iranian.Historical Falsification:
A fabricated Persian ancient history is promulgated while the history and accomplishments of Azerbaijani Turks are denied or attributed to Persians.Hostility toward the Name and Existence of Azerbaijan:
The territory historically known as Azerbaijan is divided into provinces with Persian names; Turkish place names are replaced with Persian ones. Notably, West Azerbaijan province is renamed “Urmia,” governed by non-native Kurdish officials, and supported by Kurdish immigrant populations and terrorist groups with territorial ambitions. The Iranian government’s cyber networks actively promote hostility against Azerbaijan’s name and heritage.³Environmental and Demographic Engineering:
Deliberate environmental degradation (e.g., drying Lake Urmia, deforestation of Qaradagh) is used to undermine the local economy and force migration. Kurdish immigration is encouraged to sever land connectivity between South Azerbaijani Turks and their kin in Turkey and North Azerbaijan.Economic Exploitation:
Azerbaijani resources such as gold and copper are extracted and transferred to Persian-speaking regions, while underinvestment impoverishes the Azerbaijani population, driving forced migration and depopulation to fulfill Persian-centric fascist goals.Destruction of Azerbaijani Myths and National Spirit:
The regime attacks the fighters and national myths of Azerbaijan Turks, undermining their cultural foundations, collective courage, and spirit of resistance.⁴
The Iran-Centered (Persian) Thinking System’s Instrumentalization of Religion and Political Concepts
The Iran-centered Persian thinking system distorts universal concepts such as religion, ideology, democracy, and secularism to legitimize its discriminatory policies. It manipulates these concepts, presenting self-serving definitions to justify fascist actions—invoking threats to Islam, global communism, or the unity of the working class to dismiss minority cultural and linguistic demands. Despite empty promises of democracy, the regime refuses to acknowledge the rights of non-Persian nations, even on paper.
Consequently, all Persian political factions operating within the framework of the Iran-centered system—whether ruling parties (Principlists, Reformists) or opposition groups (National-Religious, Freedom Movement, Mojahedin Khalq, Monarchists, National Front, Tudeh Party, Fedayi, and communists)—instrumentalize religion, ideology, democracy, and secularism to advance Pan-Persianism and suppress non-Persian peoples, especially the Azerbaijani Turks.⁵
Part 2: The Azerbaijan-Centered Turkic Thought System
Foundations of the Thought System
The Azerbaijan-centered Turkic thought system is rooted in five key pillars:
Identity: Azerbaijani Turkic identity as a core pole of the Turkic world.
Language: Azerbaijani Turkic language as the cognitive and cultural vehicle shaping worldview, traditions, and collective wisdom.
History: A thousand-year historical continuity of rule and cultural development centered in the Azerbaijani homeland.
Geography: The historical territorial core of Azerbaijan, with Tabriz as the political and cultural center.
Political Power: Emergence of a political elite from the same cultural, linguistic, and geographic base, reinforcing the system’s legitimacy and strength.
Historical Evolution
The thought system can be traced back to ancient Atropatene during the Median and Alexander the Great period — the cradle of independent statehood in historical Azerbaijan.
Various states and empires exemplify this Azerbaijan-centered thinking:
Babak Khorramdin’s resistance (9th century) was an early embodiment of Azerbaijani-centered political and cultural identity.
Safavid Empire originated in Azerbaijan but declined due to Persian-shuubi infiltration.
Afsharid Empire restored Azerbaijani-centered authority under Nader Shah.
Zand Dynasty represented a Persian-shuubi Iran-centered interruption.
Qajar Empire initially revived the Azerbaijan-centered system but ultimately succumbed to Persian influence, culminating in territorial losses and weakening of Azerbaijani dominance.
The Constitutional Revolution marked a direct confrontation between Azerbaijan-centered and Persian-centered thought.
The collapse of the Qajar Empire and rise of the Pahlavi regime further entrenched Persian centralism and undermined Azerbaijani autonomy.
On the northern side of the Aras River, Azerbaijan experienced independent national government periods under leaders like Rasulzadeh, Pishevari, and Elchibey, each reaffirming Azerbaijan-centered thought.
Post-Ottoman and Pahlavi Contexts
Unlike the Ottoman Turks, who transitioned to a democratic republic after imperial collapse, the Qajar Turks lost power to British colonial influence and Persian fascism under Reza Khan.
Despite some hopes among Azerbaijani elites for political influence within Iran, repressive policies and forced Persianization led to a growing national liberation movement focused on establishing a self-governed Azerbaijan.
The 1945 National Government of Azerbaijan was a democratic and decentralized experiment opposing Persian centralism, but was crushed.
The Pahlavi period intensified assimilation, repressions, and economic marginalization, causing intellectual and capital flight.
Contemporary Mental Structures: Dual Thought System and Other-Centeredness
Many Southern Azerbaijani Turks were historically trapped in a dual thought system, torn between Azerbaijan-centered identity and Persian-centered Iranist dominance.
This duality led to compromises and limited national demands, often restricted to minor cultural concessions such as limited Turkish language education.
Some factions still operate within Persian-centered frameworks or act as regime proxies to dilute the national movement.
The national movement now rejects this duality, emphasizing an independent, systemic Azerbaijan-centered worldview that unites identity, culture, language, and political aspiration.
Features of the Azerbaijan-Centered Turkic Thought System
Identity: Turk of Azerbaijan
Language: Azerbaijani Turkic
History: Millennia-old Azerbaijani Turkic heritage
National Myths and Symbols: Figures like Babak, Sattar Khan, Khiyabani, Pishevari, and contemporary martyrs
Homeland: United Azerbaijan, centered in Tabriz
Geography: Historical Azerbaijani lands
Theory: Political strategy and goals grounded in Azerbaijan-centered thought
Political Power: Struggle for sovereignty linked to historical and modern Azerbaijani statehood
Part 3: The Phenomenon of Other-Centeredness Among South Azerbaijani Turks
In multiethnic states, other-centeredness arises from sociological and psychological dynamics.
Despite being a majority and having a rich ruling history, Azerbaijani Turks in Iran exhibit a high degree of other-centeredness, unlike minority groups with autonomous states (e.g., Quebecois, Catalans).
This is primarily due to:
Prohibition of education in the mother tongue, replaced by Persian, causing cognitive and cultural dislocation.
Linguistic determinism: Persian language education shifts thinking patterns away from Azerbaijani self-centeredness toward Persian-centered frameworks.
The national movement counters this by promoting Azerbaijan-centered thought through free media, satellite TV, internet, and social networks, penetrating even heavily Persianized populations in Tehran, Karaj, and isolated Azerbaijani communities.
The national movement frames Azerbaijan as the “qibla” (spiritual direction) for Turkish thought and identity.
Part Three:
The Phenomenon of Other-Centeredness among the Turks of South Azerbaijan
In multi-ethnic societies, the formation of mental “other-centeredness” among individuals and groups can be examined from both sociological and psychological perspectives. However, the tendency toward “other-centeredness” differs significantly between various minority and majority groups depending on their socio-political and cultural conditions. For instance, among the Quebecois in Canada and the Catalans in Spain—both minorities with strong national institutions and education in their mother tongue at all levels—this tendency is close to zero. In contrast, despite being a demographic majority with a thousand-year ruling history, the Azerbaijanis in Iran exhibit a very high level of “other-centeredness.” This is largely due to the lack of a national state and the prohibition of education in their mother language.
Moreover, the suppression and non-use of the Turkish mother tongue, replaced forcibly by Persian, have not only slowed the transmission of language and cultural identity among Azerbaijanis but also impaired their cognitive abilities related to independent thought. Since each language provides a unique framework for interpreting the world, Azerbaijanis educated primarily in Persian have developed a dual and unstable mode of thinking. The cognitive center of gravity for many Persian-educated Azerbaijani Turks has shifted away from self-identity towards a non-self, Persian-centric worldview. This phenomenon aligns with the concept of linguistic determinism, where language shapes cognition and worldview. Consequently, the imposed Persian language has unconsciously aligned many Azerbaijani Turks’ thought patterns with the Tehran-centered, Persian national ideology.
In response to this alienation and “non-self” mentality, which frames Azerbaijani Turks as rootless, landless, or as a peripheral “Fazeri” group or a mere Turk tribe of Iran, the national movement of Azerbaijan has, over the last three decades, proposed a return to a self-centered, Azerbaijan-focused cognitive framework—the “Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought system.” Despite strict prohibitions, repression, and censorship, national activists have utilized free media—satellite channels, internet, and social networks—to break the Persian regime’s information blockade. Through cultural, educational, and political efforts, they have established the “Turkish” Azerbaijan-centered thought as a clear alternative to the Persian Iran-centered paradigm.
Interestingly, the first and second generations of Azerbaijani Turks living under the dominant Persian cultural umbrella in Tehran and Karaj, despite severe assimilation pressures, demonstrate an increasing tendency toward the Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought. Even Azerbaijani Turks residing in isolated enclaves beyond the contiguous Azerbaijani territory, such as in Isfahan province, northern Khorasan, and Qashqai regions—where Persian thought dominates fully—embrace the national movement’s discourse and regard Azerbaijan as the spiritual “qibla” (direction) of their thought. This is because they perceive the destructive effects of Persian-centric fascism more acutely than those in majority-Turkish cities.
Revealing and Rejecting the Old Distorted Thought About the Azerbaijan Issue
A significant deception propagated by Persian fascism, often via Azerbaijani collaborators in Persian communist parties such as the Tudeh Party and Fadaiyan, was the narrative of “national oppression” and “elimination of national discrimination.” This narrative, prevalent until the late 1980s, aimed not to resolve the Azerbaijan issue fundamentally but to reduce it to a mere question of minority rights or social discrimination—akin to addressing the needs of physically disabled people—thus trivializing it.
Following the defeat of the National Government in 1946, the forced merger of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party into the Tudeh Party, the assassination of martyr Pishavari by the KGB, and the suppression of the national salvation movement abroad, the Persian Iran-centered communists adopted a seemingly softer stance. They portrayed themselves as defenders of Azerbaijani Turks’ rights, while simultaneously covering up mass killings—estimated at 25,000 to 30,000 victims—and collaborating with the Pahlavi regime. Their declarations about fighting discrimination and “national oppression” served to shrink the national struggle and control its activists. This manipulation diverted the nation’s fight from reclaiming sovereignty and justice to a limited struggle for cultural accommodations under the existing regime.
At the behest of their Moscow and Tehran masters, the Persian Iran-centered communists consigned Azerbaijani activists to the basements of the Tudeh and Fadaiyan parties, urging them to fight for minor reforms under slogans of Lenin and Stalin’s legacy. This deception resulted in a generation of Azerbaijani Stalinist-trained, brainwashed pan-Iranists who, during the 1979 revolution, largely abandoned the national cause, instead supporting Khomeini’s regime and Article 110 of the Velayat-e-Faqih. By opposing indigenous Muslim people’s movements in Azerbaijan, they actively collaborated in suppressing their own nation under the guise of anti-imperialism.
In contrast, the Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought and its independent national movement in the last three decades have exposed these frauds, demonstrating that the Azerbaijan national issue transcends mere demands for literacy classes in Turkish or the elimination of “minor national oppression.” The Azerbaijan issue is existential—“a struggle for survival or extinction”—and fundamentally political. Its only resolution lies in a comprehensive political struggle to expel the fascist Persian minority regime from the historical Azerbaijani lands. Given that the destruction of South Azerbaijan’s identity, language, and economy is a century-old deliberate project, the sole way to halt it is through the establishment of an independent South Azerbaijani national state.*10
Intensification of Regime Attacks and Change of Theoretical Warfare Tactics
Over the past decade, the Persian minority regime has intensified discrimination and repression against Azerbaijanis, while simultaneously escalating its theoretical warfare against the Azerbaijan-centered thought. Persian media, universities, and Aryan fascist ideologues have been empowered with multi-billion-dollar budgets to advance campaigns promoting the “Persian language,” expanding the “Persian-Shiite Shuubiya Crescent,” and embedding the “Iranian civilization domain.” These efforts give rise to fascist-Aryan currents operating under the softened label of the “Iran-shahri thought current.”*11
Facing growing national consciousness among Azerbaijani Turks and the ineffectiveness of the Persian Iran-centered thought system, the regime shifted tactics. It exploited heavily assimilated, self-defeated Azerbaijanis and mercenary collaborators to form parallel networks intended to derail the Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought system from within. This “Azeri network”—composed of half-Azerbaijanis, mankurtized individuals, Armenians, Persian-speaking Turks, and regime-paid mercenaries—worked alongside deceptive reformist currents and IRGC cyber networks. Despite substantial resources, these efforts failed to derail the national discourse and, in some instances, were forced into tactical retreats, softening their fascist rhetoric.*11
Final Word
The two thought systems—Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought and Persian Iran-centered thought—are fundamentally opposed and locked in an ongoing, full-scale ideological conflict across political, cultural, and economic spheres. The Persian Iran-centered thought system is fascist, anti-Turk, and non-independent, operating in coordination with global powers to preserve the status quo. It employs both aggressive and deceptive soft methods to maintain control.
Conversely, the Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought system is civil, democratic, and employs diverse thinking methods—including creative, critical, and abstract approaches—to address issues systematically and comprehensively. Rooted in national cohesion and alignment with the broader Turkic world, it resists Persian fascism and has institutionalized a national discourse based on its principles. The movement continues its struggle toward independence and self-determination.*12
Footnotes
10 Historical context on the century-long policy of cultural and political suppression of South Azerbaijan.
11 Details on the regime’s budget allocations and ideological campaigns to promote Persian cultural dominance.
12 Analysis of the ideological foundations and strategic vision of the Azerbaijan-centered Turk thought system.
The End.
