You Say Persian, I Say Arabian

There's a huge controversy (pronounced here with the accent on the second syllable) over the name of the body of water that I can see out of my apartment window. All the maps around here call it the Arabian Gulf. However, the United Nations and, of course, the country to the north formerly called Persia and now known as Iran consider "Persian Gulf" to be the only valid name. Some in the media, including the BBC, prefer to fudge and just call the waterway the "Gulf", which satisfies no one.

Iran seems to be trying to bring the issue to a head, calling off the Islamic Solidarity Games which were to be held in Iran in April because organizers could not agree on which term to use on the logo and medals. Iran most recently has threatened to impound airplanes that fail to use the term "Persian Gulf" on their in-flight monitors. (This idea was particularly interesting for me, as I have been wondering why United Airlines refers to the country of Iraq on their in-flight monitors as Mesopotamia. But perhaps it's only so the passengers don't get upset at the thought of flying over a war zone.)

If you search Arabian Gulf on Google, the first hit takes you to a website resembling a 404 error message, which tells you "The Gulf You Are Looking For Does Not Exist. Try Persian Gulf." It also states "If you typed Arabian Gulf, make sure you read some history books." This site is a so-called "Google bomb" created by Iranian bloggers several years ago as a protest when the National Geographic decided to use both names for the gulf in their World Atlas.

The media in Dubai has not been very vocal on this point but everyone here seems quietly to use Arabian. The Gulf News weighed in last year with a piece arguing for Arabian (since Persia hasn't existed since 1935) but also suggesting that the Gulf leaders be more vocal and pursue the matter with the UN, and that the two terms could be considered legally interchangeable.

Given the large presence of friendly Iranians in Dubai, I don't see Dubai taking the issue any further. It may be left to Iran to continue to stir up the controversy over "the gulf between us", which is also the name of a book about a gay sheikh which caused a media frenzy last year for supposedly being banned from Dubai's literary festival, which turned out not to be the case.