The Emirate of Ahwaz should join the Gulf Cooperation Council. Anywhere else, that headline would cap a boring story about regional integration. But in the Middle East, it's the kind of provocation that boils blood. For Ahwaz is the Arab, oil-rich southwest of Iran.
It's okay if you've never heard of Ahwaz. The region has a few aliases that are perhaps slightly less obscure. Herodotus and Xenophon called it Susiana, after its capital Susa. The region is mentioned about two dozen times in the Bible as Elam, often in the wrathy, smitey style typical of the Old Testament (Jer. 49:38: “And I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence the king and the princes, saith the Lord.”)
Its oldest name still reverberates in Khuzestan, the official Persian name of the present-day Iranian province. Due to the continuous influx of Arab tribes, it has also been known as Arabistan since at least the 17th century. The Arabic name Ahwaz contains a reference to the area's original Huzi (or Khuzi, or Susi) people. That name has in turn been appropriated as Ahvaz, the Persian name of Khuzestan's capital, otherwise distinguished as the city with the worst air pollution in the world.
The Iranian province of Khuzestan - a minimalist version of Ahwaz. (Map of Iran by Uwe Dering. Khuzestan province highlighted by Dr. Blofeld. Image reproduced in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).
The Ahwazi Arabs – 1.5 million in all, or about 2% of Iran's total population of 78 million – are concentrated in Ahvaz and other Khuzestani cities, but also are farmers and fishermen in the surrounding countryside, and nomadic pastoralists further east on the Gulf's coastal plain. Their complaints are legion, and familiar for many ethnic minorities: political marginalisation, economic deprivation, forced cultural assimilation.
Unfortunately, Teheran's harsh rule is only half of the Ahwazi tragedy. The other is that their cause is only taken up by their brethren if and when it serves their own devices – as is again the case these days. Mark the words of Jamil Al-Dhiyabi, deputy editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat, who earlier this year wrote the article under that headline mentioned above (quoted here, italics mine): “What would happen if Arab Gulf states [...] spent [...] billions on supporting an independent Arab emirate in Ahwaz, so that it becomes a thorn in the side of Iran? […] How long would the Iranian 'demon' be occupied with its own affairs if it lost a strategic region so rich in resources? [...] Would this not weaken Iran's ambitions and thwart its plans?”
For the Saudis and Qataris, any trouble stirred up among Ahwazi Arabs amounts to Teheran getting a taste of its own medicine. They accuse Teheran of fomenting Shi'ite minorities across the Arabian peninsula, and of course supporting the Shia-dominated government of Iraq. But for now, all seems quiet on the Ahwazi front. Past experience has taught the locals to be wary of airing their grievances – especially when urged to do so by outsiders.
Ahwaz, as seen by those who favour its independence: much larger than Khuzestan province, cutting off Iran from the Gulf. (Image taken from the secessionist National Assembly of Ahwaz website).
Though nominally part of Persia, an autonomous Arabistan existed until 1924, when the centralising regime of Reza Khan Pahlavi crushed a rebellion. A year later, he abolished the emirate and had himself crowned Shah-an-Shah ('King of Kings'). That didn't prevent repeated revolts in the restive region, throughout the 1920s and 1940s.
After World War II, Arab discontent was channeled into political parties demanding autonomy, or even outright independence: the Al Saada party, founded in 1946, was the first to demand independence for Iranian Arabs. The Arabistan Liberation Front was founded in 1956, the National Front for the Liberation of Arabistan in 1960, and the Ahwaz Liberation Front in 1967. Armed resistance had petered out by the 1970s, however.
The Emirate already has a flag. Will it also get a battlefield to wave it on? (Image by Semedxudai, reproduced in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).
Until the chaos that followed the Islamic Revolution of 1979 presented the Ahwazi Arabs (and other non-Persian minorities such as Kurds and Baluchis) with the pretext for yet another stab at freedom. The so-called Khuzestan Revolt left several hundred people dead, and was eventually suppressed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The rebellion's collapse led to what probably is Ahwaz's high water mark in world affairs – if you could call it such: the Iranian embassy siege in London in 1980.
On 30 April of that year, six armed members of the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRFLA) took over the Iranian embassy, seizing 26 hostages and demanding the release of 91 comrades in Iranian prisons. After they killed a hostage, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher authorised Operation Nimrod, in which the SAS killed all but one of the hostage takers and managed to rescue all but one of the remaining hostages.
The rescue was broadcast live on British tv, which led to record numbers of applications for the SAS and a first surge in Mrs. Thatcher's popularity. But the Iranian Revolutionary government was suspicious of the whole event. It accused the West of orchestrating the siege, as payback for the ongoing hostage crisis in Teheran, where revolutionary students held 52 US diplomats and citizens.
That is the drama of Ahwaz, that splinter of the Arab world stuck in Iran's body politic: Teheran will always assume foreign interests behind any demand, protest or revolt from its Arab minority. And the Arab world will only support its struggle if and when it serves its own purposes.
As happened in Iraq, after the coup of 1958 brought a nationalist junta to power. It started making trouble again over its recently pacified river border with Iran, on the Shatt-al-Arab ('Stream of the Arabs'; in Persian: Arvand Rud, 'Swift River'), the strategic confluent of the Tigris and Euphrates debouching into the Gulf. The Iraqis also stoked up irredentist feelings across the river, in an area that happened to be the source of most of Iran's oil and gas wealth. In 1969, Iraq's then vice president Saddam Hussein said that "Iraq's dispute with Iran is over Khuzestan, which is part of Iraq's soil and was annexed to Iran during foreign rule."
As relations between Iraq and Iran continued to decline during the 1970s, the grandest example of geopolitical cynicism surely must have been the Iran's and Iraq's support for Kurdish rebels - but only on each other's territory.
An alternate map of Ahwaz, more compact but extending deeper into the interior. (Also from the National Assembly of Ahwaz website)
Khuzestan's Arabs ultimately were pawns in Saddam's attack on Iran in 1980, which he thought would be a 'Whirlwind War' that would secure him the control over the Shatt-al-Arab, all the oil in Khuzestan and, finally, the coveted mantle of undisputed leadership over the Arab world. In fact, the war, which lasted until 1988 and cost the lives of over a million soldiers and civilians, ended in stalemate and proved the beginning of Saddam's endgame.
The Ahwazi Arabs have since staged a few more revolts – the last in 2011, echoing Arab Springs elsewhere in the region. But they remain firmly lodged in Iran, even though they have this map to dream of. Although Khuzestan province itself only is roughly the size of West Virginia and only extends along no more than 100 miles of the Gulf coast (east of the Iraqi port of Faw), the map of Ahwaz makes the most of those roaming Arab pastoralists – landlocking Iran and finally turning that contested body of water from a Persian into an Arab Gulf.
How distant is that dream? As ever, events outside their control will determine whether Ahwaz will remain a phantom emirate or become a real one.
Strange Maps #689
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U.S. Navy ships
The U.S. Navy controls patents for some futuristic and outlandish technologies, some of which, dubbed "the UFO patents," came to light recently. Of particular note are inventions by the somewhat mysterious Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, whose tech claims to be able to "engineer reality." His slate of highly-ambitious, borderline sci-fi designs meant for use by the U.S. government range from gravitational wave generators and compact fusion reactors to next-gen hybrid aerospace-underwater crafts with revolutionary propulsion systems, and beyond.
Of course, the existence of patents does not mean these technologies have actually been created, but there is evidence that some demonstrations of operability have been successfully carried out. As investigated and reported by The War Zone, a possible reason why some of the patents may have been taken on by the Navy is that the Chinese military may also be developing similar advanced gadgets.
Among Dr. Pais's patents are designs, approved in 2018, for an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. This cone-shaped vehicle can potentially fly just as well anywhere it may be, whether air, water or space, without leaving any heat signatures. It can achieve this by creating a quantum vacuum around itself with a very dense polarized energy field. This vacuum would allow it to repel any molecule the craft comes in contact with, no matter the medium. Manipulating "quantum field fluctuations in the local vacuum energy state," would help reduce the craft's inertia. The polarized vacuum would dramatically decrease any elemental resistance and lead to "extreme speeds," claims the paper.
Not only that, if the vacuum-creating technology can be engineered, we'd also be able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," states the patent. This would lead to major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power. Not to mention other reality-changing outcomes that come to mind.
Among Pais's other patents are inventions that stem from similar thinking, outlining pieces of technology necessary to make his creations come to fruition. His paper presented in 2019, titled "Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft," proposes a system that can achieve superconductivity at room temperatures. This would become "a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology," conveys Pais.
High frequency gravitational wave generator.
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
Another invention devised by Pais is an electromagnetic field generator that could generate "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." This shield could protect from threats like anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles that evade radar, coronal mass ejections, military satellites, and even asteroids.
Dr. Pais's ideas center around the phenomenon he dubbed "The Pais Effect". He referred to it in his writings as the "controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma) via accelerated spin and/or accelerated vibration under rapid (yet smooth) acceleration-deceleration-acceleration transients." In less jargon-heavy terms, Pais claims to have figured out how to spin electromagnetic fields in order to contain a fusion reaction – an accomplishment that would lead to a tremendous change in power consumption and an abundance of energy.
According to his bio in a recently published paper on a new Plasma Compression Fusion Device, which could transform energy production, Dr. Pais is a mechanical and aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), which is headquartered in Patuxent River, Maryland. Holding a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Pais was a NASA Research Fellow and worked with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. His current Department of Defense work involves his "advanced knowledge of theory, analysis, and modern experimental and computational methods in aerodynamics, along with an understanding of air-vehicle and missile design, especially in the domain of hypersonic power plant and vehicle design." He also has expert knowledge of electrooptics, emerging quantum technologies (laser power generation in particular), high-energy electromagnetic field generation, and the "breakthrough field of room temperature superconductivity, as related to advanced field propulsion."
Suffice it to say, with such a list of research credentials that would make Nikola Tesla proud, Dr. Pais seems well-positioned to carry out groundbreaking work.
A craft using an inertial mass reduction device.
Credit: Salvatore Pais
The patents won't necessarily lead to these technologies ever seeing the light of day. The research has its share of detractors and nonbelievers among other scientists, who think the amount of energy required for the fields described by Pais and his ideas on electromagnetic propulsions are well beyond the scope of current tech and are nearly impossible. Yet investigators at The War Zone found comments from Navy officials that indicate the inventions are being looked at seriously enough, and some tests are taking place.
If you'd like to read through Pais's patents yourself, check them out here.
Laser Augmented Turbojet Propulsion System
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
More than half of 18 to 25 year-olds in the workforce are considering quitting their job. And they're not the only ones.
In a report called The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work – Are We Ready?, Microsoft found that as well as 54% of Generation Z workers, 41% of the entire global workforce could be considering handing in their resignation.
Similarly, a UK and Ireland survey found that 38% of employees were planning to leave their jobs in the next six months to a year, while a US survey reported that 42% of employees would quit if their company didn't offer remote working options long term.
New work trends
Based on surveys with over 30,000 workers in 31 countries, the Microsoft report – which is the latest in the company's annual Work Trend Index series – pulled in data from applications including Teams, Outlook and Office 365, to gauge productivity and activity levels. It highlighted seven major trends, which show the world of work has been profoundly reshaped by the pandemic:
- Flexible work is here to stay
- Leaders are out of touch with employees and need a wake-up call
- High productivity is masking an exhausted workforce
- Gen Z is at risk and will need to be re-energized
- Shrinking networks are endangering innovation
- Authenticity will spur productivity and wellbeing
- Talent is everywhere in a hybrid world
"Over the past year, no area has undergone more rapid transformation than the way we work," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says in the report. "Employee expectations are changing, and we will need to define productivity much more broadly – inclusive of collaboration, learning and wellbeing to drive career advancement for every worker, including frontline and knowledge workers, as well as for new graduates and those who are in the workforce today. All this needs to be done with flexibility in, when, where and how people work."
Organizations have become more siloed
While the report highlights the opportunities created by increased flexible and remote working patterns, it warns that some people are experiencing digital exhaustion and that remote working could foster siloed thinking. With the shift to remote working, much of the spontaneous sharing of ideas that can take place within a workplace was lost. In its place are scheduled calls, regular catch-ups and virtual hangouts. The loss of in-person interaction means individual team members are more likely to only interact with their closest coworkers.
"At the onset of the pandemic, our analysis shows interactions with our close networks at work increased while interactions with our distant network diminished," the report says. "This suggests that as we shifted into lockdown, we clung to our immediate teams for support and let our broader network fall to the wayside. Simply put, companies became more siloed than they were pre-pandemic."
Burnout or drop out
One of the other consequences of the shift to remote and the reliance on tech-based communications has been the phenomenon of digital burnout. And for those who have most recently joined the workforce, this has been a significant challenge.
The excitement of joining a new employer, maybe even securing a job for the first time, usually comes with meeting lots of new people, becoming familiar with a new environment and adapting to new situations. But for many, the pandemic turned that into a daily routine of working from home while isolated from co-workers.
"Our findings have shown that for Gen Z and people just starting in their careers, this has been a very disruptive time," says LinkedIn Senior Editor-at-Large, George Anders, quoted in the report. "It's very hard to find their footing since they're not experiencing the in-person onboarding, networking and training that they would have expected in a normal year."
But it is perhaps the data around quitting that is one of the starkest indications that change is now the new normal. Being able to work remotely has opened up new possibilities for many workers, the report found. If you no longer need to be physically present in an office, your employer could, theoretically, be located anywhere. Perhaps that's why the research found that "41% of employees are considering leaving their current employer this year".
In addition to that, 46% of the people surveyed for the Microsoft report said they might relocate their home because of the flexibility of remote working.
A hybrid future
In looking for ways to navigate their way through all this change, employers should hold fast to one word, the report says – hybrid. An inflexible, location-centred approach to work is likely to encourage those 41% of people to leave and find somewhere more to their tastes. Those who are thinking of going to live somewhere else, while maintaining their current job, might also find themselves thinking of quitting if their plans are scuppered.
But remote working is not a panacea for all workforce ills. "We can no longer rely solely on offices to collaborate, connect, and build social capital. But physical space will still be important," the report says. "We're social animals and we want to get together, bounce ideas off one another, and experience the energy of in-person events. Moving forward, office space needs to bridge the physical and digital worlds to meet the unique needs of every team – and even specific roles."
Bosses must meet challenges head on
Although the majority of business leaders have indicated they will incorporate elements of the hybrid working model, the report also found many are out of touch with workforce concerns more widely.
For, while many workers say they are struggling (Gen Z – 60%; new starters – 64%), and 54% of the general workforce feels overworked, business leaders are having a much better experience. Some 61% said they were 'thriving', which is in stark contrast to employees who are further down the chain of command.
Jared Spataro, corporate vice president at Microsoft 365, writes in the report: "Those impromptu encounters at the office help keep leaders honest. With remote work, there are fewer chances to ask employees, 'Hey, how are you?' and then pick up on important cues as they respond. But the data is clear: our people are struggling. And we need to find new ways to help them."
Reprinted with permission of the World Economic Forum. Read the original article.
