Reality Is Not Defined Only by What Is Said
This text examines the ethical and editorial responsibility of international media in shaping how peoples, identities, and political realities are represented. It argues that reducing the diverse non-Persian peoples subjected to Iranian rule to the single label “the Iranian people” is not neutral simplification, but a form of erasure that removes distinct peoples from public consciousness. Focusing on the Ahwazi Arab people under Iranian occupation, the article shows how repeated language becomes an editorial frame that conceals identity, normalizes exclusion, and weakens the visibility of the right of peoples to self-determination. It calls on journalists and analysts to name peoples accurately, recognize marginalized voices, and take responsibility for the realities their language helps create.
ENGLISH
Reality is not defined only by what is said…
but by what is permitted to be said at all.
This is not a mistake… it is a responsibility.
This text is not a commentary… it is a clear position of accountability.
Not general criticism… but direct accountability.
To media professionals and analysts around the world:
You do not merely report the news… you define its boundaries.
And when you reduce a mosaic of peoples to a single term — “the Iranian people” — you are not simplifying reality… you are erasing entire peoples from public consciousness.
Within this geography, there is no single voice…
There are multiple voices, established identities, and histories that cannot be reduced to one name.
What is reduced in language… is reduced in awareness.
And what is reduced in awareness… is gradually pushed outside history.
This is not a mosaic in which differences disappear…
It is a plurality that proves that every people constitutes a distinct and complete human reality—
not reducible,
not absorbable,
not erasable.
Reducing peoples to a single name is not simplification… it is elimination.
Ignoring this plurality is not professional neutrality…
It is silent alignment with a narrative that excludes others—
a narrative reproduced every time the same language is repeated in the same way.
Because media does not merely reflect reality…
It also defines what is permitted to appear as reality.
Neutrality that conceals the truth… is not neutrality.
Ignoring what the Ahwazi Arab people under Iranian occupation are subjected to—
the suppression of their voice,
the suppression of their language,
and their economic marginalization—
is not merely a failure of reporting…
It is participation in reproducing that reality.
Silence in the face of truth is not neutrality… it is a position.
What is repeatedly reproduced in the media does not remain within the media…
It becomes a managed reality.
And when reality is reshaped through reductive language, the result is not simplification… but gradual erasure.
A word, when repeated, becomes a frame.
And when it becomes a frame… it determines what is seen—and what remains invisible.
What is not named… is not seen.
And what is not seen… is not addressed.
What is happening is not a series of isolated mistakes…
It is a policy.
A policy aimed at erasing Ahwazi identity and removing Ahwaz from public consciousness—
not through loud declarations… but through cold repetition,
not through official announcements… but through deliberate neglect.
Ignoring a crime does not end it… it prolongs it.
The problem is not the absence of information…
but the way that information is narrated.
It is not the absence of texts…
but the absence of the courage required to acknowledge what they reveal.
You know that this plurality exists…
yet you continue to reduce it.
At that point, the choice is no longer linguistic…
It becomes an ethical choice.
Every time a people’s name is reduced, an identity is concealed.
And every repetition of that reduction adds another layer of legitimacy to an unjust reality—
until injustice becomes familiar…
not because it is true,
but because it is constantly repeated.
Repetition does not create truth… it entrenches a narrative.
International law is clear:
The right of peoples to self-determination is an inalienable right—
it does not expire with time,
and it cannot be nullified through denial.
But this right is not measured only by what is written in international charters…
It is also measured by what is permitted to appear in public discourse.
When truth is removed from public discourse…
justice is removed from reality.
Here, the media does not merely make mistakes…
It participates.
Because the continued use of reductive language is not an accidental linguistic oversight…
It is an editorial decision.
And every editorial decision is a position.
Those who know the truth and deliberately exclude it…
are not reporting reality…
They are participating in its distortion.
Today, the question is no longer: What is happening?
The answer is already known.
The real question is:
How is what is happening being narrated… and whose interests does that narrative serve?
Because narrative is not a technical detail…
It is the first field in which reality is contested.
And what is decided within the narrative…
is decided within public consciousness.
Those who control the narrative… control the boundaries within which truth is defined.
If you are aware of this plurality,
why does your discourse continue to deny it?
And can a discourse that knows the truth…
still claim neutrality while excluding it?
These are not theoretical questions…
They are a professional and ethical test.
In the end, the issue is not about replacing one exclusive narrative with another…
It is about recognizing that a single narrative is not sufficient—
and never was just.
Giving space to marginalized voices…
is not an act of political favoritism…
It is the restoration of a balance that has been distorted for far too long.
The choice today is clear:
Either you become part of revealing the truth…
or you remain part of concealing it.
There is no neutral ground between the two.
— Hamid Shayea Al-Ahwazi —
22.4.2026