On 2015-07-21 15:13:38 +0000, Opinicus said:

> On Tue, 21 Jul 2015 08:04:04 -0700, gtr > wrote:
>
>> I've concluded it's like a Brazilian calling themselves Cariocas or
>> something. Iran is a country populated by Persians.
>
> To put that in perspective, this is similar to saying that the UK is a
> country populated by the English. While the statement is true as far
> as it goes, it's also incomplete.

There may be an argument over the validity of the category of "ethnic
Persian", to distinguish the, say, from those ethnicities that
constitue Indians or Arabs (by whatever name), but I've never heard of
one, argued or otherwise, regarding the "Ethnic English". I wouldn't
be surprised though, as we have some Americans (as well as Entlish and
Swedish for instance) that are slicing and dicing the "white race" as a
political and racial category for their own needs.

Poking around in wikipedia I find that the topic of defining who is a
Persian and what constitutes that Persian-ness is far from fixed.

"Some scholars, classify the speakers of Persian language as a single
ethnic unit (the "Persians) and exclude those Iranians who speak
dialects of Persian, or other Iranian dialects closely related to
Persian; however this approach to ethnicity in Iran is erroneous, since
the designation Iranian (Irani) as an ethnic term has been used by all
these ethnic group in Iran, including the "Persians" irrespective of
their origin, language and religion."

I have no emotional investment in the issue, but feel comfortable with
my conclusion: Iranians call themselves and think of themselves as
Persians, without it being about how much or little they love or hate
this year's leaders.