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(VOL. III – 2003) |
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Got Its Name |
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By SID FRIGAND
of TheColumnists.com
Q. Ms. Carrie Coles of Newcastle, PA, writes: “Where did the name ‘Iraq’ come from? Was it always called by that name?
A. The country known as Iraq was for more than a millennium known as Mesopotamia. That all changed after World War I when the victorious Allied nations decided to divvy up the world. Mesopotamia became a British mandate then, but in 1920 the locals mounted a bloody rebellion against the British. The insurgency was so intense that Sir Percy Cox, High Commissioner of Mesopotamia, requested reinforcements and reassignment, as well. In his now famous coded missive to the British Foreign Office he wrote with typical British understatement:
"I Rather Abhor Quarrels, and now we must endure the Islamic Rabble’s Avowed Quest to defy our King and our enlightened British rule. We are beset by Iniquitous, Rebellious Arab Quibblers who make governing our Mandate all but impossible. Even when captured, the insurgents offer Insolent Responses whilst Answering Questions. With grave reluctance, I Request Action to Quell this insurrection and I also ask for immediate reassignment. Sirs, this is not an idle complaint. I Really Am Quitting!”
Although this was a highly
confidential memorandum, the wags at Whitehall who decoded this
message jocularly referred to it as the “I.R.A.Q. Dispatch.”
By 1922 the acronym stuck--and that’s how the President’s
avowed enemy became a four-letter word.*
* It should be noted that
Dr. Oral Middlesex, Britain’s laureate-at-large, refutes
this story as apocryphal. He maintains that the primary pressures
to shorten place names have come from the influential London
Times and The New York Times. Both of these publications have
traditionally relied heavily on stuffy one-column headlines to
cover world events since the 19th century. “With that format,”
explains Dr. Middlesex, “nations with long names leave little
or no room for appropriate verbs in a one column headline.”
“It is a form of verbal abuse,” he added drolly. These
powerful journals were particularly upset with nations that were
not conducive to acceptable shorter references, e.g. Swiss, Czech,
US, Afghan, USSR. According to the laureate-at-large, these editorial
giants were particularly successful after the end of World War
I when they insisted that countries such as the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina–not to
mention Mesopotamia–all had to be purged. “Look for
Turkmenistan and Liechtenstein as the next victims,” Dr.
Middlesex predicted.
©2003 by Sid Frigand.
The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895
Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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