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His
tone is resolutely optimistic. Yet to date the vague
attempts at independence have proven difficult,
impossible even, in this remote region in Western
Iran. Caught in a bind, the people here, as
elsewhere in Kurdistan, are suffering from chronic
unemployment. “Many qualified young people hang
around on the streets, that’s if they don’t get
lured into drug dealing in Iraq or Pakistan,” says
Shuan ruefully.
No one here will ever forget the heroism of one Qazi
Mohammad, the legendary President of the Republic of
Mehabad, a republic that lasted less than a year,
from January to December 1946. However, this is
about more than just an icon; today, it’s about
looking to the future, or at least understanding
daily life and its many difficulties.
Ethnic repression
Iranian Kurds have never found respite from
repression at the hands of the central Iranian
government. During the Islamic revolution in 1979,
Ayatollah Khomeini openly proclaimed holy war
against “the greatest infidels”. Oppressed under
Khomeini, the Kurdish people are still repressed
today under Iran’s current president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Its journalists are subject to
censorship and its youth to gradual assimilation. It
is also difficult for ethnic Kurds to hold important
government positions.
v The list of things banned is endless. Even Kurdish
internet sites are blocked by Iranian servers. The
only comfort can be found in the Kurds’ ability to
resist and adapt in the face of the “assimilation
authorities of Tehran”, which they largely ignore,
asserts Shuan.
In the face of this heavyweight political religious
power, which doesn’t hesitate to use military force,
the Kurds find ways to evade, adjust and adapt. On
the Internet, for example, there is a wealth of
sites that are not filtered. They are as numerous,
as they are short-lived. “Their shelf-life is only a
week, then the government gets its hands on them,”
Shuan says.
Although the regional policy of ethnic diversity set
in motion in Kurdistan since the Islamic revolution
of 1979 has attracted Persians and Azeris to the
streets of Mahadab, the Kurds have not been tamed.
Weighty words
Four Kurdish television channels can now be received
by satellite dish, a device strictly forbidden in
the country of the mullahs. In Mahabad, two weekly
Kurdish newspapers are published, Kousha and Rasat,
but they are under state control. “It’s political
correctness; they only want to indoctrinate us,”
shouts Shuan failing to conceal his anger.
The death blow to freedom of expression is no longer
censorship, but rather self-censorship. Local
newspapers know that it is best to sidestep
sensitive issues, be it national policy or the
question of Kurdish independence. Otherwise, they
risk being subject to the fate met by two Kurdish
newspapers, the daily Achti and the weekly Assou,
both published in Persian and Kurdish, which were
recently banned by courts in Sanandaj, Kurdistan’s
administrative centre.
Among the taboo subjects, that of the Mangoors is
the most relevant. The Mangoors are Kurds from
Mahabad, who worked hand in hand with the Tehran
government,” reports Royia, a young intellectual
Kurd from Mahabad. “When there are periods of
tension between our people and the central
government, they give the Mangoors the mission of
re-establishing order.”
The Mangoors form a minority group belonging to the
Kurds of Mahabad. At the beck and call of Tehran,
this handful of men belongs to the generation born
during the Second World War when Russians and Kurds
intermarried. The Kurds of Mahabad are easy to
recognise on the street, as their eyes are clear and
their hair a reddish blond. However, not all of them
are armed. Our interviewee is referring only to an
isolated minority of Mangoors.
The fact is that articles on this subject can no
longer be published. It would also be illusory to
envisage publishing articles in memory of Abdoul
Rahman Ghassemlou, ex-leader of the Democratic Party
of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) who was assassinated in
Vienna in 1989. Thus contained, Kurds also rely on
their resourcefulness. While teaching Kurdish at
school and university may be forbidden, a private
school gives weekly classes at Mahabad, as well as
oral teaching of the language with family or
friends. “But nowadays only the older generation
writes in Kurdish,” laments Saman, 26, a Kurd from
Mahabad.
Jobs are badly needed to help solve Kurdish
political problems
Saman has been working for two years for a French
oil and gas company, located in the Bushehr region.
“A French company, not Iranian,” he is eager to
emphasise. “I’m a Sunni, like most Kurds. I didn’t
have one single interview for an Iranian company, in
which I wasn’t asked about my religion. I had to
wait for a foreign company for my origins to be
overshadowed by my qualifications.” He puts it down
to discrimination, and a local economy that doesn’t
encourage employment.
Before the Islamic revolution, Iranian Kurds were
better off than their brothers in Iraq. “Now, it’s
the other way round,” continues Saman.
Today, the Iraqi Kurdistan economy is experiencing
an upturn. Whether it will become significantly
wealthy, seems less certain. It has, however,
experienced considerable growth and diversification
in different industries, from banking services to
high-tech electronics, not forgetting US financial
aid, estimated at several billion dollars. Their
Kurdish brothers, in West Iran are now waiting for
their turn.
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