June 1, 2010
The status of the Kurdish issue in Iran is the
outcome of a game between two seemingly simple
paradigms which, nonetheless, are essential for the
understanding of the Kurdish question in Iran. On
one hand, I want to refer to the Kurdish dimension,
or as we could say, the ‘Kurdistani’ dimension of
the struggle (i.e. the territorial aspect of the
Kurdish issue). We are indeed witnessing a people’s
struggle to achieve their national rights, but a
people who is only a part of an overall nation
divided over several States. On the other hand, I
would like to refer to the Iranian dimension of the
Kurdish struggle. Although the Kurdish movement in
Iran is politically centrifugal (a peripheral
nationalism as some would say), the Kurds of Iran
are not separatists and in that sense, their
struggle is inscribed in the general framework of
the fight for democratization of Iran.
This dual dimension of the Iranian Kurds’ struggle -
both Kurdish and Iranian or both national and
democratic at the same time – generates conflicting
consequences, in both political and identity terms.
For the ruling elite in Iran, it is often a source
of distrust towards the Kurds, and sometimes, it
raises doubts among the Kurds themselves as regards
to their allegiance to Iran.
Of all the minorities in Iran (if indeed one can
speak of "minorities" in a country where non
dominant peoples constitute at least over half of
the population), Kurds have the highest political
consciousness about their ethnicity. Without
mentioning the demographic factors (such as the
size: the Kurds are the third largest ethnic group
in Iran, or the compactness of the population
inhabiting historically a territory called
Kurdistan), I would like to evoke two factors in
support of my previous statement:
The first factor is the long and rich history of
Iranian Kurds’ quest for freedom. We can trace the
first Kurdish revolts back to the 16th century,
following the first partition of Kurdistan, even if
national movements in the modern sense only appeared
during the 1880s and 1920s, sometimes concurrently
and linked with revolts led in other parts of
Kurdistan. But the highlight of the modern history
of the Iranian Kurds is the creation in 1946 in
Mahabad of the only Kurdish Republic in history.
Although the Kurdish Republic was abolished by the
Iranian central government before it celebrated its
first anniversary and its leaders were hanged, its
existence is considered the most significant event
in the history and imaginary of all nationalist
Kurds.
During the decades following the abolition of the
Kurdish Republic, Kurdish resistance to the
oppression continued, but the Kurds had to wait
until the 1979 Revolution to taste freedom again.
Insofar as the demands of the Kurds were inherently
incompatible with the anti-democratic and
reactionary nature of the newly established clerical
power, the respite was short-lived. Combining
military means worthy of an international conflict
with the massacre of civilians, the Iranian armed
forces implemented the fatwa (religious order)
decreed by the Ayatollah Khomeini against the Kurds.
This forced the Kurdish opposition into armed
resistance until the mid-nineties. Even if armed
resistance is now suspended, everyone agrees that
amongst all Iranian opposition groups, the Kurdish
forces are the most organized and most entrenched
among the population.
The second factor explaining the high degree of
national consciousness and political organization of
the Iranian Kurds, - and this is where I come to the
point of the double dimension of the struggle - is
the existence of two fields of identification and
interaction relevant to the political behavior of
the Iranian Kurds. There is indeed a Kurdish
national identity that transcends territorial
division and links of various nature unite Kurds
across borders. The Kurds of Iran are far from being
indifferent to what happens in other parts of
Kurdistan, they are very interested in the
democratization processes in other countries where
Kurds live and their organizations sometimes adopt
strategies taking into consideration the situation
existant in other parts of Kurdistan.
However, this sense of solidarity among the Kurds of
Iran and those of other parts of Kurdistan has no
radicdal political consequences. Indeed, while
feeling they belong to an overall nation - namely
the Kurdish Nation-, the Iranian Kurds’ political
interaction is mainly with the Iranian central power
or more generally with Iran’s political elite.
Paradoxically, while the reference to the Kurdish
Nation is common among Kurdish elites, including
those of Iran, the Iranian Kurds’ political
discourse is the least based on the concept of
self-determination, due to the independence related
connotations of this idea.
Since the mid-twentieth century, the most important
forces of the Kurdish movement in Iran, as in other
parts of Kurdistan, have been fighting for the
political and constitutional recognition of the
Kurdish rights, be it in the form of autonomy or
federalism, but in any case without questioning
Iran’s territorial integrity. The Kurds of Iran
have, in fact, never given up adopting constructive
methods and integrationist approaches by
participating, whenever they could,www.ekurd.netin
the political process and by always preferring
political means to military ones. However, the
election of their true representatives has mostly
been invalidated and their political parties were
declared illegal, not to mention the fate
experienced by some of their leaders (e.g. Dr. Abdul
Rahman Ghassemlou) on the path of peaceful
settlement.
While from the Kurdish point of view, the
recognition of nationalities in Iran, their equal
participation in the decision-making process and
decentralization of power are the best guarantee for
a lasting democracy in this country, these
legitimate requests are still perceived by Iran’s
political elites (not only in power but also in
large parts of the so-called democratic opposition)
as a threat to national cohesion. A national
cohesion that has been in the making for more than
eightie years - albeit borrowing different
ideological referents depending on successive
political regimes in Iran - by always following the
same ‘Jacobian’ pattern clumsily copied and imported
from abroad. It consists of building a nation state
in which political institutions reflect a dominant
culture. Instead of relying on the historical
realities of Iranian society and the Iranians
peoples’ will to live together, this enterprise has
always been dependent on an iron fist, hence its
failure.
Today, the conservatives’ hold on the political
process in Iran and the impossibility of reforming
the Islamic Republic has made life unbearable for
Iranian Kurds, the oppression being intensified
under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( The
same man who in all likelihood has been part of the
team responsible for the assassination of Ghassemlou).
The prohibition of Kurdish language in the public
sphere continues. Despite the existence of natural
resources in the Kurdish region in Iran, the area is
deliberately left in a state of underdevelopment.
The tense security climate is always tangible in
Iranian Kurdistan, the only region in Iran heavily
militarized where political executions continue to
take place (For example, four of the five activists
hanged two weeks ago in Evin prison in Tehran were
Kurds). Not a day passes by without villagers living
in frontier areas being shot or activists being
arrested.
Currently, more than a dozen Kurdish prisoners are
sentenced to death and dozens of others serving,
often under torture, lengthy prison sentences. In
the past, we used to say that the central government
imposed on us the violent method. For a few years
and especially since the post-election protests, the
Kurds, like the rest of liberty-loving Iranian
people, have been trying by all means to impose on
the regime the non-violent method. And yet the
response of the Islamic Republic is still fire and
bloodshed: imagine, Farzad Kamangar, who has just
been hanged was simply a primary school teacher.
Because of the policy of silencing and denial
adopted by the Islamic regime and because of an
unfavorable international context (especially since
the end of the Iran-Iraq war), the Kurdish conflict
in Iran is currently quite neglected in the
international fora. Furthermore, the lack of unity
and firmness of the international community towards
the Islamic Republic is also a factor in the
continued suffering of the Iranians. Not only the
ideal of human rights, but also long-term European
interests require the adoption of a much more
courageous policy towards a regime that turned Iran
into a prison for its own people and a hot-bed for
spreading violence all over the world. In saying
this, I’m not calling for an armed intervention.
Between military intervention and the status quo,
which is as dangerous to Iranians as to Westerners,
there is a third way worth exploring: that is to
completely isolate the Islamic Republic and to
assist concretely the democratic forces in Iran.
This redefinition of the international community’s
attitude towards Iran can only be productive in the
long term if at the same time the multi-national and
multi-ethnic reality of the Iranian society are
fully taken into account. Genuine democratic
institutions must reflect the structural forces that
make up the society. In Iranian society, the most
important structural forces are the nationalities of
this country. The best way to end a century of
comings and goings of democracy and highjacking of
power in Iran is to make these structural forces the
very basic pillars of the future Iranian democratic
design, a design in line with its own people and in
harmony with the international community.
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