Iran’s Kurds are caught between a regime that treats Kurdish politics as a security threat and an opposition that often treats Kurdish self-determination as a danger to national unity.
The recent confrontation between Reza Pahlavi and Kurdish opposition forces in Iran has forced us to ask an uncomfortable question. When five major Kurdish organizations in Iran announced the creation of a new coalition, they did not simply demand more tolerance or less ideological rigidity. Rather, they restored Kurdish self-determination to the centre of the debate about Iran’s future. In response, the exiled son of the last Shah and the best-known representative of the monarchist opposition condemned separatism and reaffirmed the absolute importance of preserving the territorial integrity of Iran. To his supporters, this represented simple, patriotic common sense: No country can survive if every region becomes a bargaining chip. For many Kurds, however, it was merely a repetition of an experience for older and more familiar. Once again, they were told that their political demands were too dangerous to deserve consideration.
The result is once again a period of extreme uncertainty about the future of Iran. The Islamic regime is desperate, paranoid and increasingly repressive. Its opponents are more vocal, more internationally oriented and more internally divided. In this situation, the experiences of Kurdish populations in Iranian Kurdistan become more than a reflection of minority conditions. Rather, they represent a test of what the future of democratic development in Iran will mean. It is relatively easy to speak about freedom, secularization and elimination of clerical control during exiled speeches and meetings of opposition groups. But it is far more difficult to describe what kind of country will replace the Islamic Republic. Will it be a truly pluralistic society in which all ethnic groups have rights to self-determination and to local political authority? Or will it remain in effect a highly centralized version of Iran with different patterns of political control but essentially the same attitudes of suspicion toward those who demand more than limited recognition of their ethnic identity.
Iranian Kurds live under double suspicion. The Islamic republic considers Kurdish political activity to be treasonous, and much of the opposition treats Kurdish demands for self-determination as separatist. The terminology differs, but the result is the same. In the official lexicon of Tehran, Kurdish activism rarely remains a civil, cultural or democratic activity. Instead, it is rapidly converted to the vocabulary of terrorism, foreign interference, armed rebellion and national security. However, Kurdish demands also are treated as problems to be managed rather than as claims to be negotiated by non-Kurdish centralists outside the regime. The regime says that you represent a threat to the unity of the nation. The opposition replies that you must wait until after victory and refrain from creating problems for national unity. In either case, Kurdish political activity is reduced to an effort to conform to someone else’s concept of Iran.
This apparent semantic controversy is not trivial. Differences between demands for self-determination, federalism, decentralization, autonomy and secession represent the arena in which the future of Iran will ultimately be determined. Kurdish demands for self-determination do not necessarily mean fragmentation of Iran, but instead may represent a system of regional self-government, education in the mother tongue, legal political parties, control of police and development activities, and guarantees of participation in shaping the state rather than merely of being subject to its administration. Some currents of Kurdish political activity are more maximalist than others, include armed components, and employ the language of federalism, confederalism, autonomy or national rights. However, the tendency of centralists to eliminate all these distinctions and to refer to all Kurdish demands as separatist is intellectually irresponsible and politically dangerous. It ultimately forces even moderate expressions of Kurdish political activity into the language of survival.
The Islamic republic grasps this dynamic well. It has continually exploited the breakdown of boundaries between Kurdish civil society and Kurdish militancy. A teacher demanding linguistic rights, a woman protesting mandatory veiling, a family mourning a prisoner, a border-crossing kolbar feeding his children, a political exile and an armed insurgent all remain under the same pall of suspicion. This reflects the ways in which a security state thinks and survives. Kurdish regions are more closely regarded as border areas to be controlled than as territories of citizens. Roads, checkpoints, courts, prisons and intelligence activities constitute the actual constitution. As a result, Kurdish political activity is criminalized before it becomes routine political behaviour.
Consequently, the importance of the death of Jina Mahsa Amini remains undiminished. This event did not merely stimulate a women’s movement in Iran but also revealed the foundations in Kurdish political experience and Kurdish mourning upon which that movement was ultimately based. “Woman, life, freedom” did not originate as a universal liberal slogan but developed first as an expression of Kurdish political experience and of Kurdish grief. This experience is of major importance because Iran consistently universalises the sacrifices of Kurds but interprets their demands in a narrowly particularistic manner. It can use the death of a Kurdish woman as an occasion for mourning national freedom, yet express reluctance to discuss the meaning of that freedom for Kurdish language, Kurdish political parties, Kurdish provinces and Kurdish autonomy. Finally, it is possible to embrace a Kurdish woman as a daughter of Iran and to continue to regard Kurdish problems as the responsibility of Iran.
None of this is meant to romanticise Kurdish politics. Iranian Kurdish parties have their own difficulties. Some are armed, some are fragmented, and some operate from Iraqi Kurdistan, placing them in a dangerous triangle with Baghdad and Tehran. Their histories provoke anxiety among Persian nationalists, regional authorities and Western diplomats. There are important questions of representation: Who speaks for ordinary Kurds within Iran, for exiled political parties, for armed groups, for civil society, women’s associations, students, labour activists or families of political prisoners? And there are major concerns about foreign entanglements. Reports of contacts between armed Kurdish groups and outside forces, particularly in the context of war with Iran, further increase the level of danger. Kurdish political groups understand this danger better than anyone else. Their experience with major powers reflects a history of utility until the final reckoning.
The difficulties of the opposition reflect an attempt to obtain the energy of Kurdish nationalism without accepting full responsibility for Kurdish political action. In periods of protest, Kurdish cities are admired for courage, Kurdish strikes are applauded, and Kurdish martyrs are incorporated into national myths. Kurdish slogans are translated, repeated and internationalised. However, when Kurdish political parties request recognition as political entities, the tone of interaction changes abruptly. Suddenly, there is concern about lack of unity, about inappropriate timing and about the potential for creating divisions. This represents the major weakness of much Iranian opposition politics; that is, it equates democracy with the replacement of the existing regime. Elimination of the clerics may be necessary but is not sufficient to achieve a democratic Iran that continues to regard Kurdish claims to collective rights as threatening. It will simply provide a new expression of the old suspicions.
The KRG also appreciates this dilemma. Opposition groups based in the Kurdish region of Iraq have been both an advantage and a vulnerability, providing a base, media and rear areas for Kurdish politics, and a justification for pressure on Baghdad and Erbil and for cross-border attacks. The resulting agreement to disarm and relocate Iranian Kurdish forces in 2023 reflected the small margin for romantic gestures available to the KRG. Erbil may sympathise with the goals of Rojhelat, but it must also survive in proximity to Iran and manage relations with Baghdad, Tehran, Ankara, Washington and its internal divisions. This illustrates the tragedy of Kurdish geography: Every conflict with one Kurdish authority inevitably involves confrontation with another that is too restricted to provide overt assistance.
But neither the presence of armed forces nor the risks associated with regional conflict can be used to justify complete disregard for Kurdish demands. That represents another danger. Iranian officials cite armed forces and claim that Kurdish politics are essentially terrorist. Centralists also cite armed forces and assert that Kurdish demands for self-determination are equivalent to demands for separatism. In both cases, however, the important underlying question is ignored: Why has it been impossible to achieve full normalisation of Kurdish political activity within Iran? If Kurdish parties had operated legally, if use of the Kurdish language had been acceptable for educational and public purposes, if constitutional provisions for regional self-government had been available, and if Kurdish cities had not been treated as security problems, would armed political activity outside the country have retained its attractiveness? Finally, a country that blocks all opportunities for normal political activity should not be surprised when political activity reappears at the borders.
The language question illustrates the same contradiction. Regional languages may be used with limited freedom under the constitution, but Persian remains the official expression of public power. Kurdish is acceptable as a culture but not as a basis for authority. A Kurdish poem is safer than a Kurdish education system, a Kurdish song safer than Kurdish administrative authority and a Kurdish festival safer than Kurdish local government. Consequently, cultural recognition is never sufficient. States are generally willing to celebrate minority cultures in terms of colour, music and costume, but are far less generous when minorities request budgets, courts, schools, police, governors and constitutional status. The result is that Kurdish rights represent not only a question of identity, but also of power and economic grievance. For most Kurdish families, experience of rule by Tehran is primarily in terms of the border and not of ideological controversy.
This results in poverty, bullets, checkpoints, routes for smuggling goods and an absence of employment. The image of the Kurdish border carrier who transports goods over mountains between Iran and Iraq is one of the most powerful expressions of the condition of Rojhelat. In the centre, the state refers to smuggling and to legal procedures. On the border, families experience conditions of unemployment, underdevelopment and survival. Treatment of a region as a problem of security rather than of development leads to conditions in which the border constitutes both an economic reality and a source of suffering. Consequently, the Kurdish problem is not merely a question of national or cultural identity, but also of material conditions. It concerns who receives roads, hospitals, jobs, investment and the right to live without being continuously subjected to the conditions of a permanent suspect.
The broader Iranian opposition must be pressed hardest at this point. It is not sufficient to promise that all Iranians will eventually be equal once the regime collapses. That is the simplest promise in politics. Kurds have heard versions of it before, and will experience the consequences of equality without structure, i.e., of assimilation by another name. If a future Iran is to be serious, it must answer important questions before, not after, the victory of the opposition. Will Kurdish children receive instruction in their mother tongue? Will Kurdish political parties be legal? Will areas of Kurdish majority receive elected local governments with real authority? Will security forces be demilitarised within Kurdish cities? Will political prisoners be released and tried under conditions of ordinary justice? Will the constitution recognise Iran as a multinational society, rather than as a Persian-speaking country with colourful minorities? Finally, will “integrity of the territory” reflect a shared system of negotiated authority or serve as a weapon for suppression of all demands from the periphery?
The delay in providing answers cannot continue indefinitely. Failure to define present rights for Kurds will ultimately force that segment of the population to develop its own bases for political action. The resulting coalition among Kurdish forces is not simply an aggregation of political parties. Rather, it represents a determination that Rojhelat will not patiently await inclusion in some other plan for transition. This does not imply that all positions adopted by Kurds will be wise, moderate or risk-free. However, it does confirm that the problem of Kurdish rights cannot be avoided. Any Iranian opposition that fails to confront this issue in a serious manner will have great difficulty in developing a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic. Iran is more than just Tehran. It is more than just Persian. It includes, in addition, the memories of monarchy and the trauma of clerical rule. And it incorporates the experience of Saqqez, Sanandaj, Mahabad, Kermanshah, Baneh, Mariwan and of border communities whose names seldom appear in discussions of national destiny.
Kurds are at risk of having to choose between two forms of denial. First, they will be told that they represent a threat to security. Second, they will be told that they may be free, but only after proving that their freedom does not interfere with our image of Iran. Neither option is acceptable. A democratic Iran cannot assume that Kurds will forego all claims to national identity. Nor can Kurdish politics survive based on denial that fears of fragmentation, foreign manipulation and armed conflict are unrealistic. The appropriate response is intermediate between these forms of denial: Kurdish rights must be negotiated openly and within the framework of a future Iranian constitution.
As a result, the experience of Rojhelat is not a minor aspect of Iran’s crisis of democracy but represents instead one of the situations in which that crisis is finally confronted with honesty. The response of the Islamic Republic to the Kurdish question has always been one of security. Consequently, members of the opposition continue to respond to the same question with expressions of fear. The ultimate test of future developments in Iran will not be limited to the degree to which clerical authority is eliminated. Rather, it will depend on the extent to which rights of membership for Kurds and other ethnic groups are achieved without imposition of conditions of harmless cultural behaviour. Finally, if political relations with the regime continue to be defined as acts of treason and relations with the opposition continue to be based on definitions of separatism, then the resulting freedom of Iran will be incomplete and will represent a compromise with elements of both oppressive and resistant behaviour.
