In the heart of the Middle East, a region that is plagued by religious fundamentalism and women are almost invisible in the political and social activities, a political and militarily movement exists which women play a substantial role within both its practices and its decision making processes; it is Kurdish Movement.
The new modern Kurdish nationalism has started since the establishment of the Republic of Kurdistan at the end phase of WWII. The Kurds are the largest nations in the world that have no their own state(s). They had been distributed between Iran and Othman Empire after Chaldoran conflict and then, after collapsing Othman Empire, have been redistributed between Turkey, Iraq and Syria. They have struggled for the right of self-determination mostly with a realistic goal; to gain their fundamental rights within the current borders, a peaceful coexisting with other ethnics rather than making their own state(s).
Their movement has less and more got to some results in Iraq, Syria and Turkey but in the Iran’s scenes they have faced to a much difficult circumstance. In one hand, their military forces have been pushed to back to the deeps of Kurdistan of Iraq and in the other, the establishment of Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq (KRG) that has special ties to the Iran, makes the freedom of movement for them more difficult. Iran regime unlike Turkey and ever Syria has proved has no plan to negotiate with Kurds about their rights except the case of planning to killing Kurdish negotiators.
If the Kurds of Iran would not get to their goals yet, but their movement has some exclusive points that distinguished it from all other movements in the Middle East. The Kurdish women, as mentioned above, play a big role in its political and military activities that has stood it in profound contrast to other movements in the region, namely those are less or more Islamic in ideological orientation. Strangely, a number of Kurdish religious men played a significant role to make this difference. How did women from such a closed and conservative region take part in a fully male-based domain? And how these religious men let this social change to happen?
Women involvement in Kurdish political life–particularly Kurdistan of Iran- has passed through three historical epochs: the establishment of the republic of Kurdistan via KDP-Iran (1946), the pragmatically emergence of Komaleh as a Kurdish left wing movement (1979) and the establishment of PJAK as a PKK-related political and military organisation (2004).
When the Republic of Kurdistan was established in Mahabad, the Kurdish society was prepared already to permit women’s participation in social, yet not in political activities. In the other parts of Kurdistan women had been also involved in political life in their societies. For instance the ruler of a very famous Kurdish family in Turkey, Nahri, was a woman known as ‘Lady Maryam’ who had a great power and authority within her tribal territory in 1910s. Also another female ruler, Lady Adela who ruled in Halabja in Kurdistan of Iraq who played a great role to help British soldiers due the Great War. But in Kurdistan of Iran they had not been involved in political activities before 1940s.
The vast majority of Kurdish women did not veil themselves. When Reza Shah launched coercive unveiling of Iranian women in 1936, his officers had not been faced with huge resistance by Kurdish women but they were fronted with a great uprising by Kurdish men who did not accept governmental uniform and ‘western hat’ for themselves!
The women’s social life in Kurdistan was fundamentally different with the rest of Iran. They would dance and sign with men in the public, they were free to associate with travellers, strangers and guests. They were freer than the other ethnics’ women in Iran and in the region. Notwithstanding, the leaders of the Republic in Mahabd(1945-46) encouraged them to participate in political as well as social domains. To this end, they provided a propitious atmosphere for women education with the view to in teaching them the required skills they needed to express and articulated themselves. Ghazi Mohammad, the supreme leader of KDP (the party which established before the Republic of Kurdistan) launched a campaign to extend the involvement of women in political activities, establishing the Union of Democrat women, which his wife, Mina Ghazi, was the first to join. It left a huge impact in Kurdish society, not just because Ghazi Mohammad involved his wife in such activities, but also because he was a religious leader. Before becoming the president of the Republic, he was a popular and well-known ‘Molla’ in Mahabad. His decision, thereafter, to let women play their role in this field set a pattern in the whole religious community of Kurdistan for the later movements to follow leading to an intellectual shift in both the attitude and beliefs of people.
The second epoch was started when a radical left wing party emerged rapidly in Kurdistan after the Iran revolution in 1979. Komaleh, as it became known, had strengthened the politicisation process of women in Kurdistan. This process turned to the involvement in combat and military training when Iran’s Army launched an attack to destroy the socialist and autonomist movement in Kurdistan. At the first step it was a general oppression of all Kurds, men and women. Then hundreds of Kurdish women as like as men joined the military and political ranks of Komaleh. Discriminatory laws in the incipient Islamic regime along with domestic violence within certain rural and conservative families forced many other women to take up arms and fighting for their rights in the first decade after Iran’s attack in Kurdistan.
They found joining Komaleh –and also KDP which had a longer history since 1946- less dangerous than being subject to abuse in the prisons or exposed to the newly launched Islamic rules. Some others joint because their relatives had been killed or had been imprisoned and they were also worry about themselves, and then decided to join to avoid prison. They had heard about unfortunate women who had been forced to commit suicide or had been killed by security officers. One other sort of these killings, namely honour killings still cost a lot for women within their society. For these women joining to these parties looks like offering a way-out.
These women also played an integral role in their movement and help that to be more natural, more democratic, and more related to the normal society. Some of these women passed all levels of centralized power system and did not stay sideline the decision making circle. At least one of them could gain entry to politics bureau of Komaleh
Similarly to the first phase, this second wave of involvement was strengthened by the most famous religious leader in Kurdistan, Sheikh Izzaddin Hosseini, who supported the Komaleh’s socialist ideas and let his daughters to join its military- political activities.
This new step created a new revolutionary and resistance literacy. Poets and poetesses writing how female ‘Peshmargeh’ fight against Islamic forces and how they protect the male Peshmaga while also must be care about their children. The most famous poem known ‘Runak’, is about a mother who far from her child, writes a letter to her child, Runak, telling how her father has been killed, why he had fighting and know why she, the mother, must fill his absence in the rank of the Kurdistan revolutionary forces. This text has been signed by Najma Ghulami, one of the most favoured artist and signer in 1980s who continued his activities within Komaleh in this years.
The last wave of Kurdish women involvement in political and military campaigns began by emergence of PJAK (Kurdistan’s Free Life Party) in 2004. It had a close relation to the PKK (Kurdistan’s Workers Party), known as having the largest contingent of female guerrilla in the world. PJAK has gradually expanded its female rank to become known as the largest one the kind among the Kurdish parties in Iran. Women in PJAK, then had some models to follow and to learn of them. The experience of women presence in the movement had already existed and they could improve their position in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Then their existence is now ever stronger and more vital than women in Komaleh and KDP. Side by side with their male counterparts, Kurdish women carry out military attacks and they participate in philosophical and theoretical classes to educate themselves politically, alongside weapons training. They also have an equal weight in the leadership of Pejak and have eyes up to get a joint party presidents, one man and one woman as like as PKK and also BDP in Turkey parliament.
Now, female members in the ranks of PJAK have become a normal phenomenon. Although kind and friendly, Kurdish female guerrillas are very serious embracing wholeheartedly their movement proving to be the bravest in the battlefield and hard working in the harsh winters and hot summers. After every victorious attack they lock their hands in the hands of male guerrilla and begin dancing, one of the most visible symbols of having freedom and power.
Noteworthy as PJAK claim, they have managed to reach complete gender equality. While some of them have fled conservative milieu, others are believed to have brought up within open minded and educated families, some with university qualifications. Similar to their intellectual activities, they regard military campaigns as an approach toward getting their national and gender rights. They also look that as a mean of women empowerment within a movement.
In contrast to a closed and conservative society where women are mostly under pressure, PJAK claim it have valued the women as free individuals and provide the best space for them to express themselves and to breaking all glass ceiling that even in so called ‘free societies’ still has existed as the main barrier against women growth.
They have proved female potential is a highly capable force within the Kurdish society, setting a pattern of changes and revitalisation that could be followed by other Middle Eastern societies.
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