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KURDISH NATIONALISM IN IRAN:
The Formative Period, 1942-1947
Abbas Vali
The object of this essay is to explain the discursive formation and political practice of the Kurdish nationalist movement in Iranian Kurdistan from 1942-1947, a brief but crucial period culminating in the establishment of the Kurdish Republic in 1946. The essay outlines the historical specificity of Kurdish society in Iran during this period, and assesses the relative significance of traditional and modern political and cultural relations and forces in the formation and development of Kurdish nationalist discourse and practice. It argues that the specificity of the Kurdish national movement in Iran, its structural dynamics and the modality of its development, should be sought in the changing relationship between the Kurdish society and the modern state in Iran. This relationship, which was filtered through a complex structure of traditional forces and institutions, determined the political organisation, discursive formation and strategic objectives of the Kurdish movements in Iranian Kurdistan in the period under consideration.
The Formation of the Komala J.K. and the Advent
of Modern Nationalism in Iranian Kurdistan1
The birth of the Komala i Jeyanawa i Kurdistan (Society for the Revival of Kurdistan) in September 1942 marked the advent of modern nationalist discourse and practice in Iranian Kurdistan.2 This semi-clandestine organisation was founded in the town of Mahabad.3 Its founders came from the ranks of the urban petty bourgeoisie, both traditional and modern, though predominantly the latter. The majority of the founding members were engaged in occupations that were either created by or associated with the development of the political, economic and administrative functions of the modern state in Kurdistan, and the organisation included no landlord or mercantile bourgeois representation of any significance. The formation of the Komala J.K. signified the revival of civil society in Kurdistan following the abdication of Reza Shah and the collapse of the absolutist regime in September 1941. Writing in Kurdish, which soon dominated the intellectual scene, was the major indicator of this revival. Kurdish became the language of political and cultural discourse among a small band of Kurdish intelligentsia, whose presence in the political scene signified the development of commodity relations, secular education and modern administrative processes in Iranian Kurdistan.
The Komala J.K. insisted on ethnic qualification for membership: Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan were eligible to join, although the Christian inhabitants of Kurdistan, especially the Assyrians, also could become members. The constitution of the Komala J.K. regarded Islam as the official religion of Kurdistan, and a Quranic verse was inscribed in the emblem of Nishtiman, its official organ.4 However, the discourse of Nishtiman remained primarily secular, and the appeal to religion was mostly populist and functional. The Islamic credentials of the organisation were often invoked to counteract the charges of atheism and communism increasingly levelled at it from within traditional sectors of Kurdish society, in particular the landowning class, the mercantile community and the clergy, who were made insecure by its radical populist-nationalist rhetoric.5
The ideological rhetoric of the Komala J.K. often invoked social and economic issues associated with the class structure of Kurdish society. Nishtiman contained frequent references to social inequality between “haves and have-nots” in Kurdish society, and contrasted the poverty and ignorance of the Kurdish masses, especially the peasantry, with the accumulation of wealth among the landowners and merchants. Such references, combined with the occasional article or poem praising Lenin and the achievements of the Soviet Union, were clearly sufficient to provoke the charges of communism and atheism. However, the discourse of Nishtiman did not include class categories.6 The social and economic issues raised were attributed to the subjective qualities and interests of the economic agents in Kurdish society. For example, economic exploitation in agriculture—the extortionate rents and the over-exploitation of the peasantry—was attributed not to the prevailing structure of property relations in the countryside but to the personal greed and immoral conduct of the landlords. Similarly, an economic notion of mercantile profit was absent in references to the accumulation of wealth and growing economic inequality in towns. Nor did the discourse of Nishtiman advocate social reform to alter the existing conditions and redress the sufferings of the poor and exploited. Instead, it appealed to the benevolence and humanitarianism of the landlords to reform harsh conditions by easing the burden of exploitation. The perceived radicalism of the Komala J.K. remained wrapped in a moral critique of Kurdish society, of a kind traditionally associated with agrarian populism in transitional societies. The concept of “the people” deployed in the discourse of Nishtiman possesses the essential attributes of this category in the conceptual structure of populist discourse. The nationalist character of the discourse of Nishtiman does not differentiate it from mainstream agrarian populism. In fact it is the constant overlapping of the two categories of the Kurdish people and the Kurdish nation in the discourse of Nishtiman that accounts for the radical character of its nationalist message, often mistaken for the hidden influence of Marxism-Leninism on the ideological formation of the organisation.
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1 The actual name of this pioneering organisation is subject to some dispute among the Kurdish scholars. Some contend that it carried the name of Komala i Jeyan i Kurd/Kurdistan, meaning the Society for the Life/Survival of Kurd/Kurdistan. However, it seems to me that the notion of Jeyanawa (Revival) is more in line with the nationalist-populist ethos of this organisation than Living or Survival.
2 The discussion of the discursive formation and political specificity of the Komala J.K. in this essay draws on the analysis in my article, ‘The Making of Kurdish Identity in Iran’ in Critique, no.7, Fall 1995, pp. 1-22.
3 For different views on the formation, development and demise of the Komala J.K., and its social structure, ideological stance and political strategy, see the following: Arfa, H. The Kurds: A Historical and Political Study, Oxford 1966; Eagleton, W. The Kurdish Republic of 1946, Oxford 1963; Roosevelt, A. Jr. ‘The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad’, in The Middle East Journal, Vol.l, no.3, 1947; Emin, N.M. Hokumat i Kurdistan, Utrecht 1993; Nebez, J. Gowar i Nishtiman, Stockholm 1985; Samadi, S.M. (ed.), J.K. Chi bu, Chi Dawist v Chi la Basarhat?, Mahabad 1981; Mola Ezat, M. Komary Milly Mehabad, Stockholm 1984; Hemin (Muhammad Amin Shaikh ul-Islami) Tarik v Roun, Baghdad 1974; Yassin, B.A. Vision or Reality? The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers, 1941-47, Lund 1995. See also my article cited in note 2 above.
4 From July 1943 to May 1944 nine issues of Nishtiman were published. Issues 1 to 6 are reprinted in Nebez op.cit. Issues 7-9, published together in May 1944.
5 For Komala’s response to such charges, see Nishtiman nos.5 and 6. These charges seem to have been precipitated by the publication of articles in praise of the October Revolution and of Lenin. The constitudon of the Komala envisaged Islam as the official religion of the future independent state (Clause 7, printed in Nishtiman no. 6). It also argued for the necessity that secular education conform to the principles of Islam.
6 Nebez in his introduction to Nishtiman rightly refers to this point, indicating that the Komala was not a Marxist-Leninist organisation and did not have a hidden communist agenda behind its popular-democratic programme for the creation of a free and independent Kurdish state. However, he fails to identify the Komala’s populist social programme or to explore its relationship with the organisation’s nationalist ideology. The constant encounter between populism and nationalism and their articulation in the Komala’s political and ideological discourse proved essential for the construction of a modern Kurdish national identity in the Kurdish territory in Iran.
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