Hawzhin Azeez: “The Children of War Know Its Human Costs”
Written by Hawzhin Azeez. She holds a PhD in political science and International Relations, from the University of Newcastle, Australia. Azeez is the creator of The Middle Eastern Feminist and was formerly the Co-Director of The Kurdish Center for Studies (English branch). Previously she has taught at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), as well as being a visiting scholar at their CGDS (Center for Gender and Development). She has worked closely with refugees and IDPs in Rojava while a member of the Kobane Reconstruction Board after its liberation from ISIS. Her areas of expertise include gender dynamics, post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building, democratic confederalism, and Kurdish studies.
As the threat of World War III looms, many Westerners and outsiders are calling for an uprising of the ‘Iranian’ peoples (again) against the IRGC regime. This parasitic approach should be strongly condemented because they are disproportionately directed at minorities such as the Kurds and Baloch, who have consistently been the first to stand up against the Iranian regime—precisely because they have endured the worst of its inhumane policies for decades. They have also been the first to suffer the consequences and retaliations. We also saw the level of Persian left solidarity reduced to window dressing in the 2022 uprising. We also know that in 1979, minorities like the Kurds who had equally stood up against the Shah, had fatwas imposed against them to be mass executed when other factions in the uprising took over the state.
It must be the decision of the various groups and minorities, including the Kurds and Baloch, to determine how—and if—they wish to use the current geopolitical situation in pursuit of their liberation- especially because they have exhausted democratic/peaceful uprisings with disasterous outcomes for them. This is especially crucial considering that their regions are the most militarized and forcibly host the majority of the IRGC’s military outposts and barracks—making them the most likely targets of Israeli airstrikes and Iranian military responses. Even Kurds in the diaspora should exercise caution when calling for uprisings in Iran, as we have the privilege of safety, far from the threats of bombardment by Iran or Israel. Ultimately, we are not the ones facing displacement, airstrikes, or the regime’s retaliation should regime change fail. It is also worth remembering that the regime is already using militarized Kurdish regions and towns as human shields against these attacks as we are seeing in Kermanshah. Kurdish lives yet again pay for their war games.
During the 2022, uprisings following the brutal murder of Jina Amini, it was the Kurds who initiated mass protests using the Kurdish slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi”—a slogan that was swiftly co-opted by the ultra-nationalist Persian left. This faction continued to erase Kurdish contributions and legitimate grievances to serve its own interests. The Persian-dominated opposition also widely advocated for the return of the Shah as it is currently doing, calling to replace one dictatorship with another—arguing that an ultra-secular regime would be preferable to an ultra-religious one. This approach failed to consider the nuanced historical realities of the treatment of minorities under the former Shah’s ultra-nationalist regime. The Kurds unequivocally reject both systems as viable alternatives, and instead demand democracy, federalism, human and women’s rights.
While some Kurdish factions in Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan, occupied Kurdistan in Iran) have attempted to take advantage of the Israeli attacks on the IRGC, these efforts should be understood as the desperate hope of long-oppressed minorities who have endured decades of executions, forced assimilation, poverty, and militarization. It is solely up to them to determine the nature of their resistance—whether they can overcome the collective fatigue and trauma from the regime’s retaliation following the 2022 uprisings, and whether their resistance takes the form of armed struggle or mass protest. Let them decide instead of attempting to benefit from their oppression and their lives.
The international left must also be cautious that, in its condemnation of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza, it does not inadvertently portray the Iranian regime as a heroic force of resistance. Both regimes—as many anarchists have long argued, and as is the nature of nation-states—are deeply oppressive and operate through hierarchies of power and violence embedded in their institutions.
Multiple truths can coexist: Iran is oppressive; Israel is genocidal; both are equally dangerous; Iran commits widespread human rights violations; we oppose all forms of war, genocides and violence; and the oppressed may see this geopolitical power play as a rare opportunity to liberate themselves from the death grip of the corrupt Ayatollahs. At the same time, we must recognize that Israel’s actions are not rooted in a desire to liberate others, as the US was not in Afghanistan or Iraq, but in pursuit of its own regional objectives. Despite the prevalence of orientalist and colonialist frameworks in the West, the oppressed peoples of the Middle East are fully capable of articulating and analyzing the intersecting layers of oppression they experience daily.
Many, espcially in the diaspora, are gleefully cheering the prospect of further war. But we, the children of war, know its human costs—the lifelong consequences we carry as individuals and as communities. In an ideal, utopian world, a democratic mass uprising might result in transformative change within the IRGC. Yet such a reality is as unlikely as the global normalization of the mass murder of women and children—from Congo to Sudan, from Libya to Syria to Lebanon, Turtle Island, Palestine, Kurdistan, and Balochistan. If oppressed minorities choose to use the Israeli strikes against IRGC to liberate themselves then it is their right- but likewise if they hold back and exercise caution because of past retaliatory violence then its their right.
Our role as outsiders, as activists and academics, is to listen and support the voices of the oppressed in Iran—while recognizing that not all voices are equal. Some call for democracy and women’s rights, while others call simply for a different dictatorship. We must remain clear-eyed in our solidarity, knowing that none of us are free until all of us are free. As we have seen in Rojava, we can have a democratic confederal system in which different ethnoreligious groups can co-exist together while exercising their full cultural and religious rights.
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