Rojhelat Kurdistan (Eastern Kurdistan under Iranian Occupation): Identity, Securitization, Resistance, and Self-Determination

Ashtyako Poorkarim

Independent Researcher | Research Paper | 29 August 2026

Email: ashtyako.poorkarim@gmail.com  |  ORCID: 0009-0000-6465-8053

https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6465-8053

Adapted from Chapter Eight of Fake Iran: Persian Colonialism, Identity Crisis, and the Resistance of Nations.

1. Introduction and Analytical Approach

Eastern Kurdistan, or “Rojhelat,” is that part of the historic land of Kurdistan which—after the Great Game among the powers at the start of the twentieth century and in the wake of the colonial Sykes–Picot (1916) and Lausanne (1923) agreements, and then the coercive nation-building project of the Pahlavis—was forcibly folded into the political geography that is today called “Iran.” The incorporation of Rojhelat into Iran was not the result of free consent, but the outcome of force, a shift in the balance of power in favor of a Persian-centric center, and the engineering of borders by outside powers. From the 1920s to the present, the collective life of the Kurds of Rojhelat has moved along the edge of two realities: on the one hand the preservation of identity, memory, and transnational ties with the other parts of Kurdistan; and on the other, harsh repression, organized assimilation, and the permanent securitization imposed by the Iranian state.

This paper examines that century-long experience through a comparative and interdisciplinary lens (history, sociology, political science, and international law).

2. Historical Kurdish Identity in Rojhelat

The Kurds of Rojhelat possess all the classic components of a nation:

Language and literature: Kurdish (with dialectal diversity including Sorani, Gorani/Hawrami, Kalhori, Luri, Kurmanji, Laki, and more), with a corpus of written literature (from Mawlawi to Qani‘ and Hêmin, Nalî, Mawlud [Mahwî], Wefayî, etc.) and centuries-old oral literature.

Land and geography: The Zagros and its surrounding plateaus, with centers such as Sine (Sanandaj), Chaharmahal-o-Bakhtiari, Hamedan, Khorasan, Lorestan, Urmia, Kermashan (Kermanshah), Ilam, and others.

Historical memory and political institutions: From the principalities (Ardalan, Baban) to self-rule movements (“Simko, Bibi Maryam Bakhtiari, Sardar ‘Aivaz Khan, Dawud Khan Kalhor, Maryam Qalavand…”) and the Republic of Kurdistan (1946) across Rojhelat.

Culture and rite: Modal music (the tanbur and Yarsan repertoires), Newroz and seasonal rites, national dress and arts; as well as internal religious-cultural distinctions (a Sunni majority in many areas alongside Shi‘a and Yarsan communities).

Transnational linkage: A self-awareness of belonging to the “Kurdish nation” in its four parts (Rojhelat, Bakur, Başûr, Rojava) that transcends imposed political borders.

Official Denial of Identity

With the change of name from “Persia” to “Iran” (1934), a policy of “Iranian ethnogenesis” took shape: in official discourse Kurds were reduced to “the Iranian Kurdish ethnic group.” Kurdish education was eliminated; Kurdish publishing and media were restricted/banned; toponyms were changed; and the representation of Kurdish history in schoolbooks was either deleted or relegated to the margins. This symbolic denial served as the cultural arm of political colonization.

3. State Formation and Repression under the Pahlavis

Reza Shah’s “country-army” project advanced toward forcible homogenization: disarmament of tribes, forced sedentarization, the deployment of the gendarmerie and permanent divisions, the bombing of Lorestan and parts of Kurdistan, the destruction of local defensive capacities, and the severing of traditional networks of authority. This policy reduced Kurdistan from a “political space with capacities for self-organization” to a “subject of the center’s security order.”

At the same time, the “one nation–one language” policy was enforced: Persianization of schools and administrations, the banning of Kurdish instruction, the denigration of Kurdish dress and symbols, and the portrayal of Kurds as “mountain-dwelling Iranians.” The aim was to extract an “obedient Iranian subject” out of Kurdish diversity.

Under Mohammad Reza Shah, SAVAK infiltrated the cities of Kurdistan and criminalized every assertion of identity under the label of “separatism.” Prison, exile, and the elimination of political-cultural elites kept Kurdistan under a permanent “state of exception,” in which ordinary law is suspended and naked force becomes the rule.

4. The 1979 Revolution, Armed Conflict, and Securitization

The fall of the monarchy opened a space for articulating autonomy explicitly. Local councils, cultural associations, and Kurdish parties (especially the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Komala), backed by broad social support, advanced the program of “Kurdistan governed by Kurds themselves.”

But swiftly, the Islamic Republic—through a jihad fatwa against the Kurds—unveiled the persistence of Persian chauvinism. That fatwa provided the religious-political license for large-scale operations by the IRGC and the army in the cities and the mountains. Dozens of towns and hundreds of villages were militarized and destroyed; thousands were killed and displaced; and Kurdistan was turned into a theater of imposed internal war.

The permanent presence of IRGC units, the establishment of Basij bases, drumhead sentences for “moharebeh” and “corruption on earth,” and public executions in squares formed a strategy of mass intimidation—a strategy to break the spirit of resistance and consolidate “rule through terror.”

The Kurdistan Democratic Party and Komala have been the political-organizational pillars of resistance: from drafting programs of self-rule/federalism to building social networks (workers, teachers, students), from diaspora diplomacy to forging ties with other parts of Kurdistan. The assassinations of leaders abroad (Abdulrahman Ghassemlou in Vienna, 1989; Sadegh Sharafkandi in Berlin, 1992) showed that repression recognizes no borders.

Peshmerga and the Defense of Society

The Peshmerga—as the defensive force of Kurdish society—disrupted the balance of coercion by combining “mountain guerrilla warfare” with “urban–rural social bases.” The strategic aim was not merely military resistance, but the protection of collective life and identity.

At the same time, formal bans did not silence the Kurdish language; the home, literary circles, music, and informal media became “underground schools of identity.” Newroz rose from a seasonal festival to a political rite of resistance. New literary production pried history from the monopoly of the official narrative.

Rojhelat Under the Islamic Republic: A “Colonial–Security” Model

The last four decades have continued the same logic: a de facto ban on Kurdish education (despite the limited opening of Article 15 of the Constitution), media blockade, arrests and executions of activists, militarization of towns and villages, mines sown along the borders, and the “securitization of everyday life.”

Despite resources in water, agriculture, minerals, and energy, Kurdistan has been pushed to the “periphery of development.” Value-adding industrial infrastructure has been relocated to the center, and the region has been turned into a market of cheap labor and a consumer of the center’s goods. Kolbari is not an occupational choice but a “survival strategy” within an unequal order; and firing on kolbars is a policy designed to render the border of coercion visible.

The Sunni majority of Kurds (amid internal religious diversity) faces compounded discrimination: restrictions on religious institutions, political representation, structural discrimination in appointments, and access to public resources. The combination of “ethnicity/religion” is a doubly effective tool of securitization.

Nevertheless, a new generation of Kurds has built agile civic networks: cultural and linguistic associations, women’s collectives, human-rights campaigns, environmental initiatives, and informal local councils. Resistance has spread from the “mountains” to the “city” and from “hard politics” to “the politics of everyday life.”

The killing of Jina Amini once again placed Kurdistan at the heart of a nationwide movement. “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Women, Life, Freedom) was not merely a slogan; it was a new normative framework: the intersection of gender, nation, and freedom; a bridge between national liberation and social emancipation.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish diaspora plays an intermediary role with global public opinion: documenting violations, pursuing legal campaigns, networking with parliaments and international organizations. This “social diplomacy” raises the costs of repression and consolidates an alternative narrative.

In sum, Rojhelat can be understood within four frameworks:

Internal/external colonization: A Persian-centric center has turned the Kurdish periphery into a colony of resources and labor.

Securitization: Demands for mother-tongue education and self-determination are translated into “national security threats” to legitimize coercion.

State of exception: Kurdistan is administered under the suspension of ordinary legal norms.

Right to self-determination: Under the UN Charter and Article 1 common to both Covenants (civil-political / economic-social), the Kurdish nation holds the right to self-determination; its systematic denial is a continuing breach of international law. In addition, the 1992 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities affirms language and cultural rights.

5. Urban and Field Dossiers: Colonization, Resistance, and Memory

The cities of Rojhelat Kurdistan (Eastern Kurdistan under Iranian occupation) are not merely physical geographies; they are living arenas where Persian-centric colonization collides with national resistance. Each city in this geography bears a historical memory and a unique experience of repression and resistance. Case studies of Sine, Mahabad, Mariwan, Baneh, Kermashan, Lorestan, and Ilam—together with gendered, environmental, and class dimensions—show that colonization does not operate only at the political level but penetrates the depths of everyday life. Reports by organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and academic studies (McDowall, 2004; Entessar, 1992) confirm this pattern.

Sine (Sanandaj): The City-as-Fortress of Resistance and Siege

Sine has long been a center of intellectual life, music, and civic activism. In 1979–1981 it became the principal locus of clashes between Kurdish parties and the Islamic Republic. A security policy of “siege and control” (city-as-fortress) was clearly applied here: heavy IRGC deployment, encirclement of the city, and tight control of movement. In the uprisings of the 2020s (especially after the killing of Jina Amini), Sine again stood at the forefront of protests. Human-rights reporting has documented the use of live ammunition and lethal force against protesters in the city during the 2022 uprising. The city’s collective memory has reproduced resistance and turned Sine into a symbol of steadfastness.

Mahabad: The Memory of a Republic and the Gap Between Narratives

Mahabad, capital of the 1946 Republic of Kurdistan, holds a special place in Kurdish national memory. This brief statehood experience has lived on as a “moment of possibility.” Each wave of protest, from the 1980s to recent uprisings, is reframed by recalling the Kurdish Republic. Iran’s official narrative brands that event as “sedition and treason,” whereas Kurdish memory treats it as the peak of the national struggle. This narrative gap illustrates the clash between official historiography and Kurdish national memory.

Mariwan and Baneh: Border, Kolbari, and Economic–Security Colonization

Because of their geography, Mariwan and Baneh have become hubs of kolbari. Kolbari is an “economy of survival” on which thousands of families depend. Kolbars constantly face death: direct fire by border forces, falls in the mountains, or landmine explosions left over from the Iran–Iraq war. Human-rights organizations have repeatedly documented deaths and injuries among kolbars caused by border-force gunfire, mountain accidents, and landmines. Road blockades, confiscation of goods, and shootings lay bare economic–security colonization: the central state seizes livelihoods and turns the border itself into an instrument of control.

Kermashan, Lorestan, and Ilam: Religious Discrimination and Unjust Reconstruction

Kermashan and Lorestan combine religious diversity (Shi‘a, Yarsan, Sunni) with structural discrimination. After the Iran–Iraq war, reconstruction in Kurdish areas never produced spatial justice; infrastructure was not fully rebuilt and structural unemployment persisted. Data from Iran’s Statistical Center (2020/2021) shows unemployment rates in Kermashan and Ilam above the national average. Religious discrimination against Yarsanis and Sunnis has deepened the marginalization of these communities. These regions clearly demonstrate how religion, nation, and geography are used to reproduce peripheralization.

6. Gender, Environment, and Labor

Gender and Colonization: Women at the Intersection of Oppressions

Kurdish women stand at the intersection of three axes of oppression—gender, nation, and class. They are both carriers of language and memory and targets of securitization and compounded repression. The killing of Jina Amini is a stark example: a Kurdish woman, victim of both gendered and national repression. The slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,” which arose from Kurdistan, reflects resistance against this intersection. Postcolonial feminist scholarship has emphasized the dual role of women in transmitting language and culture while also standing on the front line of political and social repression.

The Environment as a Field of Domination

Colonization is not limited to language and politics; nature and the environment are also fields of domination. In Kurdistan, destructive dam projects (such as the Daryan Dam), water transfers to the Persian heartland, deforestation, and extensive mining have devastated agro-pastoral livelihoods. Environmental reporting has warned that the drying of wetlands and the destruction of forests can intensify displacement and migration. Moreover, the regime has repeatedly set forests on fire deliberately, and has imprisoned or sentenced environmental activists to death. Environmental justice in this geography is an integral part of national justice.

Labor and Contracting: The Kurdish Working Class

The labor market in Kurdistan is largely contractual, informal, and unsafe. Workers are denied the right to independent organization, and strikes are met with violence. International labor-rights reporting has repeatedly described severe restrictions on independent organization and collective labor action in Iran, with additional pressures in Kurdish regions. The Kurdish working class stands at the intersection of “economic exploitation” and “national discrimination.” Linkages between labor and national movements have opened new horizons for resistance: the struggle for bread alongside the struggle for national dignity.

7. From Survival to Future-Building

Consequently, the case studies of Rojhelat’s cities show that Persian-centric colonization is not merely a political project; it encompasses all dimensions of everyday life—from economy and environment to gender and historical memory. In the face of this multilayered domination, the Kurdish nation has fostered creative and persistent forms of resistance: cultural resistance in Mahabad, civic resistance in Sine, livelihood resistance in Mariwan and Baneh, and gendered resistance in the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” movement.

These realities reveal the profound crisis of Iran’s legitimacy in Kurdistan. The occupying central state is present in these areas only through militarization, not through popular consent. Thus, the cities of Kurdistan are not merely administrative units of Iran; they are historical battlegrounds where national memory is continuously reproduced.

Understanding this reality is essential for any future-oriented solution in the Middle East. Lasting peace and stability are possible only when the foundational principle of self-determination for the Kurdish nation and other nations under Iranian colonization is recognized.

Rojhelat Kurdistan is part of a geography that—due to colonial treaties and the policies of the Pahlavis and the Islamic Republic—was forcibly integrated into a “fabricated Iran.” Over the past century this land has been a complete example of Persian-centric colonization: military coercion, linguistic erasure, resource theft, the securitization of daily life, and the rewriting of history. At the same time, in the very mirror of repression, the endurance of identity and the innovation of resistance have taken shape: from the peshmerga to the poet, from the kolbar to the woman activist, from political Newroz to the global “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” movement.

The central question is how to move from a condition of “survival”—in which society struggles merely to stay alive in the face of repression—to a condition of “building the future,” a future grounded in authentic Kurdish identity and the principle of self-determination. The historical experiences of other nations show that this transition is not only possible but necessary. Timor-Leste, after years of Indonesian occupation, achieved independence in 2002 through popular resistance and international support. South Sudan, after decades of civil war and on the basis of the right to self-determination, founded its independent state in 2011. Kosovo, Eritrea, and Algeria likewise exemplify paths taken by nations to break free from the cage of colonization.

Reclaiming the Language

Language is a nation’s ID card; a nation lives so long as its language lives—the heart of every national identity. Persian-centric colonization, by imposing a “one nation, one language” policy, sought to marginalize national languages like Kurdish, Balochi, Arabic, and Turkic. Reclaiming language requires action on three levels:

Orthographic and scholarly standardization: Just as the Basques and Catalans in Spain, by producing independent educational resources, kept their languages alive under Franco, the Kurdish nation and other non-Persian nations enclosed within Iran must, alongside standardization, strengthen grammar, scientific neologisms, and educational literature.

Alternative educational content: Producing textbooks and learning resources in Kurdish, even outside the official system, lays a foundation for reproducing national identity.

People’s education networks: One of the most effective forms of cultural resistance to “one nation, one language” is the creation of grassroots education networks. As in 1990s Kosovo, where underground schools and home classes saved Albanian from total erasure, similar initiatives emerged in Kurdistan.

A prominent example is the founding of the Kurdish language institute “Soma” in the city of Baneh and in many other areas. This institute taught thousands in their mother tongue and, by dubbing films and children’s cartoons into Kurdish (by the Agren-Mahabad group), linked the new generation to its language and culture. Yet this very civic initiative, due to the regime’s fear of reproducing Kurdish identity, was met with repression: the Soma institute was sealed by government order and its founder (Ashtyako Poorkarim, then publicly known as Jamal Poorkarim) was arrested.

This episode shows that even the most basic efforts to revive the mother tongue in the fabricated Iran are answered with violence. At the same time, the Soma experience proved that Kurdish, despite official bans, can still be reproduced through grassroots networks, home classes, and now digital platforms. Such networks are not only educational tools but symbols of civic resistance—symbols that show no power can silence the language and identity of a nation.

Truth-Seeking and Memory

Colonized nations cannot build a free future without confronting the past. Truth-seeking projects for Kurdistan should include:

People’s archives: Collecting documents on executions, bombings, and acts of resistance.

Oral histories of victims: As in transitional-justice projects in South Africa and Rwanda, oral narratives can preserve collective memory.

Mapping violations: Documenting the geography of massacres, as done in Bosnia after the war, can form the basis of future claims for justice.
This collective memory is not only a tool for justice but a shield against the distortions of Iran’s official history.

Multilevel Diplomacy

Self-determination is not achieved solely on the local field; it requires internationalization. Three essential levels exist:

Local: Establishing city councils and regional parliaments in Rojhelat to represent the Kurdish nation.

National: Strategic cooperation with other nations under Iranian colonization (Ahwazi Arabs, Baloch, Azeri Turks, Turkmen) to build a common front.

International: Bringing the case before bodies such as the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the International Criminal Court. The experience of Timor-Leste showed that once the issue reaches the global stage, occupiers are compelled to retreat.

Local Resilient Economy

Economic colonization is a principal instrument of domination. In Kurdistan, it appears as resource plunder, unemployment, and kolbari. To counter it, lessons can be drawn from other nations:

People’s cooperatives: On the model of past experiments where participatory agriculture preserved a measure of economic independence.

Indigenous value chains: Handicrafts, mountain agriculture, and cultural tourism should be strengthened.

Small-scale technologies: Renewables and local innovations can reduce dependence on the center, as experienced in Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan after 1991.

Cross-Movement Linkages

No national movement can stand alone against a colonizing state. A movement’s power grows through ties with other social struggles:

Women’s movement: “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” is not just a slogan but a global project that placed Kurdistan at the center of attention.

Labor movement: The fight against economic exploitation can generate transnational solidarity.

Environmental movement: Resistance to water transfers and the destruction of natural resources in Kurdistan attracts the global solidarity of environmental activists.

Cultural movement: Language and indigenous music are tools for sustaining identity, just as music and poetry played a key role in Eritrea’s independence struggle.

Accordingly, Rojhelat Kurdistan is at once a full-length mirror of Persian-centric colonization and a prominent example of national resistance. Homogenization policies have not “Iranianized” Kurdistan; they have deepened the central state’s crisis of legitimacy. In political science and international law, the persistent denial of identity and self-determination is neither sustainable nor morally defensible.

The future of Eastern Kurdistan lies in a return to authentic identity and in a political architecture that centers Kurdish subjecthood—in the form of independence. The experiences of Timor-Leste, South Sudan, Kosovo, and Eritrea show that national resistance, together with international diplomacy and a resilient economy, can pave the road to freedom.

Until that time, every day of learning Kurdish, every archive of memories, every piece of music, and every act of civic protest is a “rehearsal for freedom”—a rehearsal that loosens the chains of the “fabricated Iran” and opens the path toward a free and independent Kurdistan.

8. Conclusion

This paper has presented Rojhelat as a case in which questions of Kurdish identity, state centralization, security governance, economic marginalization, and historical memory are inseparable. Within the analytical framework adopted here, Persian-centric homogenization has not dissolved Kurdish national consciousness; rather, language, culture, memory, civil organization, gendered mobilization, labor struggles, environmental activism, and diaspora engagement have served as mechanisms through which identity is reproduced. The paper therefore argues that the political future of Eastern Kurdistan cannot be understood solely through administrative reform or economic development. It must also confront the issues of political consent, collective identity, and self-determination. The comparative experiences invoked in the study – including Timor-Leste, South Sudan, Kosovo, and Eritrea – are used not as identical models but as evidence that prolonged conflicts over sovereignty and national status can eventually produce new political arrangements when domestic mobilization, international diplomacy, and institutional capacity converge. From this perspective, the preservation of Kurdish language and memory, the strengthening of civic and economic institutions, and the internationalization of Kurdish political claims are not peripheral cultural activities; they are components of a broader struggle over political subjecthood and the future architecture of the Middle East.

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