BARSHENK DOLATYARI

News Centre — Throughout Iran's history, Kermanshah (Kermashan) has been a border‑central dilemma that transcends urban administration. Successive states have faced two constant options: assimilation or destruction. This logic has formed the permanent framework for the relationship between power and the city, compelling the centre always to take a fateful decision towards it.

The importance of Kermanshah does not stem from a single factor, but from the convergence of multifaceted forces. As a geopolitical gateway between the central plateau and Mesopotamia, it has always been part of transit networks, trade routes, capital flows, and population movements. Its location on the edge of the Zagros Mountains, near water resources and fertile lands, and its position at the heart of the oil fields of western Iran have made Kermanshah a point of intersection between political economy, geopolitics, and national security. However, what distinguishes this city from other areas of western Iran is that it is the largest Kurdish city in Iran's geography — a position that transforms it from a "border region" into a potential centre of political influence.

Therefore, Kermanshah has never been a "distant periphery" for central governments; it has always been considered a dangerously close periphery — a periphery that, if not properly integrated, could become the epicentre of a crisis that is not merely a security crisis but a crisis of the state's legitimacy, identity, and narrative. In this sense, the prevailing logic of governments towards Kermanshah can be seen as a logic of "assimilation and occupation": assimilation at the discursive level through redefining identity, language, and history; and occupation at the political and security level through military presence, administrative control, and the suppression of independent organisation.

In this context, Kermanshah had to become both "Iranian" and "non‑Kurdish" simultaneously: loyal yet deprived of the possibility of forming an independent entity. This contradiction lies at the heart of the state‑building project in western Iran — a state that seeks to integrate its regions but fears recognising difference as a source of politics. Hence, one can understand why Kermanshah has always been subjected to containment rather than development.

From the era of the first Pahlavi dynasty, which consolidated modern state‑building through militarisation, forced centralisation, and linguistic homogenisation, through the second Pahlavi dynasty, which continued the project by co‑opting local elites and directing discourse more flexibly, to the Islamic Republic, which intensified this approach by combining chronic security rigidity with ideological politicisation — Kermanshah has always remained a "problem." The difference between regimes lay not in the underlying logic but in the methods of exercising power. What remained constant was the central government's anxiety over the possibility of Kermanshah becoming a meeting point between Kurdish liberation politics and class, religious, and urban grievances in western Iran.

Thus, the main question here is not why Kermanshah is important, but why every project of power throughout history has sought to "seize" Kermanshah — militarily, economically, and, most importantly, discursively. The answer to this question takes us beyond the official narratives of the nation‑state, centralist historiography, and reductive security analyses, into a world where Kermanshah is not merely an object of politics but a site for revealing the logic of politics in contemporary Iran.

From Qajar Shiitisation to the De‑Kurdification of the Islamic Republic

The relationship of central governments with Kermanshah over the past two centuries reveals a consistent pattern of internal colonialism that goes beyond notions of marginalisation or persecution. Kermanshah was treated not merely as a deprived region but as a space to be exploited, reorganised, and prevented from developing an independent political self. This colonialism has taken overlapping forms: economic exploitation, demographic engineering, cultural repression, and the undermining of Kurdish life. Although successive regimes differ in their discourse, they share a single goal: to forcibly integrate Kermanshah into the centre without allowing it to redefine its position within it.

During the Qajar era, the central government viewed Kermanshah as an "unstable" region — not fully integrated into the Iranian Shiite system, yet too valuable to be left to itself. Religious diversity, the strong presence of tribal structures, and cross‑border Kurdish ties made the region a space where state authority always seemed fragile. The Qajar response to this situation was not development or political participation, but deliberate Shiitisation.

Here, Shiism was not seen as a religious experience but as a tool of governance. The network of clerics loyal to the centre, religious endowments, religious institutions, and the redistribution of economic privileges became mechanisms for reshaping political loyalties. The result was the marginalisation of local forms of Kurdish religiosity, such as Yarsanism, and the weakening of social independence. Qajar Shiitisation should be regarded as the first modern attempt to separate Kermanshah from the historical and cultural horizon of Kurdistan — an attempt aimed not at unity but at control through symbolic homogenisation.

With the establishment of the Pahlavi state, the logic of internal colonialism did not stop or weaken; it escalated to a more sophisticated level. Reza Shah promoted the modern nation‑state project through militarisation, forced centralisation, and linguistic homogenisation. Within this framework, Kermanshah was to be transformed from a multi‑layered Kurdish space into a "loyal border city."

The attempt to "Persianise" Kermanshah was not merely a matter of language policy; it was an integrated discursive project encompassing formal education, geographical naming, official historiography, and the denigration of Kurdish dialect and culture. The Kurdish language was not only suppressed but also delegitimised; real history was not only ignored but rewritten and distorted. At the same time, uneven development and administrative centralisation turned Kermanshah into a subordinate space, consuming central policies without being able to influence them.

Although the style of governance changed, the second Pahlavi dynasty maintained this logic. The co‑optation of local elites into the state structure replaced overt repression, but this co‑optation was conditional: loyalty was contingent on the erasure of Kurdish identity. In this sense, the Pahlavis targeted not only the economy and politics but also the horizon of political imagination in Kermanshah.

The Islamic Republic does not represent a rupture with the past; rather, it is a moment of convergence of previous projects. This regime combined Qajar Shiitisation and Pahlavi Persianisation into an ideological security logic. In Kermanshah and Ilam, Shiism has become not merely a tool of assimilation but an indicator of security loyalty. At the same time, any manifestation of Kurdish identity is seen as a potential threat.

The Competition over the Symbolic Occupation of Kermanshah

In late 2025, Kermanshah briefly became the centre of a symbolic competition between Iranian political forces. It was not merely an arena of social protest but a testing ground for the state's legitimacy and viability. The open entry of the royalist opposition into this space revealed the depth and complexity of the situation — a competition over the seizure of political meaning and memory, not merely street management or control of repression.

From the royalist perspective, Kermanshah is treated as a symbol for the reconstruction of a future centralised state, accompanied by a denial of its Kurdish identity and an insistence on suppressing Kurdish parties, especially PJAK, with the aim of turning the city into a political base subservient to royalist ideological discourse without any form of autonomy. The Islamic Republic, for its part, employs security and ideological tools to perpetuate the same logic: the Shiitisation of security, the suppression of independent Kurdish forces, and the claim of protecting national unity. From this perspective, Kermanshah is a sensitive point whose independence could threaten the political and social boundaries of the state.

This situation represents a contradictory overlap: the Islamic Republic and the royalists, despite their historical and ideological differences, agree on the logic of Kermanshah. Both seek to end the Kurdish character of Kermanshah — one in the name of security and Shiism, the other in the name of Iran and its territorial unity. This overlap reveals the historical and symbolic significance of Kermanshah, a city whose economic, cultural, and political ties to Kurdish identity have made it simultaneously a point of threat and opportunity.

Kermanshah has thus become a symbolic battleground in the war of narratives. Its symbolic occupation not only grants political legitimacy but also seeks to limit the possibility of any independent redefinition of Kurdish identity. In late 2025, this convergence of pressure and competition showed that the Kurdishness of Kermanshah, its history of repression and resistance, and its connections to liberation movements have made independent urban identity and subject‑resistance an unwanted asset for central governments.

At the same time, this paradox makes Kermanshah a sensitive yet vital point. Any seizure of identity and symbolism will inevitably be met with historical and biographical resistance from the Kurdish world. This resistance, even if manifested in popular protests, is rooted in a historical, political, and economic structure that will never fully integrate into projects of occupation and denial.

The Confiscation of the Dead as an Instrument of Power

Events in late 2025 in Kermanshah and Ilam demonstrate how repression and massacre were employed on two parallel levels: on the street through direct violence, and in the media through narrative reconstruction. As occurred during the popular uprising, the royalist opposition attempted to separate the victims from their Kurdish and political context, turning their deaths into material serving its own narrative — a secondary violence that erases the social meaning of death.

The confiscation of corpses is also used as an instrument of power, transforming local experience into political capital that reproduces the discourse of a "unified Iranian nation" at the expense of Kurdish history and identity. On this point, the Islamic Republic and the royalist project intersect: both turn the autonomy of Kermanshah and its local movements into a political resource without recognising the legitimacy of Kurdish resistance or the city's distinctiveness.

This seizure represents an assault on both collective memory and the urban environment. The slogans, bodies, and spaces in the streets of Kermanshah and Ilam clearly carry Kurdish and anti‑exploitation connotations, but the royalist narrative reframed them in a general, identity‑less Iranian context. This distortion not only inflicts secondary violence on the affected families and communities but also seeks to erase the conceptual framework of urban resistance and Kurdish identity from the very heart of contemporary Iranian history.

This act can be seen as a clear example of the "exploitation of death" — the use of the dead as a political tool and ideological justification without any regard for their political reality. Here, the royalists effectively align themselves with the repressive state; both attempt, in different ways, to exploit the subjectivity and dynamics of Kurdish resistance in Kermanshah and Ilam without even acknowledging the formulation of legitimacy and the true will of the people.

Why Cannot Kermanshah Be Confiscated?

After the recent protests, Kermanshah and Ilam entered a phase that can be described as structural identity insubordination — a state that, from the perspective of political theory and radical philosophy, transcends classical forms of resistance and representation. This state is the product of the overlapping of multiple historical and social layers: the lived experience of structural poverty and continuous repression, the dual memory of Pahlavi and Islamic Republic violence, religious and cultural diversity, and the perpetual tension between individual subjectivity and state‑centred pressures.

Neither of the state‑centred projects — whether the Islamic Republic, with its securitisation and culturalisation of politics, or the royalists, with their symbolic re‑representation of the dead and reconstruction of the myth of a unified nation — is capable of fully absorbing this subject. The attempt to absorb it not only fails but also reveals the tragedies of power and the limits of states, demonstrating that political life in Kermanshah, independent of any project of power, is capable of resilience and cannot be turned into an instrument of political legitimacy.

Even if Kurdish parties fail to represent all this extremism and identity tension, this is not a void but rather the emergence of a multi‑dimensional, unclassifiable subjectivity that states are unable to understand or contain. Kermanshah, in its historical context, offers a vital, universal experience of resistance where poverty, repression, religious plurality, and the historical memory of violence are not threats but sources of strength and resilience.

From a deeper philosophical perspective, Kermanshah symbolises an inalienable subjectivity — a subjectivity that any attempt by central power to capture and reproduce is merely a lie and a secondary violence. This experience shows that local movements and historical identities, even if not framed by formal parties or political institutions, possess the capacity to generate lines of resistance and meaning against state‑centred projects.

From a strategic perspective, the message is clear: any project seeking to turn Kermanshah into a symbol of power faces objective and structural constraints. Governments and oppositions may possess military or media power, but the power of the living environment, historical memory, and the subjective autonomy of Kermanshah forces them to abandon their goals of confiscation. This situation represents a form of radical, uncontrollable power from below that could serve as a model for resistance in other parts of Kurdistan and Iran.

More than just a city, Kermanshah is a fertile space for political exercises in contemporary Iran — a laboratory in which the limits of state legitimacy are clearly manifested, from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic and the royalists. Yet the recent protest experience has shown that this city is not merely a centre of resistance but also a site for the formation of "concrete subjectivity" — a subjectivity constantly reproduced in social ties, the local living environment, historical memory, and collective experience, and cannot be confined to any official narrative or institution.

The experience of Kermanshah demonstrates that every attempt to control it — whether by security forces or the royalist opposition — is a form of secondary violence that seeks to strip death, resistance, and identity from their vital context. This experience reveals the limits of central power and the resilience of urban subjectivity despite repression.

Kermanshah needs to reformulate its resistance strategies as the product of a dense social history: structural poverty, accumulated repression, religious and cultural diversity, and cross‑border Kurdish ties. These elements constitute sources of strength that cannot be uprooted and establish a multi‑faceted daily resistance that relies on collective memory more than on the street or institutions.

Thus, Kermanshah becomes a symbol of the limits of state legitimacy and the emergence of an independent subjectivity that cannot be absorbed into centralised projects. Every attempt to seize it runs up against the paradox of resistance rooted in lived experience, not in externally imposed theories. Here, death, identity, and resistance become tools for redefining power and its spaces.

In the end, Kermanshah shows that genuine resistance springs from the living environment, collective memory, and the capacity to produce an independent subjectivity — a radical power from below that constrains any authoritarian project and offers a model for understanding politics and resistance in Iran and Kurdistan.