Shahla Mohammadi

News Center – The "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" revolution, which started following the killing of Jina Mahsa Amini seven months ago, is ongoing and increasing during Newroz. Kurds and other nationalities living in Iran ignited the flames of the revolution in this year's Newroz festival despite the government's pressures and threats. People vowed to continue their path and not stop fighting until they achieve their trampled goals and desires. We talked to political analyst Rojin Mukriyan about this uprising and revolution.

"People chanting "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" understand the philosophy and political orientation behind this slogan"

Rojin Mukriyan talks about the "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" revolutionary uprising, which started at the Aichi cemetery in Saqqez by the women and youth of Kurdistan and spread across Iran in the blink of an eye. She says, “This revolutionary movement is very different from the previous dissatisfactions in 1979, that's why we call it a revolutionary "uprising", the most important and striking difference between them is the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi". This slogan is a forward-looking slogan distinguishing itself from the world based on modern political philosophy. This slogan emphasizes the fact that a country cannot be free unless the women are free. An apparent political line based on democratic confederalism seems suitable for the future of Iranian society.

Rojbin believes that, “if we consider this slogan as the basic and main slogan of the protests, the uprising, if we see that the people chanting it understand its philosophy, we can say that it is a very different revolutionary uprising than previous protests. We can see two main goals of these protests: First is to overthrow the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the second is to establish and implement a confederal democratic system.”

She continues: “This revolution started because people living under the shadow of a dictator government face discrimination. It started by the people living under the influence of multiple and multi-layered discriminations in a small city called Saqqez and spread across Iran. Another significant point of this protest is the great participation of women and youth. We have seen women at the frontline of protests in Iran, even in other countries, but what distinguishes this revolutionary uprising is that women play a leading role in this uprising. In Rojhilat Kurdistan, women led the resistance by taking to the streets with their strength, sacrifice, and resistance. Their strong will encourages men to follow them.”

 “The “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” revolutionary uprising brings many achievements with itself for Iranian society to change the patriarchal system”

Referring to the fact that patriarchy has been thoroughly institutionalized in all levels of society and government institutions, Rojin Mukriyan says: “The culture of revolution, resistance, or even progressive slogans such as "Resistance is life" started in Rojhilate Kurdistan and spread from there to Iran and Tehran. We even saw how "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" led radical changes and transformations in Balochistan and how women were at the forefront of the street protests. We see these changes and transformations every Friday.”

Speaking about the stagnation of protests and the lack of gatherings compared to the first months of the Jina revolution, Rojin Mukriyan says, “Revolutionary uprisings are like the flow of a river. When water flows in a river, it sometimes slows down and stagnates because of obstacles and natural conditions. Still, eventually, it will continue to flow until the day it finds a way to its very end. A revolutionary uprising is like this, it is a process that sometimes has to slow down to find itself again while facing progressive obstacles, but we will see waves coming again.”

 

“The stagnation of the revolutionary uprising is a response to political parties, whose approaches are not in line with our goals”

Pointing to the obstacles leading to this revolution, Rojin Mukriyan added, “Taking a close look inside Iran, we see that the Islamic Republic's regime is a total dictatorial regime, and a dictatorial regime always uses its repressive forces to ignore the demands of people. For 44 years, the Islamic Republic has spent all its national wealth to buy troops and weapons, and now it is using them against the people. The oppressive force in Iran has no sympathy for the people; they do not even consider themselves a part of these people, especially the people of Rojhelat Kurdistan, who are not even seen as Iranian citizens; that is why the repression is much more intense here and even in Balochistan where people were shot to death. The people of Rojhelat Kurdistan have taken this revolutionary uprising into a new phase. At the end of November, the people of Tehran remained silent and did not take any action to fight the system. The son of the former dictator of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, is trying to destroy this revolutionary uprising outside Iran. People also witnessed that the reactions or approaches of some Kurdish political parties, like the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan are against the ideals and goals of this revolutionary uprising. However, people inside Iran, especially the people of Rojhelat Kurdistan are aware of the political situation. They decided to return to their homes and slow down the protests as a response to the approaches of the political parties outside Iran, showing them their goals and ideals are not in favor of this revolution, so they said we preferred to remain silent.”

Rojin Mukriyan also talks about the lack of the participation of women in political groups and parties in the "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" protests and says: “These protests have a wholly destructive and negative effect because the first step of this revolution is to fight the patriarchal ideas and we cannot eliminate patriarchal mentality with these old and traditional approaches. We have seen that even the Kurdish political parties in which Peshmerga women have a long-standing presence; however, they have no leading role in political parties. They held a conference in Bonn, Germany. Unfortunately, almost all panels were reserved for men; women had a completely different panel at the conference. At the conference, middle-aged men made decisions about political parties, their performance, and their plans for the future. They even discussed the situation in Iran without women. We say that the uprising in Iran is a women’s revolution, a revolution of the oppressed people. Women should decide about themselves, not men. Women should have a completely equal participation with men in all spheres of life.”

 "Freedom for a Persian woman is completely different from the freedom a Kurdish woman or a woman from other oppressed nations is looking for"

She continues: "Unfortunately, the patriarchal ideology still dominates even some Kurdish political parties, which is a problem. Even in the pro-Persian groups that somehow follow a fascist approach, two women in the same coalition or solidarity group are very different from each other. One of them only understands feminism as liberal feminism, and the only thing that matters to her is women's hijab. The other, however, cannot represent women and the interests of oppressed nations and has an entirely symbolic role. Even if these two want to represent women, they can only represent Persian women because their demands differ from the demands of the Kurdish women or women of other oppressed groups. Women can still be oppressed because of their national identity. As a result, we cannot separate these identities. The freedom of these two identities must go in the same direction and parallel.”

In the end, Rojin Mukriyan points out the unity and solidarity of people in Iran during the Newroz celebrations. “Newroz is an ancient festival and it is celebrated in the true sense of the spirit of Newroz in Iran, especially in Rojhelat Kurdistan. For Kurds, Newroz is not only the symbol of rebirth and renewal of life in nature but also a symbol of resistance and a struggle for freedom. Looking back at the Iranian legend, “Kaveh and Zahhak”, we see that in the last 44 years or even in the hundreds of years, Rojhelat Kurdistan has been under the rule of the Iranian government. We have been influenced by Persian culture, and we used to celebrate Newroz like Persians. However, this year, the celebrations were very different. People and the families of those who were killed in the protests went to their children's graves and announced that they would continue to struggle for freedom. In addition, Kurdish women carried torches and lit the fire of Newroz. Newroz, the ancient festival showed that the people of Rojhelat Kurdistan are the center of the revolution and that people in other parts of Iran, especially people in the center of Iran, accept this and even welcome it. This unity of nations helps people to stand up and resist one of the biggest dictators in the world.”