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A Hidden Struggle

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On September 16, 2022, Jina Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, was murdered. Despite attempts to contain the spread of the protest, social media allowed for awareness of Jina’s murder to spread like wildfire. Women chanted Jin, Jiyan, Azadi at Jina's funeral, translating to Woman, Life, Freedom. In the following days, public outcry and mass protests in Kurdish cities and towns drey the attention of Iranians across the country(Ghaderi 718).  Although this is the start of Women's Life, Freedom, it is a turning point for another marginalized community, the Kurdish people. The oppression of the Kurds in Iran can be traced back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but it truly began under Reza Shah Pahlavi. From 1925-1979, Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son followed him to implement Persianization policies. These policies would ban the Kurdish language and restrict cultural expression. This was an attempt to promote a unified Persian culture and people. Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Islamic Republic continued to suppress Kurdish cultural and political expression, eventually amounting to violence and human rights violations against the Kurdish people living in Iran. The Kurdish people in Iran were facing an attempt to erase their identity, but then the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini happened. The murder, while also sparking the Women, Life, Freedom movement, brought attention to the oppression of the Kurdish people. Jina’s murder led to the Iranian people becoming aware of the Kurdish plight as well as the broad oppression of many minorities in Iran(Ghaderi 718). The Kurdish people in Iran use the Women, Life, Freedom movement to assert themselves in society and fight to reestablish their identity. But how does the Kurdish oppression connect to the Women, Life, Freedom movement, other than Jina? Understanding the Kurdish fight for their identity and the systemic oppression of minorities in Iran is imperative to understanding the Women, Life, Freedom movement because it is part of what the movement fights for. The WLF movement, while fighting for women's freedom and rights in Iran, acts as a proxy for the many minorities in Iran, such as the Balochis, Arabs, and Kurds, who struggle with cultural and political recognition. The systemic discrimination and cultural oppression of these minorities in Iran have largely gone unnoticed by the Iranian population. Although the WLF movement provides an avenue for these minorities to bring attention to their oppression, it is essential to recognize the negative consequences as well. One is the media and scholarly publications excluding Amini’s Kurdish name, Jina, and arguing against the Kurdish origins of Jin, Jiyan, Azadi(Ghaderi 720). These actions can be due to a continued effort for unification. Iran oppressed minorities to create a unified Persian people and culture, and now we can see the WLF movement excluding Kurdish aspects, again to form a unified front. The issues are systematic, and even today, Kurdish voices and the fight for their identity continue to be silenced.

-Mathew Montiel

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