Ahmad Mohammadpour

Published online by TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies: Bonn, Germany: 12 January 2026

‘Even the God we worship is different from yours’

A Kurdish idiom

Over the last few days that Iran has been on fire and in protest, a free army of Persian-Shi’a nationalist functionaries across Europe and North America have been working hard to distort the anti-colonial fight in Rojhelat/Eastern Kurdistan in favor of making themselves more charming in the eyes of Orientalist intellectuals and keeping the Persophile Anglophone audiences apparently informed of what was going on in Iran. One thing I have always emphasized in my writings and talks over the years has been the fact that it is illusional to divide the Iranian elites and their sovereign ethnic core into lefties or righties, monarchists, secularists, republicans, or reformists. This is too much courtesy for a nationalist denialist ideology of Persia-Shiʿa nationalism, which time and again comes in different colors and disguises to deceive Western eyes and ears. But the good news is that this will get harder and harder for them in the age of AI and digitalization because many across the world can simply Google and see how Persianist Aryanist ideology is wrapped in universalist cosmopolitan clothes. So let me tell you this: the world is now so small that it cannot pretend not to know what is happening in Rojhelat, and by extension in Iranian nationalist-stricken Baluchistan and Ahvaz.

Still, maybe not many Western audiences are aware of the basic facts of the so-called Iran, as many of them have their minds and brains filled with stories of the glorious ancient empire and mythologies[i] that the imperial academia has been whispering into their ears. So, I have to start with the basics, and I hope this is taken with an open heart, not as erudition.

Iran is a multinational, multilingual, and multicultural polity. The Persian-speaking population accounts for around 50 percent, followed by Azeri Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Lurs, Gilakis, Mazanis, and Turkmen, among others, each constituting a sizable portion of the population. Kurds constitute around 10 million, ranked the third after Persians and Azeri Turks in terms of population, living in four provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Ilam, and, of course, around 2 million in the north of Khorasan as a result of forced migration. This is while the Persian language, since 1925, has been the pillar of Iranian colonial rule, imposed on half of the population whose mother tongue is not Persian, fighting tooth and nail to resist this linguistic imperialism.  Among numerous anti-Persianist movements are Shah Mohammad Yari uprising in Ilam in 1929, Ismail Agha Simko movement in 1930, Qazi Mohammad and the founding of the Republic of Kurdistan in 1946, Kurdish political opposition from the 1950s to this day, led by the KDPI and Komala, Sheikh Khazael in Ahvaz province, and other episodes of resistance among other non-Persian nations, disparagingly called ‘ethnic groups’ and ‘tribal movements’ by the Iranian elites[ii]. These are only a few moments of the anti-racial-linguistic discourse against Persianism. Article 15 of the IRI constitution, still endorsed by or simply taken for granted by Pahlavists, reformists, and lefties, imposes the Persian language as the official language of all people of Iran, stigmatizing non-Persians as tribal, local, and backward linguistic dialects.

Yet another fact is that Shi’ism has been the pillar of Iranian nationalism. Under the Pahlavis, although the regime took issue with hijab, the promotion of Shi’ism stood at the core of the Pahlavi monarchy. Under the IRI, Article 12 made Shi’ism the official religion in a polity where there is a sizable Sunni population, along with other faiths such as Christians, Jews, and Yarsan, to name a few.

Over the last century, the Persian nationalist discourse, materialized in the Pahlavi regime and the IRI, and concurred with and endorsed by Iranian elites from leftists to rightists, has consistently adopted and implemented a colonial practice centered on plundering the resources, lands, memories, and histories of non-Persians[iii]. Kurds have seen their land occupied, their homeland, which they call Rojhelat/ Nishtiman rebranded as ‘western provinces’; they have seen their language banned and berated, their social mobility restricted, and their family members killed by both regimes in the name of fighting separatism, while the same Persian center kept a blind eye, receding into deafening silence. The complicity of a majority of Persians, either directly or through silence and indifference, in the suppression of Kurds and other non-Persians cannot be ignored, nor can it be forgiven, regardless of how much pain they are in now; this is the taste of medicine they gave others for decades.

I am resorting to my own personal life. I am old enough to vividly remember the early days of the IRI and the practices of the state and the sovereign ethnic core in Rojhelat. I remember how I, like all Kurdish children, was forced to learn Persian and receive my entire schooling education in the language imposed on my nation. I remember how the Iranian regime, with the army and militants from the Persian-Shiʿa region, had come to re-conquer Rojhelat, my homeland; how they stripped our nation of its customs, folklores, traditions, heritage, and culture, suffocating us with Persian history and identity, the fictional heroes, and poets that had no relevance or meaning to me and my fellow nation. My memories of higher education, which all took place in Hamedan and Shiraz, are rife with disparagement of my culture, language, and dress, not just by the regime goons, but by our so-called civilized Aryan patriotic Persian people. I recall how many times I was called tribal, separatist, Sunni bigot, in classrooms as well as in the streets of Shiraz, Hamedan, Tehran, and elsewhere.

I cannot emphasize enough that the Iranian state’s 101-year military occupation of Rojhelat is the longest and most brutally sustained in modern history. This colonial rule has taken a tremendous toll on the lives of the Rojhelati people at every level, stopping short of genocide. I cannot think of a single human right of the Kurds that has not been violated, with a refined cruelty designed to dehumanize and humiliate them. What makes this situation even more troubling, in my opinion, is how much of it has been willfully obscured from public awareness by elites and intellectual propaganda both within Iran and abroad, which frames the oppression as a matter of ‘fighting separatism and conspiracy against Iran’ and ‘protecting Iran’s national and territorial integrity.’

The sheer inequality between the average Persian and the average Kurd is astonishing and breathtaking.

– How many Persians have been killed, arrested, detained, or disappeared for speaking their mother tongue, or teaching it? Over the last century, and in my eyewitness memories of the last thirty years, the entire Kurdish community has been collectively punished by the Iranian state, amid absolute indifference of Persians –Tehranis, Isfahanis, Shirazis, Mashhadis, Yazdis, and others, simply for loving their language, for speaking their mother tongue, and for seeking their linguistic rights. Do the Persian analysts in North America and Europe even know about the most recent suppression and arrests of Kurdish language activists, such as the female Kurdish teachers Zara Mohammadi, Mozghan Kavoosi, Soma Poormohamdi, and Idris Meenbari, to name a few, all arrested amid the Jina uprising, which the Persian elites and its community sold out as merely a feminist movement stripped of its ethno-religious and linguistic elements and marketed as a hijab-focused struggle?[iv]

– How many Persians have lost their legs and hands, gone blind, become disabled, or been killed as a result of landmine explosions at the borders, in their farms, or even in their backyards? Do you have a shred of knowledge of the existence of 16,000,000 – 20,000,000 landmines left uncleared along the so-called Iran-Iraq border, stretching 1,200 km from Maku to Ahvaz, where each Rojhelati effectively gets two landmines per capita?[v] Between 1988 and 2003 alone, around 3,700 Kurdish civilians, as well as Ahvazi, were killed or injured by explosions. Every year,  tens of Kurdish civilians, mostly children and women, lose their lives or are paralyzed because of mine explosions with no medical or legal support. How many people in the center have taken to the streets, and how many Perso-Shiʿa elites and peoples, boasting Persian food and cuisine to their Persophile friends, reciting Ferdowsi and Hafez, dancing and bouncing around, have even bothered to mention this genocidal brutality, even in passing?

-How many Persian students have ever been denied admission to universities because they spoke Persian, or because they were Shiʿa? None; because for them, language and sect are never ‘qualifications’; they are simply the air they breathe. In my own generation, out of fifty high school students, only a handful were deemed ‘qualified’ for college admission. The rest were disqualified, for the wrong language, the wrong geography, the wrong name. Many joined the Kurdish opposition; some sank into depression; a couple ended their lives. This is what ‘educational policy’ looks like in practice. Today, the Department of Selection, alongside the Basij, the IRGC, and the intelligence services, are industrious, still filtering Kurdish students out of higher education under familiar charges of holding political opinions, suspected ties to Kurdish movements, or the unforgivable crime of Kurdish activism. And yet, how many protests have we seen condemning this discrimination by the Sovereign Center? How many statements, marches, or op-eds? Silence, it seems, is the only policy applied equally.

– How many Perso-Shiʿa people in the center have suffered poverty and malnutrition? Ilam, the hub of the largest mineral reservoir; Kurdistan/Sanandaj province, the hub of gold ore; Western Azerbaijan, the hub of water resources and forests; Kermanshah, the hub of agriculture (all called Rojhelat), score the highest unemployment and underdevelopment poverty rates in Iran. How many Persians in the center have even bothered, or how many Perso-Shiʿa sociologists and anthropologists have written a damn word about it?

– How many Persian cities have ever been subjected to such structural economic deprivation and educational inequality? Four Kurdish provinces combined cannot match the desert-located province of Yazd, which alone enjoys more than a dozen universities and hundreds of industries, while the Kurdish region’s share of its own mineral and gold wealth is a bullet[vi]. Was Tehran University built in Kurdistan in 1934, followed by dozens of elite universities under the Pahlavi state and the IRI? Of course not.

– How many Persians, children, men, and women have had to become kolbers, carrying goods on their backs and shoulders, degrading themselves out of desperation, transporting goods across the Iranian-Iraqi border, while getting shot at close range by the Perso-Shiʿa patriotic soldiers in the name of ‘fighting smuggling’ and ‘protecting the border’? Since 2015 to the present, only around 2,500 kolbers have been shot dead or injured directly by the IRGC[vii], in my view, by the Perso-Shiʿa forces. Many of these were underage kids, shot in the head and chest at close range. Have any of you seen a protest or demonstration in Isfahan, Mashhad, Tehran, etc., against the Perso-Shiʿa hunters, killing Kurds in broad daylight?

– How many Persian cities have had to endure F-14 fighter jets bombarding their streets? Kurdistan was bombarded by F-14s, suppressed by the use of tanks, and all sorts of weapons of war in the 1979-80 simply because it rose up for self-determination after negotiations with the Iranian regime failed; because the regime and its sovereign community demanded Persianism and Shiism.

– How many Persian cities have endured missile attacks and drone strikes like the Kurdish opposition suffered at the hands of their Perso-Shiʿa state? During the Jina movement, KDPI and Komala bases in exile in Iraqi Kurdistan were bombarded three times, killing dozens, while the Kurdish parties condemned regime attacks on Evin Prison. How many Persians and Shiʿa took to the streets of Isfahan, Yazd, and Kashan to denounce the regime and declare solidarity with the Kurds?

– How many Persians have to be stripped and searched at hundreds of checkpoints on a daily basis while traveling within their own homeland, walking across the countryside and small towns of their own land? I recall that during my elementary and middle school, I had to commute to the city of Sardasht from our village, and every time I was dragged out by Perso-Shiʿa soldiers, questioned, and interrogated. When I explained that they had just searched me a few hours ago, they would beat and insult me. If you were caught with a Kurdish book, you could end up in jail, tortured. I saw these days with my own eyes. How many protests have anyone seen in the Perso-Shiʿa cities denouncing this inhumanity and brutality?

Every time Iran’s political center erupts, it rediscovers the language of universality. What begins in Tehran is instantly baptized as national. What unfolds in Kurdistan is treated as secondary, delayed participation, emotional diffusion, or peripheral reaction, as some delusional Iranian analysts have indulged. The center acts, and the margins follow. That’s what they shout and promulgate. This is presented as an analysis, circulated and promoted by those who play nice.

Much of the commentary on Iran’s protest invests energy in mapping phases, triggers, and feedback loops. What goes unnoticed is how these disturbing commentaries quietly serve an old political order that presumes the Persian-majority urban spaces generate history and the Kurdistan and other minoritized nations[viii] are tasked only to supply bodies, slogans, and martyrs, so that they can brag and show off the courage of Iranians. This intellectual blindness carries a history, hailing from a legacy of Persian supremacy and Persian Whiteness[ix], built on the cruelty and brutality of the suppression of the Kurds, Arabs, and Baloch, which the dominant elites and ethnie are so proud of; after all, ‘the sons of Cyrus the Great are rising from ashes’. The Persian elites feed the world that Tehran protests are opportunities for reform, but the Kurdish streets trigger panic over ‘national unity.’ The world is shielded from seeing the Kurds chanting ‘Kurdistan, the graveyard of fascists’ or ‘The regime is fascist in the center, and occupier in Kurdistan’, consciously evading the fact that Kurds have shown time and again that they did not succumb to comforting fictions claiming the IRI represents a deviation in an inclusive national story. There is no deviation. The Pahlavi monarchy and the IRI are not opposites; they are variations on a single theme of Persian domination.

Perso-Shi’a scholars and elites have truly perfected the art of state administration without shame. Across ideological camps (monarchist, Islamist, reformist, statist-left), they developed a shared political vocabulary to erase the Kurdish struggle for self-determination and even make it unthinkable, let alone legitimate. This vocabulary repeats like a ritual: national unity, territorial integrity, premature demands, dangerous fragmentation, foreign plots, and historical necessity. These words govern. Pahlavi-era intellectuals deployed ‘modernization’ and ‘state-building’ to justify military pacification and linguistic erasure in Kurdistan. Post-revolutionary Islamists replaced modernization with religious unity but retained the same suspicion toward Kurdish autonomy. Reformists cloaked control in the language of rights and citizenship, treating multinational sovereignty as an existential threat. Marxists reduced the Kurdish struggle to class contradiction, dismissing nationhood as a bourgeois illusion. Monarchists romanticized the mythical kings, erasing the violence that built them. Each camp spoke differently, but all agreed on one thing: the Kurdish question lay outside legitimate politics.

I would like to close this short piece by reminding the scale of suffering endured by the people of Rojhelat, suffering sustained in a deafening silence by the Persian-Shi’a ethnie. Not a single prominent Persian-Shi’a voice has stepped forward to offer genuine remorse, let alone acknowledge responsibility for the disaster, the decades-long human toll inflicted upon the Kurdish nation. There might be only a few matches in modern history that are somewhat like this astonishing wall of obduracy, denial, and self-righteous disregard by the Perso-Shi’a ethnie. And yet, one must also confront the truth: the persecution, the systematic erasure, the anti-Kurdish sentiment are the pillars of Perso-Shi’a historical project, etched into its policies, its culture, and its memory for which there is no cure and treatment. The Kurds may not yet have reclaimed their land, their memory, or their history, but they have most certainly turned the fantasy of an authentic Iranian identity and its mythical imperial imagery into a nightmare, one confined to the deserts of Iran’s mainland.

[i] Mohammadpour, Ahmad, and Kamal Soleimani. 2022. “Silencing the Past: Persian Archaeology, Race, Ethnicity, and Language.” Current Anthropology 63(2): 185–210.

[ii] Mohammadpour, Ahmad, and Kamal Soleimani. 2019. “Interrogating the Tribal: The Aporia of ‘Tribalism’ in the Sociological Study of the Middle East.” British Journal of Sociology 70(5): 1799–824.

[iii] Mohammadpour, Ahmad. 2023b. “Persian Orientalism: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Construction of ‘Iranianness’.” Nations and Nationalism. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12990.

[iv] Mohammadpour, Ahmad. 2024b. “Decolonizing Voices from Rojhelat: Gender‐Othering, Ethnic Erasure, and the Politics of Intersectionality in Iran.” Critical Sociology 50(1): 85–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231176051.

[v] Mohammadpour, Ahmad, and Kamal Soleimani. 2020. “‘Minoritisation’ of the Other: The Iranian Ethno‐Theocratic State’s Assimilatory Strategies.” Postcolonial Studies 24(1): 40–62.

[vi] Mohammadpour, Ahmad, and Aso Javaheri. 2024. “Weeping Without Tears: Kurdish Female Kolbers and Gendered Necropolitics of State in Iran.” Gender, Work & Organization: 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13184.

[vii] Mohammadpour, Ahmad. 2023a. “Blood for Bread: Necro‐Labor, Nonsovereign Bodies, and the State of Exception in Rojhelat.” American Anthropologist 126(1): 120–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13941.

[viii] Mohammadpour, Ahmad, and Kamal Soleimani. 2020. “‘Minoritisation’ of the Other: The Iranian Ethno‐Theocratic State’s Assimilatory Strategies.” Postcolonial Studies 24(1): 40–62.

[ix] Mohammadpour, Ahmad. 2024a. “The Invention of Iran: From ‘Iranianness’ to ‘Persianness’.” Asian Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2024.2355110.