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Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan
An Introduction
Komala Party of Iranian
Kurdistan was formed in autumn 1969 among Kurdish students and
intellectuals in Tehran and some Kurdish towns. Since there was no
political freedom in Iran, every political organization and even
small student circles had to go hiding and to organize underground.
Komala was no exception. Like all other opposition organizations of
that time, especially the leftist groups of the sixties and
seventies, Komala faced severe repression.
During those years many
of Komala members and its leadership experienced persecution,
torture and imprisonment in the hands of SAVAK, Shah’s notorious
secret police, but Komala could manage to survive and protect the
main body of its organization and its growing network of activists.
More than 9 years of hard and disciplined work prior to the outbreak
of Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, bore its fruit and helped Komala
build a strong and cohesive body of cadres among sections of Kurdish
society. Komala managed to win over considerable sections of Kurdish
students, teachers, intellectuals and young people and develop a
significant influence and social base among workers and peasants
throughout Kurdistan.
Komala actively
participated in the Iranian Revolution and in fact was behind almost
every demonstration and popular movement of that period. On March
16, 1979, a few days after the victory of the Revolution, Komala
launched an open political party. By this time Komala had already
become a major political force in Iranian Kurdistan. The birth of
Komala and its rapid growth among large sections of Kurdish society
in Iran, apart from its own hard work, discipline and dedication,
can be attributed to a combination of social factors during a period
of Iran’s transition from a traditional and patriarchal society to a
so-called pseudo-modern one. Abolishing feudal patterns by the Land
Reforms of 1960s, development of an urban population in Iran and in
Kurdistan from a predominantly rural society, forming of a huge mass
of Kurdish migrant workers out of hitherto dormant village dwellers,
who traveled to every part of Iran seeking jobs in various projects
in a booming economy, large increase in literacy, cracks in
traditional and patriarchal relations and emergence of a new
generation who was not satisfied with the existing state of the
affairs and with its share and its role in society, formation and
ascendance of a new and modern type of Kurdish intellectuals in
universities with their background in the non-privileged classes of
the society, growing expectations among the majority of the people,
growing political awareness among Kurds of the rights as a nation,
all of this contributed to the rise and popularity of Komala and the
formation of a mass modern political movement in Kurdistan. Komala
soon became the champion of Kurdish cause and uncompromising
opposition against new religious dictators of Iran, as well as of
the social justice and democratic change. Komala introduced a new
political culture in the Kurdish movement based on openness and
frankness with the people, attaching much importance to the
initiatives from below, grass roots politics and organizing mass
civil movements, organizing peasants and championing equal rights
for women and taking them to the forefront of the political arena,
and as a whole presenting a modern progressive and non-traditional
look to the Kurdish movement.
While many opposition
groups underestimated the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism, Komala
warned against it and opposed it even before it came to power.
Unlike many, Komala Party never supported the Islamic regime in Iran
and always considered a backward move for the Iranian society and a
threat to democratic values, to political freedoms and to the
Kurdish rights. In the first referendum about establishing the
“Islamic Republic of Iran” in the spring 1979, which the Kurdish
people successfully boycotted, Komala was the pioneer political
force in Kurdistan which advocated and fought for that boycott.
When in the summer of
1979 Khomeini ordered his notorious and massive onslaught against
Kurdish people and sent Pasdaran and the army to crush and punish
the Kurds for their “disobedience”, a resistance movement broke out
in Kurdistan with Komala as a major organizing force. In the
subsequent negotiations between Kurds and the new Islamic regime,
Komala was one of the main elements in the Kurdish People’s Unified
Delegation.
Komala Party, as a
leading and organizing force of the Kurdish liberation movement, has
gone through tough times and has lost thousands of its members in
the fight for freedom and justice.
After a long and heated
debate among its ranks and in public during the nineties, finally
the majority of the Komala Party’s cadres and members, headed by
Abdullah Mohtadi, one of Komala founders and a well-known Kurdish
leader, decided to a renewal programme to adapt to the new domestic
and world developments. The move was successful and welcomed by the
great majority of people, intellectuals, students, women, civil
activists, Komala veteran activists and others. Since then, Komala
Party has undergone a major ideological and political overhaul.
While preserving its
progressive values, Komala Party has put democracy as the main theme
of its political agenda. In short, Komala Party fights for Kurdish
rights, for a regime change in Iran and for a democratic secular
pluralist federal Iran. Komala Party believes in social justice as
well as universal democratic values, human rights, freedom of
conscience, expression, assembly and organization, women’s equal
rights and cultural, ethnic and religious tolerance.
Komala Party of Iranian
Kurdistan advocates a Kurdish united front in Iranian Kurdistan, an
Iranian broad democratic coalition and also a front of Iranian
oppressed nationalities.
In order to help a
better understanding by the International community of the Kurdish
cause in Iran and getting a wider support for Kurdish cause and
democratic change in Iran, Komala Party is establishing a wide range
of contacts with the outside world, Komala Party is now affiliated
with the international social democracy.
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