By Loghman H. Ahmedi
Supporters of Iran’s Green Movement have, during the past couple of months, complained that our party, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), is preventing the Kurdish people as well as other nations in Iran, such as the Baluchs and the Arabs, from joining this movement.
Individuals and groups that support the Green Movement have asked the governments and political parties of other countries and friends and allies of our party around the world to put pressure on us to urge the Kurdish people to take part in this movement.
Hence, explaining the reasons why our party and our people have not expressed support for the Green Movement is in order.
Our party has since its establishment 64 years ago, and especially during the past 30 years, always reached out to all progressive movements that advocate democracy in Iran. However, since the leaders of the Green Movement have not expressed any explicit support for democracy or any willingness to address, let alone accommodate, the national rights that our people demand, naturally, we cannot show any support for this movement.
The fact that the leaders of the Green Movement take every opportunity to pledge their loyalty to the Islamic Republic’s undemocratic constitution and its theocratic system of governance and, furthermore, refuse to even take any of the Kurdish nation’s demands into consideration, explains why it has no support in Iranian Kurdistan.
As long as this movement does not explicitly and unequivocally express its support for democracy and the rights of Iran’s oppressed nations, it cannot expect any support in Iranian Kurdistan.
Meaningful and real change in Iran towards democracy can only be possible if Iran’s political movements jointly reach a consensus on the need for the abolishment of the current theocratic system of government and its replacement with a multinational federal democracy.
The various nations of Iran have legitimate concerns about the positions of the leaders of the Green Movement. Furthermore, no one should forget that all of the leaders of the Green Movement have in different ways taken active part in the oppression of the Kurdish people during the past 30 years.
The fact that supporters of the Green Movement have set out to persuade our party to support this movement is testament of the fact that no movement in Iran will achieve its goals without the participation of the Kurdish people as well as other nations in Iran.
Since they have realized this fact, it is also high time for them to express their support for democracy and the rights of Iran’s oppressed nations.
If support for democracy and national rights is absent from the Green Movements agenda it will only be a movement for some Iranians rather than all Iranians. The political formula for a movement with a true popular basis in all of Iran is a multinational federal democracy.
Source: Kurdishaspect.com
