JINHA

NEWS CENTER – University of Toronto professor Shahrzad Mojab has said that woman-centered revolutionary movements are the only way to change the conditions of anti-woman violence that led to the recent death of Kurdish woman Ferinaz Xosrawanî.

Young Kurdish woman Ferinaz Xosrawanî lost her life in the city of Mahabad, Iran, when she fell from a balcony in the hotel where she worked. She was apparently escaping a rape attempt by an Iranian security officer. Professor Shahrzad Mojab, editor of the book "Women of a Non-State Nation: The Kurds," warned against a patriarchal nationalist interpretation that portrays Ferinaz as a figure of the "honor" of the Kurdish people.

"Ferinaz is being constructed as a heroic Kurdish woman who tried to save her ‘honor,'" said Shahrzad. "But I consider her suicide a response to violence against women that is prevalent in most societies, including the Kurdish region." She compared the death to that of Farkhunda in Afghanistan, the mob rape of women in India and Egypt and other instances of the terrorization of women.

"We need to ask ourselves why so much violence against women?" she said. "I think there is a global ‘war on women’ in which all patriarchal forces collude with nationalism, capitalism, militarism, and imperialism to suppress women." Shahrzad said this "borderless domination" both attempts to harness their power for the reproduction of capitalism and to suppress the potential of women's solidarity. The Iranian regime, she said, has targeted women from its early days. After that, its next target was the Kurdish people.

"The cultural and political oppression of the Kurds has been going on for decades. This, I consider a collective punishment of the entire Kurdish population." Shahrzad pointed to the statistics on the economic inequality in Kurdistan: 10% unemployment and high rates of addiction, divorce, class division and women's suicides. The regime militarizes Kurdish cities and executes Kurdish activists at a high rate to discourage political activity. Shahrzad's recent documentary, "Dancing For Change," which interviews six Kurdish women Komala fighters, explores Kurdish women's resistance to these conditions.

The most recent upwelling of resistance in Mahabad and elsewhere, therefore, had roots in the region. However, Shahrzad noted that spontaneous protests like those that took place in the wake of Ferinaz' death "will not even make a dent" in patriarchal domination. She called for women's struggle to be the frontline of organized revolutionary movements in the Middle East, instead of allowing moments of anger to be harnessed by reformist political projects—not an easy prospect.

"But women have always had the commitment and they have sacrificed their lives. It's difficult, it's going to be lengthy, and it's not something that will happen… only with the heroic act of a woman like Ferinaz," she said. "But her death is the seeds of changing the future."

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