Iran has now become a large prison: silent and dark. Internet shutdowns temporarily prevent the spread of information and news. At the same time, they are pushing the country’s economic infrastructure toward a historic collapse that will be impossible to repair.
This decision is a double-edged sword. While it may have temporarily distracted the world from internal issues, protests, and crises, this irrational action has placed an immense strain on the country’s administrative and economic systems.
Iran’s market and banking system are relatively advanced, with widespread use of bank cards, POS machines, and applications. There is very little cash circulating in the market. These internet shutdowns will quickly lead to major crises and challenges:
- Buyers and sellers will not be able to conduct any transactions, and the market will come to a complete standstill.
- The central banking system will be paralyzed, and salaries and financial transfers will be halted.
- Tens of thousands of families will lose their source of income when their livelihoods depend on taxi services and online sales.
- Ticketing systems, travel control and international coordination will be facing serious disruptions.
- Fuel systems (smart cards) and transportation networks connected to the internet will become nonfunctional.
- The supply chain of food and medicine, from factories to warehouses and ultimately to citizens, will be disrupted.
The current situation shows clear signs of extreme instability. When a government is willing to sacrifice its national economy in order to suppress and silence its people, the trust of international investors and traders is entirely destroyed.
A federal system in Kurdistan
By 2004, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, after 59 years of struggle for the right to autonomy, had a historic and highly significant turning point in the political history of the Kurdish liberation movement in Eastern Kurdistan when it endorsed a federal system for a multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious Iran.
This political transformation has produced a number of consequences, each of which deserves serious attention, clarification, and evaluation in the context of the rights, demands, and aspirations of the Kurdish nation in Eastern Kurdistan, as well as its impact on the political discourse of Iran’s other peoples.
It is essential to clarify and define the groundwork and pathways toward federalism, as well as the nature and content of federalism that are appropriate for the peoples of Iran. This necessitates examining the historical and political experiences of other nations and states worldwide that utilize federalism in their political systems. We must first understand its definition, history, and mechanisms to grasp its meanings, forms, opportunities, and challenges.
At the same time, based on the realities of Iran as a multi-national country, we need to determine, through careful analyses of the positions and views of political forces and actors, the necessity, legitimacy, scope, and method of establishing such a political system. The federal system is as closely connected to the Kurds as it is to other nations, ethnic groups, and religious communities in Iran. Thus, recognizing and endorsing a federal system for governing a multi-national Iran is a shared responsibility of all its peoples, in all their diversity.
For this reason, the Kurdish nation in Eastern Kurdistan must clearly define what it wants, so that it can act more effectively and successfully in the process of preparing the ground and shaping public consciousness.
Iranian misuse of centralized power
Throughout the hundred-year history of the formation of the nation-state in Iran, its nations, ethnic groups, and religious minorities have consistently feared and distrusted the concentration of power and authority within a closed, centralized circle. The misuse of centralized power against legitimate demands for rights has been a persistent concern. During this century, Iran’s constituent nations have experienced deep distrust toward the state and toward authoritarian, dictatorial central rule.
As a result, today Iran’s constituent nations no longer trust strong centralized governance and instead demand the vertical distribution of sovereignty and power between the federal central government and the regions, as well as the horizontal separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. This is intended to prevent the re-emergence of an excessively powerful central authority capable of fully subordinating diverse geographies, nations, ethnic groups, and religious communities and of stripping them of autonomy within a democratic federal Iran.
Under such conditions, the primary demand of Iran’s various nations, ethnic groups, and religious communities is the distribution of power and sovereignty in a future Iran. Rather than concentrating all authority in a powerful central state, they seek a system composed of multiple regions in which sovereignty and power are shared between the federal central government and regional governments.
Given that Iran consists of six nations (Turk, Kurd, Persian, Baloch, Arab, and Turkmen) as well as numerous ethnic and religious groups, the most suitable form of federalism for the country’s future is national-geographical federalism.
Prior to Reza Khan Mirpanj (the Shah)’s rise to power in 1925, there was no centralized nation-state called Iran; instead, the territory was known as the “Protected Domains.” There was no strong central authority; rather, the land was divided into regions and emirates, each governed by its own ruler, who merely paid taxes or provided military support to the central authority.
However, with the emergence of centralized authoritarian rule, this structure was dismantled.
Iran's political future
The future political system of Iran, as the holder of sovereignty and authority, must consciously distribute power and sovereignty from the top down, in accordance with democratic constitutional principles and the interests of the regions. In other words, Iran must transform from a simple, centralized state into a complex federal one.
In national-geographical federalism, the authority and sovereignty of Iran’s central government are devolved to regional governments in order to prevent the recurrence of authoritarianism, dictatorship, and the abusive use of centralized power against other nations.
In this system, sovereignty is distributed based on national identity, language, culture, and geography. Practical examples of this form of federal governance can be found in countries such as Belgium, Iraq, Canada, Switzerland, and India, which are established on the basis of national and linguistic characteristics.
Therefore, both the future federal central government and regional governments of Iran must be parliamentary democracies, and all policies, decisions, and laws must operate within democratic and consensual legal frameworks. Raymond Aron notes that federalism is an “ideal type” as it “involves neither homogeneity of culture nor imposed power.”
Similarly, democracy in a multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious Iran can only function as a solution when it guarantees pluralism and diversity, and remains distant from hegemonic ambitions of a dominant nation or group.
Regimes in Iran, in a “unity-oriented centralism,” restricted freedoms and treated publishing in minority languages as a security threat. Today – due to the passage of time, globalization, technological advancement, and social, political, cultural, and economic transformation – the survival of nations has become inevitable. At the same time, a shift has occurred from “unity-oriented” thinking toward pluralism-oriented perspectives.
This transformation – from repression to the recognition of rights and freedoms – has resulted from factors such as changing attitudes toward modernity, technological progress, enlightenment, resistance, the preservation of national and cultural identities, and growing awareness among individuals and groups of their rights. These factors have played a decisive role in strengthening democratic culture and expanding political participation.
The writer is the Democrat Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) representative to the UK.