Traditional stran (songs) like "Ey Reqîb" (Oh Enemy, or "Oh Watcher")—which has become an unofficial Kurdish anthem—directly invokes the Jaani Dushman as the ever-present spy, the state agent who listens at the door. The lyrics lament: "You are the enemy, a ruthless stone… You separated the lover from the beloved."
Whether the is named Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, or the internal demon of division, one fact remains: The Kurdish story is the longest running epic of resistance against the Jaani Dushman in the modern Middle East. And until justice is served in the form of a secured, democratic, and peaceful homeland—or a just confederation—the song of the sworn enemy will continue to play. Disclaimer: The term "Jaani Dushman" is used here as a socio-political lens. This article does not advocate violence against any state or group but seeks to explain a deeply held cultural perception within Kurdish historiography.
For Iranian Kurds (Rojhelat), the Jaani Dushman is the IRGC. The regime in Tehran views Kurdish separatist parties (KDP-I, Komala, PAK) as mortal threats. The crackdown following the 2022 "Women, Life, Freedom" protests, led by the Kurdish Jina (Mahsa) Amini, saw the IRGC shelling Kurdish villages across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Iran’s strategic depth—using Shia militias in Iraq and Syria to encircle Kurdish regions—makes Tehran a sophisticated, patient, and deadly Jaani Dushman . Chapter 5: Beyond the State – The Ideological Jaani Dushman The most forward-thinking Kurdish political movements, particularly those influenced by the imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan (PKK), have redefined the Jaani Dushman . Instead of naming a specific ethnicity or state (Turkish, Arab, Persian), they identify the Nation-State system itself as the sworn enemy. Jaani Dushman Kurdish
Öcalan’s theory of "Democratic Confederalism" argues that the Jaani Dushman is the patriarchal, capitalist, nation-state that denies pluralism. In this framework, the enemy is not the Turkish people or the Arab people; it is the mentality of milliyetçilik (nationalism) that refuses to share sovereignty. The Kurdish struggle, then, is not to create a new state (a new potential Jaani Dushman), but to dismantle the structure of enmity itself.
But who—or what—qualifies as the "Jaani Dushman" in the Kurdish consciousness? Is it a specific neighboring state? A particular ideology (like Pan-Arabism or Pan-Turkism)? Or is it a network of external powers who have historically used the Kurds as pawns and discarded them as liabilities? Traditional stran (songs) like "Ey Reqîb" (Oh Enemy,
The Kurds do not have the luxury of forgetting who their enemies are. Every generation must learn the list: the Turkish general, the Ba'athist torturer, the ISIS executioner, the Iranian prosecutor, the Western diplomat who smiles and then signs a weapons deal with Ankara.
When the KDP invited the Turkish army into Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1990s to fight the PKK, or when the PUK aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), many ordinary Kurds felt the Jaani Dushman was not an external state, but the failure of their own leadership. The corruption, the smuggling of oil, and the inability to unite for independence referendums (e.g., the 2017 Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum, which failed due to lack of international support and internal incoherence) have led some intellectuals to argue that is the true sworn enemy. Chapter 4: The Modern Geopolitical Chessboard – Friends That Become Enemies The Kurds have historically been used as proxies. The United States, Israel, and European powers have armed Kurdish forces (the Peshmerga and YPG/SDF) to fight common foes: Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS. Yet, time and again, these powers have abandoned the Kurds when it suits their national interest. Disclaimer: The term "Jaani Dushman" is used here
Modern Kurdish rap and hip-hop, particularly from diaspora communities in Germany and Sweden, explicitly use the terminology of "sworn enemy" to describe the relationship between a Kurdish youth and the Turkish or Iranian state. For example, the Berlin-based Kurdish rapper (alias) has bars that translate to: "My Jaani Dushman isn't my neighbor / He sits in the parliament in Ankara / He wears a suit but his hands are red." Chapter 7: The Future – Can the Cycle of Jaani Dushman Be Broken? The question haunting Kurdish political analysts is this: Can the Kurds ever escape the paradigm of the Jaani Dushman ?
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