Not to Forgive, but to Understand

Ava Homa: On Kurdish Identity and Social Fragmentation in Iran

• Sabah Carrim and Luis Gonzalez-Aponte

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In this episode, we speak with Ava Homa—award-winning author of Daughters of Smoke and Fire and Echoes from the Other Land—about Kurdish identity, structural violence, and the cycles of oppression in Iran. Homa discusses the intersection of literature and activism, the emotional and political risks of storytelling, and the global forces that shape—and often distort—struggles for justice. With questions from hosts and a special contribution by Kurdish poet Sarwa Azeez, the conversation moves from personal to geopolitical, examining how resistance, complicity, and survival co-exist in authoritarian contexts.

Chapter Timestamps & Titles

00:00 - Opening and Introduction  

01:49 - The Emotional Core of "Daughters of Smoke and Fire*" 

03:09 - Moral Ambiguity and Structural Violence  

05:44 - Beauty as Power, Punishment, and Survival  

09:28 - Fiction, Nonfiction, and Political Mythologies  

11:42 - Regime Repetition and Global Complicity  

15:43 - Kurdish Abandonment and Western Hypocrisy  

19:05 - Civil Society and the Future of Iran  

22:10 - Nationalism, Trauma, and Regime Control  

24:33 - Western Narratives of Unity After Violence  

28:32 - Personal Risk in Telling the Story  

30:24 - Responding to War from Within the Oppressed  

33:40 - On Calls for Regime Change  

35:59 - Advice to U.S. Minority Communities  

38:46 - Kurdish Identity and the Broader Iranian Struggle  

And I warned in my pieces a couple of weeks ago that the Iranian regime has constantly used foreign pressure as an excuse to increase internal suppression. And the first victims are always women and minorities. as soon as the strikes stopped the oppression, against women and minorities has increased. There has been reports of a spike in arbitrary arrests and executions. And of course, women and minorities are the front of it. How did I know this? I'm not an oracle. I've just seen this pattern repeat itself constantly and constantly and constantly. In this episode, we speak with Ava Homa, award-winning author of Daughters of Smoke and Fire and Echoes from the Other Land. Homa’s work gives voice to the silenced and exiled, drawing from her experience as a Kurdish woman from Kurdistan, Iran. We discuss cultural repression, structural violence, and social fragmentation in her fiction and nonfiction. Please enjoy our conversation. I'd like to read an excerpt from your book, and I would like to know how this excerpt informs the rest of the novel.“As I ran a wail escaped my chest, I was headed towards the main road, towards the world of men. The streets belong to them. Judgmental men, hypocritical men. Their honor depended on women men.” I was really marked by these few sentences which are in the prologue of your book, Daughters of Smoke and Fire. That was astutely selected. That definitely speaks to one of the two main themes of this book, which is gender oppression. The other theme of the book is ethnic oppression. So this is the story of a sibling, you know, Leila and Chia and what they share is ethnic oppression, what they don't share, is gender oppression. So trying to rely on the transformative power of storytelling and literature in order to bring to light stories and complexities that often get erased and oversimplified. The relationships in your stories, of course, often reflect the structural violences of sexism, classism and racism like you had just mentioned. But what stands out is how these violences are enacted not only by institutions, these larger societal structures, but by the individuals within them, within intimate and familial relationships. Characters capable of tenderness also perpetuate harm and perpetrate it. Do you see these figures as emblematic of a broader societal complicity? What does this ambiguity, its moral ambiguity, suggest about the limits and possibilities of resistance from within on this individual level? Thank you for that question. That was exactly what I was trying to convey through Daughters of Smoke and Fire, as well as Echoes from the Other Land. It's very difficult to hold complexities that nuance it's not what human mind automatically likes to do. And so my writing–fiction, nonfiction and poetry–is constantly this invitation to my readers as well as to myself, to not oversimplify, to understand that these causes justice and gender equality for women, for ethnic groups, for LGBT groups, for our beautiful planet that we call home are all intertwined. And and unfortunately, time and again, I come across people who misunderstand vengeance for justice, who are not willing to carry and carry this complexity because they do put you in a very uncomfortable place. They can even make you really, really lonely because once you have only one cause, then you have a group of allies. But when your cause gets more complicated, then you're more likely to be pushed away, even be called a traitor. So, yes, it's not just the regime and the system and the structures that oppress minorities. Also us turning around and oppressing each other. And that's something that only literature can bring to life via stories and by a complexity of self characters. And I'm so grateful that you you noted that and you're bringing that to light without understanding the hypocrisy in our own backyard, the injustice within our own minds. We're now able to face the injustice outside of ourselves. I want to come back to that note of fragmentation under the regime, because you discussed this a lot in your work, not only in your fiction, but your nonfiction. I want to zoom in on one aspect of it where your writing features women caught between being desired and being punished for that very desirability. How does beauty function in your work? Is it a tool within these social relationships? Is it a liability for the individual, a form of social power or currency? That discussion of a larger theme of beauty in your work, I think, shows us a lot about these internal relationships that we have. Yes. And I want to say that is all the things that you mentioned and even more if we're talking specifically about female beauty, human beauty in general, we see this ambivalence of people surrounding this beauty that on one hand they feel drawn to it. On the other hand, they feel intimidated by it, especially in a patriarchal culture where men's value is defined by it based on their level of control over the females in their lives. And a man gets points and privileges from his other male friends based on how quote unquote beautiful his female partner is, puts men in this very unstable, very tricky position of desiring beauty and also being completely intimidated by it. And so that also constantly dehumanizes women. It reduces them to their bodies. It takes away their agency from them. It's a system that oppresses men and women at the same time, because the male oppression is more indirect. It takes a lot more attunement to it, to be seen. We see very clear examples of, you know, from honor killing to the laws that a country like a government, like Iranian government promotes and exercises like it takes away the women's rights to asking for a divorce, getting divorced, it takes away a woman's right to travel abroad without male custodian’s permission. In Iran, you cannot have a passport without a male custodian permission. So there are laws that supposedly constantly and constantly try to punish women and limit their ability and take out their agency. And it stems from a deep fear and a deep desire. And it's really all very complicated. And so beauty, when a woman is has this gift, first of all, that the ideas of who is considered beautiful and who is considered not, is so extremely superficial and unrealistic that no one seems to completely measure up to it. But even the ones who fall into these categories then it becomes an individual choice. It can become a tool for manipulation. It can become a tool for, you know, finding superiority over others and doing this and doing that. So it then it becomes really an individual's choice and a question of, you know, ethical responsibility, how to deal with this complex gift of both being desired and being suppressed at the same time. And that leads us to again a fragmentation and in so much of what society values and I want to discuss something that's shared in your fiction and your nonfiction work is that you confront political mythologies as well. Those inside Iran and those constructed outside of it. Does your writing historicize a people's lived experience, or are you trying to intervene in the narratives that shape what comes next? Do you see your work doing both possibly? In short, this question is asking, you know, when writing stories, do you find yourself at times being a historian or relaying these stories of history or being an advocate and an activist. I don’t think those two are separate. I don't think it's is possible to actually look ahead without looking at history. We do repeat patterns constantly. And so, you know, when this if we look at current events, when the strikes first started, there was a group who celebrated thinking it as this would be a way to move towards liberation. And when I wrote about objecting to foreign intervention that I was immediately accused of supporting this oppressive regime. And I warned in my pieces a couple of weeks ago that the Iranian regime has constantly used foreign pressure as an excuse to increase internal suppression. And the first victims are always women and minorities. I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and today I read several reports by human rights activists that said as soon as the strikes stopped the oppression, against women and minorities has increased. There has been reports of a spike in arbitrary arrests and executions. And of course, women and minorities are the front of it. How did I know this? I'm not an oracle. I've just seen this pattern repeat itself constantly and constantly and constantly. And so I would argue it's impossible to know what's going to happen without reflecting on what has happened in the past. You're referencing your recent piece for The Globe and Mail entitled “The Iranian people are caught between forces they cannot control”, which is absolutely very apt for this situation. And I have a quote here from that piece you've written that “Iran’s people, especially women and minorities, do not fear regime change.

They fear regime, repetition:

patriarchy, racism, and class inequality, rebranded and beautified by a Western puppet.” This idea, as you have just clearly mentioned, is that it is the minority. It is women that are the first to be targeted in these kind of situations. But this idea also resonates far beyond Iran, touching on dynamics we've seen in other conflict zones today. How should we understand the global complicity in these cycles of repetition, particularly among populations like those in the United States, who may not face direct consequences of those actions, but whose governments often initiate or support intervention? Do you think that such populations are also stripped of agency in shaping real change? Or do they maintain a kind of agency that is entangled with violence? I think the population in the West that are well read and well informed and are eager to maintain their solidarity, are capable of doing so by doing a few things. First of all, to understand that solidarity doesn't mean speaking over people, but to make space for them and listen to them. The people who are doing actual grassroots change in Iran are people who get constantly erased from both international dialogs as well as national dialogs. And those are women and minorities. Look at the 2022 uprising that lasted well into ‘23 who were in the forefront of those uprising? Women in Tehran and minorities in Baluchistan and Kurdistan. So it is not symbolic when I say people who are doing actual transformation are women and minorities, they are the most vulnerable, but they are also the ones who are doing the real work despite all the threats they're facing. When it comes to international complicity and hypocrisy and how can well-informed, educated Westerners interfere? I start by saying that solidarity starts with clarity. It’s very important that every time the word Iran is mentioned, we realize who we're talking about. The way mainstream media here presents it, Iran equals nuclear enrichment and threats, whereas Iran is also 91 million in population, again, especially women, especially minorities who wake up every day and wonder, “How can I maintain my dignity and protect my loved one under impossible conditions?” So when we were talking about solidarity across our home, this planet, it's important to remember what's beyond headlines. It's important to remember the people when the headlines fade. Right now, the headlines about Iran have faded, but the oppression inside Iran has only increased. So what can Westerners do? First of all, they need to bring clarity. They need to understand that solidarity is not saviorism. They need to hold their own governments accountable in their hypocritical dealing with the people. I think what’s also seen in that global complicity and oftentimes Western countries like the United States is that they will take the cause, especially of, the Kurdish people, and they will use it as a helpful scapegoat to go ahead and intervene. And then once they have gone ahead and committed the intervention that they wanted and gotten the deal that they wanted, they leave. And it's the sense of abandonment that I'm curious about in the Kurdish people,

is that:

Do they feel that they are often put in between these conflicts and cannot trust such states like the West? I think often about former member of Parliament George Galloway in the UK, where he was remarking on the Prime Minister's lack of condemnation for the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus about a year ago. And he said that there was not one single word of condemnation in the Prime Minister's statement against these strikes. And he goes on to say that the Parliament has no treaty with Israel, at least not one that they have been shown, and that the Iranians are likely not to trust the Prime Minister if he does condemn this. When Britain occupied Iran, looted its wealth and overthrew its one democratic socialist government. And can you speak to this feeling, if it is present, of abandonment by Western countries? Yeah, I don't think that's only limited to Kurds. I think the powerless are always historically across the planet have been used as pawns in conflicts. Now, unfortunately, that reality has also been used against them. You know, not only they have been manipulated and abused, the fact that they have been victims of this is also used, again, to justify dehumanizing of the powerless. So betrayal in terms of what the governments are doing to people is nonstop. And we just saw it happen. We just saw, you know, U.S. President Donald Trump on his own social media account, ask people of Iran to rise up. And when people did not consider him legitimate enough to respond to his call, he turned around and in less than 24 hours, he said, we're not interested in regime change. We just want to make sure that there is not uranium getting enriched within Iranian soil. So this push and pull of the government is not something that I even want to spend a minute on. Governments are not there to protect the interests of the vulnerable population across the planet. So it's on Westerners to continue consistent moral pressure It's on us to constantly call upon our representative and remind them of people who get erased and overlook in these international relations and dynamics. And what does a viable transition look like for Iran or people that are caught in this struggle? Could it be community led? Are there civil society movements that you see as a viable force or forces for transformation? I know that in discussion there's a lot of talk of potential movements like the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, or the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, or do you know of civil society movements that you see gaining traction, or do you believe that there needs to be a call for more. So Iran went through a revolution in 1979 and the results were catastrophic. I don't deny that after 91 million population, there are still groups who believe in another revolution. But working directly a lot of activists I’m also aware that a large portion of them are believers in evolution in grassroots activism, in slow transformation, as opposed to another drastic change with unpredictable results that could go either way. So there have been civil societies within Iran that have been organizing and moving towards change. They have been paying huge prices because they are constantly harassed and intimidated by the government. But they have continued their work when the missiles start dropping. It wasn't just obviously IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) was affected. Definitely Iranian government was weakened. But we can't overlook the fact that also when people have bombs getting dropped on them, they are not thinking about rising up. They're thinking about the next bomb shelter. They can run into to protect their loved one. There has been and is civil society movements that have been strong and active across different parts of Iran. And I think they are the ones who are real catalysts for change. But these kind of changes under such an oppressive regime takes longer and it's extremely difficult. We see that even in America, despite the supposed freedom and far less oppression and suffocation, how difficult change is, how difficult it is to move toward justice and equality. And so it's by far more difficult in Iran, but because people have more at stake, they are also working more toward it. I wish there was an easy button to push and get rid of, you know, this really brutal government that's there that would have been ideal. But we have seen repeatedly that foreign invasion and foreign intervention has never brought about democracy and peace. So what makes us think that this time things might be different? Whenever there are bombs dropping on a civilian population, they are not or less so in the position to go ahead and go through the normal means of reform. And in recent months, we've seen discussion of the “rally around the flag” phenomenon in Iran, where national trauma such as strikes from Israel and the United States, triggers a wave of nationalism. You've written that “the regime survives not by strength but by fracture, dividing society along ethnic or gendered and class lines.” In your view, does this type of nationalism that comes after such a traumatic event ultimately support reform, solidarity, or does it reinforce the regime's grip by deepening isolation and fear? It definitely isolates because immediately it divides people along the line of, us and them. And so the first group who gets targeted every time“Us versus Them” is a race or ethnic minorities. And so anything that creates more fear and more uncertainty and more instability is far more likely to turn people against each other. So every time everything that, you know, we have on one hand very well known activists, the like Nasrin Sotoudeh, like Narges Mohammadi, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, likes Sepideh Gholian whose memoir of life in prison was just released. And then for every one of them, we have thousands of anonymous activists that are working within their own communities. And we won't hear their names because any form of attention would also jeopardize the important work that they're doing. And that's what I think needs to be supported. For as long as people see each other as threats and are afraid of each other. That's really ends the conversation that really ends the opportunity for progress and for growth. How do you interpret this perception and perhaps message that's being propagated on Western media outlets of this rally around the flag? Because there is a lot of well-meaning progressives that also say this and hint that this is a sign that a lot of these people either want a change in leadership or they are against this intervention. How do you interpret Western media outlets putting out this notion of that after such traumatic events, the people in Iran are stronger and more unified than ever. I see that as a misinterpretation of reality. I am a strong believer that freedom does not come from removing a dictator. It comes from dismantling structures that support inequality, gender equality, ethnic inequality, class inequality, so on and so forth. And there is no foreign force that can come in and remove the dictator, as we saw in Syria, in Libya and in other places that will bring about peace and justice. So on one hand, it's very wise for people to be wary of Western intervention. It's very self-defeating for Iranians to now turn against themselves and turn against each other. And now they're caught between the external forces that are pushing them towards more fear. You know, Iranians saw what happened in their neighboring countries and they don't want that. But this is also very manipulative and cunning of the Iranian regime to use people's legitimate concerns against them. So the thing is, we don't really, really know what is happening inside Iran because how many actual reporters are there to tell us what people say, how many people are there to trust the reporters and tell them the truth, knowing how huge the price is? So I want to again invite us to hold complexity. Yes, foreign intervention has never helped. No, turning people against themselves also doesn't help. And it's really, really difficult to be where Iranians are today. It's such a lonely place because they can't trust the regime that is supposed to protect them. I mean, look at their extreme incompetence, you know, against Israeli strikes. They can't rely on Netanyahu's call. Who has now hijacked their slogans “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” - women, life, freedom. They are not blind. They see what is happening in Gaza, nor can they trust Trump, the now they're turning against each other. Can we trust each other? That's a big question that now people in Iran are facing, and I think their answers to that question will determine their future. Are they willing to accept women as equals? Are they willing to accept ethnic minorities as equal? So if the government, the country, this is a very critical moment for Iran. If it moves towards further Persian supremacy, further patriarchal system and further eliminating people based on class, then of course it will become a better, easier prey for the Iranian regime as well as Western greed of corporation. And if they are willing to maintain their awareness and unity in the sense of not gathering around the flag, but unifying in the sense of seeing each other's humanity and putting aside the divides that have carried over for at least a century, then their future shapes based on that. I have a question for you, Ava. I want to understand, for instance, after reading various books from Iran by Iranian women writers, how safe did you feel telling your story? How safe do you feel now telling the story, and how safe do you feel being in America after having told that story? The fact is, having lived half of my life in Iran and the other half in North America gives me the intimacy of a lived experience, as well as the clarity of distance I have taught in universities in Iran and teaching in a university in California. And so it's also mixed with academic insight. And so being in this place that I am, I do feel a sense of urgency and responsibility to constantly open invitations, to understand nuance, to see each other's humanity across all this divisive tools that have been imposed on us for over 100 years. And what other choice do we have Sabah, other than every one of us do the little things that we can do and we should do so, no, I don't feel safe. I can't. I constantly get erased, not just from Western conversations that are like, Who are the Kurds? Where are you on the map? I've never heard of you. Even from Iranian dialog that constantly erases. me pushes me in the margins because I dare say Kurds are also humans, but when I sleep at night I sleep a little bit better knowing that I was able to be in that uncomfortable and lonely place to the best of my abilities. as part of our efforts to deepen dialog, we're introducing questions from individuals who've closely followed and contributed to our conversations. The following two questions come from Sarwa Azeez, Kurdish poet, researcher, translator, Fulbright alumna and friend of the podcast. Her first question touches on an aspect of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’—movement, which gained global prominence after the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in the custody of Iran’s so-called morality police in 2022—under circumstances widely believed to be the result of state violence.

Sarwa asks:

During the Jin, Jiyan Azadî protests in Iran, many of us supported the movement despite the regime's violent crackdown on protesters. Now the same regime is under threat from powerful external forces. You and others who have personally experienced the regime's brutality still stand against this war. Given how difficult it is to topple authoritarian regimes like this. What do you believe is the most constructive way for oppressed groups and their supporters to respond to such complex situations? There seems to be two camps among the oppressed those who support the war as a means to an end and those who oppose it on principle. Could you share your perspective on this divide? It's definitely an important and vital question that needs to be constantly asked. One is the moral responsibility when it comes to violence? I don't support the war, not just because, not just from a moral perspective, but also knowing that in fact it's going to be the vulnerable population that will pay the biggest price. I just can't believe that in a regime like Bibi Netanyahu’s regime will ever bring about freedom and justice on this planet. For any group of people. And so when the strikes come from them, I don't see it bringing any justice to or for the vulnerable population. I know they will. They are the first victims. And I wish there was a quick change that would have been ideal. But if Kurdish civilians, for example, are your priority and the strikes are happening in Tehran, do you forget that millions of Kurds also live in Tehran. I can in clear conscience condone violence in any shape or form, and I just don't believe Netanyahu can do anything good on this planet while it is blocking milk formula to infants. But that's just me. I'm and we are all entitled to our opinions. Aren't we. How do you respond to international audiences, who instinctively call for regime change in Iran without accounting for what that means on the ground, especially those most vulnerable? Do you believe that this is pure ignorance of so much discussion in the West, or do you find it to be coming from a place of, let's say, remnants of colonialism, where the answer is always violence. There is nothing inherently wrong about wanting and working towards regime change. The regime in Iran is a cancer for the population first and foremost, and for the region and for the rest of the planet, secondly. And it's true that people who can bring about real change are the ones that are working within that oppressive system. So our cause is not problematic in and of itself. It's just our approach is something that needs constant conversations and refinement. How do we promote regime change. I say one of the most important ways that we can do is by listening to people who are paying the biggest price to bring about those changes, by making space for them, by offering asylum to people whose lives have been endangered for preserving the truth by stopping ICE raids on refugees whose only crime have been trying to stand up to injustice. And while we are doing all we can, while we are holding Western governments accountable, Iranian government accountable, we need to continue asking these questions. We need to continue refining our answers and we need to realize that we can decide for people living under a theocratic regime what to do. It's our job to support them and to know that if violence breaks out, the first victims of that violence will be unarmed civilians. More than IRGC, that's armed to the teeth. Do you have anything that you would want to say to minority communities in the United States? Is that do they have a voice? Do they have agency in this situation? Do they need to listen more, recognize what they can and cannot do? I think that what is going unsaid a lot in current American media, these mainstream discussions, is exactly what you're discussing, is the point of fragmentation and that minorities, women included, are going to be persecuted. That we need to continue to stand up for each other. Just this morning, I took a walk and I saw a gentleman in a yellow suit that said Citizen Observer. Citizen Observer is part of the group that is forming in my community here in California of people who do have the passport, becoming citizen observers in order to protect these people who come under persecution. The university where I teach CSU (California State University), Monterey Bay has been very good at protecting our undocumented student in educating all of us about how to protect ourselves and how to protect each other. See, the truth is we only have each other to rely on. We need to constantly hold our government, hold the power responsible and accountable. But at the end of the day, we can only trust each other with all our imperfection. That's who we need to rally behind and get together. It's our communities. And that's where real change can happen. And I see such a big contrast between what I see via media and what I see in my community. When you leave the world of digital reality and focus on actual reality in front of you, I see a sharp difference. Maybe I am very privileged. Maybe it's just California or this part of California that's like this. But maybe it's also not just this part of the world. Maybe communities are where we still see humanity and care, which is the natural movement of the heart, versus what corporations and governments try to feed us nonstop. They make us forget that we can still be good to each other. In our communities we see that that possibility is ongoing. I want to focus on just the last question here relating to your community this follow up question from Sarwa

is:

As a Kurdish woman who taught in Iran, how do you see the Kurdish experience intersecting with the broader Iranian struggle? Does your community feel part of the Iranian nation or does marginalization create a parallel fight for survival and dignity? There is no easy and straightforward answer to that really important question. On an emotional level, there is the desire, sometimes the fury and rage that comes from constantly being dehumanized as Kurds in Iran, that it creates a backlash and an emotional defensiveness that I can understand. But I don't see it as onward leading as what Kurds within Iran want. We don't really know until there's an actual referendum for people to be asked this question. I see a lot of Kurds who say they're sick and tired of Persians supremacy and so they would like either a completely independent Kurdistan or a federal system which recognizes the sovereignty and, you know, the cultural rights and all of that in the Iranian part of Kurdistan. And in both of those cases, I see people saying, see my humanity, see my dignity, stop dehumanizing me, stop considering me subhuman. But what exactly people want more than the other? We don't really know until there is a fair and open election that asks people that question. This was not to forgive, but to understand with our guest, Ava Homa. To our listeners. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and stay tuned for more discussions.