1961
Shorshi Ailulشۆڕشی ئەیلول
The September Revolution
Chapter IV · 1976 onwardبەشی چوارەم · لە ١٩٧٦ەوە
The New Revolutionشۆڕشی نوێ
He told his comrades in the basement of Abu Ghraib: our death will be the start of a new wave. Do not find it shocking. Use it as fuel.
1974
Shorshi Gulanشۆڕشی گوڵان
Broken by the Algiers Agreement
1976
Shorshi Nweشۆڕشی نوێ
The New Revolution, rising from Komalla
The funeral was the first proof. Despite open threats from the regime, Slemani poured into the streets, and Koya did the same for Kak Jaafar. Ibrahim Jalal called it a turning point: a people living in fear showed up united, and in showing up, stopped being afraid. Within the year the New Revolution had risen, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, with Komalla in its foundations, carried the struggle he had built toward the mountains again.
In his memoir of those years, Nawshirwan Mustafa recorded that Shahab, Jaafar and Anwar were the first wave of Kurdish revolutionaries to be executed by hanging, that they met investigation, court and death with a strength few could imagine, and that they left behind a tradition and a fearless philosophy to guide those who remained.
They owned nothing besides their ideals, and they fought for them like lions. They could have had wealth and status, like many did. They never moved from their principles.
»«The mottoدروشمەکە
Kam bzhi, kall bzhi. Live short, live brave. Narmin Othman, who heard it even from the execution chamber's threshold, recalls the original form he used: kam zhian w kall zhian. The condemned repeated it as they went, and the movement carried it out of the prison for them. Peshmerga heading into operations where not all would return said it to each other and went. Arsalan Baiz heard fighters explain it simply: even if I am martyred, my head is held high.
Just as Mam Jalal will not be repeated for the Kurdish movement, Kak Shahab will not be repeated for the left movement. Sometimes history does not see such heroes.
At commemorations, Mam Jalal reached for the old Newroz anthem made famous by Hassan Zirak, the one that promises the east will turn a martyr's blood into the color of dawn on the country's highest peak. For him, the anthem and the man had become the same promise: the aim Shahab and his comrades died for, he said, is almost becoming a reality.