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| Sina Mirzaei |
Political analyst and activist Sina Mirzaei stated in an interview with Voice of America that the large-scale protests in Iranian Azerbaijan in May 2006 marked the beginning of a third political path, distinct from the reformist-conservative or secular-Islamist dichotomies in Iran.
"The May 2006 uprising may not have been passed down to the new generation—those who didn’t witness or experience these protests—as a historical event or a significant date on the calendar. However, its impact remains a key factor in the dynamics of the national movement that this new generation is also a part of," he stated.
Mirzaei described the May uprising as a point of dissemination and consolidation for the national movement in Iranian Azerbaijan:
"This uprising is, of course, not the beginning of the movement. Many try to downplay its importance by portraying it as if the national movement began in 2006 as a reaction to a cartoon. This uprising is not the starting point but rather a moment of expansion and consolidation. The centralist mindset seeks to dismiss it by asking why such a broad protest would arise over a cartoon when there are so many other problems. This is a reductionist view. The May protests were, in fact, the convergence and dissemination of various economic, social, national, and other grievances present in Azerbaijan."
The uprising was sparked on May 12, 2006, by cartoons published in Iran, a state-run newspaper. The cartoons depicted a child asking questions in Persian to a cockroach, which responded in Turkish. The accompanying text discussed ways to exterminate cockroaches. The mass protests, which lasted for days, were violently suppressed by police and military forces, particularly in cities like Sulduz, Tabriz, Urmia, and Khiyav, resulting in bloodshed.
Sina Mirzaei argued that the May uprising "created a third path" for nations trapped between political dichotomies:
"The text published alongside the cartoons in that newspaper portrays our language—and by extension, our existence—as foreign. It suggests that we don’t fit into the definition of what it means to be Iranian. This alienating perspective is why these protests are significant. They broke away from the reformist-conservative, secular-Islamist, or republican-monarchist dichotomies in Iran and paved the way for a third path. I see this movement as a post-colonial and decolonization movement—a resistance against internal colonialism. It redefines a third path against the narrow politics that aim to trap nations within such political dichotomies."
Link to the original interview in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
Sina Mirzayi: İran Azərbaycanında 2006 May Qiyamı üçüncü bir yol başlatdı