Amineh Kakabaveh
Amineh Kakabaveh | |
---|---|
Member of the Riksdag | |
Assumed office 18 June 2008 | |
Constituency | Stockholm County |
In office 16 February 2008 – 17 June 2008 As a substitute MP | |
Constituency | Stockholm County |
Personal details | |
Born | Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, Imperial State of Iran[1][2] | 6 December 1970
Political party | Independent (since 2019) |
Other political affiliations | Left Party (until 2019) Komalah[3] |
Alma mater | Stockholm University (MA) |
Occupation | Social work |
Amineh Kakabaveh (Kurdish: ئامینە کاکەباوە, romanized: Amîne Kakebawe, Persian: اَمینه کاکاباوه; born 6 December 1970, Saqqez)[2] is a Swedish independent politician of Iranian Kurdish descent.[4] Having been a member of the Kurdish guerilla Komala in Iran since her youth, she took refuge in Sweden at the age of nineteen and has become a member of the Parliament of Sweden.
Early life
She was born in Saqqez, Iran and had seven siblings.[5] As a child she worked to sustain her family.[5] At the age of thirteen she joined the Iranian Kurdish Komala, where she was trained as a fighter.[3] This early experience of assuming responsibility and the hardships of life in the mountains made her more mature.[3] Later she fled over Turkey and Greece to Sweden.[4] Having found refuge in Sweden at the age of nineteen, she initially worked as a housemaid by day and attended the evening schools.[4] Later Kakabaveh graduated with a MSc from the Stockholm University[6] in philosophy and social sciences.[4]
Political career
Inspired by the French movement Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Doormats), Kakabaveh, in 2005, founded the feminist and anti-racist organization Varken hora eller kuvad.[7] In the parliamentary elections of 2008 she became a member of the Swedish Parliament.[8] In 2019, she was threatened to be expelled from the Left Party, as a result of a prolonged conflict with the party leadership. Before the issue was settled, she left the party voluntarily.[9]
Parliament members can't be expelled by their parties, so she remained as a member of the parliament. But after the 2018 election, the socialist coalition with the Left party as support had one member more than the opponents, so when Kakabaveh became party-less, the government lost their majority. In the 2021 Swedish government crisis Kakabaveh did not want to support the government. Only after agreeing to some political demands from Amineh Kakabaveh concerning support of Kurds and criticism of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s treatment of Kurds, the government headed by Magdalena Andersson could be elected.[10] After the Swedish application to NATO of which Turkey is a member, Turkey demanded that Kakabaveh be extradited due to her support of Kurdish organisations.[11]
Political positions
As a politician and opinion maker, Kakabaveh is involved with topics such as honour crimes, women's rights, and secularism. Her work has made her a controversial person within Swedish politics and her own Left party, but she has also received the title of "Swede of the year", as awarded by Fokus magazine.[12] In 2017, the Left Party opposed her voicing concern over patriarchal clan structures in Swedish suburbs, alleging that it would lead to further Islamophobia; according to her, they tried to prevent her re-election to the Swedish Parliament.[13] After the fall out within the Left Party in 2019, she resigned her party membership, and remained a member of the parliament as an independent. She demands a better treatment for the about 400,000 immigrants Sweden has received since 2012 and in 2018 she saw the immigration policy as naive, and not efficient enough.[8] She is opposed to the NATO accession of Sweden, due to her own experiences of war, exclaiming “NATO has never brought safety to the world“ and is a defender of the Swedish policy of non-alignment.[6] In May she declared that she would not give the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party (S/SAP) support in important votes in the parliament since she considered parts of the previous agreement as not having been followed by the government.[14]
Personal life
She has been threatened in the past and according to herself, she has also received protection by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO).[8]
Autobiography
Her autobiography Amineh – inte större än en kalasjnikov ("Amineh – not bigger than a Kalashnikov") was published in 2016, detailing her time with the Peshmerga.[15]
References
- ^ Bozarslan, Mahmut; Bila, Sibel Utku (22 February 2016). "How one Kurdish woman went from child soldier to Swedish lawmaker". Al-Monitor. Archived from the original on 29 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
- ^ a b "Amineh, vänsterpolitiker med en tuff bakgrund flydde kriget som 14-åring" [Amineh, Left Party politician who fled the war at age 14]. Passagen. 7 July 2014. Archived from the original on 2 September 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
- ^ a b c "Laying Kalashnikov to Rest, Amineh Kakabaveh Fights On". rudaw.net. Rudaw Media Network. Archived from the original on 4 September 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
- ^ a b c d "Laying Kalashnikov to Rest, Amineh Kakabaveh fights on". Archived from the original on 16 December 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
- ^ a b Baksy, Kurdo (4 June 2022). "Amineh Kakabaveh: Perschmerga im Parlament". Der Freitag (in German). Retrieved 4 June 2022.
- ^ a b Dilaklı, Selay (19 May 2022). ""NATO has never brought safety to the world"". Bianet.
- ^ "Den feministiska och antirasistiska gräsrotsrörelsen". varkenhoraellerkuvad.se. Archived from the original on 2 November 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
- ^ a b c "Sweden 'naive' about integration: ex-Peshmerga Swedish MP". France 24. 8 September 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
- ^ "Kakabaveh lämnar Vänsterpartiet" (in Swedish). 29 August 2019. Archived from the original on 31 August 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
- ^ Milne, Richard; Jackley, Ayla Jean (20 May 2022). "Sweden's Nato ambitions run into Kurdish row". Financial Times. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
- ^ Turkisk ambassadör vill att Kakabaveh utlämnas (In Swedish)
- ^ "Årets svensk - Fokus". Fokus (in Swedish). 15 December 2016. Archived from the original on 26 January 2017. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
- ^ Thanem, Torkild (1 June 2018). "The End of Diversity?". International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies. doi:10.13169/intecritdivestud.1.1.0097. ISSN 2516-550X.
- ^ "Independent MP Kakabaveh withdraws support for Social Democrats". Sveriges Radio. 20 May 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
- ^ "Amineh – inte större än en kalasjnikov : från peshmerga till riksdagsledamot - Ordfront förlag". ordfrontforlag.se. Archived from the original on 26 July 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
External links
- Amineh Kakabaveh at the Riksdag website
- 1970 births
- Living people
- Left Party (Sweden) politicians
- Members of the Riksdag
- Women members of the Riksdag
- Swedish people of Kurdish descent
- Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan politicians
- 21st-century Swedish women politicians
- 21st-century Swedish politicians
- Kurdish socialists
- Kurdish revolutionaries
- Kurdish Marxists
- Kurdish feminists
- Kurdish communists
- People from Saghez