When relations between a regime and its intellectuals, or between a regime and the country's minorities, are tense and problematic, we may expect to find this expressed in works of literature and art. This presentation will focus on the way in which such a relationship is expressed in the works of the Kurdish-Iraqi poet Buland al-Haydari (1926-1996). Al-Haydari was a victim of political persecution by the Iraqi regime in the mid-twentieth century, and was forced into exile as a result. The focus will be on tensions between al-Haydari’s identity, as an Iraqi, and as a member of the Kurdish minority in Iraq - both identities are explicitly expressed in his poetry. Al-Haydari's poetry reflects three main aspects of this situation: his own personal relations with the Iraqi regime, especially the latter's attempts to wipe out the Communist opposition to which al-Haydari belonged; the balance of power between the authorities and the Kurds; and the poet's own attitude towards this minority, to which he belonged. The perspectives from which al-Haydari views these two entities, the regime and the Kurdish minority, extend from absolute antagonism, through political criticism and scorn towards the regime, to sympathy towards, and political and social criticism of the Kurds. I will examine examples of al-Haydari's poetry that present a fascinating picture of an intellectual's complex identity against the background of violence he witnessed in Iraq, his persecution and exile, as a member of an ideological opposition to the regime on the one hand, and as the son of an ethnic minority on the other. In addition, I will address the status of the Kurds under a despotic and repressive regime, as reflected in the mirror-image provided by al-Haydari.