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Kurds, Kurdistan and the Kurdish Question 1800s-1989 and After
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6. Identity and Politics
This section will focus on a qualitative account of Kurdish identity by paying attention to the ways in which Kurdish identity, socio-political structure have been reported in academic research and the ways the Turkish, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi governments have dealt with Kurdish identity. Kurds have been denied recognition of their identity “as recently as the early 1990s, Turkish diplomats in Washington were still referring to Turkey’s large Kurdish community as mountain Turks” (O’Leary 2005:24; Bruinessen 1994).[26] Their identity has been denied and distorted on account of their linguistic relationship with ‘Iranian languages’[27], cultural and religious relationship with Arabs, Persians and Turkic Muslim peoples of the Middle East under policies of oppression, peripheralization and exploitation. Their populations have been under reported. They have faced policies of Arabization, Turkification, Persianization and Islamization. Kurds are divided among the present-states of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, each state has found a pretext for the distortion of the knowledge of Kurdish identity, language, cultural practices; they have disregarded that identity is a relational phenomenon.
Among the academic research on the Kurds and Kurdistan there are three approaches by which Kurdish identity may become knowable, and I intend to formulate a fourth approach. The traditional approach is ‘Kurdish ethnic identity’ presented in Hassanpour (1994, 2003) with its main focus on linguistic and textual analysis as the defining criteria of ethnic identity, which is also found in the dominant mainstream Kurdish writers on Kurdish ethnic nationalism such as Jamal Nabaz, Hussien Hozni, Aladdin Sujadi’s work. This approach seeks to uncover the origins. The second approach is a genealogic political-constructivist of ‘Kurdish national identity’ presented in Vali’s work (1998, 2003). This model is more recent in Kurdish studies; it has a series of pitfalls. It misinterprets genealogical studies as that of searching for origins, as oppose to mobilizing genealogy as the periodization of a thematic reading of the development of the ‘Kurdish nation’ in Vali’s case. The third is a sociological approach not explicitly engaged in the question of Kurdish identity–rather entrenched, embedded in the interpretation and the reading of ‘Kurdish as socio-political identity’ based on the principle of ‘loyalties’.
Even though there was no formal Kurdish political structure to observe; the social structure and Kurdish political movements for independence gave van Bruinessen sufficient knowledge to determine the identity of Kurdish society and politics. My own approach is close to van Bruinessen’s[28] because it tends to include both the social and political aspects of the Kurdish society, but different in two ways. First it suggests that identity is a constitutive relational phenomenon, that similarities in certain cultural practices, linguistic and religious relations cannot be factors for denying the Kurdish identity. Second it suggests that while “primordial loyalties” have been the defining characteristic of the Kurdistan’s socio-political organization, it has been in decline since the 1990s. Instead “ethnic loyalties” (van Bruinessen 1992) to localities, dialects and in general to Kurdish ethnic identity have been on the rise. This type of loyalty has led to the emergence of national and civic loyalties among certain small groups of intellectuals and the political Kurdish elites. The latter two types of loyalties are close in principle.
Vali (2003) makes a distinction between ‘ethnic identity’ and ‘national identity’. This distinction resolves much confusion about ‘Kurdish identity’ which has been present in the works of Hassanpour (1994, 2003). Kurdish ethnic identity could be known through sociological and anthropological research by the study of the Kurdish culture, religion and so forth in relation to the surrounding ethnic groups. It may not need politics but one can report the influence of politics on the development and change of Kurdish ethnic identity. If an ethnicist approach seeks the ‘essence’ of the language, culture, religion of the ethnic group that is being studied the account of finding sharp distinctions, then such an approach may become ‘essentialist’. Hence, ethnic identity could be known apart from politics. But ‘national identity’ cannot be known apart from politics because national identity is always an element of a nation-building and community which is a political project aims to build national identity.
Thus, a political reading of Kurdish national identity argues that Kurdish identity is a national-political project constructed by nationalism and political ideologies which seek to form a state (Vali 2003). There are various forms of Kurdish nationalisms: civic[29], ethnic, cultural and diasporic nationalism, all engage in issues of ‘identity’ in different and, at times, in similar ways. They overlap in many respects. An ethnicity reading of Kurdish identity focuses on Kurdish ethnic identity: linguistic, religious, cultural practices with less interest in the impact of politics on the constitution of ethnic identity. A sociological reading of Kurdish identity would find identity in culture, religion and everyday life practices as constitutive parts of the socio-political structure of the organization of Kurdish society (van Bruinessen 1992).
My own approach is a socio-anthropological one that claims identity is a relationally-constitutive phenomenon. Its definition and recognition is dependant on cultural, religious, linguistic practices and socio-political structure of the Kurdish society, and the governing authority’s political techniques of identification. This approach will entail two stages, a socio-anthropological constitutive approach, and a politico-legal constitution of Kurdish identity. The socio-anthropological aspect will explore a range of ‘what’ questions: What is Kurdish identity? What are its constitutive parts? The politico-legal aspect will explore a range of ‘how’ questions, which will explain the politico-legal impact of the Turko-Ottoman, Qajar-Persian and Arab-Islamic role on the socio-anthropological understanding of Kurdish identity. How has Kurdish identity been formed?
The sociological inquiry into Kurdish identity which is attentive to ‘what’ is the socio-political structure of Kurdish society, culture and language was taken by van Bruinessen in which he identified the socio-political structure of Kurdistan ‘tribal landlords–Agha, and religious–Sheikh’[30], operating on the principles of “primordial loyalties” (1992: 6). His anthropological study of the social and political structure of Kurdistan is a valuable reference, and his analysis has been appreciated by both Oriental and non-Oriental researchers.
These “primordial loyalties” he argues, have been useful because they have helped Kurdish survival and maintained their identity. These loyalties have had side-effects because they caused the fracture of Kurdish political unification and social development, and have undermined the emergence of modern types of ethnic and civic loyalties which organize people around principles and practices of institutionalized rights and responsibilities:
Kurdish nationalism and the tribal and religious loyalties stand in an ambivalent relation to each other. On the one hand, the first Kurdish nationalists were from the ranks of the traditional authorities, sheikhs and aghas. It was, in fact precisely because of these primordial loyalties to these leaders and to the values they embodied that the nationalist movement acquired its mass character. On the other hand, the perpetual conflicts and rivalries between these traditional leaders prevented and still prevent the Kurds from really uniting (1992:7).
van Bruinessen’s study of “primordial loyalties” offers a sufficient knowledge of the socio-political structure of the Kurdish society. However, Kurdish society has been continuously on the move to break-up kinship and tribal loyalties toward ethnic, national and civic loyalties since the 1970s, more specifically since 1992 with the establishment of the Kurdish regional government. While progress has been made, the practices of civic loyalties and individualism remain hindered by both ethnic and “primordial loyalties”.
Ethnic loyalties have always been elements of the traditional Kurdish academic approach and mobilized by Kurdish movements. Ethnic loyalties are organized around ‘ethnic identity’, which is defined through language, culture, and shared historical experience. Its principle claim has been that Kurds are not Arabs, Persians or Turks; rather they have their own language, culture and social organization. The ethnic identity approach searches for clues by which Kurds could be distinguished from their neighbours, and the ethnic politics that mobilized these ethnic identities has called for ethnic loyalties among the Kurds. Similar to primordial loyalties, ethnic loyalties have been a source of both unity and disunity among the Kurds, because ethnic identity focuses on linguistic, cultural and historical experience to distinguish Kurds from their neighbours, questions of locality, differences in dialect, slight differences in cultural practices, being from one part of Kurdistan have cast disunity – and have restricted the creation of unity. van Bruinessen has pointed to competing ethnic loyalties among different Kurdish localities and dialects even with strong sense of Kurdish nationalism among them (1994).
These slight differences also have been played on and deployed by Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq to distort cohesion and unity on the basis of the principles of ethnic loyalty. Thus, the politics of ethnic identity have both constrained and constructed Kurdish identity. More clearly, Kurdish ethnic identity is undeniable, but its deployment along political lines has generated ethnic nationalism. Thus, a socio-anthropological reading of Kurdish ethnic identity would formulate its framework around differences in language, cultural and historical experience to establish Kurdish ethnic identity. For example, Hassanpour’s approach to ethnic identity focuses attention on linguistic differences to argue that Kurdish distinct identity and language are the determining criteria to ethnic nationalism (Hassanpour 1991, 2003).
Hassanpour and other ethnicist scholars of Kurdish studies focus their attention on the question of the origin of ‘Kurdayeti’ as the origin of Kurdish ethnicity (2003) and confuse ‘ethnic’ for ‘national’ identity where he points out “In this work, I have defined ‘nations’ as a historically formed community of people bound together by common language, culture, homeland, and community of economic life…” (Hassanpour 2003:143). This ethnicist approach to an understanding of a nation gets further confused where he points to a periodization of the emergence of a Kurdish nation, “Moreover, I have not declared pre-1918 Kurds to be a ‘nation.’ Without posing a chronological beginning, I have singled out the post-1918 years as the period of ‘consolidation’ of the Kurdish nation” (Hassanpour 1992: 58; 2003: 144). This is a loose deployment and understanding of a ‘nation’.
There is something ambivalent about this definition and periodization of the ‘Kurdish nation’. I accept that from 1918 onwards there was a continuous ‘consolidation’ of Kurdish nationalism, but not a ‘Kurdish nation’. His ethnicist approach may be useful for the questions of ethnic identity but it confuses national identity. I would leave Hassanpour’s approach with one question: if there was a “Kurdish nation”, then on what grounds have Kurdish political movements engaged in political struggle for national recognition? Ethnic identity may call for or rely on ethnic loyalties which are generated through feelings of attachment to language, cultural practices. Ethnic loyalties have positive and negative elements for Kurdish identity. Hassanpour’s search for causality, from a Marxist perspective and political economy combined with ethno-cultural identity further fractures Kurdish identity between competing political ideological frameworks which he tries to bring together in his confused account of ethnic identity as national identity. Ethnic loyalties have contributed to the fracturing of ‘Kurdish identity’. Vali also raises strong criticisms of Hassanpour’s ethno-nationalist focus (2003).
A political reading of Kurdish national identity may argue that Kurdish identity is a nationalist-political project constructed by discourses of nationalism and political ideologies of state formation (Vali 2003). Vali argues that contemporary “mainstream Kurdish nationalist, hailing from Diyarbakir, Mahabad or Arbil, is ‘primordialist’. For him/her the Kurdish nation is a primordial entity, a natural formation rooted in the nature of every Kurd, defining the identity of people and community throughout history” (2003:59). Vali disagrees with the primordialist, constructive and ethnicist empiricist approach to the origin of national identity. He contends that “Nationalist discourse is not a discourse of origin, given or constructed. Rather it is primarily a discourse of identity in which the popular claims to sovereignty are posed” (2003: 68). National identity rests much on the nation as the foundation. It is precisely because ‘national identity’ is a political constructionist project connected to nation-building and its realization rests on the existence of a juridico-political administration, that ethnic identity is different from national identity, because ethnic identity necessarily may not be a political construct like national identity. Much of ethnic identity characteristics are revealed through literary works: cultural and linguistic practices, but national identity is political whatever form it takes.
Vali does not develop the rationality that makes him a critic of constructivist and empirical approaches in ethnic study – rather his objection to the primordial accounts of national identity come across more clearly. I disagree with Vali’s characterization and criticisms of constructivist and empiricist approaches. His sweeping identification of Kurdish academic works as “nationalist primordialist” (2003: 59) is not well clarified. While he makes a distinction between ‘ethnic identity’ and ‘national identity’ he commits the mistake that ‘ethnic identity’ is also political and his blunt rejection of empirical research leave no space for the pragmatics of practicing theory.
Primordial, tribal – religious, loyalties of the socio-political structure of Kurdistan and ethnic loyalties among the Kurds are based on localized experiences, dialects, religious differences and sects (van Bruinessen 1992, 1994). Civic loyalties, on the other hand, focus on the creation of a national Kurdish identity which is attentive to differences of dialects, experiences and religions; and it actively accepts diversities among the Kurds. While the Kurdish society is modernizing, it has remained under the influence of policies of peripheralization, denial, oppression and exploitation – along with the social and political organizational impact of administrative structures promoted by a specific type of economic production and Islamic religious organizations of the Turko-Ottoman and Qajar-Persian Empires[31] prior to their fall during the First World War.
The socio-political structure of Kurdish society is both relational and dynamic. The relational dimension could be expressed through the way Kurdish society has remained functioning on the principles of “primordial loyalties” until as recently as 1970s while there are claims that Turkish, Persian and Arab societies advanced more, in the same neighbourhood? This question would help focus on contextual analysis of the Kurdish case in relation to socio-political conditions of the Kurdish society which have continuously been under four types of political practices: peripheralization, oppression, denial and exploitation. Under the conditions that these policies have created there was no formalization of social, political and economic association in Kurdistan, a type of association which would have produced ‘civic loyalties’ and ‘ethnic loyalties’.
7. The Kurdish Question
This is an account of categorization, classification and characterization of the Kurdish Question in Kurdish Studies and in Middle Eastern scholarship. My purpose is to present the Kurdish Question and invite scholarly attention to rethink the ways in which the Kurdish Question has been characterized in the scholarly literature. This inventory includes a periodization under which different conceptualization of the Kurdish Question in relation to the local, regional and world political rationalities emerged. What is the Kurdish Question? How has it been constituted and developed? Is the Kurdish Question a Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian question? Is the Kurdish Question a local, a regional, an international question or a combination of the three? The Kurdish Question is a “trans-state” question which seeks international subjectivity.
It is reminiscent of the historical question which emerged after the First World War, during the formation of modern state system in the Middle East 1918-1923. This historical question is a problematic relating to the Kurdish demand for statehood in historico-geographic Kurdistan, which is a “trans-state” question. This trans-state approach to the Kurdish Question is one question but due to the policies of peripheralization, denial, oppression and exploitation it has been divided into the Kurdish Question in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. I prefer “trans-state’ (see Kirişci and Winrow, 1997) because Kurds are unrecognized nation who exist in four states, and Kurdistan occupies trans-state geography; this ‘trans-state Question’ emerged to express Kurdish ‘dissatisfaction and resistance’ to the Turkish, Persian and Arab powers’ treatment of the Kurds and Kurdistan in the Middle East. The Middle Eastern and Kurdish scholars have expressed the Kurdish Question in different, its historical roots are found in the nineteenth century centralization and strong control over Kurdistan.
The Kurdish Question has been described and defined in different ways–depending on the type and the motive of the academic research. For example, the governments which have ruled Kurdistan, in their most positive characterization may describe the Kurdish question as problems of economic development, poverty and modernization. One of the most negative characterizations of the Kurdish question is that it is a problematic that has been designed specifically to destabilize the region, see Stephen C. Pelletiere The Kurds: An Unstable Element in the Gulf (1984). Carole A. O’Leary (2005) has responded to Pelletiere’s mischaracterization of Kurds and the Kurdish question.
A sympathetic academic research that intends to diagnose this problematic would articulate the Kurdish question synonymous to a lack of Kurdish cultural, linguistic, political, social, economic and legal rights in the ‘historico-geographic’ Kurdish regions administered/governed by Turkey, Iran and Syria including Iraq until recent years. My own thesis is that the Kurdish Question is the result of the absence of a Kurdish ‘juridico-political’ administration governing the ‘historico-geographic’ Kurdistan. More clearly, it is the question of statelessness. Kurds want a state of their own, only a state will do for the Kurds.
The Kurdish Question can be periodized into four main periods. The first is pre-political organization articulation period–in the nineteenth century among Kurdish elite ethnic consciousness emerged from the mid 1800s to the fall of the Ottoman and Qajar Empires. The second is the articulation of the Kurdish Question as a demand through organized party politics to establish a Kurdish state until the Second World War when the British and American influence on Kurdish politics largely diminished with the rise of Soviet influence on Kurdish politics during the Second Word War, with the foundation of the ‘Mahabad Republic’ in Eastern Iranian Kurdistan. The third period starts in late 1940s until 1988. This is the period of the internationalization of the Kurdish Question specifically in the early 1970s when a peace agreement for autonomy between Kurdish movement and Iraqi regime was signed, solidification of the party-politics in Kurdistan and Kurdish genocide: chemical attacks on Halabja, the Anfal Campaign, mass execution, deportation and expulsion of the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan (Human Rights Watch 1993) and in Turkey. The last period starts from 1989 to present. This is the state formation period in which the Kurdish Question will no-longer exist in the marines of the Middle Eastern politics. A formation of a Kurdish state is on the horizon, if the Kurds are willing to have a state.
The description and definition of the Kurdish Question has been formulated in terms of ideological programs: the Kurdish question as social, political, economic, legal rights problem; as a question against capitalist exploitation of Kurds and Kurdistan; as a question against tribalism and religious mystic orders; as purely a question of identity and cultural recognition; as a question of ethnic nationalism; as a question of tribal–religious resistance to centralization and modernization.
My account of the Kurdish Question is that, it may include elements of all of the above but subsidiary to one main articulation: the Kurdish Question is a ‘juridico-political-administrative’ question which can only be understood properly by self-governance, self-determination, self-legislation to statehood which calls for an international recognition of the Kurdish nation and its juridico-political administration in historico-geographic Kurdistan. It is clearly a question of self-legislation, self-government and Kurdish statehood. A juridico-politico-administrative body is a three component entity entails a juridical branch, a political branch and an administrative branch; judicial, legislative, executive. It calls for the ‘international subjectivity’ of the Kurdish peoples–a type of subjectivity that provides the Kurds with freedom and allows them into the circle of nations. This includes representation in the United Nations, governance of their own affairs, participation and contribution to the world affairs the way other nations have been given the right to do so as an entity.
In a very simple and straightforward language the Kurdish Question is the question of juridico-political sovereignty in the historico-geographic Kurdistan. The Kurdish Question has to be understood in relation to ‘nation’, ‘nation-state’, ‘state’, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘post-sovereignty’ in the context of our present condition in the Middle East. What is a ‘nation’ and how is it different from the ‘state’ and ‘nation-state’? Although, these three are not compatible, they have been characterized to denote a ‘sovereign state’ at many instances. The ‘state’ is a defined geographic area, territory that is inhabited by a population. It is represented through a primary juridico-political administrative authority recognized under the international law and in international relations. This recognition grants direct international subjectivity. The concept of the ‘state’ does not denote that there is the presence of more than one ‘nation’ within its borders automatically. Rather it emphasizes an administrative-structure that grants a ‘historico-geographic-people’ subjectivity and presents itself as a unanimous indivisible entity. Some nations have a state, which means having a status; others like the Kurds are stateless.
A recognized ‘nation’ under the international law is a people who inhabits a ‘historico-geographic’ area within the borders of a ‘state’, governed by its local ‘juridico-political’ administration, which could take a federal, a self-governing autonomous administrative structure; and its subjectivity under the international law and in international relation is arranged through a primary authority, the ‘state’. This international subjectivity provides for the creation of a ‘nation-state’, which represents peoples who inhabit a recognized ‘historico-geographic’ entity governed by their ‘juridico-political’ administration. A state that is inhabited by more than one nation would be more proper to be characterized as ‘a state of nations’, a recognized ‘nation’ to be characterized as a ‘nation-state’, and the ‘state’ as a ‘juridico-political’ administrative apparatus that governs populations, nations, peoples inhabiting their respective ‘historico-geographic’ areas. Through this apparatus an international status is guaranteed.
For example, the recent constitutional debate in Spain on the status of the Catalans as a ‘nation’, and the recognition of Catalonia within the Spanish state, set the precedent for that ‘historico-geographic’ Catalonia and the Catalan people are recognized by Spain as a ‘nation’ with a defined boundary. Unlike Catalans, Kurds do not have a ‘juridico-political’ administration in ‘historico-geographic’ Kurdistan.
Many anthropological, sociological, natural and human-geography research findings recognize ‘historico-geographic’ Kurdistan. However, the lack of official recognition of historico-geographic Kurdistan, the recognition of Kurds as a ‘nation’, and a juridico-political administration show that they are not a recognized ‘nation’ and renders Kurds stateless, thus they are not international subjects neither directly nor indirectly. The Catalan case is a progressive precedent. Though, unlike the Catalans who live within the borders of the Spanish state, the Kurds are divided among four different states and their number is much larger than the Catalan people, this situation makes the Kurdish case more complex. These differences require us to consider context because Kurds live under Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian ‘sovereignty’ in comparison to the Catalans who are under the Spanish sovereignty.
What is ‘sovereignty’? Sovereignty is a Westphalian conceptualization of ‘juridico-politico-social’ autonomous administrative structure founded on non-intervention principle. Any empirical, theoretical engagement with sovereignty needs to be realized in the context of its domain–‘time, ‘space’ and its people, subjects–citizens. ‘Time’ and ‘space’–history and geography–territory are critical for the realization of sovereignty; they are indications of its epoch, region and are linked to its subjects (Augustine 1950; Machiavelli 1975; Grotius 1925; Bodin 1992; Hobbes 1985; Bartelson 1995; Dacyl 1996). This domain of sovereignty is governed through ‘political economy–apparatuses of security–communication technology’.
Sovereignty presumes the sanctity of sovereign’s right and rule over its domain ‘historico-geographic-people’. The body, domain and sovereign’s governing techniques have been contentious, as disputation over its territory, treatment of its subjects, citizens and methods of governance do not end. This Westphalian conception of sovereignty emerged in the Middle East after the end of First World War during the constitution of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria; however, the domain of these states reveal that these states’ sovereignties have been contested from within since their formation up to the emergence of ‘post-sovereignty’ in the Middle East.
The passage of Westphalian sovereignty in the Middle East begun, after the end of the Cold War, when practices of ‘post-sovereignty’ in the Middle East emerged. Post-sovereignty is a ‘global governance’ model. It is an approach and a practice concurrent with the emergence of globalization, and global governance of the fragile and failed states through defence, diplomacy, prevention of terrorism, prevention of refugee exodus, humanitarian intervention in conflict areas, and development through aid (Rosenau 1994, 2005; Hardt and Negri 2000; Kushner 1999; Spruyt 2005).
For example, the 1991 safe-haven created by the United Nations and supported by the United States, the United Kingdom and France to prevent further atrocities against the Iraqi Kurds in the aftermath of the war with Iraq was a humanitarian intervention. The recent invasion of Iraq is an example of intervention into a failed state[32]. Thus, post-sovereignty is a practice beyond Westphalian sovereignty. My proposition is that Turkey, Iran and Syria are failed states in relation to their treatment and their government of Kurds and Kurdistan. They are unable to provide safety and security for their populations, specifically the unrecognized Kurdish nation. Failing to provide for the safety and security of Kurds and minorities has been the case since the creation of these states after the end of the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
What is the international status of the Kurdish Question? It is not constituted in international law and international relations. There is neither an international law that acknowledges the Kurdish Question nor is there a clear Kurdish policy among the five permanent members of the United Nations. After the end of the Cold War, 1988-89, Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and following the 2003 Iraq War by the Coalition of the Willing led by the United States, debate concerning a solution to the Kurdish Question emerged among Middle Eastern and Kurdish studies scholars. This debate/discussion can be organized into two broad frameworks. All types of Kurdish movements and academic inquiries into the Kurdish Question work within either, or, a mixture of the two frameworks.
The first approach studies the ‘viability of a Kurdish state’ as a permanent solution (Gunter 2004; Natali 2004; Olsen 2004; Ozcan 2004; Salih 2004; Yavuz 2004)[33]. While the Kurdish political leaders claim that establishing a Kurdish state is their strategic goal, at present this approach is not very popular among political leaders due to the pragmatic nature of Kurdish politics, which has been shaped by geopolitical realities. Yet, it is widely supported among the Kurdish public in Kurdistan and among the Kurds in diaspora. They argue that only an independent Kurdish state will bring a lasting solution to the Kurdish Question. This approach is less debated /discussed among the Middle Eastern and Kurdish affairs scholars. Gunter and Yavuz (2005) teamed up again and provided fresher analysis on the impossibility of a Kurdish state in the near future.
The second is a solution to the Kurdish Question within the existing borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. This approach is more predominant than the first one; it is expressed in a number of ways by Kurdish movements and academic scholarship: demand for cultural and linguistic rights; struggle for political, social and economic rights; and demand for more defined administrative structures such as autonomy, self-government and recently federalism (Gunter 2004; Natali 2004; Olsen 2004; Ozcan 2004; Salih 2004; Yavuz 2004). Up to date no permanent guaranteed progress has been made under this approach, the exception is Iraqi Kurdistan which has attained a federal status. This status might be promising; however it is too early to forecast its success since the referendum on Kirkuk to join Iraqi Kurdistan region is pending and recently Iraq’s new Constitution under articles 58 of the Transitional Administrative Law and article 140 of Iraq’s constitution[34].
These two frameworks are primary methods of inquiry into the Kurdish Question and they are entrenched into the strategies of the ‘Kurdish movement’ for tackling a solution. Since 1988, studying the Kurdish question has gained momentum in the Middle Eastern studies and Kurdish scholarship, and the ‘Kurdish movement’ has made progress. What is the Kurdish movement? Jwaideh provides the historical roots of Kurdish movement (2006). A genealogical study reveals that the Kurdish movement is a nexus of ethnic, civic and, or cultural, and lately diaspora nationalism. A number of Kurdish political parties and intellectuals have mixed nationalism with leftist political ideologies (See Vali 2003).
Kurdish nationalism is not an organized defined political philosophy; rather it is shaped by discursive practices of ‘freedom and rights orientation’ and a ‘minimalist’ nationalism. A practice is called ‘Kurdayeti’, means ‘Kurdishness’, ‘being Kurdish’ or practicing Kurdishness has been the functional goal of Kurdish nationalism (See Natali 2005; Ahmad and Gunter 2005; McDowall 1994; van Bruinessen 1992, 2000A). In comparison with Turkish, Persian and Arab nationalisms, which have been ‘aggressive’, ‘offensive’, ‘expansionist’ and ‘assimilating’; Kurdish nationalism has been a weak ‘non-expansionist’, ‘defensive’, ‘pro-diversity’, ‘freedom and justice oriented’ and a ‘local’ movement until recent years[35].
The politics of peripheralization, denial, oppression and exploitation of Kurds and Kurdistan have blocked these understandings of this reality by distorting the Kurdish Question. After the 1998-89 genocide of the Kurds ‘the epistemology through which the Kurd have been known’ came to shift slightly to the advantage of the Kurds, a shift which called for the reconstitution of the knowledge about the Kurdish Question. In the conclusion of his genealogical study of sovereignty Bartelson wrote “I begun this book by stating that knowledge is political, and that politics is based on knowledge. I should end it by observing that this epistemic change is essentially political, it also involves the political responsibility to of deciding upon sovereignty, a decision for which we for the moment seem unfit to make” (Bartelson 1995: 248).
Bartelson suggested that a decision on the status of sovereignty was necessary because by early 1990s the episteme of Westphalian sovereignty had changed due to changes in international politics at the end of the Cold-War. Analogous to the change in episteme of Westphalian sovereignty noted in Bartelson’s concluding remarks, the episteme by which Kurds had been known for centuries started to shift in the last decade, this change coincided with change in the Middle East politics at the end of the Cold-War.
This epistemic shift calls upon us to take the responsibility to decide on the status the Kurdish Question. It suggests that change in politics requires change in episteme of the object of inquiry–Kurds, Kurdistan and the Kurdish Question. This signifies the interdependence between politics and episteme which calls for the establishment of an independent Kurdish State.
8. Conclusion
This comprehensive account has attempted to provide a historico-genealogical knowledge of Kurds and Kurdistan, the Kurdish Question and an explanation of the categories of governance in late Ottoman and Qajar period governing Kurds and Kurdistan. Obtaining knowledge about the Kurds and Kurdistan is important and attractive for three main reasons.
First–a sound knowledge of Kurds and Kurdistan allows us to understand the problem of a people who number 25-35 million; and who inhibit a geographical region which has an economic and geo-strategic importance–where there is a need for a federal form of self-governance administered by the Kurds, or acting on the final solution by establishing a Kurdish homeland–a Kurdish state on historico-geographic Kurdistan.
Second, the Kurdish Question is fulfilling justice and ethics. For centuries, Kurds and Kurdistan have been peripheralized, denied, oppressed and exploited. There is an obligation on the part of academics to uncover these direct and indirect injustices which have been continuing practices for centuries against the Kurds, as a Kurd and as an academic I hope to have fulfilled this obligation in this comprehensive paper.
Third, it has provided knowledge about, Kurdish culture, languages, social and political structure; and knowledge of Kurdistan geography, climate are educational for those who are interested in studying of different cultures, languages, societies and geographies, for those who are interested in knowledge. Knowledge is power, and power can do also justice. I hope those with power understand the urgent needs of Kurds and Kurdistan–is a Kurdish homeland.
Note: This paper was completed in August 2006. It has been collecting dust. This paper became the ground work and important for understand another research paper that I published on Kurdish aspect “The Transformation of Kurdish and Kurdistan Society to ‘Civic Loyalties” on December 12, 2007. There is a criticism of Dr. Amir Hassanpour’s work in this paper, it is only difference of view, I must say that I have at most respect for his work on Kurdish studies.
Karim Hasan Abdullah is Sociology Ph.D. Candidate at Carleton University
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End Notes:
26 Turkish official position has denied the existence of the Kurds up to mid 1990s. The Turkish state referred to the Kurds as ‘mountain Turks’ who have lived in the far eastern corner of Turkey and have forgotten the mainstream Turkish ways.
27 Iran is a state, which is thought to be a state of the ‘Arian peoples’ this is where it gets its name from. The identification of Kurdish as an Iranian language is contentious and it is part of the four policies which have created an epistemological framework through which Kurds are known. I will elaborate this position in the next draft.
28 My approach is closer to van Bruinessen’s socio-anthropological framework. A point of importance is that his study took place in 1970s and was published in 1992. While his main findings remain valid, various changes have occurred in Kurdistan, I think in complex ways ‘ethnic loyalties’ and ‘national loyalties’ are emerging phenomena in Kurdish society and they operate in a complex relationship with ‘primordial loyalties’. Also there are small groups who have been pressing for ‘civic loyalties.’
29 The recent inclusion of ethnic minorities in Kurdish Regional Government can be accepted as the emergence of Kurdish civic nationalism.
30 Aghas are Kurdish landlords. They own most of the agricultural lands which are cultivated by peasants for grain, tobacco and other agricultural products. Socially they are organized around tribal structures and they inter-marry among themselves. They held significant power over economic agricultural productivity in Kurdistan up to 1970s. There are numerous Agha tribes in Kurdistan. While sheikhs are also organized around tribal structures, they are religious leaders whose power base is religious authority. Some sheikhs own vast areas of land and well connected to the political centers like Baghdad, Istanbul and Tehran. Some of these sheikhely orders trace their family genealogy to the prophet Mohamad or other Arab saints. There are two main sheikhely orders in Kurdistan, the Qardri and the Naqshbandi orders; see Bruinessen (1992).
31 After the fall of the Abbasid Islamic Empire and its dynasties 750-1158, a direct Arab rulership of the Middle East became limited, however Arab language and religion continued to gain superiority, because Islam was adapted by the Seljuqs, Ottomans, and the Safauids and the Qajars from thirteenth century onwards to the early twentieth century Islam ruled the Middle East. The Arabs did not have to work hard for their culture, language and identity to survive because Islam took care of the maintenance of Arabic language, culture and expanded Arab identity. It was after the establishment of the state system in the Middle East from 1920s onwards, the direct Arab ruler-ship once again came to power, influencing Kurds of Iraq and Syria.
32 For a preliminary discussion and taxonomy of failed states see Jean-Germain Gros (1996).
33 Some of the Middle Eastern experts offer their analysis and explanation of the likelihood and the unlikelihood of the foundation of a Kurdish state in the near future; see “Kurds in Iraq” in Middle East Policy xi (1): 106-131. These Kurdish experts telling the readers what is possible and how deal with the Kurdish question, but implicitly they shay away from telling the readers what the Kurdish question might be.
34 See The Constitution of Iraq translated by Associated Press
35 For evidence, you may want to ask nationalist Kurdish Political parties or observe their action in the field.
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