Global Politician, NY
Jan 24 2005
Kurds and the Kurdistans
1/23/2005
By Antero Leitzinger
Western thinking leads us to figure out nations on the basis of a
common language or religion. According to the principle of
nation-state, each nation must have a homeland. But are the Kurds one
united nation, or rather a heterogeneous group of various nations in
the same way as, for instance, the Scandinavians [Swedes, Danes,
Norwegians, Icelanders] or the Baltic Finns [Finns, Estonians,
Karelians, Ingrians, Veps, Livonians]?
The Kurds speak several languages and confess even more religions.
Equally big differences prevail between Kurdish languages as between
them and Persian. If Gurani and Luri are just dialects of one and
same language, then are not also Sorani and Kurmandji dialects of
Persian? If the Kurds still need a state separate from other Iranic
nations, would there next be a liberation movement of Zazakistan
within independent Kurdistan?
There are several Kurdistans, “lands of the Kurds”, in the world –
not only because the traditional territory inhabited by Kurds is
divided between at least six states, but also because each Kurdish
party has their own idea of the borders, governance and future of
their ideal state. The Kurds have dozens of nationalist parties, and
besides, many Kurds support cross-country parties that exceed ethnic
boundaries in those countries where free party activity is legal at
all.
In Iran, there is a province called Kordestan, rooted in medieval
times, but the Kurdish state that declared independence in 1946 was
not located in Kordestan, but in the province of Western Azerbaijan.
In Iraq, the Kurdish region is divided into three parts: the stripe
governed by the Baath party, and the territories of the competitor
Kurd parties KDP and PUK. The “Red Kurdistan” that officially belongs
to Azerbaijan, is presently ruled by Armenia. Part of Syria’s Kurds
have lacked citizenship and civil rights for four decades already. In
Turkey, the position of Kurds is better than in any of her
neighbouring countries, but still it is the Turkish Kurds, whose
human rights are usually covered by international media.
Whose Kurdistan is the right one? The Iraqi Kurds are under the
protection of the NATO, but the PKK considers NATO their enemy.
Founding a national state in the Middle East has its model in Israel,
but the idea was once agitated by the Soviet Union. The Kurdish
national identity is often shaped among the immigrants in Europe, and
under the influence of controversal political programmes. The problem
touches Europe, but is it necessarily a problem?
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KURDS AND THE KURDISTANS
The Kurds and Kurdistan – a nation and a state? Western line of
thinking leads us to the idea of nation-state, but can it be suited
to the reality of Middle East? What is a nation? Does every nation
need a state on their own? Does one Kurdistan exist, or are there
several of them?
ENVIRONMENT: THE MIDDLE EAST
Before we concentrate in the Kurds, it is a good idea to pay some
attention on their bigger neighbour nations: the Turks, the Arabs,
and the Persians.
– The Turks are linguistically and culturally a very united nation.
They inhabit a very wide zone from Cyprus to the Great Wall of China.
Only about half of the world’s Turks are living in Turkey. The core
area is Turkestan, “land of the Turks”, in Central Asia. It is
divided by at least seven states. When Turkish nationalism developed
in the 1800s, it adopted the model from Europe, but this
European-modelled national idea has still not yet spread very deep
into east.
– The Arab nation is divided into dozens of states, among which none
was entirely independent hundred years ago. Arab nationalism was
connected with Arab socialism, but still failed in its attempts to
unite the Arab world in the 1900s. What remained was a lot of
bitterness and chronical problems of international politics.
– The Persians belong to the Iranic peoples. They have their nominate
state Iran, which was earlier called Persia abroad. Also Tajikistan
and Afghanistan are Iranic states.
The relationship between Iran and Turkey is interesting. Every fourth
Iranian is ethnically Turk. In Iran’s Southern Azerbaijan there are
more of Turkish “Azeris” than in the formally independent Northern
Azerbaijan. Iran also has Turkmen population larger than
Turkmenistan. These Turkish tribes differ from each other about as
much as Savonians and Karelians [two Finnish tribes].
Azerbaijan and Kurdistan are in many ways like mirror images of each
other. Both were promised independence at the end of the World War I.
Both got to taste Soviet-styled independence after the World War II.
Ten years ago, Northern Azerbaijan and Southern Kurdistan became free
from the occupation of Russia and Iraq, but their independence is
still weak. On the other hand, Iran, now surrounded by newly
independent states, fears more than ever before that her Western
parts would split up.
The world around the Kurds is not whole and not simple. The problems
are common.
LANGUAGE
Are the Kurds one, united nation, or are they a group of Iranic
tribes? Can the difference between a nation and a tribe be
objectively defined?
According to the Persians, the Kurds speak various dialects of
Persian. According to others, Kurdish is a distinct relative language
to Persian. The boundary is soft, and Luri might be as well a Persian
dialect as a Kurdish language. After all, the choice is political:
which group one wants to be identified with.
Between Kurdish dialects or languages there are so big differences
that they must be taken into consideration in interpretation. The
differences are bigger than between German and Danish or between
Spanish and Portuguese.
In Iran, three important Kurdish languages are spoken:
– Gurani is the liturgical language of the “People of Truth”
(Ahl-i-Haqq). They constitute an old religious group, which lives in
the historical core of Kurdistan, in the area of the medieval khanate
of Ardalan.
– Sorani is the most studied and best-known Kurdish language. It has
an official status in Iraq, where it is spoken by the Kurds living
around Suleymania. They, too, believe that they descend from the
Ardalan Khanate.
– Kurmandji is spoken in all the Kurdish homelands. In Northern Iraq,
the Kurmandji area is governed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP), which uses Arabic script. The Turkish Kurmandjis use Latin
alphabet of the Turkish model. In the Soviet Union, Kurmandji was
also written with Cyrillic letters.
The fourth important Kurdish language is Zaza or Dimili, which is
spoken in Turkey. Many Zazas aim at forming a special area of
Zazakistan, instead of independent Kurdistan. Despite their
geographic distance, Zaza and Gurani are closer to each other than to
Sorani or Kurmandji. This is due to the fact that Kurdish settlement
has spread westwards with rapid and long pulses.
Linguistic disunity is not as such a hindrance to united national
feeling. Nationalism has often been based on a hardly common written
language. In the neighbourhood of the Kurds, the Georgians and the
North Caucasians have proved this. Also Italian language and the
Slavonic languages of the Balkan countries were only created in the
1800s to support the ideas of national unification and political
independence.
The Kurdish languages are strongly based on Arabic loan words. So
were also Persian and Turkish based on Arabic loans before the
linguistic reforms of the 1900s, in which the written language was
“cleaned” of “alien” elements. When the differences between the three
great linguistic groups of the Middle East were emphasised, the
Kurdish languages fell in between. In a way, the Kurds were born in
the vacuum left by the narrow interpretation of the dominant
cultures.
One Kurdish dictionary has been published in Finnish, by Lokman
Abbas. The Kurdish in it is Sorani. In Sweden one has published a
pocket dictionary in Kurmandji. Also in other European languages
there are Kurdish vocabularies, but the quality differs. Kurdish
literature is plentiful but developing a useful written language
still takes its time. Culture cannot be ordered like a home pizza;
one has to toil for it devotedly, and there must be lasting need for
it.
RELIGION
Besides language, religion can be used to unite or separate nations.
Most of the Kurds are Sunnite Muslims of the Shafi discipline.
Disciplinary differences are however that small that they do not
relevantly separate the Kurds from their Hanafi neighbours, the Turks
and the Arabs.
As Sunnite Muslims, most Kurds are separated from the Shi’ite Islam,
which is the state religion of Iran. Yet the Iraqi Feilis are Shi’ite
Kurds. Besides, many sects with Shi’ite origin are represented among
Kurds, and many of these sects also have strongly non-Islamic
influences.
Many believe that the most genuine Kurds are the Yesids, whose
religion is a strange mixture of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and
Zoroastrianism. On the other hand the Yesids feel deep distrust at
all outsiders, and often they are not even classified as actual
Kurds.
Nowadays the Assyrian Christians of Northern Iraq declare they are
Kurds. The Jewish Kurds were once evacuated to Israel. So, there are
Kurds belonging to every main religion of the region.
The Kurds cannot be exclusively defined by language, religion or any
single cultural feature. Even the spring celebration Nevruz, which
the Kurds will celebrate after two weeks at the time of the spring
equinox, is an old all-Iranian tradition. It is also celebrated by
Central Asian Turks.
The Kurdish culture changes in time. Some “age-old Kurdish
traditions” were in fact born in Germany in recent decades. This is
nothing unusual, as many nations without state have found their
identity in exile, in Diaspora.
The strength of the Kurds and the vitality of Kurdish culture are in
their ability to create new, and to combine traditions of the Middle
Eastern dominant cultures and numerous minorities. The variety and
flexibility of expression, typical for spoken language, the religious
plurality, and the whole wide scale of culture are not necessarily
weaknesses splitting up the community, and by no means they are
reasons for shame. The Kurds have not succeeded in imitating European
nationalism of the 1800s, but they have succeeded in what today’s
Europeanity is dreaming about: unity in variety.
PARTIES
A nation without state may feel orphan or homeless. In that case,
however, the state has been given tasks that it could hardly fulfil.
The main Kurdish parties are all state-centrist, their background
being hard-line socialist. The KDP and its Iranian brother party were
founded in Stalin’s protection. In that time the Kurds were hailing
Stalin as “the liberator of small nations”.
When the KDP was released from the Soviet Union’s guidance in the
1960s, the PUK was founded to defend fundamentalist Marxism. The
Kurdish section Komala was split up from the Iranian Communist Party.
By time, the number of Kurdish parties was increased by splitting.
Those shocked of the collapse of Soviet power founded Workers’
Communist Party (WCP) in Iraq and Iran. This party has spectacular
presence in the virtual reality, in internet.
Also “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse Tung’s thought” gained supporters
among Kurds. They founded the Kurdish Workers’ Party, PKK, which is
internationally the best-known, but by no means the only, Kurdish
organisation.
There are dozens of specially Kurdish parties. Many of them are
one-man enterprises or stages of the main parties. All in all, they
share a common belief in the idea that a state on their own would
solve all the problems of the Kurds, and the problems are understood
as basically economic exploitation.
Because the Kurds have many but dear parties, also the goals of
independence are rather party politics than national projects. There
is no consensus on Kurdistan’s borders, form of government and
symbols like flag. Each party has its own Kurdistan. Each party also
has its own army, its schools, and its health system. The parties
have adopted many tasks of tribes. Membership in a party is often
strategic allegiance of family and tribe, not free and ideological
choice of the individual.
Each party has its international sponsors: PUK has historically
leaned at Syria, and KDP at Turkey. PKK has leaned at both Syria and
Iraq. Exploitation has been mutual.
The Kurdish parties are fighting each other. For three years now, KDP
and PUK have respected their ceasefire, mainly due to external
pressure, but meanwhile, PKK has fought against both these Iraqi
Kurdish parties.
In democracy it is natural that parties disagree. Usually they do,
however, agree on large-scale national questions, and in the times of
war they act under common war command. For example, the Chechens
demand independence before all, and only secondarily come the
questions of the country’s future systems of justice and economy. The
Finnish Jäger [Finnish freedom fighters trained in Germany before the
independence] included Red and White, Monarchists and Republicans.
Among the Kurdish parties, such agreement is missing.
REGIONS
Kurdistan has been founded many times and in many places.
In Iran, the Kurds declared independence in 1946, but it happened in
the city of Mahabad, not in the actual province of Kordestan.
The Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, recognised by the Iraqi government in
1970s, the de facto independent regional administration of Kurdistan
since 1991, and the no-flight area controlled by NATO, do not
entirely coincide in coverage. Besides, KDP and PUK have divided
their interest spheres along the dialect boundary.
In Turkey, Kurdistan has never been profoundly defined. It has been
at its best a vague anthropological conception, a bit like the “wolf
zone” in Finland [expression of periphery].
In the World War I, the European colonial powers Russia, France and
Britain were seizing new colonies by sharing the Middle East between
each other. They planned to found two newly old Christian
protectorats in Eastern Turkey: Armenia and Assyria. Both these
regionally overlapped with Kurdistan. Hatred was incited between the
Christian groups and the Islamic Kurds. This resulted massacres, for
which it is nowadays fashionable to blame Turkey, while the guilt of
the European counterparts is forgotten.
Turkey’s enemy in the World War I [Russia] as well as the fanatic
bandit groupings of the different parties have apparently got
absolution from their sins. Instead of Armenia and Assyria, Kurdistan
has appeared on the maps. It has traditionally had dangerous results
when European powers [like Russia and France] have started to redraw
Middle Eastern maps.
Today, Turkey’s Kurdistan could be defined in accordance with those
provinces that have state of emergency. However, most Turkish Kurds
live outside that region – many of them in the Turkish metropoles far
west from Kurdistan. For them, cultural autonomy would sound more
sensible than regional privileges.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Separation of the three dominant cultures of the Middle East left the
Kurds in between. As the Kurds were not “good” Arabs, and all of them
did not become “proper” Iranians or Turks, they were pushed aside and
they had to search for their own identity.
This has not always been the case and it need not be so forever. An
American journal appointed as “the man of 12th century” the Kurdish
chief Saladin, who led Islamic troops against the Crusaders. Saladin
is also the Arabs’ hero, and a historical regent admired by even his
European enemies. He was known for his religious tolerance and the
nobility of his character. Saladin was not profiled as rebel or
terrorist leader, but as the one who united the Middle East.
Kurdish nationalism and political activity is for a great part a
reaction to the policy of the states in the region. When the Kurds
have been respected, they have produced great statesmen like Saladin
for the honour of the whole Middle East. When the Kurds have been
despised, they have corroded the structures of all the states in the
region.
The most miserable situation prevails in Syria, where most of the
country’s Kurdish population has lacked all citizen rights for 40
years – literally.
Iraq’s situation is formally decent, but what value do laws and
contracts have, if the government cannot be trusted? In 1988, Saddam
Hussein’s troops murdered with gas raids estimated 200’000 Kurds
within only half a year. Is it then a wonder that the Iraqi Kurds
want to establish a humanitarian refuge for themselves and their
families in Europe, anticipating the worst?
When Armenia conquered territories from Azerbaijan, thousands of
Muslim Kurds were murdered and expelled from their home villages.
Only the Yesids got mercy from Armenians.
Guerrilla war took place in Iran and Turkey in 1980s and 1990s. In
both countries 40’000 people were killed, in Iran probably more.
Leaders of Iranian Kurds were assassinated in Europe, but for some
reason the Western press has been mainly interested in the arrest of
the Turkish PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, two years ago.
Yet Öcalan is about the worst possible example of a typical Kurd.
Öcalan speaks Turkish. The emissaries of the PKK in Europe speak
Turkish with each other. Öcalan has not for a single day fought as a
guerrilla, but still he has ordered death penalties to traitors,
deserters, school teachers and dissidents of his party. Öcalan’s
original idols were Che Guevara and Pol Pot. A Kurdish activist
hiding in Germany, Selim Cürükkaya, published a book named `PKK’ four
years ago. In his book, Cürükkaya describes the horrible ways of
discipline, paranoia and personal cult prevailing in the PKK. The
fanaticism of the supporters, child soldiers and suicides by burning
have caused immense damage to the reputation of the Kurds and their
cause. It is not without reason that Germany, France, Britain and the
United States have prohibited the PKK as a criminal organisation.
Hikmet Cetin, who has acted as the chairman of the Turkish parliament
and even as the acting president, is not at all less a Kurd than
Öcalan, even though he condemns the PKK. Every fifth parliamentarian
in Turkey is a Kurd. Also in Iran, the Kurds are represented in
government, police and army. All Kurds do not support specially
Kurdish parties and they do not demand a special Kurdish state. In
the violence of Turkey and Iran, there have been features of a
Kurdish civil war.
Iraq’s Kurds have their own great leaders. The deceised Mulla Mustafa
Barzani was virtuously leading his guerrillas, the “peshmergas”, in
the mountains of four countries for 30 years. Barzani’s son and
colleague are now leading opposite parties.
An average Kurd, however, is not a politician and not even
politically persecuted. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds are living in
Europe, a couple of thousands of them in Finland. Most of them are
ordinary, honest and hard-working immigrants, in whose home villages
the emigration started as early as in 1960s. They try to earn their
living and secure the future of their families. They want to save
their mother tongue, their religion and their customs on the level of
ordinary life. As citizens of Finland they are faithful to their new
fatherland, although Kurdistan remains in their memories and dreams.
Many nations without state have to keep nationality apart from
citizenship.
ENVIRONMENT: EUROPE
Nobody denies that the Kurds as individuals would deserve full human
rights and that these rights have been violated in many countries.
However, are the Kurds also a nation? According to the British
researcher David McDowall, the Kurds became a nation at the end of
the World War I. Many other researchers are still confused at the
question.
Who has the right to represent a nation? Are there some particular
“collective rights” that belong to a nation or its representatives?
Unfortunately we do not even know the actual number of Kurds, because
all the estimations appearing in the literature are based on other
estimations made decades ago. A nation without state is like a soup
without case – it slips out of hands and avoids attempts to define.
“Kurdistan” is a word that raises passions. Many governments are
allergic to it. On the other hand, many European politicians and
journalists are connecting rather romanticised ideas with Kurds.
Superficial and sensational supply of information is presenting
things in a simplistic form.
Europe has had the bad habit of playing hypocrite with human rights.
Minorities have been used as tools in superpower politics, but in
critical situations the minorities have been betrayed and abandoned.
The Kurds have gained selective publicity, whenever European powers
have wanted to avoid speaking about Basques or Bretons. The Turkish
idea of understanding all citizens of Turkey as “Turks” does not
differ from the similar conception of nationality in France and
Spain.
The Kurds have also been employed as examples of the Marxist theory
of empoverishment. The Australian Paul J. White, who published a book
on Kurds last year (`Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers’),
still in our times describes the Kurds as Turkey’s “proletariat”.
This is artificial, condescending and insultive. Equally well the
Savonians and Karelians could be branded as Finland’s discriminated
proletarians, who is suffering in Helsinki’s suburbs. All Kurds would
not like to be characterised as eternal losers and they do not want
to mourn their fate and beg for sympathy.
Sometimes national identity is being interpreted in so purpose-bound
ways and so widely that it is hard to be taken seriously. A Turkish
Arabic-speaking Christian declares himself as a Kurd, because he
feels different and discriminated in his home country. If he becomes
unemployed, his bad luck is easy to explain as “persecution”. Is
anybody a Kurd if he feels loser?
According to an increasing point of view, the Kurds are present
Europe’s nomads, wandering asylum-seekers. But is this really only
due to difficult circumstances in the coutries of origin, or is it
rather due to the reluctant immigration policy of Europe, which
prefers sharing social support to admitting work permissions? To what
extent do the European countries encourage to apply and wait for an
asylum instead of giving equal treatment and fair chance to work and
embrace one’s own culture?
The Kurds are an inseparable part of the whole Middle East’s cultural
heritage. In them, also the best sides of Turkey, Iran and the Arab
countries are combined. Far too often the European discussion
connects the Kurds with problems, and presents the Kurds as evidence
of the social undevelopment of the Middle Eastern countries. This
only strengthens the negative attitudes in these countries.
Kurdistan is situated where Turkey, Persia and Arabia meet. Whether
it is a point of friction or a meeting-point, a gap or a bridge, is a
crucial question for the Kurds and their home countries still for a
long time for future.
The Kurds also belong to Europe. They are permanently present among
us.
Europe has always been involved in the Middle Eastern affairs, and
thus she cannot avoid her responsibility when things are entangled
into troubles. Responsibility calls for knowledge and knowledge
demands research. The Kurds still deserve even more research and from
broader views. Also difficult questions most be discussed without
fervour.
The edition is based on Antero Leitzinger’s lecture in the University
of Helsinki, in the Studia Generalia series “Crisis Kettles and
Religions in World Politics”, part “Nations without State” on March
8, 2001. The article was originally written around the same time.
Antero Leitzinger is a political historian and a researcher for the
Finnish Directorate of Immigration. He wrote several books on Turkey,
the Middle East and the Caucasus.
http://globalpolitician.com/articles.asp?ID=316