Kurdish nationalism - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Kurdish-inhabited area by CIA (1992).
Language Language Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...	Kurdish Kurdish language Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
Location Location (geography) The terms location and place in geography are used to identify a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term 'location' generally implies a higher degree of can certainty than "place" which often has an ambiguous boundary relying more on human/social attributes of place identity...	Western and Northwestern Iranian Plateau Iranian plateau The Iranian plateau, or Iranic plateau, is a geological formation in Southwest Asia. It is the part of the Eurasian Plate wedged between the Arabian and Indian plates, situated between the Zagros mountains to the west, the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag to the north, the Hormuz Strait and Persian... : Upper Mesopotamia, Zagros, Southeastern Anatolia, including parts of northwestern Iran Iran Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia... , northern Iraq Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr... , northeastern Syria Syria Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.... and southeastern Turkey Turkey Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
Area Area Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat... (Est. Estimation Estimation is the calculated approximation of a result which is usable even if input data may be incomplete or uncertain.In statistics,*estimation theory and estimator, for topics involving inferences about probability distributions... )	190,000 km²–390,000 km² 74,000 sq.mi–151,000 sq.mi
Population Population A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...	25 to 30 Million (Kurdish Population) (Est. Estimation Estimation is the calculated approximation of a result which is usable even if input data may be incomplete or uncertain.In statistics,*estimation theory and estimator, for topics involving inferences about probability distributions... )

Kurdish nationalism is the political movement that holds that the Kurdish people

Kurdish people

The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...

are a nation deserving of a sovereign homeland, Kurdistan out of the territories where Kurdish people form a majority. Currently, these territories lie in northern Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, northwestern Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, southeastern Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

and small parts of Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

.

Kurdish nationalism has its roots in the days of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, within which it became a significant ethnic group. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish-majority territories were divided between the newly formed states of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, making Kurds a significant ethnic minority in each state. Kurdish nationalist movements been long suppressed by Turkey, Iran and the Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

-majority states of Iraq and Syria, all of whom fear loss of territory to a potential, independent Kurdistan. Since the 1970s, Iraqi Kurds have pursued the goal of greater autonomy and even outright independence against the Baath Party

Baath Party

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...

regimes, which responded with brutal repression. In the 1980s, an armed insurgency led by the Patriotic Front of Kurdistan challenged the Turkish state, which responded with martial law. After the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi Kurds were protected against the armies of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

by NATO-enforced no fly zones, allowing them considerable autonomy and self-government without the control of the Iraqi central government. After the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein's rule, Iraqi Kurdistan became an autonomous region, enjoying a great measure of self-governance but stopping short of full independence.

Kurdish nationalism has long been espoused and promoted by the worldwide Kurdish diaspora.

History

The Kurdish nationalist struggle first emerged in the late 19th century when a unified movement demanded the establishment of a Kurdish state. Revolts did occur sporadically but only decades after the Ottoman centralist policies of the 19th century began did the first modern Kurdish nationalist movement emerge with uprising led by a Kurdish landowner and head of the powerful Shemdinan family, Sheik Ubeydullah

Sheik Ubeydullah

Sheikh Ubeydullah , also known as Sayyid Ubeydullah, was the leader of the first modern Kurdish nationalist struggle...

. In 1880, Ubeydullah, demanded political autonomy or outright independence for Kurds and the recognition of a Kurdistan state without interference from Turkish or Persian authorities. The uprising against Qajar Persia

Qajar dynasty

The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....

and the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

was ultimately suppressed by the Ottomans and Ubeydullah, along with other notables, were exiled to Istanbul. The Kurdish nationalist movement that emerged following World War I and end of the Ottoman empire was largely reactionary to the changes taking place in mainstream Turkey, primarily radical secularization

Secularization

Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...

which the strongly Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

Kurds abhorred, centralization of authority which threatened the power of local chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain may refer to:The leader or head of a group:* a tribal chief or a village head.* a member of the 'House of chiefs'.* a captain, to which 'chieftain' is etymologically related.* Clan chief, the head of a Scottish clan....

s and Kurdish autonomy, and rampant Turk ethnonationalism in the new Turkish Republic which obviously threatened to marginalize them. Western powers (particularly the United Kingdom

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

) fighting the Turks also promised the Kurds they would act as guarantors for Kurdish freedom, a promise they subsequently broke. One particular organization, the Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti (Society for the Advancement of Kurdistan, or SAK) was central to the forging of a distinct Kurdish identity. It took advantage of period of political liberalization in during the Second Constitutional Era

Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)

The Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...

(1908–1920) of Turkey to transform a renewed interest in Kurdish culture

Kurdish culture

Kurdish culture is a group of distinctive cultural traits practiced by Kurdish people...

and language into a political nationalist movement based on ethnicity. This emphasis on Kurds as a distinct ethnicity was encouraged by turn of the century Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n anthropologists who suggested that the Kurds were a Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an race (compared to the Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

tic Turks) based on physical characteristics and their language which is part of the Indo-European language group. While these researchers had ulterior political motives (to sow dissent in the Ottoman Empire) their findings were embraced and still accepted today by many. During the relatively open government of the 1950s, Kurds gained political office and started working within the framework of the Turkish Republic to further their interests but this move towards integration was halted with the 1960 Turkish coup d'état. The 1970s saw an evolution in Kurdish nationalism as Marxist political thought influenced a new generation of Kurdish nationalists opposed to the local feudal authorities who had been a traditional source of opposition to authority, eventually they would form the militant separatist Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK), or Kurdistan Workers Party

Kurdistan Workers Party

The Kurdistan Workers' Party , commonly known as PKK, also known as KGK and formerly known as KADEK or KONGRA-GEL , is a Kurdish organization which has since 1984 been fighting an armed struggle against the Turkish state for an autonomous Kurdistan and greater cultural and political rights...

in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

Ottoman Empire

Under the millet system, Kurds' primary form of identification was religious with Sunni Islam

Sunni Islam

Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....

being the top in the hierarchy (millet-i hakimiye). While the Ottoman empire embarked on a modernization and centralization campaign known as the Tanzimat

Tanzimat

The Tanzimât , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimât reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...

(1829–1879), Kurdish regions retained much of their autonomy and tribal chiefs their power . The Sublime Porte made little attempt to alter the traditional power structure of “segmented, agrarian Kurdish societies” – agha, sheikh

Sheikh

Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...

, and tribal chief

Tribal chief

A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...

. Because of the Kurds' geographical position at the southern and eastern fringe of the empire and the mountainous topography

Topography

Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...

of their territory, in addition to the limited transportation and communication system, agents of the state had little access to Kurdish provinces and were forced to make informal agreements with tribal chiefs. This bolstered the Kurds' authority and autonomy; for instance, the Ottoman qadi

Qadi

Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...

and mufti

Mufti

A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...

as a result did not have jurisdiction over religious law

Religious law

In some religions, law can be thought of as the ordering principle of reality; knowledge as revealed by a God defining and governing all human affairs. Law, in the religious sense, also includes codes of ethics and morality which are upheld and required by the God...

in most Kurd regions. In 1908, the Young Turks

Young Turks

The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...

come to power asserting a radical form of Turkish ethnic identity and closed Ottoman associations and non-Turkish schools. They launched a campaign of political oppression and resettlement against ethnic minorities – Kurds, Laz people

Laz people

The Laz are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia...

, and Armenians

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

, but in the wartime context they could not afford to antagonize ethnic minorities too much. At the end of World War I, Kurds still had the legal right to conduct their affairs in Kurdish, celebrate unique traditions, and identify themselves as a distinct ethnic group. The Treaty of Sèvres

Treaty of Sèvres

The Treaty of Sèvres was the peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Allies at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles was signed with Germany before this treaty to annul the German concessions including the economic rights and enterprises. Also, France, Great Britain and Italy...

signed in 1920 “suggested” an independent Kurdish and Armenian state but after the establishment of the Turkish Republic by a Turk ethnonationalist government which balked at the treaty, the 1923 Lausanne Treaty was signed which made no mention of the Kurds. The once politically unified Ottoman Kurdistan

Kurdistan Province, Ottoman Empire

The Vilayet of Diyâr-ı Bekr was one of the Ottoman vilayets. The vilayet extended south from Palu on the Euphrates to Mardin and Nisibin on the edge of the Mesopotamian plain...

was then divided into the different administrative and political systems in Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

Turkey

Turkey’s new government adopted an exclusionary, secular, ethnic-based conception of Turkish citizenship and denied that authenticity of Kurdish claims to ethnic distinctness. By the enforcement of laws such as Article 57 of the Turkish Constitution of 1982 which outlaws “any activity harmful to national unity and territorial integrity of the Turkish Republic”, Kurdish civic rights can be constrained within the context of a Constitution guaranteeing equality without acknowledging them as a distinct group.
Equal citizenship rights were enshrined in Turkey’s 1920 Provisional Constitution

Turkish Constitution of 1921

The Constitution of 1921 was the fundamental law of Turkey for a brief period from 1921 to 1924. The first constitution of the modern Turkish state, it was ratified by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in January 1921. It was a simple document consisting of only 23 short articles...

. Article 8 asserted that the country was composed of both Turks and Kurds but under the law they would treated as common citizens. However, the 1923 formation of the Republic of Turkey marked the beginning of continuing period of reduced civic rights for Kurds. The Caliphate

Caliphate

The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...

was abolished a year later as well as all public expressions and institutions of Kurdish identity. Kurdish madrassas, newspapers, religious fraternal organizations, and associations were shut down.

To give an example of the early republican government's attitude towards the citizenship rights of Kurds, Law No. 1850 was introduced after popular revolts, giving after-the-fact legal sanction to civilians and military personnel who killed Kurds during the revolt. Kurdish regions were placed under martial law

Martial law

Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...

and the use of the Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names prohibited. To quote the Minister of Justice Mahmut Esat Bozkurt in 1930, “Those who are not of pure Turkish stock can have only one right in this country, the right to be servants and slaves”.

Civic rights were temporarily improved with the Turkish Constitution of 1961

Turkish Constitution of 1961

The Constitution of 1961 was the fundamental law of Turkey from 1961 to 1982. It was introduced following the 1960 coup d'état, replacing the earlier Constitution of 1924. It was approved in a referendum held on 9 July 1961, with 61.7% of the nation voting in favor...

which allowed freedom of expression, the press, and association

Freedom of association

Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests....

for Kurds. The 1964 Political Parties Act criminalized Kurdish political parties and the acknowledgment of the existence of different languages and races in Turkey. The 1972 Law of Association further restricted rights to association and political organization.

The 70s saw the rise of a Kurdish consciousness based on an awareness of their deliberate underdevelopment. This consciousness found expression in militant groups, the most totalitarian of which flourished: the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Workers' Party

Kurdistan Workers' Party

(PKK). Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan

Abdullah Öcalan

Abdullah Öcalan , Kurdish founder of the terrorist organization called Kurdistan Workers' Party in 1978.Öcalan was captured in Nairobi and extradited to the Turkish security force, and sentenced to death under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which concerns the formation of armed gangs...

, cultivated a movement, deliberately stoking the "revolutionary potential" of the young by advising them not to go to school, with a devotion bordering on the religious.

In response to Kurdish nationalist agitation the entirety of Kurdish provinces were militarized with civil rule suspended from 1976 to 1984 and many provinces were under martial law for longer. The Regional Governors who controlled these provinces were granted extraordinary powers in the 1980s and 1990s by Decree 285 and Decree 413. These decrees gave them to power to evacuate villages and farmland, close media outlets, and later forcibly resettle citizens.

In 1991, Law 2932 was repealed and the Kurdish language was allowed for informal speech and music but not for political or education purposes or in the mass media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

.
The same year a new Anti-Terror bill was passed which defined terrorism as “any kind of action with the aim of changing characteristics of the Republic” essentially criminalizing Kurdish political activism and many basic forms of expression. In 2004 laws were further liberalized allowing Kurdish language broadcasts and other restrictions, including the giving of Kurdish names to infants have been removed.

Iraq

British Mandate after Post-World War I

Post-World War I Iraq came under a under British Mandate. To avoid unrest, the British granted the northern Kurdish region considerable autonomy and recognized their nationalist claims. They even tried to institutionalize Kurdish ethnic identity in the 1921 Provisional Iraqi Constitution which stated that Iraq was composed of two ethnic groups with equal rights, Arabs and Kurds, and enshrined the equal legal status of the Kurdish language with Arabic. The mandate government even divided the country into two separate regions, one Arab, one Kurdish in administrative policy and practice.
Two policies emerged regarding Kurds in Iraq: one for non-tribal urban dwellers and one for rural tribal population meant to discourage urban migration. The government institutionalized advantages for rural Kurds – tribes had special legal jurisdiction, tax benefits, and informally guaranteed seats in parliament. In addition they were exempt from two of the strongest facets of the modern state; they had their own schools and were outside the jurisdiction of national courts. This privileged position lasted into the 1950s.
Kurdish rights were further entrenched in 1932 by the Local Languages Law, a condition of the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

(undoubtedly under British influence) being that to join, Iraq had to enact constitutional protection for the Kurds.
Political rights were fairly open in the interwar years as continued British internal interference and a series of weak government prevented any one movement from dominating national politics prevented the creation of a formal exclusionary citizenship. However, later the central governments nation-building

Nation-building

For nation-building in the sense of enhancing the capacity of state institutions, building state-society relations, and also external interventions see State-building....

strategy centered around a secular conception of national identity based upon a sentiment of Iraqi unity (al-wadha al-iraqiyya) with the government dominated by Sunni Arabist

Arabist

This is an article about the western scholars known as Arabists, not the political movement Pan-Arabism.An Arabist is someone normally from outside the Arab World who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and Arab culture, and often Arabic literature.-Origins:Arabists began in medieval...

s. Within this new framework, as non-Arabs, the Kurds would experience unwelcome changes in status.

Post-World War II

The 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s demonstrated a pattern. The new Arabist leader would assert his belief in the Kurds as distinct and equal ethnic group in Iraq with political rights. For instance the Constitution of 1960 claims “Kurds and Arabs are partners within this nation. The Constitution guarantees their rights within the framework of the Iraqi republic”. Once successful at consolidating their power they would repress Kurdish political rights, militarize Kurdish regions, ban nationalist political parties, destroy Kurdish villages, and forcibly impose resettlement (especially in petroleum-rich areas). As a result, from late 1961 onwards there was near constant strife in Iraqi Kurdistan.
A major development was made when the Iraqi government and Kurdish leaders signed the 1970 Peace Agreement. It promised Kurdish self-rule, recognition of the bi-national character of Iraq, political representation in the central government, extensive official language rights, the freedom of association and organization, and several other concessions aimed at restoring full civic rights to the Kurdish population. It was to come into effect within four years. In 1974 the weaker Law of Autonomy in the Area of Kurdistan was actually implemented with much weaker citizenship protections and conflict soon resumed. The 1980s, especially during the Iran-Iraq war

Iran-Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the twentieth century...

, were a particular low point for Kurdish rights within Iraq. Approximately 500,000 Kurdish civilians were sent to detention camps in southern and eastern Iraq and the Iraqi armed forces razed villages and hamlets in and near the battle area. It is also this time that the Iraqi military infamously used chemical weapons on Kurdish towns.

Post-Gulf War

After the First US-Iraq War an autonomous “safe haven” was established in Northern Iraq under UN with USAF and RAF air protection. Under the democratically elected Kurdish Regional Government, citizens experienced civic rights never previously enjoyed. Student union

Students' union

A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...

s, NGOs, and women's organizations emerged as forces in a new civic society

Civil society

Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...

and institutionalized tolerance for the region’s own ethnic, religious, and language minorities, e.g. the Iraqi Turkmen

Iraqi Turkmen

The Iraqi Turkmen are an ethnic group who mainly reside in northern Iraq. Estimates of their numbers vary dramatically, in accordance with Iraq's assimilation policies no realistic and independent census results have been revealed regarding the Iraqi Turkmen population...

. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

and the ouster of Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

, the Kurdish population has found itself drawn back into Iraq with promises of autonomy and citizenship based on a federal, ethnically inclusive model with strong minority rights

Minority rights

The term Minority Rights embodies two separate concepts: first, normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or sexual minorities, and second, collective rights accorded to minority groups...

and guarantees against discrimination. The new Iraqi Constitution drafted in 2005 establishes Kurdish as an official language

Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...

alongside Arabic, acknowledges the national rights of the Kurdish people, and contains the usual promises about absolute equality of citizens regardless of race, religion, gender, etc. How effective this constitution will be in safeguarding the equal citizenship of the Kurdish population is unclear in the current unstable domestic situation.

Syria

Under the French Mandate of Syria

French Mandate of Syria

Officially the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon was a League of Nations mandate founded after the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire...

, the Kurds enjoyed considerable rights as the French mandate authority encourage minority independence movements as part of a divide and rule

Divide and rule

In politics and sociology, divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy...

strategy and recruited a large Kurdish segment for its local armed forces.
The repression of Kurdish civic rights escalated with the short-lived unification of Syria

Syria

and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

as the United Arab Republic

United Arab Republic

The United Arab Republic , often abbreviated as the U.A.R., was a sovereign union between Egypt and Syria. The union began in 1958 and existed until 1961, when Syria seceded from the union. Egypt continued to be known officially as the "United Arab Republic" until 1971. The President was Gamal...

in 1958, partly in response to more vocal Kurdish demands for democracy, recognition as an ethnic group, and complaints that the state police and military academies were closed to Kurds. 120 000 Kurds (40% of the Syrian Kurd population) were stripped of their citizenship in the 1961 Census when the government claimed they were in fact Turks and Iraqis illegally residing in the country. Stripped of their nationality however, these now stateless Kurds still found themselves subject to its obligations through conscription

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

in the military

Military of Syria

The Syrian Armed Forces are the military forces of Syria. They consist of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Air Defense Force.-Manpower:The President of Syria is the commander in chief of the Syrian armed forces, comprising some 646,500 troops upon mobilization. The military is a conscripted force;...

. The Kurdish language and cultural expressions were banned, a state that continues today. In 1962 the Government announced its “Arab Belt” plan (later renamed “plan for establishment of model state farm

State farm

State farm can refer to:*Sovkhoz, a type of state-owned farm in the Soviet Union*Volkseigenes Gut, a type of state-owned farm in East Germany*Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne, a type of state-owned farm in People's Republic of Poland...

s”) which would have forcibly expelled the Kurdish population from a 350 km long, 10 to 15 km deep strip of land along Syria’s northeast border and replaced them with Arab settlers but was never fully implemented. There was no change in policy under the new Ba’athist regime post-1963. It refused to implement its program of land reforms that was benefiting Arab peasants where Kurds would predominantly benefit until 1971. From the 1970s on there was relaxation of official treatment of Kurds but the late 1980s saw renewed widespread denial of Syrian citizenship status to domestic Kurds especially in refusing national identity document

Identity document

An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...

s such as passports.

Iran

The similarity between Kurdish and Persian language

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

and culture compared to the Turks and Arabs, and the more equal population balance between the ethnic majority Persians and ethnic minorities like the Kurds has resulted in a somewhat different citizenship experience for Iranian Kurds

Iranian Kurdistan

Iranian Kurdistan is an unofficial name for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province and parts of West Azerbaijan province....

, as such most seek autonomy rather than independence.

Under the Qajar Empire

Iranian group identification and social order was based on religious identification with Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

, specifically Shia Islam, dominant. While the majority of Kurds are Sunni, in Iran they were roughly evenly split between Sunnis, Shias, and Shia splinter groups like the Sufis. Because of this preoccupation with religion over ethnicity, in practice Kurds were treated as part of the majority and enjoyed extensive citizenship rights. Unlike the Ottoman Empire, this social order was maintained while the imperial system declined and modern Iranian identity was forged by a reform movement in the late 19th century to the benefit of Kurds.

Under this regime Sunni and Shia Kurds held a privileged position as Muslims. Unlike the other minorities, Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

Armenians, Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, Zorastrians and others, they had the right to work in food production and buy crown land

Crown land

In Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....

. They also benefited from the tuyal land tenure

Land tenure

Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land . The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants...

system which favoured Muslims. This advantage allowed Kurds to establish strong control over food production and land.
The notable absence of ethnic restrictions on holding government office allowed Kurdish tribal leaders and notables to purchase office and establish a strong Kurdish presence in Iranian politics without having to culturally assimilate or deny ethnicity. This political presence was bolstered because the Qajars appointed many tribal chiefs to government positions in exchange for internal security assurances. Within this system many Kurds reached prominent military, political, and diplomatic positions.
Exceptional in Iran during the 19th century and early 20th was that the nationalist reform movement did not develop a radical, exclusionary, ethnic based conception of nationality but developed an Iranian identity that did not define itself as ethnically Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

.

Constitutional Monarchy

The existing beneficial social framework changed with the establishment of a constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...

by Reza Shah

Reza Shah

Rezā Shāh, also known as Rezā Shāh Pahlavi and Rezā Shāh Kabir , , was the Shah of the Imperial State of Iran from December 15, 1925, until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on September 16, 1941.In 1925, Reza Shah overthrew Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar...

in 1925. Similar to other states, he tried to nation-build by creating an exclusionary nationality based on a secular, ethnically Persian Iranian identity and repress the cultural expressions and equal status of ethnic minorities. These minorities, including the Kurds were coerced into accepting Persian culture and many were arrested for speaking the Kurdish language. However, Kurds were afforded a special position in the official state ethnic-based nationalism because of their cultural similarity to the Persians and their non-Arab ethnicity. Also, the distribution of seats in the Majlis

Majlis

' , is an Arabic term meaning "a place of sitting", used in the context of "council", to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups be it administrative, social or religious in countries with linguistic or cultural connections to Islamic countries...

(parliament) was based on religion not ethnicity, the Kurds were able to exercise greater political power than non-Muslim minorities like the Armenians and Jews. The state’s system of military conscription and centralized education served to integrate urban Kurdish populations but the majority remained rural. After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

with the Soviet withdrawal from Kurdish regions (where they had encouraged autonomous Kurdish government as the Mahabad Republic), the Shah

Shah

Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...

banned some Kurdish political parties, expressions of cultural identity ended the open political party system and ruled by firman. In 1958 there was a marked liberalization which allowed the activities of Kurdish cultural organizations and student associations but still limited political parties. Unlike other countries the Kurds were free to publish cultural and historical information in their own language. However, with massive investment and military aid from the western world

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

, in the 1950s and 1960s Iran became a police state

Police state

A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...

which clamped down on all people’s civil rights.

Post-Revolutionary

The new theocratic regime developed a new exclusionary conception of nationalism based on very conservative Shia Islam but retaining aspect of Persian ethnic exclusivity. Despite heady initial promises of protection and cultural and linguistic freedom, this did not materialize, although the Islamic Constitution enshrined the equality of all Iranian citizens. Shia Muslims, especially ethnic Persians, were given preferential state treatment, economic and occupational opportunities, and dominated the government. Once Khomeni consolidated power he expelled Kurds from government office, placed restrictions on freedom of expression, and militarized Kurdish regions as part of the war with Iraq. Still compared to other countries Kurds were still allowed limited publications, to celebrate holidays, wear traditional dress, and use Kurdish (except as a language of instruction). Significant improvements were made in 1997 whereby the government allowed a profusion of Kurdish language in media, although some of these publications were later restricted.

Kurdish Population

Turkey: 12–14 million Kurds in Turkey, 18% of the population. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tu.html
Iran: 7–10 million Kurds live in Iran. http://www.meib.org/articles/0404_s1.htm
Iraq: 5–8 million Kurds live in Iraq. http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gadm&lng=en&dat=32&geo=-105&srt=npan&col=aohdq
Syria: 2–3 million Kurds live in Syria. http://www.meib.org/articles/0404_s1.htm

History

Ottoman Empire

Turkey

Iraq

Syria

Iran

Kurdish Population

See also