Who Are the Kurds - Coursework Example

16 January 2007 Who are the Kurds The Kurds are an ethnic group historically living in the geographical region known as Kurdistan. The state did not exist at all as political entity before the early 1920s. The Kurds are to be found chiefly in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, with much smaller numbers in Syria and the post-Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan). Critics admit that it is impossible to say exactly how many Kurds there are in all or in any of these countries. For Turkey the highest estimate is that of Yosef Gotlieb, who estimated that 8.5 million Kurds live in Turkey and constitute "at least a quarter" of that countrys total population (Romano 26). The most generous estimates of the size of the Kurdish population are sometimes boosted, as was that of the contemporary Kurdish nationalist leader Jalal Talabani, by adding into the total the Lurs of southwestern Iran and the Yazidis of northwestern Iraq, and by discovering pockets of Kurds in Lebanon, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan (Jabar and Dawod 54). Kurdistan, the name has been in use for about a thousand years, is an extensive area definable in terms of present-day frontiers as being in southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, and northwestern Iran, spilling over slightly into northern Syria and the southern edge of the Soviet Union. Kurdistan is roughly crescent-shaped, with one tip in northern Syria, broadening to a width of several hundred miles as it curves east and then south, terminating somewhere near Kermanshah in Iran (Romano 26). It is an area of plentiful rainfall. The important river systems include much of the upper courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and all of the Great and Little Zab rivers. Kirkuk and Mosul in Iraq mark the southwestern edge of the area. Much of Kurdistan consists of extremely high mountains, especially at its core, which is the point where the frontiers of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran meet. Kurdistan is difficult of access, and communications are bad, features that have contributed to the character of its people and to the success with which it has been defended in innumerable wars and skirmishes. Tribal organization has also weakened, although there are areas in the remoter parts of Kurdistan where the tribe is still the all-important social group. The settled Kurds are farmers growing a variety of crops. Many Kurds today have moved out of the ethnic homeland to earn a living (Grossman and OBrien 45). Large numbers of them subsist in the slums of Turkish cities. The foothills and plains area on the Mosul-Kirkuk line in Iraq is mixed in population, half Arab and half Kurd. Since it is also one of the countrys two great oil-producing centers, it is not accidental that control of it has been one of the great bones of contention since the early twentieth century. A further demographic complication was the forcible resettlement in the 1970s by the Iraqi government of many Kurds in the south of the country (Jabar and Dawod 23). Their religion separates them from some of their neighbors, but not from others. Nearly all Kurds are Muslims of the Sunni persuasion; that is, they belong to the mainstream of Islam. The same fact sets them sharply apart in Iran, where Shiism is the state religion. Kurds are also set apart from other ethnic groups in the several countries in which they live by their culture, their style of dress, their way of life, their own historical consciousness, and a general attitude toward them on the part of other peoples of dislike mixed with apprehension. The mutual antipathy between Arab and Kurd is based on national and ethnic differences (Grossman and OBrien 45). The Kurds have inhabited their mountain fastness throughout recorded history. Just as certain group characteristics such as those mentioned above have been consistently observable, there is also a rather sad consistency to their history: resolute in frustrating attempts to dominate them, they have equally shown a conspicuous failure to unite for their common good. Intertribal rivalries have often been a more important motivation than combining to defeat the non-Kurd. There have been great Kurdish leaders and Kurdish rulers, but there has never been anything that could properly be called a national state (Romano 223). The Kurds can be characterized as a distinct group for more than two thousand years in the central part of the Middle East. National movement and hatred between the Kurds and Arabs are the main problems for Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The failure of Kurds to unite or even to cooperate with one another has been a negative, debilitating factor (Yildiz and Blass 39). The Kurdish situation is unlikely to change substantially in the foreseeable future, although concessions to the Iraqi Kurds and a more favorable situation for them are, indeed, possible or even likely. Anything beyond that, union, independence, is, it must be said with some regret, simply not in the cards. The Kurds are, and will remain, pawns in the hands of greater forces. The Kurds possess a genuine national culture, and it has many admirable aspects. One, surprisingly enough, is its restraint. No Kurdish emissaries blow up or shoot Turkish, Iranian, or Iraqi diplomats in the streets of foreign capitals. And, despite their reputation for violence, the Kurds have fought only in self-defense. They have not sought to rule other peoples (Jabar and Dawod 56). Their fate in the near future is the status quo or something closely resembling it. At the same time, no efforts to crush them have succeeded, or are likely to succeed, in extinguishing the undying flame of their proud identity. Diplomatic circles in 1984-85 were rife with reports of a final, definitive settlement between Saddam Husseins government and the Kurds that would concede a good deal more to them than any previous offer, including control of the Kirkuk area, and thus would purchase real and lasting peace in Iraqi Kurdistan. Such a possibility exists, but it would have implications for the other two states with large Kurdish minorities (Yildiz and Blass 49). Neither Turkey nor Iran wants to see Iraqi Kurds given a substantial autonomy, which would set a "bad" example for Turkish and Iranian Kurds, as well as perhaps setting free the energies of the Iraqi Kurds, no longer fighting their own government, to stir up trouble across the borders. Turkey, through whose territory a pipeline now takes the greater part of Iraqs oil to world markets (because of the closure of Iraqs gulf ports), has the means by which to exert pressure if it wishes (Grossman and OBrien 45). Iran in turn can put pressure on Turkey, if not on Iraq, because an agreement of January 1985 envisages that another pipeline may carry Iranian oil across Turkish soil, with needed transit dues going to Turkey. Nationalist Kurdish activity, or even a public insistence by individuals that they do belong to that group can lead, and has led for thousands, to arrest and detention. But even in the case of the other four countries, there is an obvious official motivation to downplay the question by putting the number of Kurds as low as possible (Yildiz and Blass 128). Military and terrorist activities are often associated with the Kurdish people. The Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan is the terrorist organization existed in Turkey. Open wars and military struggle against the state and the Muslim world is one of the main activities typical for the Kurds (O’Leary et al 74).. The same problems exist in Iran, Syria and Armenia where the Kurds demand greater autonomy and a protected minority status (O’Leary et al 72). If the Kurds were to achieve their own separate sovereign state, one including within its borders all the principal Kurdish-inhabited areas, it would have an area and population greater than those enjoyed by more than half the member states of the United Nations. Thus the questions raised by their historic fate and present condition are not trivial ones. Moreover, it would be a state that, unlike so many, would be substantially monolingual. The Kurdish claim to nationhood is underpinned by their possession of their own language, Kurdish, an Indo-European language related to Persian but with its own grammar and vocabulary. Kurdish is spoken n two principal versions, divided roughly into a northern and a southern branch. Works Cited 1. Grossman, A., OBrien, A. Kurdish Lyrical Protest: The Terrain of Acoustic Migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32 (2006), 45. 2. Jabar, F. A., Dawod, H. The Kurds: Nationalism and Politics. Saqi Books, 2006. 3. O’Leary, B., McGarry, J., Sahil, K. The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 4. Romano, D. The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 5. Yildiz, K., Blass, T. The Kurds in Iraq: The Past, Present and Future. Pluto Press, 2004. Read More