CURRENT HISTORY
Jan. 2001, pp. 33-39
THE KURDISH NATION
by M. Hakan Yavuz and Michael M. Gunter
In a region focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the question of the Kurdish people–the largest nation in the world without its own country–has only occasionally entered the international spotlight. Leaving that question unanswered, however, may prove to be a short-sighted solution.
Although they would constitute a majority if the historic area in which they live (Kurdistan) were a nation-state, the Kurds are but mere minorities in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the countries that encompass the Kurdish homeland. No reliable estimates of the Kurdish population exist, however, because most Kurds tend to exaggerate their numbers, and the states in which they live undercount them for political reasons. There is not even complete agreement on who is a Kurd. Nevertheless, a reasonable estimate is that as many as 7 million Kurds may live in Turkey (making up between 12 and 15 percent of the population), 6 million in Iran (11 percent), 3 million in Iraq (between 20 and 23 percent), and 800,000 in Syria (7 percent). The Kurds, a largely Sunni Muslim people, are also divided tribally, geographically, politically, linguistically, religiously, and ideologically. This, of course, further complicates their nascent but stunted sense of nationalism, and has allowed the states in which they live to use divide-and-rule tactics against them.
The Kurdish question consists of the desire of most Kurds to have the cultural, linguistic, and political rights that will protect their Kurdish identity. Some Kurds also seek autonomy or even independence from the countries in which they live; those states, however, have long denied such aspirations, fearing that they would challenge their territorial integrity. The result has been a constant instability that promises to intensify as the Kurds become more politically aware and as their cause grows more visible to the outside world. Indeed, a resolution to the Arab-Israeli dispute would leave the Kurdish question as the greatest source of instability in the geostrategically important Middle East.
KURDISH IDENTITY
Scholars increasingly are analyzing Kurdish nationalism as a “natural” force. However, nationalism, whether Turkish or Kurdish, is always constructed by the cultural elite–the “identity entrepreneurs”–and shaped by political context. The major difference between Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, or Syrian nationalism and Kurdish nationalism is the presence of the state. The modernizing nation-state formed the Turkish state and Turkish nationalism and also stressed the nation’s civic aspect. Since Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran has evolved in response to modernizing nation-states, it constantly stresses its ethnic “difference” and has used events to historicize itself.
Although the Kurdish cultural elite tend to identify Turks as their “other” in the construction of Kurdish nationalism, major tribal, linguistic, religious, and regional fissures exist within Kurdish identity itself. The Kurds are a nation in formation at the crossroads of the Arab, Iranian, and Turkish worlds. The sources of these divisions are sociohistorical and have prevented the emergence of a full-fledged Kurdish identity. Kurdish life remains tribally structured in most areas and is based on local, tightly knit rural communities under a tribal-religious leader known as a sheikh or “seyid.” This tribal structure has played a dual role: impeding the formation of Kurdish unity by keeping Kurds fragmented, and preserving a heightened Kurdish particularism toward the Turks, Iranians, and Arabs. Tribal structure has constituted the core depository of Kurdish identity, has facilitated mobilization against centralizing governments, and has also kept a modern conception of nationalism from developing until the mid-twentieth century.
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