![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract:
This article revisits the origins of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq, problematizing the narrative, shared by nationalists and scholars alike, that presents the 1961–1975 insurgency solely as a moment of national awakening. Placing the Kurdish revolt within the social and political conflicts of postcolonial Iraq reveals its strong connection to the Iraqi Revolution of 1958. The early stages of the 1961 revolt must be understood as a reaction of the Kurdish landed class against the post-revolutionary land reform policy and the empowerment of the peasantry. The Kurdish tribal and landowning elite successfully turned its revolt into a national revolution by forcing progressive urban nationalists into a position of subordination and demobilizing the peasantry, formerly the backbone of the anticolonial movement. The hegemonic position of the landed class, won in 1961, had long-term consequences on the development of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq determining its conservative character and the persistent marginalization and depoliticization of the subaltern classes.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Katerina Dalacoura, Evelyn Pauls, Bahar Başer, Bill Park, Fawaz Gerges, and Mera Jasm Bakr for reading and sharing their thoughts on previous versions of this manuscript as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their precious feedback.
Disclosure statement
The author certifies that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
Notes
1 Masrour Barzani (2020) September Revolution unified Kurdish of all components, Shafaq News (September 11), available online at: https://shafaq.com/en/Kurdistan/Barzani-September-Revolution-unified-Kurdish-of-all-components/, accessed February 8, 2021.
2 See Ofra Bengio (Citation2012) The Kurds of Iraq: Building a State Within a State (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers); Nader Entessar (Citation2010), Kurdish Politics in the Middle East (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books); Wadie Jwaideh (Citation2006) The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press); Edgar O’Ballance (1973) The Kurdish Revolt 1961-1970 (London: Faber and Faber); Hussain Tahiri (Citation2007) Structure of Kurdish Society and the Struggle for a Kurdish State (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers); Kerim Yildiz (Citation2003) The Kurds in Iraq, Past present and future (London: Pluto Press).
3 According to Adeeb Dawisha, the development of the early Iraqi state was based on a ‘duality of power’, as Iraqi officers at all levels were assigned British ‘advisors’ whose views were to deeply shape the early stages of state building; See Adeed Dawisha (Citation2009) Iraq: A Political History from Independence to Occupation (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 4–14.
4 Samira Haj (Citation1997), The Making of Iraq, 1900–1963: Capital, Power, and Ideology (Albany: State University of New York Press), p. 30. As Toby Dodge explains, colonial officers did not necessarily need to be convinced as they were driven by the romantic and Orientalist view of an ahistorical Iraq ‘pre-modern and rural’ in which ‘the Shaikh and his tribe were therefore ‘naturally’ the dominant institutions through which British policy aims were to be realized.’ Toby Dodge (Citation2003), Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 83–84.
5 Hanna Batatu (Citation1979), The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Baʻthist, and Free Officers (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
6 Ibid, pp. 94–95.
7 Ibid, pp. 46–47.
8 Ibid, pp. 58–62.
9 ‘Agha’ is the Kurdish title for tribal chiefs.
10 Cited in Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 95.
11 Ibid, p. 99.
12 Haj, The Making of Modern Iraq, pp. 36–38.
13 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 6.
14 Lisa Anderson (Citation1986) The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830–1980 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 27–29.
15 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, pp. 6, 46–468.
16 For Barzanji’s revolts, see Michael Gunter (Citation2011) Historical Dictionary of the Kurds (Lanham: Scarecrow Press), p. 25; Tahiri, The Structure of Kurdish Society, pp. 55–56; and David McDowall (Citation2004) A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Tauris), pp. 151–183.
17 For these revolts, see McDowall, The Kurds, pp. 287–301.
18 See Hamit Bozarslan (Citation2003) Some Remarks on Kurdish Historiographical Discourse in Turkey (1919–1980), in Abbas Vali (ed.), Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, pp. 185–186 (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers); and Şerif Mardin (Citation1988) Freedom in an Ottoman Perspective’ in: Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds) State, Democracy, and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, pp. 23–35 (Berlin: De Gruyter).
19 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 46.
20 In the early 1950s, there were 12,000 industrial workers in the country (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Citation1952) The Economic Development of Iraq p. 133. At the time, twelve of the sixteen legal labour unions were led by the ICP; Joel Beinin (Citation2001) Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 128.
21 The other two major components of the opposition were, in fact, the National Democratic Party (NDP), expressing the views of the liberal-minded and non-tribal bourgeoisie; and the Ba’ath Party, on socialist and pan-Arabist positions, strong among the urban middle class; see: Haj, The Making of Modern Iraq, pp. 85–98.
22 Decisive to the success of the revolution was the fact that the Iraqi Army was packed with officers sympathetic to the nationalists and the Ba’athists and, although to a lesser degree, the communists. See, Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett (Citation1991) The Social Classes and the Origins of the Revolution, in: R. A. Fernea and W. Roger Louis (eds) The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: The Old Social Classes Revisited, pp. 130–131 (London: I.B. Tauris).
23 Dawisha, Iraq, pp. 176–179.
24 For the history of the ICP in the first years of the revolution, see Johan Franzén (2011), Red Star Over Iraq: Iraqi Communism Before Saddam (New York: Columbia University Press) pp. 85–126, and Tareq Y. Ismael, The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Citation2008), 71–113.
25 Ismael, The Rise and Fall, pp. 32–34.
26 Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, pp. 267–272.
27 Franzén, Red Star Over Iraq, p. 116.
28 Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, pp. 283–284; see also Avshalom H. Rubin (Citation2007) Abd Al-Karim Qasim and the Kurds of Iraq: Centralization, Resistance and Revolt, 1958-63, Middle Eastern Studies, 43(3), p. 364.
29 Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, p. 284.
30 Johan Franzén (2011) From ally to foe: The Iraqi communist party and the Kurdish question, 1958–1975, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 38(2), pp. 171–172; and O’Ballance, The Kurdish Revolt, pp. 68–69.
31 Rubin, Abd al-Karim Qasim, p. 365.
32 Rasool M. H. Hashimi & Alfred L. Edwards (Citation1961) Land Reform in Iraq: Economic and Social Implications, Land Economics, 37(1) pp. 68–81.
33 Haj, The Making of Modern Iraq, pp. 120–121.
34 Rony Gabbay (Citation1978), Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq (London: Croom Helm), pp. 108–122.
35 Saʻad Jawad (Citation1981), Iraq and the Kurdish Question, 1958–1970 (London: Ithaca Press), pp. 77–78.
36 Rubin, Abd al-Karim Qasim, p. 369. O’Ballance, The Kurdish Revolt, p. 76.
37 According to historian Farid Assassard, Barzani was, at first, sceptical of taking the leadership of a revolt that implied a direct confrontation with the government and initially tried to leave with his men for Syria. However, when the government attacked him, he had no choice but to ally with the rebels. Author Interview with Fared Assasard, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, 2018.
38 Author Interview with Ahmed Ismael Talani, Dukan, Iraq, 2019.
39 Ibid.
40 Jawad, Iraq, p. 80; and O’Ballance, pp. 78–80.
41 Author Interview with Qadir Haji Ali, Sulaymaniyah, 2019.
42 O’Ballance, The Kurdish Revolt, pp. 78–79.
43 Jawad, Iraq, p. 82.
44 Ibid.
45 Author Interview with Jalal Jawhar, Sulaymaniyah, 2019.
46 Rubin, Abd al-Karim Qasim, p. 374.
47 O’Ballance, The Kurdish Revolt, pp. 91–92; and Rubin, Abd al-Karim Qasim, p. 371.
48 Jawad, Iraq, 107–113.
49 Ibid, 169–172.
50 See McDowall, A Modern History, pp. 324-338; and Tahiri, The Structure of Kurdish Society, pp. 102–133.
51 Henry Kissinger (Citation1999) Years of Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster), pp. 584–585.
52 According to Marianna Charountaki, the Nixon Administration’s support for the Kurds had merely the function of wearing out Iraq, as the prospect of the Kurds gaining real autonomy would have been an unacceptable outcome for both Iran and Turkey, key allies of the US in the region. Ultimately, ‘[Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger and the Shah both hoped that their clients – the Kurds – would not prevail.’ Marianna Charountaki (Citation2011) The Kurds and US Foreign Policy: International Relations in the Middle East since 1945 (London: Routledge), p. 138. In a letter to the Shah signed in early 1975, Kissinger made his order of priorities very clear: ‘With respect to the Kurdish question, there is little I can add to what I have already said to you personally during our recent meeting. This is obviously a matter for Your Majesty to decide in the best interests of your nation.’ Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 594.
53 Mustafa Barzani (Citation1997) ‘Speech Presented to the Congress of the Kurdish Exiles in the Soviet Union: Baku, January 19, 1948’, The International Journal of Kurdish Studies, XI(1–2), p. 46.
54 Both Fared Assasard and Kamran Karadaghi heavily stressed this aspect; author interviews with Fared Assasard, Sulaymaniyah, 2018 and Kamran Karadaghi, London, 2018.
55 Author Interview with Hoshyar Zebari, Pirmam, Iraq, 2018.
56 Author Interview with Fared Assasard, Sulaymaniyah, 2018.
57 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, pp. 467–468.
58 Edmund A. Ghareeb & Beth Dougherty (Citation2004) Historical Dictionary of Iraq (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press), pp. 349–359.
59 Author Interview with Qadir Haji Ali, Sulaymaniyah, 2019; and O’Ballance, The Kurdish Revolt, pp. 83-88, 120-122.
60 One of example of this trend is Kamran Karadaghi, a Kurdish student in Baghdad in the 1950s, for whom the ICP represented the only option for progressive activism. Karadaghi fell victim to the anti-communist repression of 1961 and fled to the Soviet Union, where he completed his studies. Upon his return to Iraq, in the early 1970s, the ICP was a marginal political actor and Karadaghi became active in the Kurdish national movement. Author Interview with Kamran Karadaghi, London, 2018.
61 (Citation2012) Iraq Population Situation Analysis Report 2012 (Iraq National Population Commission and UNFPA) <http://iraq.unfpa.org/publications/cat_view/1-documents-english>, p. 97, accessed 16 March, 2019.
62 Author Interview with Fared Assasard, Sulaymaniyah, 2018.
63 Author Interview Qadir Haji Ali, Sulaymaniyah, 2019.
64 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Citation1977) Revolution in Kurdistan: The Essential Documents of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (New York: PUK Publications), p. 6.
65 Human Rights Watch (Citation1993) Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds, available online at: www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1993/iraqanfal, accessed 15 March, 2019.
66 For the formation and composition of the Iraqi Kurdish ruling class, see Nicola Degli Esposti (Citation2021) ‘The 2017 independence referendum and the political economy of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq’, Third World Quarterly, 10.1080/01436597.2021.1949978.