Good radicals? Trajectories of pro-Kurdish political and militant mobilisation to the wars in Syria, Turkey and Iraq

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interrelation of volunteering, violence and ideology by studying the pro-Kurdish political and militant mobilisation to the wars in Syria, Turkey and Iraq. Focusing especially on the trajectories, motives and reflections of foreign volunteers in different Kurdish militant groups, I argue that ideology is neither a precondition nor a necessary reason for mobilisation to an armed group. In many cases, it is the other way around, as mobilisation to violence is often the source of ideological conviction.

KEYWORDS:

• Ideology
• violence
• Kurds
• militant mobilisation
• foreign fighters

Acknowlegements

This research was funded by the Norwegian Research Council (238134). I am indebted to Therese Sandrup, Lena Gross and Jon Horgen Friberg, who read and commented on earlier drafts of this paper. I also want to thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. To preserve the interlocutors’ anonymity, all names have been changed by the author.

2. The designation “leftist” is used in a rather broad meaning here and encompasses among others, members of the parliamentarian left (such as the Norwegian Socialist Left Party or the Red Party), anarchists, libertarian socialists as well as feminists and queer activists adhering to the political left.

3. One of the activists explained their positive stance on being a radical as follows: “It’s not the radicals that people should be afraid of. A radical has spent a lot of time learning, studying and discussing a certain ideology. A radical is politically active and understands the bigger picture. It’s the extremists that people should fear. An extremist embraces some ideology without knowing it well and without having studied it. An extremist turns easily from one ideology to another, like a flag in the wind” (Interview with pro-Kurdish activist, Oslo, November 2015).

4. Interview with UK volunteer, 30 January 2017.

5. Interview with Spanish volunteer, 28 January 2017.

6. Interview with US volunteer, 25 January 2017.

7. Interview with a Peshmerga leader in Erbil, October 2016. See also BBC Newshour, 22 February 2015.

8. Interview with Canadian volunteer, 1 February 2017.

9. Interview with pro-Kurdish activist, Oslo, November 2015.

10. The disregard of other groups of foreign fighters and the questioning of their true reasons for joining the conflict are common themes in autobiographies and interviews. Internationalists questioned the purity of the motives of those without a clear ideological stance, whereas veterans with war experience questioned the sincerity of the other volunteers.

11. Interview with US volunteer, 25 January 2017.

12. Interview with UK volunteer, 30 January 2017.

13. Interview with Canadian volunteer, 1 February 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Norges Forskningsråd [238134].

Notes on contributors

Nerina Weiss

Nerina Weiss is senior researcher at Fafo Research Foundation. She holds a PhD in social anthropology (University of Oslo, 2012) and worked as a Marie Curie IE Fellow at Dignity-Danish Institute against Torture from 2011 to 2013. Her research interests include political violence, migration, gender, torture and trauma. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Cyprus, Turkey, Denmark, Norway and Austria.