Guest Editor’s Introduction: Trajectory for Kurds

Scholars have been paying increasing attention to the Kurdish nation. One can say that there are four distinct critical junctures that scholars of Kurdish and Middle Eastern Studies devote to their focus. One is the growing autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Second is the nightmare of Yezidi genocide in Iraq in 2014 by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Third is the oppression from Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government on the Kurdish political movements after the failure of the peace process in 2015. Lastly, has been the advancement of the Syrian Kurdish group’s Democratic Union Party (PYD) to resist, with the coalition forces, against ISIL in Syria. Apart from monographs,¹ there have been valuable contributions to the literature in special issues of respected journals in the field.² This growing and well-deserved attention to Kurdish studies is also helping researchers both to accumulate knowledge in the field and to utilize the knowledge interdisciplinarily. Kurdish gender studies are a profound example of how accumulated knowledge enables interdisciplinary research to break new grounds and to expand our knowledge of power relations in Kurdish society.³ This special issue, Trajectory for Kurds, contributes to the interdisciplinary evolution of Kurdish studies and features contributions from the disciplines of anthropology, comparative politics, international relations, and sociology.

As an interdisciplinary approach for Kurdish studies, analytical frameworks for the articles in this issue are changing intra-Kurdish relations and the prospects for Kurdish statehood. Kurds are the largest nation without their own state. It is estimated that the population of Kurds ranges between 22 and 35 million in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey as well as in a worldwide diaspora.⁴ Various Kurdish political movements and their relations with the nation states in which they are based as well as their political aims require studies deriving from original conceptual and empirical analyses.

Therefore, any examination of the Kurdish statehood issue or intra-Kurdish relations should include an element of field research, or a conceptual discussion informed by extensive experience in the region. This not only is necessary for ethnographic research but also for the international relations of the various Kurdish groups, because the unofficial borders, intra-group rivalries and, to a certain extent, the local and regional power dynamics can only be identified comprehensively by the observer embedded in the Kurdish regions. This is particularly true if one is writing about Kurdish political groups as resistance movements, since the act of resistance has a binary relationship with society, geography, and local politics. While resistance shapes the scale and spaces under which it operates, the scales and spaces shape it as well. It can be advantageous for any resistance movement to have this fluid relationship with the scales and spaces, whereas major political powers in the Kurdish areas may have difficulty in establishing such relationships.⁵ This comparative advantage of resistance power needs to change how scholars examine Kurdish politics. It is particularly important when discussing the prospects of a Kurdish independent state or the highly debated topic of the recent independence referendum conducted by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Otherwise, one may fall into the fallacy of universalizing the concepts of great power politics through time and space and deem them suitable explanatory concepts for Kurdish politics and society.⁶

Indeed, most of the scholarly work has been falling into the trap of undermining the casual elements for the sake of the argument or theory while examining the prospects of Kurdish independence, or a more general outlook for Kurdish politics. For instance, an earlier compilation of papers edited by Michael Gunter and Hakan Yavuz in 2004 discussed at length the prospects and barriers for the foundation of an independent Kurdish state.⁷ Recently, however, Adrian Florea, in a short piece on the Kurdish independence referendum, tried to employ the referendum as an empirical case study to test his argument about de facto state behavior.⁸ There are also numerous news articles illustrating realpolitik obstacles to and facilitators for Kurdish statehood.⁹ Nonetheless, in all of these studies there is a danger of undermining the agency of local actors in the conflict, i.e., Kurdish people, for the sake of the theory. Therefore, unfounded knowledge on the trajectory for Kurds easily could be created in a way to neglect possible numerous casual links that cannot be interpreted easily through the lens of great power politics. The way to overcome this problem would be to pin down power relations and the most possible number of factors shaping the trajectories in an interdisciplinary way. There have been individual efforts either to unearth hitherto overlooked factors, to bring in methodological innovations, or to reveal trends shaping local agency.¹⁰

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq held an independence referendum on September 25, 2017. More than 92 percent of voters backed Kurdish independence from Iraq. The referendum results not only were cheered in the KRG but also cheered extensively in Syria and the diaspora as well.¹¹ However, soon after the results, regional powers Iran and Turkey, as well as Iraq, launched a collaborative campaign to end the prospect of Kurdish independence. Iraqi forces took over the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk from the Kurdish peshmergas, and Iran closed down its border crossings with the KRG.¹² Turkey warned as well that Ankara was ready to isolate and economically damage the Kurdish government if it were to proceed with independence.¹³ Local power politics also divided the various Kurdish political parties. For instance, the peshmergas from the Kurdish Patriotic Union (PUK) retreated from Kirkuk, permitting the Iraqi government to take control of the city.¹⁴ Despite the initial morale boost the Kurds experienced from the referendum, the prospects for statehood diminished further with the resignation of Kurdish Regional Government president, Masoud Barzani.¹⁵ The Kurdish referendum for independence in effect backfired and stalled the Kurdish drive for political autonomy; its consequences have demoralized the Kurdish population. However, Kurdish politics fundamentally emerged out of resistance movements. As a long-term observer of Kurdish politics, veteran journalist Cengiz Candar argues ‘Iraqi Kurds are the main losers in the regional equation. From the brink of a long-cherished goal of independence, they now find themselves close to division, similar to 2003 and perhaps like before 1991.’¹⁶ However, the current analysis of regional politics misses the point that the referendum on independence also paved a path for Kurdish politics to restructure itself to face a new trajectory for Kurdish politics.

This special issue compiles articles from different disciplines to highlight the Kurdish trajectory and to cover as many factors as possible. It opens with Hamit Bozarslan’s ‘When the Present Sends Back to the Past: Reading the Kurdish issue in the 2010s,’ an article that interprets Kurdish politics and the border through political violence. His historical account analyzes how Kurdish politics have been in a binary relationship with violence that shapes both society and the very nature of the socio-political ecology. Following a broad historical introduction that analyzes the post-World War I division of the defeated Ottoman Empire’s Kurdish minority among the three new states of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Bozarslan focuses on Mustafa Barzani’s rebellions against the government of Iraq in the 1930s and 1940s, his flight to Iran, where he and his followers provided military support for the Iranian Kurds’ brief Mahabad Republic (December 1945–December 1946), his subsequent refuge in the Soviet Union, his return to Iraq following the 1958 revolution there, and his leadership of Kurdish forces opposing Baghdad from 1961 to 1975. This historical background provides insights for understanding the trajectory of Iraqi Kurds from 1990 to the present, as well as how Kurds in other regional states and the diaspora interpret the Kurds’ past and the present since the 2011 Arab Spring.

The second article by William Gourlay also examines issues surrounding intra-Kurdish politics. In ‘Kurdayetî: Pan-Kurdish Solidarity and Cross-border Links in Times of War and Trauma,’ Gourlay provides an original analysis of a trans-border shared sense of Kurdayeti [Kurdishness] among Kurds and how it relates to intra-Kurdish politics. His research is based on extensive fieldwork in Kurdish geography and offers us insight into how shared traumas such as the 2014 ISIL siege of Kobane in Syria feeds into the pan-Kurdish notion of Kurdayeti. Gourlay’s ethnographic work not only allows us to understand the facilitators of a pan-Kurdish identity but also points out the limits of current pan-Kurdish identity as well.

The following three papers examine the economic and political determinants for Kurdish statehood. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq was formed in 1992, following the military defeat of the Iraq government in its brief war with the US-led coalition of forces from several UN countries. The KRG’s success in developing commercial ties with the neighboring countries is widely considered as a determinant for Kurdish statehood. However, the KRG administration is surrounded by violent conflict and dependent on oil revenues, factors that make its long-term economic prospects uncertain. In addition, because the KRG has functioned as a de facto state, its relations with foreign governments are as important a topic as its economics. This is especially significant in respect to Turkey, where lives the largest Kurdish population in the region, constituting at least 15 percent of Turkey’s total population and is an ethnic minority that successive governments often have perceived as a security threat since the establishment of the Republic in 1923. Burak Bilgehan Özpek’s ‘Paradigm Shift Between Turkey and the Kurds: From “Clash of the Titans” to “Game of Thrones”’ focuses on the inconsistent foreign policy that Turkey’s ruling AKP has been pursuing toward the various Kurdish political groups since 2002, when the AKP came to power. Özpek forcefully argues that whether in times of conflict or peace between the AKP government and the various Kurdish groups—whether inside Turkey or across the border in Iraq and Syria—its motives stem from domestic Turkish considerations.

Christina Bache’s article, ‘Mutual Economic Interdependence or Economic Imbalance: The Presence of the Turkish Private Sector in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’ focuses on the role of Turkish private sector investments in the Kurdish Regional Government between 2004 and 2014. These were the very years during which, according to Özpek’s article, the AKP government was pursuing a policy of engagement with its own Kurds and the KRG. Bache, based on her vast experience in the region, argues that the KRG welcomed the private investment from Turkey—mostly by Turkish citizens who were ethnic Kurds—but did not exercise sufficient oversight to guarantee that these investments would contribute to long-term economic growth. She suggests that the private sector assumes responsibility to alleviate the conditions of conflict and facilitates a smooth-running economy not for industry but for the well-being of employees in this insecurity-prone region.

The final article in this special issue examines attitudes among the Kurdish diaspora toward the KRG’s state-building efforts. Bahar Başer argues in ‘Homeland Calling: Kurdish Diaspora and State-building in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in the Post-Saddam Era’ that the Kurdish communities abroad have played a significant role in the development of local Kurdish politics at the regional level. Her extensive field research reveals that the Kurdish diaspora has been extremely critical for the post-conflict development of the Kurdish Regional Government. This article, as well as the other four in this timely special issue on Kurds, aims to pave paths for future research. Given the volatility of the political environment in the region, future scholarly research will need to address the post-ISIL landscape and its ramifications for Kurdish politics and society.

Notes

¹ Michael Gunter (2014)  Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War (London: Hurst); Mehmet Gurses & David Romano (eds) (2014) Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East: Turkey, Iran (New York: Palgrave); Mohammed Ahmed (2012) Iraqi Kurds and Nation-building (New York: Palgrave); Abbas Vali (2011) Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making of Kurdish Identity (London: I. B. Tauris); Alex Danilovich (2016) Iraqi Federalism and the Kurds: Learning to Live Together (London: Routledge); Ofra Bengio (ed.) (2014) Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press); and David Phillips (2015) The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East (London: Routledge).

² Djene Bajalan & Sara Z. Karimi (2014) The Kurds and their History: New Perspectives, Iranian Studies, 47(5), pp. 679–681; and Minoo Alinia, et al. (2014) The Kurdish Diaspora: Transnational Ties, Home, and Politics of Belonging, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 4(2), pp. 53–56.

³ Toni Wright (2014) On ‘Sisterhood’: What Iraqi Kurdish Women Migrants have to Say about Women and the Commonalities they Share, Journal of International Women's Studies, 15(2), pp. 182–196; Marlene Schäfers (2017) Writing against Loss: Kurdish Women, Subaltern Authorship, and the Politics of Voice in Contemporary Turkey, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 23(3), pp. 543–561; O. Bengio (2016) Game Changers: Kurdish Women in Peace and War, The Middle East Journal, 70(1), pp. 30–46; and Zeynep Sahin-Mencutek (2016) Strong in the Movement, Strong in the Party: Women’s Representation in the Kurdish Party of Turkey, Political Studies 64(2), pp. 470–487.

⁴ See Central Intelligence Agency (2017) World Factbook: Population Count by Country (Washington, DC: CIA). Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html, accessed November 24, 2017; and for an optimistic count, see Kurdish Institute of Paris (2017) The Kurdish Population. Available at: http://www.institutkurde.org/en/, accessed Novembetr 24, 2017.

⁵ Lynn A. Staeheli (1994) Empowering Political Struggle: Spaces and Scales of Resistance, Political Geography, 13(5), pp. 387–391.

⁶ John M. Hobson (2007) Reconstructing International Relations through World History: Oriental Globalization and the Global–dialogic Conception of Inter-civilizational Relations, International Politics, 44(4), pp. 414–430.

⁷ Michael Gunter & Hakan Yavuz (2004) Kurds in Iraq, Middle East Policy, 11(1), pp. 106–131.

⁸ Adrian Florea (2017) Kurdistan’s Referendum Won’t Lead to Independence – So Why Hold It?, The Conversation, June 14, 2017.

⁹ Mohammed A. Salih (2016) Low Oil Prices Complicate Iraqi Kurdish Independence, Middle East Institute Policy Focus, No. 7; Ibrahim Al-Marashi (2016) The Kurdish Referendum and Barzani’s Political Survival, Al Jazeera, February 4, 2016.

¹⁰ William Gourlay (2017) Oppression, Solidarity, Resistance: The Forging of Kurdish Identity in Turkey, Ethnopolitics, forthcoming; Bahar Baser, & Mari Toivanen (2017) The Politics of Genocide Recognition: Kurdish Nation-building and Commemoration in the post-Saddam Era, Journal of Genocide Research, 19(3), pp. 404–426; Egemen B. Bezci & Güven G. Öztan (2016) Anatomy of the Turkish Emergency State: A Continuous Reflection of Turkish Raison d’état between 1980 and 2002, Middle East Critique, 25(2), pp. 163–179; Chikara Hashimoto & E. B. Bezci (2016) Do the Kurds have ‘No Friends but the Mountains’? Turkey’s Secret War against Communists, Soviets and the Kurds, Middle Eastern Studies, 52(4), pp. 640–655.

¹¹ Dina Shibeeb (2017), Big ‘Yes’ from Kurdish Diaspora Likely in Independence Vote, Al-Arabiya, September 25, 2017.

¹² Maher Chmaytelli and Raya Jalabi (2017) Iraqi Forces Complete Kirkuk Province Takeover after Clashes with Kurds, Reuters, October 20, 2017.

¹³ Cengiz Candar (2017) Turkey’s Threats against Kurdish Referendum Vague but Deliberate, Al-Monitor, September 22, 2017.

¹⁴ Editor (2017), Kurdistan Bafel Talabani: PUK chose ‘Tactical withdrawal’ from Kirkuk after Casualties, Rudaw, October 21, 2017.

¹⁵ M. Chmaytelli & R. Jalabi (2017), Kurdish Leader Barzani Resigns after Independence vote Backfires, Reuters, October 29, 2017.

¹⁶ C. Candar, Turkey’s Threats against Kurdish Referendum.