A Discourse on the Efforts to Establish a Kurdish Nation State: Part 1
Thomas (TJ) Ball, tb357@cornell.edu
Developing a comprehensive understanding of any case study in international relations fundamentally requires that one take into account the various cultural and ideological factors which shape the behaviors and perspectives of parties that we observe. Numerous world issues today are steeped in layers of complications, but few are as multifaceted and complex as the question of Kurdish sovereign statehood. In this paper I will analyze why attempts at establishing a sustainable Kurdish nation-state have failed up to this point in history. As we question what the future may hold for the Kurds as a social and political entity, it is important that one consider why the Kurdish case of self-determination is different from other efforts aimed at establishing a nation-state. Political relations in the Middle East are arguably more wrought with cultural and ideological tension than anywhere else in the world, most likely as a result of longstanding historical conflict between ethnic and religious groups, the effects of colonialism, and the very demographic and geographic composition of the region. The major implications of these attributes are further convoluted in the case of the Kurds because their population is divided across the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
As we delve further into this question of why a sustainable Kurdish nation-state has yet to be established, it is paramount that we understand how Kurdish culture is distinguished from neighboring cultures, as well as what are the driving forces behind the Kurds wanting a state of their own in the first place. The Kurdish people identify as a nation as a result of their shared ethnicity and language — though there are several major dialects — the majority of their people practicing either Islam or a “Cult of Angels” religion, and their common customs and experiences of persecution and repression. [1] Though the Kurds do not have a set territory which they have always laid claim to, “there are a considerable number of clans, tribes, and tribal considerations in Kurdistan today, each with its own defined territory. Many of these tribes have been in existence — with the same names — for several thousand years”. [2] This means that for many Kurds the territory they are trying to secure in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran is the closest thing to a homeland they have.
Despite the Kurds’ long history in the region, it wasn’t until the 20th century that the Kurdish people started pursuing the creation of their own nation-state. The persecution and oppression of Kurds by governments and populations in the Middle East not only helped build the Kurdish national identity, it also encouraged Kurds to take a stand against existing powers so they could establish protective sovereignty. Though an institutionalist perspective takes into account the Kurds’ desire to protect themselves as one of the origins of autonomous sentiment, institutionalism argues Kurdish efforts for statehood were ultimately sparked by post-colonial, post-conflict promises of homelands for several nations in the Middle East. For instance, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promised the establishment of two homelands for Israelis and Palestinians, which led to Kurdish efforts for the same. In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres not only secured territory for both Israelis and Palestinians, it also promised to divide the Ottoman Empire such that the Kurds would receive control of their own autonomous territory, however the Treaty of Lausanne, introduced in 1923, replaced the Treaty of Sèvres and took away the possibility of the Kurds having their own sovereign territory.
Considering the fact that Israeli, Palestinian, Kurdish, and Armenian statehood were all promised by, and afterwards nullified by, related agreements, why is it that in the present time Israeli, Palestinian, and Armenian statehood attempts have received so much more attention and such greater success? On page 74 of Ahmed and Gunter, it is argued that the Holocaust provided a strong argument for the establishment of an Israeli state. This argument, they go on to say, was surely aided by the fact that “Israel has developed a case that its continued existence is essential to Western interests in the Middle East”[3]. But what about Palestine and Armenia? Though the former state has yet to be established, it could be argued that both Palestine and Armenia have had more progress than the Kurds due to fewer Kurds leaving the Middle East than any of the other groups. One of the biggest driving forces for the establishment of nation-states, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, is Western support, and because a fairly substantial number of Israelis (Jews), Palestinians (Arabs), and Armenians have settled in Western Europe and the United States as a result of diaspora, those groups have seen greater success in the establishment of their own states. Even if we look beyond traditional zionist movements and simply examine the power structure in other Middle Eastern countries, it’s obvious why the Kurds have been so insistent upon a state of their own. Most major groups in the region with decisive divisions, e.g. Arabs, Persians, & Turks and Sunnis & Shi’a, have control of at least one state each, even if they don’t necessarily have nation-states. Arab governments dominate most governments in the region, including Egypt and Jordan, while the Persians and Shi’a have Iran, and Sunnis control Saudi Arabia. [4] Some states have a minority group in power, such as the Sunni minority government in Bahrain governing over the Shi’a majority, but within the region as a whole each major group has some state they control, for instance Iran in the case of the Shi’a. Almost every major group in the Middle East has some kind of representation in a state authority — that is, except for the Kurds.
Though the re-drawing of territorial borders in the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire wasn’t very well thought out, as the persistent sectarian violence which plagues the region shows, the states established by world powers unintentionally empowered almost every major group in the region with a state government that represented them. As a result of this, most countries in Southwest Asia are cognizant of how greatly state representation affects the preservation of national ideology, religion, ethnicity, and customs. In The Kurds: A Nation Denied, McDowell discusses how Turkey and Iran, which also happen to be home to the majority of the Kurdish population, are aware of how significant a Kurdish nation-state would be and know “strategic security, historical experience, the difficulties already experienced with their neighbors,” and I might add the economic success of Kurdish autonomous regions due to natural resources, “leave the Kurdish case for independent nation status unnegotiable,” because of the increased threat this would pose to the region’s current power structure. [5] I believe another reason Kurdish efforts to create a state of Kurdistan have proved so unsuccessful is because the state powers which control the de facto Kurdish territory, along with other regional neighbors, simply don’t want the emergence of a Kurdish state power. While the Kurdish nationalist movement has given rise to a multitude of “nuisances” for the governments of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria — nuisances which have been manifested by Kurdish political parties and Kurdish terrorist cells, as I will address later in this paper — it’s easier for Arab states to deal with conflict from Kurdish minority opposition within their own borders than it is to deal with broader interstate Kurdish conflict. One of the features of Kurdish national identity which I didn’t address earlier is their association with mountainous territory. [6] While most Kurds who migrate to plateaus and neighboring flat regions are assimilated into the national identity of those surrounding countries, the Kurds have been able to build their own identity from their connection with the mountains where persecution is harder and they can be more autonomous. Unfortunately for the Kurds, the mountains also make unity more difficult.
“Just as the mountains create autonomy for the Kurds, they often prohibit easy communication between them… The mountains have broken down the language of the Kurds to a babble of dialects, their religions to a case study in diversity, and their art and costumes to a zoo of colorful variety. Because of this diversity, in the past, and some may argue even today, the Kurds have never achieved sufficient unity to produce even the prototype of an organized pan-Kurdish political movement for independence.” [7]
Over the past century, state actors’ dealings with the Kurds have partially contributed to their consolidation in more mountainous regions, and by extension their fragmentation as a nation. If Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is any measure of the economic and military prowess a Kurdish state could achieve, it’s obvious to see why it is in the interest of neighboring Arab states to continue repressing the Kurds and forcing them into mountainous regions where it’s harder to create unity. It benefits those governments which immediately surround the Kurds to continue dividing the nation across territorial borders, to ensure that the minority do not secure their own state and generate a more substantial economic or political threat to the interests of neighboring powers or Arab nations. According to Ahmed and Gunter, “the Iraqi Kurds have constructed the basic institutional pillars of a state and have the resources to sustain it as an independent state, [but] they need the support and recognition of a regional or Western state to back them up” [8]. It could easily be argued that this is true not only for the Iraqi Kurds but for the Kurdish nation as a whole. Even if the Kurds were able to establish a powerful and cohesive national identity in the face of geographical fragmentation from the mountains, they would still have to get their neighboring Arab states, as well as Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, to forego major disincentives in order for a sustainable and secure Kurdistan to be created. The geopolitical constraints placed on the Kurdish national movement by post-colonial borders and the very ethnic make-up of the Middle East are only the first of several major issues the Kurds have faced in attempting to establish a Kurdish nation state. In the next edition of CIAO I will take a closer look at how the tactics used by the Kurds within Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria have impacted the overall success of the Kurds’ movement.
Notes
1 Mehrdad R.. Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, (Washington: Taylor & Francis, Inc., 1992), 137.
2 Ibid 74.
3 Mohammed M.A. Ahmed and Michael Gunter, eds. The Kurdish Spring, (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, Inc., 2013), 74.
4 Wadie Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement: Its Orgins and Development. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006), 292–3.
5 David McDowell, The Kurds: A Nation Denied, (London: Minority Rights Group, 1991), 3.
6 Mehrdad R.. Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, (Washington: Taylor & Francis, Inc., 1992), 188.
7 Ibid.
8 Mohammed M.A. Ahmed and Michael Gunter, eds. The Kurdish Spring, (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, Inc., 2013), 132.
