Can Kurdish leaders use the next historical opportunity?

Recent news from the Middle East reflects a widespread need for changes. The Kurds are famous for being culturally divided and unable to cooperate with each other. Now the new mass media increases their awareness of democracy and the life of other Kurds. This is a historical opportunity.

To understand the complicated situation of the Kurds, it is necessary to look at the history. After almost two thousand years of Persian rule, most of the Kurds became part of the Ottoman Empire as a result of the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. This was the first division of Kurdistan. After that, Ottoman Sultan Selim officially recognised sixteen Kurdish emirates. For centuries, these autonomous emirates were culturally, linguistically and religiously rich.

This text was published in Asos newspaper the 18th May 2011. It is in Kurdish here:
http://www.xendan.org/drejaWtar.aspx?NusarID=167&Jmara=3040


During the Ottoman times the Kurds lacked national identity. They did not identify themselves as Kurds but as members of their family, tribe and religious group. They were in a proto-national stage. Dr. Eric Hobsbawm uses this term to describe an ethnic group’s development towards nationalism. Although the group feels that they belong together because of their mutual ethnicity, they lack a common polity. It is possible to mobilise the existing national symbols for the creation of a modern state.

In the course of the fall and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, most of its subject peoples were able to set up their own states, but not the Kurds. With the Treaty of Sevrés, which was signed on August 20, 1920, the Kurds were promised a homeland. But the Allies, led by Great Britain and France, knew that the implementation of the Treaty would require difficult military enforcement. They were not prepared to make this commitment. The Treaty of Sevrés was a historical opportunity but the Kurdish leaders were unable to benefit of it.

The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, was the international accord, with which the Republic of Turkey was established. The word ‘Kurd’ was not even mentioned in it. Kurds were not regarded as a minority group. References to minorities were limited to non-Muslims. This was the second division of Kurdistan.

Also Iraq was established after World War I. Under a mandate from the League of Nations, the administration of Iraq was entrusted to Britain, but it adopted a policy of devolving responsibilities to an Iraqi government in 1921.

From 1918 to 1925, the Kurds lost an opportunity for statehood. They found themselves to be an unrecognised minority in Turkey and in Iraq. The Kurdish question became a frozen conflict. All the problems were left without solution, waiting for the right moment for the conflict to appear again. Now, this seems to happen. On the one hand, the Kurds move towards nationalism from proto-national level. Due to electronic mass media, satellite TV and the Internet – and especially social media like Facebook – they get information about each other and about global developments, which was totally out of their reach at the beginning of the last century. The Kurdish culture in Iraq is the most traditional and the most tribal. The Iranian Kurds are the best educated Kurds. The Kurds who live in Turkey are the most modern and the most aware in political terms, but many of them are partly assimilated into the Turkish culture. For example, many have lost their Kurdish mother tongue.

The young generation of Kurds continues the nation-building process from the point at which their grandfathers froze the issue after the days of Lausanne. On the other hand, new historic opportunities are emerging because all parts of Kurdistan are controlled by countries that are moving towards radical changes.

Since the end of the 19th century, the problem of the Kurds has been their inability to cooperate with each other. Kurdish politics is local politics. The Kurds have been rebelling against their oppressors for decades, but their uprisings have been local.

In 1991 three Kurdish provinces in South Kurdistan got autonomy after the First Gulf War in the uprising Raperin. But three Kurdish provinces - Mosul, Kirkuk and Diyala - were left outside the autonomous region. This was again a historical opportunity what the Kurdish leaders could not use. Twenty years have passed without much improvement despite United Nations decided referendum which is known as Article 140 according its status in the Iraqi constitution. If the referendum is not arranged this will be the third division of Kurdistan.

In the 1920s, Kurdish leaders could not make use of the historic opportunities, which were available during the collapse process of the Ottoman Empire. It seems that the next opportunity for the Kurds might come up soon. Dramatic changes may take place in the Middle East in the near future, taking into account the situations in Turkey, in Iraq, in Iran and in Syria. Especially the future of Iraq after the removal of the American troops is unclear.

Parag Khanna, former election advisor of Barack Obama and current director of the Global Governance Initiative, predicted 2008 that Kurds would get independent state in 2016 and 20 000 American troops would be stationed in Kurdistan by that time. He describes this vision in his book "The Second World : Empires and Influence in the New Global Order". Khanna argues that Kurdish oil and gas especially could play a desicive role in supporting the independence. Europe wants to decrease its dependency on Russian gas. Kurdish gas reserves of three to six trillion cubic meters is the source to replace the Russian gas. There is plan to build the Nabucco pipeline from Turkey to Austria to transport the Kurdish gas to Europe.

All big Kurdish parties in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey concentrate on the situation of their own geographical area. They do not have a common national agenda. However, many young Kurds - the Facebook-generation - speak about a ‘Great Kurdistan’, meaning the unification of all four parts of Kurdistan. Yet there is no movement pushing for it, except for homepages on the Internet and on Facebook.

Kurdish leaders carry a big responsibility. Can they make cooperation? Can they use the historic opportunity, which seem to be available only once in a century? Only time will tell. I am sorry to say that at the moment the situation does not look good at least here in Sulaymania: Kurds struggle with each others the same way as they have done centuries instead of learning the modern skills of negotiation. This would benefit all Kurds in defending themselves against the neighbouring states. The plan to build the Nabucco pipeline or any other outside effort does not solve the Kurdish question if the Kurds can not cooperate with each others. Instead I have heard rumors that now they obtain more guns.

One thing is clear: problems, uprisings and struggles continue until a solution is found to the Kurdish question. In North Ireland, the struggle between the Irish and the British has already continued for seven hundred years. Let us hope that the Kurdish question will not remain unsolved for so long. It is a permanent source of instability in the whole Middle East until a political solution is found.