The Kurds: A Nation on the Way to Statehood

© 2012 by Jamal Jalal Abdulla. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/23/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4678-7971-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-7972-9 (e)

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Organization of the Book

Kurds in History

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

CONCLUSIONS

Bibliography

Jamal Jalal Abdulla, BA, MA, MPhil, PhD, is an emeritus professor of socioligiustics and English language at the University of Baghdad between 1960 and 1983. He was seconded to University of Michagan for three years during which he produced several Kurdish grammar books and the first Kurdish English dictionary. Between 1970 to 1973, he was taken from his University post to work in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat. During that time he was the ministry plenipotentiary attache’ for Iraq in Budapest, Hungary. He joined the Iraq Kurdish revolution of 1974 before returning to the academic world two years later. From 1984 to 1987, he worked at the University of Mohammed Bin Sa’ud in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and as professor of English Linguistics at the University of Applied Sciences, Amman, Jordan between 1995-2000 before retiring in England.

Also by the same author:

1. Kurdish Basic Course

2. Kurdish Newspaper Reader

3. Kurdish Essays

4. Kurdish Short Stories

These books are published by the University of Michigan Press, U.S.A.

Other publications include

1. A short Course in English Linguistics, Al-Sha’b Printing Press, Baghdad

2. A Course in Modern English Grammar, IDELTI, Baghdad

3. A Short History of the English Language, University Of Mosul Press

4. Language Shift among the Christian Syriac Speakers in Iraq.

Language Planning, a national unifying and separating process; unpublished paper delivered at the ‘Language Conference’ at the University of Arbid in Jordan

To My wife, my daughter, Tara, and my two sons, Aza and Dana. I should particularly thank Aza for helping in arranging the book cover, finding the maps of Kurdistan and reading the manuscript and suggesting necessary changes.

Acknowledgements

I received unstinting information from a number of educated Kurds to whom I am indebted. I am especially thankful to Hashim Karimi, member of Politburo Committee of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran. I am thankful to Mohammed Salih, member of the United Islamic Party of Iraqi Kurdistan and to a number of other members of both PUK and KDP parties of Iraq who are living in England. I am also indebted to Akif Bozat representative of Kurdish National Congress KNC of Turkey. I should express my gratitude to Jawad Mulla who provided me with a number of books and lectures about Kurds in Syria. I am also grateful to Nawshirwan Mustafa, member of the Politburo Committee of the PUK party. I am thankful to the following retired Kurdish lawyers and civil service members: Mohammed Said, Mohammed Mustafa and Ibrahim Zahawi. I am thankful to Dr. Mahmoud Othman, member of the KDP Political Committee until 1970s, for his valuable information regarding Kurdish national political movements in Iraq.

I should thank all the European and American writers and journalists who wrote about Kurdish history, language, and culture familiarizing the peoples of the world with the Kurdish nation, and their plights. Their researches created international pressure against the suppression of Kurds.

Map by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) showing the Kurdish inhabited areas (1992). The image is in public domain.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurdish_lands_92.jpg

Treaty of Sevres—1920 showing suggested borders and sub-divisions

Map showing provisions for Kurdistan in Treaty of Sevres - 1920

Map presented by the Kurdish League Khoybun to the San Francisco Conference on March 30, 1945

Organization of the Book

This book is a survey of historical development of Kurds who were first divided amongst the Ottoman and Persian empires in the sixteenth century, and later divided by the Allied Powers among Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria after World War I.

The study focuses on the development of the national identity of Kurds, rise of elite groups, mobilization of Kurdish vernacular culture, and formation of political parties. All these factors gave rise to ethno political movements aiming at establishing federal status within the states they live as minorities.

The study is divided into four parts, Part One deals with the life of Kurds under the Ottoman Empire and under the Turkish Republic after the collapse of the Empire in 1918 and the establishment of secular Turkish state.

Part Two deals with the life and struggles of Kurds in Iraq, before and after they were included into the Kingdom of Iraq by the British mandated power following World War I.

Part Three recounts the growth of Kurdish identity among Kurds in Iran during the reign of Raza Shah and his son, formation of political parties and the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mahabad.

Part Four is a study of the history of Kurds in Syria, which was a mandate of France after World War I.

The Conclusion investigates the impact of changes in the political situation of Kurds as well as the recent international outlook regarding minority collectivities in the world and the international oil companies and the European states.

Kurds in History

Introductory Notes

The Kurds are ancient Indo-European people that inhabited a mountainous region known as Kurdistan in the Middle East more than four thousand years ago. As a stateless nation, Kurds were of little interest to the West and Western journalists, writers and researchers except a few linguists, anthropologists, and historians.

However, the name Kurds and Kurdistan suddenly cropped up in the Western Mass Media when the Allied UN Army liberated Kuwait from Iraqi invasion in 1991. It was then that the long ignored Kurds began to appear in the daily newspapers of the democratic world.

Kurdistan, homeland of the Kurds, covers 409,000 square kilometres. It is larger than the combined areas of England, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark (Qasimlu 1970, p.12). The Taurus and Zagros chains of mountains form its backbone, and it stretches to the Mesopotamian plains in the south. In the north and northwest, it runs up to the steppes and plateaus of Armenian Anatolia.

In 1991 Western journalists, writers and politicians became interested in the history of Kurds and published a number of studies in Europe and the United States about Kurdish political, economic and cultural life.

Linguistically, Kurds speak an Indo-European language, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family of languages. It is a written language and has a long history of literature, particularly in poetry. However, the Kurdish language is beset by having no unified standard written language, due to having no political entity of their own.

Kurdish has several dialects: Sorani, Kurmanji, Fayli, and Zazayi, in addition to a number of locally spoken dialects.

The Sorani dialect is used in the North East of Iraqi and in North West Iran. Sorani is well developed and used in Iraqi Kurdistan at all educational levels as well as in the mass media of broadcasting and television programmes. It is also used in publications. The Sorani dialect uses a modified Arabic alphabet for writing.

The Kurmanji dialect is used by Kurds in Turkey and Syria, and in certain parts of Iraq and Iran. The Kurmanji dialect is used for writing and in schools in Iraq. Like the Sorani dialect, Kurnanji is used in the mass media and in publishing books, newspapers, and magazines.

Kurds in Turkey and Syria speak Kurmanji. Nowadays, Kurdish in both Sorani and Kurmanji dialects is used over radio, television, and satellites, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, Europe, and the United States.

Kurds are Sunni Moslems, but some of the Kurds in Iran and Iraq are Shi’aits. A few Kurds are Christians, Jews, and Yazidis. Kurdish Jews lived in relative harmony in many places in Iraqi Kurdistan before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, when almost all of them went to Israel.

Kurds claim to be descendents of the Medes, though a number of historians do not share this belief. They also attest to be descendents of the Karduchi, Kardu and Gutu mentioned by the Greek writer, Xenophon, in his Anabasis, wherein he related the epic of the retreat of the ten thousand Greek soldiers in 401 B.C. Xenophon tells of the hardships they faced in fighting the Karduchi (Randal 1997, p.21).

In the 16th century, Kurdistan was a battlefield of recurrent wars between the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Shi’ait Empire of Iran. The war ended with the victory of the Ottoman Empire at the battle of Childeran in 1514 with the support of Sunni Kurds tribes. The fighting of the two empires ended with signing the treaty of Zuhab in 1639 slicing Kurdistan into two parts: one under the domination of Iran and the other under the Ottoman Empire. The delineated borderline remained unchanged until the present time.

PART ONE

KURDISTAN OF TURKEY

KURDISTAN OF TURKEY

I. Kurds under Ottoman domination

After the battle of Childeran, the Ottomans signed a pact with the Kurdish tribal leaders granting them sixteen semi-independent Kurdish principalities of various sizes together with fifty military headquarters, known as Sanjaq.

The Kurdish princes consolidated their power by appointing guards for their personal protection and protection of the principality. Administrators were also appointed to help running the principality. The Kurdish princes made no attempt to form an alliance to enable them withstand the demands of the Empire.

Before World War I (1914), Kurds rebelled several times against Ottoman hegemony. The following are some of these revolts:

1. The Baban Revolt

This revolt started in 1806 in the principality of Baban, one of the sixteen principalities awarded to the Kurds after the victory of the Ottomans in the Battle of Childeran. The princes of Baban were quite ambitious and excellent fighters. When Baban prince Ibrahim Pasha died, the Ottoman authorities wanted to appoint a non-Baban prince; this angered the Baban family and they refused the Ottoman-appointed prince. Fighting broke out between the Babans’ army and the Ottomans. The war lasted three years, but eventually they were defeated and fled to Iran.

2. Revolt of Mir Mohammed of Soran

In 1814, Mir Mohammed of Soran ruled the Soran principality. An ambitious young man, he attempted to put Kurdistan under his control and create an independent Kurdistan. The Mir formed a well-trained and well-equipped army. He built small factories in his capital city Rawandoz, to produce a variety of arms and more than 200 cannon were made. With this army, he controlled all of the Soran and Bahdinan areas. In 1833, the Mir occupied Aqra, Zakho, Duhok, and Amadiya. The Ottomans were aware of Mir Mohammed’s operations, but waited to gather enough forces to send an army to attack him in 1834. In 1836, the Mir withdrew to Rawandoz. The Ottoman leaders used particular religious sayings to delude the ordinary fighters of the Mir to stop fighting the Leader of the Islamic Umma. The Kurdish mullahs were thus persuaded to issue a religious ‘fatwa’ calling on Mir Mohammed to stop fighting the Caliph of Islam and go to Istanbul and pay homage and allegiance to the Sultan. The Mir had no option but to discontinue fighting, because the ‘fatwa’ decreed that whoever disobeys the Sultan would be cursed by God and killed as an unbeliever. The Mir did not want to die as an aetheist and duly went to Istanbul. He was assassinated on his way back.

3. Badir Khan Revolt

The Badir Khan revolt of 1837 was expected to liberate all Kurdistan from Ottoman rule. Badir Khan was chief of the Bokhti tribe in the Jazira district and was prince of the principality. He formed a well-organized army and established a relationship with the prince of Hakkari. He started his revolt in 1837 and by 1840, he controlled all of Ottoman Kurdistan. His war with the empire went on until 1847 when his nephew, Yazdan Shehr, commander of the eastern front, defected to the Turkish side. Badir Khan finally surrendered and was exiled to Crete, and later deported to Damascus where he died in 1868. His nephew’s fate was no different from that of his uncle. He revolted against the Emir in 1855 and within months, he extended his control over an area from Baghdad to Lake Van. He was finally tricked into going to Istanbul for negotiations with the Sultan, but was arrested as soon as he arrived. His army dispersed when their leader did not come back and the revolt came to an end.

4. Sheikh Obeidullah Nehri Revolt

This revolt started in 1880 and involved Kurdish areas in both the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Sheikh Obeidullah, a religious leader and head of the ‘Naqishbandi Fraternity’, led the revolt and succeeded in establishing his influence in the following Kurdish areas of Iran: Sablakh (Mahabad), Myanduwa, and Marga and came near Tabriz, which he did not occupy because Kurdish fighters were busy looting and stealing. The speedy occupation of large areas by the Sheikh frightened both the Persians and the Ottomans. The Ottomans sent their army and encircled the Sheikh’s fighters. The Sheikh had to order his men to retreat and evacuate the areas occupied in Iran. The Ottoman Sultan took him to Istanbul, but he managed to escape, only to be captured and exiled with his family to Mecca in October 1882.

Before World War I, the Ottomans controlled vast areas of Europe, Asia, and Africa where the people were ethnically, culturally, and linguistically different from the Turks; but at the beginning of the twentieth century, only Mesopotamia and the Arab Peninsula remained under the Ottoman hegemony, all the other colonies were liberated. The people in those areas are described as ethnic categories, that is, populations having little self-awareness, or only a dim consciousness that they form ‘separate ethnic collectivities’ (Smith 1991, p.21). Smith says that before 1900, even the Turks in Anatolia were largely unaware of having a ‘Turkish identity’ separate from the dominant ‘overarching Islamic identity’. The same can be said of Kurds and Arabs who were part of the overarching Islamic identity.

The Ottoman Empire, like all other Empires, exercised little centralized control over its’ subjects. They only demanded political loyalty from their diverse colonies but made no demands on their cultural and linguistic identity (May 2001 p.65). During the life of the Empire, the various non-Turkish populations were left free to use their own languages, but Turkish was the language of all government functions at the state level.

The young educated Kurds were mainly in Istanbul. They joined educational institutions and colleges to qualify for government jobs. Some joined the military academy and became army officers. These Kurds formed the core of Kurds’ elite in Turkey. They were mainly offsprings of Kurdish aristocrats, tribal lords, and leaders (Kendal 1993, p.26ff). These individuals stressed their national identity, formed Kurdish clubs and associations, and published Kurdish journals as well, both legally and in secret. Madhat Badir Khan, a young member of this Kurdish elite, published the first Kurdish bilingual journal, ‘Kurdistan’, in Cairo in 1898. This publication dealt mainly with cultural and educational issues. Its place of publication changed frequently; it moved from Cairo to Geneva; then to London and Folkestone. The place of publication depended on the political circumstances of its editor.

The weakness of the Empire and the corruption of the administration paved the way for intellectual and liberal Turks to form political associations and parties. One of these political parties was the ‘Young Turks’ that succeeded in changing the government in 1908.

The Young Turks and the Kurds

The Young Turks, a group of nationalist Turks who revolted in July 1908, and seized power in Turkey. Kurdish social organizations supported the revolt and Kurdistan newspapers began to appear in Istanbul. The Young Turks permitted Kurdish organizations to exercise publically their national activities as their leaders, from the outset, fully supported the new regime in the hope that the national demands of the Kurdish people would be met (Ibid. p.27). At the beginning, the new regime encouraged some Kurdish intellectuals to constitute Kurdish associations such as Taali we Terakii Kurdistan (Development and Progress of Kurdistan) and publish a Kurdish language journal Kurt Teavun we Teraki Gazette (Kurdish Cooperation and Progress Gazette), which published articles about Kurdish language and culture. Several other associations and publications appeared, such as the Kurt Nechri Maarif Djemiyeti (Kurdish Education Society) and the Hetawe Kurd (Kurdish Sun) newspaper.

All of these associations and publications appeared in Istanbul, while in areas of Kurdistan itself, young militants formed Kurdish clubs, such as Kurt Kulupleri, formed in Kurdish urban centres like Diyarbekir, Bitlis, Erzarum and Mus. These clubs signalled the advent of organized political movement in Kurdistan… and formation of modern political organizations (Ibid. p.28).

Rise of Turkish Nationalism

The Turkish military group that seized power in 1908 began together with intellectuals Turks to spread Turkish national identity. In this connection, William Cleveland (2000, p.136) says: "The formation of the Turkish Cultural Club in Istanbul in 1912 and its association with the national journal, Turk urdu (Turkish Homeland), aided the transformation of Turkish national identity; the once pejorative word, Turk, was transformed into a positive force of cultural identity. Ziya Gokalp, the leading spokesman for the Turkish National Language, described Turkish as the essence of Nationality. In his book, ‘The Principles of Turkism’ published in 1920, wrote: A nation is a group of individuals who share a common language… and who have received the same education".

Gokalp separated the Turks from all non-Turks, creating a Turkish national identity awareness that had not existed before. He initiated the movement of Turkish Language Nationalism which Ataturk adopted and started purifying the Turkish language of its very large number of vocabulary items and phrased that were borrowed from Arabic and Persian languages.

It seems that Gokalp has been influenced by eighteenth-

century German writers, Herder, Humboldt and Fichte, who advocated the tenet of Linguistic Nationalism and key of the political principle summarized as ‘One state, One Nation and One language’. It is this nationalist ideology Ataturk adopted from the beginning of the establishment of the Turkish Republic. This was later adopted by the Arab nationalist states in Iraq, Syria, and also in Iran.

Kurdish relations with the Young Turks’ regime started to sour, in spite of the support of the Kurds for the new power. The Young Turks’ liberal policies proved deceptive, for as soon as the new regime became strong enough they felt that there was no need for the support of the Kurds and the other non-Turkish elites, particularly after overthrowing Sultan Abduhamid II in 1909.

With the growth of Turkish Nationalism, the Young Turks closed all non-Turkish schools, and banned all non-Turkish associations, and clubs. Publication of non-Turkish journals was inhibited. Non-Turkish political activists were imprisoned, and Kurds national activists in Kurdish associations and clubs were arrested and imprisoned. This signalled the new policy of the Turkish nationalist rulers who had no room for non-Turkish national communities.

Gokalp’s nationalist trend was preceded in 1887 by Namik Kemal, ‘Poet of Liberty’, an extreme nationalist who wrote: We must annihilate all languages in our country except Turkish (Mango 2000, p.537), that is, he called for establishing a nation-state, signifying a political entity comprising a single homogeneous nation of only Turks and speak only Turkish.

Ataturk shared the views of Namik Kemal and Ziya Gokalp and adopted the national theory they called for when he came to power. Ataturk immediately started the policy of One Language, ‘Turkish’ and One Nation, that is assimilating non-Turkish communities and even annihilating them when necessary, and One Turkish Nation-state. This policy is known as the ‘Ataturk Legacy’, and it continued to be practised by all successive Turkish governments until the end of the twentieth century. I will come later on, to ‘Ataturk’s policy’ and how it was practised against the Kurds.

The Young Turks’ policy was a combination of Nationalism, Islamism, and Modernism. Although Turkism was not a coherent ideology before World War I, Turkish cultural heritage—as distinct from the Islamic Ottoman principle—spread easily sowing the seeds for a full-blown Turkish chauvinistic national movement in the post-war era (William Cleveland, p.136 ff).

Fall of the Ottoman Empire

The Turkish nationalist movement had a disastrous impact on the Ottoman Empire system and on the system of its government. In January 1914, the power of the Sultan and Grand Vizier were reduced to insignificance by the powerful military triumvirates: Enver Pasha, Ahmed Jemal, and Medhat Talat, who dragged the Empire into the First World War on the German side. By autumn 1918, the war ended with the defeat of Turkey,