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 Routledge Handbook
on the Kurds

With an estimated population of over 30 million, the Kurds are the largest stateless nation
in the world. They are becoming increasingly important within regional and international
geopolitics, particularly since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and the war in Syria.
This multidisciplinary Handbook provides a definitive overview of a range of themes
within Kurdish studies. Topics covered include:

• Kurdish studies in the United States and Europe

• Early Kurdish history
• Kurdish culture, literature and cinema
• Economic dimensions
• Religion
• Geography and travel
• Kurdish women
• The Kurdish situation in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran
• The Kurdish diaspora.

With a wide range of contributions from many leading academic experts, this Handbook
will be a vital resource for students and scholars of Kurdish studies and Middle Eastern
studies.

Michael M. Gunter is a Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological Uni-

versity and the Secretary-General of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC), head-
quartered in Brussels. He is the author or editor of 15 scholarly books on the Kurdish and
Armenian issues as well as over 100 peer-reviewed scholarly articles.
Routledge Handbook
on the Kurds

Edited by Michael M. Gunter

 First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Michael M. Gunter; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Michael M. Gunter to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gunter, Michael M., editor.
Title: Routledge handbook on the Kurds / edited by Michael M. Gunter.
Other titles: Handbook on the Kurds
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon;
New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018011588 | ISBN 9781138646643 (hbk) |
ISBN 9781315627427 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Kurds—Politics and government. | Kurds—History.
Classification: LCC DS59.K86 R658 2019 | DDC 956.6/7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011588

ISBN: 978-1-138-64664-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-62742-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
To my wife Judy who has loved and supported
me for more than half a century
 CONTENTS

List of maps xi

Introduction 1
Michael M. Gunter

Part I
Kurdish studies 11

1 Kurdish studies in the United States 13

Michael M. Gunter

2 Kurdish studies in Europe 22

Vera Eccarius-Kelly

Part II
Early Kurdish history 35

3 The Kurdish emirates: Obstacles or precursors to Kurdish nationalism? 37

Michael Eppel

4 An overview of Kurdistan of the 19th century 48

Hamit Bozarslan

5 The development of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey from

Mahmud II to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 62
Ahmet Serdar Akturk

vii
 Contents

Part III
Kurdish culture 77

6 Ehmedê Xanî’s Mem û Zîn: The consecration of a Kurdish

national epic 79
Michiel Leezenberg

7 Classical and modern Kurdish literature 90

Hashem Ahmadzadeh

8 Calibrating Kurmanji and Sorani: Proposal for a methodology 104

Michael L. Chyet

9 Kurdish cinema 110

Bahar Şimşek

Part IV
Economic dimensions 125

10 The oil imperative in the KRG 127

David Romano

11 De-development in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia 139

Veli Yadirgi

Part V
Religion 157

12 Islam and the Kurds 159

Mehmet Gurses

13 The inadequate Islamic grappling with the Kurdish issue 169

Christopher Houston

14 The Jewish communities in Kurdistan within the tribal

Kurdish society 181
Mordechai Zaken

15 Yezidi baptism and rebaptism: Resilience, reintegration, and religious

adaptation 202
Tyler Fisher and Nahro Zagros

viii
 Contents

Part VI
Geography and travel 215

16 The geopolitics of the Kurds since World War I: Between Iraq and
other hard places 217
Michael B. Bishku

17 Roaming Iraqi Kurdistan 228

Stafford Clarry

Part VII
Women 237

18 Kurdish women 239

Anna Grabolle-Çeliker

Part VIII
The Kurdish situation in Turkey 257

19 The rise of the pro-Kurdish democratic movement in Turkey 259

Cengiz Gunes

20 The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdish political parties

in the 1970s 270
Joost Jongerden and Ahmet Hamdi Akkaya

21 Turkey’s Kurdish complexes and its Syrian quagmire 282

Bill Park

Part IX
The Kurdish situation in Iraq 297

22 The state we’re in: Postcolonial sequestration and the Kurdish quest
for independence since the First World War 299
Francis Owtram

23 The disputed territories of Northern Iraq: ISIS and beyond 318

Liam Anderson

24 The continuing problem of KRG corruption 329

Michael Rubin

ix
 Contents

25 The Russian historical and political approach towards

nonconventional independence of Iraqi Kurdistan 341
Kirill V. Vertyaev

Part X
The Kurdish situation in Syria 355

26 The Kurdish PYD and the Syrian Civil War 357

Eva Savelsberg

27 The evolution of Kurdish struggle in Syria: Between Pan-Kurdism

and Syrianization, 1920–2016 366
Jordi Tejel

28 The roots of democratic autonomy in Northern Syria—Rojava 382

Michael Knapp

Part XI
Iran 397

29 Iran and the Kurds 399

Nader Entessar

Part XII
The Kurdish diaspora 411

30 The future of the Kurdish diaspora 413

Östen Wahlbeck

31 Diasporic conceptions of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq 425

Barzoo Eliassi

32 The Kurds in Germany 439

Vera Eccarius-Kelly

33 The Kurdish diaspora in the UK 451

Desmond Fernandes

Notes on contributors 465

Index 471

x
 Maps

I.1 Cities and towns in Upper Kurdistan 8

I.2 Demographic distribution of Kurds in Middle East: 1996 9
I.3 Cities and towns in Lower Kurdistan 10

xi
 Introduction
Michael M. Gunter

Given the increasing importance of the Kurds in regional and international relations
writ large, there is a strong need for this multidisciplinary Handbook of more than
30 chapters that would seek to be a definitive overview of as much of Kurdish Studies as
possible. The present purview includes emerging and cutting-edge areas, such as Kurdish
cinema, literature, and travel, as well as more time-honored subjects, such as history;
politics; religion; women; and country-specific analyses regarding Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and
Iran, among others. Further chapters on corruption and nepotism in Iraqi Kurdistan, plus a
contribution from an esteemed Russian scholar also largely novel to Kurdish Studies in the
West, also appear. Two detailed bibliographic chapters on Kurdish Studies in the United
States and Europe begin the collection and present the reader with an introduction to the
wide panorama of the many authors and institutions now engaged in this burgeoning field.
Although these chapters are for the most part penned by academic scholars and contain
reams of arcane details elaborating on important general themes, the Handbook is written
for the intelligent lay public as well as scholars and governmental practitioners. Although
each chapter covers a distinct subject, they still speak to each other and, taken as a whole,
present the reader with a valuable overview.
The Handbook’s compiler and editor opens this study with a bibliographic chapter on
Kurdish Studies in the United States. Although the United States is about as far away from
Kurdistan as is geographically possible, surprisingly, it has a well-established tradition of
Kurdish Studies. Indeed, as long ago as April 1928, Sureya Bedirkhan—one of the three fa-
mous grandsons of the legendary mir of the emirate of Botan, Bedir Khan Beg (1800c.–1868)—
journeyed to Detroit, Michigan, to mobilize the Kurdish community in that famous
­automobile capital in support of Khoybun’s Ararat Revolt against Turkey. Surely, Bedir
Khan only made this trip because there was a politically active Kurdish community there to
receive him. Little known to even Kurdish scholars, William O. Douglas—the famous and
longest-serving Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1939 until his
retirement in 1975—visited Kurdistan in the summers of 1949 and 1950 as part of a much
larger trip to the Middle East. He shared his impressions of the Kurds and concluded that
“Independence Is Preferred,” the title of one of the chapters in a book that recorded his
overall trip and a predilection that still prevails, despite continuing frustrations and setbacks.
Dana Adams Schmidt, for many years a foreign correspondent for the New York Times,

1
 Michael M. Gunter

spent 46 days with the Iraqi Kurds in 1962 (the climax of which was some 10 days
with Mulla Mustafa Barzani), concluding that the Kurds were “the fightingest people in
the Middle East.”
Vera Eccarius-Kelly follows with a wide-ranging survey of Kurdish Studies in Europe,
where the field is older and possesses more practitioners. Her chapter reviews the emer-
gence of clusters of scholarly communities that are focused on resisting political pressures
from outside of Europe to silence their academic contributions or to frame their work as
ideologically tarnished. Organizationally, her chapter offers several subsections to examine
Kurdish Studies in the context of (a) historical developments, (b) fluctuating geographic
and linguistic challenges, and (c) the rise of ethno-national politics. In all areas, scholars
involved with Kurdish Studies have faced tremendous barriers yet managed to prevail by
pursuing innovative scholarly projects and networks. Despite the reemergence of con-
straints related to emergency measures in various parts of Kurdistan, the larger field of
Kurdish Studies in Europe looks promising. It is deeply rooted within numerous Euro-
pean institutions and increasingly recognized through newly formed centers of scholarly
excellence.
Part II covers early Kurdish history. Michael Eppel examines the former Kurdish emir-
ates or principalities of the premodern era, such as Hakkari, Soran, Baban, Ardalan, Bitlis,
Cizire, and Bahdinan, among many others. His chapter puts the lie to the frequently made
disparaging claim that the Kurds have never had any institutions mirroring independent
states. Hamit Bozarslan presents an overview of 19th-century Kurdistan, which he terms
the “long century” because of how it was marked by violent discontinuities, conflicts, and
re-structuration. Ahmet Serdar Akturk then views the development of the Kurdish national
movement in Turkey from Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) to Ataturk (the founder of
modern Turkey). Akturk argues that the modern history of the Kurds in the Ottoman Em-
pire dates back to the 1830s, when the Ottoman central government began to abolish the
autonomous Kurdish hereditary emirates that had been ruling Ottoman Kurdistan since the
early 16th century.
Part III deals with various aspects of Kurdish culture. Michiel Leezenberg reflects on
how more than any other work, Ehmedê Xanî’s Mem û Zîn, a mystical romance or mathnawî
poem in 2,655 bayts, or distichs, written in Kurmancî or Northern Kurdish, symbolizes
and reflects the Kurds’ aspirations toward liberation and national independence. This story
of two tragic lovers who are not allowed to marry in life and who—despite being buried
together—remain separated by a thornbush, even in death, is usually seen as an allegory of
the division of Kurdish society by outside forces and of the Kurds’ inability to unite among
themselves. Hashem Ahmadzadeh discusses classical and modern Kurdish literature. By
comparing these periods, he shows how the modern period and the rise of nation-states
have caused division in the content and mission of Kurdish literature. He concludes by illus-
trating that there is a clear relationship between the political situation and the flourishing of
Kurdish literature. Michael L. Chyet writes that, although he is not a proponent of combin-
ing Kurmanji and Sorani into one hybrid language, there are ways that the two dialects can
be brought closer together. This may be considered an important step in nation-building
as well as a pedagogical tool in teaching Kurdish, both to native speakers and to foreigners.
In situations where one dialect presents multiple forms to choose from, the forms that exist
in the other dialect should be considered in order to calibrate the dialects, that is, to bring
them closer together. Finally, in her chapter on Kurdish cinema, Bahar Simsek maintains
that central to modern art forms, cinema has long been inseparable from discussions of

2
 Introduction

nationalism and popular culture. The definition of a national cinema has emerged as a dis-
cursive tool in the hands of both hegemonic (nation-state) politics and counter-hegemonic
(anti-colonial) politics.
In Part IV, two enlightening chapters delve into the economic dimensions of the Kurd-
ish experience. David Romano reminds us that just like the state of Iraq, the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) functions as a rentier economy—meaning that the large
majority of government (including regional government) revenues come from an outside
source (oil or budget transfers from Baghdad, the funds for which are also earned from
oil) and flow directly to government coffers rather than coming from taxation or other
forms of levies upon the population and its activities. Romano then goes on to exam-
ine the consequences of this curse of oil. Employing unpublished and published primary
documents from British archival sources, published Turkish-/English-language primary
sources, interviews, and a large number of secondary sources, Veli Yadirgi traces the polit-
ical economic history of the Kurdish provinces of Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia (ESA)
from Ottoman times to the present. In so doing, he deconstructs the generally accepted
thesis that the autochthonous, feudalistic tribal structure and resulting primitive economic
conditions basically caused the backward economic underdevelopment/de-development
that continues to retard economic progress in ESA and plays such a huge role in Turkey’s
Kurdish question.
Part V deals with religion. Mehmet Gurses examines the role that Islam has played in the
assimilation of Kurdish culture into the more dominant Turkish, Arab, or Persian identities
of the controlling states. He contends that the armed conflict between the Kurds and the
hegemonic states in which they reside has resulted in Islam’s decline in Kurdish identity.
Based on recent events, Christopher Houston concludes that there is a major split between
Kurdish and Turkish Muslims in Turkey on the causes and solution to the Kurdish issue.
Thus, as long as Islamist discourse, in the name of an overt Islamic and covert Turkish
identity, continues to deny Kurdish Muslims the legitimacy and necessity of political mobi-
lization based on a defense of Kurdish ethnicity, this tension will fester. Mordechai (Moti)
Zaken reviews in fascinating detail the long history of Jewish communities within the tribal
Kurdish society, from their reputed origin as exiles by the king of Assyria, as mentioned
in the Bible, to their final mass immigration to Israel following the creation of the Jewish
state in 1948. Based on their recent field work, Tyler Fisher and Nahro Zagros analyze the
esoteric rituals of Yezidi baptism. Given the genocidal Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
attack upon them in the summer of 2014, the Yezidis have transferred from being little
more than an obscure footnote in regional history to the subject of important security and
humanitarian initiatives.
Part VI deals with geography and travel. Michael Bishku reviews the difficult and
changing geopolitics of the Kurds since World War I. He subtitles his thoughts as be-
tween Iraq and other hard places, which, given Baghdad’s occupation of Kirkuk and other
disputed territories in October 2017, seems particularly appropriate. In his chapter on
roaming Iraqi Kurdistan, Stafford Clarry muses how traveling to and through any country
is often about confronting expectations with the personal experience of meeting reality:
flat, desert, hot, dry, or violent. Despite the Middle East’s persistent image of pervasive
violence, there are extensive areas that are safe and secure; easily accessible and warmly
welcoming; unhesitatingly friendly and hospitable; and freezing cold in winter, with rug-
ged snowy mountains, and lusciously green in spring, with wildflowers everywhere, with
deep canyons and lakes, and with flowing waterfalls, rivers, and streams. Iraqi Kurdistan,

3
 Michael M. Gunter

a major part of northern Iraq, is one such area. Touch wood, no American nor any other
Westerner has been fatally harmed in Iraqi Kurdistan during the 2003 Iraq War and its
aftermath to date.
In Part VII, Anna Grabolle-Çeliker cautions that such terms as Kurdish women are
generalizations that, as will be obvious from other chapters in this Handbook, need to
be tempered by considerations of a variety in terms of language, geography, and social
class. Nevertheless, as women and members of a nation without a state, they have faced
double discrimination, gender based and ethnicity based, in the countries they live in.
Politically, the concept of gender equity and co-chairmanship has become established in
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish parties and in Northern Syria. This has attracted world attention
and will, no doubt, inspire Kurdish women activists elsewhere to fight for similar rights.
Whether or not the Kurdish movements in different countries move beyond token ges-
tures in their gender politics depends also on the pressure these movements face from
the state.
The next four parts deal with country specific chapters. Part VIII presents three chapters
on the Kurdish situation in Turkey. Cengiz Gunes discusses the rise of the pro-Kurdish
movement since 1990 and what factors have enabled its success in a number of local and
national elections since 2014. He first provides an account of the organizational development
and growth of the movement from its foundation in 1990 to the end of 2012, when the cur-
rent pro-Kurdish political party, the HDP (Peoples Democratic Party), was established. This
section also broadly discusses the political demands raised by the pro-Kurdish parties and
their proposals to reform the existing political framework to recognize ethnic and cultural
identities and difference in Turkey, and examines the attempts by the pro-Kurdish political
parties to build a greater coalition of pro-democracy forces. The second section discusses the
formation of the HDP and highlights the key political demands it articulates and its notions
of democracy and pluralism. The final section discusses the factors behind the HDP’s elec-
toral breakthrough in the 2015 general elections.
Joost Jongerden and Ahmet Hamdi Akkaya consider the formation and disintegration of
Kurdish national political parties in the period between two coups in Turkey: the March
12, 1971, coup and the September 12, 1980, coup. After the coup of 1971, a regrouping
took place in which we can see a (first) separation between the Turkish left and Kurdish
organizations, with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) emerging from a grouping within
the left Ankara Democratic Higher Education Association (ADYÖD) and other Kurdish
organizations emerging from a Kurdish grouping outside the left Revolutionary Democratic
Cultural Associations (DDKD). However, the Kurdish organizations were prone to mirror-
ing the tensions and conflicts of orthodoxy and resulting sectarianism of the left in Turkey,
with splits over the question of who represented the true path to socialism, the Soviet Union
or China (or Albania), which were further deepened by various splits within these currents,
notably the split over the Maoist Three Worlds Theory.
Finally, Bill Park analyzes Turkey’s Kurdish complexes and its Syrian quagmire. Not-
withstanding the relatively harmonious relationships Ankara has eventually been able to
develop with at least part of the KRG leadership, Turkey has generally chosen to present
itself as opposed to Kurdish demands for self-determination throughout the region, largely
because of its own sense of vulnerability, deriving from the failure to constructively ap-
proach its own Kurdish problem. Given the generally harmonious relationships that existed
between Turks and Kurds up to the very formation of the Republic, it did not have to be
this way. Turkey could have evolved as the champion of Kurdish rights throughout the

4
 Introduction

region or at least as willing to accommodate them. Instead, it is now doomed to oppose

federal arrangements in Syria, and perhaps in Iraq too, that surely represent the best way
forward for these two troubled neighbors. The problem is at least as much a Turkish one as
a Kurdish one.
Part IX examines the scenario in Iraq where 2017 began as the year when it seemed
possible that the KRG might actually become independent but ended in the disastrous after-
math of the September 25 advisory referendum. Kirkuk was lost as well as other perquisites,
such as usage of its two international airports and control of its border gates, among others.
Kurdish disunity, the failure to build genuine institutions of government, and active foreign
opposition cursed the hope for independence. Once again, the Iraqi Kurds were reminded
of the ancient Peloponnesian War’s Melian dialogue that “the powerful exact what they can
and the weak grant what they must.” Or, as Henry Kissinger more recently put it, “Covert
activity should not be confused with missionary work.”
Francis Owtram mainly analyzes the pattern of resistance to the situation the Kurds have
found themselves in as a result of the Sykes-Picot Agreement during World War I, using the
late Fred Halliday’s framework of “the syndrome of post-colonial sequestration” or being
legally possessed by another. Owtram synthesizes this with the relevant role of oil and con-
siders the disaster following the advisory referendum on Iraqi Kurdish independence held
on September 25, 2017. This stunning Kurdish failure “cruelly exposed” the “limitations of
a polity organized around family-dominated politics and militias.” Liam Anderson focuses
on the disputed territories—a broad swathe of resource-rich land stretching across northern
Iraq from Sinjar on the Syrian border down to Mandali on the Iranian border—where Iraq’s
Arab, Kurdish, and Turkmen populations coincide. At the heart of the territories, both geo-
graphically and symbolically, lies the contested, oil-rich governorate (and city) of Kirkuk.
Though claimed as the heart of Kurdistan by Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, it is clear
that Kirkuk’s sizable Arab and Turkmen populations reject these claims and are opposed to
being (as they see it) annexed to the Kurdistan Region. Twice since ISIS’s attack against Iraq
in June 2014, these disputed territories have changed hands between Baghdad and Irbil ( June
2014 and October 2017), while the constitutionally prescribed road to resolving the issue
through Article 140 has ground to a halt.
Michael Rubin boldly reviews the continuing controversial problems of KRG corruption
and nepotism. Although this subject has won him few fans among the Kurds, the KRG’s
quick collapse in Kirkuk in October 2017 suggests that Rubin’s litany of complaints should
be thoroughly examined and dealt with for the KRG’s own good. Continuing in the tradi-
tion of such famous, earlier Russian authorities on the Kurds as Vladimir Minorsky, Kirill
V. Vertyaev offers a unique Russian perspective on his country’s historical and political
approach toward putative Iraqi Kurdish independence. He concludes that Russia’s official
position is “not only spicy but also ambiguous.” On the one hand, this position, voiced by
both the Russian Foreign Ministry and the President, boils down to a simple statement that
the issue of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan is an internal affair of Iraq and must be resolved
within the constitutional norms of this state. On the other hand, active participation in the
exploration and extraction of oil and gas in the Kurdistan Region by such Russian giants
as “Rosneft” and “Gazpromneft” indicates that these largely risky venture deals concluded
with the Regional Government of Iraqi Kurdistan may well be a significant investment into
the economy of a future independent Kurdish state. In other words, Moscow “sits between
two chairs” by supporting Iraq’s territorial integrity while recognizing the aspirations of the
Kurds for a homeland.

5
 Michael M. Gunter

Part X deals with war-devastated Syria and Rojava, its Kurdish region. Eva Savels-
berg argues that the Democratic Union Party (PYD) is thus far one of the few winners
in this Hobbesian war of all against all. Until the beginning of the protests in 2011, the
PYD was not only the party with the most sympathizers in Syrian prisons: its members
were also, as a rule, sentenced to longer prison terms than the members of other Kurdish
parties and were systematically subjected to torture. Since then, however, the balance
of power has shifted in favor of this party, which is currently ruling the predominantly
Kurdish regions and beyond. The PYD or rather its military wing, the People’s Defense
Forces (YPG), is not only armed by the United States but has, at the same time, good
relations with Russia. Staffan de Mistura, the special United Nations envoy tasked with
seeking peace in Syria, would like to have the PYD at the negotiation table in Geneva,
and the relationship with the Assad regime is that of a more or less “hidden” cooperation.
Savelsberg analyzes why the PYD is so successful—and how sustainable this development
will be.
Jordi Tejel adds that if cross-border cooperation between all Kurdish regions in the Mid-
dle East is a common feature, the pervasiveness of cross-border ties between Syrian Kurds,
on the one hand, and Turkish and Iraqi Kurds, on the other, is particularly noteworthy. It
responds to some singularities, such as a relatively small Kurdish population in Syria com-
pared to those in Turkey and Iraq, geographical separation of the three Kurdish enclaves
in Northern Syria, and a clear connection between the emergence of a Kurdish nationalist
movement in Syria and the arrival of dozens of intellectuals and activists from Turkey to the
Levant between the 1920s and 1930s.
Continuing with Syria, Michael Knapp looks at the roots of democratic autonomy in
Rojava. The conflict in Syria might be portrayed in a simplistic, geopolitical manner as one
between Russian and United States interests, along with those of their allies. Yet this became
part of the picture dominated until recently almost entirely by the cruelty of the so-called
Islamic State (ISIS). While the conflict had its geopolitical background, the war was fought
along sectarian and ethnic divisions. With its Neo-Ottoman policy, Turkey tried to play
out Sunnism in its gamble for power, while Iran, Syria, and Iraq used Shiite identity as a
political leverage. Against this divisive policy, the multicultural and multireligious Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF)—composed of Arabs, Suryoye, Turkmens, Kurds, and numerous
supporters from all over the world—formed a counterpoint of radical togetherness distin-
guished by female leaders like Cîhan Şêx Ehmed, a commander of the Women’s Defense
Units (YPJ), which is intertwined with the presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
and its ideological development in the region.
In the one chapter on Iran in Part XI, Nader Entessar surveys events from the days
of the short-lived Mahabad Republic in 1946 to the current situation under President
Hassan Rouhani, who was reelected to the office in May 2017. Although Rouhani’s election
initially disappointed the Kurds, there is now renewed hope that he will yet prove to be a
reformer by highlighting Iran’s multiethnic nature and viewing it as a point of strength, not
a threat.
Part XII, the final section, deals with the burgeoning Kurdish diaspora. Osten Wahlbeck
notes how large numbers of refugees have been forced to flee Kurdistan since the 1960s, with
the largest communities found in Europe, especially in Germany. However, these communi-
ties continue to be characterized by the various political developments in Kurdistan, includ-
ing wars, genocide, and forced migration, that have occurred in the Kurdish regions in Iran,
Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. The successive waves of Kurdish political refugees that have arrived

6
 Introduction

in the Kurdish diaspora have significantly influenced the processes of community formation
and social integration throughout the diaspora.
Barzoo Eliassi explains that the concept of diaspora offers an important perspective on
how different migrant groups experience dislocation and relate to the country of settlement
and origin. The questions of movement, connectivity, and return are accordingly central to
diasporic identity formation. Diasporas are not homogenous, and their members often hold
different or conflicting views on the political order of their country of origin due to their
social locations, based on gender, ethnic, and religious identity; political party affiliation;
ideological orientations; class; and generation.
Vera Eccarius-Kelly describes how Kurdish communities in Germany are heteroge-
neous in terms of their geographic and regional origins, their tribal heritage, their edu-
cational attainment over time, and their religious affiliations. The vast majority of Kurds
in Germany came from impoverished southeastern provinces of Turkey during the 1960s
and 1970s, but many also departed urban environments in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara
following the military coup in 1980. About 85 percent of the Kurds in Germany continue
to have family connections in Turkey. The majority of Kurds in Germany are Sunni, but
significant communities identify as Alevi, Zaza/Dimili, or Yezidi, or belong to other
groups.
Desmond Fernandes analyzes the Kurdish diaspora in the United Kingdom. He notes
how several scholars have debated the diaspora definitions and concepts as they relate to
Kurds in the United Kingdom, and in the past 8 years, in particular, there has been a pro-
liferation of academic articles focusing upon various aspects of the Kurdish diaspora in the
United Kingdom. It is clear that as the diaspora establishes itself in the United Kingdom,
many Kurds will continue to harbor a sense of “transnational belonging” and will continue
to socially and politically organize through “transnational social spaces” and organizations.
Unless there is a marked change in British politics, Kurdish communities will continue to be
subjected to various forms of “othering” and criminalization.
In editing all these contributions, I have endeavored to let these accomplished scholars
speak for themselves rather than trying to hold them to one strict, confining order. Of
course, given the wide-ranging scholarly traditions these authors represent, one editorial
style for all the succeeding chapters would have been virtually impossible to implement. In
addition, standardization of Middle Eastern spellings would have been tiresomely pedan-
tic, given so many scholarly variations and opinions. Thus, there are a variety of editorial
schemes and spellings in the succeeding chapters. This heterogeneity speaks to the richness
of Kurdish Studies and the international attention it now enjoys, and which is being rep-
resented in this Handbook. Of course, each individual chapter does adhere internally to
one consistent stylistic standard. Finally, of course, any resulting errors in all this are my
fault alone.

7
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