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War and Peace in Kurdistan: Perspectives for a political solution of the Kurdish question is a pamphlet by Abdullah Öcalan published in 2008.

Summary

Öcalan discusses many aspects of the Kurdish people. From their language and history to their subjugation. Öcalan writes about the use of 'tools' by hegemonic powers to maintain their legitimacy after the colonialism of western powers such as 'Assimilation' and 'Nationalism'.

Contents

Etymology of the words Kurd and Kurdistan

According to Öcalan, the word Kurdistan originates from the Sumerian word kur which was synonymous with the word 'mountain' some 5000 years ago. It's suffix ti stood for affiliation. As a result, the word Kurti came to mean mountain people. According to Öcalan, "The Luwians, a people settling in western Anatolia about 3,000 years ago, called Kurdistan Gondwana, which meant land of the villages in their language. In Kurdish, gond is still the word for village. During the reign of Assure the Kurds were called Nairi, which meant as much as people by the river." During the reign of the Arab sultanates, the Kurdish regions were called beled ekrad. The first people to use the word 'Kurdistan' were the Seljuk Sultans who spoke Persian. The Ottoman Sultanate used the term 'Kurdistan' too until the 1920's at which point the identity of the Kurds was denied, primarily in Turkey.

Kurdish settlement area and Kurdish language

Kurdish regions are rich in mountains, water and fertile plains. Due to its mountainous geographical position, the geography protected the Kurds but it too exposed the Kurds due to its land-locked surroundings. The Kurdish language is believed to have developed in the Zagros Mountains and Taurus Mountains. Kurdish is under the Indo-European language family.

A short outline of Kurdish history 

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Struggles for resources, war and state terror in Kurdistan

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European colonialism and the Kurdish dilemma

Öcalan believes the European intervention of the Middle East in the 20th century grew increasingly Colonialist. This brought forth a new kind of Colonialism for the Kurds to deal with in distinction to the kind they were already facing. According to Öcalan, the western powers deemed it to be more advantageous to work with the sultanates than break up their empires. This method was chosen to remove the power and control of the people living there. A divide and rule tactic that Öcalan claims was popular with the British Empire. Öcalan states that colonialist powers used groups it pretended to defend to overturn the established order, "On the one hand, western colonialism pretended to protect the Anatolian Greeks, Armenians and Aramaeans; on the other hand it incited these to rebel against the central power, which responded with massive repressions. The subsequent annihilation campaign was watched inactively by the western powers." For Öcalan, the Kurds were pawns in the game of foreign interests, previously the Kurdish aristocracy collaborated with the Turkish and Arab aristocracies and instead now, were used by foreign colonialist powers for their interests. The Turkish Sultan, the Arab sultan and Persian Shah all went along with this policy to preserve themselves but in the end, it was the people who suffered.

The ideological basis of colonial oppression and power politics in Kurdistan

The partitioning of Kurdistan proved to be a setback for the Kurds. Öcalan believes the retention of the Feudal aspects of society represents and is a product of this struggle of power structures. With the rise of Capitalism in the Arab, Turkish and Persian regions, the Kurds were further excluded and received a much lower level of development. Despite relying on Imperialism to survive, the regions surrounding the Kurds in the middle-east were able to develop their national economies with the help of conspiring with Feudal rule. With the development of technology and science, an elite developed that forced a uniform use of language among the ethnic minorities.

Denial and self-denial

The hegemonic powers of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria denied the Kurds their existence and identity as an ethnic group running the Kurds a risk when recognising themselves as such. Open acceptance of one's Kurdish roots was met by social and economic seclusion even by other Kurds. For the Arabs, the problem of the Kurds was solved through Islamization. The Persians went further by describing the Kurds as a subgroup of Persian people. Kurds who fought against this were regarded as fighting against their nation and religion by those who imposed those definitions onto them. The Turks, however, regarded their supremacy legitimate through other means, "The Turkish regime derived its claim for supremacy over the Kurds from alleged campaigns of conquest in Anatolia a thousand years ago. There had not been other peoples there. Therefore, Kurd and Kurdistan are non-words, non existent and not allowed to exist according to the official ideology. The use of these words equals an act of terrorism and is punished correspondingly." Despite this persecution, Öcalan comments that the Kurds are the "oldest autochthon ethnic groups" in the region.

Assimilation

Assimilation is often used by hegemonic powers as a tool when confronted by minority groups. When an individual is denied his language, he is denied the characteristics that make up its ethnic and cultural roots. "Without the unifying element of language the uniting quality of collective ideas also disappears." The formation of nationalistic countries and colonialist regimes accelerated the attempts at assimilating the Kurdish people and their language. Whereas in the past, the Kurdish people were able to maintain their identity, the mass control of tools such as media and communications by the hegemonic powers in the region made this more difficult. Kurdish literature and music was banned and considered subversive. The hegemonic languages became the principal languages and spoke mainly of the achievements of Modernity.

Religion and nationalism

Religion and nationalism were used as a tool by the hegemonic powers. Islam became a state religion in the Kurdish regions. Turkey's employment of thousands of Imams and Iran's theocratic regime aid in this. Thus, for Öcalan, the secularism in these countries is merely used a placebo.

Bourgeois nationalism

Öcalan believes another tool that is used by hegemonic powers is the purposeful introduction of nationalism to the bourgeois class. Öcalan believes this was important in the 19th and 20th centuries in allowing the bourgeois to move against the socialist tides of the workers. "The Turkish form of nationalism that came into being after 1840 was an attempt to prevent the decay of the Ottoman Empire that had begun to show. The early Turkish nationalists were originally legalists. Later they turned against the sultanate of Abdulhamid II and became increasingly radical. The nationalism of the Young Turk movement expressed itself in the Committee for Unity and Progress, which worked for a constitutional reform of the state and aspired toward coming into power in the empire. Apart from that they had made it clear that they wanted to strengthen the empire again, which was externally weak and internally threatened by decay, by systematically modernizing it politically, militarily and economically. The opening of Germany’s foreign policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia then added a racist component to Turkish nationalism. The genocide of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks, Aramaeans and Kurds followed. The young Turkish republic was marked by aggressive nationalism and a very narrow understanding of the nation-state. The slogan “one language, one nation, one country” became a political dogma. Although this was in principle a classless and no privileges state approach, the instruments to actually implement it were lacking. Its abstractness bore the danger of ideological fanaticism."

Kurdish identity and Kurdish resistance

The Kurdish identification with nation came late. The commitment to being Kurdish in the Kurdish revolts in the 19th century did not go beyond an opposition to the sultanate. The commitment to a Kurdish identity related to the establishment of a Kurdish kingdom with regards to traditional sultanates. It was only until the second half of the 20th century that the idea of a Kurdish identity in regards to nation began to form in Turkish left-wing intellectual circles. This tendency however lacked the capacity to overcome the tribal order of Kurds. Communist parties and left-leaning parties did not understand the Kurdish identity as ethnic. It was only until a left-wing student Kurdish movement developed in the 1970's that the idea of a Kurdish identity began to developed.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

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Short outline of the history of origins of the PKK

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Main criticism

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New strategic, philosophic and political approaches of the Kurdish liberation movement

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The present situation and suggestions for a solution

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See also

• History of the Kurds
• Origin of the Kurds
• Kurdish nationalism
• Kurdistan Workers' Party

References

Citations

1. Öcalan 2009, p. 9.
2. Öcalan 2009, pp. 16–17.
3. Öcalan 2009, p. 19.
4. Öcalan 2009, p. 20.
5. Öcalan 2009, p. 22.

Bibliography

Books

• Öcalan, Abdullah (2009). War and Peace in Kurdistan: Perspectives for a political solution of the Kurdish question. Cologne, Germany: International Initiative. ISBN 3-941-01246-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

External links

War and Peace in Kurdistan: Perspectives for a political solution of the Kurdish question