NATIONALISM AND THE KURDISH QUESTION
By R. D. Gastil

Kurdish Aspect, CO
Dec 12 2006

Iranian Civilization and American Foreign Policy

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Nationalism has always been with us. But the modern version
of nationalism grew out of eighteenth century thinking. This
movement led to many of the countries or countries-in-waiting
that exist today. It is characteristic of nationalism that it may
both strengthen and tear apart a polity. Spanish nationalism made
possible the establishment of the present Spanish state, but it has
also led to the increasing threat of the dismemberment of that state
as its subdivisions, beginning with Catalonia, are granted increasing
political power. In Africa, new nations developing nationalisms on the
basis of political subdivisions established by colonial masters, are
threatened by nationalist movements that would further subdivide the
continent. There is no reason for the international community to reject
such movements out of hand. Each must be judged on its own merits,
no matter how difficult "merits" may be to establish in such matters.

In the Iranian region the nationalist ideology produced many of
the regional nationalisms that exist today, including Iranian and
Turkish nationalism. The modern emergence of Turkey and Iran bares
some similarity. Turkey is the remainder of the Ottoman Empire after
the rest of it was whittled away before and during World War I. For
a time, Turkey also represented the only sovereign state left over
after the great Turkish diaspora dating back to well before Genghis
Khan. Recently, new Turkish states have emerged in Central Asia and
the Caucasus after the Soviet collapse. Iran is the renamed successor
to the Persian Empire (with many names) that went through several
advances and retreats after its emergence at the beginning of the
classic period in the West. Its most recent territorial losses were
around Herat and in the Caucasus. Although descended from great
empires, both polities appear to have settled on the modern nation
state as the best alternative for now.

During World War I Turkey embarked on an extreme nationalist policy
that granted nothing to minorities. On the west, the Greeks were
largely driven out of the country. To the east, the Armenians were
driven out and killed in massive numbers in an attempt to create
an ethnically pure Turkey. Fortunately, the Armenians have at last
achieved a truly independent state of their own in the Caucasus after
the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Their attacks on the Armenians
combined with their treatment of their large Kurdish minority, has
been a major stumbling block on Turkey’s road to membership in the
European Union.

Iraq was one of several states carved out of the Ottoman Empire by
the victorious Allies at the end of the War. Before 1920, few people
understood that they were supposed to belong to an Iraq nationality,
although there were several nationalities in the area of Iraq. The
Kurds felt that they had been promised a state of their own, but
the international community and local interests in the end denied
Kurdish claims. The Kurdish people were divided up among Syria,
Turkey (the largest number), Iran (the second largest number),
and the new state of Iraq. Both Turkey and Iran have struggled to
keep their Kurdish subjects down. Eastern Anatolia has been plagued
by a Kurdish insurgency for years. In part, this is a response to a
Turkish state that until recently denied the existence of Kurds. They
labeled them "Mountain Turks". Kurds were not allowed schools or
broadcasts in their own language. The Iranians have been faced with
occasional flareups of Kurdish nationalism. After World War II, the
Russians sponsored a Mahabad Republic among the Kurds until the Shah
and the Americans forced them to abandon the project. More recently,
the Islamist state brutally put down Kurdish revolts. Nevertheless,
in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq regional states and the international
community has come closest to recognizing an entity that has achieved
something very close to independence. One should not romanticize the
Kurds or their achievements. The long term unity of even this small
area and the "democracy" they have achieved are doubtful. Yet it is
certainly true that they have demonstrated far more than most peoples
in such situations that they really would like to manage their own
affairs and may be capable of it.

For more on this, consider a short paper placing Kurdish
self-determination in the context of a more general argument. I
expanded the question of self-determination in my Freedom in the World:
Political Rights and Civil Liberties: 1978, especially pages 180-215.

In spite of vigorous efforts to promote their own rights of
self-determination as absolute, the leaders of Turkey, Iran, and
Syria have sometimes been unwilling to grant these rights to others.

In particular, the leaders appear to fear that if an independent
Kurdish state finally emerges in Iraq, this will encourage
independence movements in their states that they will be unwilling
to abide. However, if these states allow Kurds a reasonable level of
communal self-expression and fairly divide power in such a way that
their Kurds do not feel dispossessed, there should be little danger.

There is now, after all, an independent Azerbaijan next to Iran’s
Azerbaijan, and there seems to be little danger that this will
lead to an insurrection in Tabriz. It would help the reputation of
all three nations were they to see their way clear to welcoming an
Iraqi Kurdistan into the community of nations, should events lead to
this result. The United States and the world community should not
be reluctant to work with them on developing this opportunity in
their midst.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress