The Times Higher Education Supplement
November 20, 2008

Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves

Christine Allison

BOOKS; Pg. 46 No. 1872

Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves. By Christopher Houston. Berg,
256pp, £ 60.00 and £ 19.99. ISBN 9781845202682 and 02699. Published 1
June 2008

This book is not so much about how Kurds imagine their nation and
construct their identities as members of it, but more about how the
nation-states where Kurds live mould the national identities to which
Kurds are expected to conform. And a very chilly, top-down power
dynamic it looks too, despite the author’s commendable insistence on
the plurality of Kurdish communities, the dimension of gender (rarely
seen in writings on Kurds) and issues of individual agency and
negotiation. There is relatively little treatment or analysis of the
canonical Kurdish texts and voices in the discourse, but a great deal
on the environment in which this discourse functions.

Coming from a straightforward "Turkish studies" standpoint,
Christopher Houston considers Kurdish historical discourse within the
framework of Ottoman heritage. The first chapter explains very
effectively why the discussion of origins is still considered
necessary in the historiography of this region, and why history is
such a politicised activity in Turkey. The second focuses on the
independence of the Kurdish principalities of the Ottoman Empire,
their fall, and subsequent revolts led by sheikhs and tribal leaders
and the question of when exactly they ceased to be "local" and became
nationalist.

As the author notes, underlying nationalist concerns have allowed such
questions to dominate the discourse. He also notes that some Kurdish
writers, like their Turkish counterparts, underestimate the area’s
diversity, for example underplaying the Armenians’ role in history.
This is true although, as Maria O’Shea noted in 2004, others give a
Utopian view of past ethnic harmony in Eastern Anatolia. Moreover,
Kurds in Iraq make much of their efforts to foster pluralism and
protect their minority communities. The third chapter usefully
characterises some of the best- known works of ethnography on the
Kurds. All suffered from shortcomings associated with their time, or
the circumstances of their production – Edmund Leach’s work cut short
by war and Martin van Bruinessen having to make the virtue of breadth
out of the necessity of not having permission to remain and work in
depth on any one area.

The second part of the book takes a bold approach – as the author
says, it shifts its focus to identify a transnational state political
practice in which Kurds may be contextualised. Kurdish studies
normally look at transnational structures and practices on the part of
the Kurds, but not on the part of the states; indeed, we are taught
that both ideology and practice in the management of Kurds is
different in the various nation- states. Such a challenge to
traditional wisdom is very stimulating and merits a hearing. Houston
follows Bobby Sayyid in calling this type of secular nationalist state
practice "Kemalism", which is rather shocking to those of us reared on
the gentle shores of Iranian studies, especially when it appears to be
implied that Iran is an "Ottoman successor state".

However, Houston’s discussion of Kemalism is more nuanced than that of
Sayyid, who makes a much more brutal opposition between "Islamist" and
"Kemalist" state – for instance, Houston notes that the Islamic
Republic of Iran follows the Kemalist model in some respects. However,
he upholds Sayyid’s argument that "the work of Mustafa Kemal in Turkey
is generative of a new political paradigm for the wider Muslim world",
and shows convincing links across the states concerned, for instance
occasions where Reza Shah Pahlavi followed his friend Ataturk’s
example on such matters as modernist reforms, and the links between
Sati al-Husri, who presided over the creation of the Iraqi school
curriculum, and the great ideologue of Kemalism, Ziya Gokalp.

There is no doubt that these nationalisms and their enactment –
Turkey, Iran and Iraq are the states under consideration – show some
great similarities, but ultimately I remained unconvinced on two
points. Is the loaded term "Kemalism" useful, given that many of its
policies predated Ataturk and were continuations of the model of
modernism used by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and in
some cases by Iranian constitutionalists? And despite the similarities
of the overbearing state, the differences for the Kurdish experience
were enormous between Turkey and, say, Iraq, where despite such
atrocities as the 1988 Anfal massacres there also existed limited
Kurdish-language schooling, faculty teaching of Kurdish, Kurdish
literary output and media – as Amir Hassanpour might put it, the
difference between "ethnocide" and "genocide".

Nevertheless, there is much to appreciate in these chapters, which
contain nuanced discussions of projections of modernity and
relationships with Western discourse that tie in very well with other
work being done on Turkey’s treatment of its "underdeveloped"
areas. The role of music and folklore in nation-building is not
overlooked, and there is a whole chapter on the Kemalist city in the
three states concerned – a discussion of the role of the built
environment in these processes is rare and precious indeed. The
conclusion is also nuanced, looking at prospects for de-Kemalisation,
not by abolition of existing government policy, but by giving more
space to civil life. Overall, however, the book leaves us hungry for
more on how the Kurds themselves have constructed their nation and its
history in these adverse circumstances.

Christine Allison is Ibrahim Ahmed professor of Kurdish studies,
Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, author
of The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan (2001) and co-editor,
with Philip Kreyenbroek, of Kurdish Culture and Identity (1996).