Women of A Non-State Nation Kurds

Devletsiz ulusun kadιnlarι, Kürt kadιnι üzerine araştιrmalar [Türkçe, İstanbul, 2005]

Women of A Non-State Nation Kurds
Edited by Shahrzad Mojab

Western observers and Kurdish nationalists have ro¬manticized the women of Kurdistan by claiming that hey enjoy more freedom than their Arab, Persian and Turkish sisters. Kurdish women are, in these nar¬ratives, mostly unveiled; they freely associate with men in work, dance, and war, and songe appear as rulers of tribes and territories. This book challenges such daims to the uniqueness of the status of Kurdish women by offering a complex picture of their oppression and resistance.
The Kurds are the fourth largest "ethnie people" of the Middle East, outnum-bered only by Arabs, Persians and Turks. In the wake of World War I, they were forcibly divided among the neighboring states of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. Known as the world's largest non-state nation, Kurds are also dispersed in diasporic communities throughout Asia, Europe and North America.

By the turn of the century, Kurdish women had entered male-dom inated do- mains such as parliaments (Iraq, Turkey, Europe), guerrilla armies (Iran and Tur¬key), higher education, mass media, arts, sciences, administration. and law. They were, at the same time, subjected to extensive violence by both the nation-states that rule over them and the patriarchal regime of their own non-state nation.

Resisting the national chauvinism of the ruling nations as well as the male chauvinism of their own nation. Kurdish women's movements are sites of conflict and coexistence between national ism and feminism, declining feudalism-tribalism and emerging capitalism, and national and class struggles.

Kurdish women are usually ignored in women's studies both in the Middle East and the West. There is a serious dearth of research and resources in English and other languages. The contributors to this volume, the first anthology of its kind. examine aspects of Kurdish women's lives in politics, history, culture, religion, medicine, and language. Songe of the topics covered here have never appeared in previous studies: gender and self-determination, women and Sufism, language and patriarchy, and women in traditional medicine.

This volume will be useful for the general readership interested in the study of Kurdish women as well as students of women's studies, feminist theory, Middle Eastern studies, gender and language, nationalism, theories of state, women's rights, and gender and culture.

CONTENTS

Preface / vii
Acknowledgments / ix

Introduction: The Solitude of the Stateless: Kurdish Women at the Margins of Feminist Knowledge
Shahrzad Mojab / 1

Part I: Historical Perspectives
1. En-Gendering Nationalism: The `Woman Question' in Kurdish Nationalist Discourse of the Late Ottoman Period
Janet Klein / 25

2. Kurdish Women in Constantinople at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
Rohat Alakom / 53

3. Women and Nationalism in the Kurdish Republic of 1946
Shahrzad Mojab / 71

Part II: Political and Legal Perspectives
4. From Adela Khanum to Leyla Zana: Women as Political Leaders in Kurdish History
Martin van Bruinessen / 95

5. Kurdish Migrant Women in Istanbul: Community and Resources for Local Political Participation
of a Marginalized Social Group
Heidi Wedel / 113

6. Kurdish Women and Self-Determination: A Feminist Approach to International Law
Susan McDonald / 135

Part III: Social, Cultural, and Linguistic Perspectives
7. Medic, Mystic or Magic ? Women's Health Choices in a Kurdish City
Maria O'Shea / 161

8. Folklore and Fantasy: The Presentation of Women in Kurdish Oral Tradition
Christine Allison / 181

9. Portraits of Kurdish Women in Contemporary Sufism Annabelle &jucher 195
10. Western Images of the Woman's Role in Kurdish Society Mirella Galletti 209
11. The (Re)production of Patriarchy in the Kurdish

Language
Amir Hassanpour / 227
Contributors / 265

PREFACE

Women of a Non-State Nation: The Kurds is the first scholarly edited book devoted entirely to the status of Kurdish women in Kurdistan and in the Middle East. It is a unique study proffering seminal scholarship on different topics. The contributions range from historical depictions of Kurdish women in European travel accounts and the late Ottoman period to their current political, religious, social and health status in the regions in which they live. These studies make clear that Kurdish women, like the Kurds in general, are no longer to be denied their history, sense of self, aspirations and identity. Theirs is a difficult struggle. Most Kurds live in countries that only a decade ago denied that Kurds existed. It took decades of armed conflict in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria to compel these states to recognize the "Kurdish reality." This implied something to be managed, controlled and suppressed; not recognized, nurtured or embraced. While the "Kurdish reality" was recognized, Kurdistan was not. The Kurdish reality was recognized to assure that Kurdistan would not.

The realization of Kurdistan is the greatest challenge facing the Kurds in the first half of the 21st century. The contributions make clear this will be a daunting task. In the decades ahead the Kurds will have to deal with states eager to suppress their national and political aspirations, exploit them economically and deny them human rights. Concomitantly, Kurdish women must struggle against social, religious and sexual bias and violence in their own regions and in their own homes even as they participate in the national struggle.

Shahrzad Mojab is to be congratulated for bringing together such a strong group of scholars. As anyone who works in the field of Middle East studies knows, the task of bringing uniformity to a diverse, international group of scholars, with different theoretical and methodological perspectives, not to mention languages, different word processing systems, fonts and diacritical systems is daunting. Dr. Mojab has managed to do this with great skill.

Mazda Press and the Kurdish Studies Series are delighted to be able to make this book available to interested scholars and people. It is difficult for new areas of scholarship to be recognized and even more difficult for the results to be published. We want the Kurdish Studies Series to be a venue for new scholarship on Kurdish studies. Women of a Non-State Nation: The Kurds is also unique in that the contributors offer state of art analyses and interpretations not only on a variety of topics dealing with Kurdish women and Kurdistan, but with relevance for a broad swathe of subjects in Middle East and Islam ic studies as well as anthropology, history, political science, health sciences and linguistics. Scholars interested in any of these fields, and others, will want to have this work on their bookshelves.

Robert Olson
University of Kentucky

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The idea of this book was conceived at a conference on The Kurds and the City in France in September 1996. I approached varions publishers, university presses, and others, in Europe and North America. They recognized the significance of the project and its contribution to Kurdish studies and feminist knowledge. The book, nonetheless, failed to meet some of the marketing demands of the publishing industry. The reluctance to publish the book was shaped not by the topic but, rather, by the limited size of the market. `Selling' the long-ignored accounts of Kurdish women's history, culture, politics, life, and sexuality was not an easy task. I am, therefore, grateful to Mazda Publishers, in particular to Dr. Ahmad Jabbari, who has initiated the Kurdish Studies Series, and supportecl tlns project. I also would like to extend my thanks to Professor Robert Olson, the series editor, for his unequivocal encouragement.

Throughout this prolonged process many friends and colleagues generously extended their support. Among them, foremost, are the contributors to tins book to whom I owe a large debt of gratitude. They patiently tolerated repeated delays, and graciously responded to numerous stylistic, editorial, and word-processing interventions. I also remain indebted to Amir Hassanpour, not only for his contribution to this collection, but also for sharing with me his insights on the complex history and culture of the Kurds.

The chapters were reviewed, individually, by various specialists. I am in particular appreciative of the reviews of Himani Bannerji, Michael Chyet, B. Mardukhi, and James Reilly. Dr. Chyet's excellent translation of Rohat Alakom's chapter is another testimony to his unrivaled command of Kurdish.

I am humbled by the generous contribution of Dam Aram. The illustration on die front cover of the book is one of his paintings, which depicts the resistance dance of Kurdish women. Others have also contributed to the making of the book. Susan McDonald, Kate Robson, and Rahal Ogbagzy, Research Assistants at die Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, assisted me at different stages of the preparation of the manuscript. I also thank Stephan Dobson for his diligent copy editing of the manuscript.

Finally, I have enjoyed die support of my colleagues at the Department of Adult Education, Conununity Development, and Counselling Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, in pursuing my research interests in the area of Kurdish women's studies. I am especially indebted to Budd Hall, former chair of my department and, since 2001, the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Victoria University, British Columbia, for encouraging my academic pursuits in Kurdish studies.

Shahrzad Mojab
OISE, University of Toronto

Women of A Non-State Nation Kurds
 
Kurdish Studies Series
No. 3

Editorial Board Robert Olson,
General Editor University of Kentucky

Shahrzad Mojab
University of Toronto

Amir Hassanpour
University of Toronto
 
 
The Kurds
Edited by
Shahrzad Mojab

Mazda Publishers,Inc.
2001
 
Funding for the publication of this volume was provided by
a grant from the Iranica Institute, Irvine California.
Mazda Publishers, Inc.
Academic Publishers Since 1980
P.O. Box 2603
Costa Mesa, California 92626 U.S.A.

www.mazdapub.com

Copyright © 2001 by Mazda Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted by any form or by any mens without written permission
from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women of a Non-State Nation: the Kurds/ edited by Shahrzad Mojab.
p.cm.—(Kurdish Studies Series; No. 3)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:1-56859-093-8

(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Women, Kurdish. I. Mojab, Shahrzad. II. Series.
HQ 1726.5. W685 2001
305.48'891597—dc21
2001030791

The painting on the front cover is the first in the series "Dance Passages"
by Dara Aram, Kurdish painter in Toronto, Canada.

CONTRIBUTORS

Rohat Alakom studied journalism at Istanbul University and psychology at the Faculty of Education of Ankara University. He has been living in Stockholm since 1983. Alakom has published several books and numerous articles in Kurdish, Swedish and Turkish on Kurdish women, including Li Kurdistanê Hêzeke Nûh Jinên Kurd (Kurdish Women: A New Power, 1995), Spånga Sweden, Apec.

Christine Allison is a British Academy postdoctoral research fellow in the Near and Middle East Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has co-edited, with Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Kurdish Culture and Identity (Zed Books, London 1996) and lier forthcoming book is The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan (Curzon Books, London).

Annabelle Böttcher has lier Ph.D. in Political Science, Islamic Studies and International Law from Freiburg University (Germany). Between 1995 and 97 she was the Research Officer at the Institut Francais d'Etudes Arabes de Damas in Damascus (Syria). In 1997-98, and later in 1999-2000, she was fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies, Harvard University. Dr. Böttcher was also Research Associate at the Orient Institute in Beirut (Lebanon) in 1998-1999.

Martin van Bruinessen teaches in the Department of Oriental Languages and Cultures at Utrecht University. Professor van Bruinessen is also the chair of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World at Utrecht University. He is the author of Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan (London: Zed Books, 1992) and many articles about the Kurds. His ongoing research includes: ethnicity and nationalism in Turkey and Kurdistan; Alevism as religion and ethnic identity; Kurdish ulama, Sufi orders and heterodox religious communities; Evliya Celebi and other 17th-century authors on the Kurds.

Mirella Galletti studied Political Science at the University of Bologna. Dr. Galletti was visiting professor on Kurdish history and culture at the University of Bologna (1990-1991) and the University of Trieste (1996¬1997). She is the author of several books and articles on Kurdish history, politics and culture, including I Curdi Nella Storia (1990), Chieti, Italy, Vecchio Faggio.
 
Amir Hassanpour teaches at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests include media studies, language, history and culture. He is author of Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan, 1918-1985 (1992), San Francisco, Mellen Research University Press.

Janet Klein is a Ph.D. candidate studying Ottoman and Kurdish history at the Department of Near Eastern Studies in Princeton University. She has been awarded a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship for dissertation research overseas. She has written on uses of Kurdish proverbs in nationalist discourse in the early 20th century in the International Journal of Kurdish Studies (Summer 2000).

Susan McDonald is a lawyer who lias worked in the area of international law and human rights. She has recently completed her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Toronto in which she used feminist participatory research to explore the role of education in the delivery of legal services for immigrant women.

Shahrzad Mojab teaches at the Department of Adult Education, Community Development, and Counselling Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her research and teaching interests include education, women, globalization, citizenship, war, violence and women's learning, and state and civil society. She is the author of several articles on Kurdish women. She is co-editor of and contributor in Of Property and Propriety: The Role of Gender and Class in Imperialism and Nationalism (2001, University of Toronto Press).

Maria O'Shea is a Research Associate of the Geopolitics Research Centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. Her Ph.D. dissertation is Maps, Myths and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan. Dr. O'Shea is the author of numerous publications on the Middle East, especially the countries and peoples of the northern tier states of the region. She also writes children's books on the region.

Heidi Wedel earned her Ph.D. in 1998 from the Political Science Faculty of Free University, Berlin. Her dissertation, Gender and Local Politics: The Case of Migrants in Turkish Metropolises, was published in German in 1999. Dr. Wedel has published several articles on social movements, democratization, and Kurdish question from a gender perspective. She is currently the researcher on Turkey, Greece and Cyprus at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London.