Kurdish transnational networks and accommodation of nationalism
Ann-Catrin Emanuelsson
Göteborg University
Migrants and refugees are increasingly regarded as diasporas or transnational communities. They are described as actors creating new transnational spaces beyond nation states. As they engage in various types of activities across boundaries, they develop multiple identities and a sense of multi-locality. In terms of political ideas and activities directed towards countries of origin, however, they are often still characterised as nationalist actors using cross-border means to strengthen the nation state system. Sometimes they are even described in sharp contrast to transnational cosmopolitan social movements.
This thesis discusses diasporas as increasingly significant ‘transnational’ actors in emerging ‘global politics’ by describing and analysing changes in political ideas, strategies, activities and networks of Kurdish diaspora organisations. It shows that the case of the Kurds encompasses many issues of interest for increased understanding of diasporas / transnational communities within the complexity of transformations ‘between’ as well as ‘within’ nation states. As the Kurdish issue was internationalised and the Kurds were increasingly recognised as Kurds in the 1990s, the diaspora organisations not only increased their transnational networks, they also entered a process going from proposing outright Kurdish independence to successively accommodating ideas concerned with ‘universal’ human rights, cultural and political pluralism and post-sovereignty.
Contents
Acknowledgements / 9
Abbreviations and glossary / 10
1. Introduction / 13
The problem-area / 13
The Kurdish case / 17
Purpose, research questions and delimitations / 21
Methodological considerations / 23
Abduction, interpretation and reflection / 23
Selection of organisations / 27
Methodological triangulation / 30
Outline of the thesis / 34
2. Global change and diaspora politics: A theoretical framework / 36
Processes of globalisation / 36
Diasporas, transnationalism and globalisation / 43
Definitions of diaspora / 45
Global/transnational processes involving diasporas/transnational communities / 47
Political transnationalisation/global politics by diasporas/transnational communities / 53
Political organisation, strategies, activities and networks / 54
Political principles/ideologies / 58
Political achievements by diasporas/transnational communities / 60
Analytical scheme / 61
3. The nation states and the Kurdish diaspora: A historical framework / 64
Nationalism, exile and migration at the turn of 2O'h century / 64
New states: official nationalisms, oppression and Kurdish resistance / 66
Internationalisation and beyond: the Gulf War, ‘humanitarian intervention and Kurdish self-rule / 72
Turkey and European régionalisation / 78
The Kurdish diaspora / 81
Internal and external migrants and refugees / 81
Political practices and networks / 85
Integration, return and beyond / 91
4. Diaspora organisations: political practices and networks in the 1980s / 100
Mobilisation for Kurdish national unity / 100
Organisation and co-operation / 100
The liberation of Kurdistan / 105
Rescuing the Kurdish identity and cultural heritage / 107
Newsletters, demonstrations and cultural events / 109
Linguistic rights for the Kurds in the diaspora / 112
Strategies to mobilise European support and solidarity / 114
Appealing to and inviting the public / 114
Developing contact with authorities, parties and organisations / 115
In search of support among third world counterparts / 117
The necessity of acknowledging living conditions abroad / 118
Possibilities and constraints in the diaspora / 121
5. After Halabja: Multi-layered strategies and networks across boundaries / 125
Transnational activities and networks / 126
Human rights conferences and the founding of new organisations / 126
Non-state actors — concerted actions / 128
New means: the media and internet / 133
‘Kurdish voices are rarely heard’: Time for change / 136
Encounters with representatives from the countries of settlement/asylum / 136
The European region / 152
The bodies of the United Nations / 157
The states in the region of origin / 159
Kurdish ‘transnational’ networks / 162
Increased co-operation between diaspora organisations / 162
Emerging networks with non-state actors in the 'countries of origin’ / 167
Contact and co-operation with Kurdish political parties / 170
The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq / 174
6. Kurds in the world: Accommodating global realities and perspectives / 176
New foundations: ‘universal’ human rights and humanitarian standards / 176
Democracy as aim, democracy as means / 184
Non-violent humanitarian intervention, relief and long-term assistance / 187
Developing aspects of the right of self-determination / 192
Emphasising socio-economic living conditions in the diaspora / 201
Kurdish culture and integration within the framework of pluralism / 204
7. Conclusions / 209
Kurdish transnational networks / 210
Human rights, cultural and political pluralism / 212
Accommodation of nationalism / 213
(Kurdish) diaspora politics in globalising processes / 214
Future prospects / 221
References / 223
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My primary thanks go to my supervisor Dr. Helena Lindholm Schulz, senior lecturer at the Department of Peace and Development Research (Padrigu), Göteborg University, who thoughtfully commented on my theoretical reasoning as well as on facts and details in several versions of this thesis. Secondly, this thesis benefits greatly from the insights of Dr. Svante Karlsson, senior lecturer at Padrigu and my assistant supervisor, who commented on the manuscript both per chapter and in it’s entirety. I am also indebted to my husband Dr. Khaled Salih, political scientist and senior lecturer at Odense University, who has profoundly influenced my thinking on the Kurds and willingly discussed ideas throughout the research process. I would also like to thank Professor Bjorn Hettne, whose early research on challenges in the Westphalian era proved to be at the forefront of academic thinking, and which has greatly influenced my thinking. Thanks also to Dr. Camilla Oijuela, also researcher at Padrigu, for her valuable comments on parts of the manuscript. The thesis, moreover, benefits from discussions with Omar Sheikhmous, editor at the Kurdish Voice of America (former researcher at CE1FO, Stockholm University) and Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli at the Migrant Organisations’ Development Agency in London. My academic thinking on forced migration has first and foremost benefited from courses at the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), Oxford University, where 1 was a visiting student in 1993/94.
Last but not least, this thesis would not have been accomplished without the employees and activists of the Kurdish organisations in focus. Thanks to Mike Amitay, Beku, Cecen, Nedim Dagdeviren, Ciler Firtina, Keya Izol, Pervine Jamil, Nezan Kendal, Kamal Mirawdeli, Karim Najmaddin, Osman Sarbest, Abubekir Saydam and Kerim Yildiz but also to Dr. Joyce Blau, Hamed Gohary, Kovan Alan Skônebro, Dr. Abbas Vali and others who helped in providing information, documents and contacts. Finally, 1 am indebted to Monica Emanuelsson, Serge Sochon and Khaled Salih for their help with translating documents from French and Kurdish into Swedish, and to Mia Early at the Kurdistan Development Corporation (KDC) for proof-reading my English manuscript.
1. Introduction
We are caught between nostalgia for causes defeated and ideas lost, and excitement at the new possibilities that we face. We need to think in new ways. Globalisation is not bringing about the death of politics. It is re-illuminating and reinvigorating the contemporary political terrain.
(Held and McGrew, 1999b, p.496)
The growing fusion of worldwide economic, social, cultural and environmental forces requires a rethinking of the politically and philosophically ‘isolationist’ position of the communitarians and sceptics. For the contemporary world is ‘not a world of closed communities with mutually impenetrable ways of thought, self-sufficient economies and ideally sovereign states’.
(Held and McGrew, 2000, p.36)
One should search for ‘normality’, openness and awareness where ‘common-sense’ presumesdifference, isolation and ignorance.
(Hannerz, 1983; 1994 in Pripp, 2001, p.21)
The problem-area
The stateless situation of the Kurds rendered them in stasis either as victims betrayed by official nationalists concerned with geopolitics or as tribal- or secessionist activists threatening the sovereign order of nation states. This portrait was partly maintained in the 1990s, with sensational headlines of Kurdish refugees stranded in the border area between Turkey and Iraq, involved in ‘honour killings’, violent attacks in European cities and turbulent demonstrations due to the arrest of Abdullah Ocalan. On a positive note, the Kurdish issue thus became internationalised, the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan enjoyed international protection and self-rule and Turkey was accepted as a candidate state for membership of the European Union (EU). The international community eventually began to recognise the Kurds, perhaps not as a nation yet but as Kurds nonetheless and all major Kurdish movements declared non-secessionist ambitions. Few would deny that the political situation of the Kurds did not change in the 1990s and that Kurdish refugees and the diaspora did not play some role in these changes for better or worse (cf. Rosenau, 1993; van Bruinessen, 2000; Fawcett, 2001). Taking this as its point of departure, this thesis is concerned with the Kurdish diaspora as an increasingly relevant actor in emerging ‘global politics’, representing changes in the …
Ann-Catrin Emanuelsson
Diaspora Global Politics Kurdish transnational networks
Göteborg University
Department of Peace and Development Research
Göteborg University
Diaspora Global Politics
Kurdish transnational networks and accommodation of nationalism
Ann-Catrin Emanuelsson
ISBN 91 87380-64- 1
Department of Peace and Development Research
Göteborg University
Box 700
SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden
www.padrigu.gu.se
Phone: +46 31 773 10 00
E-mail: info@padrigu.gu.se
