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INTRODUCTION
Philip G. Kreyenbroek and Christine Allison
Few Westerners who read newspapers can be entirely unaware of the Kurds. Many have felt a deep sympathy with the tragic fate of the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq in recent years, and the efforts of the ‘freedom fighters’ in those countries are also well known. Reports on the affairs of the Kurds of Iran, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, and other republics of the former Soviet Union reach us more rarely, and the activities of the large immigrant communities in Western Europe, North America and Australia are probably too diverse to leave a clear impression in the minds of most Westerners. Still, many {people are now aware that the Kurds are the largest nation in the world 'without a state. There are well over twenty-five million Kurds, whose lands are divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the republics of the former Soviet Union, while conditions in some of these countries are such that large numbers of Kurds have been forced into exile elsewhere.
It is widely known that a large proportion of the Kurdish people have to fight, in one way or another, to survive as Kurds - but there, it would seem, public awareness stops. In other words, the Western image of the Kurds focuses on the fact that they are fighting to preserve their identity, but ignores what is perhaps the most vital component of that identity, namely Kurdish culture. This is unfortunate for the Kurds most of all, since their fate may ultimately depend on their ability to convince the world that, contrary to the assertions of the states where they live, they have a L valid and mature identity of their own which needs to be recognised. This ignorance is also regrettable from the point of view of the Westerners, however, since it means that they are living with a one-sided, distorted image of the Kurds and are denied the opportunity to learn more about an ancient, dynamic and fascinating civilisation.
The main reason for publishing the present book, then, was a strong sense that the cultural component of Kurdish identity needed to be explored. This was compounded by the fact that hardly any publications on the subject exist. While members of most Asian nations can point proudly to quantities of books and articles about their culture sufficient to fill a small library, the Kurds have to make do with a collection that could be kept on a single shelf. As the present work hopes to show, this lack of publications can hardly be due to an intrinsic poverty of Kurdish culture. Questions thus arise about the reasons for this imbalance, which implicitly seems to deny the existence of a Kurdish culture and thus, arguably, of Kurdish claims to a mature identity.
Part of the explanation of this state of affairs can be sought in the fact that the Kurds have never had a major state of their own, and that written p-forms of Kurdish emerged relatively late. Kurds who had the talent and ! inspiration to create ‘high culture’ therefore tended to be absorbed into l the dominant traditions, which used Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish. The fact that a celebrated scholar or artist was a Kurd is now usually known only to Kurds, while others think of such figures as Arabs, Persians or Turks. Another factor is that accepted ideas about the sophistication of certain Asian civilisations usually derive primarily from the works of early Western scholars, which first shaped the West’s understanding of these cultures and later that of Western-educated Asian élites also. These early scholars tended to approach Asian cultures much in the same way as they had learned to study those of the ancient Greeks and Romans -concentrating on ‘high’ culture and imperial history, and interpreting beliefs and cultural values chiefly in terms of standard forms of religion which could easily be explained to their students.
This approach has arguably impoverished the study of many ‘dominant’ cultural traditions in Asia, by largely ignoring popular forms of culture. In the case of the civilisation of the Kurds it proved particularly detrimental. Since Kurdish society has only rarely been in a position to promote the development of non-popular forms of literature, academics found little that could rival the splendours of Persian or Arabic letters. Oral literature, which could be said to reflect the true literary genius of the Kurds, was virtually unknown and seldom studied. As far as Kurdish history is concerned, the one major classical work on the subject (the Sherefname, see chapters 1 and 2) is written in Persian, and most of the pre-modern history of the Kurds has to be deduced from chance remarks in sources which focus on the exploits of the dominant peoples. The Kurds’ intricate and fascinating way of creating oral history, which contains the essentials of what happened but in a simplified form which was easily memorised (see chapter 5 p. 105), has been entirely ignored. In the case of religion, academic interest focused on prescriptive, ‘official’ forms (i.e. on the way things ought to be rather than on the reality). Since from that point of view there are few differences between Sunni Kurds and Sunni Arabs or Turks, Kurdish Islam did not interest many Western academics. On the other hand, several scholars were fascinated by such blatant ‘heterodoxies’ as those of the Ahl-e Haqq, the Yezidis and the Alevis (see chapters 5 and 6), but they were often more interested in these as possible remnants of older civilisations than as elements of contemporary Kurdish culture. The Kurds’ talents for visual art are traditionally directed towards carpet-weaving, towards decoration of objects, and towards the making of their spectacular costumes, but since such high culture arts as painting and sculpture were absent, art historians showed little interest. Recent decades have seen the emergence of several outstanding Kurdish painters, especially in exile; the editors regret that it has proved impossible to find a contributor on this subject. Perhaps because of the lack of a broadly-based discipline of Kurdish art history, Kurdish music was also widely ignored until recently. The absence of a contribution on music is probably the most glaring lacuna in this book; the editors’ persistent search for a possible author is the main reason for its late appearance.
It would seem, then, that it is the criteria used by traditional scholarship, rather than manifestations of Kurdish culture, that are wanting. Until recently this inadequacy was compounded by a remarkable lack of academic centres of Kurdology. While most of the civilisations of Asia can be studied in one or more universities in almost all Western countries (institutes or departments of language and literature often functioning as a focus for all studies of the culture in question), until the late 1980s the University of Paris was the only well-established academic centre of Kurdish studies west of Moscow. Paris still has the only Chair of Kurdish Studies in the Western world (currently held by Joyce Blau), and the university enjoys the backing of the prestigious and well-equipped Institut Kurde de Paris, which was founded by the Kurdish community and of which Kendal Nezan is a director. Since the late 1980s a change can be seen, no doubt owing to greater public awareness of the Kurds and the geopolitical importance of their land. The discipline of Kurdish studies has recently received greater recognition in the academic world, and besides Paris there are now established centres in the Netherlands, Britain and Sweden, while there is considerable scholarly activity in the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Italy. In many of these centres there is now a strong focus on ‘grassroots’ culture and on the living realities of Kurdish life, which corresponds to a more general trend in Oriental Studies to pay attention to popular forms of culture.
This book clearly reflects the new state of affairs. It contains contributions by both established specialists and members of a younger generation of Kurdologists, and its selection of topics is intended to represent a modern and realistic approach to Kurdish culture. While the work seeks to make a contribution towards a better understanding of Kurdish culture, it is not in any way a comprehensive handbook. At this stage such an aim would have been too ambitious in any case, and the absence of contributions on Kurdish music and modern Kurdish painters underlines the non-exhaustive character of the book. Besides these negative factors, there were many positive considerations which prompted the editors to solicit the contributions published here; it is felt that these need to be stated and explained, especially since the inclusion of certain topics in a work of this kind may eventually contribute in some way to a definition of ‘Kurdish culture’, a subject on which no consensus as yet exists.
The presence of a survey article on the history, culture and sense of identity of the Kurds, and one on Kurdish written literature, both by leading figures in the world of Kurdology, probably needs no justification. On the other hand, the prominence of non-written aspects of Kurdish culture (see the contributions by Allison and Kreyenbroek, and to a lesser extent that of Mir-Hosseini), may surprise and indeed irritate those who regard the oral as inferior per se to the written. While in the West the written word dominates the culture to such an extent that most elements which are felt to be valuable have been written down, the editors believe that this is not true in the case of the Kurds. Until recently a large proportion of the Kurdish population never learned to write, because such skills were irrelevant to their lives; others only learned to write the dominant language(s) of their area. As a result, many essential parts of Kurdish culture do not exist in written form, while developments in such fields as Kurdish literature and religion cannot be understood solely on the basis of insights deriving from the study of written traditions. They require a methodology of their own, which has not yet been fully developed in the field of Middle Eastern Studies. It would obviously fall beyond the scope of his book to suggest even an outline for such a theoretical approach, but it is hoped to demonstrate that the oral aspects of culture deserve serious study. Allison’s chapter on oral Kurdish literature aims to illustrate the complexity and highly developed artistry to be found there, while Kreyenbroek’s contribution explores the way in which the various religions brought by repeated waves of invaders affected the Kurds’ understanding of the concept of religion as such, given the ‘non-erudite’ - and as far as Kurdish was concerned, illiterate - character of their society. It is argued there that some religious groups which have traditionally been placed on the periphery of Kurdish civilisation, such as the Ahl-e Haqq and Yezidis, in fact offer striking illustrations of the way in which Kurdish communities assimilated outside influences without giving up their essential beliefs and world-view. The ‘religious universe’ of one of these sects, the Ahl-e Haqq, is described in detail by Mir-Hosseini, who is an authority on the modern Ahl-e Haqq communities of Iranian Kurdistan.
As was argued above, in a country like Kurdistan where a number of factors prevented the emergence of such art forms as painting and sculpture, the visual artistic impulse finds expression in such things as artefacts, clothes, and carpets - forms of material culture which in any case are essential elements of Kurdish cultural identity. Eagleton’s short but illuminating chapter on carpets is therefore an important part of this book, as is Kren’s informed discussion of the material culture of Syrian Kurdish villages. O’Shea’s chapter on Kurdish costume not only fills a lacuna by offering a much-needed survey of the different styles of Kurdish dress, but also draws attention to the element of change, which affects Kurdish culture as much as any other.
Her account describes an early stage where Kurdish costumes, unrestrained by centralising forces, showed a huge and colourful variety, followed by an increasing tendency to abandon traditional clothes for Western ones, while the events of recent decades have led to the emergence of a few particular types of costume only as ‘typically Kurdish’.
O’Shea’s chapter gives perhaps the clearest description in this book of trends which affect many areas of Kurdish culture. As far as language is concerned, for example, conditions in Kurdistan prevented the emergence of one or more unified literary languages for a long time; then a period of impoverishment followed owing to the increasing encroachment of other languages (see Nezan’s chapter); faced by the need to demonstrate a clear Kurdish identity, Kurdish scholars have made several attempts in modern times to create a unified, but more or less artificial written language where a rich profusion of dialects in fact exists. Allison’s chapter suggests that similar factors affect the field of oral literature.
A definition of culture which does not allow for change would obviously be inadequate at best, and could at worst prove seriously harmful to the culture concerned. It seems fitting, therefore, that one of the contributions to this book is Hassanpour’s erudite study of the role of the media which, unheard of only a hundred years ago, will inevitably play a large part in determining the future shape of the civilisation of the Kurds.
It will be clear from the above that Arabic, Persian and Turkish play an important part in the cultural life of the Kurds, and this can create problems for editors. All three languages have widely accepted systems of transcription, which are unfortunately different from one another. To make matters worse, the same is true of the two main literary dialects of Kurdish, Kurmanji and Sorani. There are, therefore, usually a number of acceptable spellings for each word, some of which are more likely than others to be familiar to readers. The editors confess themselves unable to devise a system of transcription that is at the same time unified, consistent, and intelligible. Instead, simplified forms of the traditional systems of transcription have been employed for each of the languages concerned, using ‘j’, ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘zh’, ‘kh’, ‘gh’ and ‘th’ where other systems employ more unusual symbols; macrons are used as length-marks throughout (â, ë, /, «, rather than the traditional Kurmanji â, ê, î, û). Diacritical marks, such as length-marks or signs to distinguish different Arabic or Kurdish consonants which have only one counterpart in European languages, are used where they are felt to be appropriate or necessary (e.g. to enable readers to pronounce an unfamiliar word or name, or find it in specialist literature), but otherwise avoided. In references to works published in Roman script the original spellings are retained. Wherever possible words are given in the form most likely to be familiar to Western readers.
Many, though not all, contributions are based on papers given at the Conference on Kurdish Cultural Identity, which was held on 26 March 1993 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, and was convened under the auspices of the SOAS Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and World Circuit Arts, London. The editors wish to extend their special thanks to all contributors, to the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS, for funding the indexing work, to Diana Gur of the Centre for turning their copy into camera-ready text, to Dr Richard Tapper of SOAS for his help and encouragement, to Catherine Lawrence of SOAS for her help with illustrations, to Eva Skalla of World Circuit Arts for her part in organising the conference, and to their spouses, Mieke Kreyenbroek and David Taylor, for their help and patience. Finally, it is perhaps necessary to point out that the material in this volume reflects the opinions of the contributors. The editors do not necessarily share the views expressed there.
The Kurds: Current Position and
Historical Background
Kendal Nezan
Introduction
Since the Gulf War and the Kurdish exodus of April 1991, there has been an internationalisation of the Kurdish issue. The wall of silence that had surrounded it for several decades collapsed just as the Berlin Wall fell. At present, the Western press publishes information regarding events in Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan quite regularly. Although the Kurdish issue has yet to be placed on the United Nations agenda, it has at least managed quite evidently to raise questions in the conscience of the world. It is not necessary, therefore, to give an exhaustive list of facts and data describing the present conditions of the Kurdish people. However, as reference will be made to such facts in the course of this chapter, I shall itemise a few points and bring into perspective the facts relating to the current situation. This will be followed by a general overview of the historical background.
Number and Distribution of the Kurdish Population
Turkey
According to Turkish estimates, there were approximately fifteen million Kurds in Turkey in 1992, out of a total population of fifty-nine million. In other words, they made up 25.42 per cent of the population. Kurdish sources put the number of Kurds living in Turkey at eighteen or perhaps even twenty million. The increase rate in the Kurdish regions is almost twice as high as the general average in Turkey. Indeed, according to the Turkish State Institute of Statistics, in 1989 the rate of demographic renewal, that is the number of children born of every woman of childbearing age (between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine), was 5.65 in the Kurdish provinces versus 3.39 in the whole of Turkey, or 2.64, 3.02 and 3.07 in regions largely inhabited by Turks such as the Aegean coast, the Mediterranean coast and Central Anatolia respectively. (At the same date, this rate was put at 1.8 in the United Kingdom.) At that rate, according to several studies, the Kurds …
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