The Kurds and a Nation

Why can't they make cheese? You may have to expand on the subject a bit. As you probably know, where there's Kurds, there's a whey. Post more, this topic has always interested me.

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There are "Kurdish minorities" in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran.

The question seems to be, are the Kurds a shared nation or a minority divided by several states ?

So, what's a 'nation'?

[Making it short, since it's bedtime:]
IMHO, there is already a Kurdish nation, since a long common history, sometime prosperous, sometime bloody, had bond the populations of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, that population, who speak Kurdish and/or are born there and/or identify with the political ideas of the Kurdish population and/or are living in this region.

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Kurdistan isn't Iraq.
Kurdistan isn't Iraq. Go there and see

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The kurds cant have a country for many reasons
1. Because Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq (up till 91) have fought many insurgencies just to prevent that from happenning. There are roughly 20 or so million kurds living in these 4 countries, there are about 10 million or a bit more just in turkey, with about 3 million in istanbul......

2 There is no unified, singular kurdish identity that unites all these people. There is no independent unified kurdish state recorded in history, the geography has much to do with it, but also the fact that the countries cited above have tried to assimilate the population also helped. Even just in northern iraq you have 2 main factions that are usually hostile towards each other.

3 They are not nation builders, rather they have served as pawns in the politics of the region since way back god knows when.

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yilmaz101 wrote:

2 There is no unified, singular kurdish identity that unites all these people.

This is the only line of your post that actually addresses the question. The rest of it are more of excuses for what is as opposed to what could be.

But, the Kurds aren't really much different than much of the mid-east. We've (all of us collectively, past and present) drawn arbitrary borders and defined nation states in the mid-east without regard to tribal loyalties, etc.. I'm not sure that an independent Kurdish nation/state could survive and what other problems it might create but... It's about time people started paying attention to such things.

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Well there is just one definite border there and that is the iranian border, all the way from northern turkey to the gulf, that border has been set, especially the northern bit, since the 15th century.... hard to believe. Only 100 years ago there was just one country in the middle east. not one nation, but one country... and the british did a splendid job of drawing those borders. (Oh by the way that country was not britain)

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?
I still don't understand why the Kurds cannot have a Nation in N. Iraq. The Iraq boundaries are artificial ones. The Kurds seem to have themselves organized to create their own state in the north

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pistoff

Do you define nation = independent state?

And if an independent state would be created in Iraq, why leave out the other Kurds?

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yilmaz101 wrote:

Only 100 years ago there was just one country in the middle east. not one nation, but one country... and the british did a splendid job of drawing those borders.

If it really was arbitrariness, then should we correct it today again and give the kurds its characteristic country.
But I think it is very complicated. So a thing necessarily needs much tolerance by all involved.

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OK the same logic applies to the border between the US and Canada, the israeli border, and most of africa, lets go fix them all. To create an independent kurdish state in northern iraq you would have to chekmate Turkey, Iran and Syria, who are all opposed to it. If you can convince these governments and sell them on the merits of having an independent kurdish state then you are welcome to correct them. Also the borders were arbitrary in the sense that the communities in all of those states that were carved out were integral part of a greater whole. Middle east affairs are very very complex, the only way to find real solutions is to somehow build up consensus among all those involved, an almost impossible task in the first place made further imposible as a result of years of fighting, scheming and bickering between the parties.......

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The fact of the matter is, the Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without a home nation.

The USA has been dangling a carrot in front of them for many years with grand promises of autonomy if they assist the USA dispose of Saddam Hussein.

Now that Bushco, the neocons and the PNACers have what they want in Iraq, it's interesting, but not surprising to me, to see how little the Kurds factor into the post-Saddam government proposed by Bushco and John Negroponte.

The Kurds were useful up to a point, and like American veterans, disposable to the USA.

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Yeap, keeping the promises made to the kurds means negating on the ones made to Turkey.... and as the way things are, with iraq under occupation, I think the promises made to Turkey are more predominant in the US administration.

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yilmaz:

How so?

I have a vague memory of the USA wanting to bring Turkey into Bush's Iraq war during the planning stages, but Turkey wanted disputed land in northern Iraq back under Turkish control as payment.

Is this the Kurdish region?

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Turkey wanted to establish a forward base of operations in northern iraq to coordinate its efforts.... meaning that they wanted to go ufter the insurgents located there..... oddly enough there is no land dispute between iraq and turkey... just between greece, and syria.

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yilmaz:

So what was the issue? Did the USA want all the purported glory for themselves that they thought would accompany the removal of Saddam?

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no the US wanted the support of the kurds in northern iraq, and the kurds didn't want turkish troops there, well as a matter of fact they were there 15 km intor iraq, but the kurds just said we don't want them there, we pulled ours back to the border once we got assurances from the US that they would make sure that our concerns for security in northern iraq, i.e. prevention of PKK (now it is called KADEK) insurgence from across the border, would be dealt with. And the iraqi kurds have pretty much kept KADEK in check and nothings flared up as a result of the power vacume

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3
I feel that Iraq could function well with 3 Independent States under a Republic sort of like the UK with a multi party parliamentary system.

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Re: 3

pistoff wrote:

I feel that Iraq could function well with 3 Independent States under a Republic sort of like the UK with a multi party parliamentary system.

The UK isn't a republic, btw, but a constitutional monarchy.

And besides the USA, the UK is seen as another example of having a two-party system - besides the USA:
"The two-party system is one of the outstanding features of British politics and generally has produced firm and decisive government. The practice of simple plurality voting in single-member constituencies has tended to exaggerate the majority of the winning party and to diminish the representation and influence of third parties, except for those with a geographic base of support (e.g., Plaid Cymru-The Party of Wales)."

(A two-party system has existed in the United Kingdom since the late 17th century. Since the mid-1920s the dominant groupings have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. However, several smaller parties?-e.g., the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, and loyalist (unionist) and republican (nationalist) political parties in Northern Ireland?-have gained representation in Parliament, especially since the 1970s.)

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OK
Thanks for the correction. Is Germany more of a multi-party sytem? I tend to favor a system where more than two parties have chances to share power.

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The Kurds and a Nation

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