Historically, the notion or idea of Kurdistan has always been contested. Even today, it is likely to create heated and controversial debates. In a historical perspective, White (2000) argues, there seems to be a lack of consensus among scholars as to who exactly the Kurds are, but there is general agreement that the Kurds since ancient times have lived in a geographical area known both to themselves and many outsiders as Kurdistan. The name Kurdistan has been used in this area since the 13th century, but was not in general use until the 16th century (op.cit, p. 14). McDowall (2000), however, claims that the emergence of Kurdish societies
9 Extremely violent rightist groups were encouraged by the Parliament to attack leftist opponents in the streets and in universities and were allowed to operate freely in order to spread fear among the public (Romano 2006, p.
46).
10 Kurdish landlords/landowners.
11 The payment in USD were in 1983, 1.50 for a woman, 2 for a man and 1 for a child. The mortality rate at the time were 30 % among children (McDowall, 2000, p. 417).
can be dated back as far as 2 000 years, while Izady (1992, p. 28) argues that Kurdish existence stretches even further back – to pre-historic times.
According to Özoglu (1996), the term 'Kurd' seems to have been adopted by educated Kurds in the sixteenth century to refer to a collective identity. He shows to an early well-known document, the Serefname: a history of the Kurds, written by Serefhan Bitlisi, a sixteenth-century Kurdish ruler of the Bitlis emirate12. The book demonstrates a very elaborate perception of Kurdish identity. While Serefhan uses the term Kurd consciously; he does not give a clear definition of the term. He understands the term Kurdish as a collective identity, closely associated with a geographical region named Kurdistan (op.cit, p. 9). The tribal community, which was the central unit in Kurdish life, defined the members as Kurds.
Without this tribal affiliation, a person was a non-Kurd, an outsider (Akman, 2002, p. 103).
Amir Hassanpour (1994) claims that the Kurdish people are one of the largest stateless nations in the world. There are probably 30 million Kurds living in the Middle East (Yildiz, 2005. p. 4). More than half of these live in Turkey. The present territory called Kurdistan has been divided and lies within the present borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and a smaller part in Syria and in some republics in the former Soviet Union, like Armenia and Azerbaijan (White, 2000, p. 16). McDowell (2000, pp. 2-3) emphasises that what binds Kurds together is a feeling of solidarity arising from the idea of common ancestry and a shared language, even though it contains different dialects13 There is also the question of a recognised territory.
While regional states may deny its existence, Kurdistan exists within well-defined limits in the minds of most political groups. McDowell (2000) argues that there are both a practical and a mythical interpretation of political Kurdistan. The former “affords Kurdistan the borders that the political leadership either hopes or believes it can achieve”. The mythical idea of Kurdistan is for many Kurds regarded as the mountain, an imaginary as well as a real place.
Even if Kurds leave the mountain valleys to live in urban areas, the mountain image is strong because “nations are built on imaginations before they are built on the ground” (McDowall, 2000, p. 3). Izady (1992) also argues that to a Kurd, the mountain is the “embodiment of the deity”; the mountain is his [her] mother, his refuge, his protector, his home, his farm, his
12According to Hakan Özoglu (1996, p. 8) the Kurdish emirate or confederacy differs from the tribe in terms of size and heterogeneity; its origin and class composition; its more circumstantial solidarity; and its closer relations with the state. The Kurdish emirate is composed of a number of tribes, both nomadic and settled and of non-tribal groups who speak different dialects. The supreme leader of the emirate (mir) possesses considerable military power and lives in a fortified city with his entourage.
13 According to McDowall (2000, p. 9) Sorani and Kurmanji constitute the two main dialects. Kurmanji spoken most by Northern Kurds (Turkey) and Sorani is spoken most by southern Kurds (Iraq). Both main dialects represent a standardised version of a multiplicity of local dialects.
market, his mate, and his only friend. This attachment is the source of many folk beliefs that the mountains are inhabited by the Kurds (op.cit, p. 188). The saying: “The Kurds have no friends but the mountains,” describes this close relationship. When thousands of Kurdish youth from all parts of the world find their way back to the mountains in order to struggle and to seek new knowledge, this can also be regarded as a symbolic act. The fact that thousands of PKK martyrs are buried there only strengthens the strong affiliation to the almost sacred mountains (see article II).
Historically, Gunter (1992) emphasises, family and tribe have been at the centre of the Kurdish worldview and lifestyle. In many areas in Kurdistan, they still hold a strong position.
Gunter claims, in line with van Bruinessen (1978), Hassanpour (1994), McDowell (2000), Akman (2002), and White (2000), that the lack of a Kurdish state has made the tribe the focus of loyalty and also the organising unit; the power of the tribal chieftain has always been considerable. There are a considerable number of tribes in Kurdistan, each with its own defined territory, a fact that has strengthened the view that Kurds lack inner unity (Özcan, 2006, p. 139). There has been an expectation that the primary duty of a tribesman was to his tribe and chieftain, the second was to his religion. In this worldview, the idea of having duties towards fellow Kurds was non-existent. If a chieftain decreed that the tribe was obliged to fight on the side of the non-Kurdish actors against other Kurds, then the tribesmen would probably obey (Gunter, 1992).In Turkey, many Kurds have sided with Ankara against fellow Kurds without regarding this as a betrayal of a national Kurdish cause (Bulloch & Morris, 1992). An example of this is the Kurdish village guards14 who since the 1980s have sided with Turkish authorities in order to destroy the PKK.
Historically, it seems that conflicts among tribes have contributed to the maintenance and strengthening of the tribal system, rather than weakening it.
14 The Law of Temporary Village Guards of 1924 or The Village Law was revitalised in 1985. The village guards were a renewal of the Hamidiya, a local militia system used in the early days of the Turkish Republic.
(McDowall, 2000, p. 422). The village guards were recruited from Kurdish tribes, armed and paid by the state in order to assist in operations against the PKK. They were selected because of their inside knowledge and the chieftain received a monthly amount for each recruit. At the largest the number of village guards counted about 90 000. They are accused of being extremely brutal against the population and rapes against women are continually reported (Westrheim, 2005b).