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The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East. An Indigenous people from the Mesopotamian plains and highlands in what is now Southeast Turkey, Northeast Syria, Northern Iraq, northwest Iran and Southwest Armenia, they are the largest stateless people in the world. Denied a national identity, their culture and language have been banned or suppressed throughout the centuries and theirs is a story of resistance and survival.
This book offers a contemporary overview and critical analysis of the Kurds quest for national identity and statehood from the end of the Ottoman Empire to the modern day. Kurdish nationalism has taken many forms and had to endure periods of rebellion, acceptance, oppression and ethnic cleansing. Mandana Hendessi outlines the contours of the political struggle and military conflict that continue to shape the lives of a people that occupy one of the most contested regions in the world.
A very welcome book. An accessible introduction to the study of Kurdish history.
— Philip Kreyenbroek, Institute of Iranian Studies, University of Göttingen
Mandana Hendessi has worked for overseas aid programmes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan since 2003. Most recently she was Programme Manager for Norwegian People’s Aid in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She was awarded an OBE in 2004 for her support for Iraqi women to achieve a 25 per cent quota for parliamentary representation, a right that was enshrined in Iraq's constitution in 2005.
Introduction
1. Kurdish nationalism: the beginnings
2. From rebellion to political manifestos: Kurdish nationalism in twentieth-century Iran and Iraq
3. Kurdish nationalism in twentieth-century Turkey and Syria
4. Kurdish women’s movement
5. Beyond the mountains: transnationalizing Kurdish struggle for land and national identity
6. Kurdish statehood: Kurdish regional government, Iraq
7. Kurdish statehood: autonomous administration of north and east Syria
8. Conclusion: Kurdish autonomy – a regional tinderbox?