Nationalistic Senses and Kurdish Politics in the Last Century
Abstract
The Sykes-Picot Agreement, agreed privately by France and Britain and subsequently
extended to include Russia, was eventually revealed or publicized as
drawing boundaries in the Middle-East for the 20th century. The land in which
Kurds were living was object of this division.
One of the reason why the Kurds did not fight for their own interests was the
weakness of nationalistic feelings among them, while
the other was lack of concensus among their leaders
(emirs and pashas), which continued even after World
War I and leading to the Kurds’ exclusion from international
agreements. Consequently, four distinct Kurdish
societies emerged in four different “nation-states”.
Nationalism is bound to the idea of a ‘land’ at first,
and the people living in the same land are emotionally
close to each other even though they do not know each
other, which is determined as ‘imagined community’
by Benedict Anderson.
In this article the current situation of the Kurdish politics
and their “nationalism” are going to be discussed
by comparing them to the situation in which Sykes-
Picot agreement occurred with the recent happenings
such as “postponing national congreess”, “liberating
Shingal”, and “Kobane” fighting.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Publication Date
January 1, 2017
Submission Date
November 10, 2016
Acceptance Date
December 10, 2016
Published in Issue
Year 2017 Volume: 2 Number: 7