The History Book Club discussion
MIDDLE EAST
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KURDISTAN
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by Christiane Bird (no photo)Synopsis in Goodreads:
Though the Kurds played a major military and tactical role in the United States’ recent war with Iraq, most of us know little about this fiercely independent, long-marginalized people. Now acclaimed journalist Christiane Bird, who riveted readers with her tour of Islamic Iran in Neither East Nor West, travels through this volatile part of the world to tell the Kurds’ story, using personal observations and in-depth research to illuminate an astonishing history and vibrant culture.
For the twenty-five to thirty million Kurds, Kurdistan is both an actual and a mythical place: an isolated, largely mountainous homeland that has historically offered sanctuary from the treacherous outside world and yet does not exist on modern maps. Parceled out among the four nation-states of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran after World War I, Kurdistan is a divided land with a tragic history, where the indomitable Kurds both celebrate their ancient culture and fight to control their own destiny. Occupying some of the Middle East’s most strategic and richest terrain, the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the region and the largest ethnic group in the world without a state to call their own.
Whether dancing at a Kurdish wedding in Iran, bearing witness to the destroyed Kurdish countryside in southeast Turkey, having lunch with a powerful exiled agha in Syria, or visiting the sites of Saddam Hussein’s horrific chemical attacks in Iraq, the intrepid, insightful Bird sheds light on a violently stunning world seen by few Westerners. Part mesmerizing travelogue, part action-packed history, part reportage, and part cultural study, this critical book offers timely insight into an unknown but increasingly influential part of the world. Bird paints a moving and unforgettable portrait of a people uneasily poised between a stubborn past and an impatient future.
Should it not be Kurdistan in your thread title, not Kurdishstan? The latter sounds like Sean Connery pronouncing it :) Thanks for the book posts.
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by Quil LawrenceSynopsis
The American invasion of Iraq has been a success - for the Kurds. Kurdistan is an invisible nation, and the Kurds the largest ethnic group on Earth without a homeland, comprising some 25 million moderate Sunni Muslims living in the area around the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Through a history dating back to biblical times, they have endured persecution and betrayal, surviving only through stubborn compromise with greater powers. They have always desired their own state, and now, accidentally, the United States may have helped them take a huge step toward that goal.
As Quil Lawrence relates in his fascinating and timely study of the Iraqi Kurds, while their ambition and determination grow apace, their future will be largely dependent on whether America values a budding democracy in the region, or decides to yet again sacrifice the Kurds in the name of political expediency. Either way, the Kurdish north may well prove to be the defining battleground in Iraq, as the country struggles to hold itself together. At this extraordinary moment in the saga of Kurdistan, informed by his deep knowledge of the people and region, Lawrence’s intimate and unflinching portrait of the Kurds and their heretofore quixotic quest offers a vital and original lens through which to contemplate the future of Iraq and the surrounding Middle East.
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How villagers from a Kurdish farming community in Iraq survived the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein's regime.
http://aje.me/16uwCFi
Filmmakers: Helena Appio and Gwynne Roberts
In the late 1980s, Saddam Hussein launched a massive campaign against the Kurds of Iraq. This was at a time when Iraq was at war with Iran and Hussein wanted to punish the Kurds for siding with the Iranians.
The campaign was code-named 'Anfal' and by the time it ended, hundreds of thousands of Kurds were imprisoned or killed.
Kulajo was one of of thousands of farming communities in Kurdistan, caught up in 'Anfal'. When the campaign began, about 300 people lived in Kulajo - all related to each other - by the end, nearly half were dead.
In this film, survivors from this tiny remote farming community tell their extraordinary stories.
Teimour Abdullah Ahmad, who was 11-years-old during 'Anfal' remembers: "I begged him in Kurdish, ' Don't shoot, don't kill us, what did we do? Why are you killing us?' He didn't understand, his eyes were full of tears, it was as if he'd been forced to do this."
Source: Aljazeera
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Published by the Brookings Institute Press
by Akbar AhmedSynopsis:
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States declared war on terrorism. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. Here world-renowned author, diplomat, and scholar Akbar Ahmed reveals an important yet largely ignored result of this war: in many nations it has exacerbated the already broken relationship between central governments and the largely rural Muslim tribal societies on the peripheries of both Muslim and non-Muslim nations. The center and the periphery are engaged in a mutually destructive civil war across the globe, a conflict that has been intensified by the war on terror.
Conflicts between governments and tribal societies predate the war on terror in many regions, from South Asia to the Middle East to North Africa, pitting those in the centers of power against those who live in the outlying provinces. Akbar Ahmed's unique study demonstrates that this conflict between the center and the periphery has entered a new and dangerous stage with U.S. involvement after 9/11 and the deployment of drones, in the hunt for al Qaeda, threatening the very existence of many tribal societies.
American firepower and its vast anti-terror network have turned the war on terror into a global war on tribal Islam. And too often the victims are innocent children at school, women in their homes, workers simply trying to earn a living, and worshipers in their mosques. Battered by military attacks or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, the tribes bemoan, "Every day is like 9/11 for us."
In "The Thistle and the Drone," the third volume in Ahmed's groundbreaking trilogy examining relations between America and the Muslim world, the author draws on forty case studies representing the global span of Islam to demonstrate how the U.S. has become involved directly or indirectly in each of these societies. The study provides the social and historical context necessary to understand how both central governments and tribal societies have become embroiled in America's war. Beginning with Waziristan and expanding to societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, Ahmed offers a fresh approach to the conflicts studied and presents an unprecedented paradigm for understanding and winning the war on terror.
C-Span at American University where author is a professor:
American University professor Akbar Ahmed talked about his book, The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam. He also talked about the debate over the use of drones by the Obama administration. This interview, recorded at American University in Washington, DC, was part of Book TV’s College Series.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/31...
My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, Algonquin Books, 2008
Ariel SabarSynopsis
In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Israel, Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Kurdish Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona, who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back until he had a son of his own.
"My Father's Paradise" is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope.
Populated by Kurdish chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers marvelous characters all this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world's attention.
Ariel Sabar's "My Father's Paradise" is the Winner of the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.
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Jews are not prominent here in Kurdistan, it's safe to say. I haven't read this yet but will probably pick up a bootleg copy here in the antique/junk shop in the Hewler Citadel, once they open the main gate again: renovations are ongoing in this fabulous, 8000-year-old, mud-brick maze, and this week they started knocking down one of the (newish, inauthentic) walls beside the main gate. I am very relaxed about bootleggedness in this context.
Incidentally I was told once in the Citadel, by someone who may or may not have any idea what he's talking about, that it was home to Erbil's Jewish community, in the 1950s and 60s. I think the 1960s might be a bit late for this, so perhaps 1940s is more accurate, but latterly the crumbling buildings of the left side of the Citadel have been home to the poorest and dispossessed of the area; apparently the last inhabitants, before it was cleared (bar one family) for renovation, were refugees from other parts of Iraq. (Even Darius III came here, after a crushing defeat at the battle of Gaugamela, pursued by Alexander.) You can bet that were it not now chasing UNESCO WHS status and undergoing serious building work, it would be home to Syrian Kurds, who are currently camped on the edge of the city and sending their children to beg in the markets and outside the shiny malls. Heartbreaking.
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I did have a good conversation with a Kurd who operated a restaurant in Brooklyn. He said that he and other Kurds greatly admired Israel and the Jews.
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Yes, it certainly is.EDIT: and today a Kurdish architect of my acquaintance here in Erbil said the same - that Kurds are very well disposed towards Jews. And indeed Christians and everyone else, he said; and that there is a substantial Jewish population in Erbil, Slemani and Duhok, though we didn't go into details on that.
I just finished, "Love in a Torn Land" by Jean Sasson. In this book, Joanna al-Askari (half Arab & Kurdish) and her family spend her childhood fearing the Baathist regime in Iraq. The regime wanted to get rid of the Kurdish community. Joanna’s family had to endure bombings, being interrogated, families being jailed\ tortured and all types of horrors. After viewing this, she wanted to fight for the future Kurdish rights and freedoms. She dreamed of fighting with the Peshmerga fighters who was a group that wanted freedom for the Kurdish people as well.She meets her then husband at the age of fifteen. And he became a Peshmerga fighter. It was love at first site but they didn't get married until years later. When they finally got married, Sarbast was deeply involved in the movement. So with her ideas of defeating Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, they endured their families being thrown in jailed, they experienced the terror of missing family, life on the run in the woods fighting insects, the Baathist regime trying to kill them and finally chemical warfare. I didn't know much about Hussein's regime until I read this book. But this man and his office were extremely violent and cruel. They are responsible for killing thousands of innocent men, women and children during his time in powerful.
But finally, the family had to apply for religious asylum and started a new life in England with their son. In the end, majority of their families had to move to England for a better life. The Kurdish community is freer today than when Joanna family lived in the country of Iraq. The book was a true eye opener.
Thanks, Chanel. Please edit your post to include book cover, author photo and link as shown below.
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Jean Sasson
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EDIT: and today a Kurdish architect of my acquaintance here in Erbil said the same - that Kurds are very well disposed towards Jews. And indeed Christians and everyone else, ..."
Thank you Sarah - that is very interesting.
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BAGHDAD/BATILE, Iraq: Sparks fly as workmen weld together a pipeline set to carry crude from the self-ruled Kurdistan region of Iraq to Turkey, de..."
Libby I love that you are adding some news stories and images to each one of these threads. It keeps folks up to date with these countries and what is happening in them.
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by Diane E. King (no photo)Synopsis:
Anthropologist Diane E. King has written about everyday life in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which covers much of the area long known as Iraqi Kurdistan. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’thist Iraqi government by the United States and its allies in 2003, Kurdistan became a recognized part of the federal Iraqi system. The Region is now integrated through technology, media, and migration to the rest of the world.
Focusing on household life in Kurdistan’s towns and villages, King explores the ways that residents connect socially, particularly through patron-client relationships and as people belonging to gendered categories. She emphasizes that patrilineages (male ancestral lines) seem well adapted to the Middle Eastern modern stage and viceversa. The idea of patrilineal descent influences the meaning of refuge-seeking and migration as well as how identity and place are understood, how women and men interact, and how “politicking” is conducted.
In the new Kurdistan, old values may be maintained, reformulated, or questioned. King offers a sensitive interpretation of the challenges resulting from the intersection of tradition with modernity. Honor killings still occur when males believe their female relatives have dishonored their families, and female genital cutting endures. Yet, this is a region where modern technology has spread and seemingly everyone has a mobile phone. Households may have a startling combination of illiterate older women and educated young women. New ideas about citizenship coexist with older forms of patronage.
King is one of the very few scholars who conducted research in Iraq under extremely difficult conditions during the Saddam Hussein regime. How she was able to work in the midst of danger and in the wake of genocide is woven throughout the stories she tells. Kurdistan on the Global Stage serves as a lesson in field research as well as a valuable ethnography.
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Stephen MansfieldSynopsis:
The story of one American’s Quixote-like vision for Kurdistan following Saddam’s barbarous attacks of the early 1990s – encouraging the Kurds to build one of the most remarkable, hopeful, and prosperous cultures in not just the Middle East but the world.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered under the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. Some four thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed. Betrayed again and again by the nations of the world, the Kurds were as decimated as any people in history.
Then came the Kurdish Miracle, that combination of ancient wisdom and modern economic genius that is now making the Kurdish homeland one of the most prosperous places on earth. Many experts predict that this homeland will soon be the world's newest nation.
Stephen Mansfield witnessed much of this history. In these pages he has turned the skills that have made him a New York Times best-selling author upon the Kurdish story. He has captured the agony and the determination, the horror and the genius of one of the most remarkable stories of our time.
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by Aliza Marcus (no photo)Synopsis:
The Kurds, who number some 28 million people in the Middle East, have no country they can call their own. Long ignored by the West, Kurds are now highly visible actors on the world's political stage. More than half live in Turkey, where the Kurdish struggle has gained new strength and attention since the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq.
Essential to understanding modern-day Kurds--and their continuing demands for an independent state--is understanding the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party. A guerilla force that was founded in 1978 by a small group of ex-Turkish university students, the PKK radicalized the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, becoming a tightly organized, well-armed fighting force of some 15,000, with a 50,000-member civilian militia in Turkey and tens of thousands of active backers in Europe. Under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan, the war the PKK waged in Turkey through 1999 left nearly 40,000 people dead and drew in the neighboring states of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, all of whom sought to use the PKK for their own purposes. Since 2004, emboldened by the Iraqi Kurds, who now have established an autonomous Kurdish state in the northernmost reaches of Iraq, the PKK has again turned to violence to meet its objectives.
Blood and Belief combines reportage and scholarship to give the first in-depth account of the PKK. Aliza Marcus, one of the first Western reporters to meet with PKK rebels, wrote about their war for many years for a variety of prominent publications before being put on trial in Turkey for her reporting. Based on her interviews with PKK rebels and their supporters and opponents throughout the world--including the Palestinians who trained them, the intelligence services that tracked them, and the dissidents who tried to break them up--Marcus provides an in-depth account of this influential radical group.
Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland(no image) Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland by Ofra Bengio (no photo)
Synopsis:
Kurdish Awakening examines key questions related to Kurdish nationalism and identity formation in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. The world's largest stateless ethnic group, Kurds have steadily grown in importance as a political power in the Middle East, particularly in light of the "Arab Spring." As a result, Kurdish issues--political, cultural, and historical alike--have emerged as the subject of intense scholarly interest. This book provides fresh ways of understanding the historical and sociopolitical underpinnings of the ongoing Kurdish awakening and its already significant impact on the region.
Rather than focusing on one state or angle, this anthology fills a gap in the literature on the Kurds by providing a panoramic view of the Kurdish homeland's various parts. The volume focuses on aspects of Kurdish nationalism and identity formation not addressed elsewhere, including perspectives on literature, gender, and constitution making. Further, broad thematic essays include a discussion of the historical experiences of the Kurds from the time of their Islamization more than a millennium ago up until the modern era, a comparison of the Kurdish experience with other ethno-national movements, and a treatment of the role of tribalism in modern nation building. This collection is unique in its use of original sources in various languages. The result is an analytically rich portrayal that sheds light on the Kurds' prospects and the challenges they confront in a region undergoing sweeping upheavals.
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Kurdistan: Genocide and Rebirth
by Davan Yahya Khalil (no photo)Synopsis:
In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s regime tortured, maimed and murdered thousands of innocent people.
Davan Yahya Khalil saw first-hand the horrific crimes inflicted on men, women and children under Saddam, and witnessed his Iraqi Kurdistan homeland torn apart. Forced to flee from the Iraqi army and start a new life in the UK, the author now shares his story for the first time.
Offering a unique insight into the life of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein, this story is both horrific and compelling. But the author speaks of much more than just horror. He also tells a story of hope – hope for the people of modern Kurdistan, who are seeing their region rise from the ashes.
Upcoming Release:Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan: An Armenian Boy's Memoir of Survival
by Aram Haigaz (no photo)Synopsis:
Armenian Aram Haigaz was only 15 when he lost his father, brothers, many relatives and neighbors, all killed or dead of starvation when enemy soldiers surrounded their village. He and his mother were put into a forced march and deportation of Armenians into the Turkish desert, part of the systematic destruction of the largely Christian Armenian population in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire. His mother urged Aram to convert to Islam in order to survive, and on the fourth day of the march, a Turk agreed to take this young convert into his household. Aram spent four long years living as a slave, servant and shepherd among Kurdish tribes, slowly gaining his captors trust. He grew from a boy to a man in these years and his narrative offers readers a remarkable coming of age story as well as a valuable eyewitness to history. Haigaz was able to escape to the United States in 1921."
The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East
by David L Phillips (no photo)Synopsis:
Kurds are the largest stateless people in the world. An estimated thirty-two million Kurds live in "Kurdistan," which includes parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran--today's "hot spots" in the Middle East. The Kurdish Spring explores the subjugation of Kurds by Arab, Ottoman, and Persian powers for almost a century, and explains why Kurds are now evolving from a victimized people to a coherent political community.
David L. Phillips describes Kurdish rebellions and arbitrary divisions in the last century, chronicling the nadir of Kurdish experience in the 1980s. He discusses draconian measures implemented by Iraq, including use of chemical weapons, Turkey's restrictions on political and cultural rights, denial of citizenship and punishment for expressing Kurdish identity in Syria, and repressive rule in Iran.
Phillips forecasts the collapse and fragmentation of Iraq. He argues that US strategic and security interests are advanced through cooperation with Kurds, as a bulwark against ISIS and Islamic extremism. This work will encourage the public to look critically at the post-colonial period, recognizing the injustice and impracticality of states that were created by Great Powers, and offering a new perspective on sovereignty and statehood.
The Energy War of Kurdistan: Internal Conflicts & External Alliances
by Iakovos Alhadeff (no photo)Synopsis:
Kurdistan is one of the richest regions in the world in terms of oil and natural gas reserves, and it plays a very important role in the energy war that is currently evolving in the Middle East. This essay explores the internal conflicts of the Kurdish people, and the alliances with their neighbours and the super powers.
Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan: Volume 1: Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs
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Isabella L. BirdSynopsis:
Isabella Bishop (n e Bird) published her Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan in 1891, compiled from a series of letters home. Recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for physical and nervous difficulties, Bird toured the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Far East. After her marriage, and the death of her husband in 1886, she did missionary work in India and then, in 1890, travelled to little-known parts of Turkey, Persia and Kurdistan in the company of Major Herbert Sawyer of the Indian Army. This came to be the hardest journey of her experience, with extremes of temperature and harsh living conditions for the sixty-year-old, although she was able to provide medical care for the local people. Volume 1 introduces the region, its people, and their customs and includes many evocative anecdotes. It also contains a glossary and maps.
Imagining Kurdistan: Identity, Culture and Society
by Ozlem Galip (no photo)Synopsis:
From the First Gulf War to the present upheaval in Syria, the Kurdish question has been a crucial issue within the Middle East region and in international politics. Spread across several countries, the Kurds constitute the largest stateless nation in the world. In this context, a striking question arises: how are Kurdish identity and the idea of the homeland – both as a symbol and as territorial space – constructed in writings from Turkish Kurdistan and its diaspora? Through a comparative analysis of Kurdish writing, Ozlem Galip here provides the first comprehensive look at modern Kurdish literature. Drawing on theories of space and collective memory and exploring the use of the historical past and personal memories in the literature of stateless nations, this book analyses the construction of the imaginary homeland and the concept of Kurdish identity.
Fever and Thirst: An American Doctor Among the Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-1844
by Gordon Taylor (no photo)Synopsis:
The first Americans to work with the people of the Middle East were neither spies nor soldiers. They were, in fact, teachers, printers, and missionaries; and one was a country doctor from Utica, NY. In June of 1835 Asahel Grant, M.D. and his bride, Judith, sailed from Boston to heal the sick and save the world. Fever and Thirst tells the story of Asahel Grant: explorer, physician, author and the first American to become enmeshed in the struggles of northern Iraq.
Road through Kurdistan: The Narrative of an Engineer in Iraq
by Archibald Milne Hamilton (no photo)Synopsis:
In 1928, Archibald Hamilton traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan, having been commissioned to build a road that would stretch from Northern Iraq, through the mountains and gorges of Kurdistan and on to the Iranian border. Now called the Hamilton Road, this was, even by today's standards, a considerable feat of engineering and remains one of the most strategically important roads in the region. In this colorful and engaging account, Hamilton describes the four years he spent overcoming immense obstacles--disease, ferocious brigands, warring tribes and bureaucratic officials--to carve a path through some of the most beautiful but inhospitable landscape in the world. Road Through Kurdistan is a classic of travel writing and an invaluable portrayal of the Iraqi Kurds themselves, and of the Kurdish regions of Northern Iraq.
A Soldier in Kurdistan: Rupert Hay's Two Years in Kurdistan
by Rupert Hay (no photo)Synopsis:
Kurdistan does not exist as a country, yet it certainly does exist as a nation. A people of great number and antiquity, untied by a shared heritage, the Kurds are scattered over five countries: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Soviet Union. For a great many years they have played the unenviable role of pawns in the Middle East's turbulent power struggles, manipulated by governments using Kurdish troubles as a means of outmaneuvering their opponents.
William Rupert Hay was a British political officer who was in charge of the largely Kurdish district of Arbil in northern Iraq from 1918 to 1920. He was given the task of establishing and maintaining British rule in the area in the wake of the invasion of the First World War.
Two Years in Kurdistan is a detailed and personal account of Hay's time in Arbil. It traces his progress from the initial warm welcome given by the Kurds (who were, in the wake of the war, living in terrible conditions and believed that British rule heralded the dawning of a new and better age) through disillusionment at stiffer taxes, tighter laws and the failure of the British significantly to improve the quality of life to the eventual rebellion of 1920. Through all of these events, Hay paints a vivid portrait of the people and places on northern Iraq and many extraordinary experiences, whether it be hunting the outlaw Nuri Bahil ('a patriot and a hero'; a sort of Robin Hood'), conversing with the gregarious tribal chief Hama Agha (who claimed to be 130 and fathered a child when 90) or describing attempts on his own life.
The most important aspect of the book is that it explains the feelings held towards the region by a man who, many years later, was, as a British Political Resident, to play a crucial role in the shaping of the modern Gulf. As he noted in 1921, with remarkable relevance today, 'Poor people, I am afraid they must have been bitterly disappointed of the high hopes for the future which they entertained.'
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Release date: October 30, 2015
The Kurds: A Modern History
by Michael Gunther (no photo)Synopsis:
The approximately 30 million or more Kurds famously constitute the largest nation in the world without its own independent state. The desire of many Kurds for independence, or at least cultural and even political autonomy, has led to an almost continuous series of Kurdish revolts. The resulting situation constitutes the Kurdish problem or question. Calling on more than 30 years of studying the Kurdish issue, numerous trips to the region, and many contacts among the Kurds, including almost all of their main leaders, Michael Gunter has written a short, but thorough history of the Kurds that is well documented, but still proves very readable. His narrative also includes numerous interesting personal experiences that will further explain these people who are for the most part moderate Muslims in favour of gender equality and are also wildly pro-American.
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Prison Writings - The Roots of Civilisation
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Abdullah ÖcalanSynopsis:
Abdullah Ocalan was the most wanted man in Turkey for almost two decades until his kidnapping and arrest in 1999. He has been in prison ever since. He is the founder of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). From 1984, under his leadership, the PKK fought for an independent Kurdish state in the south east of Turkey. In a sustained popular uprising, tens of thousands of PKK guerrillas took on the second largest army in NATO. Since his imprisonment, Ocalan has written extensively on Kurdish history. This book brings together his writings for the first time. Breathtaking in scope, it provides a broad Marxist perspective on ancient Middle Eastern history, incorporating the rise of the major religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism), and defining the Kurdish position within this, from the ancient Sumerian civilization through the feudal age, the birth of capitalism and beyond.
-- First publication of the prison writings of one of the world's most famous revolutionaries
-- 'Very readable. It is a tour-de-force.' Ghada Talhami, D.K. Pearsons Professor of Politics, Lake Forest College, Illinois
'We would expect Abdullah Ocalan to write a political treatise. Instead, he has penned a monumental history of the ancient Near East that offers a grand vision...This is the first truly postcolonial history of Mesopotamia.' Randall H. McGuire, Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University
Kurdistan And The Kurds Under The Syrian Occupation
by Jawad Mella (no photo)Synopsis:
"Since the end of World War I, the Kurds have had no national rights, and their country Kurdistan was divided and occupied by Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and former Soviet Union as an international colony, and the Kurds have been prosecuted, massacred, assimilated and denied the very basic human rights. Whether the Kurds are demanding full independence or a more limited autonomy or extension of electricity for their villages, in these States the Kurdish people face severe restrictions and harsh oppression. Here is some of what happened to western Kurdistan as an example to the rest of Kurdistan."
The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan
by Christine Allison (no photo)Synopsis:
The Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority, neither Muslim, Christian nor Jewish. Their ethnicity has been disputed, but most now claim Kurdish identity. Their heartland, including their holiest shrine, is in the Badinan province of Northern Iraq, and it is the communities in this area which are the main focus of this book. Their highly eclectic religion appears to contain many elements of 'the religions of the book', especially Sufism, upon a foundation of ancient Iranian belief and practice.
Hazim Beg Shemdin Agha: A Kurdish Personality: A Social History of His Life & Times, 1901-1954
by Hazar Shemdin (no photo)Synopsis:
Long before the Ottoman Empire, Kurdistan existed. Tucked among the Zagros and Taurus mountains and beyond, the people of Kurdistan lived as their ancestors had until the splintering of their lands following World War I.
Hazim Beg Shemdin Agha foresaw the changes that would come during his lifetime, and after.
Born in 1901 to a distinguished Kurdish family in Zakho, Iraq, he passionately believed in education as the foundation of liberty and social justice. As the leader of his tribe and a senator in the Iraqi parliament during the tumultuous first half of the 20th century, he used his power and wealth to serve his people.
This book recounts the passing of an era, as told through the author's personal reflections about a great man and his efforts to modernize and bring peace to his corner of Kurdistan.
The Idea of Kurdistan: The Modern History of Kurdistan through the Life of Mullah Mustafa Barzani
by Davan Yahya Khalil (no photo)Synopsis:
Mullah Mustafa Barzani, inspirational Kurdish leader, hero, legend. This excellent biography leaves no stone unturned. Its thorough analysis makes this a must-read for any student of modern history and politics in the Middle East.
Davan Yahya Khalil looks at the incredible impact one man had on an entire region. The legacy Barzani leaves is comparable to that of the Gandhis in India. So why do so few know his name internationally? For the simple reason that Kurdistan is still not established as an independent nation.
But the winds of change are blowing. Will Barzani’s dream become reality?
The Kurds of Iraq: Nationalism and Identity in Iraqi Kurdistan
by Mahir A. Aziz (no photo)Synopsis:
Over ninety years since their absorption into the modern Iraqi state, the Kurdish people of Iraq still remain an apparent anomaly in the modern world - a nation without a state. In 'The Kurds of Iraq', Mahir Aziz explores this incongruity, and asks the pertinent questions, who are the Kurds today? What is their relationship to the Iraqi state? How do they perceive themselves and their prospective political future? And in what way are they crucial for the stability of the Iraqi state?
In the wake of the Gulf War of 1991 in the face of the Iraqi state, the Kurds endeavoured to create a de facto state and to concretise and stabilise the institutions that would enable this. The Kurds of Iraq thus examines the creation, evolution and development of Kurdish nationalism despite the suppression of its political and cultural manifestations. Through extensive interviews in the field, Aziz assesses the impact of recent history on the complex process of identity formation amongst Kurdish students at three of the nation's leading universities. He provides an in depth examination of students' socio-economic backgrounds, and their thoughts on and experiences of what it means to be Kurdish in the modern Iraqi state, and the impact this has on their perception of their language, culture and religion.
Aziz's invaluable and extensive field research furthermore serves as a point of departure for an investigation into the relationship between national identity and historical memory in Iraqi Kurdistan and beyond. He thus analyses wider issues of the intersection and interdependency of national, regional, ethnic, tribal and local identities. He thus constructs an intimate portrait of the Kurds of Iraq, which will provide an important insight for students and researchers of the Middle East and for those interested the important issues of nationalism and ethnic identity in the modern nation state, and the impact these issues have on the stability of Iraq itself.
My Nest in Kurdistan
by Sazan Mandalawi (no photo)Synopsis:
"My Nest In Kurdistan is a reflection of the current state of Kurdish youth, their thoughts as the semi-autonomous region progresses and their aspirations. It provides a persuasive argument for Kurds in diaspora to return, especially those who immigrated due to the prosecution they faced under the Baath regime. Sazan Mandalawi talks about her childhood, Kurdish identity, culture, and the people that she has fallen in love with after returning back to her beloved land. For decades Saddam Hussein suppressed Kurdish voices, but immediately after his fall, a new generation of youth actively interconnected through social networking and have been vocal about their identity and culture.
What makes Mandalawi's memoirs special is her considerate young age -- and female outlook on Kurdistan. Sazan Mandalawi is one of the many Kurdish women with bright ideas towards a prosperous region. Her voice, thoughts, musings are all an indicator of contemporary Kurdish youth, as they attempt to shape Kurdistan socially and politically."
The Jews of Kurdistan 
by Erich Brauer (no photo)Synopsis:
Following World War II, members of the sizable Jewish community in what had been Kurdistan, now part of Iraq, left their homeland and resettled in Palestine where they were quickly assimilated with the dominant Israeli-Jewish culture.
The Jews of Kurdistan is a unique historical document in that it presents a picture of Kurdish Jewish life and culture prior to World War II. It is the only ethnological study of the Kurdish Jews ever written and provides a comprehensive look at their material culture, life cycles, religious practices, occupations, and relations with the Muslims.
In his preface, Raphael Patai offers data he considers important for supplementing Brauer's book, and comments on the book's values and limitations fifty years after Brauer wrote it. Patai has included additional information elicited from Kurdish Jews in Jerusalem, verified quotations, and completed the bibliography.
Mod
Release date: September 13, 2016
A People Without a State: The Kurds from the Rise of Islam to the Dawn of Nationalism
by Michael Eppel (no photo)Synopsis:
Numbering between 25 and 35 million worldwide, the Kurds are among the largest culturally and ethnically distinct people to remain stateless. A People Without a State offers an in-depth survey of an identity that has often been ignored in mainstream historiographies of the Middle East and brings to life the historical, social, and political developments in Kurdistani society over the past millennium.
Michael Eppel begins with the myths and realities of the origins of the Kurds, describes the effect upon them of medieval Muslim states under Arab, Persian, and Turkish dominance, and recounts the emergence of tribal-feudal dynasties. He explores in detail the subsequent rise of Kurdish emirates, as well as this people’s literary and linguistic developments, particularly the flourishing of poetry. The turning tides of the nineteenth century, including Ottoman reforms and fluctuating Russian influence after the Crimean War, set in motion an early Kurdish nationalism that further expressed a distinct cultural identity. Stateless, but rooted in the region, the Kurds never achieved independence because of geopolitical conditions, tribal rivalries, and obstacles on the way to modernization. A People Without a State captures the developments that nonetheless forged a vast sociopolitical system.
Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from Kurdistan, a History of Mission Work, 1668-1990
by Robert Blincoe (no photo)Synopsis:
This study of mission work among the Kurds is the most comprehensive and best survey in existence. It captures the dedication and perseverance of the missionaries and the obstacles they encountered. But its greatest contribution is in evaluating the missiological decisions they made up to the threshold of the present decade, in which some Kurds, without an earthly homeland, have found a heavenly one through Him who had no place to lay His head.
To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise
by Ely Banister Soane (no photo)Synopsis:
The place names are familiar to anyone who watches the evening news: Kurdistan. Kirkuk. Mosul. Baghdad. In the early 1900s, author ELY BANISTER SOANE (1881-1923) journeyed across Mesopotamia and Southern Kurdistan and make a record of what he heard and saw, from ancient tribal enmities to modern customs, such as drinking in coffeehouses. Personal and intimate, this traveler's tale turns a Western eye on the mysteries of the Middle East. This replica of the original 1912 edition, the only known work of author, is complete with all the original illustrations, and will delight readers interested in the history of one of the most contended regions of the world today.
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Kurdistan Rising? Considerations for Kurds, Their Neighbors, and the Region (other topics)Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves (other topics)
The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone (other topics)
To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise (other topics)
Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from Kurdistan, a History of Mission Work, 1668-1990 (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Dana Berzinjy (other topics)Michael Rubin (other topics)
Christopher Houston (other topics)
Janet Klein (other topics)
Ely Banister Soane (other topics)
More...
Since we are doing the Middle Eastern challenge; setting up one thread per Middle Eastern country is a good idea.
About Kurdistan:
Kurdistan (Kurdish: ههرێمی کوردستان Herêmî Kurdistan; Arabic: إقليم كردستان العراق Iqlīm Kurdistān Al-‘Irāq), also known as the Kurdistan Region or Southern Kurdistan, is an autonomous region of northeastern Iraq.
It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr. (The word Hewlêr is a metathesis of the non-Semitic name Arbel.) The region is officially governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The establishment of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq dates back to the March 1970 autonomy agreement between the Kurdish opposition and the Iraqi government after years of heavy fighting.
The Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s and the Anfal genocide campaign of the Iraqi army devastated the population and nature of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Following the 1991 uprising of the Iraqi people against Saddam Hussein, many Kurds were forced to flee the country to become refugees in bordering regions of Iran and Turkey.
A northern no-fly zone was established following the First Gulf War in 1991 to facilitate the return of Kurdish refugees. As Kurds continued to fight government troops, Iraqi forces finally left Kurdistan in October 1991, leaving the region to function de facto independently; however, neither of the two major Kurdish parties had at any time declared independence and Iraqi Kurdistan continues to view itself as an integral part of a united Iraq[citation needed] but one in which it administers its own affairs.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent political changes led to the ratification of a new Constitution of Iraq in 2005. The new Iraqi constitution defines Iraqi Kurdistan as a federal entity of Iraq, and establishes Arabic and Kurdish as Iraq's joint official languages.
Iraqi Kurdistan is a parliamentary democracy with a regional assembly that consists of 111 seats.
The current president is Massoud Barzani, who was initially elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009. The three governorates of Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah comprise around 40,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi) and have a population of 5.3 million.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon