Kurdish Ethnonationalism

The Middle East is a patchwork of competing and intersecting ethnic groups, of which the Kurds are a significant representative, both as a whole and as a compilation of internal factional interests. They are also a significant representative of the repeated and programmatic failure of the international community to acknowledge the viability of Kurdistan as a nation-state in the twentieth century. This monograph is a well-organized account and analysis of the Kurdish nationalistic movements in the Middle East, which closes with a projection of the likelihood that the Kurds can create and sustain a national entity in the form of Kurdistan. Focusing on the Kurds of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, Entessar looks at the way in which Kurds, who are dispersed in these three countries and parts of Syria and Armenia, provoked each of the nation-states into meaningful policy discourse with them, with the overarching object in view of establishing a territorial Kurdistan. On the whole, the analysis of the condition of the Kurds appears to be most apt. However, the implication that the nationalistic ethnic consciousness of the Kurds points inevitably to the formation of Kurdistan is more problematic.

Entessar essentially argues that the Kurdish strategy was to foster domestic agitation in each of the countries, while fostering sometimes complicated alliances among international and regional fac

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a viable possibility, an idealistic goal kept alive for ethnonational reasons and attainable owing to the power of the collective efforts of the Kurds, on one hand against the respective governments controlling border regions occupied by the Kurds, and on the other hand in pursuit of a nationalistic goal. This consciousness, says Entessar, has exercised influence on the political environments of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. That is, government policies in each nation-state have had to take account of significant and missional Kurdish minority presence. In the wake of the Gulf War of 1991, for example, Turkey made concessions to governance autonomy and publicly sided with Allied criticisms of Iraqi programs of chemical-warfare genocide against the Kurds. Iran, for its part, appears to have been obliged to assess and reassess its own alliances with Kurdish factions, coming out both for and against the same faction (Kurdistan Democratic Party or KDP) as the balance of power shifted toward and away from a tribalist instead of Soviet-style emphasis. The point is that Kurdish nationalism was a force that the established governments had to reckon with, especially after the establishment of a provisional Kurdistan government in the wake of
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Iraq Turkey, Kurdistan Front, Syria Armenia, Middle East, Iraq Iran, Party KDP, Mobile Alabama, East Entessar, Iranian Umma, Iran Muslims, middle east, kurdish ethnonationalism, ethnic consciousness, kurdish nationalistic, kurdish factions, rienner publishers 1992, kurds hand, iraq iran, political institutions, significant representative, iran iraq, ethnonationalism boulder colo, colo lynne rienner, boulder colo lynne, lynne rienner publishers,
Approximate Word count = 1329
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)