THE KURDISH SPRING IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE ARAB SPRING The purpose of this paper is to survey what might be termed the Kurdish Spring in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Fieldwork in Turkey and Iraq, scholarly articles and interviews, online sources and newspapers, among others, will be used as sources. This opening paper for the proposed panel on “The Kurdish Spring” will note that the Kurdish version of the Arab Spring did not just begin in 2011, but in many respects has been going on for decades. Indeed, second only to the perennial Arab-Israeli dispute, Kurdish nationalism remains a continuing and leading factor of instability in the geostrategically important Middle East. Furthermore, since the Kurds sit on a great deal of the Middle East’s oil and possibly even more important water resources, Kurdish nationalism probably will become increasingly more salient in the coming years. However, the Kurdish issue no longer seems intractable as the Kurds have actually established an autonomous state in northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Given continuing U.S. diplomatic backing as well as wise KRG leadership, it is not naïve to believe that the KRG will be able to survive and even prosper amidst all the birth pangs of post-Saddam Iraq and now the Arab and Kurdish Springs. The situation for Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, of course, is more problematic. However, a quick comparison with where the Kurdish issue stood in Turkey just one or two decades ago when the very term Kurd constituted a four-letter word in the Turkish lexicon will illustrate the enormous progress that has been made. The immediate task now is for the writing of a new, more democratic constitution to commence. On a lesser scale Iran too has long been going through its own off again/on again Kurdish Spring, the Mahabad Republic in 1946 being the most famous example. Although the Iranian Kurds are bitterly divided into several competing parties, constant protests and even armed struggle by the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), ensconced in the Iraqi Kandil Mountains just across the border from Iran, continue today. Finally, in Syria, where the Kurdish population is much smaller and not as geographically united as it is in the other three states, the Kurds have broken out of their muted and divided existence to partially and cautiously join the anti-Assad movement.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Kurdish Spring in Iraqi Kurdistan that followed and was partially influenced by the Arab Spring in 2011. Visits to Iraqi Kurdistan, scholarly articles and interviews, online sources, and newspapers, among other sources, will be employed. Despite the fact that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani, exploited the aftermath of their 1991 failed uprising against Saddam Hussein to establish a flourishing de facto Kurdish state in the non-Arabized parts of Iraqi Kurdistan (the Kurdistan Regional Government or KRG), they became targets for attacks by their opponents for corruption and nepotism. Nevertheless, by 2005, Talabani had become the President of Iraq and Barzani the President of the KRG. Although pundits had often described Talabani as progressive and Barzani as conservative, their mutual desire for power and moneymaking gradually brought the two sides closer together. Together, they turned the KRG into a family enterprise, enriching and empowering close family members and associates, while disentrancing non-partisan Kurds. The two parties signed a strategic alliance in 2009 in an effort to preserve their leadership status not only in the Kurdistan autonomous region of Iraq but also in the central government in Baghdad. The income disparity between members of the ruling parties and non-partisans without party connections widened, disappointing a large segment of the Kurdish society, especially the youth. The non-partisans who had survived on meager resources on the Kurdistan mountains while struggling for autonomy had expected better behavior from their leaders. The Arab Spring, which started in early 2011 in Tunisia after a vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi burned himself to death in protest against the police for damaging his trolley, emboldened the Kurdish youth to rise up against their rulers’ widespread nepotism and corruption as well as their curtailment of free speech and assembly. The Gorran (Change) Party was formed and demonstrations occurred. This article will analyze the resulting Kurdish Spring in Iraqi Kurdistan and project what the future will possibly hold.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of what has been dubbed the “Arab Spring” on the condition of the Kurds in Iran. Of course, the transformation of the Kurdish society in Iran predates the onset of the Arab Spring and dates back at least sixty years. In more recent years, the Kurds have been an integral part of the reform movement that began with the election of Mohammad Khatami as Iran’s president in 1997 and the emergence of the Green Movement in the aftermath of the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election. Throughout these developments, the yearning for democracy and human rights, and not assimilation, has been the common thread. The Kurdish discourse on democracy and democratization has long challenged the illusion of the “melting pot,” or the concept that assimilation is an inexorable process produced by “modernization” or “Islamization” and the emergence of a relatively strong and centralized nation-state in Iran. Among the Iranian Kurds, some, like the Kurdish Free Life Party (PJAK), have resorted to armed struggle, while others have sought to become part and parcel of the broader, generally nonviolent, reform movement in the country. However, the Kurds and the broader reform movement in Iran have had an uneasy relationship. For example, in the presidential election of 2005, the Kurds spurned the candidacy of the reformist Mostafa Moin despite his effort to woo voters in the Kurdish regions of the country. Similarly, the Green Movement has failed to win meaningful organic support from the Kurds. This paper, by relying mainly on primary Kurdish and Iranian sources, will study structural factors that have hindered the blossoming of a Kurdish spring in Iran.

The Kurds will be influential in the settlement of the uprising in Syria and yet their role in the events 2011-2012 is poorly understood. Tension between the Kurds and the Syrian state has been rising in the past two decades and so the complex role of the Kurds in the current uprising appears puzzling. This paper seeks to shed light on the responses of the Kurds to the uprising and their role within it. It will also provide analysis of three critical factors affecting this: the Kurdish relationships with the Syrian state; with the Syrian opposition; and the trans-state Kurdish dimension. The paper will argue that while most Kurds favour the removal of the Ba’thist regime, the complexities of these three critical factors have encourage a nuanced response to the uprising among Arab citizens of Syria. The Syria state has sought to pacify the Kurds by offering concessions and while these may be insufficient, the overthrow of the current rulers leads to the question of who will take their place. Kurds are suspicious of the non-Kurdish Syrian opposition and this movement has yet to accommodate Kurdish aspirations and hence gain Kurdish support. As ever in Kurdish politics, the trans-state dimension of Kurdayeti (Kurdishness) means that developments in neighbouring states, most significantly Turkey, also affect the actions of Kurds in Syria. The research for this paper will build on the author’s previous work on the Kurdish national movement in Syria and the evolving concept of serhildan (uprising) among the Kurdish population. Utilizing primary material from Kurdish websites, blogs, political parties and cultural, human rights and youth organisations, and interviews with Kurdish political figures and popular activists, the research will provide a detailed examination of organised and popular Kurdish responses over the period from March 2011 to the date of submission. Very little research is being conducted on Kurdish politics and popular mobilization in Syria and this paper would help to fill an important gap.

This paper offers an interdisciplinary, comparative, and theoretical framework to evaluate parallels and differences between the Arab Spring and Kurdish Spring. Theories of post-colonial anarchism and mobility studies are used to examine how Kurdish dissent is expressed through social media, satellite TV, as well as through forms of armed resistance. Unstructured interviews with Kurds in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Turkey further contextualize the ways in which younger generations of Kurds aim to break away from established and frequently managed patterns of resistance. The interview data were collected between 2010 and 2012 and all respondents controlled their contributions rather than having to respond to a specific set of rigid questions. The paper’s theoretical framework relies on Canzler, Kaufmann, and Kesselring’s provocative collection entitled Tracing Mobilities (2008), in which the scholars defined the concept of mobility “as a change of condition by targeting three dimensions: movements, networks and motility.” Critiquing established parameters of social science research as overly state-centric, rigidly discipline-driven, and at times devoid of methodological innovation, mobility studies scholars demand exploratory paths (John Urry, 2007). My paper forges an unusual approach by examining patterns of dissent among young, mobile, and transnational Kurds. By combining mobility studies with post-colonial anarchist thought, I highlight changes in protest patterns among Kurds; at times described as the Kurdish Spring. Post-colonial anarchism is most commonly employed to capture the essence of anarchist movements outside of the proletarian, working class context. Post-colonial anarchism emphasizes opposition to social hierarchies and supports principles of self-management and self-determination by colonized population groups. Communal narratives such as those collected by Marina Sitrin in Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (2006) offer essential insights into movements that organize in opposition to super-imposed, hierarchical, and time-honored patterns of authorized resistance. My interviews explore to what extend younger Kurdish activists are influenced by ideas that are disseminated through post-colonial anarchists and accelerated through access to social media tools.