THE Kurds (کورد, “Kurd” in the Kurdish language) are a Middle Eastern people of Iranian origin who live mainly in the mountains of a vast area of Middle East (which takes its name from them “Kurdistan”) currently divided between 5 states: Türkiye, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Armeniawhich extends north and north-east of Mesopotamia. Different community however, they are also found outside their lands of origin, for example in Caucasus. Furthermore, in recent decades the Kurds constitute aimportant diaspora communityespecially in Western Europe (France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands). Their independence claims or even just about cultural and linguistic autonomy always have been repressed with great severity from all the countries that have each inherited a percentage of the territory of “Greater Kurdistan” during the partition process of the Middle East, following the First World War.
The origins, ancient history and culture of the Kurds
Even today it is not 100% clear what theorigin of the Kurdseven if studies trace the Kurdish language back to Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. We are not even sure that they are the descendants of the ancients “carduchi” mentioned by Xenophon in his Anabasis. What is certain is that they were mentioned with increasing frequency in Middle Eastern chronicles starting from the period of great Islamic conquests and the next conversion to Sunni Islam.
There is no absolute certainty even about what theirs was religion in the pre-Islamic period although there is strong evidence that it resembled that of the Yazidisso much so as to even put forward the hypothesis that the latter (who also speak Kurdish dialects) are nothing else, from a religious-cultural point of view, than a “living fossil” of what was the Kurdish people in its pre-Islamic historical phase.
Revolts, repressions and genocides of the Kurds in the last century
The most important phase of the history of the Kurds undoubtedly began in 20th centurywith the crumbling of theOttoman Empire and the fragmentation of the so-called “Greater Kurdistan” (a nation never born) into four separate entities that have taken different paths of development. However, it was during this period that a number of communities began to flourish in their territories political and militant movements who, by presenting themselves as standard-bearers for the autonomist and independence movements, inevitably ended up attracting ruthless repression from the state authorities, sometimes in one country, now in the other. The extreme fragmentation of the Kurdish population did not help the far from easy task of building a unifying nationalist narrative.
At least they were about twenty major Kurdish revolts which have bloodied the Middle East and which have affected at different times all four countries that host a large Kurdish population. Probably the most famous of all was the Anfal campaignbetween February and September 1988in the last phase of Iran-Iraq War. On that occasion the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein did not hesitate to use the tactics of war against the Kurdish populations “scorched earth” even authorizing the use of chemical weaponsas testified by Halabja massacrewhich occurred on March 16, 1988which claimed between 3,200 and 5,000 victims. This is one of the worst crimes against humanity after the Second World War.
The Kurds today and the prospects for the future
It is not clear how many Kurds there are in the world today given that the countries that host them, for political reasons, tend not to collect demographic data relating to individual ethnic groups. For this reason there are estimates characterized by enormous fluctuations (from a minimum of 30 to a maximum of 50 millionalthough the reality is probably somewhere in between).
The political status and cultural autonomy of the Kurds varies significantly depending on whether the communities residing in this or that country are examined. In any case, it is widely held that, currently, it is the Türkiye the country where the conditions of the Kurds are most uncertain. The country founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk it is in fact the one that hosts the largest Kurdish community (between 15 and 20 million), but it is also the one that has attempted in the most aggressive way to denationalize and assimilate them. The reason why the Ankara authorities have never had any qualms about using a heavy hand against the Kurds lies in their demographic strength which makes them an unavoidable player in the internal political games of the Republic.
To date, the perspectives for the birth of an independent Kurdistan I am practically non-existent. Even if over the last hundred years the overall conditions of the Kurdish people have improved, there still remains a clear refusal on the part of the Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian and, above all, Turkish authorities, to even take into consideration the possibility that a part or the whole of “Greater Kurdistan” can break away and become an independent state. Furthermore, even if this eventuality were to miraculously materialize, being a landlocked area, it would risk being condemned to a certain degree of marginalization.
Finally, it should be added that, even within the Kurdish people, they exist today numerous cultural, political and religious differences which sometimes lead different groups to clash, even violently. In short, the “Great Kurdistan” will probably remain one nation dreamed on paper.
