A Road Unforeseen

by Meredith Tax

  23Caglayan, “Kawa the Blacksmith,” 2012.

  24Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02c.htm.

  25Sveinung Legard, interview with David Graeber, “We Have a Lot to Learn,” New Compass, September 17, 2015, http://new-compass.net/articles/we-have-lot-learn.

  26Christa Wolf, Cassandra, trans. Jan van Heurck (New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 1984).

  27Gonul Kaya, “Why Jineology? Re-Constructing the Sciences Towards a Communal and Free Life,” Kurdish Question, n.d., http://www.kurdishquestion.com/index.php/kurdistan/north-kurdistan/why-jineology/533-why-jineology.html.

  28Tax, Rising of the Women, 2001; Meredith Tax, “The Sound of One Hand Clapping: Women’s Liberation and the Left,” Dissent, Fall, 1988, http://www.meredithtax.org/us-movement-history-strategy/sound-one-hand-clapping-women’s-liberation-and-left.

  29Ali Kemal Ozcan, Turkey’s Kurds: A Theoretical Analysis of the PKK and Abdullah Ocalan (London: Routledge, 2006), 148.

  Chapter 1: The Kurds

  1Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State: on the social and political organization of Kurdistan (PhD Diss., University of Utrecht, 1978). This was made into a book: Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan (Zed Books: London, 1992), https://universiteitutrecht.academia.edu/MartinvanBruinessen/Books. My page numbers refer to the thesis.

  2Erika Solomon, “Isis aims to erase regional borders,” The Financial Times, June 23, 2014, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aa5dafc2-fae6-11e3-8959-00144feab7de.html; Martin Chulov, Fazel Hawramy, and Spencer Ackerman, “Iraq army capitulates to Isis militants in four cities,” The Guardian, June 11, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states.

  3Dexter Filkins, “The Fight of Their Lives,” The New Yorker, September 29, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/29/fight-lives.

  4Filkins, “Fight,” 2014; Anna Fifield, “Corruption fatigue fuels critics of Kurdistan’s twin dynasties,” The Financial Times, July 25, 2009, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d6dfe914-78b1-11de-bb06-00144feabdc0.html; Derek Monroe, “Kurdistan: The Next Autocracy?” Foreign Policy in Focus, June 13, 2011, http://fpif.org/kurdistan_the_next_autocracy/.

  5Luay Al Khatteeb, “Kurdistan’s Slow Rolling Coup d’état,” Huffington Post, October 15, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luay-al-khatteeb/kurdistans-slow-rolling-c_b_8306984.html.

  6“Seven Days In Iraq, Syria, Rojava And Turkey,” Harvest, June 12, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/seven-days-in-iraq-syria-rojava-and.html; Asya Abdullah, “A joint defense force is a must for the Kurds,” Harvest, June 28, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/asya-abdullah-joint-defense-force-is.html; “‘ISIS Crisis Urges Kurdish Unity’ says Salih Müslim,” Harvest, June 12, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/isis-crisis-urges-kurdish-unity-says.html.

  7Sebastian Maisel, “Sectarian-Based Violence: The Case of the Yezidis in Iraq and Syria,” Middle East Institute, July 23, 2014, http://www.mei.edu/content/map/sectarian-based-violence-case-yezidis-iraq-and-syria; Raya Jalabi, “Who are the Yazidis and why is ISIS hunting them?” The Guardian, August 11, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/who-yazidi-isis-iraq-religion-ethnicity-mountains.

  8“ISIS Commits Atrocities, Syrian Government Attacks Aleppo And Kurdish Forces Are In Solidarity With Communities In Iraq,” Harvest, June 13, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/isis-commits-atrocities-syrian.html.

  9Necla Acik, “Kobane: the struggle of Kurdish women against Islamic State,” openDemocracy Arab Awakening, October 22, 2014, https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/necla-acik/kobane-struggle-of-kurdish-women-against-islamic-state; Reuters, “Kurds, Islamic State Clash Near Kurdish Regional Capital,” The New York Times, August 6, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/08/06/world/middleeast/06reuters-iraq-security-kurds.html?_r=1.

  10“A Day of Tremendous Resistance Across Northern, Western And Southern Kurdistan,” Harvest, August 3, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/a-day-of-tremendous-resistance-across.html.

  11“Salih Muslim Calls For Unified Military Council Following New ISIS Attacks,” Harvest, August 4, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/salih-muslim-calls-for-unified-military.html; Acik, “Kobane,” 2014; Yvo Fitzherbert, “A new kind of freedom born in terror,” openDemocracy Arab Awakening, August 26, 2014, https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/yvo-buxton/new-kind-of-freedom-born-in-terror.

  12Tugba Akyilmaz, “Ezidi women refuse to give up in the face of Daesh,” Jinha, July 22, 2015, http://jinha.com.tr/en/ALL-NEWS/content/view/27022?page=1.

  13Jane Arraf, “Islamic State persecution of Yezidi amounts to genocide, UN says,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 7, 2014, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0807/Islamic-State-persecution-of-Yazidi-minority-amounts-to-genocide-UN-says-video.

  14Zeinab Karam and Bram Janssen, “In an IS Training camp, children told: Behead the doll,” Associated Press, July 19, 2015, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f852b2d021254f06b9a002dfe25c7538/training-camp-children-told-behead-doll.

  15Rukmini Callimachi, “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape,” The New York Times, August 13, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html?_r=0.

  16Ishaan Tharoor, “Islamic State burned a woman for not engaging in an ‘extreme’ sex act, U.N. official says,” The Washington Post, May 22, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/22/islamic-state-burned-a-woman-alive-for-not-engaging-in-an-extreme-sex-act-u-n-official-says/?postshare=4031432347480556.

  17Olivia Goldhill, “This man risks his life every day to rescue kidnapped women from ISIS,” The Telegraph, July 8, 2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11723360/Islamic-State-Meet-the-man-who-helps-kidnapped-women-escape-horrors.html; Mohammed A. Salih, “Father of the brave: the man who rescues enslaved women from Isis,” The Guardian, July 13, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/father-of-the-brave-the-yazidi-christian-who-rescues-hostages-from-isis; “Escaping ISIS,” Frontline, July 14, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/escaping-isis/.

  18Goldhill, “This man risks everything,” 2015.

  19Callimachi, “Theology of Rape,” 2015.

  20Adam Withnall, “Isis releases ‘abhorrent’ sex slaves pamphlet with 27 tips for militants on taking, punishing and raping female captives,” The Independent, December 10, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-releases-abhorrent-sex-slaves-pamphlet-with-27-tips-for-militants-on-taking-punishing-and-raping-female-captives-9915913.html; Rukmini Callimachi, “To Maintain Supply of Sex Slaves, ISIS Pushes Birth Control,” The New York Times, March 13, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/world/middleeast/to-maintain-supply-of-sex-slaves-isis-pushes-birth-control.html.

  21“Liberating Şengal/Sinjar, Rabiaa And Maxmur/Mexmûr—Defending Rojava—Protecting HPG Guerillas—In Solidarity With Ezidis,” Harvest, August 8, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/liberating-sengalsinjar-rabiaa-and.html.

  22Reuters, “Kurds, Islamic State Clash,” 2014.

  23Reuters, “Obama Authorizes Air Strikes in Iraq,” The New York Times, August 7, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/08/07/world/middleeast/07reuters-iraq-crisis-usa.html.

  24Reuters, “US Weighs Options to Rescue Desperate Yazidis From Iraqi Mountain,” Newsweek, August 11, 2014, http://www.newsweek.com/us-weighs-options-rescue-desperate-yazidis-iraqi-mountain-263759.

  25Hassan Hassan, “Isis, the jihadists who turned the tables,” The Observer, August 9, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/10/isis-syria-iraq-barack-obama-airstrikes.

  26Acik, “Kobane,” 2014; “Late-breaking news—victories in Sinjar and Maxmur/Makhmour,” Harvest, August 10, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/late-breaking-news-victor
ies-in-sinjar.html; “Our news today from Rojava and northern Iraq,” Harvest, August 14, 2015, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/our-news-today-from-rojava-and-northern.html.

  27Isabel Coles, “Iraqi Kurds liberate besieged Sinjar mountain, freeing hundreds,” Reuters, December 18, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-sinjar-idUSKBN0JW22G20141218; Michael R. Gordon and Rukmini Callimachi, “Kurdish Fighters Retake Iraqi City of Sinjar from ISIS,” The New York Times, November 13, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/middleeast/sinjar-iraq-islamic-state.html.

  28Filkins, “Fight,” 2014; Barzani made a similar statement in January 2016, quoted in The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/22/kurdish-independence-closer-than-ever-says-massoud-barzani.

  29Filkins, “Fight,” 2014.

  30Mouin Rabbani, “The Un-Islamic State,” Jadaliyya, September 9, 2014, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/19181/the-un-islamic-state.

  31“ISIS Proposes Truce to Kurdish Peshmerga South of Kirkuk,” Rudaw, June 16, 2014, http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/150620143.

  32Hanin Ghaddar, “ISIS’s strategy of terror: interview with Christoph Reuter,” NOW Media, July 15, 2015, https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/10questions/565586-isiss-strategy-of-terror.

  33Hayri Demir, “The Betrayal of Shingal,” Ezidi Press, August 9, 2015, http://ezidipress.com/en/the-betrayal-of-shingal/.

  34“Asya Abdullah: a joint defense force is a must for the Kurds,” Harvest, June 28, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/asya-abdullah-joint-defense-force-is.html.

  35Justin Huggler, “The world’s largest nation without a state seeks a new home in the West,” The Independent, February 19, 2001, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-worlds-largest-nation-without-a-state-seeks-a-new-home-in-the-west-692440.html.

  36This overview is drawn from van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State, 1978, and David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B.Tauris & Co., 2004).

  37Robert Reich, “Tribalism is tearing America apart,” Salon, March 25, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2014/03/25/robert_reich_tribalism_is_tearing_america_apart_partner/.

  38“Anglo-French Declaration,” November 7, 1918, http://www.balfourproject.org/anglo-french-declaration/; “President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points,” The Avalon Project, January 8, 1918, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp.

  39Ali Kemal Ozcan, Turkey’s Kurds: A Theoretical Analysis of the PKK and Abdullah Ocalan (London: Routledge, 2006), 2.

  40Shahrzad Mojab, ed., “Introduction,” Women of a Non-State Nation: The Kurds (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2001), 11–12.

  41Martin van Bruinessen, “From Adela Khanum to Leyla Zana: Women as Political Leaders in Kurdish History,” in Mojab, ed., Women of a Non-State Nation, 100–103.

  42“Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan: an empirical study by WADI,” 2010, 5, http://www.stopfgmkurdistan.org/study_fgm_iraqi_kurdistan_en.pdf; Christina Asquith, “Under the Knife: Grading Iraqi Kurdish Progress Against Female Genital Mutilation,” Foreign Affairs, July 27, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2015-07-27/under-knife.

  43Before the 1979 revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power, Iranian Kurds had small separatist movements, as well as a strong Communist Party; today they have a nationalist party, the KDPI, whose leader was assassinated by the Iranian government in Vienna in 1989, and a Marxist-Leninist party, Komala. Both these parties are split into two factions. A PKK affiliate, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), is the most rapidly growing Kurdish party in Iran; its militias are camped in the Qandil mountains near those of the PKK.

  44Roger Morris, “A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making,” The New York Times, March 14, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/opinion/a-tyrant-40-years-in-the-making.html.

  45McDowall, Modern History, 348.

  46McDowall, Modern History, 382–3.

  47“Iraqi Kurds’ protests over economic crisis turn violent,” Al-Jazeera, October 8, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/iraqi-kurds-protests-economic-crisis-turn-violent-151008155126148.html.

  48Hamit Bozarslan, “The Kurds and Middle Eastern ‘State of Violence’: the 1980s and 2010s,” Kurdish Studies, May 2014, 7, http://tplondon.com/journal/index.php/ks/article/view/349.

  49McDowall, Modern History, 472.

  50McDowall, Modern History, 474; “The Time of the Kurds,” Council on Foreign Relations, June 3, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/time-kurds/p36547?cid=nlc-news_release-news_release--link220150604&sp_mid=48807925&sp_rid=Z2FlcmZAYWpjLm9yZwS2-!/;

  51McDowall, Modern History, 475.

  52James Brandon, “The PKK and Syria’s Kurds,” Terrorism Monitor, 5,3, February 21, 2007, Jamestown Foundation, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1014; Soner Cagaptay, “Syria and Turkey: The PKK Dimension,” The Washington Institute, April 5, 2012, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/syria-and-turkey-the-pkk-dimension.

  53David L. Phillips, The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2015), 79–80.

  54J. Michael Kennedy, “Kurds Remain on the Sidelines in Syria’s Uprising,” The New York Times, April 17, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/world/middleeast/kurds-remain-on-sideline-in-syrias-uprising.html?_r=0; Aliza Marcus, “Kurds in the New Middle East,” The National Interest, August 22, 2012, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/kurds-the-new-middle-east-7377; Phillips, Kurdish Spring, 159.

  55“The Kurdish Democratic Union Party,” Carnegie Middle East Center, March 1, 2012, http://carnegie-mec.org/publications/?fa=48526&reloadFlag=1; Marcus, “Kurds in the New Middle East,” 2012.

  56H. Akin Unver, “Turkey’s ‘Deep-State’ and the Ergenekon Conundrum,” Middle East Institute, April 1, 2009, http://www.mei.edu/content/turkeys-deep-state-and-ergenekon-conundrum; Kerem Oktem, “Return of the Turkish ‘State of Exception,’” MERIP, June 3, 2006, http://www.merip.org/mero/mero060306.

  57Greg Bruno, “Inside the Kurdistan Workers’ Party,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 19, 2007, http://www.cfr.org/turkey/inside-kurdistan-workers-party-pkk/p14576; McDowall, Modern History, 189.

  58McDowall, Modern History, 442.

  59Kamran Matin, “Why is Turkey bombing the Kurds?” openDemocracy Arab Awakening, August 4, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/kamran-matin/why-is-turkey-bombing-kurds.

  60Adam Barnett, “The Rojava Spirit Spreads,” Dissent, February 25, 2015, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/turkey-erdogan-putin-rojava-kurdish-democracy.

  61Joost Jongeren and Ahmet Hamdi Akkaya, “Democratic Confederalism as a Kurdish Spring: The PKK and the Quest for Radical Democracy,” in Mohammed A. A. Ahmed and Michael M. Gunter, eds., The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds (Mazda Press: Costa Mesa, 2013), 166, https://www.academia.edu/3983109/Democratic_Confederalism_as_a_Kurdish_Spring_the_PKK_and_the_quest_for_radical_democracy.

  62Acik, “Kobane,” 2014.

  63These include Abdullah Ocalan, Democratic Confederalism (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2011), and Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2014), http://www.freeOcalan.org/?page_id=267.

  64Abdullah Ocalan, War and Peace in Kurdistan (Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2009), http://www.freeOcalan.org/?page_id=267.

  65Abdullah Ocalan, Prison Writings III: The Road Map to Negotiations, trans. Havin Guneser, (Institute Initiative Edition: Cologne, 2012), 21–2.

  66Ocalan, Prison Writings III: Road Map, 30.

  Chapter 2: Separated at Birth

  1Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State: on the social and political organization of Kurdistan (PhD Diss., University of Utrecht, 1978), 16, 35–37, https://universiteitutrecht.academia.edu/MartinvanBruinessen/Books.

  2van Bruinessen, Aghas, 23.

  3David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, (New York: I.B.Tauris, New York: 2004),
157.

  4van Bruinessen, Aghas, 91.

  5Blood feuds are not a thing of the past nor are they peculiar to Kurdistan. An August 2015 Google search of The Guardian, using the term “blood feud,” turned up news stories about Afghanistan, Albania, Calabria, Corsica, Georgia, Ingushetia, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

  6van Bruinessen, Aghas, 90.

  7McDowall, Modern History, 246.

  8It was at first called the Kurdish Democratic Party but changed its name to Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1956 to avoid any implications of ethnic exclusivity.

  9McDowall, Modern History, 294, 296–7, 303–4.

  10McDowall, Modern History, 307–312.

  11Martin van Bruinessen, “Kurds, states and tribes,” in Tribes and power: nationalism and ethnicity in the Middle East, ed. Faleh A. Jabar and Hosham Dawod (London: Saqi, 2002), 165–183, https://www.academia.edu/2521393/Kurds_states_and_tribes; McDowall, Modern History, 354.

  12McDowall, Modern History, 314–16.

  13McDowall, Modern History, 323–331.

  14Interview with Said Aburish, “The Survival of Saddam: Secrets of his Life and Leadership,” Frontline, PBS, January 2000, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aburish.html.

  15McDowall, Modern History, 335, 331–2.

  16Douglas Little “The United States and the Kurds: A Cold War Story,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 12, 4, Fall, 2010, https://www.academia.edu/9687244/The_United_States_and_the_Kurds.

  17McDowall, Modern History, 333.

  18McDowall, Modern History, 337–8.

  19Little, “Cold War Story,” 2010.

  20McDowall, Modern History, 339–40.

  21“Minority groups face increasing discrimination in Turkey,” Today’s Zaman, March 20, 2014, http://www.todayszaman.com/national_minority-groups-face-increasing-discrimination-in-turkey_342607.html.