GEOGRAPHY AND POPULATION

Kurdistan, or the homeland of the Kurds, is a strategic area located in the geographic heart of the Middle East. Today, it comprises important parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. These parts were created at two different occa-sions: first, in 1514 when Kurdistan was divided between the Ottoman and Per-sian empires following the battle of Chaldiran and, second, in 1920-1923 when Britain and France further altered the political contours of Kurdistan by dividing Ottoman Kurdistan among Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Today, estimates of the size of the land where the Kurds constitute the dominant majority range from 230,000 to 300,000 square miles in size, divided as follows: Turkey (43% of the

total area of Kurdistan), Iran (31%), Iraq (18%), Syria (6%), and former USSR (2%). The Kurds in the former USSR (mainly in Armenia and Azerbaijan) had passed into that area when territories were ceded by Persia in 1807-1820, and by the Ottomans in 1878.

As in the case with most Middle Eastern stateless nations, estimates of the total number of Kurds vary widely. Kurdish nationalists are tempted to ex-aggerate the number, and governments of the region to minimize it. Although there are no official censuses regarding the number of the Kurds, most sources agree that today there are more than 30 million Kurds and at least one-third of them live outside Kurdistan because of war, forced resettlements, or economic deprivation. Slightly more than half of the Kurds live in Turkey, about one-fourth in Iran, and one-sixth in Iraq. The remaining Kurds live in Syria (1.5 mil-lion), Europe (over 1 million), former Soviet Union (.5 million), and several other countries. The largest concentrations of Kurds outside Kurdistan are in the major cities of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and former Soviet republics, and in two Kurdish enclaves in central and north-central Anatolia in Turkey and in Khura-san in northeast Iran and southern Turkmenistan. There are also large concentra-tions of Kurds in Germany (over 600,000), Israel (over 100,000),and Lebanon (75,000-100,000). Australia, Canada, England, Finland, France, Greece, Swe-den, and the United States each have a Kurdish population of over 10,000 (see bibliography for relevant sources). It is important to note here that despite all efforts by Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria to downsize the number of Kurds, no one can deny that the Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks, and that they are one of the largest stateless nations in the world.

Anthropologically, the Kurds are now predominantly of Mediterranean racial stock, resembling southern Europeans and the Levantines in skin, general coloring and physiology. There is yet a persistent recurrence of two racial sub-strata: a darker aboriginal Palaeo-Caucasian element, and more localized occur-rence of blondism of the Alpine type in the heartland of Kurdistan.

LANGUAGE

The Kurds speak various dialects of Kurdish that can be divided into two main groups. The Kurmanji group, which is spoken by more than 75 per-cent of the Kurds and composed of two major branches: Bahdinani (or North Kurmanji)—the most widely spoken dialect—and Sorani (or Central Kur-manji). The Pahlawani group, spoken by the rest of the Kurds, is also composed of two major branches: Dimili (or Zaza or Hawrami) and Gorani (or Kerman-shahi or South Kurmanji). All of these major dialects are further divided into scores of sub-dialects as well, yet, all are members of the north-western division of the Iranic branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

KURDISH CULTURE AND SOCIETY

In their attempts to suppress Kurdish identity and revivalism, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the former Soviet Union have not only used political op-pression and economic exploitation, but also targeted cultural oppression as well. The forms in which cultural oppression were implemented are diverse, yet language oppression was perhaps the most important. The following are just brief summaries of state policies towards the Kurdish language.

After the creation of modern Turkey in 1923, Ataturk decided to sub-stitute the alphabet used in Turkish from Arabic to Latin. Consequently, the Kurds of Turkey were forced to do the same and adapt a modified version of the Latin characters for their language that incidentally fitted Kurdish more but in-hibited the exchange of literature between the Kurds in Turkey and Syria, on the one hand, and those in Iran and Iraq, on the other. The Kurds in Iran and Iraq continued to use a modified version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. Less than a year later (i.e., in 1924), new measures were introduced and implemented in Turkey with the aim of suppressing the Kurdish language. These measures took the form of banning both the spoken and written use of Kurdish, and ensuring that education and information are only provided in Turkish or to those people who speak Turkish. Possession of written material in Kurdish also became a serious crime punishable by a long-term prison sentence.

Turkish repressive measures against Kurdish continued since then, with varying degrees of severity: easing during civilian rule and strengthening during military rule. The following excerpt extracted from Otuken, a Turkish journal, sums up the attitude of the Turkish government towards the Kurds and their language.

In Iran, speaking and writing in Kurdish are absolutely forbidden by law. Only in the 1990s did the Kurds begin to publish material in Kurdish more openly and use the language in many other cultural activities. This was thanks to pressures from Kurdish revolutionaries there rather than an ease on the govern-ment part.

In Iraq, Kurdish language, literature, and some other forms of cultural expression were guaranteed by the 1932 Constitution. This situation further pro-gressed after 1958 when the Kurdish language was officially recognized as the second language of the country and was used and studied in schools and univer-sities. However, what the Kurds have achieved in Iraq was a result of a long struggle against official animosity rather than granted by a noble government.9 Even though the situation in Iraq is by far better than anywhere else in Kurdi-stan, it is unfortunate that the cultural freedom enjoyed by the Kurds in the country is and has always been under the mercy of the regime’s mood: improv-ing when relations between the Kurdish leaders and the government are good, and deteriorating when relations are bad.

In Syria, although 90 percent of the Kurds use Kurdish in their every-day life, the use of the Kurdish language in any form is still against the law. Despite the greater tolerance the Syrian government has been showing in the 1990s towards its Kurdish minority, the government still prohibits the use of Kurdish in schools and forbids broadcasting and publishing in the language.10

In the former Soviet Union, the situation was relatively good before World War II when Kurdish was in steady promotion. After the war, the assimi-lation processes (carried out by the resettlement campaigns of Stalin), the dis-continuation of the use of Kurdish as a medium of instruction in schools, the cultural isolation of the Soviet Kurds from their brethrens across the borders (a consequence of changing the alphabet into Cyrillic), and the recent plight of the Kurds in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia all denied the Kurds an effective development of their language.

Given the current conditions of Kurdish language use in Kurdistan, it is not surprising that only in countries other than those mentioned above Kurdish is used with little or no restrictions. The best example is the Kurds in Europe who use Kurdish for instruction and in printing, publication, and broadcasting, just to mention a few.

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