IMAGINED KURDS:

MEDIA AND CONSTRUCTION OF KURDISH NATIONAL IDENTITY IN IRAQ

A Thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for / \ 5 the Degree 3C

Master of Arts

In

International Relations

by

Miles Theodore Popplewell

San Francisco, California

Fall 2017 Copyright by Miles Theodore Popplewell 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL

I certify that I have read Imagined Kurds by Miles Theodore Popplewell, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in International Relations at San

Francisco State University.

Assistant Professor

Amy Skonieczny, Ph.D. Associate Professor IMAGINED KURDS

Miles Theodore Popplewell San Francisco, California 2017

This thesis is intended to answer the question of the rise and proliferation of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq by examining the construction of Kurdish national identity through the development and functioning of a mass media system in Iraqi Kurdistan. Following a modernist approach to the development and existence of Kurdish nationalism, this thesis is largely inspired by the work of Benedict Anderson, whose theory of nations as 'imagined communities' has significantly influenced the study of nationalism. Kurdish nationalism in Iraq, it will be argued, largely depended upon the development of a mass media culture through which political elites of Iraqi Kurdistan would utilize imagery, language, and narratives to develop a sense of national cohesion amongst their audiences. This thesis explores the various aspects of national construction through mass media in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in mediums such as literature, the internet, radio, and television.

I certify that the abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis.

Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to give my sincerest thanks to Amy Skonieczny for her guidance on this project. Further gratitude is due to Nicole Watts, Denis Ekici, Scott Siegel, Sanjoy

Banerjee, and Burcu Ellis for their inspiration and direction in producing this paper.

Finally, I'd like to thank my parents, Cynthia and Dean, for their continuous and unconditional support for me and my passions. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction...... 1

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Methodology...... 12

The General Theories of Nationalism: Ethnicism and Constructivism ...... 12

Ethnicist and Constructivist Theories of Kurdish Nationalism ...... 24

Methodology...... 34

Chapter 3: Print Capitalism and Mass Media in Iraqi Kurdistan...... 37

Historical Foundations of Nationalist Media...... 37

Mass Media in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ...... 38

Table of Kurdish Television Stations...... 49

Chapter 4: Narratives and Identities ...... 53

Chapter 5: Conclusion...... 63

Works Cited...... 68 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The presence of Kurdistan presents a significant quandary, both in a spatial sense and even a notional sense. When the Ottoman Empire was finally dissolved at the end of the First World War, it became clear, but ultimately ignored, that there were several ethnic groups living in once-Ottoman territory aspired for autonomy and recognition by the European powers. Various parties representing nationalist interests in the Middle

East ultimately had the recognition of their desire for sovereign territory overruled by

European imperial interests, and thus mandates such as Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine were created through the cycles of negotiations and agreements that occurred at the end of the war. Yet despite the formation of these political territories, and their eventual transition towards becoming sovereign states, ethnic territories such as Kurdistan1 have only grown in the consciousness as part of an increasing prevalence of nationali sm in the region.

Nationalism is a modem concept and the development of Kurdish nationalism, and the notion of Kurdistan, is an intriguing element to the intersection of Middle Eastern politics with processes of modernity. Nationalism, worldwide, has transformed how communities of people view themselves and their spatial and temporal relations with other communities. Where there were once collections of villages with a shared language and set of customs two centuries, national identities have ascended in consciousness to

1 There are other such ‘homelands’ of other ethnic groups with nationalist movements in the Middle East, such as Assyria, Ezidikhan for the Yazidi Kurds, and Turkmeneli for Iraqi Turkmen. 2

make these villages part of a greater community, a nation, or as Benedict Anderson defines it, an “imagined community” (1991, p. 6). The Kurdish nationalist movement is an example of this ‘imagining’ of the Kurds as a single community, with its own

‘homeland’ of Kurdistan also being ‘imagined’ through the same political processes. For many Kurdish nationalists, the homeland of Kurdistan exists in both history and life. It is a distinguishable territory, with boundaries overlapping internationally-recognized borders. Since the germination of Kurdish nationalism began in the late 19th century, there have been efforts, large and small, serious and miniscule, to transform at least portions of this territory into internationally-legitimized states.

On September 25, 2017, the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq,2 the only such internationally recognized ‘quasi-state’ governed by Kurds (Natali, 2010), held a referendum, asking voters the following question:

Do you want the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistani

areas outside the Region to become an independent state?

(Rudaw, 2017)

2 The terms Iraqi Kurdistan, KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government), and KRI (Kurdistan Region in Iraq) are often used interchangeably. However, to avoid semantic confusion, KRI will refer to the officially designated territories that are acknowledged by the Iraqi constitution as being under the authority of the KRG. Iraqi Kurdistan will refer to the parts of Iraq that both encompass the KRI and other parts of Iraq that possess Kurdish populations and/or are claimed/occupied by the KRG as being part of Kurdish territory. 3

The referendum, as of the time of writing, passed with a ‘yes’ vote of 92%, as reported by the KRG’s election commission (Rudaw, 2017). The implications of this referendum, and the future of independence for a Kurdish state, is undecided and it would be unproductive to make conjectures about future events with regards to Kurdish statehood. However, what can be derived from this event is the broader, and recorded, trajectory of Kurdish independence movements driven by nationalism and their continued prevalence within the discourse revolving around the Kurdish question. Previous historical attempts at statehood have manifested, such as the short-lived Kingdom of

Kurdistan of the mid 1920’s and the Mahabad Republic of the 1940’s, but no Kurdish quasi-state has thus far incurred the same level of international normalcy as the KRI.

Furthermore, even though there has been very little support among the international community for the referendum’s results, the fact that this move towards independence was governed through democratic processes rather than violence and military revolution begs the question as to the effects of following international democratic norms on the decisions of Kurdish nationalists, such as those in the KRG. There is no doubt Kurdistan, albeit slowly, inches towards a new understanding of itself in relation to Kurdish national identity.

But a problem that confronts us is how the Kurdish national movement in Iraq has spread the conception of Kurdish national identity to the point that such nationalist sentiments breach political barriers with events such as establishing an autonomous

‘quasi-state’ in Iraq, a state that has achieved legitimacy within the international 4

community, and later on a secession referendum that may not have received international support, but at the very least was recognized as a sovereign act by a legitimate political entity. The ideological dynamic that has been most significant in the development and endurance of the Kurdish quasi-state has been Kurdish nationalism, a political movement that has garnered significant support amongst Kurds throughout both the Middle East and diaspora areas. Therefore, a major question that we are then presented with is how

Kurdish nationalism, specifically the more traditionally-conceptualized nationalized seen in the KRI, can remain salient and significant amongst the population? This question, in fact, can be applied to all contemporary manifestations of nationalism throughout the world. This thesis argues that the most significant dynamic that contributes to the proliferation and endurance of nationalist sentiments is the use of mass media by political elites, who see constructing their political community as a nation to be the most pertinent and effective community to conceptualize.

The understanding of nationalism in the frame of modem history and political science is heavily influenced by several key authors on the subject. Of these figures, the most important is Benedict Anderson, whose contributions to the literature have proven crucial in understanding how nationalism has developed, prevailed over other identities, and continues to have a powerful impact upon the contemporary world. The central feature of Anderson’s constructivist argument, laid out in his most widely-read work

Imagined Communities (1991), is that nations are inherently communities descended from primordial origins, nor have national identities been a conceptual constant 5

throughout history. Anderson, however, does not seek to falsify the idea of nationhood with this argument. He chooses the term imagined with specificity. The nation, while it is imagined and created through processes that will be discussed in this thesis, also possesses a quality that that makes it no more illegitimate of an identity than any other.

As Anderson puts it, “in fact, all communities larger than primordial face-to-face villages

(and perhaps even these) an imagined” (p. 6).

We should now turn directly towards the phenomenon of Kurdish nationalism in

Iraq, the rise of the Kurdish quasi-state in the form of the KRI, and examine how this imagining of the Kurdish nation has taken place and continues today, as the Kurdistan

Region of Iraq presses further towards the brink of outright political independence. For the entirety of the 20th century, and now well into the 21st century, the Kurdish nation in

Iraq was being developed, and ethnic identity was transformed into a form of political nationalism that placed an emphasis on the needs of Kurdish people to have a state of their own, one in which being Kurdish would no longer be a questionable aspect of political instability, but a cultural and political norm.

Kurdish nationalism in Iraq has developed the most out of all forms in Kurdish nationalism. Self-autonomy and self-recognition as Kurds in other states where Kurds form a substantial minority have not undergone the same development as in Iraq. In

Turkey and Iran, for instance, there is no autonomous Kurdish territory, and further exercise of national rights, such as speaking a Kurdish language or celebrating Kurdish 6

holidays, are not only delegitimized by the central governments, but often violently repressed. In Syria, Kurds have also struggled in developing and legally exercising their own national identity (Yildiz, 2005). A widespread movement of Kurdish nationalism did not manifest itself in that country until the Syrian civil war broke out, eventually giving rise to the Kurdish quasi-state of Rojava,3 which was organized in 2013. Despite the de facto nature of Rojava’s political presence, it has not enjoyed any widespread recognition in the international community, nor does it operate to the same degree of quasi-statehood as its older and more politically legitimate neighbor quasi-state, the KRI.

Anderson’s work on the phenomena of nationalist movements and their origins are the primary theoretical influence on this thesis. Through careful content analysis of primary source literature, principally from news sources within the KRI and KRG-related press statements, this project is aimed to illustrate how Anderson’s theory of the imagined community can be applied to the study of the development and contemporary conditions of the Iraqi Kurdish nationalism. A key nuance to Anderson’s theoretical approach when applied to this region, however, is the transition that nationalism in the

KRI has been continuing to undergo, from being based upon Kurdayeti, or Kurdish national identity’ (Natali, 2010, p. xvii), to being based upon a civic nationalism that is more inclusive of all peoples who live within the boundaries of the KRI, such as Arabs,

3 Rojava is officially titled the “Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.” The term Rojava (meaning “east”) itself refers to the region’s position of “Greater Kurdistan.” Likewise, the Kurdish parts of Turkey are referred to as Bakur (meaning “north”), Iraqi Kurdistan is Ba§ur (“south”), and Iranian Kurdistan is Rojhilat (“west”). This form of Kurdish deictic terms, with Greater Kurdistan as the point of reference, is one of the consistent manifestations of pan-Kurdish nationalism, and the actual recognition of a geographic homeland that, while split apart by states, remains a notional whole. 7

Yezidis, Assyrians, Turkmen, Chaldeans, and other small ethno-religious communities that were previously excluded from the Kurdish ethno-national paradigm.

This thesis will demonstrate the various dynamics that are utilized to reinforce national identity of Kurds in Iraq, primarily through manipulation of media which is used to instill the sense of Kurdayeti, an identity more ethnic in composition than civic.

However, there will also be an exploration of the proliferation of civic nationalism through the term Kurdistani as opposed to Kurd, a relatively recent distinction that is rising as Kurdish ethno-nationalism in Iraq has propelled the formation of an autonomous territory that encompasses both Kurds and non-Kurds alike. This development of

Kurdstaniyeti (Aziz, 2015) will be explored and critiqued. In addition to primary sources, this paper will utilize various contributions by authors well acquainted with the studies of nationalism in general, and Kurdish nationalism specifically, and other interdisciplinary approaches that will mirror, and come to the same conclusions as,

Anderson’s work. In short, this thesis will demonstrate how Kurds of Iraq have imagined themselves as a national community.

This thesis will be presented in three core chapters, preceded by Chapter 1, this introduction, and followed by a conclusion. Chapter 2 is a literature review that discusses the general theories that have been put forward on nationalism. This thesis provides evidence that would support the modemist-constructivist claim for the origin and proliferation of nationalism made by Benedict Anderson, in which the influence of 8

economic systems brought on by modem capitalism, which he describes by the concept of ‘print-capitalism’ is the driving force through which nationalism became a product of modernity. Other prominent theories that have been presented on nationalism include the theories of primordialism and ethnicism, otherwise known as ethno-symbolism.

Primordialists have argued that nations are ancient, almost natural, communities, that have existed through periods of time. National identities, therefore, would have remained constant and unchanging. Ethnicism, in a compromising of both primordial and modemist-constructivist theory, proposes that while nations that exist today developed in modem times, they still have premodem foundations lying in the ethnie, or ethnic identity, to which nations are traced back. This chapter will be concluded by a discussion of the methodology that is applied in the presentation of this thesis.

Chapter 3 will focus on an analysis of mass media in the KRI, which is strongly linked to Kurdish political elite through funding and operation. Anderson (1991) uses the term ‘print capitalism,’ a typological model focused on the dissemination of printed literature for mass consumption. This theoretical model, which emphasizes the crucial connection between capitalist production methods and printed literature (Wodak, Cillia,

Reisigl, & Mitten, 1999, p. 22), is the bedrock upon which modernity serves as a prerequisite for the spread of nationalism. Nationalism, in effect, is what brings nations to exist, and not vice versa. Through print capitalism peoples were brought together, through the proliferation of a standardized form of vernacular that could be understood by the language community, to establish an imagined sense of connection amongst these 9

speakers with one another. This medium of print, through both using vernacular and applying myths and narratives that could be associated with into the printed discourse, gives rise to the nation. Since the advent of the radio, television, and finally the internet, this structure has expanded significantly. Anderson’s typology of print-capitalism, therefore, is expanded in this chapter to encompass a broader spectrum of media through which Kurdish nationalist discourses are presented to their audiences, this broadened typology is thus referred to as mass media, although it applies, in essence, the same capitalist production methods of discourse that is the very core of Anderson’s model.

This chapter draws heavily on work by Sheyholislami (2011), which applies critical discourse theory to the study of Kurdish nationalist media in Iraq.

Chapter 4 is a discussion of narratives and their application in discourses that are spread through the vehicle of mass media/print capitalism. It also contains more scrupulous examination of Kurdish national identity as it is expressed in mass media in the KRI, and whether Kurdish ethnic nationalism is supplanted by Kurdistani civic nationalism, or if this sense of Kurdistaniyeti is a more political expansion of Kurdayeti, developing a symbiotic connection between the idea of being a Kurd and a citizen of the

KRG. Aziz (2015), is one of the more significant contributions to this construction of contemporary Kurdish national identity in the KRG. However, the conceptualization of

Kurditaniyeti developed by Aziz, it is argued, does not deny itself an ethnically Kurdish characteristic, but rather expands upon it to form a civic identity of Kurds who have grown up in an autonomous KRG within the past two decades, and therefore see 10

themselves as Kurds or Kurdistanis, which many qualify as being the same thing. This paper will conclude with remarks on how other ethnic groups within the KRG and in territories that have been occupied by it, such as Iraqi Turkmen, Assyrians, and Arabs, have formulated their identities, and have embarked on any path towards establishing their own sense of civic nationalism alongside Iraqi Kurds.

The last chapter will conclude this thesis and reassert the central argument that

Kurdish nationalism in Iraq is substantiated upon proliferation of discourse through the structure of mass media. This ‘Kurdish mass media’ model expands upon Anderson’s conceptual model of print capitalism, which is the original structure through which the first historical waves of nationalism took place during the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries. Final remarks will also be made with regards to the studies that were conducted by both Sheyholislami (2011) and Aziz (2015), as well as suggestions for future research upon the subject of transformation of Kurdish nationalism into a more inclusive spectrum of civic, Kurdistani nationalism to which other ethnic communities in the region could be drawn to imagine themselves as belonging. 12

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW & METHODOLOGY

The General Theories of Nationalism: Ethnicism and Constructivism

The Study of nationalism, and other forms of identity politics, has preoccupied countless political scientists, historians, and philosophers for much of the 20th century.

The origins of this identity, and its debated pervasiveness through history, has been a point of contention for many, and the debate over whether nationalism is a phenomenon unique to modem history continues today, also combining with the problem over what the future holds for nationalist trends as the world continues into the future.

The debate over the origins of Kurdish nationalism is but a microcosm of this broader discussion over the nature of nationalism in general. It should come as to no surprise, then, that the theoretical battle lines that have been drawn over the nature and origins of Kurdish national movements fall along the same rifts as those scholars who discuss the trends of nationalism as it exists around the world.

Gunter (2013; 2007) argues that the debate over origins of the nation can be divided among two schools of thought. There is constructivism on one side, and primordialism (also referred to as essentialism) on the other. Primordialist authors often agree that nations, as they are known today, can trace back their conceptual lineages back to pre-modem eras, and thus these identities are rooted in ancient and ahistorical fabrics 13

of culture. Constructivists, in contrast, writes that nations do not share inherrent links to primordial identities, and that nations as they are identified today are products of modem history. Communal identities in earlier history were conceptualized in different ways and not subject to the same modem processes that gave rise to the conceptualization of the modem nation, or the later nation-state.

For the most part, primordialist theories of nationalist origins have lost influence in the study of nationalism, and its espousement is mostly confined to prescripted political ideologists, namely nationalists themselves. This decline has been so extensive that scholars are now debating its very relevance amongst other contemporary theories of nationalism. Coakley (2017), for instance, argues that primordialism should be treated less as a theory by nationalism scholars and more as a pervasive trait among nationalist ideologies. Nationalists in many parts of the world, after all, have insisted on the ancient origins of their community, and therefore their nationalist movement is not merely a construction of their idendity, but a political revival of an identity that they have shared with ancestors over countless generations. A good example of this idealization of primordial roots is is the period of Italian unification in the mid-19th century, a period known to scholars and nationalists alike as the risorgimento, which in Italians means

“revival” (Clark, 2013).

Gunter selects Anthony Smith (1998; 1988) and John Armstrong (2004; 1982)as the two most influential primordial theorists (Gunter, 2013, pp. 29-30). However, there is 14

a third theoretical school, known as ethnicism, which applies more nuance than primordialist assertions, although it is at risk of falling to logical incosistencies (Vali,

2003a, p. 2). Ethnicists tend to argue against the assertion made by primordialists that nations arise naturally out of ancient bonds, but also disagree with constructivism’s assessment of nationalism as a product of modernity. Instead, ethnicism claims that nations have ethnic origins that predate modernity, but are then reconstructed through modem processes of forming into economic and/or political communities.

To give more charity than Gunter, it would be more accurate to describe the writings of Smith an Armstrong as ethnicist, rather than primordialist. Armstrong reflects that the theory of primordialism “has been discarded by scholars” (2004, p. 9). Likewise, in The Ethnic Origins o f Nations, Smith argues that it is no longer feasible that the nation, as a community can be seen as “a given of social existence, a ‘primordial’ and natural unit of human association outside time, neither can we accept it as a wholly modem phenomenon, be it the ‘nervous tie of capitalism’ or the necessary form and culture of an industrial society (1988, p. 3). Rather, he argues that ethnic communities (or ethnie, as

Smith calls them) are the foundational units upon which nations are conceptually built.

His primary critique of modem constructivists like Anderson and Gellner are that they

“fail to account for the historical depth and spatial reach of the ties that underpin modem nations because they have no theory of ethnicity and its relationsip to modem nationalism” (1998, p. 46). 15

Smith’s ethnicist, or ethno-symbolist, approach to the origins of nations and nationalism has gained considerable traction in the study of nationalism. Published primarily in the 1980’s, where he found himself in competition with the work of Gellner

(his former teacher) and Anderson, Smith’s work still finds relevance in the discussion of nationalism in the present decade (Osterhammel, 2013). Yet despite his expressed

aversion to primordial claims for national origins, Smith still relegates his theory to that position in the form of his argument for the existence of pre-modem causes of

nationalism in the form of ethnically-influenced genesis, thus constraining himself to an essentialist platform. Furthermore, he makes the claim that nationalism, as opposed to being a product of modernity, is declining in the wake of modem processes. To support this generalization, Smith cites the development of the European Union and other trans­ national institutions that are designed to restrain member states from being driven by national animosities towards one another. While such trends arise in Europe, where political modernity is claimed to bring about the downfall of nationalist sentiments,

Smith claims that in regions of the third world, “the earlier faith in the mass civic nation has been eroded by the economic and political realities of a very unequal international division of labor, the power of transnational forces, and ethnic cleavages within.” (1998, p. 2).

He concludes this argument with the assertion that industrialized societies are

leading the rest of the world into a new era in which transnational paradigms of identity will erode nations of their conceptual power (p. 2). These predictive arguments, which 16

were made in 1998, have not been carried out to the extent that Smith had imagined, if at all. Even in those ‘industrialized societies’ of the West, where international senses of community would have replaced nationalist sentiments, nationalism has still managed to manifest itself in powerful and political ways. Such an example as the rise of economic and racialized nationalism that has risen in the late 2010’s in countries such as Germany,

France, Britain, and the United States. In the United States itself, new waves of right- wing nationalism built largely upon sentiments of white Americans, has caused a tremendous shift in the mainstream political discourse, where aspects of international norms, such as NAFTA or open immigration, are now largely being put into question, and face an unpredictable fate. This new trend puts into question the supposed ‘end of the nationalist era’ that sees the decline of nation-states’ importance to political and communal organization.

Ernest Gellner (1983) is, along with Anderson (1991) and Hobsbawm (1991), one of the most influential authors that gives a constructivist argument for the origins and development of nationalism. Gellner’s profession as an anthropologist places him in a unique position to counter the ethno-symbolist claims that authors like Armstrong and

Smith make, claiming that these ethnic linkages that modem nations hold were constructed through processes conforming to the impact of the industrial revolution

(1983, p. 39). Even though Gellner makes the concession that some nations can have pre-modem lineages and that there are some groups in pre-modem history that could have been characterized as pre-modem nations, these objective characteristics are not 17

necessary to for national identities to develop. He reinforces this counter-point with an analogy of navels in human beings: “some nations have navels some achieve navels, some have navels thrust upon them. Those possessed of genuine ones are probably in a minority, but it matters little. It is the need for navels engendered by modernity that matters” (1997, p. 101).

Gellner’s analogy is a helpful tool in understanding the modernist condition that nations possess. Even if there are some nations that have maintained identi ties prior to the 18th century and the industrial revolution, what matters more is that these identities were reinforced through modem processes, primarily by retelling a shared common past that would tie the people of a nation together, making them envision as shared history and a shared destiny.

In examining the definition of the term “nation”, Gellner presents us with inherent problem of binding a notion that is often treated as a priori. “Nations, like states,” he writes, “are a contingency, and not a universal necessity. Neither nations nor states exist at all times and in all circumstances” (1983, p. 6). Instead of attempting a specific definition for what nations are, Gellner provides two theoretical conditions and/or circumstances that would help us illustrate and refine how we perceive nations to be. He writes:

1. Two men are o f the same nation if and only if they share the

same culture, where culture in turn means a system of ideas 18

and signs and associations and ways o f behaving and communicating.

2. Two men are of the same nation if and only if they recognize^

each other as belonging to the same nation. In other words,

nations maketh morn, nations are the artefacts of men’s

convictions and loyalties and solidarities. A mere category o f

persons (say, occupants o f a given territory or the speakers o f

a given language, for example) becomes a nation if and when

the members of the category firmly recognize certain mutual

rights and duties to each other in virtue of their shared

membership o f it. It is their recognition o f each other as fellows

of this kind which turns them into a nation, and not the other

shared attributes, whatever they might be, which separate that

category form non-members. (1983, pp. 6-7)

Thus Gellner, using logical biconditionals, pinpoints the epistemological limits in which the idea of a nation can be positioned. Yet this is as far as Gellner goes in the aspect of defining the nation, and asserts that a precise definition of such an entity would be ultimately unsatisfactory. Instead of prescribing a description of the nation, Namely, its Gellner’s own definition of nationalism as a “political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” (p. 1).

4 Emphases in this passage are used by Gellner. 19

Eric Hobsbawm (1991) generally agrees with the modernist interpretation of nations as well. In his introduction, he cites the major points on which he agrees with

Gellner (pp. 9-10), namely Gellner’s definition of nationalism, the assertion that the effort to precisely define “nation” as a term is not necessary for analyzing how nations are manifested, and the central theme that nations should not be regarded as “a primary nor as an unchanging social entity,” instead asserting that the nation “belongs exclusively to a particular, and historically recent, period” (1991, p. 9). However,

Hobsbawm does criticize Gellner for the latter’s apparent lack of perspective of modernization from a so-called ‘below,’ which Hobsbawm defines as the way “the nation is seen not by governments and the spokesmen and activists of nationalist (or on- nationalist) movements, but by the ordinary persons who are the objects of their action and propaganda” (p. 11).

Anderson’s Imagined Communities is perhaps the most widely known and read book on the subject of nationalism. Benedict Anderson’s professional work as a sociologist and IR scholar had mostly been relegated to the study of politics and state- formation in Indonesia and other parts of south-east Asia, a region which had undergone a post-colonial period and a new process of nation-state building in order to develop a level of political and economic independency following almost a century or more of imperial impositions from Western countries. Anderson’s work in this field motivated him to write this book, which analyzed the conceptualization, origins, and development of nationalism as a course taking place within an historical period. This contribution to 20

the study of nationalism brought Anderson to higher echelon of academic recognition, eventually leading the Economist to label him as “an intellectual giant,” following his death in 2015 (The Economist, 2016).

The central point in Anderson’s book is that nations, being socially-constructed entities, have been imagined into peoples’ realities following the advent of industrial society. In this regard, Anderson goes further than Gellner in providing an appropriate and useful definition of the nation, describing it to be “an imagined political community- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign (1991, p. 6).” He expands on this definition further by explaining what he means by the term imagining, which he prefers to terms such as ‘fabricating’ or ‘inventing,’ which he claims denote the assumption that

‘nations’ are constructed but at the same time other kinds of communities are inherent, an implication that he attributes to Gellner. In other words, the nation, like all communities

(even perhaps village communities of prehistorical periods), is an imagined one.

However, scholars should not dwell on the truth value of the nation as to whether or not its existence is intrinsic, but by the path of its germination and development into a community through the process that is “imagining” (1991, p. 6)

Furthermore, Anderson gives us a concrete historical point of demarcation from whence nationalism arose as a modem concept. The specific place of germination, according to Anderson, is the Americas in the turn of the 18 to 19 centuries, at a point in time when identities of creole populations began to be developed. The creoles of the 21

Americas, specifically those regions under Spanish control, as Anderson defines them, were European colonial settlers and their descendants, who shared the same religious beliefs, languages, and cultural customs with their respective metropoles, but became gradually disillusioned by their relationship with European mastery and their separation and alienation from Europe (Anderson, 2011, p. 33).

The rise of nationalist discourse began when the elite classes of these creole communities, such military officers, civil servants, entrepreneurs, and intelligentsia, became cognizant and reactionary to the fact that of their geographic and political marginalization from their sovereign metropoles in Europe, despite their condition of belonging to European ethnic groups. This condition of isolation and marginalization, according to Anderson, provoked considerable unrest among these ‘creole pioneers,’ especially considering their position as the upper class of these colonial polities (1991, p.

48). This unrest was further reinforced by deep suspicion of other groups whom they themselves marginalized and exploited, such as Africans imported as slaves and indigenous peoples in the Americas. Memories of slave revolts and indigenous uprisings were significantly ingrained in the political mindsets of these creole communities, and whenever there were concerns of the European metropole somehow empowering those lower classes to any extent, resulted in further anxieties among the creole class and eventually culminated in independence movements. 22

These independence movements were precipitated by discourses driven by new national identities, with peoples who were previously creoles now referring to themselves as Gran Colombians, or Argentinians, or Peruvi ans. A perhaps ironic aspect of the development of these nations is that the creole classes that fronted these movements began to cluster themselves with lower classes, even some indigenous, with whom they shared the same geo-political spaces. New developments brought about through modernity, such as the printing press, and its subsequent incorporation into the capitalist system, resulted in the rise of ‘print-capitalism,’ a conceptual structure that Anderson proves to be crucial to the development and proliferation of nationalist identity and subsequent discourse. In the Americas, print-makers and engravers (notable examples in the Thirteen Colonies are Ben Franklin and Paul Revere), were essential to the task of distributing texts and imagery that would reinforce new imaginings of nation-ness. Thus, these artisans and writers became more than mere craftsmen and followers of their vocation, but active political agents in the spread of national identities that undermined the political sovereignty of the metropoles (1991, pp. 61-65). Through print-capitalism, public consumption of newspapers, maps, political pamphlets, and other forms of media generated a sense of common identity among the peoples of American colonial territories. Following the period of American revolutions in the turn of the 18th-l 9th century, these systemic processes were embedded in other countries, beginning primarily in Europe, whereby multi-ethnic kingdoms and empires were gradually subdued by waves of political nationalism. This second phase of the spread of nationalist thought is 23

marked by the fall of the Kingdom of France to republicanism, and the spread of that political ideology throughout western Europe, a proliferation which coincided, and shared a symbiotic relationship, with national identity. Previous political identities in Europe were manifestations based upon religious and feudal allegiances, but classes of feudal nobility in European states were surpassed and deposed by new classes of intelligentsia and entrepreneurs, and these older, pre-modem identities were similarly surpassed by nationalism.

This theory of the germination of nationalism, precipitated by modernity, allows us to appropriately deconstruct the claims of nationalists that such communities arise

‘organically.’ Nationalism, like capitalism, Marxism, liberalism, and other paradigms of economic and social thought, came about, like these other terms, as a product of historically modem conditions. The historical era of the rise of nationalism can be rudimentarily summarized with the advent of European empires and their settler emigrants, followed by an ontological separation between these settler populations and their metropoles, driven by their respective intelligentsia, and finally with the nationalization of their identities through print-capitalism to bring about political movements striving towards independence. This process subsequently burgeoned with overhaul of economic classes in European societies, giving rise to the modem nation­ state, and further manifesting itself in east Asia and the Middle East by the turn of the

19th to 20th centuries. 24

Thus, we can step back from the seemingly self-evident nature of nations, and can actually question their historical and political constructions through agents and structures.

To conceptualize nations as some sort of doxa, to use Bourdieu’s term (1977), inhibits us from appropriately analyzing the processes by which such nations, ethnic categories, religious communities, and almost all identity-driven societal groups, are formulated.

Therefore, it can be inferred from the history of nationalism’s rise provided by

Anderson, that modem national identity of Kurds, even those living in the quasi-nation- state that is the Kurdistan region of Iraq, has more been developed during the 20 th century, and its alleged roots in identities of the pre-modem middle east have been instead prompted by more subjective proponents of Kurdish nationalism, who build such ideology on the assumption of primordial connections to past empires, literatures, and myths that they claim to represent the nationalist sentiments of Kurds in past centuries.

Such primordialist connections will be analyzed and critiqued in the next section.

Ethnicist and Constructivist Theories of Kurdish Nationalism

The modemist-constructivist approach to nationalism has gained substantial traction in the study of Kurdish nationalism, as it has in the broader realm of nationalism in general. Even though this trend has only adapted to Kurdish studies to a considerable degree in the past two decades, but it also fortunately coincides with the tremendous 25

growth of academic interest in Kurds and Kurdistan that has occurred during this time period. English-language writing on Kurdish studies, and Kurdish nationalism, grew to a substantial degree, with new, albeit obscure, academic centers and degree-granting departments being established in both Europe and America. In the past three decades, especially, authors such as Izady (1992), Klein (2007), Hassanpour (1992; 2003), Natali

(2010; 2005), Watts (2010), and several others have provided ground-breaking work on the development, proliferation, and continuation of Kurdish nationalism.

Driver (1922) is perhaps the earliest academic source to present a serious inquiry into the origins of Kurdish national consciousness and the history of Kurds as an ethnic group in the middle east, albeit with an obviously Eurocentric and orientalizing bias.

This contribution is preliminary to Kurdish studies, and it should also serve as an indicator that western scholars, to some extent, were beginning to identify the development of Kurdish nationhood following the dissolution of the Ottoman empire and

Caliphate and the subsequent rise of secular nationalism in the Middle East. Driver’s assessments of Kurdish origins, however, do not separate the notions of nation and ethnic group, and gives a primordialist testimony to the ‘origins’ of the Kurds, which he also mischaracterizes as a ‘race’ along with other ethnic groups in the region. Driver claims that the Kurds are most likely descended from a people that Xenophon refers to as the

Kardechoi (Driver, 1922, p. 493), yet doesn’t provide critical analysis of the development of national consciousness among Kurds themselves, depending on a pseudo-a priori assessment of the Kurdish nation as a constantly present entity that’s existed throughout 26

history.5 Indeed, Driver’s account of the origins of the Kurdish people are essentialist to the point that he assumes an inherently singular origin of descent for the Kurds as a nation, rather than a possible accumulation of communities that shared similar Iranian dialects and traditions in a particular region which now constitutes Greater Kurdistan.

Jwaideh (2006), which was originally a doctoral thesis submitted in 1960, is also a significant contribution to the development of Kurdish studies. However, Jwaideh provides, in much the same way as driver, an account of Kurdish nationalism that treats

Kurdish national identity as a preliminary expression that existed for centuries, if not millennia, prior to the modem rise of Kurdish nationalist movements. Jwaideh gives an informative history of the modem movement, but still falls to essentialist biases, even citing Driver as an important source on Kurdish ‘racial’ origins going back to ancient history (p. 11). Kaya (2012) provides a strong critique of Jwaideh’s work as well, citing the latter’s attitude towards the Kurdish national movement as being “clearly normatively sympathetic” (p. 19), which in turn lends a bias towards primordial assumptions that are made in his work.

Olson (1989) and Hassanpour (1992) are two other significant contributors to the study of Kurdish nationalism’s origins from an ethnicist standpoint. In their works, they present methods of periodization which they claim show the genesis of Kurdish

5 Driver’s analysis of Kurdish history, languages, and literary development is surely a product of its time, exposing the inherent racism, exoticism, and euro-centric tendencies that existed in western academia. As a source, Driver’s contributions and claims should be used with great caution, and instead should be seen as an historical watershed for the rise of Kurdish studies as an academic discipline. 27

nationalism, with traces of the ideology being found as far back as the 16th century. A landmark event, according to ethnicists, in the development of Kurdish nationalism is the creation of the poetic epic Mem u Zin, written in the late 17th century by Ehmedi Xani, who is often characterized in this interpretation of Kurdish nationalism to be one of the first true Kurdish nationalist. On the surface a tragic story of love between a man and a woman, both belonging to two competing Kurdish clans, the subtext of the story is often described by ethnicists to be a call for the unification of the Kurds and their own political autonomy. Among Kurdish nationalists, the unfortunate restriction on the Mem and Zin fulfilling their love for one another is symbolic of the Kurds’ relationship with their own homeland of Greater Kurdistan, whereby they have been kept apart (unable to fulfill political independence) by greater forces.

Van Bruinessen (2003) and Vali (2003b) provide strong rebukes to this interpretation of the origin of Kurdish nationalism. While ethnicists might cite the Mem u Zin story as an original and groundbreaking declaration of Kurdish nationalism, their interpretation of Xani’s writing presupposes a certain episteme in which Xani lived that would have allowed for him to conceptualize the Kurds as a distinct, monolithic ‘nation,’ grouping the various linguistic and cultural groups which occupied the frontier territories between the Ottoman and Safavid Empires into a single people in need to be in charge of its own destiny. Despite the importance of Mem u Zin in its utility as a piece of literature often cited and referenced by Kurdish nationalists, the author himself should not be considered a nationalist by the modem sense of the term. Xani, according to Van 28

Bruinessen, was not a nationalist, as he did not identify groups of people according to ethnic identity but, rather, to states and their collective populations, which were multi­ ethnic, while headed by hegemonic ethno-religious groups. While Xani advocates for a

‘Kurdish’ ruler to establish himself in founding a new empire, such a state that he would have envisioned would almost certainly have been a multi-ethnic Islamic state, in the

same guise as the Ottomans and the Safavids (2003, pp. 44-45). As Gunter notes, the

ideas of nationhood and nationalism “being the focus of one’s supreme loyalty is relatively new even in the West” (2007, p. 7)

Historically, the development of a Kurdish ‘nation’ doesn’t become a cohesive paradigm of thought among Kurdish-speaking peoples until immediately following the

First World War and the ensuing dissolution of the Ottoman empire into other distinct polities. This period sees the rise of nationalism among several of the other dominant ethnic groups in these territories. In post-Ottoman Turkey, Kemalist ideologues quickly began a program of subjecting the peoples of the new state to ‘Turkification,’ in which whatever religious, ethnic, or tribal identity was drastically relegated and suppressed in favor of making everyone “Turks.” These political campaigns of assimilation and suppression were applied to various groups within Turkey, such as Arabs, Armenians,

Alevis, and Kurds (Yavuz, 2001).

Similar processes existed in Iran, Syria, and Iraq, in which Kurdish nationality was dismissed by the majority ethnic groups, which held political hegemony in those 29

states, as being “others.” However, during this time period, the development of Kurdayeti was contemporaneous with Kurdish political movements that were driven by tribal or religious identities. Olson (1989) postulates that Kurdish nationalism began its development among Kurdish tribal and religious leaders, starting around 1880 and culminating in the Sheikh Said rebellion of 1925. However, the rebellion’s key figures arguably possessed more politically Islamic and tribal ideologies than they did possess a sense of nationalist identity. These, as well as figures in other Kurdish revolts during this time period, used discourses that were driven by jihadist rhetoric, advocating war against newly established secular states rather than ‘national liberation struggles’ (Gunter, 2007, p. 10).

Kurdish nationalism as we see it today arguably begins to manifest, as it did with many other nationalisms in history, with literary and academic intelligentsia, coming to full fruition immediately following World War I and the disillusionment of many

Kurdish-speaking intellectuals with the state-building aims of the Kemalist government.

Among the principal Kurdish intellectuals during this time period, Celadet Bedirxan

(1893-1951), along with his brothers Sureyya (1883-1938) and Kamuran(1895- 1978), is perhaps the most prolific. A descendent of one the princely Kurdish families, Bedirxan lived most of his life studying abroad or in exile. Following the establishment of the

Turkish republic, he fled to Beirut in 1923 and, alongside other Kurdish nationalists in

1927, established the Xoykun, a Kurdish nationalist organization. Academically trained in linguistics, Bedirxan, unknowingly following the historical rubric described by Anderson, 30

established a formal grammar and writing system for Kurmanji Kurdish based upon the

Latin script. It is this writing system that has gone on to be the primary form in which printed Kurdish is presented, alongside the traditional, yet largely still unformalized,

Arabic script. In many ways, the development of a Kurdish national identity, joined with a political ideology, was as much a reaction to the rise of Turkish nationalism as it was to the dissolution of the Ottoman empire and the subsequent fractionalization of its territories. As Bedirxan wrote to Mustafa Kemal in a famous letter, the Turkish nationalist movement “made as many Kurdists for us as it made Turkists for you”

(Bozarslan, 2003, p. 166) (Bedirxan, 1933, p. 22).

Recent literature on Kurdish nationalism has been largely interdisciplinary, with experts coming from a various array of social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology, history, and political science. Aziz (2015) and Sheyholislami (2011) are perhaps the two most important recent contributions to the study of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq in this decade.

Aziz’s work, The Kurds o f Iraq, provides a study and analysis of the political development of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq, and a comparison of Kurdayeti with the recent developments in the KRI to create a civic national identity, termed Kurdistaniyeti, as a means for the state to settle inter-ethnic disputes between Kurds and non-Kurdish groups. Aziz draws most of his nationalism theory from work of Anthony Smith, yet his work, while inspired by ethno-symbolism, focuses attention on the modem development 31

of Kurdistani nationalism, and argues that younger generations of Kurds in Iraq should largely be described as Kurdistani Kurds rather than Iraqi Kurds or simply Iraqis. This is due to the transformation that occurred in Iraqi Kurdistan during the 1990’s following the establishment of the KRI after the Gulf War. Growing up in a de-facto fully autonomous

Kurdish quasi-state, Aziz argues, has brought about a massive shift in the Kurds of younger generations perceive themselves, making their collective identity Kurdistani above any other sense of belonging to another community (p. 117). Aziz also provides statistical research that he had conducted in the form of surveys of Kurdish students at the universities of Dohuk, Salahaddin, and Suleimani in order to test his central argument, along with other points of conclusion. This will be analyzed further in Chapters 2 and 3.

Sheyholislami (2011) provides an analysis of media in the KRI as a means to

“contribute to the formation and maintenance of national identities” (p. 2). Through the approach of critical discourse analysis, Sheyholislami explores the ways in which discursive practices in the media contribute to the construction of national identities. He argues that the development and enforcement of a national identity depends heavily upon the “discursive construction of a common culture, language, territory, symbols, history, and a shared present and future” (p. 13). Critical discourse analysis, in the way

Sheyholislami applies it to the subject of Kurdish nationalism, provides an interesting and thought-provoking approach that should be further applied to the study of nationalism.

Such methods in this field of study have already been conducted, as Sheyholislami notes

(p. 22). The two most important authors that he cites in this respect are Billig (1995) and 32

Wodak et al. (1999). Wodak et al. specifically provides a CDA approach to the

development of nations and national identity through a constructivist sense, and cites the theory of Anderson that nations are ‘imagined communities’ as an underlying foundation

for their approach moving forward (p. 3). Billig, in a similar tone, discusses the impact

of what he styles ‘banal nationalism,’ the common representations of the nation to the targeted members of that nation as way to maintain that sense of national identity. In modem times, this reinforcement of the nation through the use of several media outlets,

such as television, internet, newspapers, movies, and music should be seen to be a technological extension of the print-capitalism system that Anderson described as having ascended during the development of modem nationalism.

Sheyholislami’s data that he presents has been collected from differing media

sources. The television data that he presents was collected from a week of broadcasting from Kurdistan TV (KTV), the first Kurdish language television station in Iraq, established in 1999. This broadcaster is owned by the Kurdistan Democratic Party

(KDP), the dominant party in the region (Abdulrahman, 2007). The duration of this collection was from August 6-12,2005. He also provides data that had been collected

from the Internet over the course of a decade, drawing from an array of web sources in

which Kurdish internet activities were monitored. In analyzing this assortment of data,

Sheyholislami uses CDA to provide an in-depth deconstruction and overview of discourse text production and consumption, and how “social, cultural, and political

contexts influence the ways texts are produced, distributed, and consumed” (p. 15). He 33

also provides analysis of the development of a sense of pan-Kurdish identity which he claims has become more prevalent since the expansion of Kurdish-language media.

The contributions by Sheyholislami and Aziz are important sources for this thesis for two reasons. The first is that both sources are intently focused on the contemporary status of the prevalence of Kurdish nationalism as it exists today. Other authors, such as

Watts (2010) and Yildiz (2005), have provided relatively recent work on the study of

Kurdish nationalism and political activism in Turkey and Syria, respectively. Other authors such as Ozoglu (2004), McDowall (2004), Klein (2007), and Izady (1992) have largely maintained the horizons of their analyses on the historical development and proliferation of Kurdish nationalism. Contemporary analysis of Kurdish nationalism in

Iraq, however, has been limited, especially among works published in English within the current decade. The negative impact of this dearth of recently-published secondary sources on the subject of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq, however, has been assuaged by

Sheyholislami (2011) and Aziz (2015).

Secondly, a reason that these two works are so important, for future research on this subject as well as this thesis, is that they have conducted their own statistical studies with which to provide analyses and insights into the continuation and enforcements of

Kurdish national identity and the broader role of popular media and technology through which Kurds in Iraq have ‘imagined’ their collective identity. Published data such as this has been lacking, unfortunately, for a significant period since the establishment and 34

consolidation of the KRG in 1990’s. Both of these studies are extremely relevant to our current understanding of Kurdish nationalism in Iraq because they were conducted following this historical transition from statelessness to quasi-statehood ex post facto.

After this event, an entire generation has grown up speaking Kurdish without fear of punishment for doing so, being exposed to Kurdish leaders, politics, and media in which

Kurdayeti is the norm of discourse, not the conceptual outcast of it. Sheyholislami and

A/i/ take full advantage of this historical context to examine, via their own distinct approaches, the transmission of Kurdish nationalism in this decade, in which the Kurdish millennial generation has matured to the point that they themselves are politically and socially active, and fully cognizant of their Kurdish national identity.

Methodology

The analysis presented in this thesis will be primarily qualitative research that has been conducted on a collection of secondary sources through which one can gain a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to Kurdish nationalism, and the broader topic of Kurdish studies at large. This approach is multi-disciplinary; the arguments that will be presented are supported by works derived from differing schools of analysis.

Theoretical contributions towards nationalism theory, specifically the constructivist approach that has been developed by Anderson in his research, will be the theoretical route upon which this analysis will be travelling, mapping the both the historical and 35

present-day manifestations of nationalist output in the Kurdistan Region to Anderson’s own description of nationalist development and dissemination.

To supplement this approach, this thesis will utilize the contributions made by

Sheyholislami (2011) and Aziz (2015) to provide the strong evidence that exists for the construction of Kurdish nationalism through political and economic means. This approach, while being primarily qualitative, will also analyze the quantitative research that has been conducted by these two authors. From these statistical sources, further evidence is provided that further reinforces the constructivist argument for the continuation and maintenance of Kurdish national identity. This thesis, through incorporating the work of Sheyholislami (2011), will also provide a linking between the theory of nationalism developed by Anderson and the approach of Critical Discourse

Analysis (CDA) as it applies to the study of nationalism. In utilizing the qualitative and quantitative evidence that Sheyholislami provides, as well as the broader theoretical contribution offered by Wodak et al. (1999) this thesis suggests the tremendous influence that CDA has provided to various aspects of constructivist study within the social sciences, especially in political science.

Primary sources that are utilized in this project are varied, and also limited due to linguistic constraints upon research. As such, primary source evidence that will be analyzed will be mainly derived from what has been provided by significant secondary 36

source authors, and each source will be acknowledged as such whenever each source is utilized.

Other primary source materials have been compiled through research on the internet for Kurdish national media output from official institutions within the KRI.

Fortunately, many Kurdish political sites, for both news organizations and political organs, have provided ample translation services in converting their Kurdish (both

Kurmanji and Sorani dialects) language texts into English. Some mainstream Kurdish websites, for instance, that feature comparatively high levels of internet traffic, have

English language links in their top banners, and have clearly shown initiative in ensuring quality translation work. From these sources, we can analyze the discursive practices that elite organizations in the KRI conduct in order to engage its consumers in nationalist sentiments. 37

CHAPTER 3: PRINT CAPITALISM AND MASS MEDIA IN IRAQI KURDISTAN

Historical Foundations of Nationalist Media

According to Anderson (1991), the most important aspect concerning the rise and onset nationalism in modem history is the establishment of the printing press and its subsequent use as the tool necessary for the mass production of literature. In this sense, the use of the press is perhaps “one of the earliest forms of capitalist enterprise” (p. 37).

Anderson further describes the saturation of the literate market through this early manifestation of market forces in renaissance Europe. As he notes, Latin was the lingua franca of the continent during this time period, and once this small consumer base of bilingual speakers, who were typically composed of the societal elites of Europe, was fully saturated by Latin texts, there became economic incentive, upon growing literacy of

Europeans in their vernacular languages, for European printers to sell vernacular texts to a much broader market (p. 38). Traditionally, Latin’s elite stature was driven not merely by its status as a liturgical language, but also by its status as a textual language.

Vernaculars of pre-modem Europe were obviously accessible through text prior to the printing revolution, but the preponderance of written literature was normatively exhibited via Latin. Once print capitalism allowed for more mainstream access to printed vernaculars, however, Latin soon lost its prominence as anything but a liturgical language. 38

The rise of vernaculars in text form, argues Anderson, provides the base upon which national consciousness originated in three ways. First, it provided for a new field, or system, of communication which was significantly more expansive, as it allowed more directed communication between speakers of the same language who were still geographically separated. Secondly, the prevalence of the vernacular in print allowed for a sense of permanence amongst its speakers, which gave rise to the sense of antiquity that is so common amongst national identities. Finally, printed vernaculars allowed for certain dialects and linguistic forms to become legitimized “languages-of-power” through which the national language would be constructed and identified. Because certain dialects were more similar to the language printed than others, those dialects were elevated to serve as the standard language of the nation, whereas other colloquial dialects were relegated as

‘sub-standard’ forms and there for treated as illegitimate and socially-backwards

(Anderson, 1991, pp. 44-45). A common example of this development is the rise of

Standard Italian, which is heavily based upon the Tuscan dialect, which was a heavily printed variety of the language, and most famously exemplified by Dante’s Divina

Comedia.

Mass Media in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

The rise of Kurdish nationalism, and other national movements in the Middle

East, are equally heavily and directly impacted by the advent of mass printing once the 39

region became subsumed by market revolutions and globalizing processes which further connected it to the European economic model. Like many other colloquial languages in the region, the Kurdish variety was largely transmitted verbally and was not a commonly printed medium, with most literate elite either writing in classical Persian and Arabic the vernacular forms of those languages. The Sharafnama, written in the 16th century by

Sharaf Khan, is perhaps the first text written by a Kurd on the Kurds. However, despite the treatment of this as an original Kurdish text by nationalists, it was originally written by Khan in Persian (Ozoglu, The Impact of Islam on Kurdish Identity Formation in the

Middle East, 2007, p. 23). The first Kurdish vernacular to be written consistently was

Gorani, or Gurani, which is now treated as its own language distinct from the Kurdish group, but together with Zaza form another category within Northwestern Iranian language family, alongside the Kurdish language varieties. However, the fact that Gorani was the vernacular through which distinctive Kurdish literature emerged has led many nationalists to insist that it belongs to the Kurdish language group, and is not merely its own category (Izady, 1992, p. 170). Other, more objective observations of Kurdish language usages suggest that Kurdish, as a language continuum, is divided between

Gorani, Sorani, Kurmanji, and a few other similar dialects, such as Zaza and

Kirmanshahi. The debate over which dialects spoken by self-identifying Kurds should fall under the category of the Kurdish language is still ongoing (Aziz, 2015, p. 51), and will likely continue in the face of the process of redefining language in the context of

Kurdayeti. 40

Despite the arrival of modem press culture to the Middle East region by the 19th century, however, Kurdish printing was still greatly limited at least within Kurdistan itself (Hassanpour, 1996). Initially, nearly all printing houses within the Ottoman Empire were owned and operated by the government, and nearly all published text was written in either Arabic or Ottoman Turkish. The congregation of diasporic Kurdish communities in cities outside of Kurdistan, however, such as those in Istanbul, Cairo, and Beirut, allowed for a less-hindered development of Kurdish printing (Ozoglu, 2004, pp. 35-36). As was common with nearly all languages spoken in the region at that time, the printed text was produced in the Perso-Arabic script. Following the fall of the Ottoman empire, Kurdish printed literature developed substantially, especially in Iraq once the British Mandate was established (Hassanpour, 1996, p. 52; Izady, 1992, p. 181). Kurdish language publications, primarily in the more common Kurmanji and Sorani forms, soon surpassed

Gorani and the classical Persian and Arabic scripts as the definitive language text read by literate Kurds. The effectiveness of print media as a form of proliferating a sense of national identity among Kurdish readers was not lost on the publishers, who clearly possessed nationalist aims in forging a Kurdish community in a post-Ottoman landscape.

Indeed, the printers of one early publication, Bangi Kurdistan, “printed machinery” served as “a very effective means for the unification of a nation’s thoughts and feelings”

(Hassanpour, 1996, pp. 52-53).

Kurdish print capitalism, from the onset, was a function of the nationalist intelligentsia who had sought to legitimize spoken Kurdish languages through making 41

them accessible through the press. Printed Kurdish, whether it was in Sorani or Kurmanji, became in and of itself a means through which Kurdish nationalists could construct the

Kurdish nation as a community of its readership. Kurds reading a publication in Istanbul could be reading the same publication as was being read in Erbil. From this association with the Kurdish press, Sorani and Kurmanji have emerged as the primary vernaculars of the Kurdish nation. However, in constructing the Kurdish community through language, divergent standardizing forces have kept the two from either merging into a single standard Kurdish language or allowing one vernacular to supplant the other, as has happened to other Kurdish print languages such as Gorani (that is, a language used amongst Kurds).

This divergence in written Kurdish standards is the result of Kurmanji’s adaption to the Latin alphabet, as was used by Celadet Bedirxan, who formalized a written system in a way similar to how modem Turkish became formalized on a Latin script. This

Kurmanji script, often called Hawar after the name of Bedirxan’s literary journal, which was published from 1932-1935 (Galip, 2015, p. 74) (Bedir Xan, 2002). Amongst the speakers of Kurdish vernaculars falling closer to Kurmanji, the use of the Latin script has become the norm, even in regions such as Rojava in Syria, where other languages are exhibited in Arabic script. Kurmanji today is spoken by about 15-20 million Kurds, making it the language of the majority. However, the language dynamics in the KRI do not conform to this status, and Sorani has become the preferred ‘language-of-power,’ as

Anderson calls it, that is used by most Kurds in the public and political sphere. This 42

variant is mostly written in the Perso-Arabic script, which most Kurds in Iraq are familiar with, though some in the western Dohuk govemate will use Kurmanji and are used to the

Latin script in that area.

Kurdish mass media in Iraq again became suppressed under the Baathist regime

(Blau, 1996, p. 24). However, by the 1990’s, when what is now the KRI was established under protection from the international community, primarily the United States, print language once again began to flourish. This spread of the network of print-capitalism, combined with officiated delineations that separated the Kurdistan region from the rest of

Iraq, provided a foundation upon which Kurdish nationalism transformed to become an ever more pervasive ideology (Aziz, 2015, p. 42). Indeed, as Hassanpour (1992) writes, the press serves as the “organ of Kurdish nationalism,” this being due to the fact that

“Kurdish journalism finds its origins in the national movement” (p. 221).

Construction of language as a process of national identity is never finite, as what changes always occur to the language that is treated as the national vernacular. In a way, then, the national language of the Kurds, however its termed, is different from whatever was deemed such in the 1930’s. Print media’s use as a disseminator of national consciousness has become apparent, not only in the case of Kurdish nationalism, but nationalist movements around the glove. With further development of modem technology in communication, new medias arose in the 20th and 21st centuries that have magnified the same process of national language development that was first demonstrated in print. 43

Kurdish mass media in Iraq expanded rapidly from an array of periodicals, published in both Sorani and Kurmanji, into broadcasting, both through radio, television, and cinema.

As of 2011, there were at least 20 television stations and over a dozen radio stations operating in the KRI (Sheyholislami, 2011, p. 84). Because of the status of the press as an ‘organ’ of Kurdish nationalism, however, most of these stations have been owned and operated by political parties in the region, with a majority held by either the

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), or the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). This has made Kurdish broadcasting, in much the same way as print media, a primary mechanism for practicing nationalist discourse. Amongst these broadcasters, Kurdistan TV, or KTV6, is one of the most prominent in the KRI, and Iraqi Kurdistan at large. Sheyholislami provides a thorough analysis of the impact that KTV has, and how its discursive practices have been having an impact on the Kurdish language dynamic in the region.

The medium of cinema within the KRI has developed slowly over the past two decades. Most of the significant and recent cinematic output has been made by diasporic

Kurds, who might then have their films presented in the Kurdistan region for wider viewership. Nonetheless, when Kurdish films are produced within the KRG, they are largely driven to present nationalist narratives, in which Kurdish identity is a key driving force behind characters’ actions and experiences (The Economist, 2017). Kurdish cinema’s role in nationalism has proven most crucial because of its ability to pervade

6 This is station directly controlled by the KDP. 44

through transnational spaces, with viewers around the world seeing Kurdish-made and

Kurdish-speaking films through which they are exposed to Kurdayeti in narrative forms

(Kocer, 2014).

As Anderson (1991) repeatedly notes, use of a language in print media (and nowadays all forms of mass media), gives the language a legitimacy and normalized power. Along with territory, language is the other common attribute that a nation will use to define itself in ontological terms. Sheyholislami (2011) addresses this fact as well and acknowledges that in the KRI, there is no singular vernacular that is used throughout the region as the predominant language of Kurdish mass media (p. 103). Instead, for prominent stations such as KTV, use of specific vernaculars have been compromised, as the need to appease both Kurmanji speakers and Sorani speaks has arrested the development of a single Kurdish national language. Despite the status of Kurmanji as the language of the majority of all Kurds, in Iraq itself it is, rather ironically, spoken by a minority, while Sorani is most widely spoken vernacular in the region. Nonetheless, many broadcasters, in order to improve their reception amongst Kurds who live outside the region, both in nearby countries and in the diaspora, have develop ways to ensure the legitimacy of Kurmanji alongside Sorani as the two de-facto national languages of the

KRI. KTV, as a primary television broadcaster in the KRI, serves to develop a mutual intelligibility between the speakers of these two languages by featuring them on the same programs simultaneously. For example, as Sheyholislami observes, the main news 45

program featured on KTV has two persons host the program, each one speaking one of the two major Kurdish varieties (Sheyholislami, 2011, p. 104).

Other programs on the channel, as well, especially talk shows, will feature speakers of Kurdish varieties different from that of the host. Over the years, this has created a certain degree of mutual intelligibility between Kurmanji and Sorani speakers, who had for centuries not shared this same degree of communication between one another. Exposure of speakers of one vernacular to the speakers of another through mass media, especially in the form audial and visual broadcasting has slowly been closing a gap. It has been the policy of most elite institutions of the KRI to provide means of legitimacy to both of these major varieties.

In many ways, as exemplified by KTV, Kurdish media celebrates language diversity in Iraq, not only amongst Kurdish speakers, but also speakers of other minority languages in the region (Skutnabb-Kangas & Fernandes, 2008) A byproduct of this commonplace policy, however, is the convergence of these two popular varieties of the

Kurdish continuum by their dual and simultaneous usage in mass media in the KRI.

While this thesis does not make any conjectures, from the observable growth of mutual intelligibility (that is, the ability of Kurmanji and Sorani speakers in Iraq to understand one another’s language as it is presented in the media) it can be inferred that there could be a possibility, if this trend continues, for these vernaculars, in their use in the media, to gradually develop a more singular language variety to be presented in the mass media. 46

This possibility, however, is only dependent upon current trends which have been observed by Sheyholislami (2011, pp. 103-105) to continue, while at the same time the question arises if this will ever become an official policy of the KRG, which has made it a purpose to enforce Kurdish language diversity in the media with respects to both

Kurmanji and Sorani. A perhaps ironic outcome of this, of course, is the growing mutual intelligibility between Kurmanji and Sorani speakers.

Another important media outlet in the KR1 is the Rudaw Media Group, which has developed significant outreach in television, print journalism, and internet activity. Also a

KDP-affiliated organization (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2016, p.

31; Galip, 2015, p. 85), Rudaw possesses a Sorani-language newspaper published in the

KRI, a Kurmanji version of that newspaper published in Europe, as well as its own

Television station and website, which operates in Sorani, Kurmanji, Arabic, English, and

Turkish, providing consumers of Kurdish-related news and opinions a considerable level of access and also drawing considerable activity traffic from non- Kurdish speakers.

Rudaw has even surpassed KTV as the news organization with the most funding received from the KRG through KDP-controlled budget manipulations, which has received severe scrutiny from independent Kurdish news outlets. In 2012, for example, it was reported that the KRG had provided $30 million originally derived from oil revenues in order to fund Rudaw’s foundation of its TV station (Chomani, 2012). 47

This station has now become the television station most watched by Kurds in Iraq, as a Gallup survey reported in 2016, in which as many as 76% of Kurds surveyed reported watching the Rudaw channel in the past week (Gallup ,2016, p. 39). This same report also listed KTV as the third most watch, at 52%, and the independent station NRT

(Nalia Radio and Television), which has received most of its viewership from Sulaimani

Govemate (p. 42), a predominantly PUK-controlled area. Despite this, NRT has been criticized and attacked routinely in the past year due to allegations from party-affiliated news outlets of it adopting an anti-referendum stance in its reporting (Kurdistan 24,

2017), due to its owner, Shaswar Abdulwahid Qadir’s criticism of the referendum as a means for Kurdish political elites to remain in power (Diehl, 2017).

Rudaw, on the other hand, had served as a vocal forum for pro-referendum sentiment, both in its news stories and also on internet message boards, which hosts many users who will voice highly partisan rhetoric usually pointed at non-KDP organizations and figures. One report by Rudaw in November 2017, for instance, covered the dedication of the memorial to Jalal Talabani, the recently deceased PUK founder. Of the

11 comments on the report’s webpage as of that November 21, 2017,4 of them were vitriolic remarks directed towards Talabani’s family, effectively PUK leadership, and their alleged responsibility for Peshmerga withdrawal from Kirkuk, applying key

(Rudaw, 2017a). With regard to Shasar Qadir, in an article discussing his opposition to the referendum, there were two user comments, both of which are critical of the NRT 48

founder, applying contextually negative terms such as “betrayal,” “collaboration,” and

“scam” (Rudaw, 2017c).

Although there is relative success of influence that Rudaw enjoys as a news source in the Kurdistan region, serious attempts have been made to curtail this influence by both Kurdish and non-Kurdish opposition. It has been banned, example, by the PYD- controlled government in Rojava (EKurd, 2016), and following the referendum both the

Iraqi and Turkish governments have issued policies banning the television station from operating in their countries, although in Iraq this declaration has had minimal impact so far, due to lack of Iraqi federal authority within the KRI (Rudaw, 2017b; Daily Sabah,

2017). Despite these hindrances from rival actors, Rudaw has still managed to maintain a successful media presence both in the KRI and abroad. Its well-supported English language website makes it one of the more prominent Kurdish sources for English- language news, despite the often-cited relationship between the news organization and the KDP (Kuruuzum, 2017, p. 186). Another television, adopting the format of 24-hour news in its presentation, is Kurdistan 24 (K24), which also has frequently alleged links with the KDP (Chomani, 2014; Kurda, 2016). Like Rudaw’s Television network, K24, which started operations in 2015, has been banned from operation by order of Iraq’s federal government over its coverage and support of the September referendum, yet currently is still in operation in the KRI. 49

A more comprehensive listing that has been created which presents more popular channels in the KRI is found in Table 1 below. Much of the listed data is taken from the

Gallup survey from 2015, so the right column presents the listed popularity rating among

Iraqi Kurds who have been surveyed in the poll. Each percentage listed represents the percentage of Kurdish respondents who reported watching the channel in the past week.

It is unknown how Gallup qualified them as ‘watching’ television based upon any specific length of time. The listing has been merged with the top listed channels found on the main page of www.Karwan.tv, a website that provides access to live streaming

Kurdish television channels through html5 player.

Table - Kurdish Television Stations and Party Affiliation

Popular TV stations in Iraqi Popularity from Gallup (2015) Kurdistan Kurdish Party-affiliation Sample______Gali Kurdistan TV PUK Not listed Gorran (Movement for Kurdish News Network Change) Not listed Kurdistan 24 (K24) KDP Not Listed (created after survey) Kurdistan TV (KTV) KDP 53% KurdMAX TV Independent Not listed Kurdsat PUK 51% Nalia Radio and Television (NRT) Independent 70% Roj TV Unknown 14% Rudaw KDP 76% Sterk TV Unknown Not listed Yegkirtu TV Unknown 19% Zagros TV KDP 40% 50

Of the twelve listed television stations found in the table, seven are linked to a

Kurdish political party of the KRI, either through patronage, operation, or ideological affinity, or all three. Four of these seven are linked to the KDP, while two have PUK ties.

The Movement for Change party, also known as Gorrari7, is the largest opposition party to what is in effect a PUK-KDP coalition in the regional legislature and also has its own television network, the Kurdistan News Network. Of the five channels not listed as party-affiliated, it is known that only two of them are declared independent news sources.

The other three, when searched on the internet, did not return enough English language information as to their political affiliation, which leaves the possibility that some of the channels may have party affiliations after all.

The commonality of partisan control over most popular television channels demonstrates a frequency of nationalist discourse to be presented in broadcasting in the

KRI. Visual symbolism features prevalently on these channel websites, which will often feature either the most common version of the flag of Kurdistan, or the colors that compose it: yellow, green, white, and red. As Sheyholislami writes, with regards to how the flag is treated in KTV broadcasts, these colors themselves are interpreted by viewers as the flag of Kurdistan: “colors which are known to people as being associated with specific concepts and events can invoke emotions and reactions.” He then gives a specific

7 Gorran, in most Kurdish varieties, means “change.” 51

example of an opening scene for a children’s program on KTV which features these colors (p. 116). This use of the Kurdish flag in more abstract and subtle ways “naturalizes and, thus, nationalizes” the colors of the flag and the flag itself (p. 117).

In effect, KTV’s presentation of the flag in a consistent way, as many other channels do, such as using the flag colors to compose their news crawls on the bottom of the screen, are a discursive method used to develop a sense of the predominance of the

KRG as the primary state in Kurdish viewers sense of political space. The Iraqi flag, in contrast, is featured only when news stories related to Baghdad are being presented. In essence, the Iraqi state is presented in Kurdish news as more of a foreign entity than one that supersedes the Kurdistan region.

This is just one example through which discursive practices are utilized to construct kurdayeti amongst Kurdish consumers of mass media. By fostering symbols of nationhood and including common nationalist narratives in widely-spread discourses, political elites are capable of reinforcing, on a consistent basis, Kurdish nationalist sentiment. The semi-independence of the KRI has allowed for its development into nation-state, at least for those who identity as belonging to the Kurdish nation.

This chapter has presented, through description of common mediums used within the KRG, a model for the mass media system that, through use of language and symbols, incites the proliferation and reinforcement of Kurdish national identity, or Kurdayeti.

This case study is a prime contemporary example of how Anderson’s typology o f‘print 52

capitalism’ is still a very relevant and contemporary structure that allows for the construction and reinforcement of political identities. 53

CHAPTER 4: NARRATIVES AND IDENTITIES

As Anderson (1991) argues, the construction of national identity is dependent upon the development of a system of ‘print capitalism,’ which technological advances have developed into a broader structure of mass media. With this theoretical model of media established, how then is national identity provoked and enforced amongst viewership and readership? As Wodak et al. (1999) expresses, the answer to this question is quite simple, and explains that the predominant forms of nationalist discourses are

“narratives of national culture” (p. 22).

Narratives, as discursive assets for the construction of national identity, are presented as part of a ‘constructive strategy’ Wodak et al. argues (p. 33). The development of narratives, in the shape of myths for example, through this constructive strategy is a feature found in many, if not all, political discourses, not merely nationalist

(Skonieczny, 2001). The constructive strategy combines with Anderson’s theoretical model of media, in the form o f ‘print capitalism,’ to create a heavily influential structure of discourse through which narratives are transmitted to instill and reinforce national identities. In applying CDA to the nationalist discourse of Kurds, a common theme that is present when Kurdish histories are conceptualized is their construction of themselves as a community of victims (p. 207). Nationalism, as a construct of political identity, is driven by narratives with established themes, in which nationalists may commonly frame 54

themselves as either actor having achieved historical or monumental achievements and events, or as objects of terrible injustices committed upon them.

Kurdish nationalist narratives, when applied in discursive practices, tend to feature heavily past injustices and tragedies in which Kurds are the victims of atrocities committed by outside powers that be. The very common expression, even when used to objectively, expresses that the Kurds are ‘the largest nation in the world without their own state,’ or some variant from that statement. The truth value of the statement notwithstanding, the expression is often used as a discursive narrative that is used to imply that a) nation-states should be seen as a goal of attainment, and that b) it is an anomaly (and henceforth an injustice), that the Kurds do not have their own state.

Another frequently used expression, at least commonly used in English-language discourses of Kurdish nationalists, states that the Kurds “have no friends but the mountains.” This phase has been featured on mainstream news sites in English-language media (Glavin, 2015; Morris & El-Ghobashy, 2017), yet as an adage is not widely expressed in either Sorani or Kurmanji since either version of the quote are scantily found on the internet, despite some scholars’ reflection that it is a genuine Kurdish proverb

(Kaya, 2012, p. 104; O'Shea, 2004, pp. 5, 140). Nonetheless, it speaks to a broadly-held narrative of the mountains as characters of national identity amongst Kurds, and creates an important bond between ethno-nationalist sentiment and a sense of geographic and environmental belonging (Izady, 1992, p. 188). We can derive two possible inferences 55

from the phrase “no friends but the mountains.” The first one is more obvious, that the adage expresses the ‘community of victims’ narrative that Kurds are politically isolated, and harassed, by other communities that surround them. The second is that Kurdish national identity is deeply spatialized in the sense of geographic and environment,

Kurdistan, a largely mountainous region, has given the Kurds shelter from invaders for centuries, and thus nationalists hold the mountains as protective barriers that have allowed them to continue imagining their sense of nationhood for so long. Therefore, imagery of mountains presented in mass media, both visually and in texts can be utilized as discursive tools for the construction of Kurdish nationalism. As Sheyholislami simply puts it, “mountainous landscapes connect like-minded Kurds” (2011, p. 117).

This narrative of persecution includes their reliance upon the mountainous terrain of Kurdistan as a means of resisting invading forces, thus making the mountains something of a narrative actants that have willingly provided sanctuary to Kurds throughout their history of oppression and invasion by more powerful foes. The second inference, gained from the language commonly used for this expression, English, is that

Kurdish political groups have focused on this slogan as a discursive tool with which to engage mass media in the international community, which treats English as a lingua franca. The expression will often be used as a title header for a news article or exposition that will present Kurds as victims of genocide (through the Anfal campaign), survivors of genocide (via the Persian Gulf War and subsequent establishment of a no-fly zone over 56

the KRI), and finally as victims of the international community and their refusal to accept an independent Kurdistan.

These are examples of more concise, yet influential narratives, that are featured not merely in Kurdish nationalist discourses in the KRI, but also in media throughout the international community (Kaya, 2012). More culturally prominent narratives are featured highly in the construction of Kurdish identity. A popular Kurdish narrative, and one that will be analyzed in terms of its inclusion in certain discourses, is the narrative surrounding Newroz, the Kurdish New Year.8

The story of Newroz is best explained by Aziz (2015), who derives some of his emphases from Ozoglu (2004, p. 22), and focuses upon the relationship between Zuhak,9 a cruel ruler, and the people he rules over:

According to written Kurdish folklore, Zuhak, was a tyrant

who had snakes growing on his shoulders. Physicians were

not able to cure this deformity. Satan appeared to the

tyrant and told him that he would be cured if he wouldfeed

the snakes each day with the brains o f two youngsters. The

executioner appointed to the task o f providing the brains

took pity on his victims and each day spared one o f them

8 Newroz, meaning “new day,” is a variant of the Persian New Year, which bears the cognate name Nowruz. This reflects the historical cultural ties of modem Kurds to other Iranic peoples. 9 Zuhak, also spelled Zahak, Zahhak, or Zuhok, is a character also featured in the Persian epic, the Shahnama. 57

and substituted the brains o f a sheep. The survivors fled to

the safety of the mountains, where they became the

founders o f a new people, the forefathers o f the Kurds, (p.

35)

Aziz goes on to explain Zuhak’s removal from power and a common nationalist interpretation of the story:

Zuhak himself was overthrown when one of the tyrant’s

intended victims rebelled against his fate and killed Zuhak

instead. That person was Kaway Asinger10. The day that

tyrant Zuhak was killed is called Nawroz. Historically, the

Kurdish calendar dates from the defeat of the Assyrian

Empire at Nineveh, north o f Mosul, by the forces o f the

Medes. The myth o f Zuhak, according to the Kurdish

perspective, represents their existence as one o f the ancient

peoples o f the regime. The end of Zuhak’s tyranny

represents a great deal o f relief in the Kurds ’ collective

memory. ” (p. 35)

The narrative behind Newroz is important to Kurdish nationalists for two reasons.

Firstly, it is a story that is set in ancient times, and thus, as an origin story, and thus as a

10 Another common variant of this character’s name is Kawa, or more specifically, Kawa the Blacksmith. 58

premise insists upon the primordial origins of the Kurdish nation. Secondly, as a narrative, it provides important thematic concepts that can be featured throughout

Kurdish nationalist discourse, whether or not the discourse is produced during the celebration of Newroz. The simple popularity of this origin narrative means that it can be featured in popular addresses by Kurdish politicians, reproduced on television shows, and even featured into discourses regarding the commemoration of other events that are significant to Kurds, also with their own associated narratives. Such an example may be the yearly commemorations of the Halabja massacre, in which a Kurdish-majority town was attacked by chemical weapons during the Ba’athist regimes Anfal campaign in 1988.

In activating the Halabja narrative in constructive discourse, Kurdish nationalists might tie in symbolisms from the Newroz narrative to reinforce the Kurd’s identity as a

‘community of victims.’ An example of these symbolic tie-ins would be an allusion of

Saddam Hussein, as a despotic leader, to Zuhok, who was also an oppressive despot.

Another prominent example would be the relationship between Zuhok’s victims and the

Kurds who perished at Halabja.

Nationalist narratives have also developed into a symbiotic structure, where the activation of one narrative presented in a discourse can implicitly activate another, leading an audience to develop a meta-narrative on which to construct their community.

Kurdish nationalists in Iraq have achieved this, by assimilating narratives through their synchronized activations in their discourse, a meta-narrative of historical victimhood and struggle has been used by which Kurdish nationalists have come to define themselves. 59

An example of this is text from the 2013 Newroz address given by then-President of the KRG, Massoud Barzani, who was also the head of the KDP, and originally broadcast on KTV (Barzani, 2013). In one of his earlier lines, Barzani explains:

I congratulate all [the] Nation’s people who celebrate this

anniversary with us. They became free with us from [a]

dictator^ial] regime, at that time, 2700years ago.2700

years ago, Kurdistan's people [rose] against injustice.

Kawa the blacksmith wiped out Zuhak's regime to get

freedom for his nation.11

This text presents interesting themes that should be further analyzed. In the very first line of this passage, for instance, he chooses to include “all the Nation’s people,” alluding to Kurds in other parts of Kurdistan as well as those in the diaspora who have access to KTV broadcasting. Barzani’s direct audience, however, are Kurds in the KRI

(even more specifically the spectators at the stadium where he is speaking). Then activating the Newroz narrative, Barzani frames his speech by the selection of certain themes in his rendition of the narrative. “2,700 years ago,” represents the ancient origins of the Kurdish nation. ‘Rising up against injustice,’ a common thematic action taken by

Kurds throughout their narrated history, this statement thus helping to activate their meta­

11 All bracketed words are edits by author in order to correct grammatical errors in the translation. 60

narrative, one that is built upon themes of oppression, tyrannical regimes, and national emancipation. Barzani continues:

Since that time till now the Kurdistani people from now on

will not ever agree no matter what, to live under regimes o f

control and injustice. The enemies o f Kurdistan and the

greedy can bomb us with chemicals, and do the Kurdish

Genocide [Anfal], and kill us, but there is absolutely no

way they can kill our volition.

Barzani punctuates his brief recitation of the Newroz narrative with the concluding moral in this passage, that the Kurds will never submit to ‘regimes of control and injustice.’ Through a method that might be called ‘metaphorical displacement’

(Bhaba, 1990), Barzani establishes a category of unjust regimes, exemplified by Zuhak, but representable by modem political leaders whom Kurdish nationalists are opposed to:

Saddam Hussein and Mustafa Kemal are but two prominent examples. He then goes on to enforce the narrative of the Kurds as a “community of victims” by activating the

Halabja narrative through the allusion to use of chemical weapons by Iraqi military during the attack. He then concludes this passage by emphasizing the resilience of the

Kurdish nation to such attacks throughout history. 61

The themes presented by Barzani in his Newroz address can be found in nationalist discourses from all political actors within the KRI, and most Kurdish political groups throughout the Middle East. Indeed, a political address during Newroz has become a normative practice amongst key leaders throughout Kurdistan. Nawshirwan

Mustafa, the now-deceased head of Gorran and a prominent political opponent of the

KDP-PUK coalition, released a Newroz address in 2012 that activated some of the same narratives in the text of Barzani’s address. He wishes a happy Newroz to the “citizens of

Kurdistan, the Kurds in Diaspora, all Kurdistanis in north and south, west and east of our homeland.” This allusion to pan-Kurdism is a discursive tool also used by Barzani, who refers to “all the nation’s people” who celebrate Newroz with the (Iraqi) Kurdistanis.

Mustafa’s activation of the meta-narrative of the Kurds as a ‘community of victims’ is located roughly half way through the text.

My second message is about our wholesome vision for our

highest national aspiration, which is the independent

Kurdistan and the establishment o f the State of Kurdistan.

It is for this aim that many generations have risen, an aim

that tens o f thousands of our citizens have bequeathed their

lives to, andfor which the whole nation and country have

endured mass destruction and genocide. (Mustafa, 2012) 62

Mustafa does not specifically allude to the Halabja narrative, or even the larger

Anfal campaign, with the imagery of chemical attacks that Barzani uses. However, the use of the term ‘genocide’ activates the narrative among the audience nonetheless, providing for them a framework on which to justify their desire for an independent state.

The use of narratives such as the Newroz myth or Halabja narrative serve as important assets for the discursive construction of Kurdish nationalism. The development and enforcement of Kurdish nationalism through discourses presented in mass media demonstrates the significance of constructive strategies that political actors will utilize in order to establish and maintain political movements. 63

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

This thesis has evaluated how nationalist movements, this case being the Kurdish nationalist movement in Iraq, is generated and enforced. The driving force from which

Kurdish nationalism is enforced, it has been argued, is the use of narratives in constructive discourses that proliferate through mass media in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish nationalist political parties, with a considerable influence on many media outlets in the

KRI, have access to a large audience to which they utilize various narratives through which to develop a strong sense of Kurdish national identity and, subsequently, for

Kurdish nationalist policies that these parties might support.

Utilizing methodologies developed in the fields of nationalism, Critical Discourse, analysis, and IR studies, and by placing the focus on narratives and their contribution to the development of Kurdayeti, this project has presented, in the preceding pages, an interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between the structure of mass media and Kurdish nationalist discourses that they help to proliferate.

The arguments that have been established in this thesis can roughly be grouped into three central points:

(1) Nations, in accordance with the theory developed by Anderson (1991), is a constructed, or ‘imagined’ community. By this, it is meant that nations are ontologically developed in the perceptions of nationalists through constructive strategies. 64

(2) The primary structure through which discursive strategies are enforced is the structure of mass media. Through this structure, originally described as “print capitalism,” by Anderson, has expanded through historical processes of technological development to include other mediums of communication beyond merely print. This includes radio-communications, telecommunications, and internet broadcasting.

(3) Narratives, which can be metaphorically titled the “life blood of capitalism,” serve as the primary discursive tools through which national identity is constructed and reinforced. Narratives of Kurdish nationalism have been frequently used to make Kurdish audiences develop ontological links with their national histories, developing a sense of primordial existence with a descent from classical empires such as the ancient Medes empire or the Ayyubid Dynasty of Saladin.

The three-part argument that has been presented leads to some other points of observation which concerns the construction of Kurdish nationalism, and if there is any juxtaposition with a sort of Kurdistani nationalism in the form that would encompass other ethnic groups, essentially developing a new level of civic nationalism as opposed to ethnic nationalism. Aziz (2015), in his research chooses to use the terms “Kurdistani” and Kurdistaniyeti as the preferred terms for the identity. However, these terms, as Aziz uses them, are treated as synonymous with “Kurd” and “Kurdistani,” and the concept of

Kurdish national identity is termed Kurdistaniyeti, but is essentially the same notion as

Kurdayeti, which is the more common Kurdish term for national identity or nationalism.

In the sense that Kurdistaniyeti is treated as a civic national identity, it is used as a means 65

to juxtapose against the sense of Iraqi identity, or Iraqchiyati as Aziz calls it (p. 95), given the millennial generation’s experience of growing up in the KRG, being exposed to a dominant Kurdish culture both socially and politically. Therefore, when Aziz asks those in his 2007 field survey “How proud are you of being an Iraqi?” 76% of the respondents, all university students, marked the answer that they were “Not Iraqi” (pp. 128-129).

However, Kurdistaniyeti, as much as a sense of civic national identity tied to loyalty to the KRI, is still a concept founded upon ethnic bases. To be Kurdistani in Iraq, therefore, is essentially treated as being the same as a Kurd. Aziz alludes to this point as well, noting that Iraqi Kurdistan “lacks an established civil society” (p. 157).

This basis of Kurdistani civic identity, then, based upon a foundation of

Kurdayeti, leaves us with some interesting problems regarding the national identities of other communities residing in the KRI, some of which are regarded as Kurds, others with more distinct ethnic, or even national, identities.

Anderson & Stansfield (2009) address the problem of competing identities regarding the KRG’s occupation of Kirkuk, a city largely contested over between Iraqi

Turkmen, Arabs, and Kurds. In addressing this issue, they bring to light the fact that

Turkmen in Iraq have their own sense of national identity, and its own nationalist movement that has brought it largely into conflict with Kurdish nationalism in Iraq. In terms of geographic nationalism, for example, Kurdistan overlaps with the homeland designated by Turkmen, Turkmeneli, centered roughly between Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq (pp. 56-57). In much the same way, that Kurdish nationalism arose out of 66

competition with dominant nationalist movements in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran, so too has Kurdish nationalism, as the dominant political identity in the KRI, has galvanized the sense of national identity among Iraqi Turkmen.

Despite claims of an emphasis on linguistic diversity in media in the KRI

(Sheyholislami, p. 105) and the fact that there reserved seats in the Kurdistan Parliament for representatives of Turkmen, Assyrian, and Armenian parties, contentions have still remained as to the issue of Kurdification, and a national identity that encompasses Kurds,

Assyrians, Turkmen, and other ethno-national groups into a heterogenous civic nation has not occurred, nor does any serious development of such a nation appear likely. The contentions over the legitimacy of the Referendum, when debated in the KRI, largely fell into the issue of minority rights of non-Kurdish groups (Rosen, 2017). This contention over identity predominance extends beyond ethnic identity, but also religious identity as well. Kurdish nationalism in Iraq, while mostly secular, still possesses links to Sunni

Muslim identity that has proven difficult to disestablish, even though there those who identify as Kurds who profess other religious beliefs. Kurdish religious minorities include

Shi’a Muslims, Yazidis, Ahl-e Haqq, Shabbaks, Jews, and Christians, all of which are religious communities that have faced de facto discrimination from other Kurds living in the KRI. However, the recent years of political turmoil in Iraq has generated a sense of pragmatism in many minority rights movements in the KRI, as many have come to see an independent Kurdistan as being to more reliable choice in preserving and enforcing a 67

greater level of tolerance than the Iraqi central government, even if the essence of

Kurdistani nationalism might negate other identity groups from falling into that category.

The problem that has arisen is a common one faced by national movements throughout history, as ethnic identities might be used to construct a sense of national identity, at the risk, however, of alienating other groups who are disqualified from the consanguine nature of ethno-nationalist identity. Narratives as discursive tools to construct civic national identities can be possible, but only to the extent that otherwise different communities may feel associated with such narratives. The national memories of Kurds in Iraq have become the dominant narratives portrayed in discourse in the KRI, thus deeply ingraining the pervasiveness of Kurdish ethno-nationalism to conflate it with a sense of being a Kurdistani citizen. 68

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