Kurdish language

has lived three more decades of humiliation and false hopes under the current Kurdish leadership. But like the others, Frishta also continues to send her blessings to Saddam on a daily basis. She is fed up with her Kurdish leaders and curses their selfish decisions and failures. Frishta repeats a narrative of humiliation and hardships she has lived through in the past decades during our endless talks. She has directly experienced decades of “qorbasary”—a word which is hard to translate—literally spreading mud on one 's head as a sign of mourning. The word is used for emphasis—as a sign of anguish. Until a year ago, Frishta remained hopeful, waiting patiently for better times to come. Frishta’s story demonstrates other ways of being in in Suleimani. One of the quiet critics of politicians, elites, intellectuals and businessmen, as well as outsiders, Frishta has remained on her feet defying the status quo and the changing lifestyle influencing others around. She has remained in need but has supported hundreds of people around her, emotionally, financially and as humanely possible. The various narratives present a different discourse and shed further light on present predicaments in Suleimani. For as Judith Butler argues, “one would need to hear the face as it speaks in something other than language to know the precariousness of life that is at stake.” (Butler, 2004:151). Frishta’s case combines language, acts of care and also frustrations and pain to address a life of…

formations of the Kurds. In his essay “The Impact of Islam on Kurdish Identity in the Middle East,” Hakan Ozoglu argues that Kurdish identity evolved through various, overlapping phases with Islam at the core of its formation process, a process he calls “dialectical, dialogical, and monological” (18). First, while the term “Kurd” was not ethnically associated with the modern term Kurd, nevertheless, many proto-Kurds accepted Islam early on in the Islamic expansion period after the death of the…

The film is based on the Kurdish people and their long history fighting for a national identity which can be seen in their history. The Kurdish people are Sunni Muslim people, who have their own language and traditions, living on the mountainous borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Armenia. They are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East but they are still considered “nationless”. The traditional Kurdish life was nomadic until World War 1 and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.…

Dispersed ethnic groups throughout history have experienced violence, repression, and have been denied human rights within the government they are residing. Due to the persecution, these groups search for ways to create their own nation and become independent. According to Joseph Stalin, for an ethnic group to become a nation they must be “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up…

study on Kurdish history from the 1880s to the 1940s, revealing how Kurdish nationalism should be framed within the Islamic movements’ discourse. The reason why Kurdish nationalism should be understood as an Islamic movement is because of the role Islam had in solidifying a Kurdish ethnicity, the Islamic structures and actors that made Kurdish nationalism and Kurdish rebellions possible, and the resistance other Kurdish religious sects have had towards Kurdish nationalism. All three of these…

Strong as Mountains: a Kurdish Cultural Journey, written by Robert L. Brenneman. I wanted to read this book because I did not know any aspects of the Kurdish culture. I enjoy learning about other cultures, and Kurdish is one culture that I had very little knowledge of. In fact, I am not very educated about the cultures within the Middle East in general. This book helped me understand new aspects of the Kurdish culture and their lifestyle. Author Brenneman discusses the culture of the Kurdish…

paper focuses on the Kurdish-Turkish identity as well as the politics and conflicts related to the Kurdish-Turkish relationship. The Kurds who are reported to be over 35 million and commonly discussed as a nation that does not have any state (McDowall, 1997). As explained by McDowall, the homeland of the Kurds happens to neighbor Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq and as a result, the various governments in the four different countries relates differently with the Kurds. According to historian…

The effect of the Kurdish fight for autonomy in both Iraq and elsewhere, has changed the Middle East’s landscape. This includes subnational or internal fracturing of Kurdish parties, national barriers, and newfound international relations as well as political alliances with historical rivals. Gareth Stansfield illustrates this point when he uses Kurdish history in Iraq as and cites economic and political relations with Turkey as signaling a potential Kurdish state, “By embracing this agenda,…

Some of the transition of the Turkish stance regarding the Kurds can be attributed loosely to the rise of the Kurdish plight within international discourse but the primary catalyst for the change in my opinion is growing demand for energy options by Turkey as their economic and energy requirements increase. Despite the ever-growing demand for energy the Kurdish Regional Government has borrowed $3 billion against future oil sales to facilitate some degree of financial autonomy from the Iraqi…

into a new pricey lifestyle? Kurdistan’s ruling class, as the newly returning revolutionaries from the mountains, were gradually advised by regional and international experts, who insisted that in order to establish a stable progressive region for all, they first needed to become more modern and developed—more “civilized”. The new capitalist-neoliberal enterprise required transformations. Marx and Engels further illustrate regarding capitalism, “It compels all nations, on the pain of…