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| Dear Mr. Zakaria: |
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September 08, 2008
In my opinion, the Kurds are the ethnic group that has the strongest case to become a nation. Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “nation” to mean “a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own” and, also, as “an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate language.” The Kurds are a “large body of people” of Indo-European origin – in fact, there are approximately 40 million Kurds in the world today – who represent the largest ethnic group in the world without a nation. By population alone, the number of Kurds in the world today exceeds the population of numerous existing nations, including that of Poland, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Australia, Syria, Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, New Zealand, Lebanon, and Armenia, among many others. In addition, the Kurds are “associated with a particular territory” since they have inhabited the land known as “Kurdistan” – an area of approximately 500,000 square kilometers, or roughly the size of France, and extending contiguously across the national borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey – since the middle of the second millennium B.C. By land mass alone, the size of Kurdistan is greater than that of numerous existing nations, including that of Spain, Sweden, Morocco, Japan, Germany, Finland, Poland, Italy, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom – among numerous others. The Kurds are highly “conscious of [their] unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly [their] own”. Their distinct ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage was recognized by the Allied Powers when they sought to establish the nation of “Kurdistan” in the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. Unfortunately for the Kurds, the Treaty of Sèvres was superseded in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne, which divided the Ottoman Empire after World War I and created, among other states, the modern nations of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria – but with no provision for the nation of “Kurdistan”. Because the Kurds’ right to nationhood has been denied, they have lived for the past 80 years as a minority group, on their ancestral lands, in these modern nation states and have faced a history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and second-class citizenship, with forced assimilation and the denial of their right to express their language, culture and heritage.
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan" (PDK-I) was founded in Mahabad, Iran, on August 16, 1945. PDK-I replaced the Komeley Jiyanewey Kurd (Council of Kurdish Resurrection) which had been formed three years earlier. Just 159 days after its foundation in January 22, 1946, the Party, availing itself of expedient circumstances in a section of Iranian Kurdistan, established the " Republic of Kurdistan ", usually referred to by historians as the Republic of Mahabad , the reason being its choice of Mahabad as the capital. The Republic of Mahabad lasted not more than 11 months. Following a pact signed by the Iranian central government and the ex-Soviet Union (which supported the PDK-I and the secession of the Kurdistan province from Iran), the Iranian army launched a vast offensive into the region, destroying the " Republic " December 17, 1946. The " Republic " having collapsed, a great number of PDKI leaders were imprisoned, of whom 20 people including Qazi Muhammad (Ghazi Mohammad or Qazî Mihemmed), head of the Party and president of the Republic, M. Hossein Seyfi-Ghazi, minister of Defence, and Abulghassem Sadri-Ghazi, a member of the Iranian Parliament from Mahabad, were hanged in the capital of the Republic, and the others in Saqez and Bukan.
In Iraq, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds’ lack of nationhood status deprived them of any official status before the United Nations or other international tribunals that would allow them to secure international support to resist the chemical attacks in Halbja; to stop the Anfal campaign that sought to eradicate the Kurds from Iraq and all vestiges of their villages and culture; and ultimately resulted in the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Kurds to diasporas around the world. The word “nation” is derived from the Latin words “natio” and “nasci”, which mean, respectively, “birth” and “to be born.” The Kurdish people are a nation, just waiting to be born.
Best regards,
Sheila Mohammadian
Eastern Kurdistan-Mahabad
(571) 437-5012 |
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