Kurdistan 101: Exploring Kurdish culture, art and imaginaries

Geographies 

Bakur – ‘North’ern Kurdistan, currently known as Turkish-occupied Kurdistan

Rojava – ‘West’ern Kurdistan and other territories, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria

Bashur – ‘South’ern Kurdistan, currently known as the Kurdish Region of Iraq 

Rojhelat – ‘East’ern Kurdistan, currently known as Iranian-occupied Kurdistan

Key Terms

Hevaltî – [heh-val-ty] friendship and comradery

Xwebun – [kho-boon] to be oneself

Jineolojî – [zhin-e-ology] the science of women established by the Kurdish Women’s Movement

Those displaced from and living in South West Asia and North Africa are all too familiar with the visceral legacies of the 1916 Sykes-Picot ‘secret’ agreement. As Britain and France carved borders, they saw fit for their geopolitical interests, capital gain, and their collaborators’ benefit, self-determination was ripped away from peoples across the region. 

Millions of Kurds found themselves excluded from the modern nation-state project, elongating persecution experienced under Ottoman and Persian imperialism, triggering a century of denial and setting the pace for new stark difficulties. Genocidal campaigns, mass displacement, and forced cultural assimilation into newly established national identities, amongst other grave injustices, all took place to erase ethnic minorities in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. 

Turning towards the Kurdish struggle’s endurance, one often overlooked, we begin to unearth a historic, current and future Kurdistan. Imagined and real, in the consciences of more than 40 million people, there’s a tending to questions we must urgently foreground: How do a people secure the same rights as those represented or even protected by the state? How do they go about that without succumbing to the inequalities inherent to the nation-state model?

Journeying across imagined borders, it is worth holistically engaging with the Kurdish question. Parallel to those of us who have accepted our conformity to the global state system, there are movements that break the yoke of these toxic frameworks. Kurdistan has been no stranger to power struggles through periods of feudalism and modernity. Yet, amidst this textured landscape of decolonial uprisings and in-house contentions, many approaches to liberation have enriched Kurdish history for better or worse. 

In order for us to aim for freedom and longevity collectively, we must look to people engaged in struggle to understand their means of resistance. And so, we flow along the rivers that feed the plains and hike the mountains that shade the basins, where, in every corner of Kurdistan, stand lessons taught and lessons to come. 

Kurdiyati – ‘Kurdism’ or a collective Kurdish consciousness moving towards self-determination. 

The term Kurdiyati has roots in 1960s Southern Kurdish intellectual circles and party politics but it has since expanded to usage in the public sphere. Existential and politically rooted discussions of society and culture belong to everyone. And those who feel it, know it best. In Bashur, Slemani-raised Darwon Rashid honours the opacities of a wide spectrum of experiences; his vignettes don’t intend to enlighten non-Kurdish audiences. “The most I want to give is a peek into life here, not swing the door wide open. I looked at most of the photobooks there are about Kurdistan, by platforms outside of Kurdistan… it’s either trauma, heroic individuals, or it’s colonial,” he explains, “I want them [the viewer] to feel, but they don’t need to understand us. A Kurd will understand.” What these snapshots do, with a rugged blasé, is document Kurdism in its truth. 

Each person’s Kurdiyati can vary from the next, as Kurdish livelihood takes vastly different forms, at times a response to the circumstances of the state occupying them. For example, Rojava experiences high levels of militarism due to a dire need for protection in the wake of civil war and dictatorial violence. Meanwhile, Bashuri populations are known to exercise loyal and flamboyant party affiliations tied to their localities and family traditions, some of which are informed by revolutionary personal histories. To the north, in Bakur, occupation has significantly impacted pillars of Kurdism through forced assimilation. 

The criminalisation and persecution of Kurdish languages in the late 20th century rendered approximately 50% of the northern Kurdish population only able to speak Turkish rather than their mother tongue. In such cases, the oppressed become aware of their secondary status and embroiled in the long game of survival or liberation. However, where previously Bakuris were terrorised into silence, Kurdish language learning initiatives have now sprouted. Lessons have taken place online, institutionally, and underground. Teachers of the Kurdish language have been and continue to be arrested in both Bakur and Rojhelat, but the last decade has seen a revival of Kurdish speaking in Bakur – due to this grassroots action. Whether or not a Kurd is fluent in their language and dialect, most will know Slaw (hello), Heval (friend/comrade), and Biji (long live). A determination to connect with one another and preserve Kurdish identities clearly disarms socio-political barriers. There is a clear shared understanding that beyond the checkpoints and armed border guards, our people are on the other side on every side. 

Xwebun – [kho-boon] to be oneself, a core tenet in self-defence.

When the global order staunchly opposes your liberation, creative thinking is vital. One theme in particular, Xwebun, emphasises that being yourself in your revolutionary journey allows you to persevere with sincerity. To be oneself, in this context, emphasises going back to one’s roots, both individual and collective. These collective roots include the origins of oppression and society-building, the setting we developed sentience in. When we understand ourselves–our passions, skills, and needs multi-dimensionally – we can address and utilise them meaningfully in our liberation without upholding prejudiced standards.

Between the cracks of suppression, overt and clandestine means of resistance have taken flight. This became clear with the Rojava Revolution. Amidst the 2011 Syrian Spring, a political coalition led foremostly by the Democratic Union Party organised women and parties representing Indigenous and ethnic groups in the region. Within the armed conflict, the Peoples Protection Units urgently formed and came to prominence – their men’s and women’s units captured Kurdish-majority cities from Assad’s forces and would become a vital anti-terror front. 

A newly self-governing region underwent seemingly swift processes of change and organisation. In the last decade, we’ve seen the development of a multi-ethnic and women’s liberationist administration, agricultural care, and an alternative education system. This rapidity partly came at the behest of decades of ideological foundation in Bakur and Rojava. Many active politicians in Rojava accredit the long-imprisoned political prisoner Abdullah Öcalan as their ideological leader, who continues to theorise and write on themes such as ecological justice and alternative systems of governance while incarcerated. 

Self-education has been a clear priority across Kurdistan. Marxist-Leninist groups were highly revered in Rojhelat and Bashur, sometimes joining forces on the mountains that connect them, creating a generation of politically astute veterans who read while resisting. In Rojava, those who wish to join the Asayish – the internal security and protection force – undertake education in dispute mediation, hoping that community-led security can establish itself naturally and allow a state-based police structure to dissolve over time. This breathes life into ideas, allowing them a fallibility we can diagnose and look after; rejecting capitalistic structures of ownership and control that become self-cannibalising. One angle to imagining new futures and striving for better includes looking at historical examples of non/anti-capitalist structures – we, however, get to see Rojava as a living example of change beyond written theory.  

Statelessness –  the essence and layered reality of being without a state.

Over one hundred years of statelessness embeds a people deeply in their own subtexts. The cultural and linguistic distinction of Kurds from their neighbours connects them across borders between North to West and South to East – this naturally challenges state-indoctrinated nationalism by holding a mirror up to their histories of violence that was necessary to bolster new actors on the global stage. Standing in the way of this macho patriotism is a pastoral attitude to the land, defending it rather than seeking power from it. The material reality of statelessness in the West, however, includes restricted movement and precarious employment and residency. Kurds seeking asylum in countries like Germany, for instance, often find themselves enmeshed in communality with Afghans and Syrians in the same circumstances. 

Socially and politically active Kurds have historically built and enacted solidarity with a number of stateless or struggling peoples. Shared understandings of political strife allow connections to continue despite attempts by nation-states to sabotage emancipatory efforts. In Euskadi (Basque country), a long-standing independence struggle of its own, locals celebrate Newroz in appreciation of the parallels with the Kurdish cause. Internationalists in Rojava have strong ties with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, showing solidarity and sharing learnings. Northern Kurdish revolutionaries trained with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. On June 6th 1982, called to urgency at the dawn of the second zionist invasion of Lebanon, many Kurdish fighters lost their lives near Qal’at al-Shaqif. Survivors were captured and imprisoned by the IOF, with testimonies of torture during interrogation, travelling back to Northern Kurdistan alongside drawings and poems.

Statelessness demands the pairing of rooted self-understanding and self-preservation by means of light-footed reflexes. In the face of relentless erasure, the Kurds (and Hevals across the world) must continue to consolidate lessons of the struggle through art and knowledge production and sustain social codes that hold progression and connection at their core. Strengthening culture affirms one’s existence and, more importantly, the existence of everyone we love/d. 

Jineolojî – [zhin-e-ology] the science of women established by the Kurdish Women’s Movement.

Yearning for outdated leadership and societal models leads us to ignore how they have perpetrated the same results repeatedly across our region. Revered leaders, present and past, are often subjects steeped in patriarchy and isolation, posing no solution to current problems. It is clearer now more than ever that Kurdish reality means a determination for liberation, whether or not everybody’s end goal is statehood. 

In Rojhelat, equal rights are the utmost realm of struggle amidst preserving cultural, linguistic, and religious identities. The extrajudicial killing of Jina Amini, brutally beaten by the ‘morality’ police in 2022, set off a vast chain reaction. Skewed, however, by marginal Iranian nostalgia for the previous monarchical system and the mainstream usage of Jina’s Iranian passport name ‘Mahsa’, a result of ambiguous policies against naming children Kurdish or foreign names. The double erasure of women’s stories and that of their Kurdish heritage is a widely perpetrated phenomenon. In response, young Rojhelati women have galvanised, taking up revolutionary positions across Bashur and Rojava since the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi protests. More than a ringing chant, the slogan, meaning “women, life, freedom”, was coined by the Kurdish Women’s Movement, becoming a resounding societal manifesto for Kurdistan and the broader region. Liberation is a fallacy if it isn’t held up by everyone. 

 

Nashville-based, Bashuri artist Nuveen Barwari severs the silencing of colourful personal histories. Barwari’s 2024 piece focuses on Leyla Qasim – a Feyli Kurdish activist born and university-educated in southern Iraq. Qasim was the first woman to be hung and executed by the Ba’athist regime for allegedly attempting to hijack a plane in 1974. Central to the piece is a portrait that many of us know well; we instantly recognise Leyla’s eyes and hairstyle despite the enshrouding purple glitter embracing her face. 

Nuveen shares with us the following from her studio journal; “I often will cover their face for a number of different reasons. 1. I don’t have their consent. 2. I don’t want the conversation to be just about ‘who is she’, but more of a tribute or symbol of all the Kurdish women like Jina whose names often fade into obscurity.” Leyla, in the care of artist Barwari, is framed as a multi-dimensional point of remembrance and learning.  Looking after Kurdish women’s histories, including that of a şehîd, intends to honour their contexts in a landscape that shallowly consumes images. When stories are reclaimed and shared contrary to state narratives, we can work to reimagine society from self-actualisation to justice. 

Traversing a historic Kurdistan and its future-steering paths has highlighted the people power driving change in the region. Forms of governance and political resistance are continually tried and tested in the political realm; while teachers, revolutionaries, and artists toy with realism and self-reflection. Kurdish struggles in the home regions and abroad affirm Life. Vibrance exudes from a people long wrought with grief and urgency as, even in their differences, they hone ways of being that guarantee the preservation of their culture. Bridging commonalities between struggles in the region and across the world allows learnings to be consolidated, encouraging us to continue connecting outwards and building upwards.