Kurds - A People Without a State Essay -- Culture Kurds History Essays

Kurds - A mass With erupt a StateIntroductionOf all the cultural groups in the world, the Kurds ar one of the hugest that has no state to call their own. According to historian William Westermann, The Kurds posterior present a better claim to race purity...than any the great unwashed which now inhabits Europe. (Bonner, p. 63, 1992) Over the past hundred years, the desire for an independent Kurdish state has created fightings mainly with the Turkish and Iraqi populations in the atomic number 18as where most of the Kurds live. This conflict has important geographical implications as well. The history of the Kurdish nation, the causes for these conflicts, and an analysis of the function will be discussed in this paper.History of the KurdsThe Kurds argon a Sunni Muslim people living primarily in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The 25 one million million Kurds lease a distinct culture that is not at all want their Turkish, Persian, and Arabic neighbors (Hitchens, p. 36, 1992). It is th is cultural difference between the groups that automatically creates the potential for conflict. Of the 25 million Kurds, approximately 10 million live in Turkey, four million in Iraq, five million in Iran, and a million in Syria, with the rest scattered by means ofout the rest of the world (Bonner, p. 46, 1992). The Kurds withal have had a long history of conflict with these other ethnic groups in the Middle East, which we will now look at.The history of Kurds in the area actually began during ancient times. However, the desire for a Kurdish country of origin did not begin until the early 1900s, around the time of World war I. In his Fourteen Points,President Woodrow Wilson promised the Kurds a sovereign state (Hitchens, p. 54, 1992). The composition of a Kurdish state was supposed to have been accomplished through the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 which said that the Kurds could have an independent state if they valued one (Bonner, p. 46, 1992). With the formation of Turkey in 1 923, Kemal Ataturk, the new Turkish President, threw out the treaty and denied the Kurds their own state. This was the beginning of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. At about this same time, the Kurds attempt to establish a semi-independent state, and actually succeeded in forming the Kingdom of Kurdistan, which lasted from 1922-1924 later, in 1946, rough of the Kurds established the Mahabad Republic... ... seem very unbidden to give up their dominion to the Kurds. The plan of the PUK has a small chance to work, assuming that guerrilla maneuver would scare the Iraqi government. By simply holding out, the Kurds would gain nothing, because the Iraqis are not threatened by the Kurds per se. However, by attacking the Iraqis, the Kurds run the luck of a counterattack which they probably could not effectively deal with. Basically, that would be the situation for the Kurds even worse than before.ConclusionWithout the support of a large powerful nation such as the U.S., the Kurds will pro bably neer establish an independent Kurdish state. The Kurds do not have teeming military power to fight off the Turks andIraqis without help. The Iraqis and Turks would not be willing to giveup their economically important territory to people which they grasp a threat to their way of life and will most plausibly comprehend to fight the Kurds. The Kurds have no choice but to continue fighting until either they or the Turks and Iraqis are defeated, as both groups are unwilling to allow them to remain in their countries. The futuredefinitely looks destitute for the Kurds.