Author: Harriet Allsopp
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788315979
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Based on unprecedented access to Kurdish-governed areas of Syria, including exclusive interviews with administration officials and civilian surveys, this book sheds light on the socio-political landscape of this minority group and the various political factions vying to speak for them. The first English-language book to capture the momentous transformations that have occurred since 2011, the authors move beyond idealized images of Rojava and the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) to provide a nuanced assessment of the Kurdish autonomous experience and the prospects for self-rule in Syria. The book draws on unparalleled field research, as well as analysis of the literature on the evolution of Kurdish politics and the Syrian war. You will understand why the PYD-led project in Syria split the Kurdish political movement and how other representative structures amongst Syria's Kurds fared. Emerging clearly are the complex range of views about pre-existing, current and future governance structures.

Author: Michael M. Gunter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 184904435X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Examines the emergence of Syrian Kurds, who became game-changers in the Syrian civil war and potentially in Kurdish areas of other countries as well.

Author: Michael Knapp (Historian)
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN: 9781783719884
Category : Kurds
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
"Surrounded by enemies including ISIS and hostile Turkish forces, the people in Syria’s Rojava region are carving out one of the most radically progressive societies on the planet. Visitors have been astounded by the success of their project, a communally organised democracy which considers women’s equality indispensable, has a deep-reaching ecological policies, and rejects reactionary nationalist ideology. This form of organization, labeled democratic confederalism, is both fiercely anti-capitalist and boasts a self-defense capacity which is keeping ISIS from their gates. Drawing on their own firsthand experiences of working and fighting in the region, the authors provide the first detailed account of a revolutionary experiment and a new vision of politics and society in the Middle East and beyond"--Back cover.

Author: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
Publisher: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Increased tensions between Syrian Kurds and Turkey resulting in cross-border shelling during the month of November underline the complex system of conflict unfolding in northern Syria with the emergence of a Kurdish-dominated federation across the Jazira (Hassaka and Qamishli) and Euphrates (Kobani and Tell Abyad), and encompassing more recently the Deir ez-Zour governorate and Raqqa. Afrin is also theoretically included in the structure but is nonetheless currently under Turkish occupation. In this mosaic, multiple local and regional forces with rivaling interactive agendas are complicating the final phase of the war against the so-called Islamic Caliphate (ISIS), which has been spearheaded by a U.S.-led coalition and the ensuing stabilization efforts for the northern Syrian region.

Author: Michael Knights
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755643046
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The U.S.-led effort to fight the Islamic State in northeastern Syria since 2014 has been as controversial and poorly understood as it has been significant. Advocates of fighting “by, with and through” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) view the campaign as a near-ideal case study of a cost-effective U.S. military intervention that should be duplicated in the future. Critics of the campaign say that the U.S. allied itself with a terrorist group and endangered its ties with Turkey, a long-stranding NATO partner; losing sight of strategic priorities in order to win tactical victories at low cost. This book combines general research with 50 interviews gathered in Syria with Kurdish, Arab and Christian SDF officers, and 50 interviews with U.S. and French officials and military officers with on-the-ground involvement in the war. It provides an unprecedented window into how the war was really prosecuted, in the eyes of the participants at all levels, uniquely looking not only at how U.S. soldiers view their partner forces, but how the local partners view them in return. This is a unique and essential insight into US strategy in Syria and beyond.

Author: Jordi Tejel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134096437
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This book is a decisive contribution to the study of Kurdish history in Syria since the mandatory period (1920-1946) up to nowadays. Avoiding an essentialist approach, Jordi Tejel provides fine, complex and sometimes paradoxical analysis about the articulation between tribal, local, regional, and national identities, on one hand, and the formation of a Kurdish minority awareness vis-à-vis the consolidation of Arab nationalism in Syria, on the other hand. Using unpublished material, in particular concerning the Mandatory period (French records and Kurdish newspapers) and social movement theory, Tejel analyses the reasons of this "exception" within the Kurdish political sphere. In spite of the exclusion of Kurdishness from the public sphere, especially since 1963, Kurds of Syria have avoided a direct confrontation with the central power, most Kurds opting for a strategy of "dissimulation", cultivating internally the forms of identity that challenge the official ideology. The book explores the dynamics leading to the consolidation of Kurdish minority awareness in contemporary Syria; an ongoing process that could take the form of radicalization or even violence.

Author: Harriet Allsopp
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857726447
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Since the beginning of 2011, the political situation in Syria has consistently found itself at the top of news broadcasts, newspaper headlines and the agendas of politicians. Little known, however, has been the struggle of the Kurds in Syria to have their voice heard on the political stage and to have equitable access to both economic and political resources. This examination of contemporary Kurdish politics in Syria therefore concentrates on the Syrian-Kurdish political parties which operate illegally in the country. It is these parties and their political leaders, such as Abd -al-Hakim Bashar of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria and Abd al- Hamid Darwish of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria, who, despite state sanctions, have attempted to promote their political agendas and to bring about change for the approximately three million Kurds that currently reside in the country. Harriet Allsopp examins Kurdish political parties, how they have tried to negotiate their illegality and how they have developed since 1957 when the first one was established. BY 1960, all political parties were banned, and the Kurds found themselves under increased political pressure from the central state. From 1960 until the present day, this prohibition has been the official position of successive Syrian governments, despite a brief political opening upon the accession of Bashar al-Asad in 2000. It is through a systematic analysis of the history of Kurdish political parties that Allsopp highlights how, on the eve of the Syrian uprising, they were in the midst of a crisis, widely seen as ineffectual and out of touch. Nevertheless, out of the uprising, Kurdish politics has appeared to take on a much more cohesive and effective character. The Kurds of Syria eplores the fundamental issues of minority identity and the concept of being 'stateless' in a turbulent region, as well as the organisation of political parties in Syria, making it vital for all those researching the politics of the modern Middle East.

Author: Thomas Schmidinger
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 162963655X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
In early 2018, Turkey invaded the autonomous Kurdish region of Afrin in Syria and is currently threatening to ethnically cleanse the region. Between 2012 and 2018, the “Mountain of the Kurds” (Kurd Dagh) as the area has been called for centuries, had been one of the quietest regions in a country otherwise torn by civil war. After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the Syrian army withdrew from the region in 2012, enabling the Party of Democratic Union (PYD), the Syrian sister party of Abdullah Öcalan’s outlawed Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to first introduce a Kurdish self-administration and then, in 2014, to establish the Canton Afrin as one of the three parts of the heavily Kurdish Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, which is better known under the name Rojava. This self-administration—which had seen multiparty municipal and regionwide elections in the summer and autumn of 2017, which included a far-reaching autonomy for a number of ethnic and religious groups, and which had provided a safe haven for up to 300,000 refugees from other parts of Syria—is now at risk of being annihilated by the Turkish invasion and occupation. Thomas Schmidinger is one of the very few Europeans to have visited the Canton of Afrin. In this book, he gives an account of the history and the present situation of the region. In a number of interviews, he also gives inhabitants of the region from a variety of ethnicities, religions, political orientations, and walks of life the opportunity to speak for themselves. As things stand now, the book might seem to be in danger of becoming an epitaph for the “Mountain of the Kurds,” but as the author writes, “the battle for the Mountain of the Kurds is far from over yet.”

Author: Kerim Yildiz
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
This is the first book to focus on the plight of the Kurds in Syria. The Kurds are Syria's largest minority, and continue to be subject to extreme human rights abuses. Along with Kerim Yildiz's other recent books -- The Kurds in Iraq, and the Kurds in Turkey -- this builds on his comprehensive analysis of the current human rights situation for the largest ethnic group worldwide without its own state. Yildiz examines the contemporary situation of the Syrian Kurds in the context of Syria's own history, and the present situation where it is outlawed as a terrorist state by the USA. Fifty percent of Syria's income now goes on military spending -- for Syria feels threatened by her neighbours, and this is mirrored in the way minorities are treated within the country.Covering all aspects of Kurdish life including language, education, religion and history, Yildiz offers a unique insight into the human rights situation of the Kurds in Syria.

Author: David Romano
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137409991
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, central governments historically pursued mono-nationalist ideologies and repressed Kurdish identity. As evidenced by much unrest and a great many Kurdish revolts in all these states since the 1920s, however, the Kurds manifested strong resistance towards ethnic chauvinism. What sorts of authoritarian state policies have Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria relied on to contain the Kurds over the years? Can meaningful democratization and liberalization in any of these states occur without a fundamental change vis-à-vis their Kurdish minorities? To what extent does the Kurdish issue function as both a barrier and key to democratization in four of the most important states of the Middle East? While many commentators on the Middle East stress the importance of resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute for achieving 'peace in the Middle East,' this book asks whether or not the often overlooked Kurdish issue may constitute a more important fulcrum for change in the region, especially in light of the 'Arab Spring' and recent changes in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.