Editors' Introduction: Palimpsestic Genocide in Kurdistan

Abstract

The Kurdish-inhabited lands of the Middle East—spanning territories in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey as well as the Caucasus—have hosted a complex ethno-religious mosaic of civilizations since ancient times. The region’s fertile soils bear witness to cen­ turies of social cohesion and intercommunal harmony, punctuated by persecution, war, genocide, and atrocity committed against its peoples by internal and external historical agents. In the modern era, genocidal strategies have been employed against ethnic Kurds as well as Armenians, Assyrians, and Ezidis,1 among other groups, as part of the rise of nationalism and nation-states within a larger global context characterized by regional competition and Russian, European, and North American imperial interests. At times, Kurds have found themselves caught up in genocidal processes as perpe­ trators, bystanders, and rescuers, as was the case with the Ottoman Empire’s genocide against its Christian (and Ezidi) populations during and after World War I. At other times, and more frequently, Kurds have found themselves targeted by genocidal vio­ lence, to the extent that they have been referred as “a nation of genocides.”2 The endur­ ing trauma of genocide and of the historical processes of erasure, as well as the trauma associated with the unfinished project of creating a sovereign homeland in which Kurds can find protection, is palpable to anyone who visits the region. This special issue of Genocide Studies International engages with the question of genocide in the variously defined territory known as “Kurdistan” and in the Kurdish diaspora. We have focused on “Genocide and the Kurds” rather than “in Kurdistan” to emphasize the shifting nature of claims to the land as well as the diversity of peoples that have inhabited it historically, whose presence is still so definitive of the region and its politics. The articles published here help to give shape to the overlapping experiences and discourses of genocide for different Kurdish communities and their neighbors in the unique landscape of palimpsestic genocide. They do so with a view to better under­ standing genocide’s impact on the spatial and temporal dynamics of identity construc­ tion and the long-standing question of Kurdish self-determination in the Middle East, and at times touch upon the complex politics of genocide memory and genocide recog­ nition in the region. In planning this issue, we were very much influenced by the contemporary, and in some cases ongoing, genocides committed by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS/ISIL/ Daesh) against various minority communities in northern Iraq and Syria. These actions have placed multilayered pressures on communal relations, as well as the capacity of local authorities to respond to the needs of the survivors and displaced population. Most nota­ bly, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has accepted close to 1.5 million internally displaced people, including Ezidis, Christians, Shabak-Shia, Turkomen, Mandean, and