PKK Violence and Kurdish Identity
PKK Violence and Kurdish Identity
Abraham Alshawish
His 482
Professor Forbes
Firday, May, 15th, 2009
Introduction
The question that is the missing piece of the puzzle for peace in the Middle East is asked by very few: Will the Kurds ever have a state of their own? When one looks at the Middle East post World one, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, one sees the formation of countries like Trans-Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Lebanon, and other nearby regions. Colonial powers had promised lands to a variety of tribal leaders throughout the region but one- the Kurds. This semester we had the chance to explore questions that are vital to the understanding of this course. Questions such as: what is a terrorist? How do we define terrorism? What is state terrorism? How does one become a terrorist? Why does one choose the path of a terrorist? When and why do women involve themselves in terrorism? Throughout the search for these answers we saw a change in our own perspective of terrorism and for some we even reached a new understanding of why people do the things they do in the name of freedom, religion, or any ideology for that matter. We learned that terrorism is a tactic that has been used by many groups of people throughout the centuries and for some of these groups, they now sit in power and run governments they created through terrorism. As a class we formed our own definition of terrorism since there is no universal definition of the term. The definition we agreed stated that:
Terrorism is a tactic or method employed by individuals and groups in resistance to a state or in service of a state to effect or prevent social and/or political change. It includes the premeditated use of violence or the threat of violence to systematically induce fear and anxiety in a civilian population. Considering the above definition and researching about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), I realize that this
Abraham Alshawish
His 482
Professor Forbes
Firday, May, 15th, 2009
Introduction
The question that is the missing piece of the puzzle for peace in the Middle East is asked by very few: Will the Kurds ever have a state of their own? When one looks at the Middle East post World one, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, one sees the formation of countries like Trans-Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Lebanon, and other nearby regions. Colonial powers had promised lands to a variety of tribal leaders throughout the region but one- the Kurds. This semester we had the chance to explore questions that are vital to the understanding of this course. Questions such as: what is a terrorist? How do we define terrorism? What is state terrorism? How does one become a terrorist? Why does one choose the path of a terrorist? When and why do women involve themselves in terrorism? Throughout the search for these answers we saw a change in our own perspective of terrorism and for some we even reached a new understanding of why people do the things they do in the name of freedom, religion, or any ideology for that matter. We learned that terrorism is a tactic that has been used by many groups of people throughout the centuries and for some of these groups, they now sit in power and run governments they created through terrorism. As a class we formed our own definition of terrorism since there is no universal definition of the term. The definition we agreed stated that:
Terrorism is a tactic or method employed by individuals and groups in resistance to a state or in service of a state to effect or prevent social and/or political change. It includes the premeditated use of violence or the threat of violence to systematically induce fear and anxiety in a civilian population. Considering the above definition and researching about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), I realize that this
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