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Kurdish Nationalism
In Armenia The arrest last month in Rome of Abdullah Ocalan, president of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has led to a dramatic increase in support for the Kurdish national liberation movement, even among those Kurds living in countries where repression has not been particularly evident in recent years. In Armenia, Ocalan's arrest has served to accelerate the trend among the country's 50,000 -- 60,000 strong Yezidi community to identify themselves not only as Yezidi but also as Kurds. The Yezidi are indeed Kurdish, speaking the same language as the majority of the Kurds (Kurmanji), and all Kurds were originally Zoroastrian before the majority converted to Islam. The Yezidi religion -- even with elements of the Zoroastrian, Islamic, and Christian faiths -- closely resembles that of the Armenians before the adoption of Christianity, and the PKK has recently acknowledged that fact in an attempt to clarify the origins of the Kurdish nation. Visiting Armenia in June 1998 in what was most likely a recruiting drive, Mahir Welat, the PKK representative to Moscow and the CIS, affirmed, "I am a Muslim Kurd but I also honor all religions. All Kurds used to be Yezidi [Zoroastrian] in the past. Some of us were forced into becoming Muslim, but now it is our intention to return and to educate ourselves again." The Yezidi are currently the largest ethnic minority in Armenia, the Muslim Kurds having left during the early years of the Karabakh conflict. Moreover, both the Armenians and the Yezidi fled Ottoman Turkey during the massacres of 1915, and both harbor the same hatred of the Turkish and [Muslim] Kurdish perpetrators that has shaped much of the identity and policy of present-day Armenia. Although relatively small in size, the Yezidi community in Armenia still has strategic significance for the PKK. An upsurge of Kurdish nationalism in Armenia would inevitably affect an estimated 200,000 Muslim Kurds who have assimilated into Azerbaijani society. Indeed, with the PKK representative to the Caucasus based in Armenia and with Welat's recent visit, the situation of the Azerbaijani Kurds may already be targeted for attention. According to Welat, "the attitude of Armenia toward national minorities is considered part of the generosity and graciousness of the Armenian people. Azerbaijan has many nations too, but if we consider their national policy, it is very bad. For those who show loyalty toward Azerbaijan, the attitude towards them is normal, but for those such as the Kurds, the attitude is quite different. They do not have normal lives." Official PKK policy is to praise Armenia but to criticize Azerbaijan for the treatment of its own Kurdish population-- despite a notable silence when the Kurds living in Kelbajar and Lachin were expelled by Armenian forces during the Karabakh conflict. The PKK even remained silent when, under the presidency of Levon Ter-Petrossian, there was a short-term policy to promote a Yezidi identify far removed from any Kurdish origin. That policy, however, only strengthened the resolve among the Yezidi to develop a strong Kurdish identity. Yezidi villages now openly demonstrate their support for the PKK by displaying portraits of Ocalan and PKK guerillas on their walls. In early December, buses ferrying villagers to Yerevan to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of the formation of the PKK displayed ERNK (National Liberation Front of Kurdistan) and PKK flags, and a recorded message from Ocalan himself was broadcast to the hundreds who attended. While the reasons for the increase in Kurdish nationalism among the Yezidi are complex, there is little doubt that one significant factor is a marked reluctance among many Armenians to consider Armenia anything other than a mono-ethnic country. Even though policy toward minorities may change under President Robert Kocharian, the Yezidi have so far been overlooked during the development of the new social and political structures. Thus, it was inevitable that the opportunity to find themselves an integral part of a nation fighting for liberation would prove attractive. With Ocalan in Rome and with the Yezidi having found a new identity desirable in a new Armenia, open support for the PKK in Armenia is currently politically expedient in that it is directed against Turkey. As the result of the developments in Rome -- and regardless of sensitivities over identity in the past--50,000 Yezidi in Armenia have come to identify themselves as Kurds virtually overnight. But that new sense of purpose may pose problems in the near future, both for the Yezidi themselves and for Armenia. Given the sensitivity of the Kurdish question, it is uncertain how long Armenia will continue with its new-found tolerance toward a minority that enthusiastically identifies itself with a movement that might well achieve autonomy in eastern Turkey, which many Armenians consider part of historical Western Armenia. (Some Armenian political groups such as the Dashnaktsutiune-the Armenian Revolutionary Federation--have reportedly held talks with the Kurds on reconciling the two nations' respective claims on those territories.) And if there is indeed an upsurge of Kurdish nationalism among the Kurds of Azerbaijan, Baku may choose to attribute that development to a deliberate policy of destabilization on the part of Armenia, rather than lay the blame on the PKK or on its own reluctance to address the needs and aspirations of a significant ethnic minority. END
First published by Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
