Turkish Occupation Of Northern Kurdistan Essay Research — страница 2

  • Просмотров 351
  • Скачиваний 5
  • Размер файла 24
    Кб

economically. The thirty million Kurds of the Middle East have lived in Kurdistan before record of modern history was kept. The very first mention of the Kurds in history was about 3,000 BC, under the name Gutium., as they fought the Summerians(Spieser). Later around 800 BC, the Indo-European Median tribes settled in the Zagros mountain region and coalesced with the Gutiums, and thus the modern Kurds speak from as Aryan language (Morris). The Kurds are mentioned by Xenaphon, a Greek mercenary, as he retreated from Persia with ten thousand men in 401 BC, he says of the Kurds, “These people, lived in the mountains and were very war-like and not subject to the Persian king. Indeed once a royal army of 120,000 thousand had once invaded their country, and not a man of them came

back..(Morris).” When the Arabs spread Islam to the Middle East in the seventh century, most of the Kurds gradually adopted the religion but fiercely resisted Arab rule, much like today in modern day Iraq and Syria. This is evident in a legend about the prophet Mohammed; when the prophet called all the princes of the world to embrace the new religion, they all hurried to submit to the prophet of the new religion. When the Prophet saw the Kurdish representative, named Zemin, with his giant size and piercing eyes, the prophet prayed to God that such a terrifying people never unite as a single nation (Morris). Around the tenth century the Kurds became a military force to be reckoned with in the Middle East and defended Islam against the invading Christian crusaders and defeated

the Mongolian armies at both Cerq De Chavalier and the fortress of Irbile. Saladine, and the majority of his troops were Kurdish (Safrastian). The Kurds established independent principalities, that never united, but often fought each other for the benefit of foreign powers. During the harsh reign of Shah Ismail in Persia, most of the Kurds who were Sunni Muslims, allied themselves with the Ottoman Sultan Selim “the Cruel” and played the pivotal part in defeating the Persian armies at Chaldiran in 1514, and thus most of the Kurds in Iran are still Sunni Muslims among a predominately Shiite majority. The Kurdish principalities, at this time were free from the central government and struck their own coinage and had Friday prayers in the name of the local prince (Morris). At that

point of Kurdish history Kurdish culture and literature flourished. This lasted until the nineteenth century when the Ottoman empire tried to expand its rule into the Kurdish territories. Using the tool of divide and conquer, the Ottamans use Kurdish tribes to fight fellow Kurds. Though, the Ottoman government gained nominal control of the Kurdish areas, they were never able to establish direct rule(McDowell). During World War One, many Kurds actually remained loyal to the Empire. They fought bravely in many battles. The Kurds inflicted such heavy damages against the Tsarist government that they almost conceded to evacuating the entire Caucus region. Some historians also suggest, they were eighty percent of the Ottoman casualties at the infamous battle of Galilopi (Gunter).

During the war the Young Turk government, in pursuit of a purely Turkic empire, massacred more then one million Armenians and seven hundred thousand Kurds. After the Ottoman loss, the Empire collapsed and was on the verge of fragmentation when a young army officer by the name of Mustafa Kemal emerged on the scene. Following the fatal defeat of the Ottoman empire after World War one, the remnants of the former empire were divided up among the victorious allied powers, even the Turkish speaking region were to come under the mandate of foreign administration. In fact, much of Anatolia was already occupied by Greek or Armenian forces. On August 10, 1920, Turkey and the allied powers signed the treaty of Sevres. This treaty allowed for the creation of an independent Kurdish and

Armenian state on the remittance of the former Ottoman empire. This treaty was to become null and void. Around the same time the Serves treaty was being discussed, Mustafa Kemal gained power of what remained of the military and political infrastructure in Anatolia. Kemal, starting in the Kurdish region and proclaiming the unity of Turks and Kurds, organized resistance to the Armenian and Georgian forces in eastern Anatolia. These forces were defeated by almost entirely Kurdish armies, who thought they were fighting for a state where, “Turks and Kurds would live as brothers and as equals (Kendal)” as stated by Mustafa Kemal. However, after the defeat of the Greek armies in western Turkey, Kemal declared to an assembly that “The state the we have just created is a Turkish