Whenever we watch international news, we often see similar news such as "Turkey fights Kurdish forces", "Kurds launch terrorist attacks on Turkey" or "Turkey unites Iraq to fight Kurdish forces", so what kind of organization is the "Kurdish armed forces" mentioned in the news?
In fact, the so-called "Kurdish armed forces" are the armed forces formed by the Kurds (mainly the "Kurdistan Workers' Party"), which are active in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, have undergone rigorous training and have a strict organizational structure. Its main activity is to launch terrorist attacks on Turkey, Iraq and other countries, bringing serious security risks to relevant countries, for which it was once regarded as a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and other countries.
The Kurds may be unfamiliar to people, but in fact, they have lived in this ancient Middle East for nearly a thousand years, and together with Arabs, Jews and Persians, they are known as the four ancient peoples of the Middle East. This article will briefly introduce the Kurds from the perspective of the geographical environment of the Kurdish existence, Kurdish religion, Kurdish population, and Kurdish culture and lifestyle, so as to help readers understand the Kurds.
1. The living environment of the Kurds
Like the other three peoples, the Kurds also have their own living area, and their main area of existence is called "Kurdistan", but the so-called "Kurdistan" is a cultural geographical concept, which translates to "the land where the Kurds live". The Encyclopedia Britannica describes Kurdistan as "a region traditionally subsisted mainly by Kurds." Geographically, Kurdistan stretches from Bakhtaram in Iran in the east, Kirkuk in Iraq in the south, Yerevan in Armenia in the north, Aleppo in Syria and the upper Euphrates River in Turkey in the west. The geographical scope roughly includes eastern Turkey, western Iran, northern Iraq, and a small part of northeastern Syria and Armenia, and can also be simply understood as the border junction of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Kurdistan is about 1,000 kilometers long from north to south, 750 kilometers from east to west at the northern end, and 200 kilometers from east to west at the southern end. In terms of shape, it presents a narrow arc-shaped strip. The majority population of Kurdistan is Kurds, including a small number of Arabs, Jews, Armenians, etc. Famous cities include Diyarbakir, Beatriz and Van City.
The terrain of Kurdistan is dominated by mountainous plateaus, few plains, and a severe cold climate. The internal mountains are crisscrossed, the most important of which are the Zagros Mountains in the east and the Taurus Mountains in the north, which run east-west, so the geographical environment is relatively closed. Kurds have lived in the mountains for thousands of years, so they are also called "people in the mountains", so the "mountain" has a special cultural symbol for the Kurds. The Kurdish proverb "Kurds have no friends but mountains" illustrates the special significance of mountains to Kurds. Such a harsh natural environment and relatively closed geographical conditions determine that the development of the Kurds lags behind the other three ethnic groups. Thus, when the Arabs, Jews and Persians established their own state, the Kurs were still in the stage of tribal life, which also brought great obstacles to the future state-building activities of the Kurds.
(Map of Kurdistan)
2. Kurdish population
There have never been accurate statistics on the Kurdish population in history, and the reasons for this are complex. On the one hand, the governments of the countries concerned are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of the Kurds (such as Turkey), and on the other hand, the Kurdish data are also suspected of being exaggerated. As a result, it is difficult to distinguish the true and false statistics of various statistics.
As early as 1892, the French government made statistics on the Kurdish population, which at that time was about 300,000. In 1925, the United Nations released data showing that the Kurdish population was 3.2 million. In 1948, the population reached 8 million, and according to the famous Kurdish scholar David McDowell in 1987, the Kurdish population reached 19.7 million. At present, the Kurdish population is about 30 million, which shows that the Kurdish population has been growing for hundreds of years. At present, most of the world's Kurdish population lives in the Kurdistan region, of which 55% live in Turkey, Iran and Iraq account for 20% each, and 5% of Kurds live in Syria. In Turkey, Iraq and Syria, the Kurds are known as the second largest ethnic group, while in Iran, the Kurds are the third.
In addition to Kurdistan, there are a small number of Kurds living in Kurdistan, such as Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey, Baghdad in Iraq, Tehran in Iran, and Aleppo in Syria. In addition, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait and other countries also live with a small number of Kurds. In addition to the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of Kurds live in Central Asia in the Caucasus. Europe is home to the largest concentration of Kurdish migrants, with between 600,000 and 650,000 Kurds in Germany alone. Not only these countries and regions, but also Russia, the Asia-Pacific region and Africa and other places have a small number of Kurds, it can be seen that the footprints of the Kurds are spread across the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, and these Kurds in the diaspora have also become an important support force for the Kurdish state-building force later.
(Kurds)
3. Kurdish culture and life
As one of the ancient peoples of the Middle East, the Kurds have lived in the Middle East for nearly a thousand years, and for this reason, they also have their own unique culture and way of life. Kurdish culture has its own uniqueness and diversity, and is a mixed culture formed by the interaction between Kurd's own historical traditions and other ethnic groups in the region.
- language
As a cultural carrier, language plays an important role in the formation and development of a nation. For Kurds, Kurdish is also an integral part of the Kurdish nation that defines its own identity, and is one of the Kurds' most cohesive characteristics. Kurdish belongs to the Indo-European language family, the Iranian language family, and the Indo-European language family-Iranian language family is divided into Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages, and the Iranian language family is divided into Persian, Kurdish and so on. At present, Kurdish mainly has two dialects in the north and south, namely Kurmanji and Solani. Kurmanji is spoken mainly in Turkey, Syria and the Kurdistan region of Iraq and northern Iran, while Solani is spoken by the majority of Kurds in Iraq and parts of Iran.
The status of Kurdish-speaking within the borders of the host country also differs. In Iraq and Iran, for example, Kurdish has been the official language of the Kurdish region and is allowed to be used by the central government. In Turkey, Kurdish has been banned for a long time, and private users will even be punished, and the Turkish government has even issued several decrees banning Kurdish until 1991, when the government gradually lifted the ban on Kurdish, and in 2003, after the AKP came to power, it began to allow Kurdish to appear on education and television. In Iran, the constitution recognizes that Kurds can use Kurdish but prohibits teaching Kurdish in public schools. In Syria, Kurdish is banned, as are Kurdish publications, but the government allows the use of Kurdish for personal life.
(2) Religion
At present, more than 95% of Kurds practice Islam, of which Sunnis are the majority, accounting for 75%. There are also 15% of Kurds who are Shia, mainly in Iran. There are also a small number of Kurds who practice the Alawite (Ismaili tribe). Of course, the mystic sect Sufis are also widespread in the Kurdish region. Compared with Arabs and Persians, Kurds are not religious to Islam, and the main reason is that Kurds were the first to believe in Zoroastrianism and were deeply influenced by Zoroastrianism. On the other hand, the Kurds are subjugated by foreign races who believe in Islam and have inner rejection. The third is that the Kurds live deep in the mountains, and their closed geographical environment also makes them less civilized.
In addition to Islam, Christianity also has a certain influence in the Kurdish region, which has a long history of Christianity, destroyed most Christian churches in the Kurdish region during the Arab conquest, and revived Christianity in the Kurdish region in the late 18th century. After the Iraq war in 2003, the number of Kurds who profess Christianity increased, and now many Kurds living in the West have also been baptized by Christianity.
(3) Tribal culture
The long-term closed geographical environment makes the Kurdish way of life mainly based on tribes, and tribal culture has also become an important part of Kurdish culture. According to legend, there are more than 800 Kurdish tribes, each of which is divided into different sects and family groups. Each tribe has its own leader, and there are two main types of leaders: the sheikh, who is responsible for managing internal affairs in accordance with the law, and the sheikh, who is the religious leader. Generally, the chief and the sheikh are usually alone. For Kurds, tribal culture is one of the core cultures of the Kurds, and every Kurdish has a tribal identity. Tribes have had an important impact on the economic and social development of the Kurds, and have hindered the formation of Kurdish nationalism and the unity within the Kurdish nation.
Because they live under the traditional tribal system, Kurds inevitably have some feudal and backward customs, such as "honor killings", which mainly refer to the murderer murdering "unvirginity" or "disorderly" family members to defend "family honor", and its victims are mainly women. The methods of "honour killings" are brutal, including shooting, stoning, burial alive and suffocation. However, with the development of the times and the progress of civilization in the Kurdish region, "honor killing" has gradually disappeared from people's vision.
4. Festivals
The most important festival for the Kurds is the New Year (Nowruz). Nowruz means New Year in Kuric and falls on the spring equinox of each year. During the festival, the whole village or family sings and dances around the bonfire and prays for good luck. In the previous weeks, tables would be set up to arrange different items. Different objects represent different wishes. From an ethnological point of view, for a nation, festivals play an important role in the formation of national cohesion and national identity, similarly, for Kurds, national festivals highlight their own national identity and unite Kurds closely.
(Nowruz)
In the above content, this article briefly introduces the Kurds from three aspects: the geographical environment of Kurdish life, the Kurdish population and the culture and lifestyle of the Kurds, so that readers can have a brief understanding of the Kurds. After that, the article will explore the origins of the Kurds.