By Hawre Hasan Hama
Introduction
The Kurdish nation is the
largest ethnic group in the Middle East not to have their own state, this fact
has meant that they the Kurds are not viewed as a security actor in
international politics as the international system considers states to be the
primary actors. The reason for this differentiation in identification is that
states are sovereignty and national and cultural groups are not. This view
sources from the realist school of thought in international relations, a school
of thought that had primarily dominated international relations until the end
of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Supporters of realism
consider the security of their respective state as paramount and view the only
threat to that security to be the military threat posed by other states. Here,
stateless nations like the Kurds (divided between four different states) had no
place of deflation in this realist theory. This orthodox realist view of the
international system came under heavy criticism at the end of the Cold War from
the Copenhagen school thought. Proponents of the Copenhagen school were
successful in adding to the realist theory another player labelled “community”
or “group”. Proponents of the Copenhagen school of thought hypothesise that
cultural or sectarian groups are equal actors to states with respect to
security. By utilising the Copenhagen school of thought’s hypothesis this
research will discuss the security of the Kurdish nation in the Middle East.
Security and the theory of
realism
The theory of realism played
a significant and active role in the issue of security from the beginning of
the Second World War until the end of the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War
critics of realism argued that the end of the Cold War spelt the end and death
of the relevance of realism in international relations as it would no longer
fit with the changes in the international order. However, this view was
strongly opposed by Kenneth Waltz, the father of realism. In defence of realism
Waltz asked what changes have occurred since the end of the Cold War that has
meant realism can no longer explain the international order? In Waltz’ view, no
changes have taken place on the international level as international politics
remained in a state of anarchy, “the non-existence of a global government that
can enforce international laws”. Therefore, Waltz argued, states remained
unprotected and open to the consequences of military action from other states.
Secondly, waltz believed that states continue to place significance on their
capabilities in respect to other states actors in the international system,
“making cooperation more difficult between states actors, in particular in the
field of security”. (1) To realists, the state continues to be the primary
security actors on the basis that they are sovereign and the primary threat to
states in the international system is the threat of military attack. (2)
Realists believe that any attempt to widen the definition of the term security
to include other threats such as Global warming and killer diseases will work
to confuse the meaning of the term security. Moreover, it will become an
obstacle the suitable solutions to those global problems. (3)
Realism and Kurdish
Security
In light of that explained
above, it is possible to argue that realism pays no attention to the Kurdish
nation with respect to international security. Instead, realism takes into
account the security of the four states that host the Kurdish population. Put
another way; realism categorises the Kurds in Turkey as a part that people, and
it pays the same consideration the Kurds of Iraq, Iran and Syria because only
the states are sovereign. At the same time, realism believes the primary threat
to these four states is the threat posed by foreign military forces. Hence, the
state-centric realist theory international relations does not take into
consideration that greater Kurdistan and its land have been divided and
attached to for other states and that Kurdistan’s security is different to that
of those four states. After the division of Kurdistan and their force
attachment to their four host states, the Kurdish nation has continuously faced
political, military and cultural persecution and oppression from their four
host states. The reason for this has been that each of those states (Turkey,
Iraq, Iran, Syria) have set upon policies of eliminating the Kurdish identity
rather than promoting multiculturalism and the integration of the Kurdish identity
into their broader State identity.
Security and the Copenhagen
School of Thought
Barry Buzan in his book
‘People, States & Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the
Post-Cold War Era” divides the term security into five parts. These parts are
military security, environmental security, economic security, political
security, and national security. (4) However, Buzan’s division is an orthodox
one as it once again puts the state in the centre with respect to the issue of
security as he believed that the state was the only security actor. Ole Waver
explains if security is only for the state this may mean the absence of
security for ethnic and sectarian groups. (5) For this reason, Wever and Buzan
believed that at present the term security is a twin term. The term to them
comprised of meaning the security of the state and the security of the national
and sectarian groups. National and sectarian groups, as with states, are
security actors in international relations. State security is derived from it
having sovereignty and wanting to protect it because If the state loses
sovereignty, then that state would no longer exist. On the other hand, in the
same way as the state, national and sectarian groups possess identity and if
they lose that identity, then that national or sectarian group will no longer
exist. (6) The security of national and sectarian groups is more fluid than
that of states as defined borders confine a state whereas national and
sectarian identities are transnational (for example, Kurdish security spans
four states, or the Sunni identity spans many Middle Eastern states). (7)
Moreover, state security and
that of national and sectarian groups do not necessarily correspond to one
another. Put another way, if a state is secure and peaceful it does not
necessarily mean that the national and sectarian groups enjoy the same security
and peace or vice-versa. For example, the security of the Iraqi state in the
past did not necessarily correspond with the security of its Kurdish population.
Another example is that when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi
Kurds did not view the United States as a threat; instead, the Kurds saw the
United States as a liberator. Hence, in this example, the United States was an
occupying force to the Iraqi State but a liberator to the Kurdish nation within
Iraq. (8)
Proponents of the Copenhagen
School believe that numerous threats face national and sectarian groups. These
threats include that which is posed by migrants (demographic shifts in
populations), horizontal threats (a society is influenced by a dominant
culture, for example, Russian culture over Ukrainian society) , vertical
threats (a community is under the threat of division or integration, for
example, the European Union or former Yugoslavia), military threats (internal or external),
political threats (persecution and oppression of minorities, for example the
Kurds under Ba’athist Iraq), environmental threats (the destruction of the
territory in which a population resides), economic threats (the threat posed to
the economic model of the given jurisdiction). Hence, the Copenhagen School of thought was able to bring the security
of national and sectarian groups inline with that of the State by recognising
that these groups had distinct identities, which if they lost would mean these
groups ceased to exist. (9)
The Copenhagen School and
the Security of the Kurds
Based on the theoretical
framework of the Copenhagen School of thought, it is possible to argue that the
Kurdish nation can be considered a unique security actor within each of their
host states. While it is true that each of the states (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and
Syria) that host the Kurdish population are security actors in that they are
sovereign and have national armies to protect that sovereignty if their
respective territories should come under attack, the Kurdish nation has a
unique identity. The Kurdish identity and therefore their nation is not
confined to one of the specific states; instead, it traverses and spans across
their four host states. What is more, the security of the Kurdish nation is not
in line with the security of their respective host states. For example, if
there is a security threat to the Turkish state it is not given at the same
threat must face the Kurds of Turkey. Quite the contrary, if the threat to
Turkey is one that weakens the Turkish state, then this threat poses an
opportunity of the Kurdish nation. For example, the United States military
invasion of Iraq In 2003, while it was a security threat to the Iraqi State,
the invasion worked to free the Kurds from the tyranny of the Iraqi state; a
nuance that the orthodox realist school of thought ignores. Instead, it would
have read the United States invasion as a military threat for all of Iraq and an
attempt to dispossess the country of its sovereignty. The case study of the
United States invasion of Iraq allowed the Copenhagen School of thought to
challenge the orthodox realist theory because it was clear that there was a
distinction between the different groups within Iraq as to whether or not the
invasion was a threat or an act of national liberation against the regime of
Saddam Hussain.
Moreover, the case study of
the 2003 Iraq War became a pillar of support for the Copenhagen School of
thought’s view that there is a distinction between the security of the state
and the security of society in that the strengthening of the state equates to
the weakening of cultural and sectarian groups and vice-versa. Put another way,
the weaker the state, the more secure cultural and sectarian groups feel.
Another example is the weakening of the Syrian regime after 2011. As the Syrian
regime weekend and retreated from its sovereign territory terms of Syria were
able, for the first time in Syrian history the Syrian Kurds were able to make
their mark on the country and defend their national identity.
When will the Kurds feel
secure and stable?
There are two primary
strategies for establishing nation-states. The first is through assimilation of
diverse populations into a single identity. This strategy is used when the
dominant group in a state controls the institutions of that state and uses them
to protect, spread and enforce its ideals onto other groups within the
territory of that state. While this strategy may have some effect on the
creation of a single national identity, it also works to create animosity
within those societies that it wants to assimilate as the state rejects their
national identities. The second strategy consists of the acculturation, integration
and administration of the diverse groups. This strategy works to allow the
different groups to maintain their local identities while at the same time will
enable them to be part of the broader state identity. The objective of this
strategy was to create a multi-ethnic and/or multi-sectarian state identity.
(10)
Each of the states that the
Kurdish nation inhabits has tried to create a state based on a single ethnic
identity, through the implementation of the first strategy of assimilation. For
example, the Turkish state has used the
approach of assimilation for the creation of a Turkish state based on the
identity of the Turkish nation. The same is true for Iran, Syria and Iraq
before 2003.
Therefore, the reason that
the Kurds have never felt secure, stable and at peace within the state that
they inhabit has been because each of these state has attempted to assimilate
the Kurdish population into their respective nation-state identities. For
example, Turkey views the Kurdish nation as a constant threat against the
Turkish national identity and therefore the Turkish state. It is for this
reason that they have consistently tried to eradicate the Kurdish identity
through its assimilation into the Turkish identity. To preserve the Kurdish
identity within the four Kurdish states that they inhabit the Copenhagen school
of thought recommends that these states do not view the Kurdish identity as a
threat. Put another way, the Copenhagen school of thought argues that each of
the states that host native Kurdish populations should work to implement the
second strategy of acculturation, integration and administration rather than
the strategy of assimilation. In the view of Paul Roe, the implementation of
this strategy can only be achieved through adopting a federal state system
which is governed by the principles of democracy and through democratic
institutions. Therefore, to protect Kurdish security with the Turkish, Syrian
and Iranian states each of these states must change their state models to
Federal ones, just as the Iraqi state has done. In the case of Iraq, after the
2003 Iraq war and the subsequent regime change in the country, the country
adopted a federal system of government. Ever since then, the security situation
for the Kurds of Iraq has improved markedly. (11) A federal model would assist
the Kurds to protect their cultural and linguist distinctness within each of
their respective host states.
Conclusion
The security of the Kurdish
nation in the Middle East has for the last century been under threat by each of
the four states that host them. Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria have attempted to
strengthen the security of Arabs, Persians and Turks at the expense of that of
the Kurds. Each of these nation-states has tried to govern diversity in their
respective states through a strategy of assimilating the Kurds to foster a
single nation-state. In the state-centric realist theory of international
relations, the Kurds are not viewed as a distinct security actor as the Kurds
do not have a sovereign state of their own. Instead, realism only takes into
consideration the four states that host Kurdish populations as international
security actors. Opposing this old realist theory is the Copenhagen school of
thought, which hypothesises that in addition to sovereign states there are also
national, cultural, and sectarian groups which can be considered as security
actors in international relations as these groupings have distinct identities
that require protection. The Copenhagen school of thought argues that if these
groups were to lose these identities than they would cease to exist. Based on this hypothesis, because the Kurds
have a distinct identity of their own in the Middle East, then they can be
viewed as a separate security actor, whose security and security demands are
separate from that of their host states.
In the same way as the host
states of the Kurds attempt to preserve their respective sovereignties, the
Kurds themselves attempt to protect their national identity. The Copenhagen
school of thought argues that only in the context of a democratic federal state
model can the Kurds of each of those states feel at peace and secure. In
contrast, any centralist model within these nation-states is a direct threat to
the security of the Kurdish nation.
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