Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
The Kurds, are an Iranian ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Most Kurds speak Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) or Sorani, which both belong to the Kurdish languages.
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, religion, gender, social background, social class, environmental, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. Such groups often have support from allies outside the respective identity groups. The term is used in a variety of ways to describe phenomena as diverse as multiculturalism, women's movements, civil rights, lesbian and gay movements, and regional separatist movements.
Pan-Iranism is an ideology that advocates solidarity and reunification of Iranian peoples living in the Iranian plateau and other regions that have significant Iranian cultural influence, including the Persians, Azerbaijanis Gilaks, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Kurds, Zazas, Talysh, Tajiks, Pashtuns, Ossetians and Balochs. The first theoretician was Dr Mahmoud Afshar Yazdi.
The Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, commonly shortened to Komalah, is a social-democratic ethnic political party of Kurds in Iran. Formerly with Marxist-Leninist communist ties, the Komalah is a well established party with a history of more than five decades. The Komala party's headquarters are presently in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. They have an armed freedom-fighter wing that has a history of leading the Kurdish resistance. The Komalah advocates for anti-imperialism and Kurdish self-determination.
A stateless nation is an ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own state and is not the majority population in any nation state. The term "stateless" implies that the group "should have" such a state (country). Members of stateless nations may be citizens of the country in which they live, or they may be denied citizenship by that country. Stateless nations are usually not represented in international sports or in international organisations such as the United Nations. Nations without state are classified as fourth-world nations. Some of the stateless nations have a history of statehood, some were always a stateless nation, dominated by another nation.
Shu'ubiyya was a movement which opposed the privileged status of Arabs within the Muslim community. The vast majority of the Shu'ubis were Persian.
Shahrzad Mojab is an academic activist and professor, teaching at the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education and Women and Gender Studies Institute, at the University of Toronto. Shahrzad has been living in Canada since 1986 with her lifelong partner, colleague and comrade, Amir Hassanpour, and their son, Salah.
Simko Shikak was a Kurdish chieftain of the Shekak tribe. He was born into a prominent Kurdish feudal family based in Chihriq castle located near the Baranduz river in the Urmia region of northwestern Iran. By 1920, parts of Iranian Azerbaijan located west of Lake Urmia were under his control. He led Kurdish farmers into battle and defeated the Iranian army on several occasions. The Iranian government had him assassinated in 1930. Simko took part in the massacre of the Assyrians of Khoy and instigated the massacre of 1,000 Assyrians in Salmas.
Kurdish nationalism, is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of a sovereign Kurdistan state, in opposition to the various nationalisms of the states to which Kurds are live.
Sherifa D. Zuhur is an academic and national security scholar of the Middle East and Islamic world. She was most recently a visiting scholar at the Center for Middle East Studies, University of California, Berkeley and is the director of the Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Strategic Studies.
Territorial nationalism describes a form of nationalism based on the belief that all inhabitants of a particular territory should share a common national identity, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural and other differences. Depending on the political or administrative status of a particular territory, territorial nationalism can be manifested on two basic levels, as territorial nationalism of distinctive sovereign states, or territorial nationalism of distinctive sub-sovereign regions.
Iraqi nationalism is a form of nationalism which asserts the belief that Iraqis are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Iraqis of different ethnoreligious groups such as Mesopotamian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Yazidis, Mandeans, Shabaks, Yarsans, and others. Iraqi nationalism involves the recognition of an Iraqi identity stemming from ancient Mesopotamia including its civilizations and empires of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon and Assyria. Iraqi nationalism influenced Iraq's movement for independence from Ottoman and British occupation. Iraqi nationalism was an important factor in the 1920 Revolution against British occupation, and the 1958 Revolution against the British-installed Hashemite monarchy.
Iranian Azerbaijanis, also known as Iranian Azeris, Iranian Turks, Persian Turks or Persian Azerbaijanis, are Iranians of Azerbaijani ethnicity who may speak the Azerbaijani language as their first language. Iranian Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people of Iranian origin. Due to their historical, genetic and cultural ties to the Iranians, Iranian Azerbaijanis are also often associated with the Iranian peoples.
Dru Curtis Gladney was an American anthropologist who was president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College and a professor of anthropology there. Gladney authored four books and more than 100 academic articles and book chapters on topics spanning the Asian continent.
The Simko Shikak revolt refers to an armed Ottoman-backed tribal Kurdish uprising against the Qajar dynasty of Iran from 1918 to 1922, led by Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak from the Shekak tribe.
Kurdish separatism in Iran or the Kurdish–Iranian conflict is an ongoing, long-running, separatist dispute between the Kurdish opposition in Western Iran and the governments of Iran, lasting since the emergence of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1918.
Arab identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an Arab and as relating to being Arab. Like other cultural identities, it relies on a common culture, a traditional lineage, the common land in history, shared experiences including underlying conflicts and confrontations. These commonalities are regional and in historical contexts, tribal. Arab identity is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the spread of Islam and before spread of Judaism and Christianity, with historically attested Arab Muslim tribes and Arab Christian tribes and Arab Jewish tribes. Arabs are a diverse group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. Most Arabs are Muslim, with a minority adhering to other faiths, largely Christianity, but also Druze and Baháʼí.
Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan is an unofficial name for the parts of northwestern Iran with either a majority or sizable population of Kurds. Geographically, it includes the West Azerbaijan Province, Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province and parts of Hamadan Province and Lorestan Province.
The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression is a 2021 book by Australian historian A. Dirk Moses. The book explores what Moses sees as flaws in the concept of genocide, which he argues allows killings of civilians that do not resemble the Holocaust to be ignored. Moses proposes "permanent security" as an alternative to the concept of genocide. The book was described as important, but his emphasis on security is considered only one factor to be causing mass violence.
