Talk:Syrian Kurdistan

Best sources for this article

I looked for book-length scholarship by academic publishers from the last five years or so, and this is what I came up with:

About Syrian Kurdistan in particular

1. Matthieu Cimino (2020), Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State, Springer. [1]
2. Harriet Allsopp & Wladimir van Wilgenburg (2019), The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts, Bloomsbury. [2]
3. Hilly Moodrick-Even Khen, Nir T. Boms & Sareta Ashraph, eds. (2019), The Syrian War: Between Justice and Political Reality, Cambridge. [3]
4. Brendan O'Leary (2018), The Kurds, the Four Wolves, and the Great Powers, The Journal of Politics. [4] PDF — not a book, but a book review of:
   1. Harriet Allsopp (2016), The Kurds of Syria: Political Parties and Identity in the Middle East, Bloomsbury. [5]
   2. Michael Gunter (2014), Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, Hurst. [6]
   3. Michael Gunter (2017), The Kurds: A Modern History, Markus Wiener Publishers. [7] (O'Leary reviewed the 2016 ed.)

   (And four other books about Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.)

5. Samer N. Abboud (2015), Syria, Wiley. [8]

   About Kurdistan in general (including Syrian Kurdistan)

6. Güneş Murat Tezcür, ed. (2020), A Century of Kurdish Politics: Citizenship, Statehood and Diplomacy, T&F. [9]
7. Zeynep N. Kaya (2020), Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism, Cambridge. [10]
8. David Romano, Mehmet Gurses, and Michael Gunter (2020), The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, Lexington Books. [11]
9. Sebastian Maisel (2018), The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society, ABC-Clio. [12]
10. Michael Gunter (2018), Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, T&F. [13]
11. Gareth Stansfield, Mohammed Shareef (eds.) (2017), The Kurdish Question Revisited, Oxford. [14]
12. David L. Phillips (2015), The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East, Transaction Publishers. [15]
13. Mehrdad Izady (2015, orig. 1992), Kurds: A Concise Handbook, T&F. [16]
14. David McDowall (April 2021, 2004, orig 1996), A Modern History of the Kurds, Bloomsbury. [17]

Anything missing from this list? Anything that should be removed from the list? Some but not all of these are already in the article (or in related articles). Levivich ^harass/_hound 06:26, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this sources. Merdad Izady has strong opponents, and even the climate info from him is seen as unreliable and is blamed to come from a nationalist. I don't share this view, but it will be difficult to source anything with him.

Others I would also recommend are:

1. Jordi Tejell: Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society

1. Jordi Tejel: Le mouvement kurde de Turquie en exil: continuités et discontinuités du nationalisme kurde sous le mandat français en Syrie et au Liban (1925-1946)

1. Roger Lescot is also good. His books you can read online hereParadise Chronicle (talk) 18:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Also add Robert Lowe "The Emergence of Western Kurdistan and the Future of Syria" in D. Romano et al. (eds.), Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014). As for Izady (aside from the academic criticism), it is not as simple as climate. --Attar-Aram syria (talk) 08:24, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

extended discussion

[Izady] is treating the climate of Afrin as related to the climate of Zagros and not Aleppo. So, that deleted section is clearly used to push one POV and not the other: a greater Kurdistan taken by other countries. So nothing innocent in Izady's work. Now, can we agree on one thing: if these Kurdish inhabited regions are part of historical Kurdistan, then a historical source predating the establishment of Syria should be presented? If the criteria is: wherever Kurds live is a Kurdistan, then we will have Kurdistan in Damascus and Berlin. If Syria took parts of Kurdistan when it was established, then it is necessary to prove that these parts, all of them, were part of the historical region of Kurdistan before Syria took it (or France, whatever)- (even if they became parts of historical Kurdistan in 1900 is fine! just a historical source please, any!- ofcourse we are not talking if Kurds considered these regions parts of Kurdistan, because then we can also consider Cyprus part of Syria because Syrian nationalists claims it to be such).--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 08:24, 8 December 2020 (UTC) The former edit could be removed for WP:NOTFORUM. If you can source a Kurdistan in Damascus and Berlin, ask at the talk pages there and present your ideas there. We are here at the Syrian Kurdistan article and have numerous sources for a Syrian Kurdistan. This doesn't mean it is a recognized country. But Kurds in Syria did not just come out of nowhere and the Kurds in Syria are also not due to mere coincidence living adjacent to Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan. The historical Kurdistan argument has been discussed for weeks and the Kurd Dagh and Bohtan arguments against this were long ago presented. Fact is, there exists a Kurdish population in Syria adjacent to other parts of Kurdistan and in numerous sources it is known as Syrian Kurdistan.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 12:46, 8 December 2020 (UTC) So you have no source. What you wrote is your own logical conclusion not supported by sources. It is my right to ask you to present your sources when you claim this is part of historical Kurdistan, so this isnt a forum indeed and my arguments are legetimate. If Kurdistan exist in Syria today, for which you are bringing sources, then this doesnt mean it existed before Syria was established. Some Kurdish nomads expanding from their homeland doesnt make the new regions a Kurdistan. Please present historic evidence and spare us the conclusions. If this is part of historical Kurdistan, then how hard it is to find a traveler or historian from the 19th century writing that he visited Afrin in Kurdistan? Cant this be found? then dont argue that this is part of the historical homeland of the Kurds.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:53, 8 December 2020 (UTC) If you are not satisfied with the sources provided for a "historic" Syrian Kurdistan, what can we do? A Syrian KurdistaN is shown in numerous sources, and we ought to go by them. Wikipedia is not Aramattarpedia, it is an encyclopedia in which the info provided has to be sourced if contested. And there exist numerous sources for a Syrian Kurdistan. If you claim that if a source focuses on or about a Syrian Kurdistan, it means there exists no Syrian Kurdistan it is rather an WP:OR.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC) Are you heading in the direction of GP where you attack other editors? Its simple: historic means historical sources to support historicality. You have failed to provide this. All your sources do not confirm that before the establishment of Syria these regions were part of the historical cultural region of Kurdistan. Your inability to find historic sources is not on me to blame. So speak about Kurdistan as much as you want, but dont entertain ideas of historical native homelands without historical sources. NONE of the sources you provided contain a single cited historic document mentioning those regions as part of Kurdistan. Zero. Again, nomads migrate (in the case of Jazira), but it doesnt make the new regions part of a historic homeland. If you write that in 1918 Kurdistan was split by Syria and others, then provide a contemporary source to prove that in 1918 these regions were part of Kurdistan. Again, I know it is frustrating to you, but you cant defend your claims without adequate secondary sources based on actual primary sources (thats the first thing you learn when you start a research in academia).--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 23:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC) I am tired of recurring discussions whether a Syrian Kurdistan exists or not, while actually having a Wikipedia article Syrian Kurdistan with numerous academic sources actually showing and mentioning a Syrian Kurdistan. That there is an opposition to the existence of a Syrian Kurdistan belongs into a specific section but not into the lead as all what can be put there for a denial is OR. I call for an admin to craft an NPOV lead according to WP:Lead.Paradise Chronicle (talk) It exist today: I was not arguing about this, but about the notion that it is the historic land of Kurds annexed by Syria, for which you were not able to provide a single historic source. As for the opposition, this will be decided by consensus, but thanks for expressing your opinion.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Somehow I forgot to put Cimino 2020 on my list, so I added it. Also, I added O'Leary even though it isn't a book, because it's a book review by a reputable scholar in a reputable journal. (Are there any other recent book reviews like it?) Re: the above, Tejel, Lescot, and Lowe I think are all reputable scholars as well and their works are usable. However, given the changes "on the ground", I think we should really lean on very recent scholarship: 2019-2020 preferably, post-2016 second choice, post-2011 third choice, and only use pre-war as necessary to fill in gaps. So I think, for example, for Tejel's views about Syrian Kurdistan, it's better to rely more on Tejel 2020 (in Cimino 2020) than Tejel 2009, although Tejel 2009 could be used to fill in gaps of material not covered by more recent sources. For this reason, even O'Leary's book review I think should be considered "second choice", because it was written in 2018 and reviews books written in 2016 or earlier. We want to tell our readers what Syrian Kurdistan is today, according to scholars. Levivich ^harass/_hound 07:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how to vote here, but if the sources here presented are included in the article I agree.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Highly skilled IP edit

A while back an IP did this edit: [18]

It is impossible that a new user can do an advanced edit like this, it is clearly an old returning user. There are several users that are topic banned, so this is likely ban evasion, because of this I'm going to revert it. If the user wants to restore it they should log into their account. Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 12:43, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Removal of sourced material

Hi Applodion, instead of removing all my edits here, can you point to where the discrepancy is. The blockquote is copied word for word from the source. I don't understand which part of my edit is different from the source. I actually just found another academic source saying the term is invented by Kurdish parties: In the conclusion, the book offers insight on how to deal with the “Kurdish issue”. First, it stresses that the Syrian “Kurdish issue” can only be resolved within the framework of a purely Syrian national solution, outside the inventions of “West Kurdistan”, and in a way that sets Syrian Kurds within the context of belonging to Syrian society and its institutionalized state form as the Syrian Arab Republic. An explanation is warranted. New Aramean (talk) 13:50, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what I'm supposed to tell you here. I read the same quotes / texts, and these just did not match your interpretation.
First of all, your claim "it should be highlighted that the term western Kurdistan has been applied by Kurdish activists to refer to Turkish Kurdistan" is not stated anywhere. A People without a Country page only lists "Turkish, Northern or Western Kurdistan" after one another; it does not imply that these are the same. If I list three random countries, this wouldn't mean I'm trying to claim that they are the same state.
Jordi Tejel also does not say that "Rojava is an adoption by Syrian Kurdish nationalist parties". Jordi Tejel states that some Kurdish parties adopted the name 'Rojava'. The former statement suggests that the parties invented the term, the latter statement suggests that the parties began using an already existing term.
And as for your most recent quote, what exactly are you even trying to say? Some researcher denounces the idea of Rojava... wow, it's not like that this is a widely held opinion anyway. What makes this opinion any more special than the dozens of other opponents to the concept?
Applodion (talk) 16:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

For the Cheriff statement: Kurdistan in Iraq is often referred to as Southern Kurdistan but in fact it occupies a more or less central position in the Kurdish territories. It is the link between what is variously known as Turkish, Northern or Western Kurdistan to the north and north-west, and so-called Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan to the east and south-east, and it also borders on the mainly Kurdish areas of the Syrian Jezireh. , it is plain English when you use comma followed by or, that these are the same terms. You are welcome to invite a native English speaker to help here. Second, it is clear from the statement that western Kurdistan does not apply to Syria, since he refers to that specifically: "the mainly Kurdish areas of the Syrian Jezireh" in the same sentence. For the last reference, whether this is a minority opinion or not, it still deserves to be mentioned, this is what WP is about, the two sides of a story, not just what suits your POV. I am open to other ideas about including this sentences. I look forward to hearing from you. Otherwise, I will have to revert. Thank you. New Aramean (talk) 09:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

And for the Jordi Tejel sentence, I am OK with saying "some Kurdish parties adopted the name 'Rojava' or Syrian Kurdistan". New Aramean (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:20, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Re. the first issue: What shall I say, you have clearly a different view of the language than me. Your interpretation, also makes no logical sense. If Cheriff & co. were indeed trying to suggest that "Western Kurdistan" is equal to the Turkish areas, whereas the Syrian areas are solely covered under "the mainly Kurdish areas of the Syrian Jezireh" (which is also gigantic and ill-defined), it would ignore Kobani and Afrin. In fact, later in the book, the authors discuss the concept of "Syrian Kurdistan" (!) in some detail, for example expressing the view that the regions assigned to "Syrian Kurdistan" are politically clearly Syrian yet ethnographically distinct. Ultimately, they prefer the term "Kurdish regions of Syria", but their description confirms that by 1993 the existence of a "Syrian Kurdistan" at "Kurd-Dagh, Ain-Arab, and Northern Jezireh" was at least the topic of discussion. Thus, if the authors were aware of the proposal of "Syrian Kurdistan", why should they claim that "Western Kurdistan" is in Turkey in the same book?
As for the "not just what suits your POV", I'm not pushing a POV here. It's also not an issue of minority vs. majority views. My problem has to do with the fact that the particular part of Hamza Mustapha's review you are quoting here is completely irrelevant to the article. That was what I was trying to convey above. First of all, the review talks about a book which does not appear to be available online, so we cannot assess whether the reviewer's interpretations are correct. Secondly, what does the claim "the Syrian 'Kurdish issue' can only be resolved within the framework of a purely Syrian national solution" actually contribute to this article? It's perfectly fine for researchers to express their private opinion on stuff, but they aren't seers who can look into the future. We cannot state in Wikivoice that the Syrian 'Kurdish issue' can only be resolved within the framework of a purely Syrian national solution, as we do not know the future. For all we know, the idea of "Western Kurdistan" could be dead in one year, having failed to contribute anything to anyone, or be alive and well in one hundred years, having solved the so-called "Syrian Kurdish issue". We just don't know, and neither do the authors of The Issue of the Kurds in Syria: Facts, History and Myth. And if we decided to add a section to discuss researchers' views on the pros and cons of "Syrian Kurdistan", it would be flooded with nationalistic and ideologically charged analyses coming from all corners of the political spectrum. Applodion (talk) 23:31, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Some of your interpretation above is OR, when the sentence I used above "Turkish, Northern or Western Kurdistan to the north and north-west, and so-called Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan to the east and south-east, and it also borders on the mainly Kurdish areas of the Syrian Jezireh" is clear ad does not need an expert to interpret. Now, having included Afrin and Kobane is a different thing, maybe since they are much smalled in area and population than Jazira. My point is simply that this article adopts the more extreme PKK name (Syrian Kurdistan, rojava, etc.) for an area in Syria that is split between three major constituents, with no numbers for the ethnic composition. The lede puts that in wikivoice as a fact, which is not true, not encyclopedic and unfair to the other constituents of the area, especially Assyrians, who consider this part of their ancient homeland. Again, I am open to including a sentence that can convey that. How does that sound? New Aramean (talk) 09:18, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

@Applodion Maybe you remember the discussion around Hamza Mustapha you had in the past with a certain Amr in November 2020? Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

@Applodion Here is another quote from a story written in 2016 by Robert Lowe (Deputy Director of the Middle East Centre) on the names for the area Previously, only the term ‘Rojava’ had been used, which itself is of very recent origin but has quickly become recognised on the map of Syria. I think this sentence (and story) can shed light on the name(s). Thank you. New Aramean (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Maps

Hi @Applodion:, do you think adding a version showing only Syrian Kurdistan from the file would be useful to make it well readable? The section talks about demography and it mentions the Kurdish tribes in northern Syria so I think the files are useful.Sulaimanl (talk) 22:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Kurds "Iranian ethnic group" RFC

Editors are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Kurds#RFC: Iranian ethnic group. Levivich (talk) 00:06, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Removal of sourced material, again

Hello @Applodion:, I was really surprised by the removal of the material I added, since it's taken from a highly credible, very respected source (International Crisis Group). I see that you restored some of the information, but you left out the most important 2 pieces of information; who created the names Rojava, Western Kurdistan, and when. In 2013, as the PKK and Turkey agreed a ceasefire and began political talks, the YPG-PYD set up a “democratic self-administration” there, calling it Rojava (“Western Kurdistan”). I think that the origin of the term is of prime importance to give to the reader. If you don't like paraphrasing you are welcome to use the quote as is. I am less worried about the Afrin Kurdish presence piece, and willing to work with you on that. Thank you. New Aramean (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Here is one more high-profile source on the "Rojava" name origin and date, from Robert Lowe (Deputy Director of the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science): Western Kurdistan and Future of Syria, P243.

In 2013 the short form, “Rojava” has gained common usage among Syrian Kurds and some other interested parties to refer to the PYD-controlled areas of Syria. The term will be used in this chapter. I also see above that other users have also pointed that out before, so it does deserve to be mentioned. Thank you. New Aramean (talk) 08:03, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@New Aramean: As I stated and we even discussed before, the name "Rojava" was not created by Kurdish nationalists in 2013. That is not what the International Crisis Group says, and neither does Lowe. Both instead say that the AANES is a new entity for which titles like "Rojava" or "Syrian Kurdistan" or "Western Kurdistan" have been used as an alternate name. These terms cannot have been invented in 2013 anyway, because they already appears in academic literature long before this date: Mehrdad R. Izady talks about "western Kurdistan in Turkey and Syria" in The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, written in 1992, Lokman I. Meho about "Syrian Kurdistan" in The Kurds and Kurdistan: A Selective and Annotated Bibliography in 1997, just to name two examples. By the way, neither writer treats these terms as "nationalist" or controversial in origin. It is very important not to confuse "Syrian Kurdistan" with the AANES; the two do not overlap in many ways. Applodion (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)