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This week’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia, continue to dominate the media cycle in America and much of the world. White supremacists — a mix of Klu Klux Klan (KKK), neo-Nazis, the so-called “alt-Right” and others — descended on Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They were met by counter-protestors decrying the racism and bigotry of the KKK and neo-Nazis. One of the counter-protestors was killed when a white supremacist rammed his car into their gathering, with many others injured. President Trump’s initial failure to categorically denounce the white supremacists, and his effort to equate them with the counter-protestors, further inflamed the situation.
The activists on the extreme Right at such events typically attempt to defend their views as nothing more than nationalism, or pride in their own group — akin to many nations’ pride. The problem is that in America, most people lost any real connection to overseas nations, cultures and languages long ago. In our world of nation-states, it’s perfectly fine to be a proud Irish, French, Dutch, Turk, Arab, Kurd or Russian. For Americans who lost links to their original homelands and who no longer speak anything but English, however, this is not an option.
Instead the white supremacists look back to a time when European fascists conflated the culture, language and imagined identity that define a nation with race — defined subjectively as the color of one’s skin, with a few illogical caveats thrown in as well (such as the notion that even blond-haired and blue-eyed Jews are not “white”). Resentful of economic and demographic changes that globalization brings to America (which they blame on the Jews, as if Jews were some unified higher mind controlling everything), these white supremacists wish to safeguard the historically privileged position of “whites” (or Americans mostly descended from certain European countries) in their society. A non-white can never gain equal status or even entry to such people’s racist utopia.
In contrast to the white supremacists, most of America (and other settler states such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand) replaced the ethno-linguistic (or cultural-linguistic) identity and nationalism with a civic identity centered on shared American citizenship and a specifically American culture. Europeans, after their terrible experience with fascism in World War II, largely did the same. Middle Easterners did so since a long time, with a black Arabic-speaking Sudanese being as Arab as a more fair skinned Arabic speaker from somewhere like Syria. This was true for Turks, Persians and Kurds as well, with historical evidence of various non-Kurdish tribes becoming Kurdish and vice-versa.
Although this switch from racial identities to cultural-linguistic nations (or civic nations in places with a relatively healthy, functioning state), often faces contradictions or racist hold outs believing in “blood and soil” rather than culture, civic nationalism has now become the new global norm. Civic culture in turn is a constantly evolving identity that remains in contestation between different groups. Kemalist Turkey, for instance, attempted to structure the civic nation around a single language and ethnic group (Turks) — a contradiction from the beginning — while Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party tries to insert a much more prominent Muslim component around that same ethnic identity. Other countries such as Belgium and Switzerland manage, with varying degrees of success, to amalgamate multiple national identities within one civic national identity.
In effect, the ideal of civic nationalism always falls short. People everywhere often retain some ideas of what an “authentic” member of the nation looks like and where they trace their origins to. There also exist “traditionalists” or “conservatives” who greatly value key aspects of their culture’s past. This need not matter too much in well governed, tolerant, democratic states not undergoing change too quickly — people can get used to the idea that British can have the look of an Indian, Canadians can look Chinese, or French people can look African. In times of political uncertainty, economic difficulties and dislocation, however, the tension between the ideal and reality of civic nationalism can split society apart.
These are questions for Kurdish readers of Rudaw to think about, especially as the long-held aspiration of Kurdish independence gains prominence. While a state of Kurdistan can define its people as coming from myriad ethnicities and religions, the very term “Kurdistan” still means “land of the Kurds.” The contradiction between this and an ideal of civic nationalism in Kurdistan need not pose a greater problem than it has for France, Spain, or other countries whose name correlates with a dominant ethnic group. Even states with neutral names such as Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands include within them key national groups (English, Scots, Welsh, Flemish, French and Dutch, for instance) that play a disproportionate role in defining the state’s identity.
The important thing for Kurdish nationalists revolves around being very careful to leave plenty of place for other groups and identities within a state to be. As we saw in Charlottesville this week, it’s not an easy task for even the strongest states. Sunni Arab Iraq, and since 2003 Shiite Arab Iraq, failed miserably at the task. Kurds must be careful not to repeat the injustices that Arab Baghdad and Damascus, Turkish Ankara and Persian Tehran inflicted upon them. At least so far, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq appears to be mindful of this and on the right track at least.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
The activists on the extreme Right at such events typically attempt to defend their views as nothing more than nationalism, or pride in their own group — akin to many nations’ pride. The problem is that in America, most people lost any real connection to overseas nations, cultures and languages long ago. In our world of nation-states, it’s perfectly fine to be a proud Irish, French, Dutch, Turk, Arab, Kurd or Russian. For Americans who lost links to their original homelands and who no longer speak anything but English, however, this is not an option.
Instead the white supremacists look back to a time when European fascists conflated the culture, language and imagined identity that define a nation with race — defined subjectively as the color of one’s skin, with a few illogical caveats thrown in as well (such as the notion that even blond-haired and blue-eyed Jews are not “white”). Resentful of economic and demographic changes that globalization brings to America (which they blame on the Jews, as if Jews were some unified higher mind controlling everything), these white supremacists wish to safeguard the historically privileged position of “whites” (or Americans mostly descended from certain European countries) in their society. A non-white can never gain equal status or even entry to such people’s racist utopia.
In contrast to the white supremacists, most of America (and other settler states such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand) replaced the ethno-linguistic (or cultural-linguistic) identity and nationalism with a civic identity centered on shared American citizenship and a specifically American culture. Europeans, after their terrible experience with fascism in World War II, largely did the same. Middle Easterners did so since a long time, with a black Arabic-speaking Sudanese being as Arab as a more fair skinned Arabic speaker from somewhere like Syria. This was true for Turks, Persians and Kurds as well, with historical evidence of various non-Kurdish tribes becoming Kurdish and vice-versa.
Although this switch from racial identities to cultural-linguistic nations (or civic nations in places with a relatively healthy, functioning state), often faces contradictions or racist hold outs believing in “blood and soil” rather than culture, civic nationalism has now become the new global norm. Civic culture in turn is a constantly evolving identity that remains in contestation between different groups. Kemalist Turkey, for instance, attempted to structure the civic nation around a single language and ethnic group (Turks) — a contradiction from the beginning — while Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party tries to insert a much more prominent Muslim component around that same ethnic identity. Other countries such as Belgium and Switzerland manage, with varying degrees of success, to amalgamate multiple national identities within one civic national identity.
In effect, the ideal of civic nationalism always falls short. People everywhere often retain some ideas of what an “authentic” member of the nation looks like and where they trace their origins to. There also exist “traditionalists” or “conservatives” who greatly value key aspects of their culture’s past. This need not matter too much in well governed, tolerant, democratic states not undergoing change too quickly — people can get used to the idea that British can have the look of an Indian, Canadians can look Chinese, or French people can look African. In times of political uncertainty, economic difficulties and dislocation, however, the tension between the ideal and reality of civic nationalism can split society apart.
These are questions for Kurdish readers of Rudaw to think about, especially as the long-held aspiration of Kurdish independence gains prominence. While a state of Kurdistan can define its people as coming from myriad ethnicities and religions, the very term “Kurdistan” still means “land of the Kurds.” The contradiction between this and an ideal of civic nationalism in Kurdistan need not pose a greater problem than it has for France, Spain, or other countries whose name correlates with a dominant ethnic group. Even states with neutral names such as Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands include within them key national groups (English, Scots, Welsh, Flemish, French and Dutch, for instance) that play a disproportionate role in defining the state’s identity.
The important thing for Kurdish nationalists revolves around being very careful to leave plenty of place for other groups and identities within a state to be. As we saw in Charlottesville this week, it’s not an easy task for even the strongest states. Sunni Arab Iraq, and since 2003 Shiite Arab Iraq, failed miserably at the task. Kurds must be careful not to repeat the injustices that Arab Baghdad and Damascus, Turkish Ankara and Persian Tehran inflicted upon them. At least so far, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq appears to be mindful of this and on the right track at least.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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