Iraqi Army

Kurdish life was nomadic until World War 1 and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. The 1920 Treaty of Sevres created the nation states Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait. It was also supposed to include the Kurdistan but that was never implemented. The Turkish and Iraqi government have outlawed the use of the Kurdish language, and traditional customs along with encouraging them to move into…

But how were Kurds pulled into a new pricey lifestyle? Kurdistan’s ruling class, as the newly returning revolutionaries from the mountains, were gradually advised by regional and international experts, who insisted that in order to establish a stable progressive region for all, they first needed to become more modern and developed—more “civilized”. The new capitalist-neoliberal enterprise required transformations. Marx and Engels further illustrate regarding capitalism, “It compels all…

Friedman argues that, “the great achievement of capitalism,” unlike what its critics claim, has not been “accumulation of property” but instead “the opportunities it has offered to men and women to extend and develop and improve their capacities” (Friedman, 2002: 169). Neoliberal advocates at the World Bank who draw from Friedman’s promises of freedom of choice and progress, have developed a promising “all inclusive” Kurdistan Vision 2020. They too argue their vision is for the greater good of…

military damage with limited resources. The best example is the development of the IED in Iraq, responsible for 60% of the casualties, that the US was not able to stop despite spending billions of US dollars in technology.4 It was something the Iraqi insurgent could make cheap with little training and easily acquired material. With such a high cost, the U.S. could not continue perpetually and sought an exit…

First, Iraqi families of political dissenters in detention centers, such as the family of Amer, were left in fearful wondering on the condition of their loved one. Families were not given any news or updates on their loved one in prison, nor were they allowed to visit their loved one. Some families paid prison guards at the Alamin detention center in hopes of getting any news on their loved one; sometimes this worked, while other times the efforts were fruitless. Furthermore, Iraqi people did…

achieved multiple successes. Over the three decades, it has emerged as the most prospective actor which is logistically powerful and symbolically potent representative of Kurds people in Turkey. The PKK in Iraq is a small unit which stays outside the Iraqi politics and controls its own territory (Bloomberg View 2014). It is reported that the PKK is playing role in combatting the Islamic States (IS), thus according to the Bloomberg View (2014) the terrorist status of the PKK has been eroding and…

Introduction For any ethnic group in the world, it can be explained that the ethnic group has to have its specific identity that is normally founded on a common race, geographical region, and even religion among others. This paper focuses on the Kurdish-Turkish identity as well as the politics and conflicts related to the Kurdish-Turkish relationship. The Kurds who are reported to be over 35 million and commonly discussed as a nation that does not have any state (McDowall, 1997). As explained…

Everyday narratives: Living in uncertainty in Suleimani This chapter focuses on ethnographic vignettes from ordinary people from the city of Suleimani, Kurdistan. I specifically analyse narratives highlighting living under uncertainty, as part of the bigger theme of everyday politicizing narratives addressed in my thesis. The everyday narratives have resulted from intermittent fieldwork conducted in 2015 and 2016, supplemented by previous reflections and encounters from 2011 in the city of…

Going back to the Iraq War, After Hussein was captured; the citizen in Iraq ironically did not gain any resources and freedom. In a Huffington Post article by Daniel Raphael, 8 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, and 70 percent lack clean drinking water. This ironically was worse than 2003 when the Iraq War begin. The Causalities after Hussein was capture also staggering. After 2003, when the Iraq war start to kick in gear, they were…

zor nabo. Hamu wak yak boyn, There were not so many differences. We were all similar”. In other words, the gaps between the haves and have-nots were not so wide. In the 1990s, almost all people lacked access to similar things, which is no longer the case. The new polarization, and inequality anger people more than the actually lack of things. Today, not having means something different to the different groups and people are live together with very different lifestyles. And for the majority who…