Contesting Kurdish Identities in Sweden

Quest for Belonging among Middle Eastern Youth

B. Eliassi

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137282071
• eBook ISBN: 9781137282088
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Contesting Kurdish Identities in Sweden sheds light on the day-to-day strategies of accommodation and resistance that Kurdish youth use in the face exclusive narratives and structures of belonging and citizenship regimes in the Middle-East and Sweden.

Chapter 1

The Kurdish Diaspora and the Retreat of Multiculturalism in Western Europe

Introduction

What does it mean to be a young Kurdish immigrant and belong to a stateless diaspora in the age of a reassertion of national identities in western Europe juxtaposed with intellectual visions and dreams about a cosmopolitan order beyond nationalism? How do you form your identity when you experience exclusionary practices in your country of origin and the country in which you were born or now live? What kind of accommodation and resistance strategies do you develop to deal with racist and nationalist practices in everyday life? How do stateless Kurdish immigrants relate to home and homeland? How are national and political conflicts in the Middle East reproduced and reinforced by Middle Eastern youth in Sweden? What kinds of discursive and labeling strategies do young Kurds use to make internal and external differentiations regarding maintenance, crossing, and erosion of ethnic boundaries? How do young Kurdish women and men relate to the Orientalist fantasies and practices of the part of Swedish society that is engaged in a process of defining the Kurds as perpetrators of patriarchal gender violence such as “honor-related violence” and forced marriages? This book addresses these questions that engage the politics of belonging among young Kurdish immigrants in Sweden.

The study of Kurdish immigrants as a diasporic formation is relatively new in the European context. The formation of Kurdish identities within various European countries has recently been addressed through a number of studies in the United Kingdom (Enneli, Modood, & Bradley, 2005; Griffith, 2002; Uguris, 2004; Wahlbeck, 1999), Sweden (Ahmedi, 2006; Alinia, 2004; Eliassi, 2010, 2012b; Emanuelsson, 2005; Khayati, 2008; Sheikhmous, 2000; Sheikhmous & Wernefeldt, 1999; Taloyan, 2008), Finland (Wahlbeck, 1999), Germany (Eccarius-Kelly, 2002, 2010; Leggewie, 1996; Østergaard-Nielsen, 2002), France (Guyot, 2011; Mohséni, 2002), the Netherlands (Kanie, 2005), and Denmark (Petersen, 2010). The focus of these studies has mainly been the migratory experiences of first-generation Kurdish immigrants and refugees. The analytical concepts used in these studies are mainly the diaspora and transnationalism with a strong focus on nationalism and the experience of social and political exclusion in the Middle East and the countries of settlement. The concept of the diaspora has traditionally been deployed to describe the Jewish dispersion around the world and their continuous emotional, political, and cultural ties with a Jewish homeland. The formation of a diaspora has been conceptualized as a triadic relationship among the country of origin, the country of settlement, and the ethnic group dispersed across different states (Anthias, 2002b; Cohen, 2008; Safran, 1991, 2005; Sheffer, 2003; Vertovec, 1997). Nevertheless, the concept of the diaspora is deployed and conceptualized in different ways by different scholars with regard to social, cultural, and political activities among Kurdish immigrants. According to Brubaker (2005), the concept of the diaspora has lost its semantic, conceptual, and analytical power since it is used in a nondiscriminatory way to embrace a wide range of identities. In order to avoid the conceptual and semantic trap Brubaker highlights, I will define Kurdish immigrants as a stateless diaspora for the purpose of attaining the specificity of Kurdish experiences and identity formations. Along the same lines, Sheffer (2003) distinguishes between state-linked diasporas and stateless diasporas such as Kurds, Tamils, Tibetans, and Palestinians. Members of stateless diasporas may live outside of their traditional homelands as a result of such events as forced migration, political oppression, economic deprivation, and religious persecution. When it comes to the Kurds, the bonding feature of the Kurdish diaspora tends to be its politicized transnational activism and practices. For instance, the Kurdish diaspora has been defined in terms of a transnational social organization (Wahlbeck, 1999), transnational social movement (Alinia, 2004), transnational community (Uguris, 2004), transborder citizenship (Khayati, 2008), or transnational networks (Emanuelsson, 2005; van Bruinessen, 2000). These studies show that the Kurdish diaspora is involved in various forms of activism to alter the subordinated political situation of the Kurds in the Middle East (Adamson, 2002; Ayata, 2011; Eccarius-Kelly, 2002; Emanuelsson, 2005; Khayati, 2008; Natali, 2007; Østergaard-Nielsen, 2002; Rumelili, Keyman, & Isyar, 2011; Soguk, 2008; Uçarlar, 2009). The Kurdish diaspora in western Europe has also become an influential actor in challenging the official versions of the “Kurdish problem” or “question” in the Middle East (Adamson & Demetriou, 2007; Demir, 2012; Hassanpour, 2003). In this respect, Østergaard-Nielsen (2002) points out that the Kurdish diaspora as a nonstate actor is embedded in local, national, and global processes and engages with transnational political practices in order to influence domestic and global politics. Transnational political practices are carried out through membership in political party membership and hometown associations but also through occasional participation in events or meetings. Likewise, Eccarius-Kelly (2002) refers to the Kurdish diaspora and its successful activism in influencing repressive Turkish politics vis-à-vis the Kurds through claiming human right discourses and minority rights via European institutions, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations (see Casier, 2010). During 1980s, the Kurdish diaspora organizations resorted to the representatives of United Nations’ agencies for endorsing and altering the political situations of the Kurds, but this focus was reoriented during the 1990s toward the European Union in order to pursue the political, cultural, and social rights of the Kurds in the Middle East (Emanuelsson, 2005).

In light of Kurdish diasporic activism and transnational practices, the Kurds were the first stateless nation to launch a satellite channel: Med-TV in 1995. Although located in Europe, Med-TV came to be seen by many Kurds as their first national television station. This satellite channel significantly challenged the sovereignty of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, where the “Kurdish question” is regarded as either an internal issue or a nonissue. Further, this channel provided an effective means to mobilize Kurds to participate in different events; demonstrations; and cultural, social, and political activities concerning Kurds in different European states. The launch of this satellite channel was regarded as subversive, and this representational medium made it difficult for Turkey to conceal its linguistic and ethnic oppression against the Kurdish population. Not surprisingly, Turkey has used its diplomatic power to prevent the broadcasting of this channel, which has changed its name and state locations several times in order to escape Turkish state antagonism and accusations that the channel is a mouthpiece for “terrorism” (Adamson & Demetriou, 2007; Hassanpour, 2003; Uçarlar, 2009). Since the Islamic regime of Iran lacks enough diplomatic power in Western countries due to its ideological framework, it instead launched several campaigns to physically remove satellite dishes in the Kurdish regions of Iran and jammed Kurdish satellite channels broadcasting from Europe. The story of Kurdish satellite channels in the diaspora has not come to an end due to diplomatic pressures, however; on the contrary, there has been a proliferation of Kurdish satellite channels: Kurdistan TV, KurdSat, Zagros TV, KNN, Tishk TV, Aso Sat, Komala TV, Rojhalat TV, Newroz TV, Gali Kurdistan, Rojava TV, KMC, MMC TV, Sterk TV, Speda Channel, Payam, Ronahi TV, Kurd Channel, and so on. These satellite channels are affiliated with Kurdish political parties linked to all four parts of the Kurdish region in the Middle East. The emergence of Kurdish satellite channels in the diaspora has also given Kurdish movements and political parties an effective means to oppose official state narratives regarding the political situation of Kurds (Ayata, 2011). Another important site for the construction of a Kurdish identity in the diaspora is cyberspace, where a virtual Kurdistan has been created through Kurdish online activities such as personal and political websites, news sites, blogs, talk forums, Facebook, and YouTube (Candan & Hunger, 2008; Eriksen, 2007; Khayati, 2008; Mahmod, 2011; Romano, 2002; Sheyholislami, 2010). Moreover, online activities not only provide Kurds with an important political and social space to formulate a transborder and unitary Kurdish identity worldwide but also allow them to communicate, contest, and negotiate the differences and heterogeneous formation of Kurdish identities.

The politicization of the Kurdish diaspora is related to the fact that a large segment of the Kurds are scattered around the world due to nonvoluntary displacement, collective exile, and continued political violence and structural deprivation in the Kurdish regions. This political consciousness among Kurdish diasporans is created on the basis of shared origins, individual and collective experiences of suffering in the Middle East, and ties they develop in exile. Statelessness also triggers politicized forms of identity formation among Kurds in diaspora. Previous studies of first-generation Kurds indicate that Kurdish immigrants both enjoy democracy and political freedom as Kurds and also experience structural inequality and discrimination within the labor market, housing, education, and the mass media as immigrants (Alinia, 2004; Khayati, 2008). Further, discrimination and a minoritized position in the Middle East and Sweden are regarded as important causal factors of serious health problems among first-generation Kurds in Sweden (Taloyan, 2008). The Kurdish presence in Sweden has a short history, which explains the lack of research about the experiences of young people with Kurdish backgrounds. Brah (1996) points out the importance of and the differences of experiences and memories between the first generation and the subsequent generations in regard to the formation of diasporic identities. Additionally, first-generation immigrants not only have to deal with the question of dislocation and displacement in order to reorient themselves in the new society, but they also have to accommodate to new economic, political, and cultural realities.

In the same vein, Radhakrishnan (1996) asserts that as a result of immigration, the two generations experience their old and new homes differently, which in turn can lead to divided allegiances. Family, community, home, homeland, and nation thus need to be renegotiated and redefined in light of the historical rupture that immigration, dislocation, and relocation creates across different generations, times, and spaces. The experiences of women and men, according to Alinia (2004) and Anthias (1998), are also different and result from the gender relations of the country they have left and the country in which they reside. Consequently, gendered processes of identity formation are an important feature of diasporic identities, since they deal with the question of cultural continuity, accommodation, resistance, and rupture in a Swedish/western European context that is defined as a stronghold of modernity in deep contrast to Muslim societies and cultures (for a critical discussion, see Abu-Lughod, 2002; Akkerman & Hagelund, 2007; Alinia, 2004; Brah, 1996; Razack, 2008).

Since mobility is regarded as a central defining marker of immigration, it is not surprising that the notion of the diaspora alludes to a form of migratory journey. It is of paramount importance to historicize those migratory journeys and processes that impinge on identity formation among different immigrant groups. As Brah maintains, “[t]he question is not simply about who travels, but when, how, and under what circumstances? What socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions mark the trajectories of these journeys? What regimes of power inscribe the formation of a specific diaspora” (1996, p. 182, emphasis in original). In other words, it is important to take into consideration both the background circumstances of leaving and the circumstances of arrival and settling down (Brah, 1996; Cox & Connell, 2003; Eliassi, 2010; Mavroudi, 2007; Uguris, 2004). In the case of the Kurds, historical experiences of social and political inequality are important repertoires for the construction of belonging and identification in new political settings (Eliassi, 2010). Although there are several important studies (Ålund, 1997; Dahlstedt, 2005a; Sernhede, 2005) that indicate the transethnic nature of identity formation among young people with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden, there are nevertheless other aspects of identity formation among young people with immigrant backgrounds that involve politicizing Kurdish identity and maintaining social ties with Kurdistan as sources of belonging in the face of national oppression in the Middle East and ethnic discrimination in Sweden. While Sernhede (2002) refers to hip-hop as a mode of global cultural expression for transethnic identity among young immigrants in ethnically divided societies, Eccarius-Kelly (2010) views hip-hop as a way for young Kurdish artists to express a sense of nationalism within the Kurdish diaspora and challenge both oppressive structures against Kurds in the Middle East and ethnic discrimination in Europe. Eccarius-Kelly highlights the social and political significance of Azad, a famous, young, Kurdish-German hip-hop artist, among Kurdish youth: “[Azad] put into words what it should mean for teenagers to be Kurdish by rapping about his personal struggles and disappointments, and his sense of isolation and alienation in Germany. Azad also encouraged his fans to learn more about the abysmal treatment of the Kurdish minority throughout the Middle East. His rap songs demanded recognition of Kurds, affirmed the importance of their separate ethnic heritage, and provided political direction to confused teenagers who felt ostracized in European societies” (2010, p. 427). This means that in parallel to the transethnic nature of identity formation, there is also a national identity formation based on specific distressing histories and experiences that claims a particular Kurdish identity as a means to cope with “identity confusion” and ethnic discrimination. An international incident in 1999 illustrated this well. In spring 1999, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, was captured and kidnapped in Kenya by Turkish agents. This act led to massive Kurdish demonstrations in Sweden and various European countries, which drew unprecedented global attention (Fawcett, 2001). This critical event showed the strength of the global Kurdish diaspora as a transnational community to mobilize and act simultaneously in the name of a tormented Kurdish nation. A large number of these demonstrators were young people with Kurdish backgrounds from all parts of Kurdish regions who were demanding the release of the PKK leader, flying Kurdish flags, and chanting slogans against the Turkish oppression of the Kurdish population. Many of these young people had grown up outside Kurdish areas and were neither members nor engaged supporters of PKK but were motivated to participate as a result of transnational Kurdish identity politics. These young people promoted Kurdish nationalism or identity politics despite having had little or no direct experience of oppression by authoritarian regimes in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, or Syria. However, this is not to say that a direct personal experience of oppression is the primary prerequisite for participation in identity politics. Van Bruinessen (2000) and Curtis (2005) claim that young people with Kurdish backgrounds outside Kurdish areas in the Middle East tend to be more nationalistic and more engaged in Kurdish identity and politics than their parents. Yet this is not to claim that they equally share the same political aspirations, identity politics, and modes of participation in Kurdish politics (Ahmedi, 2006; Alinia, 2004; Eliassi, 2010; Griffith, 2002; Khayati, 2008; Mahmod, 2011; Petersen, 2010).

Although Kurdish nationalism among second-generation Kurds has also received considerable attention and had led to heated and contentious debates within leading Swedish newspapers (Can, 2008; Demirbag-Sten, 2008a, 2008b), this book—based partly on my doctoral dissertation (Eliassi, 2010)—will be the first major scholarly work to look at the ways second-generation Kurds articulate Kurdish nationalism as a constitutive feature of Kurdish identity formation in Sweden. In this book, I endeavor to show why searching for national commonality in light of ethnic oppression has become an appealing ideological instrument for Kurdish youth to assert a unitary Kurdishness as a strategic move to conceal and downplay the ambivalence and diversity of Kurdish identity. As this book will illustrate, Kurdish youth use both contradictory and opposing ideological frameworks, such as multiculturalism and nationalism, to make political claims that champion and instigate the right to recognition, representation, political visibility, and equal citizenship in both Middle Eastern and Swedish contexts. While a major part of scholarship on Kurds engages with the structure and macronationalism of Arabs, Persians, and Turks and how they have shaped and engendered the mobilization of Kurdish movements and accommodations in the Middle East, this work—built on the individual accounts and narratives of young Kurds in Sweden—draws attention to how everyday interactions between dominant groups and Kurdish youth perpetuate ethnopolitical conflict and structural inequalities through individual strategies and actions in diasporic contexts.

Kurdish Immigration and Swedish Immigrant Policy

Kurdish immigration to Western countries does not have a long history. Although displacement and exile have been hallmarks of Kurds, such movement was by and large limited to the political geography of the Middle East, mainly within the boundaries of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. Forced displacement of the Kurdish population was related to their strategic position as the borderline of these two empires (Kanie, 2005). Despite the novel history of Kurdish immigration to the West, the size of Kurdish diasporas in Western countries is estimated to number more than one million. According to Hassanpour and Mojab (2005), there are two major reasons behind the formation of Kurdish diasporas in the West in the latter part of the twentieth century. The first is related to the prevailing suppressive, assimilation policy and structural violence that Kurds are subjected to in the Middle East and that led to Kurdish resistance, guerilla wars, and political activism. For decades, Kurdish regions have been sites of armed struggles and have been subjected to militarization due to state violence and Kurdish guerilla activities. The Kurdish diaspora can thus be described as a conflict-generated diaspora that is involved in framing homeland politics and conflict issues related to the Kurds in the Middle East. The second development that led to mass Kurdish emigration, mainly from Turkey to the West, was due to the economic boom in western Europe that led to recruitment of a large number of Kurdish “guest-workers” (Hassanpour & Mojab, 2005). Kurdish immigrants to Europe during the 1960s mainly consisted of young Kurdish intellectuals who came for their education. It was in Europe that Kurds from different parts of Kurdistan could meet and articulate the ground for a common politicized Kurdish identity. Many of them started forming student associations and endorsing Kurdish grievances in the Middle East. During the 1970s, Kurdish immigrants primarily consisted of “guest workers” from Turkey. Although these immigrants at first identified themselves (and were identified by the receiving society) as Turkish, this came to change under the influence of Kurdish students who started a “reawakening” of Kurdish identity among these immigrants. From 1980 to 2000, Kurdish refugees fled their homes due to state violence and clashes between the states and Kurdish guerilla movements in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey (Sheikhmous, 2000; van Bruinessen, 2000).

Numerous Kurdish intellectuals, artists, writers, and political activists were drawn to Sweden, and this explains the politicized identity of many Kurds in Sweden. Consequently, these actors within the Kurdish diaspora have played a central role in consolidating the idea of a Kurdish national identity and lobbying for its recognition through a variety of mobilizing practices such as associational activities, satellite and radio channels, and activities in cyberspace among different generations. As a result of political activities among Kurdish immigrants in the West, the Kurdish question is no longer merely an internal question to those Middle Eastern countries in which they live but has advanced from being a regional question to a European and international question (Leggewie, 1996; McDowall, 2004; Sheikhmous, 2000; van Bruinessen, 2000). Likewise, van Bruinessen (2000) asserts that the state suppression of the Kurds in the Middle East has paradoxically enabled a transnational network of Kurdish political activism that challenges state policies against the Kurds in much more tangible ways than guerilla wars. Immigration has also provided Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan with a democratic political space in the West in which they can negotiate, overcome, and integrate many of their differences. However, this is not to say that political antagonism among different Kurdish political parties vanishes in the diaspora; Kurdish diasporans, with their demands for Kurdish unity, force these parties to make compromises to satisfy their members in diaspora, whose activism and financial and moral support make them important key players in shaping and influencing Kurdish party politics.

Among Western destinations for Kurdish immigrants, Sweden has become home to more than seventy thousand Kurds from different parts of the Kurdish region of the Middle East (Taloyan, 2008). Sweden has long been known internationally as the model egalitarian, multicultural, welfare state with extended and substantial citizenship, welfare, and labor rights for everyone within its borders, including immigrants, with a residence permit (Dahlström, 2004; Eliassi, 2010; Schierup & Ålund, 2011; Schierup, Hansen, & Castles, 2006; Soininen, 1999; Graham & Soininen, 1998). Brubaker (1989) points out that Sweden lacks cultural and ethnic nationalism, which also explains Sweden’s success in integrating immigrants into Swedish society “with so little fuss or friction” (p. 10). Further, the Swedish welfare state has enabled immigrants to be embraced by civil, political, and social citizenship due to an ideology of distributive justice. The conditions for obtaining citizenship in Sweden are some of the most liberal in western Europe. Immigrants who have not obtained Swedish citizenship have been allowed to vote in local and regional elections since 1975. Likewise, immigrant associations have been able to receive state funds to organize themselves ethnically, culturally, religiously, and nationally in order to enhance their collective interests. Students with other mother tongues than Swedish have also been given the right to receive lessons in their native languages until upper secondary school. Given the fact that the Kurdish language was banned in Turkey for several decades, it was thanks to Sweden’s favorable and stimulating multiculturalism and a dynamic Kurdish diaspora that the main Kurdish dialect Kurmanji was developed through the efforts of Kurdish writers and translators and underwent a renaissance. The highest...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Kurdish Diaspora and the Retreat of Multiculturalism in Western Europe
• Chapter 2. Kurdish Identities and Political Struggle in the Middle East
• Chapter 3. Theorizing Belonging and Citizenship in Ethnically Divided Societies
• Chapter 4. Historical Injustices, Uneven Nationalisms, and Reproduction of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Diaspora
• Chapter 5. Unequal Citizenship, Home(land)s, and Strategies of Dealing with Ethnic Discrimination in Sweden
• Chapter 6. Orientalization of the Kurds and Reproduction of Colonial Categorization by Kurdish Youth in Sweden
• Chapter 7. The Struggle for Social Justice and Citizenship Rights
• References