Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The Kurdish Model of Political Community: A Vision of National Liberation Defiant of the Nation-State undertakes a task long due in Kurdish studies: addressing common misunderstandings about and outlining theoretical implications of Kurdish politics. Hanifi Baris develops his arguments with an historical examination and finds apathy towards and a resistance to state-building in Kurdistan. Accordingly, Baris argues, this tendency to establish self-government with distaste to state-building has enabled major Kurdish movements in Turkey and Syria to develop a form of political community that constitutes a viable alternative to those based on theocratic, imperial and national sovereignty. Thus, Baris concludes, rather than being a conflict between competing nationalisms, the current Kurdish conflict in Turkey and Syria is between competing visions of political community.
Synopsis
National sovereignty entails exclusive ownership of territories and natural resources, which often leads to uncompromising domination and subjugation of life by a central political authority. In a stark contrast, the Kurdish vision of political community invokes communal sovereignty, which is detached from the nation and the territorial state.