The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds ed. by Mohammed M.A. Ahmed and Michael Gunter (review)

This edited book, dedicated appropriately to Robert Olson, one of the pioneers of Kurdish studies in the United States, will be a very useful read for informed general public and scholars alike. The nonspecialists who want to familiarize themselves with the Kurdish affairs in several different Middle Eastern states, Europe, and beyond will not be disappointed since the contributors do an admirable job in decoding the current very intricate Kurdish movements in the world. The book also contains valuable references for academics who wish to conduct further research on this subject. Another accomplishment of the book for Kurdish studies is that it blends successfully seasoned scholars with younger ones and allows many different approaches and rich differences in opinion in noticeable harmony, a task that is rather difficult to accomplish yet significant.

In his introduction, Michael Gunter presents a caveat about the title of the book, that

to speak of a Kurdish Spring may artificially isolate those earlier events from what began shortly after the Arab Spring commenced in late 2010 and early 2011 [. . .] In addition, the term Kurdish Spring might ignore the contagion or outsider effect on what is occurring. Nevertheless, Kurdish Spring does suggest how these events are sudden, new demands for change as well stamping them with a fresh, catchy title that in a sense does recognize the influence of such outsider effects as what also occurred in the Arab Middle East. Therefore, despite these caveats, Kurdish Spring it will be!.

(p. 4)

The plausibility of the labeling of the current developments in the Middle East as “the Kurdish Spring” should in fact be at the back of readers’ minds as they read this book.

The book contains 12 articles organized in seven parts, each dealing with Kurdish political/militant movements in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, and diaspora communities. The first part includes contributions aimed at situating the Kurdish issue in the general Middle Eastern context. Articles draw most of their sources ranging from Internet-based newspapers to webpages of particular organizations, as well as more traditional books and essays. Therefore, the editors avoided providing a general bibliography at the end, but instead furnished a useful index.

A common weakness expected from books dealing with current affairs is that in a fast-changing political environment for the Kurds in the Middle East, some information in this book can be outdated faster than expected. The same can be said for footnotes containing links to online sources. The reader should be mindful as some of the figures such as loss of life in certain uprisings might be subject to dispute; yet several articles use them as facts without sufficient references (p. 62). A brief and general comparison with the Arab Spring would have better situated in the book for many nonspecialist readers amid the countless uprisings and violence in the Middle East.

These minor points aside, this book will surely be a welcome addition to the fast-growing literature on the Kurds and the readers will benefit from the expertise of very diverse group of contributors. Indeed, The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds is a very informative snapshot of Kurdish affairs between 2010 and 2013.