Hey, Geograpeeps
So I wanted to address something that might need a little bit of explaining and some of the upcoming episodes specifically Iran and Iraq
Whoa, I have not shaved I need to shave come on
I'll be back. All right, and I'm good for about 11 more days
So you'll notice that in brief sections of these two episodes
I do mention the Kurdish people and their communities throughout the Middle East. Now
this is a very touchy subject
even saying the word
Kurdistan
Ignites a lot of feelings in a lot of people. Now before I even get into this I want to highly emphasize one thing: I
am not Kurdish, I am not Arab
I am not in any way directly affiliated with anything that goes on with this whole topic
and I am definitely not claiming to be your ultimate go-to authority when it comes to learning about this topic
I am just here to report some simple objective facts and statistics
I hope I get everything right, but if I get anything wrong, please feel free to correct me in the comments
So just like any hipster show host of any vice documentary
I'm here to explain to you about a people group that I am not a part of. Logic!
So what exactly is the controversy with the Kurdish people in the Middle East? Well first of all, who are
the Kurdish people? In the simplest way I can put this, at somewhere estimated around 30 to 40 ish million
The Kurds are essentially the largest ethnic people group in the world
Without a nation state. More than the Gypsies, more than the Tibetans, more than the Catalans (although
they are really putting up a fight)
I mean, you could argue that the larger Tamil group in India kind of has a thing going on,
but it's not quite as dramatic as the Kurds. Essentially, the Kurds primarily live in an area that is split up between four different countries:
Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey and the largest group living in Eastern Turkey. This entire area is what Kurdish people like to call 'Greater
Kurdistan', but literally all of their neighbors will never call it that and they don't like that word.
Ethnically, in the simplest way of putting it, the Kurds are kind of technically distant cousins of the Persians and Iranian peoples. They claim to
be descended from the Median Empire.
They are predominantly Sunni Muslim and have a distinct culture and lifestyle from the rest of their Middle-Eastern neighbors. And in each area
Each community of Kurds has adopted certain traits pertaining to the country that they inhabit. For example, the majority of Kurds living in Turkey speak
The Kurmanji dialect and they write in a latin alphabet
Whereas the majority of Kurds living in Iran speak the Sorani dialect and they write in a Perso-Arabic script. After World War One, the
Modern-Day boundaries were kind of redrawn by the British and French, and that's where things got a little complicated.
Technically in the treaty, I believe there was a discussion about a possible Kurdistan state
But it never really came to fruition and one of the biggest reasons
Why is because it would have been really difficult to establish
I mean first of all all four countries would pretty much never agree to at least
Completely secede their land to the Kurds and second of all, even if by some miracle
They did, the new Kurdistan state would be completely landlocked in an area where it is
Highly unlikely that any of their neighbors would want to support them
I mean can you imagine trying to make diplomatic ties to the very people that
reluctantly seceded their land to you? I mean if anything, that would probably make them hate you more.
So that would mean that they would have to reach
Outside of the Middle East for diplomatic ties however the problem is every country outside of the middle East kind of already has diplomatic ties
To their very neighbors that they have conflicts with so in many regards it kind of looks like a Catch-22
Lose-lose scenario. To this day, the only place that Kurds have a somewhat promising chance at any kind of autonomy would be the Iraqi
Kurdistan region, which technically still falls under the Iraqi constitution, but it still has like a high level of self-determination
I mean they have their own government
Army, President. This will be explained more in the Iraq episode however in a nutshell,
this is like the place that all
Kurds are keeping their eyes on
Especially with the passing of current events and conflicts with ISIS many Kurds have seen this war as a possible
stepping-stone to move forward in Independence at least in Iraq, but again, Iraq would not be happy with that. In the end
I don't know what the future looks like. I mean on one hand,
it looks like there is no possible way a Kurdistan state could be established
But then you look at the Iraq war and you're kind of like hmm.. er
No. No. Wait oh, well, er
No, err
Again, I'm not Kurdish. I'm not Arab
I'm not Persian and by all means my speculative American western perspective on this matter is pretty much of little value
So I open the floor up to you guys to discuss amongst yourselves
Which might not be the best idea because you know YouTube comments are just the best place for civil discourse
but seriously,
I think this is kind of an issue that you should be at least somewhat kind of knowledgeable on. The best thing
you should do though, is to talk to people who know this issue better than I do
specifically people that kind of live in these regions, and know what's going on. So yeah, that was just my little quick video
I wanted to give you guys a little info on and very quickly
Just remember like I announced last week. I will be holding a contest soon to visit your school
So details will be coming at the end of this week stay tuned. In the meantime, Thank you for watching this video
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