The Kurdish Edition

Episode 5: May Day Special - Kurdish Revolutionary Music by Sardar Saadi

In this episode, I talk to Prof. Abbas Vali on his upcoming book, The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran. This book investigates the forgotten years of Kurdish nationalism in Iran, from the fall of the Kurdish republic in 1947 to the advent of the Iranian revolution in 1979. It sheds light not only on the historical specificity of the phenomenon of nationalism in exile, but also on the political processes and practices defining the development of Kurdish nationalism in the post-revolutionary era. For many reasons, as we discuss that in detail in the interview, little is known about the three decades of Kurdish nationalism in exile between these two events. And this is another reason that makes this book groundbreaking. This book will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, part of Minorities in West Asia and North Africa book series that is edited by Kamran Matin and Paolo Maggiolini.

Abbas Vali is former chair of modern social and political thought at the department of sociology at Boğazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. He is the author and editor of a number of books and articles on Kurdish nationalism and identity and political history of Iran. You can find some of his writings on his page on academia at: boun.academia.edu/AbbasVali

In this episode, I talk to Prof. Joost Jongerden on the history of the Kurdistan Workers' Part, PKK. This episode is divided into two parts: in the first part, we talk about the early days of the formation of the PKK and its developments until the beginning of the 1990s. In the second part, we cover the more contemporary history of the PKK since early 1990s up until today.

Joost Jongerden is an associate professor in Rural Sociology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He is also a project professor at the Asian Platform for Global Sustainability & Transcultural Studies at Kyoto University in Japan. He is one of the founding members and editors of Kurdish Studies. A common denominator of his research has been the question of how people create and maintain a livable life under conditions of precarity. This research interest has expressed itself in two interrelated research tracks, one focusing on the ways in which people develop alternatives for market induced insecurities, the other how people develop alternatives for state induced insecurities. This he refers to as self-organized practices or ‘Do-It-Yourself-Development'. A list of his publications is available at joostjongerden.academia.edu/

In this episode, I talk to Prof. Joost Jongerden on the history of the Kurdistan Workers' Part, PKK. This episode is divided into two parts: in the first part, we talk about the early days of the formation of the PKK and its developments until the beginning of the 1990s. In the second part, we cover the more contemporary history of the PKK since early 1990s up until today.

Joost Jongerden is an associate professor in Rural Sociology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He is also a project professor at the Asian Platform for Global Sustainability & Transcultural Studies at Kyoto University in Japan. He is one of the founding members and editors of Kurdish Studies. A common denominator of his research has been the question of how people create and maintain a livable life under conditions of precarity. This research interest has expressed itself in two interrelated research tracks, one focusing on the ways in which people develop alternatives for market induced insecurities, the other how people develop alternatives for state induced insecurities. This he refers to as self-organized practices or ‘Do-It-Yourself-Development'. A list of his publications is available at https://joostjongerden.academia.edu/

This episode consists of two parts: in the first part, I provide some additional notes about the History of Kurdish radios, which I talked about in the first episode, and in the second part, I talk to Kamal Chomani about the current political situation and the state of critique in Iraq and Kurdistan.

Kamal Chomani is a Kurdish political analyst writing on the political affairs of Kurdistan and Iraq and a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for the Middle East Policy. He co-founded the Kurdish Policy Foundation (KPF) in 2015. Chomani studied MA in English Literature and Post-colonial Studies at Bangalore University in India. His writing has appeared on the Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Jadaliyyah, The Kurdistan Tribune, Weekly Awene, Daily Hawlati, Lvin and so on.

This is the first episode of the Kurdish Edition, produced and hosted by Sardar Saadi. It is about the history of Kurdish radios and radio in Kurdistan.