Rudy joins two guests to trace the multi-faceted history of the Kurdish movement across the Middle East. We discuss the origin of the Kurdish people, their situation during the collapse of the Ottoman and Qajar empires, and how this fractured Kurdish lands across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, sparking over a century of varied liberation struggles. From the short-lived 1946 Republic of Mahabad and the rise of competing feudal, leftist, and tribal politics to the legal parliamentary movement in Turkey and the contrasting modern governance models of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Rojava, we unpack the deep class, regional, and ideological currents shaping the ongoing fight for Kurdish self-determination.
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