Stephen Kinzer, who lives in Turkey and is the author of Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds (revised and expanded edition), one of the texts for the Fall, 2010 Islamic Middle East course, has an article on Turkey’s Kurds in the June 2010 issue of Smithsonian.
Excerpt:
“Still, everyone I met- even the most outspoken Kurdish nationalists- told me they wanted their homeland to remain part of Turkey Traveling across the country it’s easy to understand why Turkey is by most standards the most democratic Muslim country- a powerful, modern society with a vibrant economy and extensive ties to the international community. If the mainly Kurdish provinces of the southeast were to become independent, their state would be landlocked and weak in a highly volatile region- a tempting target for powers such as Iran, Iraq or Syria. ‘We don’t want an independence that would change borders,’ says Gulcihan Simsek, mayor of a sprawling, impoverished borough of Van called Bostanici. ‘Absolute independence is not a requirement today We want true regional autonomy to make our own decisions and use our own natural resources, but always within the Turkish nation and under the Turkish flag.’”
Go to article via ProQuest and the NMH Virtual Desktop
Study guide for Kinzer text (from the 2008 IME course syllabus)
