The locations of the largest stateless exiles of the world
Born in 1984 in Boukan, East Kurdistan, Hossein Aghapouri is a PhD student of political and international studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is conducting researching on digital diaspora, Kurdish nationalism online and the social media. In an interview with the Kurdish Globe he spoke about the nature of Kurdish diaspora and the role of the Internet and social media used by the Kurdish diaspora in representing the Kurdish national identity and nation building online.
What does the concept of diaspora mean?
There are different definitions for diaspora, but generally speaking, diaspora is called to groups of people who leave their homeland, cross the borders and settle in locations different from their origins. It was originally applied to the group of Jewish people who experienced a disturbing history of dispersion of homeland, alienation in host lands and a sense of longing to return. But today the concept has been much extended and applied to other ethnic or even religious groups in exile as well. Diaspora also implies multiple connections across space and flow of ideas and information beyond a singular nation. It also presents an exceptional case of intense mediation, as communication networks, and information exchange develop across various locations and follow different directions with consequences for identity and community.
By the above mentioned definition of diaspora, can the Kurds in exile be named as diaspora? If yes, when did the Kurdish diaspora emerge and what is its nature?
Actually, the Kurds are the largest stateless diaspora in the world. There had been many Kurds who lived in exile since the nineteenth century or before, but, it is the Kurdish mass emigration to the western countries in the last four decades that has shaped the fundaments of Kurdish diaspora. During this time, the Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan have, willingly or forcefully, left Kurdistan in order to find a better life in a better country. Since the major parts of Kurdish migration were forced separation due to oppression, trauma, genocide and deprivation of other basic human needs, the nature of Kurdish diaspora has become, as Dr. Khalid Khayati calls, essentialist and nationalist, it means that the Kurds in diaspora represent and reproduce the same nationalist interactions as they did and do in the homeland, Kurdistan. Sometimes, it is ironically said that they are much more nationalist and fanatic to the Kurdish faith than the Kurds in the homeland.
What are the mechanisms and ways which connect the Kurds in exile to their homeland?
There is a close relation between the Kurdish diaspora with the Kurds in the homeland, Kurdistan. Exile and separation from the homeland have become parts of the Kurdish collective and individual life. It is true that the Kurds have been voluntarily or forcefully displaced from their home throughout history, but, they have conserved a sense of Kurdishness [Kurdayati] in exile and organized themselves in various activities, organizations, networks, etc. Rather than family connections, this is the same sense of Kurdishness and national identity articulation which acts as a connector between the Kurds in diaspora and homeland.
How do the Kurds use the provided liberal space of the western countries for articulating their national identity and the homeland?
In some countries, such as Sweden, the Kurds have made the most of the free and liberal space for articulation of their own identity and dissemination of the pains and trauma that they have experienced. Although there are considerable deficiencies, at least, within the opportunities provided in exile, the Kurds have set up their networks through means of communication such as TV, radio, journals, films and recently internet and social media in diaspora which have made it possible for them to be connected to their fellows both in Kurdistan and in exile.
You mentioned Internet which the Kurds use. How can internet be influential in dissemination and articulation of national identity?
The internet is an exceptional product of the development of the electronic revolution, and restructures the meaning of time, space, and place, and the public sphere. The Internet as a sort of mass media is dialectically related to the public sphere ? a juxtaposition that has been deconstructed by Habermas. Since emergence as a communication medium or information technology, the Internet, has served as a tool with the capability of influencing almost all aspects of human life. The Internet has fundamentally expanded local, national, and global communication capabilities; it has also changed the media environment for the creation and maintenance of national identity. Media in general and internet in particular are capable of reinforcing transnational loyalties among national and ethnic identities and fills the gaps that separated people of the same kind from their symbolic brothers and sisters. Electronic media, as Anthony Smith mentions, help to activate and strengthen national/ethnic identities among the ethnic groups and encourage them to recreate and redefine new ones. Internet, because of its global structure, anonymity, and functionality, allows for the manifold digital replication of all pre-existing media platforms such as texts, newspapers, motion pictures, radio, and television. This is a best free public space for dispersed nations such as the Kurds to use the media to fill the problem of distance and politics that have prevented them from communicating across state borders.
Internet reshapes a virtual ethnic community in the world in which the virtual ethnic groups are globalized groups who have their own local origins and characteristics; they do, express and promulgate their specific national aspirations in the context of a global medium, easily and freely. In this meaning, we are facing the dual face of postmodernism, globally scattered but surrounded by locality, the phenomenon that Ronald Robertson calls it glocality.
Coming to the Kurdish question and internet, how do you consider the role of internet in reproduction of Kurdish national identity?
The Kurds have been experiencing, more or less, modern communication technologies in different forms. Print technology helped the Kurdish diaspora to issue the first Kurdish newspaper, Kurdistan, in April 22, 1898 in Cairo. Since then, they have been endeavoring to disseminate the Kurdish culture, politics and nationalism through any other available communicative tools such as magazines, radios, photos, videos, graffiti, etc.
The emergence and development of advanced travel technologies and digital communications have also made it possible for Kurdish diaspora to grow faster; this has resulted in reproduction of the concepts such as Kurdish nation, homeland, Kurdish online community, and independent Kurdistan, etc. The Internet has also provided the Kurds the possibility of telling their own story and affecting the political conditions. Today, the Kurdish past history and the present issues are easily broadcasted through internet, especially through social media and social networks. As easy accessible tools, the Social Media, specifically facebook, have efficiently paved the paths for representation and reproduction of Kurdish symbols, myths and cultural traits as well as Kurdish political and social activities.
How do you see the prospects of Kurdish online activities?
Although there is no country of Kurdistan in real geopolitics of international relations, but, the Social Media, and the Internet in general, have watered down or wholly wiped out the value of unwilling borders among the Kurds; The Kurds in diaspora are easily connected to their Kurdish fellows both in exile and the homeland. The members simply become both sender and recipient of messages, and discussions. By practicing his/her own Kurdish identity; a Kurdish individual is capable of generating and accordingly influencing other members of online and social media communities without restrictions of the offline communications. By considering the Kurdish practices of national identity on the Social Media, it seems credible to claim that the glocal practice of Kurdish national identity and an imagined Kurdistan have been realized on internet and virtual territories for the Kurds both in diaspora and the homeland through the global communication which is facilitated by the Social Media. So, the Kurds should know that how these new media are influential in shaping the minds.
© The Kurdish Globe 2012
