Critique and Dissent as a Transnational Obligation: Diasporic Appraisals of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

This chapter examines how the members of Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and the UK conceive the political value and the symbolic importance of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in the context of Kurdish statelessness and political subjugation in the Middle East. By analyzing their narratives, we can gain an understanding of diverse, dominating and oppositional political voices that exist within the Kurdish diaspora. Many postcolonial states have used the discourse of national security/cohesion/unity to quell dissent and this issue becomes more urgent in the cases of ethnic groups who are operating in a vulnerable geopolitical context surrounded by nation-states that are unforgivingly inimical to Kurdish self-determination. Therefore, it is important to investigate how members of Kurdish diasporas juxtapose the urgent issue of democracy in their imagined homeland with maintaining stability and unity notwithstanding external threat by the neighboring countries and dominant ethno-national constituencies. Furthermore, the chapter problematizes the notion of political freedom and sovereignty when the ‘homeland’ is monopolized by those political leaders and parties that promised justice and Kurdish freedom from ‘foreign invaders’. Finally, I conclude with a reflection about the role of critique in diaspora and obstruction of authoritarianism that often makes societal institutions weak through consolidating personal or family hold on power.