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Introduction xiv for po­liti­cal and cultural rights for the Kurds. The end of the First Gulf War brought the formation of the first autonomous zone for the Kurds in Iraq in 1992. For some this was a milestone, whereas ­ others only regarded this as a stepping-­stone ­ towards further achievements. The Kurdish identity has been suppressed in all four states in varying degrees that ranged from straightforward denial of Kurdish existence in Turkey with the subsequent prohibition of expressing anything related to the Kurds to the denigra- tion as secondary citizens in the Syrian Arab Republic, where speaking Kurdish and engaging in po­liti­cal activities could easily land a person in jail. In Iran, life for the Kurds is described as “living in a ­ giant prison,” and Kurdish militias challenged the Ira­nian army with ­ little success. The most brutal attacks against the Kurds ­ were recorded in Iraq ­ under the regime of Saddam Hussein, who stripped them of their ethnicity and citizenship, evicted them from their homes, destroyed their villages and fields, arbitrarily arrested and subsequently killed entire tribes, gassed cities, and massacred hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds. However, Saddam’s regime is gone, and the Kurds in Iraq ­ were among the strongest and most capable supporters of the U.S.-­led invasion in 2003. And it is ­here in Kurdistan-­Iraq where they reached their greatest po­liti­cal success in the Kurdish Autonomy Zone. As stated earlier, ­ little is known in the West about the Kurds in general, and even less about their particulars in the four main countries and the diaspora. How- ever, knowing their pres­ent facets and ­future prospects ­will allow us to better understand our own Western position on the rapids developments in the region. Who would have thought that the Arab Spring would give rise to Islamic extremism and that the key to defeat the militants is in the hand of long underappreciated group like the Kurds? However, as so often in the past, the key is not ready to use. It requires foreign approval, and concessions and compromises must be reached. Amer­ i ­ ca, Rus­sia, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq (and yes, to a lesser extend the Syrian gov- ernment) all try to build competing alliances and often successfully co-­opted the Kurds into their camp and into supporting their agenda. And as long as the inner-­ Kurdish rivalries are bigger than the desire for a unified, safe, and prosperous country, the idea of Kurdistan remains an idea. A ­century of physical and cultural separation, as well as military strug­gle and discrimination, hardened the differ- ences between the vari­ous groups rather than merging them into one big national movement. Although the revolutionary climate in the region ­favors the emergence of new forms of Kurdish nationalism, like the demo­cratic confederalism in Syria, the four regions of Kurdistan—­Bakur, Rojava, Bashur, and Rojhilat—­seem more distant from each other than before. However, at the same time they are so much closer to us in the West. And with the spread and advance of technology the events in Kurdistan no longer remain unnoticed. We can see live videos from Mount Sinjar where Yezidi Kurds die of hunger and thirst fleeing the Islamic state. We hear about anticorruption rallies in Arbil. Images of Kurdish activists executed in Iran are spread, and we ­ were ­there with the young Kurdish ­ women defending the city of Kobane. We cannot close our eyes before the images of Kurdish ­children drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. It is thus the ­ humble goal of this book to provide a roadmap of understanding ­ those images and put them in their geographic, historic, and po­liti­cal context.