Syria's Kurds

Jordi Tejel is a Ph.D. in History (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) and Sociology (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales-EHESS, Paris). He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the EHESS, Paris. His research interests focus on nationalism in the Middle East, with a particular interest in Kurdish mobilizations in the interwar period. He is the author of several books and articles, including Le mouvement kurde de Turquie en exil. Continuités et discontinuitées du nationalisme kurde sous le mandat français en Syrie et au Liban (1925-1946).

• Introduction 1. The Kurds During the French Mandate 1.1 Kurdish Populations under the French Mandate 1.2 The Mandate System and the Birth of the Syrian State 1.3 The Mandate and the "Colonial Expertise" 1.4 The Kurdish Cultural Movement in Syria and Lebanon 1.5 Fragmentation of the Kurdish Community: Politics in Jazira 2. Syria in Transition, 1946–63 2.1 Searching for New Political Horizons 2.2 The Triumph of Arab Nationalism and the United Arab Republic 3. The Ba‘athist System and the Kurds 3.1 Ba‘athism: An Exception in Arab Nationalism? 3.2 The Years of Ideological Purity (1963–70) 3.3 The Years of Exploitation (1970–2000) 4. The Kurdish Issue and Its Transnational Dimension 4.1 The Emergence of Hafiz al-As‘ad’s Game 149 4.2 The Fall of Saddam Husayn and the Collapse of Syrian Strategy 5. The Kurdish Response and its Margins: "Dissimulation" of a Hidden Conflict 5.1 The Kurdish Parties at the Margins of the Legal System 5.2 Kurdish Identity at the Margins of Official Islam 5.3 The Defense of Kurdish Culture 6. The Qamishli Revolt, 2004: The Marker of a New Era for the Kurds in Syria 6.1 The Activities Preceding the Kurdish Upheaval 6.2 The Qamishli Revolt 6.3 Toward a Radicalization of Ethnic Divisions? Conclusion

"Readers curious about more recent developments in Syria, including the 2004 serhildan and subsequent tensions, should see Tejel's book... I, for one, learned a great deal from this book." - David Romano, Department of Political Sciences, Missouri State University; Int. J. Middle East Studies 43 (2011)