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Language Policy
ISSN 1568-4555
Volume 9
Number 4
Lang Policy (2010) 9:289-312
DOI 10.1007/s10993-010-9179-
y
Identity, language, and new media: the
Kurdish case
ORIGINAL PAPER
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case
Jaffer Sheyholislami
Received: 17 February 2010 / Accepted: 7 October 2010 / Published online: 4 November 2010
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract This paper draws on theories that describe interrelationships between
identity, language and the media to investigate how the Kurds utilise two forms of
electronic media—satellite television and the Internet—to construct their identities.
The data for this study is generated from four sources: a Kurdish satellite television
channel (Kurdistan TV), a variety of Kurdish Internet sites, literature reflecting on
the place of the new media among the Kurds, and informal interviews and personal
communications with Kurdish media producers and audiences. Strategies including
participant observation and online ethnography have been used to select data. Data
analysis is informed by a critical discourse analytic approach that calls for exami-
nation of data at three levels: discourse practices, text, and socio-cultural contexts
(Fairclough in Media discourse. Arnold, London, 1995). Findings suggest that the
Kurdish language is held as one of the most important and salient manifestations of
Kurdish identity. Satellite television and the Internet have magnified the symbolic
role of the Kurdish language in defining Kurdishness. In addition, these new media
have enabled Kurds from different regions and all walks of life to share and discuss
cultural, social and political ideas and issues publicly and dialogically, and to
construct and reconstruct their identities discursively with relative freedom and
ease. The study also underlines significant differences between these two forms of
new media in relation to identity construction and language use. Whereas satellite
television seems to foster mutual intelligibility among the speakers of different
Kurdish varieties the Internet tends to further diversify the language across alphabet
and regional lines.
Keywords Minority language media Kurdish Language policy Critical
discourse analysis Language and identity Sociology of language
J. Sheyholislami (&)
School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University, 215 PA—1125 Colonel By Drive,
Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
e-mail: jaffer_sheyholislami@carleton.ca
123
Lang Policy (2010) 9:289–312
DOI 10.1007/s10993-010-9179-y
Author's personal copy
It is widely accepted that language occupies a prominent place in discussions of
national identity (Edwards 2009; Fishman 1989; Joseph 2004). Language is not only
one of the most significant indexes of collective identity but also one of the prime
means of constructing and reproducing that identity. This power of language is
magnified by media such as television and the Internet (Fisk and Hartley 2003).
Thus, in the age of technological revolution, it is nearly impossible to understand
national identities adequately without investigating how communication technol-
ogies serve as catalysts for their (re)construction (Morley 1992). Informed by
theories of language and identity (Edwards 2009; Joseph 2004), media studies
(Madianou 2005; McLuhan 1962; Morley 1992) and the interdisciplinary research
approach of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995; Wodak et al. 2009), this
paper investigates the ways Kurds use a satellite television channel, Kurdistan TV
(KTV), and the Internet to construct and reproduce their identities.
The Kurds are one case of a minority group whose language has been fractured
into different dialects, alphabets, and statuses across four separate countries. While
the Kurdish language gained official status in Iraq in 2003, it was completely
banned in Turkey until 1992 and has only recently become somewhat tolerated
(Olson 2009; Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes 2008). Kurdish has been tolerated in
Iran since the 1979 revolution and it has been subjected to ‘linguicide’
1
in Syria,
especially since 1955 (Hassanpour et al. 1996). Nevertheless, today Kurdish is the
main language of a dozen satellite television channels, thousands of websites, chat
rooms, weblogs and social networking sites. However, besides Hassanpour’s studies
of MED-TV (1998,2003a), there has been no in-depth investigation into the ways in
which the Internet and satellite television are used by the Kurds and what
implications these uses might have for the identities and languages of Kurdish
people and Kurdistanis.
2
As will be demonstrated in this paper, the findings of this
study suggest that the Kurdish language is held as one of the most important and
salient manifestations of Kurdish identity. Satellite television and the Internet have
magnified the symbolic, instrumental and constructivist roles of the Kurdish
language in defining Kurdish identities. In addition, these new media have enabled
Kurds from different regions and walks of life to share and discuss cultural, social
and political ideas and issues publicly, and to construct and reconstruct their
identities discursively with relative freedom and ease. The study also underlines
significant differences between these two forms of new media in relation to identity
construction and language use. Whereas satellite television seems to foster mutual
intelligibility among the speakers of different Kurdish varieties, the Internet tends to
further diversify the language across alphabet and regional lines.
1
Linguicide is defined as the eradication of languages. Linguicide is different from language death, the
disappearance of languages, in that whereas the former is ‘‘an analogous concept to (physical) genocide’’ ,
the latter is ‘‘an analogous concept to natural death’’ (Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1996: 667;
emphasis in original).
2
The term Kurdistanis here refers to all who live in, are from, or share a sense of collective or/and
national belonging to Kurdistan (‘‘the land of the Kurds’’) regardless of their ethnicity or citizenship
(i.e. Kurdistanis do not have to be ethnic Kurds). Kurdistanis could also come from diasporas.
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Identity, language, and media
National identity denotes shared feelings of belonging to a cultural or national group
as well as a shared awareness of differences from other groups and nationalities
(Brubaker 2004; Billig 1995; Wodak et al. 2009). National identity is a social
construct, but it has historical and ethnic roots (Smith 1998), even if such roots often
are invented (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1988). Put differently, those involved in
national identity construction use history, territory and landscapes, language and a
great number of cultural and political symbols and myths as ways of strengthening
national ties (Castells 2004; Wodak et al. 2009).
Among the components of national identity, language is of prime importance
(Edwards 2009; Fishman 1989; Joseph 2004) even though an essentialist view of the
link between language and national identity may at times not be desirable (May
2008). There are at least three reasons to underscore the significance of language in
defining and constructing national identity. First, for the majority of people,
especially minorities, language is one of the most salient markers of group identity
(Kymlicka and Patten 2003; Phillipson et al. 1995). This is regarded as particularly
true in the case of the Kurdish language (Kreyenbroek and Allison 1996; McDowall
2004; Vali 2003). A second reason is connected to the instrumentality of language.
Kymlicka and Straehle (1999) suggest that ‘‘…democratic politics is politics in the
vernacular. The average citizen only feels comfortable debating political issues in
their own language’’ (p. 70). In other words, participation in the cultural, social and
political life of a community depends on the degree of access average citizens have
to their own language. Finally, it is primarily through language that other
components of national identity are constructed (Bishop and Jaworski 2003; Wodak
2006). Billig (1995) has suggested that ‘‘[t]o have a national identity is to possess
ways of talking about nationhood’’ (p. 8).
The power of language and discourse in identity construction is magnified by
communication technologies that enable social actors to share and negotiate
meanings, signs and discursive constructions of collective identities (Chouliaraki
1999; Madianou 2005). Morley (1992) has suggested that ‘‘the construction and
emergence of national identities cannot properly be understood without reference to
the role of communications technology’’ (p. 267). Communication technologies are
central for the construction and dissemination of national identities especially in
nations that lack states, that do not have their own public schools, ministries of
culture, a military, or other national, state-sponsored and other identity-making
institutions. McLuhan (1962) believed that print was the architect of nationalism,
and Anderson (1991) illustrated that the first nation-states were imagined in print
languages. More recently, research has shown that satellite television has been
employed for the reconstruction of collective and national identities among peoples
without a state of their own such as the Aboriginals in Canada (Hartley 2004), the
Welsh in the UK (Jones 2007), and the Ma¯ori in New Zealand (Lysaght 2009).
Similar to satellite television, the Internet also possesses a paradoxical quality
that is both globalizing and localizing at the same time (Straubhaar 2002). While the
Internet is seen as an agent of cultural globalization (Appadurai 1996), it is also
viewed as the most accessible, inexpensive, interactive, individual-empowering
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case 291
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medium that is very suitable for minorities and diasporic groups (see Karim 2003).
Sociolinguists such as Fishman (2001) have been sceptical about the overall positive
role of the media in maintaining and developing minority languages and identities,
whereas others like Crystal (2006) have seen the Internet as cultivating them.
Examples of identity construction through Internet can be found with the Imazighen
people from North Africa (Almasude 1999), Eritreans (Bernal 2006), the Ma¯ori
from New Zealand (Muhamad-Brandner 2009), and the Welsh (Honeycutt and
Cunliffe 2010). The Internet also seems to be suitable for engendering language
diversity and fostering lesser-used and smaller language communities (Danet and
Herring 2007) because, more than print, radio and television, the Internet can bypass
state and/or market regulations and constraints (Poster 1999). The case of
representations by linguistic minorities in the new media can be further exemplified
in the context of the Kurds and Kurdistan.
Kurdish identity, language, and media
Kurdish national identity emerged at the turn of the twentieth century when it
became evident that Kurdish ethnicity, culture, political aspirations, and languages
had been denied or suppressed, first by the dominant Turkish, Arab (i.e. Iraqi and
Syrian) and Persian nationalist ideologies, and then by their respective states,
established in the aftermath of World War I (Vali 1998,2003). Each state started to
rule over a part of Kurdistan. Already divided across geographical, political and
linguistic lines, Kurdish identity became increasingly fragmented after the final
division of Kurdistan. The dynamics and patterns of Kurdish identity formation
began to be determined, not only by internal factors, but also by different nation-
building policies and practices of the states straddling Kurdistan (Vali 1998). With
respect to language, for example, under the influence of modern Turkish, northern
Kurds started to write Kurdish in the Latin-based alphabet whereas southern and
eastern Kurds (from Iran and Iraq) continued to use an Arabic-based alphabet. Iraqi
Kurds, following Arabic, started to call Austria Nemsa, but Kurds from Iran,
following Persian, called the same county Utrı
ˆ
sh. Whereas the former called a car
seyare, the latter called it mashe
ˆn, and those from Turkey called it Araba.In
addition to vocabulary, the grammar and even writing style of Kurdish started to be
influenced by the dominant official state languages in the region. Because the Kurds,
especially Kurds who were being ruled by different states, could not communicate
with one another easily for almost a century, they had no effective means of
articulating and sharing discursive identity constructs.
Although the press served as a catalyst in engendering the first modern nation-
states in Europe and America (Anderson 1991; McLuhan 1962), the many obstacles
facing the Kurdish press have prevented it from being the mass medium capable of
fostering a Kurdish imagined community.
3
Thus, printing in Kurdish has historically
3
Hassanpour (1992) contends that, from the beginning, the Kurdish press was ‘‘the organ of Kurdish
nationalism’’ (p. 221). However, at least until the end of the 1980s, the Kurdish press was facing major
challenges—it has been characterized as ‘‘the absence of enduring dailies, low circulation, poor
distribution facilities…poor printing facilities, shortage of newsprint’’ (Hassanpour 1992, p. 276; see also
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been performed by and for small groups of the intelligentsia rather than for the
Kurdish public at large. Radio and cable television broadcasting, too, have been
influential in shaping and promoting national identities in places like Europe and
North America (Morley 1992; Price 1995). In Kurdistan, however, with the
exception of Kurdistan-Iraq since 1991, the states of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria
have nearly always held a monopoly on broadcasting to serve and promote their
own dominant and official culture, language and political agenda, and to work
towards assimilating the Kurds and other minorities.
The hegemonic state-controlled broadcasting throughout Kurdistan and among
Kurdish diasporic communities, however, was not seriously challenged until the
launch of the first Kurdish satellite television channel, MED-TV, in Western Europe
in 1995. MED-TV reached Kurds living all around the world and was designed to
develop Kurdish culture and language, sustain Kurdish identity, and resist
suppression (Karim 1998; Hassanpour 1998). According to several studies, the
state of Turkey exhausted every possible avenue in an attempt to silence the station
(Hassanpour 2003a; Wahlbeck 2002; White 2000). MED-TV’s license, initially
issued in Britain, was revoked in April 1999. However, on July 31 1999, Medya TV
began broadcasting, and around the same time, two additional 24-h Kurdish satellite
television channels, Kurdistan TV and Kurd Sat started airing their programs.
Currently, there are about a dozen Kurdish satellite television stations.
Another major challenge to the state-controlled broadcasting in Kurdish has been
the proliferation of the Internet among the Kurds.
4
Romano (2002) focuses on the
ways in which the Internet enabled Kurds living in diaspora to organize
demonstrations, to discuss ‘‘forbidden’’ topics related to Kurdistan and its politics,
and to distribute banned publications within Turkey. Mills (2002) observes that
similar to Tibetans and the Zapatistas the Kurds use the Internet to maintain their
‘‘‘logical state’ or ‘cyber-nation’ known as Kurdistan …providing common points
of contact and sources of instantaneous cultural and political information to its
members around the world’’ (p. 82). Van den Bos and Nell (2006) observe that
‘‘Turkish-Kurdish’’ websites link these Kurds to other Kurds living in diasporic
communities or in Turkey. They conclude that ‘‘transnational networks and new
media need not broaden or dissolve territoriality, but may reinforce it’’ (p. 202).
Similarly Candan and Hunger (2008) suggest that Kurdish immigrants from
Germany use the Internet to create a ‘‘cyber-nation.’’ These studies are important in
that they reinforce previous research on the crucial role of communication
technologies in creating ‘‘imagined communities’’ (Anderson 1991). However, one
Footnote 3 continued
Ahmadzadeh 2003). The status of the press has remained largely unchanged for most parts of Kurdistan
(Kutschera 2005; Malmisanij 2006a,b; Murad 2005), and the problem is aggravated by the fact that the
majority of Kurds are illiterate, especially in their mother tongue, with the exception of small groups of
the intelligentsia (Koohi-Kamali 2004; UNESCO 2010).
4
Two major changes in the early 2000s contributed to an exponential growth in Kurdish Internet. First,
Kurdistan started to be served by relatively sufficient ISP services. Second, Kurd IT Group
(www.kurditgroup.org), a technical group of Kurdish volunteers, developed the first Unicode-based
Kurdish fonts and the Windows Kurdish Support program which made Kurdish writing with computers
and publishing on the Internet (in both Arabic and Latin-based alphabets) a great deal easier.
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case 293
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should take most of their findings cautiously since none of these studies conducted
textual analyses of the actual content of the communication that is claimed to have
taken place, nor has there been paid close attention to the different languages or
Kurdish language varieties used in the online activities of the Kurds. Erikson (2007)
seems to be the only study that underlines the heterogeneity of the discourse
practices on the Internet and concludes that the ‘‘diaspora or virtual nationalism’’ is
unlike the nation-state model of nationalism. He suggests that in order to understand
a nation without a state, such as that of the Kurds, we need to abandon the classic
notion of the nation as a homogenous entity and instead consider pluralism as a part
of the equation. However, Erikson’s observations, similar to others discussed here,
are based on Kurdish Internet sources presented in English and other languages than
Kurdish. It is doubtful that the prime objective of non-Kurdish language web sites is
to invoke Kurdishness in audiences that may not be Kurdish in the first place.
5
In the
project of identity formation among a people which considers its language as one of
the most important indicators of group identity, media content presented in the
native language matters a great deal. Thus, this very study focuses on media sources
presented in the Kurdish language varieties.
Methodology
Critical discourse analysis
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) has proven to be an effective approach for
studying media discourse (Fairclough 1995).
6
It is an interdisciplinary approach in
the sense that it blends social theories, such as theories of national identity, with
theories of language and discourse such as Systemic Functional Linguistics or text
linguistics. CDA facilitates a dialogue between various social and linguistic theories
(Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999) in order to enable us to gain a better
understanding of the ways in which language use not only reflects socio-cultural
practices but also contributes to their production and reconstruction. Discourse is a
social practice; it is simultaneously constitutive of and constituted by social
structures, relations and identities. For example, national identities are reflected and
articulated in the use of language and discourse and at the same time, they are
constructed, reproduced and sustained through discursive practices carried out by
people with certain ideologies and worldviews (Weiss and Wodak 2003). It is
important to note that social realities such as national identities do exist outside
discourse. However, to paraphrase Hall (1980), identities are constantly mediated by
and through discourse.
5
As hoped by the owner of www.kurdmedia.com, websites about minorities presented in languages other
than their own draw the attention of other communities and individuals to the plight and concerns of a
particular minority (R. F., personal communication, February 5, 2010; see also UNESCO 2005).
6
Media discourse ‘‘is a recontextualizing principle for appropriating other discourses and bringing them
into a special relation with each other for the purposes of their dissemination and mass consumption’’
(Chouliaraki 1999, p. 39).
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The CDA framework that was used here for studying media discourse is
multivariate since it consists of three interrelated dimensions: discourse practices,
text, and socio-cultural practices (Fairclough 1995). At the discourse practice level,
issues of text production and consumption are addressed. For example, one should
ask questions about the mode of communication used (e.g. print vs. audiovisual), the
speed of the medium in disseminating content, and the accessibility of the medium.
Questions about the producers and presenters of media products and texts are also
important. Finally, there is a need to ask questions about the size of the audience
that the medium can capture. Arriving at some answers to these questions should
enable us to answer the question of—how are national identities constructed? At the
text level, CDA involves a detailed analysis of text properties such as linguistic
elements and audiovisual signs. The aim of analysis at this level is to describe the
text, seeking answers to the question: out of what symbols, images and discursive
means are national identities constructed? Given the scope of this paper, I have
limited my analysis of the text to an examination of naming, pronouns, and tense.
Analysis at the sociocultural level attempts to explain how social, cultural and
political contexts influence the ways texts are produced, distributed and consumed.
At this level, questions should be asked about the ownership of the media, their
economic base, and political affiliations and motives, to search for answers to the
following question: who constructs national identities and why? According to
Fairclough (1995), an analyst may not focus equally on all levels of analysis.
Despite granting this flexibility with the framework, Fairclough asserts: ‘‘it is,
I believe, important to maintain the comprehensive orientation to communicative
events which is built into the framework, even if one is concentrating upon only
certain aspects of them in analysis’’ (p. 62).
Data: television
Television data analysed in this paper is from one of the most important Kurdish
satellite television stations, Kurdistan TV (KTV). KTV started broadcasting in 1999
from Iraqi Kurdistan, with broadcasting bureaus in diasporic Kurdish communities.
KTV is received worldwide via satellite dish and Internet live streaming, 24-h a day,
7 days a week. The station is important at a socio-political level because it belongs
to arguably the most powerful Kurdish political organization, Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), whose leader Masoud Barzani is the President of the Kurdistan
Regional Government (in Iraq). KDP enjoys considerable influence over the Kurds
not only in Iraq, but also in Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Thus, KTV plays a significant
role in producing and disseminating discursive constructs of Kurdish ethnic and/or
national identities.
The data obtained from KTV consisted of 1 week of videotaped broadcasting. It
was important to choose an ordinary week for data collection so that data
represented KTV’s regular programming as opposed to programming during
national holidays or special occasions, where symbols and rhetoric of nationalism
are overtly and abundantly on display. This decision for selecting the data was made
after close observations of the station for about two years, during which notes were
taken and random programs were videotaped to gain some preliminary knowledge
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case 295
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about the station’s programming, language use, and discursive constructs. Random
recordings were also important for comparison of certain programs with actual data.
With the same objective in mind, observations of KTV broadcasting, note-taking,
and random videotaping were continued for another two years after the data was
collected. Of the 168 h of broadcasting videotaped, about 56 h was comprised of
repeat programs. The rest of the programs (approximately 112 h) were analysed
with two objectives in mind. First, programs were categorised based on their genres
and themes (see below), and their languages or language varieties were identified
along with their producers, directors, hosts and guests. Second, for the purposes of
closer textual analysis, selected texts were marked and classified.
Data: Internet
Internet data collection was informed by online ethnography (Androutsopoulos
2006). I carried out a systematic selection of online sources, made systematic
observations of online activities and discourse practices, and communicated with
group members, online or offline, to elicit further information. I also employed
‘‘guerrilla ethnography’’ (Yang 2003)
7
which is less systematic but more flexible
and thus more appropriate and productive for collecting online data. In this study, as
a ‘‘guerrilla ethnographer,’’ I entered selected sites with an open mind, browsed
pages, explored links and other components of sites, took notes, downloaded files,
and became involved whenever possible (e.g. left comments on blogs, posted
messages on discussion boards, participated in chat rooms, and asked questions).
Selected sites were revisited for deeper exploration and more substantial informa-
tion gathering and exchange.
In order to map Kurdish online environments and activities, I applied several
criteria to selected sites. First, following Erikson (2007) I ensured that the data is
representative of various constituents of the Internet including web directories,
websites, chat rooms, weblogs, and social networking interfaces such as YouTube
and Facebook. Second, I selected online sources that reflected Kurdistan’s regional
and linguistic diversities. For example, Kurds from Syria speak the same Kurdish
variety (i.e. Kurmanji) as the vast majority of Kurds from Turkey. However,
websites representing both regions were selected. The data also included online
sources with content in the main Kurdish language varieties (i.e. Kurmanji, Sorani,
Hawrami, and Zazaki). In addition to these criteria, I selected sites that maintained
an ongoing online presence and were regularly updated. For example, I chose two
weblogs that have been active since 2002.
In order to find sites that met the above criteria I used several strategies. First,
I consulted two of the top Kurdish web directories according to Google (www.
koord.com, and www.kurdland.com). Next, I made use of Alexa Internet, Inc.
(www.alexa.com), a resource which provides information about Internet site starting
dates, traffic, and audience distribution. Finally, I conducted telephone or email
7
The term ‘‘guerrilla ethnography’’ is borrowed from guerrilla warfare in which armed individuals or
small groups take the enemy lines by surprise, penetrate their defence lines, hit them and withdraw as
quickly as possible. The method has been used effectively in literary studies, business and computer
mediated communications.
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interviews with the webmaster of two Kurdish web directories, moderators of the
two most popular chat rooms on Paltalk.com, two bloggers, and the webmasters or
owners of ten websites.
Findings and analysis
Discourse practices of KTV
KTV programs can be classified into the following content categories: arts and
entertainment, news, children’s programming, current affairs, socio-cultural
programs, history and demography, shows in non-Kurdish languages, and other
programs. Table 1shows the distribution of KTV programs over these categories
during the week of analysis.
KTV offers programs with themes and content concerning the history, culture,
literature, demography, geography and current affairs of both south Kurdistan and
other parts of Kurdistan (in Turkey, Iran, and Syria). For example, close to 50% of
the shows that are devoted to the history and demography of Kurdistan are about
either all of Kurdistan or parts other than Kurdistan-Iraq. Also, people from all parts
of Kurdistan and diasporic communities participate in programs as hosts, guests,
interviewees and call-ins. One could suggest that the content of the programs and
the manner in which they are presented have the potential to contribute to the
construction of both a regional (southern Kurdistani) and cross-border Kurdish
identity. To illustrate this I will focus now on which language varieties of Kurdistan
are used and how their usages facilitate the construction and reproduction of other
components of national identity such as territory.
Table 1 Distribution of KTV programs during the week of August 06–12, 2005
Categories Description of categories Percentage
Arts and entertainment Video clips, concerts, and entertaining shows 36
News Including weather, sports, and business news 15.2
Children’s Dubbed cartoons, local production, Kurdish lessons 9.4
Current affairs Current political issues 9.2
Socio-cultural Cultural activities, youth and women issues,
education
4.5
History and demography Documentaries on past history of Kurdistan or
current demographic descriptions of Kurdistan
2.7
Languages other than Kurdish Arabic, Turcoman, Assyrian, Hawrami (a distinct
variety of Kurdish)
8.5
Other Commercials and announcements, promotion of
KTV programs, news in picture, special reports,
occasional airing of drama, films and plays
14.5
Total 100
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Language use on KTV as identity manifestation
KTV legitimates the Kurdish language by using it as its main language of
broadcasting. Guyot (2007) observes that ‘‘television tends to confer legitimacy on
any linguistic cause’’ (p. 39), and ‘‘television can revitalize the cultures and
languages of minorities’’ (ibid.). Television may not be capable of revitalising
cultures or languages on its own, but it does ‘‘confer credibility and legitimacy on
language’’ (Hassanpour 1997, p. 924), especially if the language is threatened. The
fact that Kurdish is the prime language of a television station broadcasting 24-h a
day, 7 days a week, legitimizes the status of Kurdish and perhaps assists the
language in sustaining its vitality.
Hassanpour (1998) has referred to MED-TV as a language academy. The same
might be said about KTV, which provides Kurdish language-learning programming.
Given that these lessons are in the Kurmanji dialect and also in the Latin-based
alphabet, it is safe to suggest that these lessons are directed at Kurdish audiences in
Turkey who mostly speak the Kurmanji variety written in Latin-based alphabet and
who do not have access to mother-tongue education. KTV seems to aim for the
construction of a cross-border Kurdish identity. Furthermore, KTV airs Japanese,
Russian, and Disney cartoons dubbed into Kurdish. It is important to note that the
station occasionally airs non-dubbed English cartoons, but never cartoons in the
dominant languages of the states where Kurds live, such as Persian, Turkish and
Arabic. This can be seen as a strategy of constructing out-groups.
KTV employs unique programming techniques that expose audiences to more
than one Kurdish variety in the same show or program. These techniques may foster
mutual intelligibility among Kurdish speech varieties. For example, the main
newscast is presented by two people, each speaking one of the two major varieties
of Kurdish, Kurmanji and Sorani. As a common practice, when the news item is
presented by the Sorani speaker, the accompanying report is usually given by a
Kurmanji speaker. In addition, there are numerous talk shows with guests who
speak a Kurdish variety different from that of the host.
8
Kurds from various speech
communities participate in KTV shows, either by calling in or by being a part of the
production or presentation teams. Finally, music clips by artists from all regions of
Kurdistan and diasporas are aired on KTV daily. One could suggest that continuous
exposure to different Kurdish varieties on KTV and other satellite television stations
might make Kurdish varieties increasingly mutually intelligible.
9
Although the vast majority of modern nation-building projects have been marked
by the nation-state ideology, or ‘‘nationalist ideology’’ (Shohamy 2006, p. 23),
wherein ideal nations have only one official and promoted language (e.g. eighteenth
century France, twentieth century Turkish republic), KTV as an agent of Kurdish
nation-building, promotes language diversity in Kurdistan. This is in line with the
Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG’s) public education system which
8
My own observation of these Kurdish TV programs indicate that when communicating in different
varieties, speakers occasionally run into difficulty understanding each other.
9
Some members of Kurdish communities from Kurdistan and diasporas have reported that after several
months of viewing KTV and other television stations with similar programming techniques they have
started to understand speech varieties other than their own better.
298 J. Sheyholislami
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promotes schooling in the mother tongue for at least two Kurdish varieties
(i.e. Sorani and Kurmanji) and non-Kurdish and minority languages in the region
(Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes 2008). KTV produces and airs a 1-h weekly show
in the Kurdish variety of Hawrami and, in addition to daily Arabic shows and news
KTV also airs weekly programs in Turkomani and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic—the
languages of non-Kurdish minorities living in Kurdistan. Interestingly enough,
while KTV fosters language diversity, it also cultivates discursive constructions of a
Greater Kurdistan that seem to assist Kurdish audiences across the borders of
several nation-states to imagine a common territory, a common homeland. A brief
textual analysis of such discursive constructs follows.
Textual analysis of KTV discourse
Billig (1995) has demonstrated that in studying discourses of national identity in the
media attention should be paid to the weather forecast because it has become one of
the indispensable parts of the news on which people often rely in their daily lives. In
small but significant ways the weather forecast constantly reconstructs the nation.
Discussing the significant place of the news weather in the British nationalist
discourse, Billig states,
‘The weather’ appears as an objective, physical category, yet it is contained
within national boundaries. At the same time, it is known that the universe of
weather is larger than the nation. There is ‘abroad’; there is ‘around the
world’. These are elsewheres beyond ‘our’ elsewheres…all this, in its small
way, helps to reproduce the homeland as the place in which ‘we’ are at home,
‘here’ at the habitual centre of ‘our’ daily universe. (p. 117)
KTV, twice every day, reconstructs the homeland, Kurdistan, by reminding its
viewers what places belong and what places do not. Naming places and the listing
and presenting the names of places serve both in-group and out-group represen-
tations (van Dijk 1993).
Naming practices are seldom arbitrary. Different names given to people or places
indicate the attitudes and beliefs of the speakers and writers towards them (Fowler
and Kress 1979; Bourdieu 1991). Names not only identify but they could also
define; they not only indicate the degree of intimacy with but also distance from
people, places and things. They help speakers and writers to change and create
realities that fit their ideologies (Galasin
´ski and Skowronek 2001). In the discourse
of national identity, naming the nation and what is believed to be national
ingredients such as geographical places are among the prime naming practices
(Billig 1995; Jenson 1993).
KTV reports the weather of Kurdistan and the rest of the world by presenting
alphabetical lists of cities in two sets (see Table 2). The first set encompasses major
Kurdish-populated cities, regardless of their actual nation-state location. The second
set includes the non-Kurdish world’s capital cities including Ankara, Baghdad,
Damascus and Tehran. As is evident in the following table, the cities that KTV
believes to be Kurdish are presented as belonging to the same category or set: home.
In contrast, the capital cities of the host states (Baghdad, Ankara, Tehran and
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case 299
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Damascus) are constructed, in Billig’s (1995) terms, as ‘‘abroad’’ and ‘‘elsewhere’’
(p. 117), just like the rest of the world: different from home.
A Greater Kurdistan is also mentally constructed through the renaming of Kurdish
cities. States have employed both physical and symbolic violence to assimilate the
Kurds as part of their modern nation-building projects (Hassanpour 2003b). One of
the symbolic violent actions has involved changing, banning and regulating names of
people, places, towns, villages, roads and even plants and animals that have borne
signs of Kurdishness.
10
Motivated often by the same nationalist ideology, one
occasionally comes across two names for some villages and towns throughout
Kurdistan: the name known to the locals and the name given by the officials of the
ruling states. For example, the state-designated city of Diyarbakir is Ame
ˆd (in
Northern Kurdistan), Erbil is Hewle
ˆr (in Southern Kurdistan), and Kirmanshah is
Kirmas¸an (in Eastern Kurdistan). By choosing the local names of the towns that have
two names, KTV reclaims their Kurdishness or Kurdistaniness.
This discursive construction in the context of KTV is significant because whereas
many Kurdish symbols such as the flag, mountains, dance, costume and various
customs are explicitly displayed and glorified on KTV, the map of Greater
Kurdistan is rarely shown because to Iraqi authorities in Baghdad the map of a
greater Kurdistan could signify separatist and secessionist ambitions of Iraqi Kurds,
Table 2 Summary of the list of the cities as presented in KTV’s weather forecast
City names as presented on KTV Country
location
Official names
of the cities
Indigenous (Kurdish)
names of the cities
Considered Kurdistani (in-group)
Ame
ˆdTurkey Diyarbakir Ame
ˆd
C¸ emc¸emal Iraq The same The same
Duhok Iraq The same The same
Hewle
ˆrIraq Erbil/Arbil Hewle
ˆr
Kerku
ˆkIraq The same The same
Kirmas¸an Iran Kermanshah Kirmas¸an
Mehabad Iran The same The same
More Kurdish cities in alphabetical order
Qamis¸lo Syria Al Qamishli Qamis¸lo
More Kurdish cities in alphabetical order
Considered non-Kurdistani (out-group)
Amsterdam (Other capitals) Netherlands
Bexda (Baghdad) Iraq
Enqere (Ankara) (Other capitals) Turkey
Taran (Tehran) Iran
S¸ am (Damascus) Syria
10
For example, according to a BBC report (Turkey renames ‘divisive’ animals 2005), Turkey changed
the name of three animals in its ‘southeast’ (Kurdistan), because the authorities believed that names
which made references to Kurdistan and Armenia were ‘divisive’ and against Turkey’s ‘unity’. For
example the red fox that was known as Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica was renamed as Vulpes Vulpes.
300 J. Sheyholislami
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something that Kurdish leaders of Kurdistan south have continuously denied
(O’Shea 2004). KTV helps its audiences to imagine the homeland in language and
specifically in renaming places and how places are arranged on TV screen. Further
micro analysis of this kind is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is important to
note that these discursive constructs are created by employing many more linguistic
devices such as metaphors, deixis, active versus passive grammatical structures, and
pronouns that are common in discourses of national identity (see Wodak et al. 2009,
pp. 36–42). These are used, particularly on television, often in conjunction with
visual and aural meaning-making devices such as images (e.g. the flag, landscapes,
national heroes, and so forth), colours, and sounds.
Discourse practices on the Internet
Features of the Kurdish Internet
Although the major Kurdish political organizations have a strong presence on the
Internet, the vast majority of websites belong to smaller Kurdish organizations (i.e.
those that do not own satellite television channels or other major media outlets),
different groups of individuals and Kurdish intelligentsia (e.g. women activists,
human rights groups) and ordinary individuals.
11
Websites serve various purposes. For example, they function as online libraries
and distribution systems for print materials. Some of the notable websites that
provide free access to Kurdish books are www.nefel.com,www.amude.net, and
Kite
ˆbxaney Kurdı
ˆ(The Kurdish Library) at www.pertwk.com. According to its
owner, the latter has over 1,000 books available for download free of charge, mostly
in PDF format (B. H. personal communication, April 18, 2007). This is very sig-
nificant when one realises that in 2006, none of the 209 public libraries in Kurd-
istan-Turkey held a single Kurdish book (Malmisanij 2006b). Libraries in Iranian
Kurdistan have been in similar circumstances. It should be noted that most of the
books that are available for downloading on Kite
ˆbxaney Kurdı
ˆare in Kurdish
Sorani, the medium of the website. Other websites such as Nefel and Amude that
use Kurdish Kurmanji mostly carry books in that Kurdish variety. This is an
example of the diversity of Kurdish online activities across linguistic lines, a theme
that I have encountered throughout my analysis.
The Internet has also given rise to online news websites that have no print version
(e.g. Avesta Kurd, Rizgari Online, Peyamner). Internet technology has enabled
highly political news websites such as www.renesans.nu to engage audiences in
discussions regarding Kurdish issues. Readers can react to news items and featured
articles by leaving comments on the website. In this way, audiences can experience
a sense of shared belonging, not only by being involved in the ritual of reading the
same thing simultaneously (Anderson 1991), but also by discussing and debating
the same issues in their own language. This capacity of the Internet as a platform for
the dissemination of and debating news and current affairs has been strengthened by
11
In January 2004, the website www.koord.com claimed that it had indexed 2000 Kurdish websites.
However, in recent years there has been an exponential growth in online Kurdish activities.
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case 301
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the fact that websites can also function as broadcasting facilities. Since the mid
1990s, over a dozen radio stations belonging to Kurdish political organizations (e.g.
Denge
ˆMezopotamya), private entities (e.g. Radio Newa) and western states (e.g.
Voice of America, Kurdish Service) can be heard by Kurdish audiences worldwide.
Most of the major Kurdish television stations can be viewed on the Internet as well.
The chat room is another significant feature of Kurdish Internet. Most chat rooms
are very restrictive on what language can be used for chatting: Kurdish only. This is
very interesting because it is different from observations made in other contexts. For
example, Luis Fernandez (2001) reports how the moderator of a discussion list
devoted to the future of Ireland discourages participants from posting in Gaelic. In
his research, he observes that there is a complete absence of Basque in Basque
forums. In both cases, the use of minority languages has been abandoned to
accommodate those individuals who do not speak Gaelic or Basque and prefer the
language of the majority, English and Spanish respectively. Despite being so
persistent about the use of Kurdish in some chat rooms, visitors cannot easily write
in Kurdish because most of the popular chat rooms do not support the Kurdish
Arabic-based alphabet. The writing script which is nonstandard, idiosyncratic, and a
mixture of the characters from the Kurdish Latin-based writing system and English
sometimes makes communication in chat rooms challenging. This shortcoming is
not unique to Kurdish Sorani speakers. Danet and Herring (2007) report that
‘‘speakers of languages with non-Latin writing systems, such as Greek, Russian,
Arabic and Hebrew, and the East Asian languages’’ (p. 557) were all disadvantaged
for a long time. In contrast to the text-only chat rooms, real-time online voice and
video (e.g. Paltalk.com) chat rooms are popular among the Kurdish Internet users
mainly because communicating in these chat rooms does not completely depend on
writing. Yet, this internet feature too seems to foster language diversification; a
Kurmanji speaker rarely can be heard in rooms where Sorani is the predominant
variety spoken, and vice versa.
The blogosphere seems to be another environment where language diversification
is cultivated. Although Kurdish blogging experienced a very slow start the number
of Kurdish blogs increased sharply at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007
when the Kurdish blogging platform Kurdblogger (www.kurdblogger.com) was
launched. For the first time, this new platform made it very easy to blog and write in
Kurdish Sorani. By the end of 2008, there were about 6,000 blogs registered on
Kurdblogger.
12
Although some bloggers write in languages other than Kurdish, it
still seems that blogging, like other features of the Internet, has provided Kurds with
a means of articulating their identity by writing in their language. At the same time,
the writing system differences of the two major Kurdish language varieties are
reinforced in blogging. There are very few Kurmanji blogs on Kurdblogger.com.
In addition to websites, chat rooms, and weblogs, Kurds also utilise Internet tools
including email, forums, electronic mailing lists, instant messaging services, and
social networking tools such as MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. Social
networking tools in particular foster the construction and dissemination of a
12
There are also Kurdish blogs on other blogging platforms such as www.blogger.com. Also, not all
Kurdish blogs continue to be active or updated regularly.
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Kurdish cross-border identity. The language varieties used in these tools is largely
suggestive of the geographical location and population size of the users. For
example, Kurds from the west, especially the UK and Scandinavian countries, make
up the majority of the Roj Bash Kurdistan (Good Day Kurdistan) forum’s visitors.
In contrast, the forum Kurdish Love, which uses Kurdish Sorani as its main
medium, attracts well over 50% of its users and visitors from Iran and Iraq. Another
forum, Baydigi, which uses Turkish and Kurmanji Kurdish as its main languages,
has over 80% of its visitors and users from Turkey. Language is one of the main
factors that determines the type and size of audience that Internet sources attract.
Language use on the Internet as identity manifestation
The Internet has been used with the intention to maintain, promote and teach
Kurdish. Although Kurdish Internet features utilise various non-Kurdish languages
such as English, Turkish, Arabic and Persian, Kurdish Kurmanji and Sorani are the
primary languages of the Kurdish Internet. About a dozen websites use the
multimodal features of the Internet (i.e. text, animation and sound) effectively to
teach Kurdish to both children and adults.
13
All these websites offer open access to
their materials. There seems to be a genuine commitment to the maintenance and
promotion of the Kurdish language as a vital feature of Kurdish identity. For
example, the website Fe
ˆrbu
ˆnı
ˆZimanı
ˆKurdı
ˆ(Kurdish Language Learning) displays
the following slogan: ‘‘Language is identity …Kurdish lessons are steps towards
the fortification of Kurdish language.’’ The website Nefel displays another message
on its banner in Kurmanji, which is indicative of the emotional feelings that many
Kurds attach to their mother tongue: ‘‘Kurdish is lightness for our eyes. Kurds!
Preserve your language.’’
14
This, however, seems to go against Anderson’s (1991)
view suggesting that although the nation is imagined in language, it matters very
little what language is used to serve this function (p. 133). For Anderson (1991), the
nation was not imagined in any language per se but in print language, and that print
language could even be the language of the colonizer and the ‘‘other.’’ For many
Kurds, however, Kurdishness is imagined in the Kurdish language.
The idea that the Internet has facilitated writing in Kurdish as an indispensable
component of Kurdishness comes through vividly in weblogs. Gulagenim, the first
Kurdish blogger, writes passionately about her experience of writing in Kurdish:
They never taught me [how to write in Kurdish] …For me, writing in Kurdish
is still like a childhood dream that has not come true, and now as an adult I am
approaching it with hesitation and trepidation; I am afraid that I might make
too many mistakes, become a stranger with myself …with my language
(Gulagenim 2002, my translation).
Gulagenim uses her blog as a space for practicing writing in Kurdish and
overcoming the fear of writing in her mother tongue. In a 2004 chat room session
devoted to Kurdish blogging, Gulagenim admits that, prior to blogging, she did not
13
The directory Koord provides a list of these websites (koord.com/weblanguage/fer_buni_kurdi.htm).
14
The Kurdish Kurmanji text says, Kurdı
ˆbı
ˆ
nahiya chave
ˆn me ye. Kurdino zimane
ˆxwe bipare
ˆzn!
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know how to write in Kurdish. She acknowledges that the medium has encouraged
her and enabled her to write and learn her first language. Tewar, another female
Kurdish blogger, echoes Gulagenim’s thoughts:
I have been thinking about what Gulagenim has said that writing in the mother
tongue comes with a unique sensation. I have been thinking about the
uncertainty and nervousness that I experience every time I want to write in
Kurdish …(Tewar 2002, my translation).
Despite difficulties, the two bloggers have continued writing in Kurdish. In fact,
they have become the veterans of Kurdish blogging and one wonders what keeps
motivating them to write. When admitting that writing in Kurdish is so difficult that
it pushes her to quit, Tewar writes:
But, I cannot quit …Language is a part of me. Words are mirrors that reflect
my ideas and feelings …Without [our] language we are nothing …A
language is as important as a country, history and flag …Language is a part of
our personality …Language is identity …To express your inner thoughts and
feelings …you need the language of feelings and the soul; no language is
closer to one’s feelings and soul than the mother tongue…When writing we
might make mistakes …We may not have a rich vocabulary…but, let’s not
quit; let’s continue [writing] …(ibid., my translation).
For Tewar and many bloggers, language is important as a symbol of national identity;
it is also a decisive factor in defining a person (Edwards 2009). Fishman (1989) states
‘‘[t]he essence of a nationality is its spirit, its individuality, its soul. This soul is not
only reflected and protected by the mother tongue but, in a sense, the mother tongue
is itself an aspect of the soul, a part of the soul, if not the soul made manifest’’ (p. 276,
emphasis in original). Fishman (1989) has referred to the rediscovering of the mother
tongue as an ‘‘intellectual rebirth’’ (p. 283). It seems that Tewar and Gulagenim have
experienced just this form of rebirth by blogging in Kurdish.
Along with writing, speaking Kurdish has also been enhanced by the Internet.
A. Ahmad, one of the moderators of the most popular Kurdish chat room, Kurdistan
United, suggests that many of the people who are now regular speakers in the chat
room had difficulty discussing political and social issues in Kurdish at the beginning
(A. Ahmed, personal communication, July 6, 2007). This is especially true of the
Kurds from Iran, Turkey and Syria who have been educated in languages other than
their mother tongue. Nevertheless, in most of the Kurdish chat rooms including
Kurdistan United, speaking in Kurdish is a must. In these chat rooms, usually
speaking in any language other than Kurdish is considered non-Kurdish behaviour
and is not tolerated.
Finally, the Internet has provided communicative spaces for lesser used and
smaller Kurdish varieties. Varieties such as Hawrami and Zazaki have compara-
tively fewer speakers than Kurmanji and Sorani and generally are given very limited
air time on Kurdish radio and television and minimal space in Kurdish periodicals.
However, there are several websites that use Zazaki and Hawrami as their main
language of communication (e.g. www.zazaki.net or www.zazaki.org and
www.hawraman.com).
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Textual analysis of Internet discourse
Textual analysis of Internet texts can reveal a great deal about how identities are
constructed in language on the Internet. Because of its fluidity, flexibility, and
accessibility (Yang 2003) the Internet is a suitable environment for the coexistence
of a multiplicity of identities that might be articulated in the same discursive event
or text. Kurdish Internet users are able to construct their individual, social group,
and national identities simultaneously in their own language. To illustrate this, I will
provide a brief micro analysis of a blog post by Tewar.
In one of her earliest posts, she writes:
Iremember once upon a time I had a notebook with a childish handwriting of
mine that said: ‘my memories.’ That notebook held of all my secrets …It did
not take me long to realize that Ihad to hide the notebook from everyone …
[I thought] Imust do my best to prevent my thoughts, feelings and dreams
from being disclosed …Imust behead my dreams and hang my desires …
[Doing all this] wouldn’t have been surprising because Iwas a girl, and girls
are not supposed to immerse themselves in imaginations, to dream, to love or
to have feelings.
We have always been scared …We have always been petrified.We have got
used to this fear …We are ashamed of our own feelings and dreams.
And now, I am sitting here and talking to you about my feelings …Iam
neither ashamed nor afraid …and I don’t know if it is because Iam
courageous or because no one else knows that it is me who writes these things
…(July 1, 2002, my translation, my emphasis).
Several textual features in this post by Tewar deserve a closer examination:
pronouns, tense, and passive voice. Pronouns deserve particular attention, especially
when analysing discourses of identity (Billig 1995). In this text, the pronoun ‘‘I’’
contributes to the construction of the self and the individual identity. At the same
time, the pronoun ‘‘we’’ frames the self within a group of Kurdish ‘‘girls’’ and also
the larger collective identity of Kurds. The pronoun ‘‘you’’ indicates a clear
awareness of an addressee, her readers. The identities of both the blogger and the
group she identifies with, that is, all Kurdish girls, are defined in relation to the
‘‘others,’’ those that ‘‘scared’’ and ‘‘petrified’’ them (i.e. Kurdish patriarchy and non-
Kurdish state authorities who have not been in favour of promoting these women’s
mother tongue). The ‘‘others’’ are referenced through passive voice constructions
such as ‘‘been scared’’ and ‘‘been petrified.’’ One of the implications of this passive
construction is that the author manages to hide the agent of ‘‘petrifying.’’ She says
that she might be ‘‘courageous’’ to write this text but the use of the passive voice
seems to indicate that she still does not feel free and protected even in Stockholm.
15
She reaches out for ‘‘you,’’ an addressee in Bakhtin’s (1986) terms, to establish a
dialogue that might produce a sense of understanding of the self and a feeling of
belonging to her group. The use of the past and present tenses also indicates the
15
There have been instances of violence against Kurdish women perpetuated by Kurdish men in the
name of ‘‘honour killing’’ in Sweden and other Western countries such as the UK.
Identity, language, and new media: the Kurdish case 305
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blogger’s attachment to her past. Miller and Shepherd (2009) note that the use of the
present tense is predominant in English diary journals indicating that the content of
the journal is about the here and now, the blogger’s current daily life. Present tense
denotes immediacy and currency (Dunmire 1997). In the case of posts by the two
Kurdish bloggers, however, the present is often accompanied by traces of the past,
the bloggers’ life experiences in their homeland, Kurdistan.
Discussion and conclusion
Both KTV and the Internet have been used by the Kurds in their struggle to
reconstruct their identities and to represent themselves, not only in Kurdish
language varieties, but also in non-Kurdish languages. The two media sources have
magnified the role of language in the practices of identity construction. Discursive
practices in these media indicate that Kurdish is held as one of the most important
and salient indexes of Kurdish identity. Furthermore, these new media seem to have
enabled Kurds from different regions and all walks of life to share and discuss
cultural, social and political ideas and issues publicly and dialogically, and to
construct and redefine their identities discursively with relative freedom and ease.
The main focus of this study has been the construction of collective identity as
mediated by new media. However, because it is posited that language is an
indispensable part of identity construction, it is important to discuss the significance
of Kurdish language use within these media, particularly for those who have been
denied both negative and positive linguistic rights.
16
The media have proven to be an
important part of ensuring that speakers of lesser-used languages are able to maintain
their linguistic rights (Hult 2010). In the case of the Kurds, the new media have
allowed millions of Kurdish speakers to gain negative rights, and to some extent
positive rights on their own, regardless of whether or not those rights are recognized
by the states where they live. This is not to suggest that the new media alone can
guarantee the maintenance of the Kurdish identity and language, particularly in
places such as Turkey where Kurdish is threatened (Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes
2008). There are clearly limits to what media can do for a lesser-used language
(Browne 1996, pp. 7–11; Cunliffe 2007; Riggins 1992, pp. 276–277). As Fishman
(2001) has suggested the use of a minority language in the media may not be as
significant as using the language at home or in the community as far as language
maintenance is concerned. However, one could suggest that the use of Kurdish on
television and on the Internet could enhance its use in families and the community
because the media are used to teach Kurdish to those whose language has started to
fragment in a linguicidal situation (Hassanpour et al. 1996). Furthermore, one should
not undermine the efforts of media like KTV and the Kurdish Internet in legitimating
minority language by using the language extensively, strengthening and expanding
its use, enhancing ethnic and national pride among Kurdish audiences, connecting
Kurds living in different states and diasporas, and enabling Kurdish individuals and
16
Negative right is ‘‘the right to use one’s language in the private sphere without persecution or prejudice’’
and positive right is ‘‘the right to use one’s language in the public space, to be educated in the language, to
deal with the state in the language, etc.’’ (Wright 2007, p. 203). Only Iraqi Kurds have the latter right.
306 J. Sheyholislami
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groups to engage in processes of identity construction and dissemination. Previous
studies have praised minority language media for similar efforts that have resulted in
comparable benefits for other disadvantaged language groups (Cormack and
Hourigan 2007; Danet and Herring 2007).
All language use, discourse practices, media productions and distributions are
inevitably connected to socio-cultural, political and historical contexts and power
relations (Fairclough 1995). Kurdish media are no exception. Interpreting the analysis
in these contexts reveals some differences between the affordances and constraints of
the two media under investigation in relation to Kurdish identity constructions. The
findings show that KTV’s discourse practices are carried out within the ideological
framework and political interests of its owner, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, an
organization that aspires to regional autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan as opposed to the
establishment of Greater Kurdistan. Most of KTV’s discourse practices and
discursive constructs represent Iraqi Kurdistan as a free and autonomous small
Kurdistan. However, representations of a pan-Kurdish identity are often subtle on
KTV, perhaps in order to show allegiance to Iraq so that Baghdad does not perceive
the Kurds as separatists. Despite this subtlety, the trans-border Kurdish identity that
KTV constructs is a cultural collective identity that appeals to both Iraqi Kurds,
especially the intelligentsia who make up the working force of KTV, as well as to
Kurdish masses elsewhere. From this perspective, constructing a trans-border
Kurdish identity on KTV is both inevitable and beneficial to KTV. It is inevitable
because a shared sense of Kurdishness, often rooted in shared experiences of
suffering, has existed among the Kurdish intelligentsia for a very long time (van
Bruinessen 2000). It may not be in the interests of KTV to prevent the expressions and
representations of a pan-Kurdish identity, albeit within its own hegemonic discourse.
Expressions and representations of a pan-Kurdish identity are beneficial because
KTV captures more audiences and possibly more sympathy and support from Kurds
worldwide for the south Kurdistan autonomous government at a time when it is
believed to be threatened by neighbouring countries.
Whereas expressions of trans-border Kurdishness and the construction of Greater
Kurdistan are mostly subtle on KTV, they are explicit and dominant on the Internet.
There are powerful and emotionally charged symbols and linguistic constructions
that seem to be shared by the vast majority of Kurdish Internet users. Among these
discursive constructs are the Kurdish flag, the maps of Greater Kurdistan, images of
a common memory that is both glorious and painful, images of common national
heroes, and a great preoccupation with the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. However,
the Internet is not as accessible as satellite television for both economic and
socio-political reasons.
17
The digital divide, the difference between the haves and
have-nots regarding access to the Internet (Mills 2002) certainly applies to
Kurdistan. In addition, those who have access to the Internet inside Kurdistan suffer
from censorship imposed by states.
18
Moreover, Kurdish websites owned by Kurds
17
Although a much greater number of people in Kurdistan watch satellite television than use the Internet,
it does not mean that satellite dish owners are free from persecution in Turkey, Syria or Iran.
18
For example, on April 6 2004, Index Online reported that ‘‘Two Kurdish-language news websites
based in Germany (www.amude.com and www.qamislo.com), that provide news, pictures and video clips
of demonstrations by the country’s Kurdish minority, were banned by the government of Syria in
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or their sympathizers sometimes are threatened by hackers, who may identify
themselves as belonging to the dominant ethnic groups in the region (for example,
Turkish) (Menaf 2007).
19
Despite the limitations and barriers that the Kurdish
Internet has been facing, there has been a considerable growth in Kurdish online
activities. Satellite television might be easier to receive but its content is often beyond
the control of audiences. Once there is access to the Internet, however, online users are
able to produce and disseminate their own materials as has been demonstrated by
Kurdish bloggers. Furthermore, as the Internet’s audio-visual features improve on
social networking tools such as YouTube and Facebook, it will become easier for
Kurds from different speech varieties to share more of their experiences without
depending entirely on the written text or even the verbal language.
In sum, although there does not appear to be one single Kurdish identity, within
the last decade Kurds from diverse areas have started to learn a great deal more
about themselves and their ‘others.’ In recent years, various socio-political
developments, from the US-led war in Iraq to Turkey’s bid for membership in
the European Union, have transformed Kurdish communities, particularly as these
communities are increasingly diasporic. In addition, new communication technol-
ogies have enabled Kurds to begin overcoming the geographical and political
barriers that have kept them apart and fragmented. As a result, since the mid-1990s,
alongside several regional Kurdish identities, a pan-Kurdish or cross-border Kurdish
identity has been strengthened, although neither regional nor cross-border Kurdish
identity is entirely homogenous.
These observations lend themselves to some significant theoretical assertions in
line with other studies that have looked at the impact of the new media on the
identity formation practices of non-state peoples (Mills 2002; Erikson 2007). Far
from being agents of homogenization only, satellite television and the Internet have
enabled non-state actors and marginalised minorities to reify both their regional and
cross-border identities in language and other visual and aural symbols and signs.
Furthermore, the nation-state ideology, which primarily conceives of a national
identity as culturally and linguistically homogenous, may no longer be tenable
especially in the context of emerging or stateless nations. At the same time, Kurdish
nationalist discourses are hard at work to impose a top-down language policing
similar to many other contexts around the world (see Kelly-Holmes and Moriarty
2009). Kurdish nationalists from different regions may not be able to communicate
in the same chat room because their speech varieties may not be mutually
intelligible, however, most of them insist on calling all their speech varieties
Kurdish, one language, because they believe one language also denotes one national
identity. Naming languages matters (Shohamy 2006).
Notwithstanding the complexity of the socio-political context which bears upon
the formation of Kurdish identity, it is not possible to predicate for certain how far
Footnote 18 continued
mid-March’’. According to the same source, at the time Syria only had two ISPs and they were both
controlled by the Syrian government.
19
In 2007, close to a dozen popular websites were hacked, including www.dengekan.info,www.
kurdgoal.com,www.kurdmedia.com, and www.rizgari.org.
308 J. Sheyholislami
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this new identity formation will go and what the socio-political consequences might
be. One major reason for this uncertainty is that when human beings come into
contact they do not just share similarities, they also notice differences. The Internet
may not have increased the diversity of the Kurdish language, but it has more
clearly exposed certain fragmentations. Kurds have lived under different hegemonic
cultures for nearly a century. Seeing their fellow Kurds on television may make
them realise how different they are from each other, and lead to the abandonment of
a poorly imagined pan-Kurdish identity. On the other hand, people often politicize
their identities when they are rejected, oppressed and persecuted to the extent that
the emergence of minority nationalism can be seen as a reaction to majority
nationalism (Heller 1999). The Kurds may choose to downplay their internal and
linguistic differences so long as their host states continue to deny them rights. This
shared experience of oppression will continue to provide a fertile ground for satellite
television and the Internet to foster the formation of a stronger, yet pluralistic,
multilingual collective identity.
Acknowledgments I am grateful to the reviewers for their critical comments and insights. I also thank
all those in the Kurdish communities who helped me with data collection, answered my questions and
provided important insights into my research.
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Author Biography
Jaffer Sheyholislami is an Assistant Professor at the School of Linguistics and Language Studies,
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada where he teaches courses in applied linguistics and discourse
studies. Having worked as a radio broadcaster, translator and academic ESL instructor, and having
obtained degrees in general linguistics (BA), and applied language studies (MA), for his Ph.D. in
communication Jaffer investigated the interface between identity, language and the new media among the
Kurds. His current research interests include language policy and planning in Kurdistan and Iran, minority
language media, language rights, CDA, multimodality, and language and identity.
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