Society for the Rise of Kurdistan

Society for the Rise of Kurdistan (Kurdish: Cemîyeta Tealîya Kurdistanê‎[1]) also officially known as Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan and also known as Society for the Advancement of Kurdistan (SAK), was an organization formed on the 17 December 1918,[2] in Constantinople, with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state in eastern Turkey.[3]

The Society based its statements for an independent or autonomous Kurdistan on the Treaty of Sèvres and the Fourteen Points stipulated by Woodrow Wilson.[4] The society formed many local dependencies in the eastern provinces of Turkey.[4] A SAK delegation represented the Kurds at the Paris Peace Conference, where it demanded political rights of the Kurds.[5] Three months after the Treaty of Sèvres was signed, the Society supported the leaders of the Koçkiri tribe (Alevi–Kurd) who revolted in the Dersim area in eastern Asia Minor.[3] It is documented that the rebellion was supported by the English in order to fight against Turkish nationalism. During the Turkish War of Independence former members of the organization attempted an uprising which became to be known as the Koçgiri rebellion and were encouraged by British major Edward William Charles Noel,[6] in 1921, but was defeated by the Turkish army within three months on June 17, 1921.

It further aimed to promote the Kurdish language and culture. In the societies statutes, it was mentioned that their aim was to support the well-being of the Kurds.[7] The society issued a weekly magazine named Jîn (Life) in 1918/1919. Jîn was published in Ottoman Turkish and Kurdish (Kurmanci and Sorani dialects). Notable founding and early members of the SAK were Abdulkadir Ubeydullah and Sayyid Abdullah (descendents of Sheikh Ubeydullah), Emin Ali Bedir Khan, Kamuran Bedir Khan and Mehmet Ali Bedir Khan (descendants of Bedir Khan Beg) and the Dr. Mehmet Şükrü Sekban amongst others.[2][8][9] Abdulkadir was a member of the Ottoman parliament since 1910 and kept on to his position in Ottoman politics also after the establishment of the SAK[10] of which he was it first president.[8] In 1919, a women's branch of the SAK was established.[11] However, disputes between Sayyid Abdulkadir, who was an advocate for autonomy within a future Turkish state, and Bedir Khan, who was in favor of Kurdish independence surged and eventually, the organization was broken up and in 1920, Bedir Khan established the Society for Kurdish Social Organization.[12]

Following the uprising, the SAK was banned by the Turkish national assembly. The former leaders of the SAK, notably its president Sayyid Abdulkadir, his son Sayyid Mehmed, Dr. Fuad Berxo and the journalist Hizanizâde Kemal Fevzi were executed on the 27 May 1925 following their prosecution by the Independence Tribunal in Diyarbakır for allegedly supporting the Sheikh Said Rebellion.[13] One of its leaders, Mikdad Midhat Bedir Khan, was the publisher of the first Kurdish newspaper Kurdistan in Cairo.

References

1. "Mewlanzade Rifat û Rojnameya Serbestî" (in Kurdish and English). Retrieved 21 December 2019. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
2. Özoğlu, Hakan (2004-01-01). Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries. SUNY Press. pp. 88–89. ISBN 978-0-7914-5994-2.
3. The Kurdish nationalist movement: opportunity, mobilization, and identity, by David Romano, p.28.
4. Robert W.Olson (1989), p.28–29
5. Özoğlu, Hakan (2004), p. 112
6. Olson, Robert W. (1989). The emergence of Kurdish nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. University of Texas Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-0-292-77619-7.
7. Özoğlu, Hasan (2004), p.82
8. Özoğlu, Hakan (2004), p.81
9. Özoğlu, Hasan (2004), pp. 95–97
10. Özoğlu, Hakan (2004), pp.91–92
11. Özoğlu, Hasan (2004), p.113
12. Özoğlu, Hasan (2004), p. 98
13. Üngör, Umut. "Young Turk social engineering : mass violence and the nation state in eastern Turkey, 1913- 1950" (PDF). University of Amsterdam. p. 241. Retrieved 9 April 2020.