Kurds in the mirror: The psychology of oppressed people

Rudaw Net

2 days ago

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For centuries, Kurdish women and men across various regions have endured severe oppression, structural violence, and cultural assimilation. How have these external labels and self-definitions, linked with recurring persecution and massacres, influenced their collective memory? Has an entrenched sense of victimhood taken root among the Kurds, shaping their personalities, social behaviors, and cultural practices? And precisely how do these experiences affect a community's self-image and its perception by others? Which psychological mechanisms come to the fore when members of an oppressed group seek a way out of the endless repetition of such violent experiences?
Countless events - from massacres to genocides - accompanied by violence, discrimination, torture, death, flight, and sustained persecution over many centuries have left profound marks on Kurdish society. To what extent are Kurds truly free to think, feel, and act in a manner that reflects their Kurdish identity?
We know that identifying as a victim society can intensify across generations, as younger Kurds inherit and pass on a collective sense of threat, exclusion, low self-esteem, and guilt. This inheritance includes the experience of being vulnerable to renewed violence at any moment, of being unable to defend oneself, and of feeling helplessly at the mercy of powerful authorities - alongside the awareness of lacking full participation in the majority societies around them.
In rural Kurdish regions, tribal structures and large extended families remain central. On one hand, they can offer protection, especially in times of political instability. On the other hand, they can trigger internal conflicts when different tribes align with opposing political camps or, in the worst cases, strike collaborative deals with oppressors. The Kurdish concept of ixanetî (betrayal) has become firmly embedded: groups, parties, or individuals are quickly labeled traitors even when no betrayal has occurred. Such internal divisions deepen existing mistrust and perpetuate lasting fractures within the collective identity.
Personal and collective consequences
The ongoing experience of oppression often leads to pronounced symptoms of resignation, commonly known as learned helplessness. At the collective level, this can manifest as retreat into one's own group or political passivity. Feelings of isolation, denial, and distancing from one's own people may arise from disappointment or the painful recognition of belonging to a marginalized community. This can breed shame and a desire to adopt Turkish, Arab, or Persian identities - even when individuals remain conscious of their Kurdish heritage. At the same time, dynamics of resistance continually surface, whether through protest movements or the growth of Kurdish parties and organizations up to the point of armed struggle, all striving to assert a confident identity.
What impact do these conflicting developments have on the Kurdish community? A key element in the psychology of oppressed groups is the danger of falling into a permanent victim stance. On an individual level, this stance is accompanied by feelings of fear, powerlessness, and resignation; on a collective level, it can crystallize into pervasive pessimism. The affected group may adopt the creed that their situation can never change and that they will always be victims. Such negative expectations for the future can severely limit their scope for action: mobilization, uprising, or political participation become difficult. Many suffer so profoundly under this victim stance that they struggle to achieve personal success, slipping into chronic dissatisfaction and responding to everything with complaint and pessimism. It is a form of inner self-abandonment and slow self-destruction that can exert a powerful influence on society, culture, and identity.
This becomes particularly evident in Kurdish societies through examples such as tribal rivalries, where various clans form strategic or economic alliances with power elites or even oppressors - collaborations viewed by other Kurds as betrayal, further weakening solidarity. Religious and confessional tensions also play a role: Alevis, Yazidis, Sunnis, and Shiite each carry their own histories of persecution, which frequently give rise to competing narratives of memory and identity. And then there is the divide between diaspora and homeland: Kurds living abroad often develop a more politicized form of Kurdish identity, while those who remain face direct repression that makes open engagement difficult.
All these fault lines can produce a changed personality structure, profoundly affecting feelings of security, self-confidence, and communal belonging.
Identification with the aggressor
One of the most complex psychological mechanisms arising from sustained oppression is identification with the aggressor. Members of an oppressed group may adopt the patterns, values, and behaviors of their oppressors in response to exclusion. This can involve denying their own language, culture, or religion to escape stigma; embracing the aggressor's ideology to break free from the victim role or to gain social advantage; or even enacting violence against other minorities or within their own community in the oppressors' likeness. Such identification intensifies tensions within the Kurdish community, pitting those who align with the aggressors against those who cling to resistance and cultural self-assertion. In extreme cases, some Kurds in prison have switched sides, torturing fellow inmates, while tribes or individuals have taken up arms alongside the oppressors. Fueled by deep frustration and anger towards their own identity, they at times outdo their enemies in brutality.
This dynamic unleashes a destructive, self-destructive rage. On the societal level, it can erupt in violent clashes, factional fights, or a general readiness for violence. Psychologically, it partly expresses a desperate search for agency - an attempt to cease being a victim by finding any outlet for pent-up helplessness.
Breaking the cycle and fostering a confident identity
To achieve genuine societal and cultural processing, it is essential first to create spaces where collective memory can be actively honored and reflected upon. Public debates, artistic initiatives, and memorial sites enable transgenerational trauma to be understood not merely as an individual burden but as a shared societal legacy. Developing a common narrative allows Kurds to tell their own history and forge a new, positive identity.
Education and empowerment play a parallel role. Promoting Kurdish language and culture strengthens self-esteem and nurtures historical awareness. When schools and universities address not only the major genocides but also the complex roles of different groups vis-à-vis past regimes, they create room for critical engagement and the dismantling of internalized victim stances.
Dialogue is another key. Within the Kurdish community and with other ethnic and religious groups in the region, moderated forums must give voice to all groups from religious group to cultural and young activists, and other stakeholders alike. Only when these dialogue spaces are sustained with resources and political backing can genuine understanding emerge.
Finally, international acknowledgment of past crimes is indispensable. Lasting reconciliation requires states to stop denying or downplaying historic atrocities and to officially name them through truth commissions, memorials, and, where appropriate, legal proceedings. Such measures increase pressure on those responsible to offer reparations and public apologies. Only this thorough reckoning can pave the way to a self-determined, solidarity-based coexistence.
Conclusion
The shifts in the Kurdish personality structure, shaped by victimhood, divisions, tribal loyalties, and, not least, identification with aggressors, are not static conditions but the outcome of a long history of oppression and resistance. Overcoming such collective traumas is a complex endeavor requiring the interweaving of individual and societal interventions. Prospects for the future arise where education, political participation, and psychosocial initiatives advance in tandem. Recognizing historical responsibilities and cultivating a culture of remembrance are the starting points for breaking destructive victim or perpetrator dynamics. Ultimately, only a critical engagement with the past and an inclusive vision for the future can heal the inner fractures that continue to stand in the way of peace, autonomy, and self-determination in the Kurdish context - especially at a time of great upheaval in the Middle East, when transcending historical ruptures is vital to becoming an equal partner in the region.
Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan is a psychologist, author and publisher, an expert in psychotraumatology, trauma, terror and war, transcultural psychiatry, psychotherapy and migration.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.