Colonial Discourse and the Abortion of Kurdish Resistance (1931-1932) A Historical Analytical Study of the Barzan Uprising in British Press and Diplomacy

Abstract

This research, entitled (Colonial Discourse and the Suppression of the Kurdish Resistance 1931-1932: A Historical-Analytical Study of the Barzan Uprising in British Press and Diplomacy), seeks to shed light on the intersection of the dual roles of the media, the military apparatus, and diplomacy in directing the course of colonial wars. The research problem revolves around a central question: how the British Mandate authority utilized the press to distort the Barzan uprising, and leveraged this discourse to justify military operations and the forced integration of the Kurds as a prerequisite for admitting Iraq into the League of Nations. Geographically and historically, the study focuses on the Barzan region, Baghdad, London, and Geneva during the period of 1931-1932. It aims to deconstruct the British press discourse, highlight the moral contradiction between the violence of the Royal Air Force and the ethics of the Kurdish resistance, and expose international diplomatic complicity.

To achieve these objectives, the study adopted a historical-analytical approach. The research is structured into an introductory section reviewing the trajectory of colonial maneuvers and the establishment of the Iraqi state following World War I, followed by three main sections. The first addresses the strategy of media disinformation; the second discusses the military dimension and moral paradoxes; and the third focuses on the consecration of international abandonment within the corridors of the League of Nations.

The study concludes with two primary findings. First, the British press was not neutral; rather, it functioned as a propaganda wing that practiced moral exclusion to justify the aerial warfare that saved the nascent Iraqi army. Second, the complicity between London and the League of Nations led to the imposition of a superficial stability that established an Iraqi state suffering from structural imbalances, thereby transforming the Kurdish issue into a persistent historical crisis.