Papers by Sardar Saadi
Derwaze, Kurdish Journal of Social and Human Sciences, 2018
This paper was published by Derwaze, Kurdish Journal of Social and Human Sciences, in its 2nd iss... more This paper was published by Derwaze, Kurdish Journal of Social and Human Sciences, in its 2nd issue, which is a Special Issue on the scholarly legacy of Amir Hassanpour (1943-2017). In this piece, I talk about my relationship with Professor Hassanpour before and after I came to Canada and our personal and intellectual exchange in the last decade. Derwaze’s website: www.derwaze.net
Upping the Anti, 2017
This letter to the editors was published by Upping the Anti, a journal of theory and action in th... more This letter to the editors was published by Upping the Anti, a journal of theory and action in their 18th issue in 2017. You can also find it here: uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/18-rojava-and-the-question-of-international-solidarity/
Title in English: Kurdish Nationalism and the Question of "Brother-Killing"
The question of "brot... more Title in English: Kurdish Nationalism and the Question of "Brother-Killing"
The question of "brother-killing" has been one of the central issues in Kurdish nationalism in the last couple decades. With the recent clash between two Kurdish political parties (the PKK and the PDKI), this question once again has become a dominant way of discussing it. In this article, I try to critically analyze the debates surrounding this clash and shed light on the historical ways "the regime of brother" has developed in nationalist discourse and the ways in which politics and family have been connected to each other both in the West and in Kurdistan.
In this interview with ROAR, the leading Marxist geographer reflects on Rojava, Baltimore and urb... more In this interview with ROAR, the leading Marxist geographer reflects on Rojava, Baltimore and urban life as the terrain of contemporary class struggle.
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He was in Diyarbakir for a visit to the region and also to participate in a panel at the 1st Amed Book Fair on his latest book, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, translated in Turkish by Sel Publishing. ROAR contributor Sardar Saadi sat down with him for an interview.
Article written by various rank and file members of CUPE 3902 and CUPE 3903.
The university stri... more Article written by various rank and file members of CUPE 3902 and CUPE 3903.
The university strikes in Toronto are a powerful articulation of an emergent student and academic staff movement that is growing on campuses globally.
Kurdish rebels are establishing self-rule in war-torn Syria, resembling the Zapatista experience ... more Kurdish rebels are establishing self-rule in war-torn Syria, resembling the Zapatista experience and providing a democratic alternative for the region while defending the region against ISIS atrocities.
Book Reviews by Sardar Saadi
A tiny region of the Middle East has come to fascinate the world; it is called Rojava (meaning "... more A tiny region of the Middle East has come to fascinate the world; it is called Rojava (meaning " west " in Kurdish, as in the West of Kurdistan), located north and northeast of Syria alongside the Turkish border. This fascination comes from a " genuine revolution, " as David Graeber calls it, that has been unfolding there since July 2012, amid war and turmoil in Syria and the wider Middle East region.
Published articles by Sardar Saadi
Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale, 2021
This paper looks into the lives of displaced people and their material bonds with the past while... more This paper looks into the lives of displaced people and their material bonds with the past while waiting for justice during exceptional times in Diyarbakir, Turkey’s Kurdistan. Diyarbakir is known for its central loca- tion in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey for many decades. In August 2015, the old city of Diyarbakir called Sur joined other resisting cities and districts in the Kurdish region of Turkey, where Kurdish militants built bar- ricades all around their controlled neighbourhoods against the state’s violent attacks and declared autonomy. Months after the beginning of the resistance, the Turkish state managed to take back control of Sur after heavy clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants. All the resisting neighbourhoods of Sur were razed to the ground, and close to 24,000 residents were displaced. Since then, a massive urban transformation project for Sur has been in the making. The everyday survival of the displaced people from Sur depends on the ways they negotiate with the state in a long process of waiting. Bringing together different accounts of waiting, I intend to shed light on temporal dimensions of forced displacement embedded in the remnants of the past and shaped by present history of subjugation and state violence.
Upping the Anti, 2021
This past year we have witnessed a series of grassroots and popular uprisings around the world; s... more This past year we have witnessed a series of grassroots and popular uprisings around the world; some new, some part of decades- long battles for liberation. In this roundtable conducted in early spring 2020, Edward Hon-Sing Wong and Sardar Saadi sat down with Upping the Anti editor Niloofar Golkar to talk about different social movements around the world and the challenges of cross-borders solidarity, especially for leftists in the west.
Middle East Report , 2020
In an attempt to decolonize Kurdistan, at least discursively, Kurds refer to the Kurdish region o... more In an attempt to decolonize Kurdistan, at least discursively, Kurds refer to the Kurdish region of Iran as Rojhelat, instead of Iranian Kurdistan. Rojhelat, meaning “the place where the sun rises,” refers to the eastern portion of Kurdistan—the Kurdish homeland that stretches across four countries. This terminology has been encouraged since the late 1990s by the expansion of Kurdish media—and especially Kurdish satellite television stations—that use Rojhelat in programming that addresses Kurds around the world. The name reflects the understanding that the Kurdish region of western and northwestern Iran is part of a broader set of Kurdish lands, societies and economies that includes Rojava (northern and northeastern Syria), Bakur (eastern and southeastern Turkey) and Başur (northern Iraq).[1] The change in nomenclature reflects new patterns and modes of struggle in the political life of Kurds living under the Iranian state.
Jadaliyya, 2021
Jadaliyya
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/43099/Essential-Readings-on-the-Left-in-Kurdistan
[... more Jadaliyya
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/43099/Essential-Readings-on-the-Left-in-Kurdistan
[This Essential Reading is the "Left in Kurdistan" installment of a focused series on "The Left in the Middle East." Encompassing a broad range of entry points to researching and teaching the left, the series emphasizes communist and socialist components, while allowing authors to define the specific parameters of said emphasis in their installment. The Essential Readings series is curated by the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) team at the Arab Studies Institute. MESPI invites scholars to contribute to our Essential Readings modules by submitting an "Essential Readings" list on a topic/theme pertinent to their research/specialization in Middle East studies.]
Article written by various rank and file members of CUPE 3902 and CUPE 3903. (This article was or... more Article written by various rank and file members of CUPE 3902 and CUPE 3903. (This article was originally published on Roar Magazine here: oarmag.org/2015/03/graduate-intructor-strike-toronto/)
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Papers by Sardar Saadi
The question of "brother-killing" has been one of the central issues in Kurdish nationalism in the last couple decades. With the recent clash between two Kurdish political parties (the PKK and the PDKI), this question once again has become a dominant way of discussing it. In this article, I try to critically analyze the debates surrounding this clash and shed light on the historical ways "the regime of brother" has developed in nationalist discourse and the ways in which politics and family have been connected to each other both in the West and in Kurdistan.
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He was in Diyarbakir for a visit to the region and also to participate in a panel at the 1st Amed Book Fair on his latest book, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, translated in Turkish by Sel Publishing. ROAR contributor Sardar Saadi sat down with him for an interview.
The university strikes in Toronto are a powerful articulation of an emergent student and academic staff movement that is growing on campuses globally.
Book Reviews by Sardar Saadi
Published articles by Sardar Saadi
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/43099/Essential-Readings-on-the-Left-in-Kurdistan
[This Essential Reading is the "Left in Kurdistan" installment of a focused series on "The Left in the Middle East." Encompassing a broad range of entry points to researching and teaching the left, the series emphasizes communist and socialist components, while allowing authors to define the specific parameters of said emphasis in their installment. The Essential Readings series is curated by the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) team at the Arab Studies Institute. MESPI invites scholars to contribute to our Essential Readings modules by submitting an "Essential Readings" list on a topic/theme pertinent to their research/specialization in Middle East studies.]
The question of "brother-killing" has been one of the central issues in Kurdish nationalism in the last couple decades. With the recent clash between two Kurdish political parties (the PKK and the PDKI), this question once again has become a dominant way of discussing it. In this article, I try to critically analyze the debates surrounding this clash and shed light on the historical ways "the regime of brother" has developed in nationalist discourse and the ways in which politics and family have been connected to each other both in the West and in Kurdistan.
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He was in Diyarbakir for a visit to the region and also to participate in a panel at the 1st Amed Book Fair on his latest book, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, translated in Turkish by Sel Publishing. ROAR contributor Sardar Saadi sat down with him for an interview.
The university strikes in Toronto are a powerful articulation of an emergent student and academic staff movement that is growing on campuses globally.
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/43099/Essential-Readings-on-the-Left-in-Kurdistan
[This Essential Reading is the "Left in Kurdistan" installment of a focused series on "The Left in the Middle East." Encompassing a broad range of entry points to researching and teaching the left, the series emphasizes communist and socialist components, while allowing authors to define the specific parameters of said emphasis in their installment. The Essential Readings series is curated by the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) team at the Arab Studies Institute. MESPI invites scholars to contribute to our Essential Readings modules by submitting an "Essential Readings" list on a topic/theme pertinent to their research/specialization in Middle East studies.]