الهُوِيَّات المتشظّية والاغتراب انتماءً في رواية «كوباني» أنموذجاً

Abstract

This research investigates the notion of identity fragmentation and its manifestations in the novel “Kobani: Tragedy and Quarter” by the Syrian Kurdish novelist Jean Douste. The theoretical section of this study sheds light on conflicts and struggles over identity in the countries that divide the land of Kurds (Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey) and the political borders that deepen Kurdish divisions and nullify their national identity. This study also looks at the conflict between Kurdish patriotic and national identities as well as Kurdish clans and other national identities and affiliations. Besides this, the study examines Kurdish social and cultural identity and their response to the Syrian Revolution and other religious and clan affiliations, as well as the impact of all this on spreading the feeling of alienation. The second section deals with the manifestations of these identities and their reflections in the novel “Kobani” to highlight the fragmentation that affected Kurdish identity and its indicators.

The novel narrates the destiny of successive generations, embodied by a Kurdish family comprising a father, several wives, and seven children who suffer from proving their identities as the grandfather, father, and son, and all the other members became scattered due to conflicts, wars, and borders. The study shows the bitter struggle between races and ethnicities for self-affirmation, starting with language and culture and ending with military battles that wipe and destroy on a mass level. The narrator, who is on a visit to his city Kobani after being liberated from the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, depicts the extent of the destruction that has befallen the city and the heroisms carried out by the Kurdish fighters in defence of their city. Therefore, the study highlights the intensification of conflicts over identities and cultures between different societies within a single state, as well as the conflicts that arise within a single individual between his religious and national affiliations or between his patriotic and national affiliations. The core question directing this research revolves around the reasons behind the fragmentation of multiple identities. The search for this issue through the narrative techniques found in the novel exposes the hidden and overt conflicts between multiple identities and their effects on social and political relations.