The Kurdish Institute was founded in a particularly dark period of Kurdish history. Let us sum up some facts: after launching a destructive war against his neighbour, Iran, Saddam Hussein started a policy of extermination against the Kurds. The murder, in 1983, of 8,000 Barzanis was the premonitory sign of the coming repression. In Iran, where the 1978-79 revolution had ended with the victory of the clergy, the Kurdish towns became the scenes of massive repression, including the use of the Air Force against the civilian population. In Turkey, the military dictatorship introduced in September 1980 considered Kurdishness was a disease to be cured by Turkish nationalism and transformed the Kurdish provinces into open-air prisons. Although publicly courted by the al-Assad authorities, the Syrian Kurds are reduced to silence while many of them, having been stripped of their nationality, lacked any legal existence.

In these circumstances, the Kurdish Diaspora took up the challenge and became the nerve centre not so much of political struggle as of a resistance to preserve a culture that was, indeed, in danger. The foundation of the Kurdish Institute was the first important sign of renewal, after a long period of absence.

The quarter century that has passed since has been a rich but also tragic period: the Iraqi Kurds, faced with the apparently unavoidable threat of extermination following the Anfal operation of 1988-89 were able, as a result of the First Gulf War (1991) undertake an experiment in political autonomy; the decapitation of the Iranian Kurdish leadership (1989-1992) in no way impeded the cultural renewal of Kurdish culture in that country; despite its burnt earth policy to counter the PKK guerrillas, Turkey was completely unable to "eradicate" Kurdishness. For the last decade the Syrian Kurds have experienced a renewal, including a peaceful struggle both for democracy and their cultural rights. Finally, as the old generation of outstanding intellectuals (Zaza, Cegerwxin, Güney, Uzun ...), often active members of the Kurdish Institute, died without seeing their dreams realised a new generation emerge. A new generation took over the literary and artistic fields while the first signs of a Democratic Middle East, in which Kurds would be able to take their place alongside other peoples began to emerge.

Over and above a moment of thought about its own past, the Kurdish Institute wishes, through this symposium, to draw up an assessment of the last 25 years of Kurdish history.