The 'Kurd' between capitalist-statist nationalism and class conflict

The ‘Yes for independence’ campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan has been predominantly explained as an act undertaken by an omni-representative political governing structure (Kurdistan Regional Government) and a homogenous ethnic group univocally voicing a ‘Yes for independence’. However, the role of what Engels calls the ‘first great cleavage of society’: The historically conflicting exploiting and exploited classes and the manner in which they influence the cause, the means of articulation and the materialisation of this ‘Yes’ have been overlooked. This paper aims to demonstrate that this ‘Yes’ is a site of contestation between these two classes and their transcendental subjective political position and real material structural condition and interests. It exposes the fallacious and reactionary ideological proposition that KRG, the instrument of a semi-feudal and semi-bourgeois class, is the universal and legitimate representative of ‘Kurdish society’ and that there is a homogenous politico-ontological typology (the ‘Kurd’) articulating a cohesive and consistent ‘Yes’ for a new state.