Jash (term)

For the Youtube channel, see Jash.

Jash (Kurdish: Caş or Cahş, literally meaning "donkey's foal"), or fursan[1] is a type of collaborator,[1] usually a military unit composed of people of Kurdish descent that cooperates with enemy combatants against the Kurdish army, Kurdish rebels, or the Kurdish civilian population.[1][2][3] The term is considered derogatory[1] in a cultural sense in much the same way as quisling is.

History

During the al-Anfal campaign, the military campaign of genocide and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid, al-Majid's orders informed jash units that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even Kurdish women was legal.[4]

The term "Jash Police" was used by the Kurds towards the Iraq's local Kurdish police militias in 1944.[5]

In the latter half of the 20th century, Kurds who became collaborators with the Iraqi government were referred to as jash.[3] The number of jash increased to "as many as 150,000 by 1986" as a method of avoiding military participation in the Iran–Iraq War. These jash then realigned with the rest of the Kurdish people during the 1991 Kurdish uprising. It has been stated by a number of Kurds that "the jash had been completely forgiven".[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 McDowall, David (May 15, 2004). A Modern History of the Kurds : Third Edition (Third ed.). I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-416-6.
  2. ↑ Prunhuber, Carol (January 21, 2010). The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-4401-7816-0.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Mackey, Sandra (2003). The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-32428-1.
  4. ↑ Jonathan C. Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?: My Encounters with Kurdistan, 356 pp., Westview Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8133-3580-9, p.231
  5. ↑ Mustafa Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement – Massoud Barzani – Google Books. Books.google.pl. Retrieved 2013-04-01.
  6. ↑ Bird, Christiane (2004). A thousand sighs, a thousand revolts: journeys in Kurdistan. Random House, Inc. p. 81. ISBN 9780307430502. Retrieved January 31, 2011.