This chapter focuses on populations that did not participate in the uprising. It uses quantitative event data to identify sites and local communities that stayed out of contention or entered it significantly later than others with similar characteristics. One of the clearest trends in the data is that non-Sunni communities participated little in the uprising. The chapter highlights the role of mechanisms of “in-group policing” enabled by group-level institutions and networks in generating this quiescence. It then examines mechanisms impelling nonparticipation among segments of the ethnic majority population; the event data indicate that many Sunni Arab localities saw strikingly little contentious activity in the early weeks and months of the uprising. These populations include local communities structured around extended family and tribal networks and individuals linked to the state through its corporatist economic development strategies. Finally, the chapter examines countermobilization, including counterdemonstrations, “popular committees” formed to defend neighborhoods from shadowy enemies, and pro-regime paramilitaries known colloquially as shabbiha.

This chapter discuss the emergence of a Kurdish student youth and its projection in a decolonization scheme, along with the development and diffusion of new means of communication enabling the different parts of Kurdistan to get more connected. Many developments of the further decade have their roots in the 1946–75 period. Before 1946, the Kurdish movement relied on tribal networks, and it was embedded in rural societies. The founding of the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, although its resonance was limited, was a milestone. It was the first attempt to give the Kurds a territorial state and build unity among different parts of Kurdistan. In 1975, Kurdish demands in Iraq and Turkey were inspired by Marxism, even if tribal figures remain stark. The period between 1946 and 1975, therefore, is a transition period where new actors - urban dwellers, student youth - and new discourses - from the quest for a state to the quest for universal emancipation through cultural rights for the Kurds - emerged.