Much ado about Kurds?
When Gamal Abdel Nasser and later the Baath Party gave the Arabs a slight of hope of becoming a great Nation, the unachieved dream of becoming this important entity gave all the Arab populations more resentment towards their non-Arabs fellows.
The marginals became more marginalized, more despised, more oppressed. The Assyrians, Syriacs the Chaldeans and of course the Kurds were more than ever considered as Non Arabs. A different ethnic group that even if it holds a Syrian or Iraqi passport is still considered by their fellow citizen as an outcast.
Today, these minorities and more specifically the Kurds seized the opportunity of embracing the chaos left from the Arab Spring to speak up about their entitled borders. Often through military or diplomatic means.
The Kurds managed to redefine more or less their status in Iraqi Kurdistan and they’re trying hard to do the same in Syria while in Turkey and Iran their status quo has not been modified and faced many challanges.
One might ask, will the situation change for the Kurds, will they manage despite years and years of persecutions and discriminations to define who they are and obtain a State and manage their security?
Not only that, will their language ever have an official shape, reminding that in Iraq, Kurdish hold official status as a national language alongside Arabic, in Iran it is recognized as a regional language and in Armenia as a minority language.
Sometimes, it just seems like Kurds simply don’t have any luck or poor sight in their strategy. Some argue that the disunity of the Kurds along political lines made them to be used as proxies during different historical periods.
To think about it, why would 1 million person from Kosovo be entitled by NATO and EU to have their own right to decide their own fate, while approximatively 40 million Kurds don’t have the luxury of even expressing any tiny opinion about borders, nation or any subject in that regard.
While being hailed and helped with their battles with ISIS, many fear that they will be forgotten once it is over and to express it in bolder way that they will they be used and spitted out.
Kurdish youth commemorated the 1977 May Day massacre last month during a march to Taksim Square in Istanbul. (New York Times 11/6/2011)
Yes, autonomy for the Kurds in Syria can be done and if the “Sultan” Erdogan continues in his vain and arrogant purge against everyone that he might consider as a threat especially the Kurds, more of them will join their “brothers” in Syria and Iraq and their unity will empower them. Not to mention the fact that with the withdrawal of Syrian troops from North-Eastern Syria pushed the Kurds to fill the political and military vacuum. The Kurds seized this opportunity quickly.
I stress on the word “unity” because it will be tested and the lack of an apparent ideology can be used against them.
The Ottoman Empire that Erdogan is trying to rebuilt will most likely turn against him. Surely, he can count on the Sunnis to cheer him in his illusions but the Real Politik must bring him to reality and an introspection from him and his counseling team is much needed.
First you can’t keep on treating Kurds, the Pro-Ataturk as well as all the secular parties and also the Turkish Alawis as second-class citizens and expect calm on the horizon.
The citizens of Southern Turkey are more and more inclined to revolt against Ankara and this time unlike the failed-coup in July and despite the support that Erdogan is getting from the street, it will bring chaos and will destabilize the situation in Turkey affecting the economy sphere and tightening the tourism to the dislike of the population. Erdogan obstination is a political suicide on so many levels.
Unlike ISIS, Kurds are not foreign fighters that depend on the funding of a third party. They are locals who know their lands by heart, who have been there for generations, these are true warriors, who don’t depend on drugs or oil traffic to manage getting logistics. Years of oppression have neither affected their determination nor their objectives and now, more than ever, they know that the stakes are high and when you have nothing to lose but everything to gain; you are in your most fierceful state.
Christiane Waked
Risk Analyst. Former Press Attaché of the French Embassy to the UAE (2010-2015) also worked as linguist and analyst in the French Interior Ministry (2005-2008)
