They have a national cause that is almost forgotten. They face life with a smile, seek freedom, and leave their homes on a Wednesday every year to be inhabited by angels. They were originally followers of Zoroaster. They believe in his teachings, revere nature, and live by the saying: “Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.” These are the Kurds whose presence was scattered across the ocean, and whose land was disputed by four countries: “Türkiye, Syria, Iran, and Iraq.” But they did not surrender, but rather resisted, establishing autonomy in northeastern Syria, establishing autonomy in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and struggling in Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The world is changing, and the bloc is against them, and they are patient. Today, after the renewed confrontation around them intensified in the autonomous regions of Syria, yesterday they reached an agreement with the Syrian government, and they breathed a sigh of relief awaiting the details. The Kurdish woman who does not resemble others in her performance is not and will not be just a detail. Here is one of the stories of struggle, the story of the Kurds in this region, that deserves to be supported and told.
– Nawal Nasr
We saw them with braids, Kurdish women who turned their hair into braids in support of the braids campaign that was launched around the world as a response to the braid of a Kurdish girl who was killed. For the Kurds, braids are a symbol of women’s strength and chastity. They are part of their culture, identity and roots. Many other campaigns took place in recent weeks, as if a decision had been made to massacre new Kurds in northeastern Syria, and the fear was great.
In Lebanon, which is preoccupied with a thousand files and issues, and under the barrage of fateful expectations, many did not pay attention – or many did not care – about the Kurdish issue. Here, in Lebanon, we consider the Kurds to be an “incomplete character,” an inferior group, and this is a problem we have. Let us at least sympathize, for compassion is at the core of humanity. Let us look at this issue for once with eyes, heart and logic, and let us get to know the people next to us who were founded on a rock and whose steadfastness resembles mountains.
Noubhar Mustafa, a Kurdish women’s activist and activist, from Rojava, Hanan Othman, head of the Women’s Committee of the Newroz Social Cultural Association in Lebanon, and the head of the association, Jamal Al-Hassan, spoke with heart, mind, and logic about the past, present, and future of the Kurds in their dismembered country: Kurdistan.
Let us start from the present moment, from the agreement that took place between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government, which may avoid further bloodshed, and it was said that it would ensure the integration of the institutions “known as self-administration within the institutions of the Syrian state.” Did this reassure the Kurds? Activist Noubhar Mustafa, who is today in Beirut and her family and people in the northeastern region of Syria, answers: “It is true that the agreement may protect the lives of civilians, but we are awaiting the details to know how the woman who struggled to achieve self-administration will be dealt with. She gained gains, smelled the scent of freedom, supported, fought, was arrested, and paid blood and sweat to achieve self-rule administration and consecrate women’s role in it. What will be her role in the contents of the new agreement? This is the question, and this is “What the coming days will show.” May it be good.
But, didn’t women participate in the negotiations between the two parties? Nobahar answers: “Yes, Elham Ahmed (the official in the Department of Foreign Relations in the Self-Administration) participated, but this agreement came as an imposition, with no balance in it, and it was made under Saudi, Qatari, American, and Turkish pressure, meaning that either the agreement or the region is heading towards a more comprehensive, widespread war. In any case, we were told that there are details. We are waiting for the details, and our struggle continues to strengthen local administrations with broad powers, and women will not accept to return to the Middle Ages.”
In Lebanon, the Kurdish presence is old, and it arrived in two waves, with Saladin at first, and then during World War I, after Kurdistan was divided into four parts. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Turkish state was established on an ethno-nationalist basis, the Kurds were persecuted and their leaders were executed, and uprisings occurred that demanded a Kurdish homeland. Hanan Othman says: “Everyone established their nationalities, and only the Kurds left Al-Mawred without Homs.” The Kurds – along with the Armenians – came to Lebanon in the twentieth century, and spread in many areas, but what happened with the Kurds is that no one cared about them in Lebanon. In any case, it is said that 70 to 90 thousand Kurds live here, and there are no political parties for the Kurds, but only associations. What matters to the Kurds is the preservation of the language, culture and cause. When the Kurds came, they arrived with the Armenians who were also uprooted from their lands, and they were embraced more than the Kurds. The Kurds in Lebanon were not viewed as a national people, but rather as Sunnis, and they were told: The Sunni sect is your authority, but they remained marginalized and second-class citizens.
We ask about the meaning of “Nowruz,” the word hanging in the hallway where we are, and the association’s president, Jamal Al-Hassan, answers: It means “the new day,” and the Kurds have never stopped believing that a new day awaits them. Al-Hassan says: “The dough of the Kurds is mixed together. We were persecuted and expelled from our land, and they divided it into four parts. It is said that there is a part with Iran, so we answer them: No, Iran has taken control of part of our land. It is ours and will only be ours. The Kurdish homeland extends over an area of 750 thousand kilometers, and we are forbidden from speaking our language in official forums in Iran, knowing that the Persian language borrows Kurdish vocabulary. Former President Mohammad Khatami proposed a language support project Persian with Kurdish vocabulary to purify their language. Do you imagine that they would do this and prevent us from speaking our language?
The Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria refuse to be called a “minority,” and Al-Hassan says: “We are in Kurdistan, in the land of the Kurds, and the owners of the land cannot be classified as a minority. This is a political term. The State of Iraq built the Federal Republic in the days of Churchill, and since that day there has been Kurdistan, but we hear those saying that Saddam Hussein was the one who gave us the land – our land – no, no one gave us a grant. Kurdistan exists in the structure of the Iraqi state, because before the emergence of modern national states there were no states Arab, but empires. After the war, the concept of nationalities appeared, and before that, we, as Kurds, had our own state and empire, like the Arabs and Persians.”
It is as if the Kurds are always destined to be the scapegoat: “We were the ones who participated in the founding of modern Turkey, but after its announcement it turned against us and slaughtered us after it directly abused the Armenians and betrayed our rights. Iran did the same thing. The overthrow of the Shah was with the support of the Kurdish forces in Iranian Kurdistan, but after Khomeini’s success he turned against us and against his promise to us to build our new autonomous state, and they in Iran called us infidels and atheists and…”
We interrupt the conversation with a question: Why do others always find it easy to exploit the Kurds, as is happening today in northeastern Syria? Hanan Othman answers: “Man is always grasping for straws. We were under the needle of the Kurdish people. ISIS surrounded us and the Turkish state was attacking us. We searched for a straw to protect us, so we made an alliance with the Americans, and this alliance protected the Kurds for 14 years. And throughout our history, we tried to extend a hand to the countries surrounding us. We called for the brotherhood of peoples and religions and living together, but they all coveted us because Kurdistan is the food and oil basket.” Agricultural, aesthetic, and natural, which are the mountains, terrain, and waterfalls in its four parts, have tremendous bounties, and the language of geography struck us. The Silk Road passes through our land, and the railways pass through us, even the David Corridor as well. No plan is complete except in the land of the Kurds, so they try to monopolize us to advance their plans.”
When the Kurdish citizen starts talking about Kurdistan, all the words of love come to the fore. They talk about the smell of pomegranates and apples that wafts from their land, as if they were inhaling them. They talk about the massacres they were exposed to in ancient and modern history, including “Halabja,” as if they are being repeated today. It is the ability of some peoples to live as prisoners of grand schemes, and it is the will of some peoples to break the darkness of those who plan at their expense. Here, we remember that the Kurds of northeastern Syria fought fiercely to achieve their self-administration. Nubahar Mustafa, for example, was arrested three times. She was initially active through the Star Union, which contributed to shaping awareness among Kurdish women. This awareness is contagious, and its contagion awakened many women to their rights, and they inhaled the scent of rational freedom: “For them, freedom is life, and there is no freedom without virtue.”
When we talk about the Kurds, we often use the “nun al-niswa” because the woman there stood among the ranks of the first fighters and advanced, so we see a woman with her braid, and we see a father making a braid for her. How nice it is to get to know the cultural and militant language of peoples.
The Palestinian issue is always progressing, while the Kurdish issue is almost absent. Is the absence intentional? Othman answers: “This is because we are not affiliated with the Arabs, the Persians, or the Turks. Our nationality is independent, and even in Islam they do not recognize us. We call for the sun and nature. There is no fanaticism in our religion, and women have a prominent position. Our holy book is the Avesta. We follow the Zoroastrian religion that the ancient Medes and Persians embraced. There are Kurds who converted to Islam, but the Arabs do not recognize either our Islam or our presence. That is why “Our case was hidden in order not to disturb the Turkish authorities.”
There are more than seventy million Kurds in the world, and the land area of Kurdistan, if returned, exceeds 75 thousand square kilometers. There are many Kurdish births because they know that they are being subjected to genocide. They live in the mountains because they are certain that this protects them from the intentions of others to exterminate them. The Kurdish people say: We have no friend except the mountains, and they are known to not accept surrender.
Today, in northeastern Syria, where the Kurds have autonomous administration, there are about two million citizens. As for the Kurdish expansion, it is spread over the entire area of Syria: in the Levant, Latakia, Hama, and Homs. They usually choose the high areas to live, and the obsession with extermination accompanies them. In Iranian Kurdistan there are about 12 million Kurds, and in Turkey there are about 32 million Kurds, and this number is more than a third of the Kurds. The Kurdish language is prohibited, and anyone who calls for the Kurdish issue there is persecuted. President Abdullah Ocalan spoke about the justification of the case while he remains detained, and Turkey is pressing around the world to erase their case. In Germany, for example, it is forbidden to call the name “Azad,” and they provide the Kurds with a list of names that are not related to the Kurds to register their births. In Türkiye, they call the Kurds backward mountain Turks, but in Iran, every day there are executions of Kurds, and there is a woman who taught the Kurdish language in her home and was executed.
Much more to say, the issue is big. Persian apricots and pistachios, which are called Iranian, are from the fertile land of Kurdistan, and these, the children of the issue, are confident that one day a new dawn will come.
