Sarbast Nabi
The obviousness of this question does not justify presenting it except for the part of disapproval and astonishment at the demands of the Kurds and what they want, and the suspicion of the legitimacy of their rights or their aspiration for a better future. This question contains a hidden and deep resentment which is much deeper than the apparent cognitive neutrality it claims. It is not innocent to the extent that it announces itself as a subject for research and epistemological and political discussion only.
What the Kurds want is related to their will. The issue does not exceed the limits of the will of others, and that is why what they want cannot be a burden or at the expense of others, unless others want to insinuate their will in the issue of the will of the Kurds for some reasons. The intended will here is general; in other words, it is a qualitative identity that is conscious of itself and its existence in history. It is not a quantitative will. That is why its objectives and the legitimacy of its objectives are not measured by a quantitative standard. It is the will of the truth, the truth as the object and the end of the will.
As long as it is a matter of will, only the Kurds are concerned with their fate in Syria, and they are the ones who will decide to be true Syrians with their free will – not forced or coerced by the guardianship of others and their will. No one can forcibly make others happy, or force them into paradise. Those who do not believe in the right of human beings and groups to justice, equality, and freedom can very simply deny this principle and reject it. What makes the Kurds Syrians and urges them to fight for their Syria is only the hope for freedom and equality, not anything else. There is no fraternal flattery like the free historical and political “Arab-Kurdish brotherhood” slogan, nor any ideological flattery, nor any arbitrary historical coincidence that makes them Syrians without their will. The more Syria will be free, and the more they will be free in it and equal with others, they will side with it.
The Kurds in Syria (Rojava/western Kurdistan) are not able to live under the shadows of anyone’s history, nor their political legitimacy. The legitimacy of their rights stems from here in particular, not from any other source. These rights are represented in a basic and self-evident principle, which is their right to self-determination, to be Syrians of their free will, and not forced to choose.
Kurdish existence is an historical, geographic, and scientific fact, and the rights of the Kurds are not ideological heresy or a political invention. This fact is much older than the political reality of Syria and more legitimate in historical terms. Just as you cannot deny the scientific truth of Newton’s apple, you cannot deny this scientific fact, which can be verified with reference to history. You can deny the rights or bargain over them, but you cannot neglect the scientific truth, it is impossible to ignore it. It is impossible to disguise Newton’s apple and the Law of Attraction, but it is possible to gossip endlessly about the rights of Native Americans in America.
“The Syrian people are one!”
This slogan is no longer nothing but a bona fide myth. Just notice the amount of the hatred and symbolic violence masked in the discourse of the Islamic opposition, and observe the feelings of the public by translating the slogans prevailing in it (the Alawites, the apostate Kurds, the infidel Christians, the Druze, the Ismailis, etc.). This matter is no longer limited to emotional charges in the announced slogans; rather, it began to be embodied in the mutual revenge operations that took place and are increasingly and intensely taking place in most of the Syrian cities. The Syrian regime wanted this and sought it with all its energy, while the Islamic opposition and its allies facilitated this matter and granted it legitimacy in order to justify this discourse and market it as the only and alternative discourse of salvation. They cheered this matter in secret, succeeded in achieving this disaster in parallel with the regime’s action, and shared the innocent benefits of this goal with it.
The Syrians marched ahead and steadfastly along the paths of hatred towards eternal enmity. Those who pushed them to do so were well aware and possessed of malice and a demonic mind that made coexistence between them impossible afterward. The Syrian revolution, which began as a great revolution, ended as a gigantic circus of killing and devastation. It ended as an open hell in which all the devils and demons of the earth played. Now every thief, bandit, jester, and deceiver can impersonate a rebellious saint and insert himself into it.
Everyone practiced and is practicing the act of division. Everyone’s practices led to and lead to the division of the country socially, geographically, and politically. Everyone is already a separatist: the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab Sunnis and the Turkmen separate Syrians with walls of skulls and blood. But only the Kurds are accused of separatism. Kurds denounce the act of division and its intentions for everyone, knowing that only the Kurds are unique in proposing solutions to their problems within the context of a unified democratic and pluralistic homeland, and they have become hoarse shouting this slogan without being believed by anyone. Only those who believe in Syria for all will believe them.
Let’s start from here: who is ensuring that Syria remains united with all this disintegration, conflict and devastation? Those who imagine that Syria can live any longer in its national or sectarian tyranny, or think that it can be Salafist and call for that, are deluded. The most deluded of these two is those who believe that it will tolerate any longer the tyranny of any racist Arab chauvinist ideology that eliminates the other. Syria can survive on its own without recourse to any ideological falsifications from outside. From here begins the great establishment of a comprehensive national solution, and this is the horizon within which the Kurdish issue can be resolved.
The main issue is how to reconcile with the future in this geopolitics, and this is what we can expect from this historic and tragic transformation. In this context, the modern nation-state constitutes the highest political and legal framework for organizing common life in this geography. All of this is through the free participation of everyone in determining their political destiny and striving for their future to be their own and nothing but themselves, the future in which they should contribute to its making and achieve their selves in it.
What seems clear to us until this moment is that there is no evidence or presumption of the willingness of the Arab or Islamist opposition to recognize the national rights of the Syrian Kurds, or to declare a rift with the racist Ba’ath legacy and its denialist policies towards the Kurds and their cause. When these forces find themselves forced to talk about the Syrian Kurdish issue, they are speaking in a general and vague manner that is closer to the statements of the Ba’ath government’s Ministers of Information and their spokespersons. At the same time, it demands that we support its political demands firmly without regard for our just rights in return. Today, it is impossible to talk about a joint coalition of the Syrian opposition, including the Kurds and Arabs, in the absence of this radical and comprehensive democratic discourse that contains and takes up the demands of all, and affirms the justice of the national issue of the Syrian Kurds.
The belief in the Syrianness of the Kurdish issue and recognizing it on the part of these people should not be based on an abstract Arab or Islamist consciousness, but rather through a personalized Syrian one: a consciousness of citizenship based on difference and recognition of political, historical, and cultural pluralism. This belief is only possible through the constitutional and political recognition that Syria’s political identity is not only Arab, and it should not be Arab as well, but rather pluralism. Any potential political regime should derive its legitimacy from the Syrian society with its existing national, cultural, social, and historical diversity, and find its realistic foundations in this diversity and reflect it in its general principles. Usually, the constitution is the organizer of these general principles and their relationships. That is why it is absolutely fair that the Syrian constitution stipulates in the future and clearly defines the Syrian state as a multi-national state, and that the Arabs and the Kurds, along with the Syriacs, represent the main nationalities in Syria, and that any possible democratic constitution for Syria must recognize full equality between Arabs and Kurds in status and role, and in rights and duties, as a just and prime entry point for resolving the national issue of the Kurds in Syria. It must also stipulate that the parliament, or any other authority, does not have the right to violate this principle, or limit its comprehensiveness and its achievement in all aspects of political or social life, and that any law that affects this principle or its prestige challenges its constitutionality and is considered contrary to the founding contract partnership, and ultimately void.
Belonging to Syria is the fairest thing among us. This is what should be declared and emphasized. By all standards, no one is more or less Syrian than others. Syria is for everyone without disparity or preference. There is no sense in the freedom of any group without this equality of all. Any possible political regime that would stand up to change must prove on the ground, in a practical way, that Syria is Kurdish as much as it is Arab, and Arab to the extent that it will be Kurdish. At the same time, it will not be Arab, to the extent that it will not be Kurdish or Syriac. Not accepting this political and cultural obviousness will lead society and the state once again to succumb to the tyranny of one ethnic group and exclude the rest.