My
Critique of the Henry Jackson Society’s Report on “Unity or PYD Power Play?:
Syrian Kurdish Dynamics After the Erbil Agreement”
Compared to the Kurds in Kurdistan regions
of Turkey and Iraq, the Kurds in Syria have been invisible in political and
public spheres in the Middle East for decades. They have been described as
“forgotten people” or “the silenced Kurds” in a few academic works and
articles. Indeed they are the largest ethnic group after the Arabs in
Syria and are the potential catalyst for a possible pluralistic and
democratic process in Syria.
They have suffered for decades under the
policies of the Arab imagined political community and their ethnic identity and
existence have been denied by “Syrian Arab Republic”. They have been subjected
to ethnic discrimination, political prosecution, displaced as part of Syrian
government’s Arabization policies. After stripping of Syrian citizenship
from 20 percent of Syria's Kurdish population in 1960, many Kurds were classified
as the ajanib (foreigners) and maktoumeen (meaning "hidden" or "
muted") and become refugees in their own country for decades
before and during the Bath regime. However since the Kurdish Serhildan (Uprising) in
2004 in Kurdish populated Qamishli and so called “Syrian Revolution” in 2011,
the “forgotten people” have been receiving increasing attention from the
international communities and also considerable attention from journalists,
political analysts and the Middle East “experts” who have been publishing
some interesting reports and articles on the Kurds in Syria. But some of
these reports and articles are problematical because they look the Kurds in
Syria from the perspectives of dominant nationalistic discourses in the region
e.g. Turkish and Arab nationalism and/or from the perspective of the
“common sense” of global powers. In this sense a recently published
report[1] entitled “Unity or PYD Power Play?:
Syrian Kurdish Dynamics After the Erbil Agreement” needs to be read critically
because it is biased and political and makes unsubstantial claims about the
Kurds in Syria and about Kurdish political organisations in the region.
Moreover it attempts to justify and legitimize the hostile intention of Turkish
policies toward Kurds in Turkey and Syria in criminalizing and delegitimizing
Kurdish political parties. The authors use an old concept of "good
Kurds" and "bad Kurds" without any analytic skill and academic
credibility and knowledge of multi-connected, multi-referential relationships
among Kurdish organisations, parties and networks and between Kurdish and
Syrian groups, parties and people.
I would emphasize that I agree
with some issues highlighted in conclusion in particular issues related to the
KNC [Kurdish National Council] and PYD [ Democratic Union Party] that they should find a rational ways to respect their political
differences and share power for a pluralistic and democratic process in the
Kurdish populated region. I also firmly agree with the authors that both KNC
and PYD should be integrated into the political establishment in the region.
However I think the report is also problematic in various respects. Firstly the
report divides the Kurdish political groups sharply into “good Kurds” and “bad
Kurds”. This old concept has been used by the regional countries in the Middle East and also by
some "Western" powers report repeats the same, old and trivial
concept. The “bad Kurds” who are “the militant”(p6),” terrorist” (p11),
“radicals in the PKK linked Democratic Union Party (PYD)” (p5), “the Turkish
PKK” (p17) and the “good Kurds” who are “moderate Kurds”. It is unclear what
the characteristic of “moderate Kurds” (p6) are and how they are qualified as
being “good Kurds” and who decides on which criteria that certain groups are
“moderate” and others “radical” and therefore need to be isolated (p24). There
is a discourse throughout this report based on creating a “folk devil”, a
political group who is labeled as a threat. It does not matter for me whether
this otherized group is PYD or any other political group. My concern is that a
particular group which has considerable popular support in Kurdistan region in
Syria is labeled and its legitimacy questioned because it has ideological and
political links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Secondly I also criticize the report for ignoring multi-connected, multi-referential relationships among Kurdish organizations, parties and networks and between Kurdish and Syrian groups, parties and people as well as between Kurdish leaders, parties and Turkish government. These multi-connected, multi-referential relationships influence the political position of differently positioned groups, parties and even governments. Let me clarify this with an example. On his way back from a visit to Germany, the Turkish Prime minster Mr Erdogan responded to a question about the “threat” of PYD in Syria and to Turkey as follows: ‘…Barzani… even tried to explain that PYD is not like PKK’ (Barzani … hatta PYD’nin PKK olmadığını anlatmaya çalıştı bize (Hurriyet, 02 November 2012). This statement shows clearly that President of Kurdistan Regional Government, Mr. Barzani mediates between PYD and Turkey in an indirect way and attempts to include PYD into the political field in the region. So the division between “bad Kurds “ and “good Kurds” are not as clearly delineated, because of their multiple connection, attachment, loyalties etc. Therefore I find the language used in this report is based on the deictic juxtaposition and distance rhetoric which attempt to show the “good Kurds” as “moderate” and “bad Kurds” as “threat”. I think that there are no such sharp boundaries in the region. The political positions of parties and groups in the Kurdish populated region and in Syria are constantly changeable due to local, regional and international conditions, search of security within an instable region and hunger for power.
My third reservation about this report is that the accusation of PYD working with Assad regime has been mentioned in this and other reports without any reliable evidence. Instead there is a reliance on suspicions as in the following sentence: “Nevertheless, the fact that the regime ceded such large swaths of territory to the PYD without a struggle raises suspicions that this was a tactical move designed to strengthen the PYD in order to enervate Turkey, which views any build-up of a PKK apparatus in northern Syria as a direct national security threat” (p11). The only supporting statement for this claim highlighted in the report is that “analysts and scholars have speculated as to whether or not the Assad regime withdrew independently from Kurdish areas, or whether it did so in direct collaboration with the PYD” (p11), however there is not any reference to those “analysts and scholars”. Some Kurdish groups I talked to, see such claims made in Turkish and Arab sources as a “conspiracy theory” to delegitimize the political production and position of a certain powerful Kurdish political group within Syria and beyond, in particular on the international level. The report repeats the same “conspiracy theory” without providing any reliable evidence to its readers. The Christian and Druze communities in Syria have been blamed by the so called “Free Syrian Army” in a similar way for working with the regime. I have to emphasize that I do not have any evidence for or against the truth of this claim. I assume that only after the fall of the regime we will know this.
The authors provide space for such accusations made by Syrian-Arabs and highlight that there is a “frustration and anger at the Kurds for not sufficiently participating in our uprising” (p15). However there is no statement of some Kurdish groups who are for a “peaceful transition from dictatorial regime to a democratic and pluralistic system”. There are clearly two different positions. The first one (mainly Sunni-Arabs) believe that Assad regime can be changed by armed struggle, the other one (mainly held by minority groups including Kurds, Christians, Armenians, Assyrians and Druze) who distrust the Muslim brotherhood and nationalists and prefer to seek a peaceful rather than militant solution, they are scared both of the regime and also of the Islamist opposition.
The report goes further: “The KNC failed to reach an agreement with the SNC, as was demonstrated in the July Istanbul meeting, and the PYD refused to even attend”. However the Kurds I spoke to blame the SNC for blocking the Kurdish active participation in “revolution” because SNC insists to continue the policies of Baath regime in the way in which SNC [ Syrian National Council] has reject the Kurdish demands for constitutional recognition of Kurdish ethnic group and their political representation through autonomy or federalism, secularist, pluralistic and democratic Syria. The Kurds from Kurdistan region in Syria I have connection with, see SCN as “still an Arab nationalist organization with strong tendencies of Arab Islamists” which does not recognize the ethnic and religious plurality of the country’s population.
I am really disappointed to see that “intellectual and moral leadership” in the political reproduction of the hegemonic form of Turkish and/or Arab nationalism over subordinated Kurdish people are legitimized through Henry Jackson Society.
25.10.2012, London
[1] Hossino, O., Tanir, I and van Wilgenburg W(2012)“Unity
or PYD Power Play?: Syrian Kurdish Dynamics After the Erbil Agreement”, Henry
Jackson Society. http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2012/10/15/unity-or-pyd-power-play-syrian-kurdish-dynamics-after-the-erbil-agreement/
