The Kurds, Turks, and Arabs in the ‘Nation-State’… A Second Century of Hatred?

A number of unoccupied border cities and towns in northern Syria are shrouded in darkness and fear as they face heavy bombardment, assaults on essential service infrastructure, and attempts of occupation. In Afrin, a brutal and organized genocide is taking place, standing as a testament to the triumph of hatred under the watchful eyes of all human rights organizations.

In southern Iraq, authorities have uncovered a new mass grave containing the remains of over 100 Kurdish citizens from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the majority of whom were buried alive, including children and women. This grave dates back to Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime and its campaign against the Kurds. It is part of hundreds of graves that have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Kurds through mass killings and acts of genocide.

A “century of darkness” looms over this nation from 1923 to 2025. The four states that owe their existence (in the cases of Syria and Iraq) and their continuity (in the cases of Turkey and Iran) to colonialism itself, have followed the doctrine of the Ottoman Minister of the Interior and Grand Vizier, Talat Pasha, during the era of the Committee of Union and Progress. This doctrine, which Talat himself referred to as the “closed box,” has persisted throughout this dark period.

Minister Talat Pasha used this expression during the opening of an internal conference to prepare for the first colonial exploration campaign in Kurdistan and Armenia. Within this “closed box,” everything is allowed away from the scrutiny of the world! The world essentially permitted this box to be closed; this was the foundation of the Turkish definition in the Treaty of Lausanne, where the international aspect of this deal involved tacit acceptance of the Turkish claim that its internal affairs were a “closed box” relating to both good and evil, life and death. It all hinges on the conscience of those who hold this closed box, which contains Kurdistan and the Kurdish people. This is precisely what they refer to as the “nation-state” in the Middle East, whether it is ethnically motivated or infused with a religiosity that harbors hatred for others. Every nation-state adopts this closed box approach, and the international relations of these states are dedicated to ensuring the freedom to kill segments of their society or entire populations within their borders.

For the past hundred years, the nation-state model, in its most bloody and failed form, has reveled in its glory in the Middle East. Despite its utter failure in terms of development and the rule of law, this state has achieved remarkable success in altering public sentiment to believe in the sanctity of the state and the prohibition against questioning its nature, alongside its monolithic political character that seeks to eliminate diversity and pluralism. Its success was profound enough to shift the mentality of its opponents to reflect its own views, particularly regarding the transformation of state identity from a racist, predatory entity into a national state composed of various ethnicities sharing a common geographical space.

Therefore, discussing the failure of the nation-state in the Middle East obscures the success of this model in entrenching racism and hatred, transforming them into a prevailing culture through the dissemination of one-sided misinformation that undermines the existence of the Kurds and casts doubt on their significance in history itself! Who are these Kurds to demand any of the natural human rights in modern society? The most favored among them are those who have been Arabized or Turkified; this is the Kurd who is allowed to survive and thrive!

Countless examples contradict the misleading narrative that the war against the Kurdish cause in the four countries is merely a product of political regimes. Initially, this was indeed the case, as Talat Pasha’s exploratory committee in Anatolia and Kurdistan conveyed shocking findings to the leadership, revealing that the residents of the country, especially the Turks, were reluctant to define themselves in terms of Turkish nationalism due to the perception that such a definition would undermine their dignity.

Later, however, the social mood changed drastically, deteriorating into alarming levels of hatred due to authoritarian education and indoctrination. Nowadays, no political analysis concerning Turkish affairs is complete without linking Turkish interventions in Syria to the political gains of the government. Even the Turkish leadership itself does not deny this. Afrin, Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ayn), and Tal Abyad have been overrun, and the Kurdish social presence in these modest cities has been reduced to ruins, becoming a scene of unabated crime at the hands of the Syrian National Army (SNA). This is a disturbing conclusion, even if it does not seem to attract much attention from observers. What does it signify that attacking a people in a neighboring country—uprooting them from their land and destroying them—enhances electoral chances or popular support? The answer is uncomfortable according to the literature on social peace, but those involved are unashamed: hatred and war have become methodologies for a broad segment of society.

Where do these nihilistic tendencies originate? From where does this segment arise that does not hesitate to reward any leader who uproots a people from their land and displaces them into camps and along death roads? It is the same segment that refused to define itself in nationalist terms during the First World War. The success of the racist nation-state lies in its ability to forge an image of itself within significant portions of society. The armed community—even now—seeks its own closed box in the current persecutions occurring in the Syrian coast and mountains, continuing practices inherited from the deposed regime.

Such a model has been previously evident in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In these states, governments succeeded in crafting a persona that aligned with their monolithic nature. Reversing this trend and lessening its political and electoral impact will require new approaches adopted by broad-based coalition governments that reward peaceful coexistence rhetoric, similar to how the Justice and Development Party (AKP) did when it came to power in 2002. Turkey has never witnessed a social mandate as vast in its recent history as that of the AKP at the onset of its electoral rise.

This historical achievement began to dissipate when the votes of this historical bloc became fractured, with a portion going to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and other smaller parties, as a result of the ruling party’s failure to uphold the consensual promises that had sustained its success. Instead of embracing the historical responsibility to adapt to this change and attempting to redirect its course, the AKP veered sharply towards the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which draws support from marginal segments with a total electoral power of less than 7 percent. To attract these voters, the AKP adopted the rhetoric of a radical minority, espousing mythical slogans that evoke the legend of the “Gray Wolf.” This shift occurred rapidly beginning in 2015. Consequently, aggressive extraterritorial policies targeting Kurds emerged, justified under various pretexts, from the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The current educational and cultural catastrophe in the region is that the rhetoric of war and external aggression has become a rallying point for applause. This is because the broad Anatolian bloc that brought the AKP to power in 2002 did not abandon the party when its discourse shifted from peace to war, despite the absence of an existential threat to the republic.

Now, any party advocating for internal peace restoration, reducing partisan polarization, and refraining from using state resources for partisan electoral wars will suffer a crushing defeat within the Anatolian electorate. This change did not arise from an inherent societal shift towards radicalism but rather from a ruling power that has engineered this transformation. Syria is likely to experience a similar attempt in this direction, where Turkey seeks to impose its character, creating a closed box for this authority and dictating its contents.

What is even more concerning is that international powers, particularly Russia, alongside regional forces, are supporting this hate-fueled trend within Middle Eastern societies. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly stated that the U.S. aims to establish a Kurdish separatist state in Syria and that Turkey’s actions in Syria (occupation) are legitimate for the sake of its security.

The last time Lavrov reiterated this statement was shortly after the fall of the Assad regime. Despite Russia’s strategic and humiliating defeat in the Mediterranean, he found time to incite hatred against the Kurds in societies that readily absorb such statements, worsening their fears, leading them into hatred, and calls for extermination under the pretext of protecting the sacred state.

Recently, a Syrian artist shamelessly declared at an art festival discussing Kobanê that Syria spans 185,000 square kilometers and that he wants all of those kilometers with not a single meter less. This artist articulated these sentiments in a threatening tone, implying that the Autonomous Administration project in northern and eastern Syria is a separatist initiative without explicitly stating so. He is effectively warning and prioritizing that he will not accept a Syria diminished from its full area of 185,000 square kilometers.

The dilemma here is not whether a separatist project exists; it lies in the “secessionist hypothesis” that this artist and others like him propagate, which justifies unleashing murderers and thieves to eliminate any threat to that 185 square kilometers. The real concern is the viability of this hypothesis itself and the failure to define ways to prevent it, exposing a lack of understanding—not simply a misunderstanding—that does not appear easily resolvable through mere cognitive correction.

To this day, there are no signs that the conflicting international powers in the Middle East are genuinely committed to politically changing the concept of the genocidal nation-state. It would be misguided to excuse these powers—more specifically, the organizations involved—from ignoring, and in some cases, sponsoring, protecting, and immunizing hate speech in Middle Eastern societies, allowing this hate to manifest itself, and funding media outlets skilled at promoting racism.

In any case, many academics underestimate the state’s ability to create groups and militias that mirror its own thinking patterns and construct enemies. Otherwise, how can we explain that most of the internationally funded Syrian opposition—before its sudden transformation into a governing authority—adopted a vision that was even more violent than that of the previous regime towards pluralism as a whole? Through internationally funded media outlets, a narrative has been propagated depicting the Kurds as a newly arrived social formation, asserting that they possess no political rights and relegating them to the status of shoe shiners.

Such ideas, in their subtle yet racist variations, resonate among both elites and the general populace. The roots of hatred date back to the early days of colonial nation-states, where specific narratives from ancient, medieval, and modern history have been selectively co-opted in two main directions: the first seeks to erase the continuity of residence and stability concerning the Kurds and those like them, while the second fabricates an eternal historical continuity for the very recent entity called “Syria” or “Syriah,” as preferred by Arabic speakers.

If the historicity of these entities in the region were properly articulated, these cleansing (not purifying) tendencies could be alleviated. Syria, for instance, is merely an administrative label that, thanks to modern French colonialism, encompasses lands that do not align with its geographical identity. In Yaqut al-Hamawi’s Encyclopaedia of Countries, there is no geographical entity referred to as Syria, except for what is mentioned in the section under the letter S, labeled ‘Syria’ (with the linked ta), which is defined as: “A place in the Levant between Khanasra and Salamiyah.” Before Yaqut, the name ‘Syria’ appeared in Al-Talib in the History of Aleppo by the historian Ibn al-Adim (died 1262 AD), referencing Jabal al-Ahsas, south of Aleppo: “In this mountain, there is a ruined city, Syria, which was built with black stone; today it is a ruin with no inhabitants.” In another instance, he mentions Syria again while quoting a saying attributed to Hercules after his defeat: “Peace be upon you, Syria.” It is conceivable that the manuscript’s editor, Suhail Zakkar, converted the alef in the name Syria into a ta.

Ibn al-Adim continued: “Syria is the fifth of the Levant, and Antioch is among it. We have mentioned that at the end of Al-Ahsas, there is a ruined city called Syria.” Abu al-Fida al-Ayyubi (died 1331 AD), in his work Al-Yawaqiṭ wa al-Zarb in the History of Aleppo, mentioned a reversed order of the regions of the Levant, stating that “Syria is the first of the Levant, which includes Aleppo and the surrounding areas, according to some narrators.” The oldest of all these sources is the book by Ibn Abdrabah al-Andalusi (died 940 AD), who does not reference Syria in the divisions of the Levant: “Then the fifth Levant is Qansarin, whose major city where the Sultan resides is Aleppo; its coastal area is Antioch.”

The name Syria remained vague and without identity as time went on. In the nineteenth century, it emerged in its first official administrative form during the new Ottoman divisions of the Levant, with the province of “Syria” suddenly appearing to encompass Damascus, breaking away from its origins in Aleppo and the northern Orontes Valley extending to Antakya. With the occupation of Ottoman southern territories by the French and British, French administrators engaged in a “revolutionary” effort. For the first time in history, from Adam until 1920, the Euphrates Jazira region was incorporated into the geography of the Levant under the collective name “Syria.”

The purpose of this digression regarding the name Syria and its historical connotations—how it faded and then unexpectedly reemerged at the end of the nineteenth century, expanding forcefully under French colonialism towards Jazira—aims to deconstruct the fragile mythology of the present. It emphasizes that no one possesses a continuous historical narrative, and that everyone can create their own isolationist, imperialist, and aggressive narrative whenever the ruling class, whether within states or in opposing movements, decides to do so.

However, this only serves to intensify hatred and accumulate resentment, as there is no entity on earth that represents a heavenly will against an earthly one. There is no such thing as 185,000 square kilometers, with or without our heads! The continuation of this type of nation-state is a recipe for protracted and futile civil wars, because they are wars over something worthless and meaningless, which is the sovereignty and guardianship of one national or religious group over other groups. What is the civilizational value in such domination other than psychological tendencies that require treatment, not statehood? These are perceptions divorced from the history that shaped the difference, including the experience of ‘communities-nation’ that manifested in short, exceptional, and remarkable periods in the history of this region, with nothing preventing its revival in line with a more progressive and pluralistic understanding of the modern state.