Demystifying Syria by Fred H. Lawson

Author:Fred H. Lawson [Lawson, Fred H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9780863568183
Google: uUIhBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Saqi
Published: 2012-02-13T08:09:35+00:00

Emergence of a Community

For the first time, mass mobilisation of Kurds around their ethnic identity took the form of direct confrontation with power. Also for the first time, the popular resistance movement touched the network of Kurdish territories, including even the most isolated enclaves such as Kawbanah, and thereby reinforced the symbolic unity of a Kurdish Syrian space. The statement that ‘the intifadah of March delineated the map of Syrian Kurdistan’, by ‘Abd al-Basit Hamu‘, a Kurdish militant based in Germany, clarifies the importance of intifadah for a community that discovers an affirmation of its existence inside the lines of demarcation that are drawn by revolt. By providing a geographic symbol, the events in al-Qamishli mark a decisive step for Kurdish nationalism in Syria.

At the same time, the confrontation creates a space of confidence regarding Kurdistan, which becomes a symbolic sanctuary: Shivan, the Kurdish nationalist singer, even composed a song to honour the ‘martyred’ city of al-Qamishli and the solidarity demonstrations that took place in Sulaimaniyyah and Diyarbakir, and in Europe. Barzani abandoned his typical reserve on the subject of Kurds in Syria, and demanded that a solution be found for the problems affecting ‘Kurdistan in Syria’. This indiscreet terminology enraged Syrian officials, and not even a visit by Hushyar Zibari, the Iraqi minister of foreign affairs, could calm them down. The new-found interaction between the Syrian Kurdish and Iraqi Kurdish arenas, as illustrated by Zibari’s attempt at mediation, could not but arouse an awareness of the unprecedented strategic position of the Kurds in Syria and the shift in power between them and the Syrian state.

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