Identity that Breaks the Boundaries of Colonialism: The Kurds and the Issue of Land

Before borders were drawn, the mountains spoke Kurdish. Before new names were invented for rivers, they were named after ancestors who knew nothing but the hills as home, and the sky as their roof. But colonialism didn’t care about roots—it cared about geography. It didn’t ask who had lived here thousands of years ago, but who could be used today to serve interests unrelated to justice, belonging,´-or-history. Suddenly, everything turned upside down: the land wasn’t for its people, identity wasn’t for those who carried it, language became a crime, and belonging turned into treason.

On the night of Sykes-Picot, not only were lands divided, but souls were also torn apart. Kurdistan was severed from the body of history, distributed as pieces of furniture between entities that didn’t exist before except on colorful British and French maps. No Kurd was invited to the table where their fate was decided, as though they had never been here, as though "Haldî," "Gri Marazan," "Kri Spî," "Amîda," and "Kermiyan" were not civilizations over fifteen thousand years old, but mere empty hills to be exploited. And so, the north became Turkish, the south Iraqi, the west Syrian, and the east Iranian, even though the Kurd in every one of these parts calls his mother in one language, sings praises at his father s grave to one melody, and names the mountain by its ancient name, despite all attempts at forgery.

But colonialism didn’t stop at dividing the land—it sought to divide consciousness as well. It created alternative, artificial, exaggerated, and falsified identities. It made "Arabism" seem as though it sprouted from the desert’s womb, when the truth is that those who shaped it, promoted it, and distributed it to the rulers were not Arabs from Quraish´-or-Tamim, but British, Americans, Christians, and Jews. Lawrence of Arabia was merely a theatrical -dir-ector, manipulating tribes like puppets. Sharif Hussein was a hero in a film unaware that its camera was pointed from London. Then came Nasser, and with him "Arab socialism," wrapped in a nationalist banner, with gifts from Miles Copeland and Kermit Roosevelt, American intelligence officers who turned "unity" into a slogan, "freedom" into propaganda, and "socialism" into a cover for internal destruction projects. Under this banner, states collapsed, armies broke, and homelands were lost, while Western interests flourished.

Ironically, the theorists of this modern Arab nationalism, whom some revere today, were not from the genuine Arab tribes, but from Michel Aflaq, the Alawite, Constantine Zureiq, the Christian, Caesar Farah, the Christian, Shakib Arslan, the Druze, and Zaki al-Arsuzi, the Alawite. These were the "fathers" of Arab nationalism, as though identity could be built on the opposite of those who carry it. As if those who call for Arab unity do not belong to it, and those who raise the banner of "Arabism" do not speak the language of roots, but the language of new colonialism.

In Turkey, "Turkism"´-or-"Turkomanism" was not a popular movement, but a project concocted in political laboratories, crafted by a Jewish man named Moiz Cohen, known as "Kok Alp," who formulated the theory of Turkish nationalism behind the scenes. Atatürk, who is revered today as a symbol of nationalism, walked on lines drawn by a man who did not belong to the identity he demanded others adhere to. Was Turkish nationalism more than a funded illusion? Was "Arabism" more than an imported slogan?

As for Persian, it was used in Iran as a tool to erase diversity and suppress minorities, including the Kurds, who are denied the right to teach their language, criminalized for speaking it in schools, and forbidden from naming their children with Kurdish names. Meanwhile, their cities are given fabricated Persian names, and their dances and songs are attributed to "Iranian heritage," as if the Kurds were not here before Tehran was built.

Thus, the Kurd everywhere has become a "stranger" in his own homeland. In Turkey, he is considered "Turkish" even though he does not speak Turkish-;- in Iraq, he is called "Arab" even though he doesn’t understand the Basra dialect-;- in Syria, his name is confiscated, and he is referred to as a "Syrian" without roots-;- in Iran, his history is erased, and he is transformed into a "Persian" against his will. But truth cannot be erased by laws. The recent archaeological discoveries, from Lake Van to Afrin, from Diyarbakir to Urfa, prove that this land is not the property of those who occupied it, but of those who lived on it long before empires were built, before books were written, and before maps were drawn.

Nevertheless, today the Kurds are asked to vote on constitutions that do not recognize them, to participate in elections that perpetuate their occupation, to say "yes"´-or-"no" in referendums that do not grant them the right to self-determination, but hand them over to authority that does not acknowledge their existence. In Western Kurdistan, some warn that participation, even in rejecting the constitution, is an acknowledgment of its legitimacy. For merely standing before a ballot box, in an occupied land, is to concede the principle. Colonialism doesn’t end with voting-;- it ends with liberation. It isn’t defeated by participating in its game but by withdrawing from its field.

The entities created after the fall of the Ottomans were not born from a people, nor the result of evolution-;- they were imposed, artificial, adopted tools, with no spirit except that of the colonizer. They were not built on belonging, but on fragmentation. They were not established to serve the people, but to suppress them. And today, they are crumbling, not because they are weak, but because they are false. They were built on the ruins of truth and the wreckage of stolen identities.

But the Kurds are still here. Not as a minority, nor as guests, nor as second-class citizens, but as the rightful owners of the land, as the children of the mountains, as the descendants of an indelible civilization. Their cause is not a demand for civil rights, but for full national liberation. It is not a reform in an artificial state, but the end of occupation and the building of a real state, on real land, in the name of a real people.

It’s time to say: Enough. Enough falsification. Enough manipulation of history. Enough participation in plays that do not return our land, nor return our language to our schools, nor return our city names to our maps. We do not want constitutions that cement our fragmentation, nor elections that deceive us with participation, nor promises of rights in entities that do not recognize our existence.

We want independence. We want to return to our roots. We want to be called by our names, to teach our children in our language, and to be buried in our land without it being said, "This is another land." For Kurdistan is not part of a state-;- rather, the state has carved a part of Kurdistan.

And the truth, no matter how long it is suppressed, will explode from between the stones. For the mountains do not , the rivers do not forget, and the peoples who have lived for fifteen thousand years cannot be erased by law, reduced to an ID card,´-or-sold in a political deal.

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