> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://otherwise.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Kurdophobia - URL: https://otherwise.ghost.io/kurdophobia/ - Published: 2025-11-04T17:09:52.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-04T17:09:52.000Z - Author: Khaled Salih - Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1792244264359, #Import 2026-10-17 14:38 *By Khaled Salih* *No Independence for Kurdistan. Source:* [*Rui II @Sharizor on X*](https://x.com/Shahrizor/status/1963103878486139265?ref=otherwise.ghost.io)*.* In a recently exchange with taxi driver in a German city, it was not difficult to guess the intention behind a question of my origin in a rather unpleasant voice: Where you from? I suddenly realised that he had heard me talking Kurdish on the phone, so being in Germany and interrogated about my origin, it was an easy to guess that the gentleman was Turkish. In a clear and assertive voice I said: Kurdistan. Bursting into a mixture of laughter and anger he replied in German: *Gibst nicht* (does not exist). Without a word, I pull up a photo from my phone to show him that the president of his country was in Kurdistan, meeting his counterpart in front of a Kurdish flag. Totally unsatisfied, he shook his head and said one more: *Gibst nicht*. We kept silent for the duration of the ride. As if by the wicked design of fate, after I arrive at airport, a short and interesting video shows up in my feed. Two pro-Palestinian men interviewed at a train station in Stockholm by Kurdish man. `Interviewer: Are you Palestinian?` `Man 1: Yeas we are Palestinian.` `Man 2: We are all Palestinian. I support every people to get free.` `Interviewer: To get free!` `Man 2: Free for all.` `Interviewer: Free for all!` `Man 1: Every nation, self-determination.` `Interviewer: Yes?` `Man 1: Absolutely.` `Interviewer: So we made a book. Do you support independent Kurdistan?` Both are now shocked! They go silent. No reply! Only embarrassing grimaces. There are just two random episodes. Do not ask thousands, tens of thousands or a million Kurd to tell you their encounters, if you don’t like real stories of de-humanisation of a people without state. The story of the Kurds is not only a geography of mountains, blood and exile—it is also a moral geography of contradictions. It is the tale of a people who, though they sit at the crossroads of empire, religion and nationalism, have repeatedly been denied that most basic claim: equal dignity. Let us call this phenomenon by its proper name: **Kurdophobia**. That is to say: the systematic removal, denial or refusal to grant to the Kurdish peoples the rights, identities and freedoms that other groups claim (and often receive) within the same territorial, cultural or political umbrellas. There can be no timidity here. If we are to convict wrong-doing, we must name it. And the denial of the Kurdish question, the withholding of Kurdish rights, is a wrong that has been too often glided past under the cover of grander ideologies—pan-Arabism, Turkish national-monism, Persian Islamic centralism, Islamist pan‐movements—all of them claiming rightful freedom and justice for themselves, but withholding it from their Kurdish neighbours. **Identity Denied** Consider the Republic of Turkey. In the early decades of the Turkish Republic it was a matter of state doctrine: the Kurds did not “exist” as a separate people. They were “Mountain Turks.” The terms “Kurd” and “Kurdistan” were banned, and the language of assimilation was the language of official policy. The motto “How happy is the one who says ‘I am a Turk’” was emblazoned in schools, while Kurdish names, Kurdish letters (Q, W, X) were forbidden. The consequence: a people deprived of the simple right to name themselves. That was Kurdophobia. In Syria—and I cannot emphasise this enough—there was the 1962 census in the Hasakah region that stripped tens of thousands of Kurds of their citizenship. Stateless, they were denied education, work, travel, property rights. (“On 5 October 1962 tens of thousands … most of them Kurds—were stripped of their citizenship… depriving them of education, health, employment.”) One must ask: If we grant citizenship, identity and rights to one group within a polity, what moral logic allows the same state to deny them to another within its borders? That was Kurdophobia. In Iran, the Kurdish regions have suffered a variant of the same: linguistic suppression, cultural marginalisation, disproportionate repression of Kurdish activists. All this while the Iranian state posits itself as the guardian of a unified, legitimate polity. This is not benign neglect. It is aggressive erasure by omission. We may say: recognition is the first act of justice. To refuse recognition is the first act of injustice. This is Kurdophobia. **Rights Withheld** The right to speak one’s language, to name one’s children according to one’s tradition, to teach one’s children in one’s mother tongue—these are minimal markers of dignity. And yet they are routinely withheld from Kurds. Turkey’s long ban on Kurdish in public life, the letters Q, W and X banned as “non-Turkish,” Kurdish names blocked—such details may appear small, but they reflect a broader hostility: to allow one’s own minority to exist as a distinct entity is judged dangerous. (Letters “X, Q, W… forbidden,” forcing many Kurds to adopt Turkish names. **Ironically**, when Word Wide Web came online, not a single state-institution shouted: these three Ws are not Turkish! Kurds in Europe used to call state institutions to ask if they had a website. The answer always started with: w w w!) In Syria, teaching Kurdish or playing Kurdish music was criminalised. In Iran, Kurdish-medium schooling remains largely absent, and activists are arrested for trying to teach Kurdish. This is Kurdophobia. Here is the paradox: one group claims the right to its culture, to its language, to its self-expression. Another group—Kurds—is told: wait, maybe later. Or worse: no, maybe never. **Disenfranchisement and Criminalisation** When one talks of democracy, what is meant is participation, representation, equality. But in multiple states the Kurdish vote, Kurdish political effort, Kurdish aspiration have been systematically undermined. In Turkey, elected Kurdish mayors are sacked and replaced by state-appointed “trustees.” The rights of Kurdish voters are nullified by decree. Human Rights Watch observed: “the removal of elected Kurdish mayors violates voters’ rights.” Separately, the European Court of Human Rights found that the detention of Kurdish opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş was politically motivated and violated fundamental rights (Articles 5 and 18). The implication: you may vote, but you cannot exercise power. You may elect—but the election may be reversed. In Syria, Kurdish gatherings have been banned, Kurdish politicians prosecuted, the possibility of Kurdish self-expression criminalised. In Iran, Kurdish activists face torture, execution, collective punishment. The equation is direct: your politics is the price, your ethnicity the ammunition. Thus the Kurds are allowed to live—they are not exterminated (in every case)—but not to participate. They are counted for taxation, conscription sometimes, but not counted for decision-making. That is less than denial of existence; it is denial of agency. It is Kurdophobia. **Demographic Engineering and Atrocity** If one were to compose a hierarchy of injustice, perhaps the most glaring appears when states or actors move beyond discrimination into outright mass violence, ethnic cleansing, or engineered demographic transformation. In Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the *Anfal* campaign (1987–89) stands as a grim monument: villages destroyed, chemical attacks, mass executions. “Iraq’s crimes against the Kurds amount to genocide.” So declared Human Rights Watch. The *Socialist Arab Nationalist* *Ba‘athist* regime declared that Kurdish existence would be systematically eliminated. The forced expulsions, the settlement of Arabs in Kirkuk and Nineveh, the bulldozing of villages—this is not mere prejudice. It is industrialised erasure. Starting with Kurdophobia. In Syria, the “Arab Belt” project (1973–76) attempted precisely to alter the demographic map: relocating Arabs into Kurdish regions, confiscating Kurdish lands. The policy: change the people to change the politics. A systematic and discriminatory policy to alter the demographic composition of Kurdish-majority areas. The effect: you become a foreigner in your own land. This was Kurdophobia. And then there are the *jihadist* horrors: the Islamic State (ISIS) committing genocide against the Yazidis (a Kurdish-speaking religious minority), killing, enslaving, destroying villages. The United Nations “Commission of Inquiry” found genocide was occurring. Let us call it for what it is: when the pretence of rights for some becomes slaughter for others. That is Kurdophobia expressed viscerally. **Coercive Measures** Rights are not simply civil or political—they are also economic. The right to earn, to trade, to negotiate resources, to live in your land without threat of state penalty. That right too is denied. Following the 2017 independence referendum by the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, both Turkey and Iran—along with Baghdad—joined to punish the Kurdish right even to hold a democratically organised referendum. Turkey’s president threatened to “close the valves” on Kurdish oil exports and warned that Kurdish citizens might “not be able to find food when our trucks stop.” One side claims rights: the right to determine. The other denies them: penalise them. Economic strangulation becomes the modern siege. That is Kurdophobia. Even in everyday legal status: in Syria stateless Kurds cannot own land, cannot travel, cannot register children. In Iran Kurdish *kulbars* (border couriers) are shot with near-impunity for smuggling trade—trade which is economically needed, socially sanctioned among Kurds, but criminalised by the state. That is Kurdophobia. **The Irony** If you look carefully, you will see a pattern: states and movements that demand rights for themselves—Palestinian State, Arab self-determination, Turkish state in part of Cyprus, Turkish national sovereignty, Persian cultural-religious identity, Islamist revival—nonetheless reserve for themselves the full suite of rights while denying Kurds the same. They cheer for minority rights abroad but suppress them at home; they excoriate colonialism elsewhere while perpetrating internal colonialism on Kurds. This is Kurdophobia. The Palestinian leadership’s reaction to the Kurdish referendum is instructive: when Kurds act on the same logic of self-determination that Palestinians claim, the response is not solidarity—but opposition. One Palestinian leader declared Kurdish independence would be a “poisoned sword against the Arabs.” Here is the hypocrisy laid bare. That is Kurdophobia. **Why This Matters** You may ask: what does this have to do with the liberal morality we profess? Everything. Because universalism has no merit unless it is universal. You cannot champion self-determination selectively. You cannot advocate human rights while tolerating their denial next door. The Kurdish case becomes a litmus test. Prove the Kurd wrong, if you can. A people whose identity you recognise, whose borders you draw, whose suffering you register—must have the same rights you claim for others. Any deviation is political opportunism, not justice. In this case, it is Kurdophobia. **The Burden of Diligence** Let us not now turn away for convenience. Because the Kurds are not convenient. They live between borders, between empires, between religions. They are often the “other” in national strategies. But that precisely is why this matter is urgent. They embody the test of whether our commitment to rights is real or rhetorical. We must catalogue: the bans on Kurdish language and names in Turkey; the statelessness of Syrian Kurds; the execution and economic suffocation of Iranian Kurds; the genocide and demographic engineering in Iraq; the silence of Arab nationalist movements when Kurdish rights were trampled. We must quote the documents, we must cite the facts. For example: “When the requirements of dogma clash with the needs of the poor, it is the latter which give way.” A line by Hitchens in a different context, but echoing here: when the national dogma clashes with Kurdish needs, it is the Kurdish person who gives way. **A Universal Claim** In the name of coherence, let us be clear: the claim of the Kurds is not special pleading. It is ordinary. It is the claim that every human being, every people, has some minimal suite of rights: to identity, to language and culture, to political representation, to economic participation, to a secure existence. To deny that claim to Kurds is to say: we only mean “us,” not “all.” That is the very definition of injustice. So let us not be timid. Let us, rather, speak with the bracing clarity: The denial of Kurdish rights is a moral emergency. It is a shame. It is a stain upon every polity that tolerates it. And until we demand equality for the Kurds, we cannot claim to believe in equality at all.