Syrian Kurdish Groups Offer Best Path for Future / ÖCALAN’S IDEAS – THE PYD DILEMMA

By Rustom Mahmoud – AL Monitor – 2014-04-11 –  The current Syrian scene involves two Kurdish movements that seem to summarize the developments of the Syrian Kurdish political movement. The first is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is close to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PYD’s military and security formations are widespread in Kurdish regions in Syria and it has been engaged in violent confrontations for months now against armed terrorist groups aiming to control the Kurdish areas. This party has a societal project to symbolically and effectively control the Syrian Kurdish community. Its political platform — represented by the autonomy project — is based on a form of local governance in these areas with ideas similar to those of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

In its two approaches, the party seems to be alien to Syria’s deep-rooted societal environment, of which the Kurds are a constituting element. Syrian society, which took to the street in an overwhelming revolution to reject political and symbolic hegemony of a specific ideological or political party, will not accept being subjugated to a similar local hegemony similar to that exercised by the Syrian regime. This kind of speech sets forth the idea of ensuring protection, keeping the memory of martyrs alive and promoting hostility toward the outside world. Moreover, the party’s political project is based on superior standards, options and acts, which do not stem from the will, desire or choice of those who are to be subjected to this political bureaucracy program. It is rather based on language, tools and standards that are unfamiliar to them. This programming is theoretical and ambiguous. It lures people into believing that it will realize many wishes, while it lacks the necessary conditions or tools.

This feeling of alienation stems from the nature of the relationship between the popular bases and elites of the PYD and the rest of the Kurds and Syrians. The popular bases of the party hail from the Kurdish environment, which is the most deprived and violated. Therefore, it was the most isolated, which led to the emergence of a feeling of disparity with other communities and a lack of integration with the overall Syrian society at the economic, social, cultural and symbolic levels. This Kurdish environment of destitution has its own world, requirements and formulas.

At the core, this community stands out from numerous Syrian society axioms, as well as from a large part of Kurdish society itself. On the other hand, an elite group of this party has become the most isolated from the elite of “public work” in Syria, especially during the last decade and a half of Syria’s contemporary history, which witnessed forms of integration of the elite of the Syrian Kurds into all Syrian categories. This elite group seems to be a Turkish-Kurdish group, mentally and spiritually preoccupied with the questions, circumstances and struggles of Turkey’s Kurds who are demanding their rights. The Kurds in Turkey have a discourse similar to the overall discourse of the PKK, in that they see the Syrian issue as a temporary and non-centralized issue.

They have no deep knowledge of Syria’s political, economic, cultural, artistic and social matters. There are numerous misunderstandings between them and the Syrians, as well as between them and a broad spectrum of Kurds from the middle and upper classes, who are the most similar to the overall Syrian classes. The latter enjoy good levels of societal knowledge and experience.

On the other hand, the Kurdish political opponent of this party does not seem to be more efficient in this field. The Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria (KDP-S) wants to regroup several of its political wings under a single organization called the “Political Union.” This party is under the political leadership of the Barzani family and is politically, ideologically and even in a regulatory way affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The latter revolves around a retrospective standardization of conservative societal relations and political patriarchal hierarchy, based on the sanctification of families, tribes and dominating personalities that the party seeks to re-promote and revive in the Syrian-Kurdish community.

This political movement seems to be the least aware of the current situation in Syria and of Kurds. In essence, it seems similar to Islamist Syrians who are still praising past illusions of society. This party and its political elite are not aware of the fact that the Syrian Kurdish rural region — which accounted for nearly 90% of the Syrian Kurdish community at the time of formation of the party in the mid-1950s — no longer exists and the Syrian Kurd populations have become the absolute majorities in urban regions. Significant portions of them have lived for many years in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Therefore, standardizing their societal and political structural relations according to a blood affiliation and loyalty no longer entices even the most naive Kurdish categories, let alone hundreds of thousands of Kurdish youth. The latter have received higher education, been integrated into global society and have social aspirations similar to those sought by the Syrian revolution, especially in terms of self-dependence and individualism.

Apart from the local societal contradiction, the orientation of the party and that of the rest of the political spectrum in which it orbits do not show any similarities with overall Syrian society. It seems as if it was an alternative project to a societal and political system outside Syria. This system was absolutely transcended by Syrian society and by the most vibrant and dynamic class of Syrian Kurds, which are only interested in their own lifestyles and everything that provides them with decent means of living.

The main point here is that this party will not be able to form a shared space with the rest of the Syrian elite. There is no common political language, codes or frames of reference between them and the new generation of Syrians. Moreover, the tools that this party uses to control part of the Kurdish community are partially based on political money and heavily rely on the political achievements of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. At the end of the day, it is a political movement unable to provide any concrete results for Syrian Kurds. Throughout the last decade and a half of Syria’s contemporary history, a Syrian Kurdish political movement witnessed high levels of integration in the Syrian worlds of politics. This interaction derived from the Syrian Kurdish middle class, which was integrated with and similar to its Syrian counterparts. This class was not as isolated as the poorest and the most conservative classes of Syrian Kurds. The Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party led by Abdul Hamid Darwish and the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria led by Fuad Aliko were the most representative of the Syrian Kurds’ inclination toward modern political choices.

This movement seems to be currently the most decayed, but it remains the most capable of creating a shared space with the vital Kurdish middle class and with all Syrian nationals. This is where the objective interest of Syrian Kurds resides. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html