Apr 10, 2014

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.