by Aldar Khalil
Deep-rooted societal ethics and culture which represent a community’s conscious can’t be ignored. The factors that society selects will prevail and any outside behaviors will lead to society shunning many practices or behaviors because they contradict the society’s pre-existing standards, culture, status and struggle.
It is the case that when a person or group belonging to a society does a thing that causes harm the society rejects it based on its established standards. Always during the developmental process of any society, there are things that can’t be accepted because they contradict prevailing standards. There are examples which could be seen as accepted by some but then be shunned elsewhere, similar to the prevailing conditions pre-2011.
The society, possibly due to a wave of sudden changes and growth of its conscious status, starts to reject many things. The rejection might already exist in a dormant manner because of various factors on the ground, such as the prevailing tempo of the ruling. But when there is opportunity, the stance practically appears. This is a fact of societal struggle.
Additionally, the society criticizes deviations from it course, such as the 2004 Kurdish uprising in Syria. Our society still evaluates some partisan stances as being wrong for the Kurds. Some still try to preserve or keep them even after the change. The same applies to the environment that prevalent in the region. What were possible and acceptable decades before, or what was accepted just on the surface level, is no longer possible.
A decisive society has what it needs to limit the negative roles which some of its individuals undertake, especially those who cause harm. The society is trying to self-cleanse things which want to end it or have outside factors which stand in contradiction to its standards, such as those who are in alliance with others who work against their society or homeland.
This cannot be accepted, and the societal efforts will always be rejected. The topic isn’t dichotomous. Acting against your own country can’t be accepted at a time and rejected at another. Rather, it will always be rejected. Even if there is an appearance of disagreement, the principle remains, and it will practically manifest with time.
It is without a doubt that the Turkish state today constitutes a threat and great danger to the region, including the four parts of Kurdistan. It occupies parts of Kurdistan and has control over others. It is still practicing horrors in Afrin. What is strange are the groups which continue to deal with Turkey as a solution, or even that Turkey can have a role in serving the cause and the Kurdish nation. The same example can be used in the case of Syrian.
The self-proclaimed opposition, the Syrian Coalition, is an example of the same approach and has its hopes pinned on Turkey. The latter has destroyed Syria, spread terrorism, and it is exerting its authority over Syrian soil as though it is a province. Additionally it provides unlimited support to the mercenaries and terrorists. Turkey takes advantage of the stances of those like the Syrian Coalition and its branches in the changing landscape Syria — constraining its interests with no consideration for the Syrian people.
This also is evidenced by the imposition of Turkey’s rule through demographic change, imposing the Turkish language and culture, hampering a resolution, attempting to slander any approaches towards stability such as the establishment of a democratic example, particularly in northern and northeastern Syria. The reality is that Turkey can be nothing else but an occupying state. Its current mindset of denial is an intentional policy aimed at creating differences over the role and stances of Ankara.
It creates a type of contradiction. One who commits genocide in any part of Kurdistan constitutes a direct threat against all of Kurdistan. The parts of Kurdistan can’t be dealt with in isolation of each other. When the Kurds are united, then the enemy will also be forced to be united — irrespective geography and different policies.
Maybe the current conditions and phase require a correct evaluation, especially on part of the society for a number of things that don’t meet its standards and could be a reason for it practicing policies of denial. Similarly, anytime societies stood against attempts outside of its standards of it went ahead, developed, and searched for a form of survival.
Correct evaluation is the society knowing the stances and relations which build the foundations which oppose with the needs of the society and its future; for example, the realization that the Turkish state is an occupier in Kurdistan and the region.
Aldar Khalil is a Kurdish Syrian politician. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) in Rojava.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.