I don’t get why this “are Ezidis Kurdish or not” debate pops up every time. Let me share some points on this:

1.) everyone has the identity they choose. Stop pulling Ezidis to the one way or the other. There are some socialized very isolated, some very Arab influences and some who totally identify as Kurdish.

2.) don’t fucking start with your weird ethnic/racist theories. I thought as humans we passed the point of believing that we can neatly divide people up to groups by their looks or anything. National identity is more nuanced than that.

3.) I myself am most likely at least a quarter Arab. Does that make me less Kurdish? No bc Kurdish identity for me is history, language, family, customs and obviously the knowledge that I come from a politically disputed background. You can’t measure that with DNA.

4.) ezidi people and many other minorities go through a major identity crisis that is further pushed by traumatic genocidal experiences on the one side and political groups trying to use them on the other side. Let people have room to reflect on that in the first place.

5.) especially in the colonial Iraqi and Syrian context: read the goddamn sources on French and British divide and rule policies: much of what we consider national identities now were created to have counter balances towards other groups. Don’t use the same mechanisms.

6.) yes as Kurds we have heavily pushed the fight for liberation against ISIS but we also have groups amongst us who have in 2014 and long before that helped the genocide against Ezidis, Armenians, Assyrians etc. we need to reflect on that shit