Who are the Kurds? [A THREAD]

They are indigenous to a mountain region in the northern Middle East. The Kurds are the largest stateless nation in the world and the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East. Roughly 25 million Kurds live in a region spanning Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

The Kurds have a distinct community, united by race, culture and language - although several dialects exist. Given the widespread assimilation campaigns they were subjected to since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Arabic and Turkish are also widely spoken.

The history of Kurdish oppression is age-old, yet the Kurds have consistently risen up, pursuing autonomy. Iraqi administrations, e.g. in the late 1970s, forcibly displaced Kurds from northern Iraq, through Arabisation policy repopulated the areas with Iraqi Arabs.

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein's government destroyed at least 4,000 villages and forcibly moved their residents to collective towns. In 1988, Hussein unleashed a campaign of vengeance on the Kurds that included a poison-gas attack on Halabja.

Kurds, in Iraq, currently have semi-autonomy and so, self-govern, however, as with devolution, these powers can be taken back at any point by the central Iraqi authorities. This was seen in 2017 when Iraqi forces regained control of Kirkuk.

Half of the Kurdish nation resides in Turkey, where they make up 20% of the population.

Turkey's constitution denies the existence of the Kurdish identity and any expression of it has been repressed. Even speaking the Kurdish language was outlawed until 1991.

Kurds in Turkey have resisted assimilation through multiple channels. The Turkish govt has been found to systematically withhold resources from the country's Kurdish areas. In response to such cultural erasure, Ocalan established the PKK in 1978, calling for an independent state.

Aside from armed struggle, the Kurds in Turkey have also tried to elect political representation in form of the HDP party, led by Selahattin Demirtas. The growth of this political party has been stunted esp after his imprisonment in November 2016.

In Syria, the PYD is one of the most prominent Kurdish opposition parties. It comprises a major part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish, Arab, Assyrians, Armenian, and Turkmen groups that was established in October 2015.

Syrian forces have been instrumental in battle against ISIS. Yet after the terrorist threat was neutralised in 2019, Trump withdrew American troops from northeastern Syria in October.

After Trump’s announcement, Turkey seized more than 194 square kilometers of previously Kurdish-led territory. Amnesty International has charged that the Turkish army and its proxies have committed war crimes during the operation; Turkey denies it.

The Kurds have always been very willing to advocate for other causes & stand with others during their adversity, as in the fight against ISIS. But time & time again, we have been used as lap dogs for the international community. We have been abandoned, erased and ignored.

As Turkey bombs the Kurds in Iraq and silences the Kurds in Turkey, take a stand with us against the systematic erasure of our identity and existence. #TurkeylsBombingKurds #TurkeyIsBombingKurdistan #TurkeyIsATerrorState

Please hashtag #TurkeyIsBombingKurdistan on this thread to raise awareness and keep it trending!