W Resistance is life, goes a Kurdish saying. For Kurds, this is not pathos, but rather a sober description of the situation. Anyone who is Kurdish learns early on that their own identity is something that must be defended – throughout their lives.
The Kurds are being abandoned again. Once again from those who champion freedom and democracy: the USA, the so-called West. The same actors who, just a few years ago, leaned on the shoulders of Kurdish fighters when it came to to defeat IS. In Kobanê, Kurds not only fought for their own survival, but also for our security. Under a slogan that went around the world: Jin Jiyan Azadî. Woman life freedom.
In 2022, this slogan became a global outcry again due to the protests in Iran. Politicians on Western stages called him out in solidarity, moved, and sometimes a little too self-satisfied. Today, the same world is watching Kurds being attacked and displaced again. This time by the Islamist Syrian regime, supported by Turkey.
“A region that was once a place of peace and brotherhood became one Arena transformed by bloodshed“, says a woman from Rojava who wishes to remain anonymous. “How could it come to this?” She doesn’t ask out of naivety. She asks because this question hurts. Because she means us.
Your answer is resistance
So how do you have hope in all of this? A few days ago, a video circulated of a militia member grinning and posing with the cut braid of a killed Kurdish woman. Kurdish women around the world then braid their hair and post their videos on social media. Their collective response to violence is resistance.
We have often romanticized the Kurdish fighters: these strong women with Kalashnikovs and braided hair. What we often overlook is that this resistance comes from a brutal survival instinct. From experience that if they don’t do it themselves, no one else will. “We have no choice but to resist,” says the Kurdish woman from Rojava.
Maybe that’s the real hope. Not the naive idea that everything will be okay, but the unwavering refusal to let yourself be broken. Having hope as a matter of principle means fighting for dignity even more now. Hope is Kurdish.