T.C. İSTANBUL KÜLTÜR UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE STUDIES THE LANGUAGE POLICY AND THE LINGUISTIC RIGHTS IN SYRIA: THE KURDISH LANGUAGE A PATTERN MA Thesis by MOHAMMAD ISSA SULAIMAN 2000000472 Department: International Relations Programme: International Relations Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Nazlı Çağın Bilgili October 2022 T.C. İSTANBUL KÜLTÜR UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE STUDIES THE LANGUAGE POLICY AND THE LINGUISTIC RIGHTS IN SYRIA: THE KURDISH LANGUAGE A PATTERN MA Thesis by MOHAMMAD ISSA SULAIMAN 2000000472 Department: International Relations Programme: International Relations Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Nazlı Çağın Bilgili Members of Examining Committee: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Cemal Ertürk Asst. Prof. Dr. Muzaffer Şenel October 2022 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I've had the good fortune to be surrounded by individuals in both my academic and social circles who have graciously supported and helped me with this thesis. First, I want to thank Dr. Nazli, who oversaw my thesis and provided comments and guidance for my project. It takes a lot of work to write a thesis, therefore I want to thank those people who have helped me along the journey with their friendship, encouragement, and wisdom. I want to thank Sami Daoud and Badar Malla Rasheed for reading the thesis draft and providing feedback. Additionally, I want to thank everyone who took part in the interviews I conducted with them. Finally, I want to thank My wife, Aheen Shamdeen, for her support and patience in helping me in this work in all the days and nights I have had. ii Üniversite : İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi Enstitü : Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü Dalı : Uluslararası İlişkiler Programı : Uluslararası İlişkiler Tez Danışmanı : Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Nazlı Çağın Bilgili Tez Türü ve Tarihi : Yüksek Lisans – Ekim 2022 ÖZET Dil politikası, Devletin inşasını düzenleyen ve kaynakları farklı dil grupları arasında tahsis eden bir araçtır. Ancak, etnik dil grupları olan bazı ülkelerde dil politikası, etnik gruplar için sembolik değeri nedeniyle dil gruplarıyla devlet arasında yaşanan çatışmaların bir kaynağı. Dil gruplarının devletteki dil politikasına karşı tavrı, dil politikasının ve devletle olan ilişkilerinin anlaşılmasıyla şekillenir. Bu nedenle, bu dil grupları Dil'i farklı biçimlerde algılamaya başlarlar ve farklı taleplere ve farklı taleplere sahiplerdir. Bu çalışmada, Suriye'deki Kürt sorununun Dil merceği üzerinden incelenmesi amaçlanıyor. Suriye, 2011 yılından beri ihtilaf içinde. Bu ihtilaf kısmen iktidardaki etnik çoğunluk politikasında yer almakta ve bu politika, ülkeyi 2. Dünya Savaşı'ndan sonra azınlığa karşı kurduğundan beri uygulanmaktadır. Bu politikanın en iyi göstergesi, devletin, aralarında Kürt toplumu olan etnik azınlık gruplarına karşı çeşitli asimilailailailacı stratejiler uyguladığı dil alanında yer alıyor. Kürtler, vatandaşlıkları daha önce de sorguya çekmiş olan etnik dil gruplarından biri. Sonuç olarak, Suriye devletinin dil politikası Kürtlerin mayın ve baskılarının üç katına çıkmasına yol açtı. Bu yüzden, araştırmam devletin Suriye gibi çok ırklı bir polisde dil alanındaki asimilailacı stratejilerini anlamak açısından hayati önem taşıyor. Gazetem Suriye'deki Kürtler için ulusal kimlik oluşturma konusunda Suriye'deki Kürtçe statüsü üzerinde çalışacak. Ayrıca, hükümet tarafından yapılan sosmanistik ve Dil politikaları ve planlamaya da katılacak. Bu çalışma aracılığıyla, Suriye'deki Kürtler tarafından yayınlanan yayınlar ve Suriye'deki Kürtler temsilcileriyle yapılan görüşmeler gibi devlet belgelerini iii (anayasalar, kararnameler, devlet kurumları ve örgütler için iç statü) inceleyeceğim. Ayrıca çalışma, dil bilimi adaletini insan hakları yaklaşımından ve azınlık dillerinin korunması ve Suriye'de demokratik bir sistem kurulmasında dil çeşitliliği sorunundan da araştıracaktır. Genel olarak dil politikası, Kürt gruplarının dillerine Arapça dille eşit muamele edilmesini talep ettikleri Kürt grupları tarafından tanınma meselesi olarak algılanıyor. Bunun için, Suriye'deki tüm gelecek politika yapıcılar için, bu dil grubunun ihtiyaçlarını ve çıkarlarını karşılamak amacıyla dil politikaları bunları dikkate almalı. Anahtar Kelimeler: Suriye, Kürtler, Kürt Dili, Dil Hakları, Dil Öldürme, Liberalizm iv University : İstanbul Kültür University Institute : Institute of Graduate Studies Department : International Relations Programme : International Relations Supervisor : Asst. Prof. Dr. Nazlı Çağın Bilgili Degree Awarded and Date : MA- October 2022 ABSTRACT Language policy is a tool for regulating State-building and allocating resources among different language groups. However, in some countries with ethnic-language groups, the language policy is a source of conflicts between language groups and the state because of its symbolic value for the ethnic groups. The attitude of language groups towards the language policy in the state is shaped by their comprehension of language policy and their relations with the state; therefore, those language groups head for perceive Language in different ways as well, and they have different demands, with different demands, with different paths. This study investigates the Kurdish situation in Syria from a language perspective. Syria has been conflict-stricken since 2011. This conflict is partially in the policy of the ruling ethnic majority, being practised since the establish the country after WWI against the minority. This policy's best manifestation has been in the language domain, where the state has adopted various assimilatory strategies against ethnic minority groups, chief among which has been the Kurdish community. The Kurds are an ethno-language group whose citizenship has often been previously questionable. As a result, the Syrian state's language policy has led to tripled minoritization and oppression of the Kurds. Therefore, my study will prove vital to understanding the state's assimilatory strategies in the domain of language in a multiethnic polity such as Syria. v My paper will study the Kurdish language status in Syria in creating the national identity for Kurds in Syria. Also, it will attend to the government's sociolinguistic and Language policies and planning. Through this study, I will investigate the state documents (Constitutions, Decrees, internal status for government institutions, and organizations), the publications released by Kurds in Syria and interviews with the representatives of Kurds in Syria. Further, the study will investigate the linguistics justice from the human rights approach and the issue of protecting minority languages and linguistic diversity in establishing a democratic system in Syria. Broadly, the Kurdish groups view the language policy as a question of recognition, and they demand that their language be given the same status as the Arabic language. In order to satisfy the demands and interests of this linguistic group, any future policymakers in Syria should take these into account when creating language policies. Keywords: Syria, Kurds, Kurdish Language, Language Rights, Linguicide, Liberalism vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................ i ÖZET ........................................................................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................. viii LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................................... x LIST OF MAPS.......................................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One: Theory, Rights, and Justice language ............................................................................... 5 Nationalism, Identity and Language ..................................................................................................... 5 Theory and language policy ................................................................................................................... 7 Liberalism and Language ..................................................................................................................... 10 Language rights ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Summary of the Chapter ...................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter Two: The Kurds, Kurdishness, and the Kurds of Syria ......................................................... 18 The Kurds, Nationalism ....................................................................................................................... 18 The Rise of nationalism of Kurds (Kurdishness) ........................................................................... 20 The linguistic characteristics of Kurdish ........................................................................................ 24 Syria, The New State .............................................................................................................................. 25 The Kurds in Syria, the new state ....................................................................................................... 28 The Political Conditions for Kurds in Syria ....................................................................................... 31 Summary of the Chapter ...................................................................................................................... 39 Chapter Three: Syrian language Policy .................................................................................................. 41 The contemporary Arabs pan .............................................................................................................. 41 The Ba'th Ideology ............................................................................................................................ 43 The Syrian Constitutions ...................................................................................................................... 45 The Ministry of Education (MoE) ................................................................................................... 52 The Ministry of High Education (MoHE) ....................................................................................... 57 The Ministry of Culture (MoC) ....................................................................................................... 58 The Ministry of Information (Media) ............................................................................................. 60 The Ministry of Local Administration ............................................................................................ 62 vii Additional Tools to control the Language ...................................................................................... 63 The Arabization policy towards the Kurds in Syria .......................................................................... 64 Patterns of Syrian restriction against Syrian Kurds ..................................................................... 69 The Policy Language for other Actors in Syria .................................................................................. 74 The Damascus Declaration ............................................................................................................... 75 The National Salvation Front in Syria ............................................................................................ 75 the National Syrian Coalition........................................................................................................... 75 the National Coordination Committee for Democratic ................................................................. 77 Summary of Chapter ............................................................................................................................ 78 Chapter Four: The Kurds Resistance Toward Syrian Policy ............................................................... 80 The Kurdish resistance ......................................................................................................................... 80 Newroz ............................................................................................................................................... 89 Summary Chapter ................................................................................................................................ 92 Chapter Five: Linguicide, and the Language Rights framework ......................................................... 94 Cultural and linguistic rights will be covered in this chapter in light of international treaties and human rights law. ................................................................................................................................................ 94 The Linguicide ....................................................................................................................................... 94 Comparison with existing Human Rights Conventions ..................................................................... 99 Possible responses to maintain the policy language in Syria ........................................................... 102 Summary of Chapter .......................................................................................................................... 104 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 105 References ................................................................................................................................................ 107 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CESCR Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights DD Damascus Declaration HRW Human Right Watch ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ICERD International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ICRC The Convention on the Rights of the Child KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party KNC Kurdish National Council KRG Kurdistan Region Government LCP Syria's Labor Communist Party MoC The Ministry of Culture MoE The Ministry of Education MoHE The Ministry of High Education NCSROF National Coalition of the Revolutionary Forces NCCDC National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change OSCE Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe PDKS Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan ix PYD Democratic Union Party RYU Revolutionary Youth Union SCP Syrian Communist Party SHNC Syrian High Negotiations Committee SNC Syrian National Council SSSC Supreme State Security Court STJ Syrians for Truth and Justice UAR United Arab Republic UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights UN United Nation UNICEF United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund WWI World War One WWII World War Two x LIST OF TABLES Comparing between Minority and Majority Language rights Table 1 Toleration rights and accommodation rights table 2 Syrian constitution Table, Articles Related to Language, Table (3) Language rights Denied the Kurds in Syria since 1962 Table (4) Endangerment and classify languages Table 5 Definitions of a mother tongue, Table 6 xi LIST OF MAPS Map of Ethnicity in Syria 1 Introduction Syria is a multiethnic ethnic country where the ethnic majority are Arabs with a significant ethnically mosaic area consisting of Armenians, Assyrians, Arameans, Circassians, Turkmens and Kurdish populations. In March 2011, the country witnessed a fierce civil war; some reason for this conflict went deep to the policy of majority against the minority since establishing the country; one of these policies was the State's language policy towered the different ethnic groups; one of these groups in Syria is Kurds, where this group is Ethno-language group. My study will mainly focus on the Kurdish Language due to my linguistic background and mastery of Arabic and Kurdish. Also, among the minoritized communities, the Kurds have been the most saucerful community in offering alternative linguistic policies to that of the regime, which considers education in the Kurdish Language and the existing mother tongues as an authentic human right. Since the formation of the Syrian State, the successive governments have engaged in deliberate efforts to influence the Languages of Syrian citizens by forcing the Arabic Language to be a Language of public space. That has mobilized its economic, educational, and institutional power to impose a single language at the expense of the rest. Moreover, it has removed all other languages from the public space and excluded them from official domains by sanctioning Arabic as the only permissible official Language to declare 'the nation as one and indivisible. The State had practically forbidden non-Arabic languages such as Kurdish, while its speaker constituted the larger population group after Arabs. Such a determination would always occur by fiat as there was no room for debates or discussions. Any alternative narration of the nation or its Language would meet the wrath of the State and be harshly repressed. It was the most crucial factor in the weak state of Syria's minority languages and the central component of the Arabization agenda education. (Bednarowicz, 2014). My research will investigate the status of the Kurdish Language in Syria and its role in the formation of Kurdish identity. Further, how the state policies of linguicide enacted in the Kurdish region affected the overall Kurdish question in Syria. I will explain those policies considering the United Nations' Genocide Convention's (1948) definition of assimilationist education of minorities as genocidal. Using the existing scholarship on sociolinguistic and Language policy and planning, 2 I will reflect on the Syrian states' language policies and planning. Also, intend to study the alternative language policies offered in the autonomous Kurdish region in the North. This will add a comparative dimension to my undertaking and allow me to discuss how recognizing the country's linguistic diversity could pave the ground for an open and democratic political system. In doing so, I will use the existing literature on the right to education in the mother tongue and the scholarship on human rights. I aim to make sense of the relationship between Language and communal identities and how each community tries to formulate their community by using the discourse of language right. Since the Syrian is a very diverse one, the paper will use the ecological model as to how embracing plurilingualism and linguistic diversity can help to place various languages within their social, political, and economic ecosystems since the ecological metaphor focuses on the interplay between Language and the contexts in which language processes and policies take form and practice. By revealing the policy of the Syrian government toward the Kurds, the study will show how they react to the centre and how they build their demands around the rights of Language. They build their identity around this tool to distinguish themselves from other groups in the region; the study will become important not for Syria but for other countries in the region, which has multiethnic, where the study examines the Kurdish issue effects on the regional. The study provides an analytic view of the policy of the Syrian government and the point of view of Kurdish themselves and brings other models in the region and the world to comprise the Syrian situation. The study will discuss how the language issue elevated the Kurdish question in Syria as reaction against the language policy in Syria, also will look for how can a human-rights-based approach to language planning and policies protect linguistic diversity, minoritized communities' language rights, safeguard linguistic justice, and offer a practical framework for democracy in Syria? To answer to these questions, the study will argue the aspect of nation-building, and how the Language substantially affects the creation of nations and the states, also how was effect to create the modern Syria as we know it also how the language established the Kurdish Political movement in general and between Kurds of Syria especially. the paper will argue how the State's language policies have paved the epistemological ground for the Arab majority hegemony and rendered any demand for recognizing the existing linguistic diversity illegitimate or treasonous. then the paper will argue the second hypothesis, how the namely, recognizing the country's multilanguage alone 3 could pave the ground for a more democratic system that respects human rights in linguistic rights that can give birth to a more participatory political system. In my research, to argue these topics I studied and explained the most primary source like Syrian Constitutions from first constitution in 1918, via French mandate constitution 1928 to first constitution after independent 1950, to the United Arab state 1958, then I expand in the Ba'th's era constitutions since 1963, and the current Constitution which released in 2012, depend on that I explained most articles that mentioned to the official language of the state, and how the constitution identifies the state and the people of the state, or does it recognize the ethnics in the state or not. also, the paper review most of the presidential codes that issued to impose the Arabic language over all the people in Syria and banned other languages. also, I reviewed most internal codes that released from different institutions of Syrian government that banned Kurdish language in Syria. I used these material to analyze the language policy of the state against other minorities in Syria, in response to this, I did many meeting with some Kurdish Syrian politician, Academians, journalists who have experience about Syrian situations especially regarding the Kurdish issue there, also I did many meeting with activists who have contribution and working on Kurdish language in Syria, to discuss with them how the Kurdish community in Syria responded to Syrian language policy, and how the language be a core to mobilize the Kurdish community there, also to argue what the Kurdish community in Syria want in the future. The research will mainly use the qualitative method to examine my hypothesis, along with charts and graphs. To review this discussion, the study divided to five chapters, as follows: The chapter one will cover two topics: nation-building through language and the relationship between identity and nation, where language has been used to exert control and influence over societies torn apart by ethnic conflicts. Language has a significant role in discussions about nation- state transformation. The chapter also will cover the establishment of a nation-language state's policy and then discusses how liberal democracies around the world do recognize and accommodate cultural minorities, The chapter also provide an overview of the liberal theory through the Will Kymlicka works, and how the concept of accommodating national minorities through substate autonomy agreements regarding language and language rights. In chapter Two, I will argue about the rise of Kurdish nationalism and its relationship with culture and language, then overview the Kurdish language and its varieties to give information about this 4 language. Furthermore, because the study focuses on the Kurds of Syria, the chapter will argue about the formation of Syria after WWI and how the Kurds are part of the new state because of Arabs elites there, then the chapter reviews the political situation for Kurds in Syria and review the tension between the Kurds and Arabs in Syria, also how the Syrian authorities used the other Kurds (Kurds from Iraq and Turkey) in the regional conflicts. In Chapter Three will argue the Arabization policy, I will discuss the rise of Arab Nationalism in Syria, and how the Arab Pan, through the Ba’ath party ideology dominated over the Syria (State and the Community), then I will overview all Syrian constitutions, government institutions that control the language policy in the country, and how this institution banned another languages, especially Kurdish language, and how the state treat with this language, also the chapter review other actors in Syria (parties) and the whole community, how they look to language policy in Syria. In Chapter Four, I will discuss the attempts of Kurds in Syria to demand their rights, where those attempts varied between the legal petition through Parliament, or as deal with the regime, or their attempt to keep the Kurdish identity at a low level by hidden and acting in a secret way to teach language, or direct confrontation and recently army conflict; however, on the other side, outside the authorities, the oppositions and even in general level, the Syrian Arabs how they are looking with doubt eyes to non-Syrian Arabic, especially to the Kurds, where in the future of Syria it will need considerable efforts to fill the political gap between different parties there. In Chapter Five, I will argue the language rights and the Syrian Policy toward the Kurdish language as a linguicide policy. Then I will review the international declaration that supports language rights for Kurds, Finally, I will, briefly, recommend a solution model. 5 Chapter One: Theory, Rights, and Justice language Language holds a significant place within debates regarding the transformation of the nation-state or from the perspective of political economy; whether from a political domination perspective when the linguistic ideology had played a central role in nationalist movements (Myhill 2006: 2); or because of the social stratification, or by downplaying and underusing local culture and linguistic sources (Ricento 2015). Depending on the recent literature regarding the language rights, the chapter will discuss the how establishing the language policy, although will concentrate on how language contributes to the formation of national identity, then will overview of language rights in liberal point of view. Nationalism, Identity and Language Nationalism has been a dominant political ideal for a long time until now. The received and still prevalent conceptualization of this idea is that the state and the nation should cohere within a single, sovereign territory. The nation-state thereby constituted should express and ensure the continued expression of a determinate national culture or identity. as Eprham Nimmi wrote, the best described is the view that nationalism functions to sustain the formation of nation-states, whatever the vastly different empirical, normative, or conceptual arguments put forward to support this claim. (Nimmi in Breen and O'Neill, 2010: 22). Where, Nationalism is an expression of the intense need to affirm national or communal identity as the anchor of individual identity, and it is one of the fundamental forces in political societies and one of the 'strong forces' in international relations (Heater and Berridge 1993: 103-115). However, as Greenfeld argued, the national identity is reflected, apart from sovereignty, in possession of components of 'ethnicity', such as language, customs, and territorial affiliation; in other words, the 'nationality equivalent of 'ethnicity'. (Greenfeld 1992: 13). Therefore, it should distinguish between "cultural nations" and "political nations." (Harrison and Boyd 2018), which is able seen in many regions in the world due to the presence of a common language and culture. In this meaning, Nationalism is thought of as an extension of ethnicity, with adds the belief in shared characteristics, a desire for political autonomy, and the feeling that the 'only legitimate 6 pattern of government is national self-government' (Kedourie 1961: 9). In other words, politicization changes ethnicity to Nationalism. There is a broad range of thoughts on a comprehensive definition of identity. As Tov Skutnabb- Kangas argued in (Multilingualism for All): Ethnic identity is allegiance to a group to which one has social links to ancestral, which is enough for the sense of a group boundary of the same community or cultural manners. It can be perpetuated by shared objective traits (language, religion), more subjective contributions to a sense of "groupness," or a combination of the two. In other words, symbolic or emotional relationships must be linked to an observably real past, no matter how far away. (Skutnabb-Kangas 1995:125-128). McCrone argues that national identities are a form of collective identity, where he highlights their social nature; by emphasizing the everyday nature of national identity construction; further, he thought that some are consciously aware of making particular 'identity claims' and of their changing nature ( McCrone 2002: 307). While Anthony D. Smith defined National Identity and distinguished it by basing it on the ethnic entity of the social human, he described nationalism as progressive and reactionary (Smith 1991:19–42). therefore, it found that nationalistic movements want something to change and return to language revival as a nostalgic romanticism of the past. This activity is part of the revitalization and reorientation of identity, which is crucial for the nationalist movement. (Skutnabb-Kangas 1995: 133). As discussed above, the relationship between identity and nation, Identities are manifested in Language as, initially, in the categories and labels that people attach to themselves and others to signal their belonging; then as the indexed ways of speaking and behaving through which they perform their belonging; and finally, as the interpretations that others make of those indices. The ability to perceive and interpret the indices is part of shared culture. The ability to perceive and interpret the indices is part of the shared culture when the Cultural identities are textualized as national or racial/ethnic identities. The people willingly die for their fatherland or their people or other 'imagined communities' (Preece 2016: 19-20). Furthermore, Fishman argued the link between language and ethnic identity thus: 'Although language has not often been equated with all the ethnicity, it has occasionally been given precedence within that totality in specific historical, geographical, and disciplinary contexts.' Therefore, due to the context-dependency of language and ethnic identity, examining how the 7 connection between language and ethnic identity develops, its importance and power, ebbs and flows, inevitableness, and potential for splintering, is essential.' (Fishman 1999: 4). On another side, García employs' languaging' and 'ethnifying' for Language and ethnicity to refer to 'people individuals and groups, who use discursive and ethnic practices to indicate what they want to be', that is, how individuals and groups organize and carry out their identities through Language in social interaction. (Garcia 2010: 519). The idea of basing national identity on Language began in the late 18th century, particularly with the writings of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). where Language-based Nationalism had been in the air for more than a hundred years, the political borders of Europe were redrawn along linguistic lines, and many nationalist movements based upon minor languages achieved their goal of self-determination. (Myhill 2006: 119-122). With the ending of the First World War, the map of Europe and the Middle East had drawn on the lines of Language and came to be the political principle that territories are associated with languages and particular nationalities (Myhill 2006:2- 3). Consequently, ethnic Nationalism based on languages has been responsible, on the one hand, for transcending differences among different religious groups; or gaining the right to self- determination, or on the other hand: caused world wars and unprovoked attacks upon neighbours and conflict between different religious groups and establishing genocide and fascism systems (Myhill 2006:117). Ethnicity and Nationalism are great understood for minority groups than other groups, where they perceive themselves as at risk of cultural, linguistic, or other forms of assimilation; so more significant matters of group identity have a special piquancy when that identity is being assailed. The clash here, between a threatened ethnolinguistic group and some overarching mainstream or neighbours, can often become one of the philosophies, too, where we see a dispute between purely individual rights and those of a beleaguered collectivity. Adherence to individual rights is a hallmark of most democratic societies. (Nimmi in Breen and O'Neill, 2010: 134). Theory and language policy Since the nineteenth century in Europe, which marked a historical turning point in the construction of modern Nationalism, the linguistic choices became political choices (Dorian 2014: 286), and 8 after the First World War (WWI), lots of new nation-states were established with a particular language, like that in the Middle East, the Turks and Arabs whose considered themselves as separate nationalities politically after centuries on the union, as well as the Kurds also, attempted to do the same, to develop their ideology and national identity around the language. (Myhill 2006:9). However, as Vali argued, the Nation-state, to sustain its political and legal unity, is reducing the people to the dominant race within its diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural structure and presenting it as a unified entity with a single identity (Vali 2020), where many countries have held campaign to gain these purposes, where they removed several rights for linguistic minorities. On the other hand, the minority groups, perceive themselves as at risk of cultural, linguistic, or other forms of assimilation; so more significant matters of group identity have a special piquancy when that identity is being assailed. (Nimmi in Breen and O'Neill, 2010: 134). In this view, language policy is of enormous ethical, political, and legal significance worldwide; efforts to build common institutions and a shared identity have been significantly hampered by linguistic diversity and demands for recognition from various language groups. On the other hand, local linguistic majorities have attempted to mainstream their languages in the public realm (Kymlicka and Patten 2003). The issue, however, is determining which languages should be recognized and in which sectors they will be employed. Should any language be spoken by a certain minimal number of people be publicly recognized, as Alan Patten said, when this Language obtains public recognition and when it is possible to receive public services in a linguistically plural society? (Patten 2001). While non- beneficial treatment ranged from denying the existence of a language and its speakers to labelling a language as inferior and its people as socially or intellectually limited, to the deliberate repression of speakers of some minority languages (Dorian 2014: 286). The modern nation-state has an official language; However, as Nancy C. Dorian argued, it was unknown the specific Language how was treated; Such nations would generally have had some citizens who learned multiple languages or were bilingual to represent the group in interactions with other communities as general negotiators. Others in the community, who would have lived in more populous locations, might have maintained their monolingualism. However, the number of bilinguals and multilingual would rise at the borders of a large-group territory where members 9 came into more frequent contact with populations speaking other languages; population size typically influences which group has the more significant number of border area bilinguals. (Ibid: 285); the institutionalized bilingualism or multilingualism cases are durable, except in countries where linguistic minorities are associated with territory. Ethnolinguistic viability studies have been conducted since the 1970s to explain observed maintenance cases and forecast whether a minority population would keep or abandon its language. Where they acknowledge that three sets of objective factors—status factors (economic, social, and sociohistorical factors, as well as status within and outside the group), demographic factors (proportion of the total population, concentration of the minority population, birthrate), and institutional support and control factors—have historically been the focus of evaluative efforts (use in mass media, education, government services, industry, religion, culture, politics) (Ibid: 302). In his introduction to his book, The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights, Alan Pattan thoroughly defends his position on this matter: In the modern world, conflicting assertions about culture are a common theme in political discourse. On the one hand, majorities want to shape the state to look like them. They expect public institutions to reflect their beliefs, customs, norms, and identity meaningfully. From the majority's viewpoint, democracy or majority rule are the only mechanisms through which their culture is expressed in group decisions. States frequently take on the cultural preferences of the majority, and as long as some liberal guidelines are followed, this shaping is not problematic. Cultural minorities, on the other hand, frequently demand more state acknowledgement and accommodations. They demand that areas for expressing and preserving their own unique cultures be left open in public institutions. For minorities, these demands for acceptance and recognition of their diversity are consistent with liberalism's commitment to tolerating difference, its values of equal citizenship, and its concern against the tyranny of the majority. In this way, liberal democracies, for example, must consider issues relating to tradition, culture, and rights by their most fundamental principles. Liberal ideologies that prioritized individual rights in the past still struggle with the idea of "collective rights." Resentment in the social "mainstream" can nevertheless be caused by minority-group claims. (Pattan 2014: 1). This can be summarized in the following table (1) comparing between Minority and Majority Language rights (Pattan 2014: 1-2): 10 Majority Minority language policy The majority frequently prefers to make its language the primary form of communication in public. Minorities want that services be provided by the government in their native tongues and that they be able to participate in public institutions in their native tongues. democratic institutions' structure Within a unitary state, where the majority usually feels at ease, preferences can rule. Typically, minorities aspire to carve out institutional and jurisdictional spaces where they can exercise some degree of autonomy or self- government. the conspicuous markers of identity in the school curriculum, the use of public space According to the majority, as long as legal liberal limits are met, there is no unfairness when governmental structures and policies are altered to reflect the values, stories, and identities of the majority. It asserts minority rights; as a matter of justice, the state ought to acknowledge and respect the cultures of minorities by leaving areas in some institutions and policies that can represent minority values, traditions, narratives, and identity. Many liberal democracies around the world recognize and accommodate cultural minorities to some extent. Will Kymlicka, the most significant intellectual for liberalism, will be the subject of the study. Liberalism and Language Since the 1990s, Will Kymlicka developed a liberal political theory of group rights with a critical role in Language and linguistic diversity. He noted the shortcoming in much of the liberal 11 tradition's focus on "universal categories," emphasizing that "Freedom of speech does not define what a useful language policy is" (Kymlicka 1995: 5). His attention to the importance of Language and linguistic diversity within his liberal multiculturalism approach to arguing for differentiated group rights has been used as a robust theoretical framework in addressing contemporary struggles favouring linguistic diversity and minority languages. Kymlicka's version of liberalism has been at the heart of one of the significant issues within politics and political theory since the 1990s, multiculturalism and identity politics. His theory was a response to questions of increased immigration, questioning the role, efficiency, and limits of the nation-state in the era of globalization, and other features that define the contexts that scholars of language and language politics are also facing (Ibid: 51). Kymlicka's attention to the centrality of Language in his construction of a version of liberal multiculturalism that he sees "is the best hope for building just and inclusive societies worldwide". Kymlicka articulates his project as overcoming one of the dominant debates in political theory in the 1980s and 1990s, the liberal-communitarian debates. Rooted in a long-standing rift in Western political theory between the "moderns" and the "ancients," the liberal communitarian debates pitted liberal (or "modern") conceptions of society against those labelled "communitarian." The former approached government or political society as the result of an aggregation of some preexisting individuals who could be conceptualized concerning some pre-political state (i.e., a "state of nature"). Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and others articulated these ideas quite differently. Despite significant differences, this traditional ontological individualism is challenged by "communitarian" perspectives that insist that individuals cannot be reduced to some noncommunal essential core. Communitarians in the 1980s and 1990s drew on long and diverse traditions, including Aristotle's defining humans as political animals and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's development of a "General Will" not reducible to the sum of individuals' wills. Developing out of communitarian criticisms of John Rawls's procedural liberalism, communitarians championed the need for group rights and individual rights, including the rights of minorities and Language and cultural rights (Ives 2015: 48-72). Kymlicka agrees with the communitarian critics of Rawls, who argue that the state cannot be neutral concerning questions of culture, identity, and especially Language, but he insists that group rights are fully compatible with liberalism. As he states, "the overwhelming majority of debates 12 about minority rights are not debates between a liberal majority and communitarian minorities, but debates among liberals about the meaning of liberalism". Also, Kymlicka creates a model of "internal restrictions" and "external protections." by taking seriously the notion that all liberal democracies, like other forms of government, inevitably partake in nation-building. That is, in promoting national identities, culture and Language (s), however, Kymlicka argues, "internal restrictions" are fully compatible with "external protections," which "involve the claim of a group against the larger society". In short, majority (or dominant) groups, even though the mechanisms of the democratic nation-state, should not have a monopoly on nation-building. Other minority groups should also be able to conduct nation-building activity, and a liberal state dedicated to equality must allow for and foster such activity by allowing for group rights. In Kymlicka's terms, the state can undoubtedly use collective rights to ensure "external protections" (protections of minority groups against majority groups) and remain thoroughly liberal— that is, committed to "internal protections" of individual rights. Kymlicka is adamantly critical of group rights if they would enable a specific cultural or ethnic group to demand individuals to "attend a particular church or follow traditional gender roles" (Kymlicka 1995: 36). Kymlicka concedes that there are risks associated with group rights but believes that the ethnic or national group may want to maintain its unique existence and character by limiting the impact of the actions of the greater society. (Ives 2015: 52). Kymlicka's argued that "the state has to 'neutral' concerning ethnocultural identities of its citizens, and indifferent to the ability of ethnocultural groups to reproduce over time." however, he is against the notion that culture can be understood as "religion or as something which people should be free to pursue in their private life, where is not the concern of the state (they respect the rights of others)" (Kymlicka and Opalski 2002: 16). For that, Kymlicka draws on Language, noting, for example, that in the United States, the dominance of English is established, reinforced, and reproduced by the de facto requirement of immigrants to learn it and that the dominant group within all societies uses the state to promote integration, institutional cohesion, and "nation- building" as a deliberate project that is then not "neutral." (Kymlicka and Patten 2003; also in Recent 2015: 53) Kymlicka argues that group rights should not be understood as a deviation from the liberalism that emphasizes individual equality among citizens and how the state interacts with them. It means that members of minority groups should pursue the type of "nation-building" that 13 members of majorities do. To deny them this is tantamount to discrimination against these minority individuals (Ives 2015: 53). Culture is difficult to define besides other elements such as a shared history, territory, practices, religion, food, dress, sense of identity, and Language. (Schiffman 1996: 56). Kymlicka is significant for language scholars precisely because he looks to Language to make "culture" a little less ambiguous and fluid (Ives 2015: 54). Central to his theory, Kymlicka defines "societal culture" as "a territorially fastened culture, settled on a common language which is used in a wide range of societal institutions, in both public and private life, rather than merely common religious beliefs, family customs, or personal lifestyles" (Ibid 53-54; Kymlicka 2001: 39-49 ). As evident here, Language is central for Kymlicka's reconstruction of liberalism consonant with group rights (i.e., the "multicultural" attribution of "multicultural liberalism") (Ibid). further, Kymlicka admits the limitations of his theory and the critical characteristic of the important "grey areas" that are more difficult to address from his position; he discusses the cases of African Americans, "guest-workers" and illegal immigrants, all of whom are defined in terms of not having the linguistic component to a sufficient extent within his definition of "societal culture" (Ives 2015: 54). Based on this argument that the majority often constitutes a "societal culture" engaged in the non- neutral state-building activity, Kymlicka differentiates among minorities by demarcating the various kinds of appropriate rights. Hence, they are not unjustly denied what individuals who belong to the majority have. He distinguishes three types of rights: 1. Self-government rights appropriate for "national groups" (which have "societal cultures") within multinational states 2. Polyethnic rights for those groups that have "voluntarily" immigrated (and left their "societal cultures") 3. Special representation rights for various groups, including women, the impoverished, and ethnic minorities "National groups" share a common language and social institutions, and thus their rights include language rights for their languages to continue. Polyethnic rights also include the right to continue to use their "mother tongue" (a concept I return to later in Section 4) as well as resources to learn the majority's Language (Ibid 54) 14 The group rights to self-government are appropriate only to those groups that fully meet the criteria of societal culture and have a shared common language and public institutions. Thus, he takes the example of a large Chinese immigrant population to the United States or Canada and argues that it "is certainly possible in theory for Chinese to become a national minority, if they settled together and acquire self-governing powers". Nevertheless, he argues, this has not occurred in practice and would require public schools in Chinese and universities and Chinese to be used in the workplace, army units, and hospitals. He uses this example to emphasize those multicultural policies can include "self-government rights" for groups like the Quebecois or Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Catalonians in Spain, and other cases where colonialism and multiethnic states have forced groups with "societal cultures" into a state dominated by those of a different societal culture (Kymlicka 2015: 209-249). As well as Ronald Schmidt points out that "Kymlicka's analysis is providing multiple opportunities for critical thinking about the meaning and significance of the claims made on behalf of various language-policy proposals in the name of 'equality.'" and it will support the policy language in a multilingual country." (Schmidt 2006: 106-107; Ives 2015: 55) Kymlicka develops an understanding of the importance of cultural membership to such rights, but he pays almost no attention to the role of Language. His interest in Language is driven by his goal of reconstructing liberalism that can support multiculturalism but still be clearly distinguished from "communitarianism" (Ives 2015: 57) As Appiah (2005) demonstrates when he criticizes Kymlicka's (1995) emphasis on recognizing and conserving identity groups and cultures, which contributes more to restricting the individual's rights than to freedom, the culturalist program has been linked to a variety of paradoxical results. Every "culture" represents not only difference but also the eradication of difference, according to multiculturalists like Kymlicka. The group represents a clump of relative homogeneity, and that homogeneity is sustained and enforced by regulatory mechanisms intended to marginalize and silence dissent from its fundamental norms and mores. (Appiah 2005: 152) The Nationalism of the Majority is praised as an alternative to minority rights as long as core liberal principles are upheld, despite the fact that critics of the theory of liberalism reject the claims of freedom and equality and the concept of culture on which proponents of cultural minority rights rely. (Patten 2016: 4). 15 From this perspective, Patten came to the following conclusion: The main argument is that minorities should have the same opportunity as statewide majorities at the national level to become (local) majorities and use their majority power to reflect their culture. Therefore, minority cultural rights do not negate nationalism; rather, they constitute a desire to pluralize it by allowing other groups to have their own political communities and express their cultural identities through those communities' public institutions. (Pattan 2014: 5). The finest justifications for upholding liberal culturalism, it can be determined by reexamining its tenets, are the rejection of nationalism. For this reason, the concept of granting national minorities substate sovereignty is crucial and worthwhile. Furthermore, other, pragmatic factors can suggest that nationalist claims should be respected. But we must reject the idea that justice ultimately consists of the majority and minority, each of which enjoys the chance to culturally dominate a particular region of the state. (Patten 2016: 6). Language rights Languages are sometimes compared to different plant or animal species. They can survive if they will have commode conditions. surprisingly, every community in the world exhibits linguistic variation to some extent. in this sense, each language has a legitimate claim for continued use. The work of Alan Pattan, which is outstanding, is used to explore the rights of language. In it, he defines the rights and compares two groups of them, which he calls toleration rights and accommodation rights, Patten Table (2) (Pattan 2014: 188-92): Toleration Rights accommodation rights “Norm-and-accommodation” model “Promotion rights proper” model/ “promotion rights.” Individuals are protected by tolerance rights from governmental meddling with their choice of language. Without intervention from the government, people have the right to speak any language they typically, the language that is spoken by the majority in the relevant jurisdiction; this language is used in courts and legislatures, to provide public services, as a medium for public education, and in other The purpose of these rights is to advance the language with which they are related. Their enjoyment is not dependent on a lack of proficiency in a "regular" public language, unlike the 16 like in their homes and in organizations and institutions of civil society. settings. People who don't speak this language receive special accommodations particular accommodations provided under the norm- and-accommodation strategy. Even if he is proficient in the dominant language, a person can use his promotion rights in that language. Only minority language speakers who are required to use their language in private communication circumstances are protected by the toleration rights. They make no mention of the usage or recognition of minority languages by state institutions in any context. Although accommodations rights do require the state to take meaningful action, they are also significantly constrained. The fact that they cannot be claimed by those who speak the mainstream, or standard, the language of ordinary communication is crucial. Additionally, the state is not always required to provide activities in the minority language by virtue of accommodation rights. From another view of liberal theorizing of language rights, as Bale cited in the "negation, not right", Jeff Bale borrows the work of Lionel Wee on language rights; Wee acknowledges that linguistic discrimination exists. There is a specific role for language rights to alleviate such discrimination. However, language rights cannot resolve discrimination because too many discrepant stakeholders exploit language rights to satisfy too many competing interests. Consequently, "the appeal to language rights exacerbates rather than reduces social tensions" as a corrective. While Wee advocates for rights which allow individuals to negotiate their cultural practices and add their voices to public discourse, which he describes as deliberative democracy (Bale 2015: 74). Wee notes that Kymlicka operationalizes language rights in ways that ultimately create a new hierarchy of language minority groups, with some (indigenous and national minorities) seemingly more deserving of formal protections than others (immigrant groups). Moreover, he argues that a 17 liberal approach to language rights "merely attempts to replace a set of historical processes that have worked to the advantage of one language (the current dominant language) with a structurally similar set of processes that are now intended to work to the advantage of another language (the current minority language)" ( Bale 2015: 75-76) The concept of language rights assumes that every human being has an "inborn "right to communicate in his/her Language with his/her fellow; like other human rights, the linguistic right is not something granted by the state or any social institution, or under any statute, law constitution. However, the linguistic rights of groups do exist in primary and essential relationship to the laws that can admit, restrict, or even forbid its use in different contexts by different groups and regions (Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson 2010). Language rights were separated into "natural" and "conventional/legal" categories. The ability to use any language, both in public and privately, is one of the "inalienable and innate" rights. Conventional rights are those that are acknowledged by the prevailing group. However, as captive communicators have at least natural language rights, no state or nation is normally able to control all language functions. (Ibid). Summary of the Chapter This chapter covered two topics: nation-building through language and the relationship between identity and nation, where language has been used to exert control and influence over societies torn apart by ethnic conflicts. Language has a significant role in discussions about nation-state transformation. The chapter also covers the establishment of a nation-language state's policy and then discusses how liberal democracies around the world do recognize and accommodate cultural minorities, according to Will Kymlicka, the most important critic of liberalism. The chapter also provides an overview of the liberal theory and the concept of accommodating national minorities through substate autonomy agreements regarding language and language rights. 18 Chapter Two: The Kurds, Kurdishness, and the Kurds of Syria As discussed in the previous chapter, the relation between nationalism and language, this chapter will investigate the "Kurdish issue" through the lens of language in Syria because of its inextricable relationship between a nation's identity and public representation. Language is one of the most critical aspects of national identity, Sheyholislami claimed, even though an essentialist view of the relationship between language and national identity may not always be preferable. The role of language in defining and creating national identity should be emphasized for at least three reasons. First, language is one of the most apparent indicators of group identity for most people, especially minorities. It is especially true of the Kurdish language. The fact that democratic politics are political in common parlance is a second argument related to the instrumentality of language. The ordinary person feels most at ease discussing political matters in their language. In other words, the level of access that regular citizens have to their language determines how much they participate in their community's cultural, social, and political life. Finally, language plays a significant role in constructing other aspects of national identity. (Sheyholislami 2010: 4). This chapter will also shed light on the political and cultural issues the Kurds face, as these work with language in informing the Kurdish identity and the Kurdish identity within the new formation state of Syria, since the 1920, when the country was under French Mandate, then the chapter will overview the political environment for the Kurds people there. The Kurds, Nationalism According to Bozarsalan, the earliest map that mentioned Kurdistan was prepared in the 11th century by Mahmud al-Kashgari and was titled "States of the East." This map featured all the "races" recognized in the East and was necessary to comprehend the Kurdish situation. Later, in the year 1150, the Seljuk sultan Sanjar created the province of Kurdistan, its center was the town of Bahar, and it included territory in the Kurdish regions of modern-day Iraq and Iran. (Bozarsalan 2021: 1). But after that, the term "Kurdistan" started to be used frequently to refer to a system of Kurdish fiefs in general. The Kurds were caught up in inter-imperial warfare as early as the medieval era, and this condition persisted until after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, when the 19 Kurdish chiefdoms and emirates were partitioned between the Safavid and the Ottoman empires. Their inter-imperial status has, however, also ensured their survival as a unique tribe. (Ibid:2). The nineteenth century was a critical era change in the Kurdish Sphere. The nineteenth-century massive change in the Kurdish Sphere had happened. First, the centralization and Westernization strategies unleashed led to the abolition of the Kurdish administrative institutions put in place at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Then, as a result of the centralist reforms carried out by Ottoman authorities, local notables were suppressed throughout the empire, leading to the abolition of the Kurdish emirates. Due to this unique circumstance, the tribal confederations, and tribes (asirets) rose to prominence as the political and social foundation of the Kurdish Sphere. (Bozarsalan 2021: 1-4). The Kurdish identity was not in danger before to the twentieth century because they lived under the Ottoman Empire's sovereignty in semi-autonomous emirates. However, as the area became more Turkified in the late Ottoman era, the Kurdish principalities revolted under the leadership of their own shaykhs. However, the reformist era saw the beginning of change, especially with the consolidation of Turkish ideology to the detriment of other nationalist ideologies; this sparked a desire to put an end to nebulous, irredentist desires or concerns related to the emergence of a rival authority that posed a threat to centralized power. Nevertheless, most intellectuals, notables, and tribal and religious leaders from the prewar period continued attached to the idea of Ottoman unity. Kurdish political nationalism, which developed around Kurdish history and literature in the 20th century formed alongside ethnic groups (Turks, Armenians, Arabs) active in the clubs of Istanbul (Tejel 2009: 16-17). With the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, the Kurds came to live within the new boundaries of the Sykes-Picot agreement, thereby separated into four nation-states, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. This situation guided the politics and identity of Kurds to demand their own social, political, and economic life in Kurdish society. However, those states that Kurds, included have those nationalists, attempted to create 'imaginary communities' based on monist–ethnic cultures, so they forced policy on assimilative regimes (Tekdemir 2021: 157; Tezcür 2009). 20 The new states showed a strong sense of territorial ownership and a desire to maintain control over their areas and their inhabitants. The political border threatened to dissolve existing group ties for the Kurds, dividing tribes, religious brotherhoods, villages, and even families. As a result, the Kurds chose to resist the state by maintaining networks of cross-border solidarity, such as brotherhoods and tribal confederations. On a variety of levels, for example, the government's drive for cultural uniformity clashed with the Kurdish desire to maintain links with linguistically related populations outside the state border. (Tejel 2009: 68-70) The Rise of nationalism of Kurds (Kurdishness) For centuries the intellectual elite among the Kurds expressed themselves in the language of their conquerors and rulers. The use of the dominant language by those to whom it is not the mother tongue is not unusual behaviour by historians and other non-creative writers. The creative intellectuals, especially the poets, usually take the first step towards using the mother tongue in their work, thus endowing it with the power of becoming a collective identity symbol and perhaps a medium of written communication outside the poetic domain. (Hassanpour 1992:154) As mentioned above, the Kurds were trapped by inter-imperial conflicts in the medieval age. Where it can feel through Ahmed Khani's (Ehmedê Xanî)1 epic Mem û Zin, wrote in 1695, When Kurdish regions were divided between the Persian and Ottoman empires, the poet Ahmad Khani was conscious of the ethnic and nationalist essence of this plan. (Ibid: 2; Fandi 2008; Allsopp 2016: 46) Khani declares that no matter what deficiencies the new Kurdish language may have, it is still superior to other tongues simply because it is the Kurds' mother tongue and not an imported medium of expression. Unlike other languages, a Kurd can call the Kurdish language his own. It is the language of his mountains and is most natural to him. By expressing these ideas, Khani acts like pre-nationalists in other cultures, which makes it their task to extol their languages' beauty and 1 Ahmad Khani, sometimes spelt Ahmad-i Khani, was a Kurdish author, poet, astronomer, and philosopher who lived from 1650 in Hakkari to 1707 in Doubayazt. His Kurdish name was Ehmedê Xanî. He was born in the Khani clan in the Turkish region of Hakkari. He relocated and established himself in Ritkan province's Bayezid. Later, he began instructing students in the fundamentals of Kurdish (Kurmanji). Khani spoke Kurdish, Arabic, and Persian with ease. In order to aid youngsters in their learning, he created the Arabic-Kurdish dictionary "Nûbihara Biçûkan" (The Spring of Children) in 1683 (source: Wikipedia). 21 'naturalness' as markers of their ethnic identity. Khani is a pioneer in that regard among Kurdish intellectuals who intuitively understood that language and literature are tied by cultures and, if only implicitly, by "nation" (Hassanpour 1992: 156), and in an effort to help his students' Kurdish language proficiency, he wrote a description of how to teach Islam in Kurdish. (Hassanpour 1992). Therefore, it can say that the idea of nation and nationalism in Kurdish Land in the seventeenth century was voiced by both individuals and the masses of the people. (Hassanpour 1992: 55) This interest in Kurdish continued right through the 19th century into the 20th century. Although the second half of the 19th century in the East was also the age of rising nationalism in the Levant, Turkey and the Balkans, which considered language as a prime factor in collective identity formation, the ideological approach to language was the concern of Ottoman officials, the state's linguistic Turkifi cation policies had rapidly evolved (Solaimani 2016: 113-124). Another intellectual Kurd founded (Haji Qadir Koyi)2, may, therefore, regard Koyi's interest in the Kurdish language to reflect this general trend in the Ottoman Empire, where the national feeling transition to a middle class and koyi called for the formation of a Kurdish state, propagated the use of Kurdish language and literature, and encouraged the adoption of modern secular education (Hassanpour 1992: 57; Fandi 2008). To show the interdependence between language and identity, the poet points out that people enter history through their language and that even the most learned among them cannot attain their position as part of the cultural elite in ethnic terms if they continue to use other languages for self- expression. The poet is also aware that genuine learning cannot spread among the Kurds except through the Kurdish language and that the attainment of this objective is a prerequisite for a robust literary revival. (Suleiman 2013: 157) Before World War I, apart from limited journalistic activity, Kurdish literature had been restricted to poetry and some prose, little of which had been published. The language propelled into centre stage in Kurdish life, giving rise to persistent calls to institute government-sponsored programmers to teach the written language to Kurdish speaking people and use, where many organizations and 2 poet and a proponent of contemporary Kurdish nationalism. Koyi maintained that the Kurds could only establish a state if they employed both the pen and the sword—that is, if they acquired both a written language and state authority—in response to the old Kurdish tribal and religious leaders, despite the fact that he himself was a Mulla. He urged Kurds to start newspapers and journals, record their legendary oral ballads, and do so in response. Many young people are still inspired by his patriotic poems (Gunter 2011: 104). 22 clubs that were established in Istanbul focused on Kurdish history and literature and opened several schools for Kurdish children in Istanbul in which the Kurdish language was taught (Allsopp 2016: 51). In this respect, the end of World War I marked the beginning of the activist movement; after the Turkish government crushed the Sheikh Said uprising in 1925, several Kurdish groups in Istanbul sought asylum in the Levant, where the most Kurdish political and cultural activities during the 1920s and 1930s in Syria and Lebanon which organized and established the Kurdish nationalist organization Khoybun/ Xoybûn (Being Oneself)3 in 1927, which sparked a revolution in the development and standardization of the Kurdish language during the 1930s and 1940s (Bozarsalan 2021: 7); The Khoybun was the first Kurdish nationalist organization in Syria and a turning point in the development of contemporary Kurdish nationalism in both Turkey and Syria using the Kurmanji language.(Tejel 2021: 438). After World War II, The Kurdish intelligentsia of the 1920s had a different sociological character than the new generation of Kurds that rose to prominence in Kurdish politics. The new Kurdish struggle incorporated left-wing ideologies and applied Marxism-Leninism to conceive Kurdish self-determination and explain the circumstances in which Kurds found themselves. (Bozarsalan 2021: 7). Considering this, in August 1944, in Dalanpur village, located where Turkey, Iraq and Iran converge, held a famous meeting of Kurdish delegates from Turkey, Iraq, Iran as well as from Syria. The participants signed a treaty known as Peyamiani sei Sanowar (The Treaty of the Three Boundaries), In which they vowed to help one another, share resources, and revive the Kurdish language and culture. Even though this gathering did not lead to any actual Kurdish unification, it did highlight the presence of transnational Kurdish aspirations and, consequently, the challenges 3 KHOYBUN, also known as Independence, was a pan-Kurdish party founded in October 1927 in Bhamdoun, Lebanon, by exiled Kurdish intellectuals with aristocratic backgrounds. Khoybun got some initial assistance from France and Great Britain in addition to the close collaboration of the Armenian Dashnak Party. The first leader in that position was Jaladat Badr Khan. The permanent headquarters of Khoybun were built in Aleppo, Syria, which was then governed by France. With a well-trained fighting army independent of the traditional tribal elders, Khoybun aimed to build a powerful Kurdish national liberation organization. It sparked the unsuccessful Kurdish revolt in Turkey's Ararat region in 1927–1930. In 1928, France outlawed Khoybun's activities in Aleppo in response to Turkish pressure. The party has had a dreadful time trying to spread its name among the Kurds in northern Iraq. Nevertheless, Khoybun survived for a long time and is today regarded as one of the most significant pan-Kurdish organizations of the 20th century (Gunter 2011: 99). 23 they posed to the governments where Kurds were residing at the time. For example, the failed Mahabad Republic of Iran in 1946 still resonates in the development of transnational Kurdish nationalism, including among the Kurds in Syria (Gunter 2014: 36; Gunter 2010: 78; O'balance 1995: 243). The modern nationalist movements had solidified into a coherent philosophical system by the 1960s, known as kurdayeti4 (it means the idea of and struggle for relieving the Kurds from national oppression by uniting all parts of the Kurdish Sphere under the rule of an independent Kurdish state) (Gunter 2014: 62), Kurdish nationalist ideology has undergone considerable differentiation, by 1980s, the ideological/ political trends that may be identified as "populism", "socialism", "national democracy", and "national socialism" had appeared in the literature and programs of the political parties (Tekdemir 2021). Moreover, as McKeever argued in his thesis: the concept of a nation has been inculcated within Kurds across the Kurdish Sphere through subjection to processes of 'nation-formation' by the states whose sovereignty they reside under. The main driving force behind these processes has been a nationalist ideology of exclusion that labels Kurds as a national other outside the national concept of the state. Efforts by nationalist policymakers to eradicate Kurdish identity or incorporate it into the state's official national identity are examples of self-conscious nation-formation, as are more banal and routine dynamics like the ways that centralized bureaucracy, education, and military service can emphasize and reinforce political and geographic identity. Such experiences underscore the 'otherness' of Kurdish identity while also normalizing and accentuating the nation and nation-ness frameworks by endowing them with natural, self-evident qualities. As "outsider identities can be understood at the dialectics of national identity constructed through outsiders and an outside identity constructed through a historical consciousness of state violence" (McKeever 2021: 18) 4 The phrase first appears in Sulaymaniya's Kurdish nationalist discourse in the 1930s, especially among the city's educated, secular elites. It then reappears frequently during the post-World War II era, especially among the founders of the Komalay Jiyanaway Kurd (Committee for the Revival of the Kurds) movement. Finally, after the Mahabat Republic was overthrown in December 1946, it reappears among Kurdish leaders and nationalist elites With the Kurdistan Democratic Party's (KDP) formal definition of the term as the party's political ideology, 94Kurdayetî was institutionalized with a strongly political undertone in the early 1960s (Tunc 2018: 54). 24 the assertion made by Kurdish nationalists that Kurdistan is their historical and ethnic homeland is strengthened and given credence by the ethnicist and primordial understandings of nations found in academic and non-academic literature, which view geography as a given characteristic of communities. and Kurdish claims to a historical and ethnic homeland mesh well with the idea of territoriality that permeates the modern international system, which is based on territorial nation- states, as well as the political influence that maps have when used as propaganda tools to advance the notion (Kaya 2012: 40). On another side, the “nationalist” feelings among Kurds, are produced by Kurdish movements and intellectuals and feed the Kurdish people in the region (Keskin 2017: 60). Consequently, as Tejel argued, the doctrine of Kurdish nationalism, which asserts that there is the Kurdish nation is unfairly divided into four states, is not accepting of restrictive border laws, and in order to develop and even survive, Kurdish nationalism must be opposed to the establishment of political borders. (Tejel 2009: 70), on another words, The attempts to push the Kurds to assimilate, a part of the majority's plan to create new nations in states that were artificially founded after World War I, can be considered a cause of the strengthening of the Kurdish ethnic identity. In addition, it needs to be seen as a response to the Pan-nationalist movements that have emerged in these states. The sheer number of Kurds, their geographic concentration, accessibility issues, cultural and linguistic differences, and their alienation from the majority societies due to inequality and racial discrimination have all contributed to the failure of assimilation or "forced integration" policies (Sheikhmous 1992: 134). The linguistic characteristics of Kurdish Kurdish is one of the Iranian groups of the Indo-European family of languages (Blau 2010: 1). along with Arabic, Persian and Turkish, Kurdish is one of the major languages of West Asia. It has linguistically and culturally diverse communities across the area that Kurds inhabit; the Kurdish dialects, which are significantly dispersed, have differences in proportion to the geographical distance separating them. The dialects called Kurmanji are spoken by the most significant number, including the Kurds of Turkey, Syria, and Armenia, and by some Iraqi and Iranian Kurds, the dialects of northeast Iraq called Sorani and the neighbouring dialects of Iranian Kurdistan called Mokri, Kordi or Sene'i ( Hassanpour 1992; Opengin 2021: 640; Sheyholislami 2021: 670), it characterized as below: -KURMANCI (Kurmanji, North Kurdish), spoken between the Kurds in Turkey and Syria and northern parts of Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish areas and Armenia. 25 -SORANI (South Kurdish, also called middle Kurdish) is spoken between Kurds in Iran and Iraq. (Opengin 2021: 640; sheyholislami 2021: 670; malmısanij: 2021: 700; Hassanpour 1989; Scalbert- Yücel and Le Ray: 2006; Arslan 2015). For the Kurdish people in Syria (the study area), the dialect used by all Kurds in Syria is Kurmanji as the spoken language, and when the Jaladat Badrkhan5 with Rocite Lesco founded Latin alphabet, that called The Badrakhan variety or HAWAR-variety), which introduced in 1932 in Damascus and Beirut by Jeladet Ali Badrakhan in the magazine Hawar, based on Kurmanci with latin code (sheyholislami 2015: 30; Izady 2015:178), In the Hawar the tried to inspire the idea of Kani, where they mention to Ehmedê Xanî and other intellectual Kurds, for granting the language its 'soul', (Bozarsalan 2021: 623) In Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut, as well as in Kurdish area in the northeast, the Khoybun helped establish a number of Kurdish committees and organizations that may be regarded as Khoybun "schools" of Kurdish nationalism in Syria. Additionally, the Khoybun leaders, particularly the brothers Jaladat and Kamuran Badirkhan, were pivotal in the push toward a cultural revival of the Kurmanji dialect; their presence in Syria had a significant impact on the function of the Kurdish language in Kurdish culture. (Tejel 2009: 17). Syria, The New State The state is known as the Syrian Arab Republic, historically known as "greater Syria" or, as Arabs commonly refer to it, Bilad al-Sham/ Levent, Greater Syria, and more specifically, the modern truncated nation-state of Syria at the heart of the Fertile Crescent (Clay 1924). Geographic Syria had been part of the Ottoman Empire ever since 1516. All her religious, political, and cultural ties were linked to the central government in Istanbul; the entire social system was 5 Badr Khānī Jālada :One of the most important advocates for Kurdish independence during the 20th century was BadrKhan, a Kurdish nationalist leader and journalist (born 1893 in Maktala, Syria; died 1951 in Damascus). Jaladat committed his entire life to bringing about the creation of a single Kurdish state in the Middle East. He was educated in Istanbul before leaving for America in 1912 and strongly backed the British throughout World War I. Jaladat settled in Syria (1919), where he joined the Kurdish émigrés, after being disappointed that the British did not assist the creation of a single Kurdish state. He was chosen to serve as the Khoybun's first president in 1927. Three years later, he took part in the unsuccessful Kurdish uprising in Turkey. The bilingual Kurdish-French review Hawar ("Summons"), which he founded and served as the first editor of (May 1932), along with his later illustrated publication Runahi ("Light"), helped to foster understanding among the various and frequently at odds elements of the Kurdish nationalist movement and aided in the development of a Kurdish popular literature (Britanica). 26 based on Ottoman laws, Ottoman culture, and Ottoman traditions, under Ottoman rules (Masters 2013). When the Arab armies entered Damascus on October 1, 1918, a new era began in the region. Damascenes declared the final stage of the Arab Revolt. September 26 marked the evacuation of the last Ottoman authorities from Damascus and the transition into an era of independence. The Arab Government was proclaimed with Prince Faisal at its head and Damascus as its capital (Moubayed 1999, p. 12; Hinneboucsh 2001: 18). Long before the war had ended, Great Britain and France had already planned out the future of the Arab world in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, and The Middle East became the spoil of war that the victorious nations of Europe divided among themselves to secure their positions along the Mediterranean in case another deadly war ever broke out in Europe (Moubayed 1999: 13). in July 1920, the French High Commissioner to Syria, General Henri Gouraud, issued an ultimatum to King Faisal, demanding that he dismantle his government, arrest all anti-French activists, and dissolve the newborn Syrian Army. (Moubayed 2018: 15) In 1920, France received the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon in recognition of the "Special Position" it had established for itself in these territories before World War I. (KHOURY 1987: 27). Syria was home to numerous religious and ethnic communities, which were bound by little more than language and geography. Consequently, Frenchmen chose to emphasize social and cultural distinctions among Syrians and to interpret these as the product of endemic sectarian conflict (KHOURY 1987: 28). The Levant was divided into small states: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine in the initial 1920s, with the League of Nations Mandate, where Syria was awarded to the French administration. Through common cause and hostility to the foreign power, the populations of the territorially reduced modern Syria rebelled against the Mandate. They continued to fight against the French policy of "dividing and ruling the truncated state even further as six separate statelets (Chatty 2017: 42-43). Those small states were under separately administered Mandates under French and British supervision, isolated a truncated Syria and surrounded it with artificial boundaries and customs barriers that obstructed the free passage of goods and people. The people of Aleppo were cut off from their natural hinterland in Turkey and Iraq. (KHOURY 1987: 57). 27 Minorities became a constant source of friction between the local Sunni elites and the Mandatory French administration. Moreover, the concept of specific social and cultural groups as "minorities" "was new construction, having been recently inherited from the Ottoman millet system and having emerged from creating new, naturally homogenizing nation-states. Among the "minorities", "the Kurds represented the largest non-Arab Muslim group in Syria from the 1920s onward (Tejel 2009: 9). Significant ambiguity characterized the political climate in Syria in the 1920s. The end of the Ottoman Empire, the spread of pan-Islamic propaganda, the creation of the French Mandate, and international initiatives to protect "minorities," among other things, all contributed to the chaotic and shifting environment that various communities and their leaders were attempting to adapt to or take advantage of. (Tejel 2009: 12). France divided the country along regional and ethnic lines as part of its "divide and rule" strategy. The French asserted that by highlighting communal divisions and aspirations, they were submitting to political reality and popular desire. However, by appealing to possibly Francophile minority, they were able to diminish Arab nationalism and pan-Syrian sentiment while also strengthening French power. (KHOURY 1987: 58). The French government played a crucial role in defining local ethnic and religious groups like minorities and in the creation of contemporary nation-states in Syria and Lebanon. French interests in (Syria and Lebanon) since the 19th century were based on a "secular tradition" and to protect Christian communities, which were strengthened by religious missions and educational institutions. By exploiting the antagonism between urban and rural elites, as well as between Sunni Arabs and other ethnic and religious minorities, the French government implemented a divide and rule strategy. The French administration portrayed itself as a mediator between the ethnic and religious minorities and the Sunni Muslim majority; for France, Syrian unity was nothing more than an Arab nationalist invention perceived as an artificial creation of the British to harm French interests in the Middle East. At the same time, France relied on support from certain urban elites to isolate the Arab nationalist. (Tejel 2009: p 15- 16). The French were successful in keeping the nationalist movement from spreading to the areas inhabited by minorities throughout a significant portion of the Mandate era, which helped to define the scope of the movement. At the same time, the periphery areas lacked many of the factors that had united Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, and Homs into a nationalist front in resistance to French authority in 28 Syria. As a result, it was extremely difficult for the Syrian nationalist movement to base its operations outside of the four nationalist centers. (KHOURY 1987: 59). The next chapter will wide study the Syrian state and its policy. The Kurds in Syria, the new state The Kurds are found all across the Syrian Arab Republic, but they are most numerous around the northern borders with Turkey and Iraq, which used to be part of the Kurd's Sphere before they were given to the French Mandated Syrian state in 1920. In Syria (Bilad Alsham) certain Kurdish tribes preserved their close endogenous structures or connections with Kurdish areas, while others were integrated into towns, Turkish and Arab confederations, and villages. (Tejel 2009: 99; Winter 2009; Jaziri 2017:335-350 and 368). Kurdish regiments constituted up the military colony of the Kurds in Damascus. The Ottoman Empire confirmed the Kurdish community's military presence in Damascus; many Kurds from rural Syria's hinterland joined the neighborhood Janissary corps (yerliyye). Others who had received training in Istanbul had landed in Damascus as Imperial Jannissaries (qapi-qul). Identification with their task contributed to a strong sense of ethnic belonging for many Kurds in Damascus. Later, migrants from various Kurdish origins (Diyarbakir, Mosul, Kirkuk) joined these military units, leading to the expansion of the Kurdish neighborhood. Since the nineteenth century, there has been a Kurdish neighborhood in the city, with residents from Kurd Dagh (Efrin) and Jazira. During the French Mandate, the Kurdish sector in Aleppo was absorbed into Damascene life in the 1930s. (Tejel 2009: 10-11). Many Kurds have lived in Syria for many years. For instance, the Millis tribal confederation was settled in the eyalet of Raqqa as part of the empire's tribal settlement policy. (Winter 2006; Winter 2009 ); On the left bank of the Euphrates, near Jarablus and Seruj, as well as in Jazira, seminomadic and sedentary tribes were also present. The territory on the right bank had been established by Kurds by the beginning of the seventeenth century. (Tejel 2009: 10). Additionally, during the 1920s and for the entirety of the 20th century, Syrian Kurdish settlements have been home to displaced Kurds from Turkey who invaded the country to seek refuge. The Kurdish aghawat class, who ruled Syria in the early 20th century, had strong ties to the previous Ottoman order. While some Kurdish tribes from Jarablus and Upper Jazira opposed the 29 French, the majority of Kurdish leaders worked with them to establish French rule in Syria. Because of this, the Damascene Kurds usually did not support the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans led by the Sharif of Mecca, and with the fall of Faysal's government in July 1920, they demonstrated their loyalty to the French. (Tejel 2021. 438), Abd al-Rahman al-Yusuf, the leader of the Damascus Kurds, improved his ties with the French, for example, and France enlisted the aid of Kurds, Armenians, and Circassians during the Great Arab Revolt of 1925 in order to put an end to this insurrection. (Chatty 2017). addiontally, according to Philip S. Khoury, "relations between Arab nationalists and the Kurds of Damascus were strained for the rest of the mandate" due to the Kurdish auxiliary troops' assistance in putting down The Great Revolt. (Tejel 2021: 438). Map of Ethnicity in Syria based on gulf project in Columbia University (Link) The East of Syria (Hassaka province) was not integrated into the Syrian political system till 1930; with the annexation of this area, the new state (Syria) as we know it was completed (White 2017: 141-178) The Kurdish populations placed under the French Mandate occupy three narrow zones, isolated from one another, all along the Turkish frontier: Jazira, Jarablus, and Kurd Dagh. These three 30 Kurdish enclaves constitute the natural extension of Kurdish territory into Turkey and Iraq. According to Tejel, many tribes cooperated with the French; however, the Syrian Kurds, because of their geographic origins, history, lifestyle, and settlement of diverse environments, did not constitute a homogenous group at the beginning of the twentieth century. In this sense, Kurdish identity was redefined locally "in the face of universalist representations of Kurdish ethnicity suggested both by nationalist historians and state-centered historical interpretations" as a result of the progressive and fragmented integration of Kurdish populations in mandatory Syria; in other words, the Kurdish "group" was going through a transition in its own right during the French Mandate. (Tejel 2009: 12-13), This situation changed gradually, and as Tejel noted, Jamil Mardam, a Leader of the National Bloc who later became President of Syria, was dissatisfied with the rising suspicion of an independent Kurdish identity among the Arab political elites, who saw the Kurdish population as a barrier to Syrian national development, where the statue read: "Since the arrival of the Badirkhan brothers, the Kurds of Damascus have gone back fifty years," was becoming more and more associated with Arabism. (Tejel 2009) Consequently, with the formation of the new state called Syria, the Kurds there have three groups, the first one, which historically integrated with the Arab community (Homes, Hama), and the other who settled in the north of Syria (Afrin, Jarabuls and Jazira), and the new coming immigration Kurdish, that those who carry the national feeling and struggle for that (Ibid). there is no correct number regard the Kurdish population in Syria, because of there is no official statistics in Syria refer to ethnicity, but approximate statistics by different sides, where each of them tries to show its desire to reduce or maximize this number for example: the Minority Rights Group international estimated them number around 2.5 million Kurds in Syria (Minorities and indigenous peoples in Syria, Kurds), also the Human Rights Watch in reports mentioned that the Kurds in Syria comprising about 8.5 to 10 percent of the Syrian population (The Silenced Kurds 1996; Chatty 2010 :232), however the Kurdish Institute in Parise estimated population of Kurds in Syria around 3 to 3.5 million, nearly the 15% of the population of Syria (The Kurdish population in Institut kurde de Paris). In front of these numbers there is some sides especially Arab side said that the number of Kurds in Syria not more than one million, nearly 6% of the population of Syria (A team of Researcher 2013: 66-69), if we take the average between those estimations, it will be around 2 million Kurds in Syria. 31 The Political Conditions for Kurds in Syria Before studying this issue, it must mention that both Arab and Kurds started in dominion that has transborder movements, which means the Kurdish Sphere in other states will affect others in some way, for example, the national movement in Iraq or Turkey or even in Iran will affect to others. As mentioned above, in Syria, the new state formation, the urban elites had been labouring to "fashion" the "identity of that historically unique subject"—the citizen—since the late-Ottoman Tanzimat (1839–1876), a period of modernizing reforms that included numerous liberalizing edicts; a new land code; extensive revisions of the empire's commercial, civil, criminal, and penal codes; a constitution; and the establishment of a parliament. The Tanzimat initiated a process of defensive developmental reforms that persisted in the empire's successor states long after its dissolution (Silverstein 2011: 31). It was noteworthy that the Ottoman Empire was based on the superiority of Islam rather than conceptions of one community's ethnic superiority to another. (Chatty 2017: 19). Ottoman population statistics were all recorded according to religion rather than ethnicity or language. Muslims, for instance, may be of several languages and racial groups, including Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, Bosnians, Circassians, and others. (Ibid: 20). The battle for independence after the First World War by numerous Governments and groups with an interest in changing the political status of Syria gave rise to the idea of national unity in the modern "nation-state" understanding; they were divided into their political ideas and preferences, but they all gathered around there is a Syrian State loosely linked with the other Arabic-speaking regions (Hourani 1946: 41). Many important urban notables and ex-Ottoman officials discovered little prospects to reclaim their positions of authority under the Arab nationalist dictatorship of Amir Faysal. They were loathed and mistrusted by the nationalist elite ruling the Arab state, thus every effort was taken to prevent them from holding political office. While they waited for the defeat of the young militant nationalists, some notables who had been pushed to the political margins sought the assistance of French political officials. Faysal did not appoint a cabinet of non-nationalist notables, however, until the French arrived at Damascus' doorstep in late July 1920. Additionally, this ministry was given the humiliating task of handing up Syria to France. (KHOURY 1987: 68). On another side King Faysal and his supporters, who established a short-lived Arab government in Syria between 1918-1920, regarded the Kurds with great suspicion because of their close links with the previous 32 Ottoman administration and their consequent pro-Ottoman stance during the war, understandably the Kurds of Damascus greeted the change or regime with relief, where the local Kurdish communities in Damascus generally welcomed French rule ( Foccaru 2003: 197) The French Policy in Syria The relationship between the Kurds and new authorities was affected by the policy of Mandate in Syria and Lebanon; The French authorities were an essential role in defining local ethnic and religious groups like minorities having been inherited from the Ottoman millet system and depend on them to creating new nation-states. The Kurds were the largest non-Arab Muslim community in Syria starting in the 1920s among this mosaic. Moreover, as mentioned above, the Kurdish tribal troops were part of the French Army, negatively reflecting Syria's political elites (National Collation), which appeared evident in the 1930s, especially in 1936-37. Adding to this the rule of Khoybun Kurdish committees, which was acted as political arms of revolution in Turkey, and it was a card in the hand of the Mandate to negotiate with Turkey and political elites in Syria, and this was evident during Franco-Turkish talks on defining the border between Turkey and Syria. (Tejel 2009; Fuccaro 2003). The Khoybun League established diplomatic ties with representatives from several nations in an effort to garner political backing for the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish state in the area. (Ibid: 19-21), The autonomous movement in Jazira in 1936, also known as the Kurdish-Christian bloc, was another event that contributed to tensions between the Kurdish notables and Arab nationalism elites. This movement sought administrative autonomy, with the following being its main demands: - A specific law with protections similar to those accorded to the Alawites, the Druze, or those in Alexandretta - The presence of French forces ensured the safety of minorities. - the selection of a French governor under League of Nations supervision (Tejel 2009; White 2011: 69-91). 33 Conflict between Damascus and the French government coexisted with conflict with minorities in Damascus. Furthermore, when Syria had complete independence from France in 1946, Damsacuse had a negative idea toward Kurds leaders even though some were close to the Arab National bloc (Tejel 2014). During the 1940s, after France fell in the war, the Free French offered Syria and Lebanon independence onc