The “gift” of Citizenship is not enough

Analysis: Why the Kurds won´t be appeased by Decree No. 49

By Massoud Akko

It was a clear and quick message: tens of thousands of Kurds marched, in several Syrian cities, to tell the Syrian regime that the Kurds are for reform and freedom and not only demanding citizenship.

That message came out only hours after Legislative Decree No. 49 was issued by President Bashar al-Assad to grant Syrian citizenship to the Kurds who have been deprived of it since 1962. Back then, an exceptional statistical operation was conducted in the Jazeera district. Claiming that many Kurds in the area had crossed into Syria illegally from neighboring countries, especially Turkey, the Syrian government conducted a highly controversial census and stripped about 120.000 Syrians of their nationality, registering them as “foreigners”. In the third generation, the number of stateless now has grown to about 200000 to 300.000 Kurds who still perceive that as a chauvinist and discriminative act against them.

The Kurds of Syria marched in support of Der’aa and Banyas and other Syrian cities, where protests were violently oppressed by the security forces, the army and the regime’s “civil militia”. The Kurdish population wanted to express their enthusiasm for the Syrian revolution against injustice and the killing of unarmed civilians, while cheering that they were calling for freedom and not for citizenship alone.

While Decree No.49 is a good step forward to alleviate some of the injustice that the Syrian Kurds suffer, it is still insufficient and has come very late and only because of huge demonstrations. Moreover, it is clear that the decree does not return the citizenship to the “unregistered” Kurds, the “maktoumeen” – another group of about 100.000 people inflicted by the results of the 1962 census. The unregistered Kurds are those who entered Syria after 1962. Their situation is even worse: They cannot obtain any identification papers, receive treatment in government hospitals and the travel restrictions on them are even harsher.

Many Kurds are wary of the ministry of interior’s executive decisions, for they fear that impossible conditions will make it difficult to actually regain the nationality.

The Kurdish population was anticipating much more for three million Kurds who speak Kurdish, as well as a million others who have forgotten their mother tongue and reside in certain areas of Damascus, Hama, Latkia and other cities.

They were anticipating more than citizenship for those who were deprived of it. They wanted their legitimate nationalist rights, they wanted to be acknowledged in the constitution as the second largest ethnicity in the country after the Arabs.

They hoped that their language, their culture, their heritage be recognised and that all the laws that discriminate against them be annulled. The Kurds also demand that their land be returned to them. It is the land that has been taken away from them and given to the Arabs whom the authorities brought from their villages and areas flooded by the Euphrates river in Aleppo and Rakka.

Many Kurdish leaders have openly said that the “gift” of citizenship is not their only demand. All the Kurdish parties have issued manifestos in this regard. Citizenship is a right and it seems incomplete when it’s given without any compensation for years of deprivation and the lost future of tens of thousands of Kurdish youth who were displaced in their own country.

The Kurdish protest slogans are clear, “We call for freedom, not for nationality alone”. The protests were held in Kamishli, Amouda, Derbasyeh, Ras el-Ayn, Derek and all cities of the Jazeera district where people now demonstrate every Friday.

It is evident that the Kurdish demands are one with those of the Syrian people everywhere. Kurdish politicians and intellectuals have said to the media that the Kurdish marches aim to support the Syrian revolution against dictatorship, corruption, injustice and the iron fist of the security apparatuses.

They also call for freedom for all Syrians, including the Kurds, as well as the alleviation of the state of emergency that has been controlling the country for half a century, without substituting it with an anti-terrorism law.

They say that Syrian pride has been broken for so long and now is the time for the citizens to live in democracy not in prisons. Kurdish activists were imprisoned for years just because they asked for freedom and democracy, and the regime’s accusation would be “dissemination of false news and weakening the national spirit in the time of war”, or they would be accused of “trying to take a piece of Syrian land and giving it to a neighbouring country” and the Kurds will not wait until these charges are replaced by others related to terrorism.

The Kurds of Syria demand, like all the Syrians, the resignation of the Baath party from the leadership of the country by deleting Article no.8 in the constitution which says that “the Baath party is the leader of the state and society”. This leader corrupted and destroyed the Syrian state and plundered public funds.

They want to end the party’s monopoly over Syrian daily life. The Kurds also want a modern law that respects the freedom to form political parties and ends the intervention of the security apparatus in politics and daily life. Also, there is the essential need for a law that permits the forming of NGOs and other institutions of civil society.

The Kurds demand a new modern constitution that recognises all ethnicities and religious sects in Syria, as well as a new law for parliamentary and presidential elections. And, most importantly, they call for the release of all political detainees, who should be fully rehabilitated and compensated financially. The country’s doors should reopen for all the exiled. And there has to be a national dialogue between all Syrian groups to discuss the country’s present and future.

The Syrian dignity has been crushed since the coup d’etat of March 8,1963. It’s about time that the Syrian people live in freedom and pride again without the fear of security forces and random detainment and emergency laws.