After the Turkish attack along the Syrian borders against the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), an international mobilization materialized against Erdogan’s move, calling for stopping the war against the Kurds. In my country, Italy, many leftist groups called for saving Rojava’s model of democratic and libertarian municipalism, protest events were posted on Facebook, and the newspaper La Repubblica hosted for days an appeal signed by several intellectuals headed by writer Roberto Saviano, urging to stop the massacre against the Kurdish people. This Turkish military operation is a political disaster, in my view, not only because it has been adding other crimes and victims to the Syrian civil war, but also because it gives Damascus’ brutal regime, with the backing of Russia, the opportunity to seize control of large parts of Syria’s Northeast, ending de facto the Kurdish self-government rule. Another gift to authoritarian rulers by Trump’s isolationist, selfish and democracy-indifferent America.
While I was totally unsympathetic to Turkey’s move, I could not either feel so moved by this passionate call for mobilization by intellectuals, so-called leftists and pacifists against the war. I was confused, and found disturbing this sudden surge of internationalism while nothing of this kind has been happening in the last 2-3 years when Assad’s forces and its allies Russia and Iran were destroying the towns where free municipalities were established after the 2011 Syrian revolution, bombing hospitals, schools, markets and residential districts. Silence, complete silence. Apart from the voices of a once upon a time anti-imperialist dogma, or the sympathy for Rojava’s dream of a matriarchal society, or again the Pavlovian conditioning of reacting against all what comes from the West and NATO’s forces (Turkey, in fact, is still a NATO member), I was intensively taken by such a question: why? Why are the Kurds moving our hearts, and the Arabs are not?
Moors in sight!
Certainly, because Kurdish women have played an important role in contemporary Kurdish society and politics, and they represent an international flag for women’s rights movements. Probably, also because Kurds are not associated with Islam (although most of them are Muslims), veiled women, or traditional tribal rules; probably again, because Arabs struggling for their self-determination and finding their drive in their Muslim heritage are seen with mistrust. Again, the historical fear of the Moors, i Mori in Italian.
