Afrinpost – Special
Under the title: “The Kurds: A Nation Without a State”, the French government devoted a lesson on the history of the Kurds and the nature of their cause in the school curriculum for the eleventh grade of secondary school, and the lesson was placed within the subjects of history, geography, geopolitics and political sciences.
The lesson deals with the Kurds as the largest people in the world without a state, and their number reaches (about 40 million). It indicates that some Kurds have been fighting for a century for an independent Kurdistan, while the countries in which parts of Kurdistan are located object to the formation of that state. Saddam fall and the collapse of Syria raised hopes for the creation of an independent Kurdistan (according to the French lesson).
And it is presented in the lesson: “Can the conflicts in the Middle East lead to the establishment of a Kurdish state?” This paragraph talks about the role of Kurdish forces as the first forces to defeat ISIS.
The lesson also talks about Erdogan’s decision, with Trump’s approval, to invade northern Syria, on October 9, 2019, and this is considered the end of US-Kurdish cooperation, and at the same time the beginning of the Turkish occupation of the Kurdish region and their partners in northern Syria.
The lesson also hinges on the Turkish aggression and occupation of Afrin, so he says: “We cannot say that we did not know, since March 2018, the Turkish army has occupied Afrin province and city with a Kurdish majority, and the areas have been handed over to the jihadist groups – which clearly obtained the right to the spoils, as they were stolen. Crowds of militias looted homes and looted a number of Kurdish shops, so they carried out kidnappings in exchange for ransom and carried out summary executions, and the Kurdish population fled, and a hundred and thirty thousand were thrown on the roads, a mission that was accomplished because what is meant is (ending the Kurdish presence) in the border strip with Turkey. ”
The text singles out a paragraph about the role of the Syrian Kurds in defeating ISIS, saying: “The Kurds of Syria were the first to defeat the Islamic State and expel Al-Baghdadi from his (capital) Syria, Raqqa, and they presented 11 thousand martyrs in these battles, so that Trump celebrates (his victory) over the Islamic State. He thanked the Kurds in his way: by handing them over to other jihadists.
The lesson poses questions to students, such as:
Is the Kurdish situation the same in all countries?
Is independence still the path that the Kurds hope for, as was the case at the beginning of the twenties of the last century?
What role did the Kurds play in the fight against the Islamic State?
Why can we compare the situation of the Syrian Kurds with the Iraqi Kurds?
The new school year for high school began in France starting from the middle of this week, and thousands of students in French schools will teach this subject about the history of the Kurds, their cause, their struggle for independence, their defeat of ISIS and the challenges they face.
The importance of this step stems from the fact that it is not a passing newspaper article that expresses the point of view of its author, but rather reflects the vision of the French government, which wants to raise the issue of the Kurds, as a human rights issue, and include it in the general French culture.
It is of utmost importance to pause when assessing the Turkish aggression against the Kurdish areas starting from Afrin, and emphasizing the numerical percentage of the Kurds in the region, the acts of robbery and thefts and the continued violations therein through killing, kidnapping and ransom demands, as well as the fate of the people who were thrown into the open, displacement under the weight of war, while the lesson clearly indicates the demographic change in its extreme limits by ending the Kurdish presence on the borders with Turkey.
France is one of the most important countries leading the European choir, and its official recognition of the facts about the Kurdish issue is an indicator of transformation, according to observers, as denial of existence has always been one of the most important problems facing the Kurds in the Middle East.
