There will not be peace in the Middle East unless the borders are redrawn

By Rebwar Rashed:

Since the England´s Magna Charta (1215), there has been hundreds and thousands of different reforms in “the West”. English, French and American revolutions made fundamental changes in the history of mankind.

Abolition of the tyrants and despots, the separation of the state and religion, the democratization of political systems, progress in human rights, gaining labour and women’s rights, fighting anti-Semitism and racism, and bringing other questions into the field of a democratic dialogue are some achievements of the Western civilization.

As there are criticisms of democracy and democratic deficits, there is also a problem of the “Over-smartness” of politics in the West. One of them is the drawn borders of the Middle East.

Africa, Asia and the M. E. became the lands of many new states both after WW1 and WW2. Some Arab states such as Jordan (not an Arabic name, from the River Jordan, originally Hebrew “Nehar haYarden” (Jordan=haYrden/ הירדן), Syria (not Arabic, from the word of Assyria), Iraq (not Arabic, from the Babylonian Iraq), Palestine (read: Philistine (not Arabic, from the ancient people of Philistine, thousands of years before the Arabic and Islamic conquest to the area), Lebanon (not Arabic, Aramaic word which were mentioned in Torah many times, meaning “White”), Turkey (from the Ottoman Empire) and Iran (then Persia!) etc.

The Arabs, riding the Islamic horse, have now got “lands/ states” across the M. E. and Africa.

The Peace/ the treaties of Westphalia (1648) ended the devastation of the Thirty Years ‘war (1618-1648). Many European nation-states began to be born and so became the political model of European nation-states, though not without problems. There are still many national questions in Europe which requires answers.

However, two persons, the first was Rezā Shāh Pahlavi (who really wasn´t Pahlavi, he has borrowed the notorious Pahlavi from the Kurds!) and Mustafa Kemal/ Ataturk, took a prototype of the European nation-state, a specific Western conception of nation building,on territories not belonging to them. And they got lots of help from the West. Iraq and Syria became identical countries as Iran and Turkey. All of them “national-states” not “nation-states”. There are other nations inside of these territories, for example: Arabs, Kurds, Baloches and Azeris in Iran; Kurds, Laz; Charkas, Assyrians, Armenians etc in Turkey; and Kurds, Assyrians and Christians in Syria and in Iraq.Thus,in the West (and now in some East European countries), the geographic boundaries of an ethnic population and a political state largely coincide while, in the M. E., political boundaries do not correspond with ethnic or cultural boundaries at all. In each country of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria there is one nation- dictatorship in a multinational-state.

The world has witnessed huge centralized countries with the dictatorship (often fascism) of one nation such the Turks in Turkey (Turkiet means the Land of Turks!), Persians in Iran, and Arabs in Syria and Iraq. The history of these countries is the history of bloody wars, extermination, deportation, assimilation and conscious mischief against other nationalities. To balance and to extend the shell life of this hocus pocus of politics, these countries had no choice but to try to export their own agenda and go into unholy partnerships and often sell their “national” pride to super powers. Thus there is a fabricated history based on lies and demonizing the “other/s”.

The political Islam and its uncivilized branches which strives after unrealistic demands, the Turkish desire to re-establish the Ottoman Empire, the Iranian desire to keep the current Shiite Empire and the Arabs’ pan-nationalistic and chauvinistic, often hidden racist, quest to build an Arab Islamic “Ummeh”, the general disorder and the unrest of the people: these are the product of this mishmash of politics. The policymakers-nations have sworn to have it all or nothing. There are no “Win-Win politics”. The result is an endless ethnic and religious conflict. The national-identity is therefore a false one.

The Jewish people, even with many thousands years of history and being one of the most ancient nations in the area, like the Kurds and Assyrian, still find it very hard to make the world understand that “Jerusalem” is indeed a Jewish city. The word “Quds القدس” is an Arabic word which only means “Holly”. These states have a very different understanding of the “reality”. How can Arab masses understand that the Jews have really not “occupied” Arab land? That hundreds but thousands of villages and cities in the M. E. have got new names after the Islamification of the area? Arabs, Turks and Persians have settled in many areas that have never been theirs and they have never been accepted by the original inhabitants, let alone been welcomed. The people of Kurdistan have faced harsh assimilation and social-cultural humiliation over and above all kinds of other suppression.

These are serious questions. They need proper answers and solutions!

The Kurds and the Jews, along with the Assyrians and other ancient people in the area, are indeed the victim of a falsified history.

A realistic solution to the M. E. problem therefore must go back to the essence of the Peace of Westphalia and drawing new territorial borders based on a “nation-state” solution. There will always, of course, be small minorities such as Arabs and Christians in Israel, and Assyrians, Armenians and Christians in Kurdistan. But there will also be implicit Shiia- and Sunni-states in Iraq and in the Islamic State.

Iraq and Syria are now in fact disassembled countries. Turkey and Iran are huge centralized countries with many antagonistic features and therefore a source for endless conflicts and bloodshed.

The new Hamas rocket firing is indeed an Iranian ideological Shiia war against the Jews. It doesn’t have very much to do with the so called “Palestine” question. The propaganda war against Israel now, with Qatar in the picture too, is a proof that there is an declared war between the Arab-Sunni and Iranian-Shiia centres. Turkey chose to be a part of the problem, at least since the Mavi Marmara in May 2010.

Emerging new states of the M. E., for instance Kurdistan, will definitely lead to a more balance of power and will eventually lead to more realistic economical relations and mutual interests between the nations, as was the case with the new republics of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

Kurds are a suffering people. Arguing that a free Kurdistan contributes to instability is not a valid argument. The current territories are indeed the main source of hatred, distrust and instability between people. The West should take its share of responsibility.

Rebwar Rashed was born in Kurdistan. He has translated several books into Kurdish, written a novel (‘The Shadow of Helebce’) and also many articles in Kurdish and English about the Kurdistan National Liberation Movement, human rights, equality between the sexes and ethnicities, and the need for a democratic and peaceful struggle.