Emergent Conversation 24

This essay is part of the series Kurdistan(s): Repression, Resistance, and the Fight for Survival,
PoLAR Online Emergent Conversation 24

By Dastan Jasim

A Knife in Kiel: A Symptom of a Deeper Problem

On January 19, 2025,  Kurdish demonstrator Ilhan A. was stabbed during a rally in Kiel, Germany, in solidarity with Kurds in Syria. The attacker, a 25-year-old Syrian, was allegedly affiliated with sympathizers of the Islamic State. Six months later, Kurdish refugee Mustafa B. commited suicide in a refugee camp in Giessen, Germany. Shortly before his suicide, he had allegedly survived a violent racist assault by Turkish and Syrian-Arab refugees while he was sleeping. His suicide was not exceptional, but indicative of a pattern that became evident with 15 Kurdish suicides in Germany’s refugee camps during the first nine months of 2024 (Türkmen 2024).

A wave of anti-Kurdish hate crimes has gained momentum amid a surge in nationalist mobilization within the diaspora. Since Bashar al-Assad’s fall on December 8, 2024, images and flags of Saddam Hussein, who led genocides against the Kurds, have become common at Syrian diaspora protests in Europe celebrating Assad’s end. While HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, draws on Islamist ideology for legitimacy, its discriminatory practices extend beyond non-Muslim minorities, such as Christians, Druze, and Alawites, to include Muslim groups like the Kurds. These developments are historically grounded and must be understood within the context of intertwining and evolving Arab supremacist and Islamist ideologies, which persist even among diaspora communities in Europe. To understand the origins of these hate crimes and their attendant ideologies, we must consider Ba’athism, its fusion with Islamism during Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1990s, and its continued influence on the Syrian opposition.

Ba’athism: Arab Supremacy in Theory and Practice

The Ba’ath Party, founded in 1943 by Aflaq and al-Bitar, claimed to unify Arabs and promote an Arab renaissance free from colonialism and based on socialist principles. However, the party quickly shifted to Arab supremacy, marginalizing non-Arabs and non-Sunnis (Malazada 2023).  In Iraq and Syria, where 8 million and 2.5 million Kurds live, respectively, Ba’athist regimes implemented aggressive Arabization campaigns. Kurdish regions in both countries are geopolitically and economically significant, containing fertile land, water sources, and oil resources. Iraq’s Ba’athist government under Saddam Hussein began the “Arabization” of northern Iraq in the mid-1970s, forcibly relocating Kurds (Bengio 1998, 119). Likewise, in Syria, the “Arab Belt” project stripped tens of thousands of Kurds, especially from the North-Eastern Syrian Hasakah region, of their citizenship between 1963 and 1965 and settled Arab populations in historically Kurdish areas from 1975 onward (Vanly 1986). While Kurds in both countries were dispossessed, deported, and killed, settler Arab families came to sudden wealth, being resettled into formerly Kurdish-owned farms (Vanly 1992).

Ba’athist ideology, while secular in its origins, became a convenient tool for majoritarian supremacy, masking ethno-sectarian domination under the guise of pan-Arab unity (Bengio 1998). In both Iraq and Syria, Arabization policies sought to erase Kurdish culture, mirroring those of Turkey, through measures such as banning the Kurdish language, criminalizing Kurdish universities and students, and denying the historical Kurdish presence in northern Mesopotamia.

Ba’athism in Syria: Arabization by Design & Secular Authoritarianism

The United Arab Republic (1958–1961) was a political union between Syria and Egypt, established to promote Arab unity under the leadership of President Nasser rather than the Ba’ath Party.       Syrian Ba’athists initially supported it but protested as Nasser centralized power. After its collapse, the Ba’athists regained power in 1963, using Arab unity for internal control and Arabization in Kurdish regions. The infamous 1962 special census in Al-Hasakah rendered 120,000 Kurds stateless overnight, creating the legal groundwork for systematic disenfranchisement (Yildiz 2005, p. 38). Kurdish property was seized, their parties banned, and their existence seen as a threat to Arab unity. Their citizenship was often denied, claiming Kurds in Northern Syria are Turkish settlers, despite borders created by modern Turkey and Syria separating Kurdish cities Kobani, Serekaniye, and Qamishlo from their neighbors.

The consequences of statelessness were severe; many couldn’t move freely or access higher education. Schools refused Kurdish names, replacing them with Arabized versions, a common practice also in Turkey and Iran. Kurdish culture and history were erased in many ways, and their marginalization in Syria reduced them to the Lumpenproletariat in an underdeveloped country. The “Arab Belt” project displaced Kurdish families and settled Arab tribes loyal to Damascus in border areas, fueling the claim that Kurds have no history in Northern Syria and scattering Kurdish regions to diminish their presence (see Göner date or this series).

Ba’athist nationalist ideology, just like Turkish nationalist identity (see Çelik, this series) framed Kurdish identity as a fundamental threat to Arab unity, often drawing parallels between Kurds and Zionists (Hilal 1963). This laid the groundwork for decades of anti-Kurdish repression, culminating in the brutal Qamishlo massacre of 2004, killing 70 and wounding hundreds (Jongerden and Knapp 2020). The killings happened after a football game between a Kurdish and an Arab team, where      Arab nationalists chanted racist slogans calling for Kurds to be gassed like Saddam Hussein did in Iraq. It was an early warning of the fault lines that would explode after 2011. Decades of Assadist divide-and-rule policies toward Syria’s various sectarian and ethnic communities (Khaddour 2017), combined with the persistent presence of antisemitic and conspiracy-laden narratives, have rendered the Kurds permanent strangers within the country.

Ba’athism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein and the “Faith Campaign”

However, the fusion of Islamism and Arab nationalism originated primarily in Iraq, rather than in Syria. Even before formal Ba’athi rule, Iraq was a hotbed for nationalist leaders, famously the Nazi-aligned leader Rashid ali al Gaylani who incited the anti-Jewish Pogrom of the Farhud in 1941. Saddam Hussein built on this. Unlike Assad’s focus on secular authoritarianism, Hussein, who became leader in 1979, adopted an expanded strategy after the 1991 Gulf War, blending Arab nationalism with Sunni Islamism. With the 1993 “Faith Campaign” (al-Hamla al-Imaniyya), the government instituted mandatory Quranic education at all levels, empowered Sunni religious courts, and enforced Islamic punishments, including amputations and beheadings. He decorated public life with Islamic slogans, including “Allahu Akbar” to Iraq’s national flag, written in Saddam’s handwriting and allegedly with his blood (Helfont 2018). He built massive mosques all over Iraq during times of crippling sanctions, which are to this day unfinished ruins (Fuller 2003, 10).

Saddam’s Faith Campaign represented Islamism in Ba’athist dress, advancing a highly chauvinistic portrayal of the Sunni Arab as the pinnacle of the civilizational Ba’athist project (Bengio 1998), while continuing to marginalize Shiites, Kurds, and other minority groups. This marriage laid the ideological bedrock for post-2003 insurgent movements like the Islamic State (ISIS), whose leadership drew heavily from former Ba’athist cadres (Tønnessen 2015). Throughout the 1990s, Saddam Hussein supported tribal Sunni, pro-Ba’athi, and Jihadi sleeper cells. These groups were not ideologically exclusive but were tactically cohesive. As he foresaw his end, he aimed to create a stable militia network that would cause misery and suffering if Iraq was invaded, having already been weakened (Helfont 2018).

Part of these illicit networks included Sunni tribes in and around Tikrit, Mosul, and Western Iraqi Anbar, bordering Deir ez-Zor. On both sides of the border, Sunni tribes, which never recognized the Sykes-Picot agreement that divided Ottoman Arab lands into Syria and Iraq, continued smuggling goods into Iraq during sanctions. These networks later formed the backbone of ISIS (Khaddour et Hasan 2020).

Marriage of Arab Nationalism and Islamism: Legacy and Resonance

The Syrian opposition, especially Sunni Arab communities, use this ideological blend from Iraq as well as this geographical spillover, shaping their base in areas like Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, Homs, and Hama, where many Sunnis opposed Assad but supported Saddam-era Ba’athist ideas.

During the Syrian civil war, many rebel groups adopted Islamist rhetoric, due to profound ideological affinities rooted in the Ba’athist-Islamist hybrid. Groups like Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam), Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of the Levant), and later HTS (formerly al-Nusra Front) demonstrate this continuum: embracing Sunni Islamist ideology while also reproducing Arab supremacist discourses. Arguably, more than fighting Assad, the Turkish-backed opposition focused on battling the Kurds (Darwish 2023).

Symbols matter in this imagined Arab community. We saw the resurgence of Saddam Hussein’s images even in the early days of the Syrian uprising, and the glorification of both nationalistic and Islamist oppositional figures like Abdul Baset al-Sarout (Ghabchi 2015) and Abdul Qader Saleh (Nasr 2013). For many, especially from marginalized Sunni areas like Homs, Hama, or Deir ez-Zor, Saddam’s image represents not just a dictator but Sunni Arab strength and dignity.

AANES and the Field of Contention

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) was founded in 2012 after the Syrian uprising and Assad’s withdrawal from Kurdish areas. Based on democratic confederalism, gender equality, and ethnic pluralism, it challenges the Arab-Islamist hegemony (McGee 2022). The contestation of that narrative quickly spread to Arab regions in Syria, since most areas liberated from ISIS by the AANES are Arab-majority. Ethnic representation was taken seriously early on, trying to align with AANES values. Despite concessions like Arab tribal autonomy and Sharia law in Arab areas, according to the representative of AANES, many Arabs still see the AANES as a threat to “Arab-Islamic unity.” The fact that most of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), the AANES’ armed forces, are Arabs doesn’t change this view (Rojava Information Center 2021). AANES faces hostility from both Assad loyalists and Sunni Arab opposition factions.  For instance, following the Kurdish Unity Conference in Qamishlo on April 26, 2025, the Syrian Interim Government strongly opposed the AANES’ main proposals, particularly the call for a democratic, decentralized Syria where minorities can voice and govern themselves.

Anti-Kurdish Attacks in Germany: The Diaspora Mirror

Anti-Kurdish and conspiracist sentiment spreads as Syrian and Iraqi Sunni Arab diasporas in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere import Ba’athist-Islamist attitudes.

Kurds report intimidation, assaults, and harassment by Arab nationalist and Islamist groups and have established their own reporting mechanisms, as the state largely ignores the problem. One such initiative is the Informationsstelle Antikurdischer Rassismus, which allows individuals to report incidents of anti-Kurdish racism anonymously. Ilhan A’s case, which I mentioned in the opening of this piece, although brutal, was not reported in the national German media. German media barely note acts of violence within migrant communities, often labeling them as “violence among migrants” and thereby framing them as senseless acts of violence without any motive (Jasim 2024, 29-30).

Many acts of violence occur unnoticed, but taking warning signs from affected communities seriously could help prevent larger attacks that also impact German society. In the 2024 Solingen attack, carried out by a refugee from Deir ez-Zor who had previously threatened Kurds in his refugee camp, who were victims of the ISIS war, authorities had been informed months in advance. The attacker was not stopped and killed three people. Nonetheless, mainstream white and German racist discourses ignore intra-migrant racism, leaving Kurds to face double discrimination that is completely unacknowledged (Amadeu Antonio Foundation and KurdAKAD 2024). Islamism, Arab supremacism, and Turkish supremacism intersect in their opposition to Kurds in the diaspora, while institutions routinely avoid acknowledging or addressing these dynamics.

Recognizing the Real Threat

The 2025 Kiel knife is traceable to historic anti-Kurdish violence like the Arab Belt Project, Anfal, and the Faith Campaign. A progressive view must recognize these levels of transnational racism. While Middle Eastern refugees face racism in the West, Arab, Turkish, and Persian dominance in the Middle East also stems from colonial histories. Laziness in understanding these intersecting discriminations should not exclude the most marginalized from global anti-racism discourse. The marriage of Arab nationalism and Islamism threatens minorities in the Middle East and diaspora. If the international community romanticizes the “moderate opposition” and ignores Arab supremacism and Islamism, it risks intensifying cycles of hate, violence, and erasure from Deir ez-Zor to Dresden. Celebrating Assad’s fall isn’t enough; We must also confront the ideology underpinning Assad’s Syria, Saddam’s Iraq, and their successor states and regimes, along with the involved diaspora communities.

Dastan Jasim is a political scientist and associate fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. She studies democratization and public opinion in all four parts of Kurdistan, anti-Kurdish Racism as a transnational phenomenon, as well as Islamism and the fights against it in the Middle East and beyond.

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