Syria’s 3.5 million Kurds live in the northern and eastern part of the country that they call Rojava. The new regime in Damascus has been trying to get the Kurdish militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces to allow themselves to be integrated into the national army, which worries many Kurds who fear what will follow if they no longer have their own armed forces. And the Kurds are quick to react when they feel the Arabs who rule in Damascus try to impinge on Kurdish rights. The latest contretemps between Kurds and Arabs has been over the use of Kurdish, a designated “national language,” on public signs, and Arab officials’ officials to limit that use. More on this conflict can be found here: “Petty clashes over a sign in Syria risk snowballing into real conflict,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2026:
A sign at the Justice Palace in Hasakah province has been torn down at least three times by young Kurdish protesters. Hasakah was run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led force that was backed by the IDF. Since February, Hasakah has been transitioning to Damascus’s rule.
The SDF is supposed to integrate into the new Syrian security forces. However, many questions remain about how the Kurdish minority will feel under the new arrangement.
A key issue is language. Kurdish is supposed to be a national language in Syria, according to a government decree in January. However, a national language and an official language on state signs are two different things. Kurdish had appeared alongside Arabic on the sign. Now, a new sign has only large Arabic letters, with smaller English letters. Protesters in Hasakah and in Qamishli object to the removal of Kurdish from official signs on government buildings.
The Kurdish protesters clearly want the old sign back. Damascus has not been willing to budge. In fact, Syrian state media notes that Syria’s Justice Ministry, last week, said that it would “pursue those involved in unrest and vandalism targeting the Justice Palace in Hasakah province, adding that legal measures were being coordinated with relevant authorities to bring those responsible before the judiciary.”
In other words, Kurds who tear down signs that are only in Arabic, because they deny Kurdish its status in Syria as a “national language,” are now to be prosecuted for defending that status, and may be fined, or even imprisoned, for trying to preserve the use of Kurdish on street signs.
The justice ministry insists that the protesters are vandalizing the sign and has labeled them “saboteurs” who threaten public order and social stability.
Really? Is it as bad as all that? Does taking down signs that no longer include Kurdish a “threat to public order and social stability”? It would. be more exact to say that it is the Justice Ministry officials in Haskalah Province who ordered the bilingual street signs to be pulled down because they were in Kurdish as well as Arabic, who threaten “public order and social stability.” They have angered the Kurds by ignoring their right to use their own language in that part of Syria where they are the overwhelming majority, and thus causing a conflict between Kurds and Arabs to erupt quite unnecessarily. Had the Arab officials simply left the signs alone, the Kurds would have been content, and most Arabs, though not the Arab supremacists in the government, would not have been offended if these bilingual signs were retained for use in Kurdish areas of the country.
“The ministry said the Syrian government had continued efforts since the fall of the deposed regime to restore state institutions across different regions, reactivate public services, and strengthen the rule of law and judicial institutions,” SANA noted….
How would including Kurdish on street signs in Kurdish areas harm “the rule of law and judicial institutions”? In fact, the use of Kurdish on those signs would please the Kurds, and make them feel less alienated, and more likely to support the state.
The clashes in Hasakah have so far remained small. However, some Arabs are angered by what they see as Kurds attempting to attack the new government. As such, this could lead to wider tensions. The government has attempted to integrate the SDF and Kurds into the new administration….
The anger of some Arabs is unwarranted. It is the Kurds who were being hard done by, and who only wanted to have their language used on bilingual signs in Kurdish areas. After all, some Kurds do not know Arabic and need to have signs, especially at government offices, in their own language; it’s a matter of making Kurds feel more secure in dealing with officialdom.
Those who object to bilingual signs in both Arabic and Kurdish are Arab supremacists, intent on suppressing the use of Kurdish to promote what might be called linguicide. They are to be found not just in Syria, but also in North Africa, where they have tried to suppress the use of Tamazight, the Berber language. Berber riots in Algeria, in such cities as Tizi-Ouzou, eventually led to the recognition of the Berber language as a “national language” in 2002, and as an “official language” of Algeria in 2016. But Arabic is still the language used in all government offices and on all government documents, and in the schools. Berber is taught in only a small number of schools, all of them in the Berber heartland of Kabylia.
Some argue that it’s better to see fighting over a sign than to see real fighting, as happened back in January. However, the question is whether the government can resolve this.
And fighting over a sign, if not quickly resolved, can erupt into a real fight between Kurdish nationalists and Arab supremacists.
Language is symbolic. Kurds don’t want to see rights they worked hard to win over the last decade and a half eroded. They fought ISIS and established institutions at great cost. Many Kurds had been stateless under the Assad regime. Now they are able to apply for citizenship. It is still an uphill struggle for many of them.
And in their heartland of Kojava, they want Kurdish, as well as Arabic, to be used on signs. That is not much to ask. We will see if Arab supremacists in the Syrian government win out with Arabic-only signs or if, instead, decency will prevail.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
If a population is mohammedan, I don’t particularly care whether or not their language or culture is preserved. It’s a hard lesson learned from the example of Bangladesh
In 1971, there was a revolt in East Pakistan against an imposition of Urdu on that territory, and Bengali-speaking Hindus united w/ Bengali-speaking muslims on that issue. Part of the hope was that the harshness of islamic rule would ease, and that the country would become secular, like India next door. But in 1975, that regime was overthrown, and in the 1980s, Bangladesh declared islam the national religion. And the last 5 years have been a living hell for Hindus there
Looking back at it w/ the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, India made a mistake supporting that movement. Had East Pakistan remained a part of Pakistan, it would have bled Islamabad dry, and weakened the entire country, and made it less of a threat to either India or the West than it turned out to be. Today, there are Indians who back secessionist movements in Balochistan and Sind, but I oppose that, since those are still muslim movements. I wouldn’t support them any more than I’d support Islamabad: all I support is the fighting b/w them
Lesson learned, I apply it elsewhere. Like here in Kurdistan. Since the Kurds haven’t tossed away islam (unlike the Iranians), I’m not remotely interested in what’s happening as far as their oppression by the Arabs go. I’m sympathetic to the Assyrians, Yazidis and to an extent, even the Druze, but not the Kurds. If they want my support, they know what to do
Westman says
How many years will it matter? Which nation will give land to Kurds for their own Kurdish nation? Turkey, Syria? That is what they really want. The only possibility for this is the outcome of a major war.
I could be wrong yet it seems the languages of new knowledge and high economies are those that grow into universal use while the older static languages fade, though perhaps still preserved in works of religion, history, and arts.
The Quran must be translated to be read by the world majority as must the original Biblical works. The meanings are fairly preserved yet those original languages will not become the standard of international trade or scientific exploration though leaving many adopted words.
We can probably assume that if we could be transported 400 years into the future that we might have difficulty understanding English due to vocabulary additions and dialect changes. The most common business language might be Asian. Considering that every human will have a world-range communication device, many of the Chinese language dialects will fall into disuse.
And, perish the thought, AGI might invent a new language, continually updated, that all of humanity must learn as part of “chilhood through adult” education. That idea is scary!
Dan says
You can bet that as soon as Kurdish forces are integrated into the Syrian Army that they will be transferred to the other side of Syria – as far from Kurdistan as they can possibly be placed,,,