One of the most famous quotes attributed to Winston Churchill, one of the key actors of the two world wars, is: “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” This saying illustrates how official histories are often written with the pen of those in power. The history of the Kurdish people has long been recorded in the same way, through the language of official archives, denial policies, and oppressive states. Yet the true history is preserved in the memory of the people living along the paths of exile, in dispersed patriotic families, and in the cities of the diaspora. This reality is the shared truth of all peoples who have suffered massacres and oppression. The diaspora, for this reason, is not merely a geographical dispersion, but also the will to write its own history with its own pen and to take its collective destiny into its own hands. Today, the construction of peace in both Turkey and Kurdistan depends not only on efforts within the country’s borders but also on making this will visible and defended in the cities of the diaspora.
The first strong voices rising from abroad
The Kurdish diaspora’s search for peace is not new. As early as the 1920s, following the Treaty of Lausanne, exiled Kurdish intellectuals organized in Paris and Beirut. Xoybûn (Khoybun), founded in 1927, aimed to make the existence of the Kurdish people known on the international stage. Their published declarations and diplomatic engagements were the first diaspora interventions against the one-sided writing of history. The multifaceted diaspora work carried out by Kamuran Ali Bedir Khan is an example of this. Until the late 1960s, the reports he published in Le Monde Diplomatique about the four parts of Kurdistan were regarded as genuine acts of diplomacy. Even though they did not achieve concrete results and are sometimes discussed rather crudely today, the traces they left in history remain. They stand as proof that history can be written not only by those in power but also by those who have been exiled.
After the 1980 military coup in Turkey, thousands of Kurdish politicians, students, intellectuals, and workers migrated to Europe. Associations and cultural centers established in Germany, Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom formed the second major pillar of the diaspora. The Kurdish diaspora based in Sweden, and the contributions of Mehmet Malmisanij to the Kurdish language, especially his efforts to preserve and sustain Kirmanckî by training linguists, remain vital and significant for the language today. This generation, by engaging with democratic institutions in Europe, brought both refugee rights and the Kurdish question onto the agenda. Reports presented to the European Parliament and news published in the international press were the first strong voices of the peace demand rising from abroad.
The diaspora expanding in the 1990s
The wave of village evacuations, unresolved political murders, and forced displacement in the 1990s further expanded the diaspora. From London to Stockholm, from Berlin to Paris, and from Luxembourg to Lausanne, Kurdish institutes and human rights organizations were established, which not only preserved identity but also internationalized the demand for peace. Brussels became the host of the Kurdistan National Assembly, the Parliament of Kurdistan in Exile, and, most recently, the Kurdistan National Congress. Many human rights reports were recorded thanks to the persistent efforts of diaspora organizations. In this way, the diaspora institutionalized its role as a carrier of memory.
The diaspora as a global actor for peace
In the same period, the foundations of today’s modern Kurdish media, which gained momentum in the diaspora, were laid by dedicated and courageous pioneers. The 2010s became a time of both hope and new trauma for the diaspora. The democratic experience built in Rojava created strong ownership within the diaspora, leading to solidarity campaigns organized across the world. The attacks of ISIS and the genocide in Shengal, however, brought hundreds of thousands of new migrants to Europe. This time the diaspora assumed not only a political but also a humanitarian responsibility. By engaging more actively with international legal mechanisms, it became a global actor in the struggle for peace and justice.
A new process of social construction
In the 19th century, the primary way of achieving diplomatic power and honor was through winning wars. Today, however, the power once gained on the battlefield has largely been replaced by the power achieved through peace. The strength of peace lies in states’ effectiveness in economic, technological, and diplomatic fields. States and powers that base their foreign policies solely on military force and act with aggressive methods are no longer trusted. For this reason, it can be foreseen that future interstate relations will largely depend on diplomacy and diplomatic skills, and that the importance of these elements will steadily increase. In Turkey, there is no democracy in our memory that we can recall with nostalgia, no lived or recognized democratic experience in the memory of the peoples. This is why the struggle for peace and democracy is not about reviving an old order, but about a new process of social construction from beginning to end. One of the most fundamental building blocks of this construction process is the freedom of the mother tongue.
Directly the state’s strategy
As Fuat Ali Rıza accurately stated in his article published in Yeni Özgür Politika, the first measure of being a democrat in today’s Turkey is to defend the right to speak, write, and teach Kurdish freely. The freedom of the Kurdish language cannot be separated from the physical freedom of Abdullah Öcalan. In his article titled “What does Öcalan say, what do you want?” published in Yeni Yaşam newspaper, Tayip Temel, even though he refers to a certain ambiguity with the word “you,” essentially reminds us that the strategy of the colonial Turkish state toward the Kurds and Kurdistan has not changed since its foundation. Especially when viewed from the perspective of historical memory, diaspora, and mother tongue freedom, the matter is not “an undefined framework,” but directly the expression of the state’s strategy.
The diaspora rests on a much broader ground
The historical line of the Turkish state has always shown continuity:
* 1920s: denial and assimilation after Lausanne.
* 1980s: repression, torture, and liquidation following the coup.
* 1990s: village evacuations, unresolved murders, and total war.
* 2000s–2015 so-called solution processes: negotiation disguised as delay and illusion.
* After 2015: security-centered policy, isolation, war, and destruction.
Therefore, the addressee of the question “what do you want?” is clear: the state strategy that denies the existence of the Kurdish people through the denial of their fundamental rights and freedoms is against peace. In response, the Kurdish people and their allies struggle for peace and democracy. The task before us is not to dream of a half-finished democracy, but to create, through struggle, an entirely new democracy rebuilt on the foundation of peoples’ mother tongues, will, and equality.
At the same time, a diaspora strategy that internalizes modern communication tools and methods is inevitable. The true potential of the diaspora lies beyond organized structures, in a much broader social ground shaped outside of the Freedom Movement. Recognizing this reality, and mobilizing the diaspora’s own innovative, individual, and collective potential with modern tools, is a critical step in building peace. The diaspora must no longer be only the bearer of the legacy of the past, but an actor that builds the peace of today and tomorrow with modern methods.