Last Sunday thousands of London’s Kurds and their supporters marched through London to protest against the Turkish invasion of the majority-Kurdish region of north-eastern Syria known by the Kurds as as Rojava. It had been a week since Trump ordered US troops out of the area to stop America becoming embroiled in a conflict – between Turkey and Kurdish nationalists – that he sees as no concern to the US. And this despite the fact that it was Kurdish fighters who helped defeat Islamic State in Syria.
Although Trump’s decision was widely condemned, UK front pages have had other stories on their mind, such as Brexit and – on the second day of the Turkish offensive – the racism of some Bulgarian fans during the Euro 2020 qualifying match against England.
So to help make up for what we feel is under-reporting, Rising East will publish a series of articles about The Kurdish Question, beginning with some background information next week to help readers understand why this issue is important.
In case you think that people already know enough, we sampled perhaps London’s most diverse university population to find out if they even know where Kurdistan is, and the results are below.
Film by Irmak Dogan