Book Title: The Issue of the Kurds in Syria: Facts, History and Myth

Author: Multiple Authors.

Place of publication: Beirut

Year of Publication: 2013

Publisher: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies

No. of pages: 193

The introduction starts by distinguishing the Syrian revolution from other Arab revolutions (Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen) given the ‘specificity’ of Syrian society, which is an ethnic, religious and sectarian mix. The book explains how the fault lines caused by the politicization of these identities are made forcefully apparent during national crises and present serious risks to the existence of the state and efforts towards national integration formed during the anti-colonial struggle. Accordingly, the\ Kurdish issue in Syria, argues the book, represents one of the most pressing challenges facing state and society in Syria because it is a problem in which historical and demographic factors intertwine, and because of surrounding regional and international political interactions. These challenges are evident in programs put forward by political forces, parties, or personalities that exploit the reality and difficult path of the Syrian revolution to formulate divisive visions that do not give weight to demographic or geographic facts, but try to replicate cases and models from outside Syria and apply them to the Syrian case.