For Human Rights need not be conditional. Indeed, many of the arguments used by Arab politicians, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad included, to condemn Israel of mistreatment the Palestinians can be re-applied to criticise Syria's policies and behaviour towards its Kurds.
Striking comparisons can be found in the following areas:
1. eradication of identity and cultural assimilation (prohibitions on language, change of place names to the dominant language)
2. settlement building - compare Arab Belt in North East Syria and Israeli settlements
3. restrictive and conditional citizenship
An inscription of identity: the Kurdish name of town Ain al-Arab written in both Arabic and Roman scripts
The problem I suppose, is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is much more sensational and popular than the problems of Kurds in Syria.
ReplyDeleteIt eventually boils down to how open we are as humans and as societies towards other who are not like us. I can just hope that us people and especially our leaders understand this and become a little more accommodative of other people who are different yet not very different.