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Kurds and Syriacs: An Identity that Roots Deeply, Not Dissolves Part Three
Those who wish for coexistence must first acknowledge differences, not erase them in the name of kinship. Identities are not melted down but respected—this is the fundamental rule for survival in a torn Middle East. From here, it is impossible to discuss the Syriac language without considering the ongoing efforts to erase it, nor can we speak of national dignity without confronting narratives of annexation and assimilation. The battle to preserve Syriac inevitably intersects with the struggle of Kurdish and Syriac identities against projects aiming to dissolve everyone into a fabricated single identity. Therefore, the attempts by some of the new Arabist writers, descendants of Ba’athism—including some who claim affiliation with the Syriac component—can only be read as continuation of distorted narratives masked as historical analysis. Later, we will address the scribbles of one of them, promoting the myth of supposed kinship between Arabs and Syriacs—an unscientific myth rooted not in knowledge, but in a fascist desire to nullify Syriac distinctiveness and forcibly integrate it into Arab narratives. These writings do not stem from a spirit of brotherhood but from a desire for dominance, representing a soft face of the same chauvinistic tendency that once denied the Kurds’ existence and now seeks to manipulate and amputate the roots of the Syriacs from their true history.
Arabs, Syriacs, Kurds—or a blood alliance: falsification of history and the dissolution of nations
This is the manipulation carried out by the authors of the article published in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on July 1, 2025, titled “Arabs and Syriacs or the Blood Alliance: Cousins and a Common Heritage,” along with similar articles published across various sites recently. These writings are not naive historical readings but subtle yet dangerous attempts to dissolve authentic nations, distort historical facts, and promote chauvinistic Arab narratives through modern, softened methods.
Claiming that Syriacs are “Arab cousins,” or that they are “extensions of northern Arab tribes,” is a crude slide into rewriting the demographic geography to serve a national hegemonic project no less dangerous than Ba’athist Arabization policies—indeed, it surpasses them with its civil and research-oriented disguises.
Is it conceivable to replace thousands of years of linguistic, cultural, and spiritual differentiation between Arameans–Syriacs and Arabs with a broad phrase about “the blood alliance”?
The claims here, which rely on racial assumptions, deliberately ignore that Syriacs are the continuation of the Arameans, inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent, long before Arabs are mentioned as a political or geographical component in the region. Their Syriac (Aramaic) language was the language of science, philosophy, and religion a thousand years before Arabic. When did deep history become subordinate to seventh-century invasions?
Even more dangerous is the insinuation that Syriacs in the Kurdish-inhabited regions of Kurdistan—particularly those remaining in Suruç, Mardin, Al-Hasakah, and around Qamishli—are “from Arab tribes.” This overlooks the well-established fact that most of these are originally Kurdish, adopted Christianity in the early centuries, and embraced the Syriac language within the framework of the church and education, without losing their geographical and national identity as Kurds.
Attempting today to attribute Syriacs—whether Kurdish or Aramean—to Arab identity is no different in essence from efforts to “Turkify” all populations of what was called “Turkey,” or Armenize, Copticize, or Amazighize, or even forcibly expatriate Kurds who forgot their language and were ethnically cleansed from Kurdistan. It is not merely analytical error; it is a systematic project of dissolution practiced under a nationalist banner that refuses diversity but seeks annexation, assimilation, and mold-shaping.
Moreover, this article and similar literature should not be understood as innocent cultural endeavor but as extensions of a dangerous political project aimed at reshaping collective consciousness according to an Arab-dominant narrative. This narrative imposes “blood brotherhood,” “spiritual alliances,” and “linguistic bonds” artificially created to serve hegemony’s interests. These are subtle tools for erasing facts and rewriting history with ink of denial.
Dr. Mahmoud Abbas
