President Erdogan of Turkey visited the White House last week. At the meeting, Erdogan handed back a letter to Trump in which the American president told him not to be a “tough guy” and a “fool” by launching an assault on the Kurds.

Last month, Trump announced that he was withdrawing US troops from Syria, despite the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) previously establishing control over much of IS with the help of a US-led coalition. At the beginning of this month, it was speculated that Turkey had a call intercept of Jared Kushner, son-in-law and adviser to Trump, green lighting the arrest of Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was subsequently murdered in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

On October 9, Turkey invaded northern Syria. Erdogan began ethnically cleansing the Kurds immediately after. As Turkish and Syrian militia advanced into Kurdish-held areas, videos surfaced of civilians being dragged from their cars and shot by the side of the road. Journalists visiting hospitals reported children dying from the flesh-eating effects of white phosphorous, delivered by bombs and shells fired and dropped by advancing Turkish militia. Under international law, these weapons are illegal.

US diplomat, William V. Roebuck, wrote in an internal memo leaked last month that Turkey plans to expel the 1.8 million Kurds living in their semi-independent state of Rojava.

Titled: “Present at the Catastrophe: Standing By as Turks Cleanse Kurds in Northern Syria and De-Stabilise our D-Isis [sic] Platform in the Northeast”, he continued:

“Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria, spearheaded by armed Islamist groups on its payroll, represents an … effort at ethnic cleansing, relying on widespread military conflict targeting part of the Kurdish heartland along the border and benefiting from several widely publicised, fear-inducing atrocities these forces committed.”

For many, the old twentieth-century ideals of national sameness to mean true nationality is still God’s truth. The idea of what it means to be American, for example, was cleverly reconstructed by the mass of immigrants who arrived on its shores in the twentieth century.

We may not be descendants of the founders, they claimed, but we arrived with the same values of wealth, economic equality, success, and hard work. Together, these immigrants found national sameness under one title: American.

“American” was a construction of sameness and difference. Not just anyone could be American. They had to be similar. So the “white American” ethnicity was created. In Europe, where many of the immigrants originated, whiteness was not recognised to be an ethnic similarity. To fit in, to survive, to thrive in the US, whiteness became a uniform race, encompassing nationalities that, before, had not been considered ethnically or racially similar enough to be considered truly white. This included the Slavs, the Italians, the Irish, the Scots and the Jews.

“American” could neither be applied to the children of black slaves who have been part of the US history for long nor could it be applied to the Indigenous owners of the land: the Indians. For America’s new “whites”, citizenship might encompass national and racial difference, but ethnic nationality was a strict club that only similar people could join.

This sameness would protect America’s white nationalities from threats of violence and institutional oppression. Despite the abolition of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, the police, the American legal system, and the presidencies of Reagan and Nixon would rob African Americans of their political autonomy and their basic human rights.

In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Armenia, the indigenous Kurds have neither political autonomy nor basic human rights. The ethnocentric attitudes of the nations in which they inhabit force a distinction between those ethnicities who belong to the nation-state, and those who are stateless.

Citizenship and nationality are both evanescent. Unlike race or ethnicity, they are unstable. They can be denied, revoked or ignored. Individuals and groups have historically been cheated of their citizenship and nationality by governments hiding their oppression under bureaucracy. Unsettlingly, they are only granted under laws crafted by the oppressive majority.

“I used to be someone who would not even tread on an ant. But this is a war for honour and self-defence. A 100 per cent elimination policy (by Ankara of the Kurds) has forced me to defence and it has become a glorious defence of a people,” the founder of the fight against Turkish oppression of Kurds, Abdullah Ocalan, said.

Nations are “mental constructs”, claim professors from the University of Vienna. West Asian nations have constructed the Kurds as threats to their national consciousness. Comprising between 7% and 20% of the population of these nations, the fear of the difference of the minority threatens the mental constructs of Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi nationalistic sameness.

Without the protection of a nation of their own, the Kurds are inherently vulnerable to oppression and violence from legitimised nation-states seeking easy scapegoats for their nations’ narcissism. Without the backing of the global community, the Kurds cannot win their nationalistic fight against ethnic-cleansing.

L'articolo The Kurds: Our Unstable Definition of Nationality and Citizenship proviene da InsideOver.

Every dawn there is a fresh exodus from Lutsk. At 05:30 the first bus leaves for Lublin. Half an hour beforehand the station is already filled by an unruly mob, frantic to get a ticket. The day begins thus and so continues until nightfall. A fleet of 13 buses and about 700 people leave this frontier town of western Ukraine for Poland every day.

They have 230 kilometres and six hours in which to find a job and a place to stay. You see them chatting, swapping information. Many already have friends and family waiting for them across the border. Others start on an adventure, at worst they can fall back on working in the fields. Now it is harvest time for apples, at the station in Lublin, there is always someone looking for workers.

Within a couple of hours Yulyia, 25, finds a job as a cashier at the Biedronka supermarket, almost a compulsory step for Ukrainian migrants. Yulyia has a degree in economics and speaks perfect English and Russian. Yet, in a Ukraine riven by nepotism and corruption, the only option is to leave, especially if, like Yulyia, you have a good level of education and a bit of talent but a lack of ‘connections’ to help you.

“Everything changed with the war,” says Yulyia. “Before, people emigrated to Russia. Some people from our area went to Poland because it is closer, but generally it was not a common destination.” The war in the Donbass region has therefore changed the direction of emigration. A significant wave of migrants fled westward, mostly to Poland.

As in all of Eastern Europe, labour is scarce there too. Since joining the EU in 2004, two million Poles have moved to Western European countries. Meanwhile, the economy has continued to prosper, to such an extent that Poland did not go into recession even when the financial crisis hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

To support this level of productivity, however, you need a workforce: in 2017 alone, 683 thousand residency permits were issued in Poland, 68% of which to Ukrainian citizens. This is a record in Europe – no country has ever before granted so many in a year, not even Germany or France. According to a rough estimate, there are about two million Ukrainians in Poland. This is the paradox of Polish nationalism: railing against immigration and yet not being able to do without it.

Lublin is the first leg of the journey for many Ukrainians, and often it is also the last. At the station, the bus stops are plastered with job adverts in Russian or Ukrainian. Particularly the Ukrainians from near the border, or those who are employed in seasonal jobs, remain here in the largest urban centre in eastern Poland. Three months in Poland equals one full year’s salary in Ukraine.

Dozens of people silently wait for their turn at the counter where residency permits are issued. It is a nerve-racking process that can drag on for months. At least eight if you’re lucky, but in the capital you can wait up to two years for a scrap of paper to make your status official. Iryna smiles a bitter smile, saying, “If only the problem were just the bureaucracy.” Originally from Kovel, a Ukrainian border town, Iryna, 24, moved to Lublin a year ago. At first she worked as a waitress in a restaurant. “I found it through someone well known here in Lublin, a kind of intermediary. I worked ten hours a day for three euros an hour. The hardest thing was to find a job with a formal contract.” Black market labour is such a widespread problem that it also makes the statistics for the Ukrainian population in Poland unreliable.

For example, in Lublin, there are less than three thousand registered Ukrainians, but according to marketing surveys carried out by the Polish telephone company Selectivv, there are at least 26 thousand.

By now Iryna has been officially hired as a sales representative in a services company, yet is paid less than her Polish colleagues. “Employers know that many Ukrainians are forced to emigrate, and they take advantage of it to violate our rights while making extra profit,” explains Vitaly Makhinko, president of the Ukrainian trade union Pracownicza Solidarnosc. “State bodies pretend not to notice. Furthermore, in Ukraine no policy protects the interests of its citizens overseas, so migrants are left to fend for themselves.”

Yet, according to Mr Makhinko, the living and working conditions of Ukrainians are slightly improving. “There is,” the trade unionist continues, “greater competition in the labour market, which is forcing employers to change and offer workers better contractual conditions. In the last five years, Ukrainians have gained professional experience and this increases their market value.”

Then, there is another factor driving both employers and the Polish government to improve treatment of Ukrainian migrants: growing demand from Germany for Ukrainian labour. “As soon as Berlin opens its borders, many Ukrainians working in Poland will move there, with the consequence that over time Poland will lose a large number. If Poland is now in second place (after Russia) in terms of the number of Ukrainian workers, in a few years it will be fourth. According to our forecasts,” Mr Makhinko concludes, “Russia will remain in first place, Germany will be second, Italy third, and Poland fourth.”

In the Lublin typography museum, Andrey wanders among the dusty volumes and then moves to magazines and film fragments that were circulated clandestinely in socialist Poland between 1976 and 1989. “This,” he explains, “is the mimeograph used to print the first issue of the underground magazine Zapis. It was also thanks to these publications that Solidarnosc [trade union] was born.”

Andrey, 33, has been working at the museum for a few years. From Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, he moved to Lublin to study international relations. A few short term jobs as an interpreter, then, after graduating, Andrey began the search for a permanent job. “It wasn’t easy. Ukrainians work in the fields, in supermarkets, at building sites, in restaurants. Finding a professional job is almost impossible around here. In some adverts, they explicitly say, “Polish citizenship required”. Even today, when I tell people I work in a museum, I can see the surprise in their eyes. To improve the situation we should first change immigration policy in Poland.”

Since he emigrated to Poland, Andrey has seen a growing sense of hostility towards Ukrainians. Here it has not taken much to bring old ill-feeling back to life, for example with the establishment of the memorial day on 11 July to commemorate the massacre of Volhynia, during which tens of thousands of Poles were killed at the hands of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This skewed memorial omits Polish responsibilities and forgets the Ukrainian victims.

“There has been a change of mentality in Poland. Before, the people I met were more friendly. Now there is a lot of aggression, both on television and in the street. They shout anything and everything at you: killer, we don’t want you here. I have realised that to stay here I also have to be more radical, to be selective about who I spend time with. Otherwise,” concludes Andrey, “all that remains is to leave – after all, Poland is not the only place to live.”

L'articolo A New Life for Ukrainian Migrants proviene da InsideOver.

What drives a young man from his privileged life to the killing fields of Syria and Iraq? Morality, says Jack Letts – “why do I have this nice life, and others don’t?” – and a sense of Muslim duty. He had converted as a teenager, and when so-called Islamic State (IS) issued their call to arms, ‘Jihadi Jack’ was quick to answer. Now, imprisoned among the smouldering ruins of the broken caliphate, he awaits his fate.   

Detained as he fled the Battle of Raqqa, 23-years-old Letts has been in Kurdish custody since 2017. He is one of 800 foreign nationals imprisoned by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), swept up as the ill-fated caliphate collapsed. Facing renewed attacks from regrouped IS militants – and lacking the infrastructure or judicial capacity to hold their inmates indefinitely – the Kurds are calling on Western nations to repatriate their incarcerated fighters.  

Britain has shown little interest in playing ball. Like dozens of other IS-aligned UK nationals, Letts has had his citizenship summarily revoked. It’s a power reserved to “counter the terrorist threat” and “keep our country safe,” said the government, and one that can only be invoked when an individual holds dual-citizenship (a person can’t be rendered stateless under international law). Jack is Canadian through his father John, who condemned the government’s move as a ‘kick in the gut’.

Canada’s official response wasn’t much cheerier. Ottawa is “disappointed” in London’s “unilateral action to off-load their responsibilities,” said public safety minister Ralph Goodale. His government’s position is clear: Letts was radicalised in the UK, and it was from there that he departed for the Middle East, so he should be Britain’s problem. It’s a valid argument, but outmanoeuvred in the realm of international law, Letts’s future is now a Canadian issue.    

In practice, this means little for the young jihadi’s hopes of deliverance. While acknowledging his citizenship, Ottawa has said it has “no legal obligation to facilitate [his] return”, insisting that it won’t risk the safety of consular staff to pluck Letts from prison. The procession of journalists who’ve gained access to the young man suggests it may not be such an onerous task – but for the 33 Canadians festering behind Syrian bars, their country’s decision seems final.

Canada and the UK’s mutual reluctance to recover IS detainees reflects a general hesitation among Western nations. Buckling under the pressure of over 5,000 IS inmates, Kurdish jailers are desperate to lighten the load of foreign fighters. They’ve floated the idea of international tribunals, a move that would ensure suspects receive free and fair hearings. But with public opinion staunchly against jihadi defectors, there’s minimal appetite to offer them a Western prison cell – let alone a shot at exoneration.      

The risk of acquittal is a major concern for those fighting repatriation efforts. Criminality undertaken overseas is often difficult to prove in domestic courts, with evidence sparse or inadmissible. The USA has seen some IS recruits imprisoned – one man received a 20-year sentence – but others have walked for lack of proof. Letts acknowledges that he fought with the caliphate, but maintains that he neither killed nor enslaved in its name; whether he would be found guilty by a Canadian court is unclear. 

And there’s little certainty his case would even reach trial. Facilitating foreign terror is illegal under Canada’s criminal code, but only if the suspect departs from Canadian soil – Letts’s jihadi journey started in the UK. This judicial hurdle could well see him returned to North America for prosecution, only to walk free on a technicality. Letts was, by his own admission, ready to commit a suicide bombing in Syria; despite his repentance, society is unlikely to condone the freedom of such a character. 

With an election looming, the court of public opinion is more important than ever. Already Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rowed back on the issue of IS returnees, calculating that his typically softer line will lose votes. “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” he said upon taking office in 2015, before repealing a terror law that allowed for the stripping of citizenship. Hemmed in by Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s vow to never “lift a finger” to assist Letts, Trudeau has made clear that his team won’t be involving themselves with the young man, citizen or not. 

But to disregard repatriation entirely – however politically cogent – is a dangerous path to take, analysts warn. “If freed [from Syrian prisons], those still devoted to [IS] could reconnect with cells in the region or pay smugglers to help them reach Europe,” says Leah West, Amarnath Amarasingam, and Jessica Davis, a group of Canadian security experts. “Once free, these individuals could engage in further terrorist activity such as financing, recruitment, radicalisation and, of course, terrorist attacks”. 

Having experienced IS’s butchery first-hand, Letts claims to have turned his back on such extremism. Joining the group was “probably the stupidest” decision of his life, he acknowledges, arguing that his interest now lies in helping others deradicalise. But, at present, it seems doubtful he’ll ever be given that chance – redemption isn’t dished out generously, especially to those with a terrorist past. 

L'articolo ‘Jihadi Jack’ Loses British Citizenship For IS Involvement proviene da InsideOver.