Context vs. Content; Syrian Kurds, Historical Margins and Discursive Content

Syria has strategic importance for Iran. Sudden rise of the Syrian Kurds in the context of regional political developments in the region in a rapid timespan, especially in light of Syrian developments on regional and transregional scales attracted the attention of many scholars. Syrian Kurds who were ignored as invisible ghosts before the crisis suddenly appeared as a serious actor in these developments. Drawing upon a historical approach and using the discourse theory, this article seeks to answer the question of how the Kurds in Syria were marginalized and how they returned to the content. To answer this question, the authors formulated the hypothesis that a set of historical factors such as the policies of the Mandate era, changes in transitional period, the Ba’ath Party and Kurdish-Syrian relations have been among the most important factors in marginalizing Kurds. The authors analyze the historical backgrounds of Kurdish marginalization and study their discursive context. On the other hand, the adoption of the democratic confederal discourse instead of a nationalist one has played a major part, from a discursive perspective, in bringing Kurds to the content in northern Syria in post-2011 period. One of the most important findings of this research has been paying attention to the role of discursive turn in the developments of northern Syria and showing this fundamental issue that, if the situation in northern Syria is stabilized, the hegemony of this discourse will have regional consequences.