Original subtitles

- Up in the Zagros Mountains

have long lived a people called the Kurds.

There are people with a centuries long history

of fighting back against invaders

who have crossed through their lands,

resisting conquest in the name of defending

their shared cultural identity.

Some living as nomads,

a people with no friends, but these mountains.

(suspenseful music)

Eventually the Ottoman Empire

did take over all of this territory, but even then,

the Kurds maintained large amounts of autonomy

and freedom in their land.

Then came World War I

when the European powers defeated the Ottoman Empire

and conquered all of this.

The winners got together and discussed

how they would carve it up between them.

If you look back at old European maps,

you'll see that all of this area would be labeled Kurdistan,

an area where the Kurdish people lived

and had some self-rule.

So while drawing these lines,

the British wanted to mark all of this as Kurdish territory,

paving away for an independent country for the Kurds,

but the new leader of Turkey opposed this plan.

He didn't wanna give all this land

and resources to the Kurds.

So he pushed the European forces out of Turkey.

They gave up on this plan to give the Kurds their own land.

And in the end, instead of drawing borders around the Kurds,

the Europeans drew borders through them.

(suspenseful music)

What could have been Kurdistan

was now five different territories,

the Kurds split between them.

But at first these were just lines on a map

and the Kurds continued to move through this region.

Eventually the Europeans left,

and these became independent countries

with leaders who wanted to consolidate and centralize power.

So these lines hardened, restricting the Kurds' movement

and their livelihood in this region.

But even still, across this region,

the Kurds didn't give up on their idea

of someday gaining independence, self-rule,

or maybe even a country of their own.

(foreboding music)

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And now it's time to dive into this mapping story.

Throughout the 1900s,

the Kurds in each of these new countries

took different approaches

to fight for an independent Kurdish state.

Some Kurds would use politics, others would use violence.

The early uprisings were crushed by the leaders

of these new countries who saw the Kurds as a threat

to their efforts to unify their country

around a common language and culture.

Like in Iran, where the Kurds had some political rights,

but they fought for more.

They wanted autonomy and independence.

The government of Iran wouldn't have any of this.

They would crack down with violence on the Kurds,

often supported by Western powers.

By the 1970s, Iran was going through a revolution

and the Kurds tried again to rise up,

but this new regime had no tolerance

for a group that would challenge the leadership

of the ruling religious leader.

So once again, they were put down.

Over in Iraq, Kurdish fighters fought hard

against the government throughout the 20th century,

until the 1970s, when this new regime came in

and made a deal with the Kurds,

saying that they would be recognized as an ethnic group

and would be guaranteed political representation.

It seemed like a huge deal for the Kurds,

but it turned out to be a false promise.

The Iraqi regime now led by Saddam Hussein

would continue to repress the Kurds,

eventually dropping deadly chemical weapons

on Kurdish towns in Iraq, systematically killing thousands

of Kurdish civilians in a genocide supported

by American made supplies that were sold to Saddam.

Over in Syria, the Kurds were treated decently

under the French controlled government.

They were citizens and had some rights.

But after the French left in the 40s,

the regimes that came after oppressed the Kurds,

and by the 1970s, the Syrian government was arresting

and deporting them, taking their land

and giving it to Arabs.

In total, the Syrian government

would remove 140,000 Kurds from the country.

Decades later, Syria and the United States

would both find the Kurds in Syria useful

for their political goals.

But first, let's talk about Turkey.

There's more Kurdish people here than in any other country.

The same government that had fought

against a Kurdish state early on

continued to oppress the Kurds,

denying them citizenship, outlawing their language,

and keeping them out of politics,

all with the goal of wiping out their culture from Turkey

as a part of this Turkification campaign,

which tried to unify Turkey under one culture,

targeting the Kurds and other ethnic minorities.

Some Kurds fought back against this in the early years,

but were quickly crushed by the Turkish state,

leading to the creation of an armed insurgent group

with communist ideology.

They're called the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK,

and it would become one of the biggest

Turkish resistance movements.

The PKK would use violence like suicide bombings

and improvised explosives,

as well as youth militia fighters

against the Turkish government,

tactics that they say are the only way

to fight back against such oppression.

And as a result, Turkey and most Western powers

consider the PKK a terrorist group.

So that's how the Kurds in these four countries

became locked in a conflict with their governments.

They all have different struggles,

but they're all unified by the dream

of some version of Kurdish independence.

But it doesn't take long for these regimes

to see that they could use the Kurds as a tool, as a weapon.

One of the earliest examples of this

happens at the end of World War II

when the Soviet Union sees an opportunity to gain land

and access to oil by supplying and arming the Kurds in Iran,

allowing them to rise up against the government

and declare their own country supported by the Soviet Union.

But it didn't work.

The US pressures the Soviets to leave,

and now without support, the government of Iran,

which is backed by the US and UK,

go on to crush this movement of Kurds in their country.

The Kurds are backed to being repressed by the government.

In the 1980s, Syria uses the Kurds

as a weapon against its rival Turkey when it allows the PKK

to start operating within Syria,

giving them money and weapons so that they can hurt Turkey.

Syria is doing this in spite of having spent years

removing hundreds of thousands of Kurds

from its own country.

This escalates the conflict between these two,

and Turkey threatens to invade Syria.

So Syria backs down and kicks the PKK out

to avoid being invaded,

showing once again how the Kurds willingness to fight

can easily become a pawn in the geopolitics of the region,

discarded once they aren't useful anymore.

In the 1980s, Iran and Iraq both used the Kurds

at the same time as a weapon to hurt each other,

even as both are cracking down on Kurds

in their own country.

Saddam Hussein funds and arms the Kurds in Iran,

while Iran funds the Kurds in northern Iraq,

both sides hoping to spark a Kurdish uprising

that will distract and weaken their enemy.

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein retaliates

against the Kurds in his country

with that genocidal chemical attack we talked about earlier

that killed at least 50,000 Kurdish people

and probably much more.

Once again, the Kurdish dream of independence

was used by outsiders as a weapon,

and the Kurdish people paid heavily for it.

The US would get involved when in the 90s

they would come to this region

fighting against Saddam Hussein for the first time.

The US rallies the Kurds,

calling for them to overthrow Saddam.

George Bush Sr. literally calls them to action

with television and radio broadcasts throughout the country.

- That the Iraqi people should put him aside,

and that would facilitate the resolution

of all these problems that exist

and certainly would facilitate the acceptance of Iraq

back into the family of peace-loving nations.

- [Johnny] And it seems to work.

It sparks an uprising that looks successful at first.

The US had instigated this uprising,

and they have forces in the region that they could send

to support the Kurds, but they do nothing.

This allows Saddam to regather his forces

and crush this coup and to increase this oppression,

ensuring that nothing like this ever happens again.

Now, the US and UK do eventually step in

to create this no-fly zone

meant to protect the Kurds in the north

and the Shiites in the south.

This gives the Kurds some autonomy over their region

and protects them from further airstrikes by the Iraqi army.

Soon the US is back in Iraq.

It's 2003, and the Bush administration decides to invade

and remove Saddam from power.

The Kurds in Iraq hope that the US presence in this region

will mean finally they will get their own state,

they will be independent.

They join the US in fighting against Saddam

and his loyalists, battling insurgents,

and later against ISIS.

(guns shooting)

The Kurds would even go on to hold a vote,

showing that 92% of the population

was in favor of independence,

but the US won't support this,

worried that it might destabilize this new Iraqi state

that the US just propped up.

Even when the Kurds fight on the side of the US

and their interests, US support for their cause

still remains very limited.

They still look the other way

as Turkey bombs their towns in Iraq hunting for the PKK.

This same pattern has continued in recent years

in the country of Syria,

a country that descended into civil war around 2011.

This chaos looked like an opportunity

for the Kurds in Syria, a chance to establish real control

over what they see as a part of Kurdistan.

The PKK in Turkey helps create a new Kurdish militia

called the People's Protection Unit or YPG.

They seize large swaths of land in the north

and they declare self-governance.

Around this same time, the terrorist group ISIS

is taking huge swaths of territory in the north

and east of the country, creating their so-called caliphate.

And here comes the US once again asking the Kurds for help,

hoping that they will fight against ISIS

on the ground for them.

But because this group is allied with the PKK,

which they consider a terrorist group,

the US asks this militia to rebrand themselves

to the Syrian democratic forces,

which obscures their connection to the PKK.

The US then trains, funds, and arms them to fight ISIS.

The Kurds are, once again, the US's weapon.

This plan works, and with help from US airstrikes,

this Kurdish militia kicks ISIS out of more and more land.

But Turkey hates this.

All they see is a potential Kurdish state

right on their southern border, a safe haven for the PKK

that will allow more attacks against the Turkish military.

But Turkey can't attack this branch of the Kurds

while they're being supported by the United States.

Lucky for them, there's a new president in the White House

and he's promised to pull the US out of the war in Syria.

And in 2019, to the dismay of the Kurds,

he makes good on this promise.

With the US out of the way, Turkey invades,

launching airstrikes and artillery

against the Kurds in this border region,

saying that their plan is to create

a 32 kilometer deep safe zone right here along the border,

and that no Kurdish forces are allowed to be here.

The plan was to then resettle Syrian refugees

currently living in Turkey.

It's a brutal campaign that looks a lot

like what Syria was doing to the Kurds in the 70s.

(foreboding music)

The US completely abandons the Kurds,

even after using them to fight their enemy ISIS.

Turkey, a NATO and US ally, continues to bomb them

using weapons from the United States.

They spend the next four years sending drone strikes

and airstrikes into Syria and Iraq,

anywhere they think the PKK has a presence.

This map shows all of their attacks during this time.

You can see that it's not just against the Kurds in Turkey,

but across this whole region.

(suspenseful music)

Today, the Kurdish groups in this region

vary more widely than ever, each with different values

and visions for the future,

forged from each of their unique struggles and traumas.

Kurdish groups still fight the government in Iran

with the goal of creating their own state.

The Kurds in Iraq did gain some autonomy from the US

in the new Iraqi constitution,

but it doesn't seem like this autonomy will last.

As recently, the Iraqi army is fighting with the Kurds

to maintain control over the oil resources in this area

to keep the Kurds economically dependent

on the central government so that they never break away.

Once again, the US is not supporting the Kurds

in this fight.

Turkey continues its offensive against the PKK

and other Kurdish groups in the region,

and they continue to crack down on the Kurds politically,

arresting Kurdish politicians and activists,

censoring journalists to intimidate the Kurdish people

from participating in the election.

The Kurds in Syria face a new and uncertain future.

They do have some autonomy up here in the north,

but are surrounded by enemies,

no longer counting on any support from the US.

(suspenseful music)

The story of the Kurds is the story of a people

who are willing to fight like few others,

all in the name of their culture and identity.

That willingness to fight has presented a threat

to regional governments, bent on control of their people

and the resources within their borders.

That willingness to fight has also been hijacked

by outside powers, turning the Kurds into a pawn

to fulfill geopolitical objectives,

each time showing how willing these powers are

to use the Kurds and then abandon their cause.

(suspenseful music)