By: Dr. Adnan Bozan

There are moments in the life of peoples when the greatest danger does not come from an external enemy as much as it comes from the decline of awareness within society itself. When knowledge and learning disappear, ignorance fills the vacuum; when political and civic thinking retreats, tribalism advances; and when institutions, political parties, and intellectual elites weaken, society returns to searching for the sheikh, the notable, and the tribal figure to replace the politician, intellectual, and human-rights activist.

This is precisely what is alarming about some of the deviant voices that have begun to emerge within Kurdish society in Syria, particularly in Kobani: voices that are not content with viewing the tribe as a social component, but seek to transform it into a political authority, and even into an alternative to political parties, politicians, human-rights activists, and intellectuals.

The most painful paradox is that some of those promoting this discourse hold university and academic degrees. Here, a legitimate question arises: What is the value of a degree if it produces no awareness? What is the value of medicine if a doctor, despite the education and knowledge represented by his degree, wants to return society to a pre-state condition? And what is the value of a university education if a person leaves it with a degree in his hand while his mind remains captive to tribal logic and personal loyalty?

The problem is not the tribe as a social bond. It is part of Kurdish social history, just as it is part of the history of many societies in the region. The problem begins when the tribe is transformed from a social bond into a political authority, from a communal affiliation into a source of legitimacy, and from a family name into a criterion for choosing who should speak on behalf of an entire people.

Political representation is not granted through allegiance, nor inherited, nor does it derive its legitimacy from the size of a tribe or the status of a family. It rests instead on a political project, competence, a public mandate, institutions, accountability, and the ability to negotiate.

So how, after everything the Kurds in Syria have endured, can we return to the primitive question: Who is the tribal sheikh? Who is the head of the family? And whom are we supposed to pledge allegiance to?

Where have decades of Kurdish struggle gone? Where are the political organizations and parties, the political and human-rights figures, and the intellectuals who paid heavy prices for their positions? And where are those who were arrested, persecuted, and deprived of their most basic rights for defending identity, language, and political rights?

Is our answer to all of this supposed to be the revival of tribalism?

If that is the answer, then we are not moving forward; we are moving backward.

More dangerously, some of these “careless intellectuals” want to send certain individuals to Damascus to speak on behalf of the Kurds, as though representing an entire people has become something granted through tribal allegiance and social prestige—not on the basis of a political project, a popular mandate, or legal and historical expertise, but on the basis of tribal and social status.

This is a dangerous reduction of a complex political, historical, and legal issue.

Damascus does not need a tribal sheikh to speak on behalf of the Kurds. It needs representatives who understand what the Kurds want, how to demand their rights, on what constitutional and legal basis, and what the available tools and limits of negotiation are.

The Kurdish question is not a tribal reconciliation gathering, nor is it a dispute between two families for community notables or gangs to settle. It is a political, historical, and legal issue that has developed through decades of discrimination, exclusion, and state policies, as well as through the evolution of the Kurdish political movement, with all its divisions, alliances, and conflicts.

Therefore, reducing all this history to “So-and-so is a tribal sheikh,” “So-and-so is a notable,” “So-and-so is the leader of his people,” or “So-and-so stole a few liras or benefited from the revolution and became a self-made sheikh” is not merely political naivety; it is an insult to the intelligence of the people themselves.

The simple question facing anyone who wants to speak on behalf of the Kurds is: By what mandate?

Who elected him? Who authorized him? What is his political project? What is his vision for the constitution? What is his position on national, cultural, and linguistic rights? What is his conception of the Syrian state? What is his position on decentralization? And what experience does he possess in law, politics, and negotiation?

If there are no clear answers, how can a “tribal notable” become the representative of an entire people?

What is even more astonishing is that such discourse sometimes comes from people who hold academic degrees.

Here, the truth must be stated without equivocation: A degree is not proof of awareness.

A person may be an excellent doctor yet a naïve politician; an outstanding engineer yet ignorant of history; a university professor yet a prisoner of social tribalism. A degree provides specialized knowledge, but it does not necessarily provide political or civic awareness.

Awareness is not measured by the number of degrees hanging on the walls, but by a person’s ability to free his mind from the authority of the past when that past becomes an obstacle to the future.

Yet most of these people have had previous connections with the security apparatus. And no one who was associated with the security services or served their interests can, overnight, transform into a freedom fighter and an honorable person. The past cannot be erased simply by changing positions, nor can the pages of history be washed clean with new slogans.

The people have the right—and indeed the duty—to ask about the political record of anyone who seeks to represent them, and to demand transparency and accountability before granting anyone the right to speak in their name.

The real political question is not: Which tribe does this man belong to?

It is:

What is his record? What has he done? What has he said? Whom has he stood with? What is his political project? And who authorized him?

That is politics.

But when we search for the family name before the political program, for the tribe before competence, and for social prestige before integrity, it means that we have learned nothing from an entire century of tragedies.

A people that has paid an enormous price in blood, displacement, and destruction should not be led back to square one by its own elites. The response to decades of authoritarianism cannot be the production of a miniature form of social authoritarianism. The response to a security state cannot be the construction of tribal authority. And the response to political exclusion cannot be the exclusion of politicians, intellectuals, and human-rights activists in favor of tribal notables.

We need to move from a society of individuals to a society of institutions, from loyalty to individuals to loyalty to a political project, from tribalism to citizenship, from social prestige to competence, and from allegiance to a genuine mandate.

The Kurds in Syria, after all these decades, deserve a more mature political discourse.

As for Kobani, which has paid an enormous price in blood, homes, and lives, it should not become a laboratory for reviving old tribal loyalties.

Kobani deserves to be a city of awareness, not a marketplace of social prestige; a city of institutions, not pledges of allegiance; and a city of politics, not tribalism.

The most dangerous thing that can happen to a people that has suffered authoritarianism, repression, displacement, and killing is not merely to lose a political battle, but to lose the ability to distinguish between those who represent it and those who merely want to represent it.

If a doctor, intellectual, or academic stands behind a man whose political project he does not even know, simply because that man is a “tribal sheikh,” then the problem is no longer with the tribal sheikh alone; it is with the elite that created a platform for him.

And when education becomes a cover for ignorance, culture a cover for tribalism, and social prestige a substitute for politics, the question is no longer: Who leads the people?

The more bitter question becomes:

Where is a people heading when it loses its compass every time knowledge retreats and tribalism advances?

In conclusion, what remains of the value of an academic degree when its holder becomes a promoter of ignorance and tribalism? To hell with a degree that produced no awareness, and to hell with knowledge that failed to liberate its holder from the mentality of the tribe. From what kind of pen or enclosure did you graduate, you “educated ignoramus,” that your degree has become a cover for tribalism and political opportunism? The problem is not the degree; the problem is the mind that carried it without learning anything from it.

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