ARBIL, Iraq: The Kurds, a non-Arab ethnic group, number between 25 and 35 million people who are spread across four countries but without a state of their own.
Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Iraq, is to hold a non-binding independence referendum on September 25 that has stirred concern of separatist aspirations in neighboring states.
The Kurds inhabit mainly mountainous regions that cover almost half a million square kilometers (200,000 square miles), spanning from southeast Turkey through northern Syria and Iraq to central Iran.
They number around 12 to 15 million in Turkey, (about 20 percent of the overall population), six million in Iran (less than 10 percent), 4.7 million in Iraq (15-20 percent), and more than two million in Syria (15 percent).
The Kurds have preserved their culture, dialects and clan-based social structures. Large expatriate communities exist in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Germany and Lebanon.
Although predominantly Sunni Muslims, some are Christians and their political structures are often non-denominational.
Kurdish ambitions of a unified nation are seen as a threat to the main host countries.
- In Turkey, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been labelled a terrorist organization by the European Union and United States. More than 30 years of fighting with Turkish forces has killed more than 40,000 people.
- In Syria, the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) are one of the most effective forces against the Daesh jihadist group. They control more than 10 percent of the country in the north and northeast, and three quarters of the border region with Turkey.
- In Iraq, Kurds are an important US ally, and after having resisted the army of dictator Saddam Hussein for decades, now lead the fight against Daesh.
They control roughly 40,600 square kilometers (15,600 square miles) of territory, including many of northern Iraq’s oilfields and the cities of Irbil and Kirkuk.
- In Iran, where the army crushed a fledgling Kurdish republic in 1946, the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) is pushing for autonomy in three provinces.
Kurdish peshmerga fighters are considered to be experienced warriors and Western countries have provided them with air cover, sophisticated weapons and training to combat Daesh.
Notable Kurdish victories include the YPG’s four-month assault against Daesh fighters in Kobani on Syria’s border with Turkey and peshmerga gains in Iraq.
Turkey has regularly attacked YPG positions in Syria since mid-2015.
The Kurds have never lived under a single, centralized power and are split among a myriad of parties and factions.
While some of these groups straddle borders, others are in conflict with each other because of alliances with the governments where they live.
Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), were locked in a 1994-1998 conflict that left 3,000 people dead. They reconciled in 2003.
Kurds: one stateless people across four countries
Kurds: one stateless people across four countries
Alexandria bids farewell to historic tram in latest urban upheaval
- For over 160 years, the tram has cut through Alexandria’s heart, in an 11-kilometer stretch that includes many of the city’s schools and main universities
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt: Along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, the oldest tram in Africa and the Middle East rumbles for a final few weeks before its removal — the latest urban upheaval Alexandrians say is hollowing out their city’s identity.
Government plans to replace the colorful streetcars on one of the city’s routes with a partially elevated light rail line have angered Alexandrians, for whom the 163-year-old track is “heritage, not just a means of transport,” local urban researcher Nahla Saleh told AFP.
Inaugurated in 1863, the tram is one of the world’s oldest, and among only a few to operate double-decker cars.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, it helped the city become a bustling metropolis, home to sizable European diasporas and a distinct cosmopolitan culture.
Now, Egyptians young and old have flocked for farewell rides, before the streetcars come to a halt in April.
As one locomotive screeches into the old El-Raml Station, commuters and visitors crane their necks out of giant windows at the historic neo-Venetian buildings overhead.
“We’re not against progress,” psychologist and writer on culture Mona Lamloum told AFP.
She and other Alexandrians agree the tramway needs work: inside the hand-calligraphied blue exterior, grime covers every surface. Underfoot, the rubber flooring is torn and strewn with trash.
“We just have bad experiences of everything they call ‘progress’ becoming synonymous with destruction,” Lamloum said.
In recent years, development projects in Egypt’s second city have razed historic parks and — most egregiously to locals — privatised and obstructed much of its Mediterranean coastline.
- Heart of Alexandria -
For over 160 years, the tram has cut through Alexandria’s heart, in an 11-kilometer stretch that includes many of the city’s schools and main universities.
The new project, led by Egyptian and international companies including Systra, Hyundai and Hitachi, promises to double speed and triple capacity.
Over half of it will be elevated — a major concern for Alexandrians who fear the tree-lined track will be replaced by eyesore concrete stilts.
Ahead of the first phase of suspension, the transport ministry said the new project was the “only solution to the city’s traffic problems.”
Locals like Saleh and Lamloum disagree, saying government plans are making the city more car-dependent and worsening traffic.
Already, because so many students rely on the tram, the city has staggered school and university hours to pick up the slack of the partial shutdown.
“Traffic’s getting worse, people can’t get anywhere, when we’ve already lost the inner-city train,” said Saleh, referring to another project under construction for the past two years, the new Alexandria Metro Line.
“Besides, it being slow was always an advantage,” she added, making it safe for “the most vulnerable in society: children and the elderly.”
Retired science teacher Hisham Abdelwahab, 64, has been riding the tram since he was a child.
“I don’t want it to go fast, I like watching the world go by,” he told AFP on a station bench.
“Our parents never thought twice about sending us out on the tram alone. Now I have a car, I just like leaving it parked to come ride the tram.”
When the next streetcar rolls in, the upper deck fills with a gaggle of schoolgirls, squabbling over who gets the window seat closest to the sea breeze.
- The old tram and the sea -
“This tram is our heritage,” Abdelwahab said, his sentiment shared by those several decades younger.
Engineering student Mahmoud Bassam, 24, has visited Alexandria just to ride the streetcar “since our tram in Cairo was removed,” he told AFP.
With a controversial slew of bridges and widened streets completed in 2020, Cairo’s historic Heliopolis neighborhood lost its last tram tracks, along with many of its trees.
“Now the same is happening here,” Bassam lamented.
Many Alexandrians are feeling the loss, intermingled with their other most treasured heritage.
“It’s like the sea. We used to go for long scenic drives on the corniche, but now we’re losing both the sea and the tram,” Abdelwahab said.
Parallel to the tramway, much of Alexandria’s iconic corniche is now hidden behind overpasses, private businesses and beachside food courts.
By 2024, over half of the city’s Mediterranean coastline had disappeared from view, according to a study by the Human and the City for Social Research center.
Four-lane highways now dominate long stretches of the seaside, where the landmark sight of fishermen perched over the waves grows ever-rarer.
For many, the waterfront that Lebanese singer Fairouz immortalized in 1961 — crooning about “the coast of Alexandria, coast of love” — is no more.
“Now all you see is concrete,” said Lamloum.
Saleh calls it “short-sighted” that the city could lose its charm to sprawling concrete.
“Tourists used to love coming to see the tram and sit by the sea, why take away both?“
