Video: Kurdistan Explained

Who are the Kurds? This short video explains what you need to know about the history of this Middle Eastern ethnic group, its state-building efforts and the conflicts surrounding it. Written and narrated by journalist Michael Petrou.

By: /
30 June, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx6sEEDlKwk&feature=youtu.be

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter

Also in the series

The Making of Kurdistan

A series on the future and implications of a Kurdish state.

An uncertain future for minorities in a post-ISIS Iraq

An uncertain future for minorities in a post-ISIS Iraq

By:

As
Evon Sworesho explains, there are many actors involved in the anti-ISIS fight
in Iraq, but some are more vulnerable than others.

Why We Fight: How female combatants factor into Kurdish state-building

Why We Fight: How female combatants factor into Kurdish state-building

By:

Women fighting ISIS on behalf of Kurdish forces
have diverse reasons for taking part in the war — but is their participation
being used to romanticize the effort? 

In Turkey, dashed hopes and deepening rifts

In Turkey, dashed hopes and deepening rifts

By:

The election of a
Kurdish political party to the Turkish parliament last summer offered glimmers
of respite in a 30-year war between the government and Kurdish militants. But renewed
tension and violence have tempered any expectations of progress or peace, as Emily Feldman reports from Istanbul. 

Out of Iraq’s ashes, Kurdistan grows

Out of Iraq’s ashes, Kurdistan grows

By:

Kurdish Iraqis have long
dreamt of a state to call their own. With the support of Canadian troops, they
are now gaining ground as the fight against ISIS continues. But what would their
independence mean for the region? 

Alliances of Convenience: The implications of a regional strategy against ISIS

Alliances of Convenience: The implications of a regional strategy against ISIS

By:

Western governments emphasize
the importance of regional actors in devising a solution to Syria’s civil war,
but the interests of those involved — from the Saudi government to the Kurds — are
drastically different from our own.