What Zurich Can Learn from War: World Politics, Canva, Canon and a Basel Cannabis Shop

Some days, you just have to shake your head in disbelief. Here we are in Switzerland, debating in the local council whether the new cannabis shop in Basel is disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood, while just a few thousand kilometres away, history is being rewritten – with blood, worthless treaties, and that age-old question: can you ever trust the superpowers?

We're talking about the Kurds. Yet again. And once more, they find themselves at the centre of a conflict that could reshape the entire region. The headlines are coming thick and fast: the head of US counter-terrorism, Joseph Kent, has resigned because he could no longer square the Iran war with his conscience. At the same time, Iranian drones are striking Kurdish Peshmerga positions in northern Iraq. And right in the middle of it all: that same heavy, old question, as weighty as the mountains the fighters call home.

A nation divided, like a draft on a Canvas

Imagine you’re mocking up a nation on Canva. You draw borders, choose colours, slot in different peoples. That's essentially what happened with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne: a redraw where the Kurds were simply overlooked. They were promised a state – nothing was delivered. Since then, they've been the world's largest stateless nation, and history keeps repeating itself with the cruelty of an endless loop.

Today, 103 years later, they're back in the spotlight. The US and Israel would love for the Kurds to provide the ground troops to topple the Iranian regime. But the Kurds aren't naive. They remember 1975, when Henry Kissinger dropped them like a hot potato after the Algiers Agreement. They remember 1991, when the uprising against Saddam Hussein was crushed in blood while the West looked the other way. And they remember 2026 – just two months ago – when the Trump administration once again hung the Kurds out to dry in Syria.

The saying, "The Kurds have no friends but the mountains," isn't just a poetic line. It's the bitter reality learned over generations.

Between Canon and Kalashnikov

I spoke to a photographer last week who'd just got back from the Iraq-Iran border. He showed me images taken with a Canon EOS – razor-sharp, almost inappropriately beautiful for their subject matter. Young Komala fighters, from the reform faction, camping in the mountains. Training, waiting, hoping.

One of them, a PAK commander, told a journalist on the ground: "If we cross the border, the Americans need to secure the skies for us." Sounds simple. It's not. Because the US is hesitating. Trump first said he was "all for it" if the Kurds made a move – then backpedalled: "This war is complicated enough without dragging the Kurds into it."

For the Kurds, it's a major case of déjà vu. They know they're being used as a bargaining chip. That their dreams of autonomy, let alone statehood, matter in Washington only as long as they serve the purpose of weakening Tehran. A senior Kurdish official summed it up: "The Kurdish people overwhelmingly reject the Islamic Republic's regime. But they're also terrified of being abandoned all over again."

A new unity – or just a flash in the pan?

There is a glimmer of hope. For the first time in decades, five key Kurdish parties in Iran have joined forces: the PDKI, Komala, PAK, Khabat, and PJAK. They call themselves the "Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan." A mouthful, sure, but politically it's dynamite. These groups used to fight each other; now they're united by a common enemy.

Mustafa Hijri from the PDKI, often called the "Barzani of Eastern Kurdistan," is driving the agenda. And they even have a plan: federalism. Not an independent state, but an Iran where Kurds finally get their rights – education in their own language, cultural autonomy, their own administration. "We are Iranians, but we are Kurdish Iranians, and we want to remain in Iran," stresses Razgar Alani, the PDKI's representative in London.

Will Tehran buy it? Highly unlikely. The regime automatically labels any Kurd a "separatist." But the maths is simple: if you oppress a population for 47 years, bomb their villages, imprison and execute their youth, you can't really be surprised when they rebel. The 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement was just the tip of the iceberg.

What's the takeaway? A short, very Swiss list

I know what you might be thinking: what's this got to do with me? With my daily life in Zurich, Bern, or Geneva? More than you'd think. Because while the world out there is falling apart, we have decisions to make here. Let me sum it up in a list – pretty pragmatic, typically Swiss:

• The cannabis shop: They're popping up like mushrooms in Basel and elsewhere. While we're debating opening hours and youth protection, somewhere in the Middle East, drug money might be funding militias. Not directly, not obviously, but it's a small world. Regulating the legal market takes cash away from illegal structures. That's foreign policy too.
• Canon and Canvas: The images we see of Kurdish fighters are captured with high-precision cameras and often edited with design tools to shape global opinion. Propaganda is so last century; today it's all about visual communication. Next time you scroll past an image on Instagram, ask yourself: who staged this, and why?
• CANAL+: The streaming service runs documentaries on war, escape, displacement. We consume them on our screens, lounging comfortably on the couch. But behind every one of those docs are real people. Real tears. Real lives torn apart.

The patience of the mountains

A mate of mine who works for an aid organisation in northern Iraq told me on the phone: "You know what impresses me most? The patience of the people here. They've been waiting for a century. They've learned that superpowers come and go, but the mountains remain."

Maybe that's the biggest lesson for us in Switzerland. We live in a country that's been stable for centuries, that's never been conquered, that knows its borders. The Kurds don't have that. They live in a constant state of "what if." What if the US actually follows through this time? What if this alliance of parties holds? What if Iran really does fall?

Three questions starting with "Can" that literally mean life or death.

Until then, they hold on. In the camps near the border, in the mountains, in the sparse villages. Cleaning their weapons, praying, hoping. And watching the West hesitate once more. History teaches us one thing: if you use the Kurds as a tool, expect blood on your hands. But if you ignore them, you might just blow the last chance for a stable region.

So, keep an eye on the Middle East. Even if it's raining in Basel and that cannabis shop around the corner has just opened. The world's gotten smaller. And what's happening today in the Kurdish mountains could shape our asylum applications, our security debates, and our very idea of freedom tomorrow.

Stay vigilant.