Can Canton Zurich Learn from War? World Politics, Canva, Canon, and a Cannabis Shop in Basel.

Some days, you just can't stop shaking your head. Here in Switzerland, we're debating in the local council whether the new cannabis shop in Basel is spoiling the neighbourhood's peace and quiet, while just a few thousand kilometres away, history is being rewritten – with blood, worthless agreements, and an age-old question: can you really trust the major powers?

The subject is the Kurds. Yet again. And yet again, they find themselves at the heart 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 reconcile the Iran war with his conscience. At the same time, Iranian drones are striking positions held by the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq. And right in the middle of it all: an ancient, weighty question, as heavy as the mountains the fighters call home.

A People Divided, Like a Draft on a Canvas

Imagine you're designing the image of a nation on Canva. You draw borders, apply colours, add peoples. What happened in 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne was precisely that: a redrawing of the map where the Kurds were simply forgotten. They were promised a state – but nothing was delivered. Since then, they've been the world's largest stateless nation, and history is repeating itself with the grim cruelty of an infinite loop.

Today, 103 years later, they're back in the same position. The US and Israel would very much like 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 because the West looked the other way. And they remember 2026 – just two months ago – when the Trump administration once again threw the Kurds in Syria under the bus.

The saying, "The Kurds have no friends but the mountains," isn't just a poetic turn of phrase. It's the bitter legacy of generations.

Between Canon and Kalashnikov

I spoke to a photographer last week who'd just returned from the Iraq-Iran border. He showed me pictures taken with a Canon EOS – razor-sharp, almost inappropriately aesthetic given their subject matter. Young fighters from Komala, the reform faction, camping out 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 are supposed to secure the sky for us." Sounds simple. But it's not. Because the US is hesitating. Trump first said he'd be "all for it" if the Kurds made a move – then backtracked: "The war is complicated enough without dragging the Kurds into it."

For the Kurds, it's a classic case of déjà vu. They know they're being used as a bargaining chip. That their dreams of autonomy, let alone statehood, are only important in Washington for as long as they serve the purpose of weakening Tehran. A senior Kurdish official put it bluntly: "The Kurdish people overwhelmingly reject the regime of the Islamic Republic. But they're also terrified of being let down once 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 from Iranian Kurdistan." It's a mouthful, but politically, it's dynamite. These groups used to fight each other; now, a common enemy unites them.

Mustafa Hijri of the PDKI, whom many call the "Barzani of Eastern Kurdistan," is driving things forward. 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 representative in London.

Will that message get through in Tehran? Highly unlikely. The regime automatically labels every Kurd a "separatist." But the calculation is simple: if you oppress a population for 47 years, bomb their villages, imprison and execute their young people, then you can hardly be surprised when that population rebels. The 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement was just the tip of the iceberg.

What's the Takeaway? A Little, Very Swiss List

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

• The Cannabis Shop: In Basel and elsewhere, they're popping up like mushrooms. While we debate opening hours and youth protection, somewhere in the Middle East, drug money might be financing militias. Not directly, not obviously, but it's a small world. Regulating the legal market takes money 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 tweaked with design tools to influence global opinion. Propaganda is old hat; today, it's all about visual communication. Next time you see an image on Instagram, ask yourself: who staged this, and for what purpose?
• CANAL+: The streaming service shows documentaries about war, escape, displacement. We consume them on our screens while lounging comfortably on the sofa. But behind every one of those documentaries are real people. Real tears. Real lives destroyed.

The Patience of the Mountains

A friend working 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 the major powers come and go, but the mountains remain."

Perhaps that's the biggest lesson for us in Switzerland. We live in a country that's been stable for centuries, that hasn't been conquered, that knows its borders. The Kurds don't have that. They live in a perpetual state of "what if." What if the US actually keeps its promises this time? What if the party alliance holds? What if Iran really does fall?

Three Can-questions that decide between life and death.

Until then, they hold on. In the camps along the border, in the mountains, in the barren villages. They clean their weapons, they pray, they hope. And they watch as the West hesitates once more. History teaches us one thing: those who use the Kurds as a tool should be prepared for bloody hands. But those who ignore them might just be squandering the last chance for a stable region.

With that in mind: let's keep our eyes on the Middle East. Even if it's raining in Basel and the cannabis shop around the corner is opening. The world has grown smaller. And what happens today in the Kurdish mountains could determine our asylum applications, our security debates, and our very idea of freedom tomorrow.

Stay vigilant.