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

There are days when you just can't stop shaking your head. Here we are in Switzerland, debating in the local council whether the new cannabis shop in Basel is disturbing the neighbourhood's peace, while just a few thousand kilometres away, history is being rewritten – with blood, worthless treaties, and an age-old question: Can you really trust the superpowers?

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

A Nation Divided, Like a Canvas Draft

Imagine you're designing the image of a nation on Canva. You draw borders, pick colours, add in the people. That's essentially what happened with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne: 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 keeps repeating itself with the grim relentlessness of an infinite loop.

Today, 103 years later, they're back in the same spot. The US and Israel would love for the Kurds to provide the ground forces 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 threw the Kurds in Syria under the bus.

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

Between Canon and Kalashnikov

I spoke to a photographer last week who just returned from the Iraq-Iran border. He showed me pictures taken with a Canon EOS – razor-sharp, almost inappropriately aesthetic for their subject matter. Young Komala fighters, from 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 should secure the skies for us." Sounds simple. But it's not. Because the US is hesitating. Trump first said he would be "all for it" if the Kurds struck – then he 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. They know their dreams of autonomy or even statehood matter in Washington only as long as they serve the purpose of weakening Tehran. A senior Kurdish official put it bluntly: "The Kurdish people overwhelmingly reject the Islamic Republic's regime. But they're also terrified of being abandoned 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 major 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." It's a mouthful, but politically, it's dynamite. These groups used to fight each other; today, they're united by a common enemy.

Mustafa Hijri of the PDKI, whom many call the "Barzani of Eastern Kurdistan," is driving this 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's representative in London.

Will that message resonate in Tehran? Highly unlikely. The regime automatically labels every Kurd a "separatist." But the math is simple: if you oppress a population for 47 years, bomb their villages, imprison and execute their youth, you shouldn't be surprised when that population rebels. The 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement was just the tip of the iceberg.

What's the Takeaway? A Small, Very Swiss-Style List

I know, you might be wondering: What does this have to do with me? With my daily life in Mumbai, Delhi, or Bengaluru? 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, the Swiss way:

• 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 edited with design tools to shape global opinion. Propaganda is old news; 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, flight, and displacement. We consume them on our screens while lounging comfortably on our sofas. 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 agency 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."

Perhaps that's the biggest lesson for us in India. We live in a nation with ancient civilisational roots, navigating a complex neighbourhood. The Kurds don't have that stability. They live in a constant state of "what if." What if the US actually keeps its word this time? What if this alliance of parties holds? What if Iran really does fall?

Three can-questions that are literally a matter of life and death.

Until then, they hold on. In the border camps, in the mountains, in the sparse villages. They clean their weapons, they pray, they hope. And they watch as the West hesitates yet again. History teaches us one thing: Those who use the Kurds as a tool must be prepared for bloody hands. But those who ignore them might be throwing away the last chance for a stable region.

In that spirit: Let's keep an eye on the Middle East. Even if it's raining in your city right now and a new cannabis shop just opened down the street. The world has become 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.