Nadia Asaad | Untold Magazine | October 21, 2026
Nadia Asaad is an affiliated researcher with the Cercle des Économistes Arabes in Paris, currently working under the TRACHMED project (Exploring Transnational Challenges: Climate Change, Migration, and Energy Insecurity in the Mediterranean) an international, interdisciplinary research and staff exchange program funded by the European Commission. Her work has appeared in the ANNALS Belgrade Law Review, the Journal of Democracy, The Washington Institute’s Fikra Forum, and PassBlue. This research was supported by TRACHMED project funding.
The article argues that Syria’s 2011 uprising cannot be understood solely through political repression, economic liberalization, or the devastating drought of 2007–2009. In northeastern Syria, particularly among Kurdish farmers, decades of ethnic discrimination, land dispossession, unequal access to water, and agricultural neglect had created profound grievances well before the uprising.
The article develops five central arguments:
1. The Kurdish northeast was an early center of mobilization. Kurdish protests preceded the mass demonstrations in Daraa in March 2011. The Assad government’s early concessions—including restoring citizenship to stateless Kurds, reducing diesel prices, and promising to amend restrictions on land transactions—reflected its fear of a broader uprising in the Jazira.
2. Agrarian policies and ethnic discrimination were historically intertwined. Beginning under the French Mandate and intensifying after independence, successive governments reshaped landownership and settlement patterns. The 1962 exceptional census deprived approximately 120,000 Kurds of citizenship, while the Arab Belt policy of the 1970s resettled thousands of Arab families on expropriated lands. These measures progressively weakened Kurdish farmers’ property rights and economic opportunities.
3. Kurdish farmers experienced a “double fragility.” All farmers faced declining rainfall, groundwater depletion, rising production costs, and reductions in agricultural subsidies. Kurdish farmers additionally faced discriminatory land regulations, restricted citizenship rights, and unequal access to publicly financed irrigation systems. Consequently, the 2007–2009 drought disproportionately affected already vulnerable communities, accelerating indebtedness, impoverishment, and migration.
4. War and fragmented governance intensified the agricultural crisis. Since 2011, damaged infrastructure, interruptions to water supplies, uncontrolled groundwater extraction, and inadequate agricultural policies have further undermined farming. The article criticizes not only the former Assad government but also shortcomings under the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration and the subsequent transitional authorities.
5. The new Syrian authorities risk repeating past mistakes. Although recent measures recognizing Kurdish citizenship and cultural rights represent progress, they do not address the structural agricultural crisis. Low wheat procurement prices, delayed payments to farmers, inadequate water management, and the absence of climate adaptation policies continue to threaten rural livelihoods.
Central conclusion
The article challenges explanations that portray Syria’s uprising primarily as a consequence of climate-induced migration. Drought was a catalyst, but its political consequences were shaped by a century of unequal land and water governance, ethnic discrimination, and state neglect.
Its principal policy message is that lasting stability in northeastern Syria requires addressing Kurdish rights and agricultural reconstruction together. Citizenship recognition alone cannot repair historical dispossession, just as investment in agriculture cannot deliver sustainable recovery without equitable land rights, water governance, and accountable institutions.
The article’s distinctive contribution is to connect the Kurdish question with the political economy of agriculture and environmental vulnerability, while extending this historical analysis to the challenges facing Syria’s new authorities in 2026.