Her name was Zhina, and that is where this story must begin, because even her name was taken from her. Zhina is a Kurdish name. It means life. The world came to know her as Mahsa Amini, the name on her official documents, because the Iranian state views Kurdish names with suspicion and often refuses to register them. Like many Kurdish…

We may be underestimating artificial intelligence in the wrong respect. Public concern usually centers on the question of whether machines will one day become smarter than we are. The deeper danger may lie elsewhere: that we ourselves may change while we use them. Not because AI will become superior to us, but because we might stop doing what…

Every great era recognizes its most profound changes only in hindsight. Artificial intelligence could be such a historic turning point. Public debate has so far focused mainly on its visible effects: automation, productivity, job losses, disinformation, surveillance. While these are important questions, they may hide a development whose…

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Months of drone strikes on refugee camps surrounding the city of Koya in the Kurdistan Region have pushed hundreds of families into the city center, giving rise to local security concerns even as many residents are stepping in to offer support. During the wider regional war that ensued following the US-Israeli aerial…

This November, representatives from around the world will convene in Antalya, Turkey, for the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31). Their discussions will revolve around familiar themes: rising temperatures, water scarcity, emissions, climate finance and adaptation. For many, this looks like another international conference…

In Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy, laws and constitutions are not born of "morality," but rather emerge from pure fear of chaos and total destruction. In 1947, Japan succumbed to this formula; it voluntarily shackled its own "military leviathan" and threw the key into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, hoping that the shadow of…

Again and again, young Yazidi women and men come to me, in Kurdistan, in the diaspora, after lectures, sometimes even in therapy, and ask me the same question: Are we Kurds and Yazidis, or are we only Yazidis? They often ask this question quietly, almost apologetically, as if the wrong answer could break something. They feel pressure both…